I Was a Non-Blonde Cheerleader (28 page)

“It’s a deal.”

That afternoon, nothing could flush my good mood. Not even going through the routine for regionals five hundred gazillion times. I was hyper and happy and felt free as I could be. I had worked my butt off for the past two days and had caught up in all my classes. Not only that, but the geometry test had gone well. I could feel it. And if all went according to plan, this Thursday I would be on a date with Daniel and Saturday I’d be at my first cheerleading competition.

“All right, ladies! One more time, then we’ll call it a day,” Coach Holmes said.

Sweat poured down my face as I got into position. Next to me, Chandra and Autumn were locked in an icy silence. Phoebe was on the other side of the formation, looking like she was about to pass out. Sage had stepped on me at least four times. But at the moment I didn’t care. I just wanted to put whatever energy I had left into this last run-through.

Coach Holmes started the music on the portable stereo and we all jumped into action. The routine is only three minutes long, but it is a
loooong
three minutes. In that time I get tossed twice and go up three other times. In between all the
climbing and flying there are twelve formation changes, a billion eight counts of high-energy dance moves and one back handspring, back tuck. By the time I went up in my last stunt, a scale, the room was spinning around me.

I came down and threw my arms up to hit the last beat, then lost my balance and tripped sideways a few steps. Oops. Leave it to me to fall over when I’m standing on solid ground.

I flattened my feet again and smiled. The three stunts that were up at the end came down and we all looked at Coach Holmes and waited. I gotta say, she didn’t look too pleased.

“Good job, ladies,” she said finally. “Definite improvement. Let’s hit the showers.”

She walked out and everyone collapsed to the mats with a general groan.

“I’m so tired, I can’t even remember my name,” Felice said to the ceiling.

Erin fought for breath. “I think I’m actually dying over here.”

Karianna reached a hand over and dragged her bag toward her by the handle. Without ever picking up her head, she fished through it until she came out with a Gatorade and handed it to Erin, whose head was on her thigh.

“I love you,” Erin said.

“You guys, we need to talk about some things,” Tara said suddenly.

More groaning. I turned my head and saw her struggling onto her elbows. “I’m totally serious. We can’t avoid it any longer. Coach Holmes didn’t say it, but I could tell by her face. We’re not there yet.”

“Yes, we are,” Whitney said.

“No. We’re not,” Tara said. “We’re better, but no way are we ready to compete.”

“Well, what do you suggest we do about it, oh, Captain, my Captain?” Chandra said sarcastically. “The competition is three days away.”

“You don’t have to attack her,” Autumn said.

“Was I talking to you?” Chandra said.

“This is exactly what I’m talking about!” Tara exclaimed, pushing herself up farther. “We’re all biting each other’s heads off all the time. Maybe we can hit all our moves and all our stunts. Maybe we can even fake smiles. But if our hearts aren’t in it, it’s going to show. The judges . . . they’re going to know.”

“So, like, what’re we supposed to do?” Jaimee asked. “We already tried the whole kumbaya thing and, hello? It only got us jailed.”

My chest tightened. That stupid prank war. I’d thought it would be something we could all come together over, and it had ended up just splitting us up more. Autumn and Chandra had started fighting during one of the pranks, Sage had met Gabe and started that whole ball of fun rolling, everyone got angrier at Phoebe for not participating, and now we were all in various stages of groundings. Not my finest hour.

“I don’t know,” Tara said, her voice as heavy as my heart. So much for the nothing-can-bring-me-down giddies. “I don’t know what we’re supposed to do.”

The next day, things got even worse. Phoebe didn’t show up for school, didn’t call anyone to say she was sick and didn’t answer the phone once in the ten times Tara tried to call her. We had to practice without her, which was near impossible, and everyone was worried. What if Phoebe had really run away this time?

The only good thing that happened all day was something
that actually
didn’t
happen. We didn’t get our geometry tests back, which meant I was granted one more day’s reprieve from having to deal with the consequences of whatever my grade was. Still, it didn’t make the whole Phoebe thing any better.

As I walked out of practice that night, I overheard Tara on her cell phone. She was standing right by the door as we all walked out.

“Phoebe? Oh, good! You
are
there!” Tara looked over at the rest of us, relieved. “Yeah. . . . Yeah. . . . No. . . . Okay. Okay, I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Okay, bye.”

She clicked the phone shut and walked over to the waiting crowd. “She’s okay,” she said. “She just said she didn’t want to talk. But she’s going to be in school tomorrow.”

Everyone else seemed to take this as good news and headed off for their cars. Whitney and I hung back, however. Tara looked a little shaky. Like Phoebe hadn’t been all that convincing.

