Learning to Fly (TNT Force Cheer #1)

by Dana Burkey

  “That was called a bow and arrow,” TJ explained. “We have some girls on our Senior Level 5 that struggle to do that move and they have been doing cheer since they were younger than you.”

  I nodded as if what he was saying made sense. It didn’t though. There had been a few times I heard things about certain levels and the words junior and senior. But none of it really meant anything to me. I didn’t want to say that though, since I had a feeling most people who walked into the gym had at least a basic understanding of the world that was all-star cheerleading.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting,” Nicole said then as she walked over and took a seat next to TJ and myself on my mat.

  “Quite the opposite,” TJ said with a raise of his eyebrows at her.

  “Oh good,” she smiled before turning to me. “Maxine, I’m sure TJ has already told you how impressed we all are with your skill level. We don’t get a lot of people who walk in without at least some history and training in cheer. But the people we do get who are new to cheer can’