“She sounded awful,” Tara said, shoving her hands through her hair. “I don’t know what to do, you guys. Maybe we should just bag the competition.”

“What?” Whitney said. “No! No way! We’ve worked too hard on this.”

“Yeah, and it’s gotten us nowhere,” Tara said, throwing her hands up. “No one is listening to me, we were like the cheering dead in there tonight, we only have two more days of practice, and who knows if Phoebe will even show?”

Whitney and I exchanged a look. When she put it that way, it did sound sort of like a hopeless cause. If only my whole bonding experiment had worked in the first place. Then we would all be bestest buds and Phoebe would be our one and only problem. But as it was, we would have to find
a way to heal a half dozen rifts
and
usher the single most depressed person I’ve ever come across back into the Land of the Happy by this time tomorrow. Forget regionals, this squad was going to need some divine intervention just to stay together.

Tara tipped her head back. “I just wish I knew how to cheer Phoebe up. But she’s been like this ever since she moved, and it’s just getting worse.”

A stab of guilt pierced my heart as I thought of my Room of Pink Shame, but it was followed by an epiphany so brilliant, I barely had time to register the negative. Suddenly my brain was flooded with what I can only call a vision. A vision of all of us working together. A vision of all of us laughing and having fun. A vision of the exactly perfect way to cheer Phoebe up
and
bring the squad together.

To borrow a cheesy but wildly appropriate phrase—it was so crazy, it just might work.

“You guys?” I said, looking from Tara to Whitney. “I think I have an idea.”

That night, I found myself crouched in the bushes that lined the park across the street from Phoebe’s aunt’s house with Felice’s backpack sticking into my side and Michelle breathing down my neck. The
Mission: Impossible
vibe of the prank war was back, but this time we were all in crappy T-shirts and shorts instead of black-on-black. We watched as my brother walked Phoebe to his rust-colored Jeep Liberty and opened the passenger-side door for her.

Wait a minute. He did
what?

“That’s your brother?” Karianna asked me.

“At the moment I’m not so sure,” I said.

“He is hella fine,” Jaimee put in.

“And a gentleman,” Felice said.

“Watch it, ladies,” Sage snapped. “He’s taken.”

I looked at Mindy and rolled my eyes. Mindy snickered and hid her mouth behind her hand.

“Then why is he going out with Phoebe right now?” Whitney asked.

“Because we
told
him to,” Sage said, starting to fume.

Mindy and I both laughed. We couldn’t help it. What did Sage think she and Gabe were, engaged?

“Okay! This is not why we’re here!” Tara said, standing up as my brother’s car disappeared around the corner. “I want no fighting tonight. Not even between siblings,” she
added, looking from Whitney to Sage. “We have a lot of work to do, so let’s get to it.”

We jogged noisily across the street, toting brown bags of supplies. The door opened before we even got there and a woman—who looked just like Phoebe would if she spent the next twenty years in the sun—answered the door.

“Hello, Tara! Girls!” she said, smiling even though her eyes looked sad. “It was so nice of you to offer to do this.”

“Just point us in the right direction,” I said.

“Phoebe’s room is upstairs at the end of the hall,” her mother told me as the rest of the squad filed in. “You’re Annisa, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, surprised.

“I’m Lorraine Cook,” Phoebe’s mom said with a smile. “Phoebe’s told me a lot about you.”

Tara and I exchanged a look as the rest of the squad tromped upstairs. I was just as shocked as Tara clearly was that Phoebe had mentioned me at all. But at this point, who knew what went on in that poor girl’s head?

“It’s nice to meet you,” I said. “Thanks for letting us take over the house.”

“Well, don’t thank me, thank my sister. If she ever comes out of the kitchen. She’s making brownies for you all,” Mrs. Cook said. “Anyway, you shouldn’t have too much trouble clearing out the bedroom. I’m afraid Phoebe hasn’t actually unpacked much since we moved here.”

When we got upstairs, the rest of the squad was already moving boxes and bags out into the hall. I stepped past Autumn into the small square room and grimaced. The walls were a dirt brown color and the drapes were dark green brocade. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst of it was the suffocation factor.

“What is that smell?” I asked.

“It’s grandma smell,” Whitney said, hands on her hips. “Phoebe’s mom’s mom lived in this room for, like,
ever.
”

“Well, it is way past time to release her spirit,” Autumn said. She walked right over to the windows and threw them open, then turned and ripped at the curtains. The curtain rod came down with a huge clatter, taking the big ugly hook it was on with it.

We all froze for a second, and then Autumn cracked up laughing and the rest of us joined her.

“Well,” Tara said, slapping her hands together. “Let’s do this.”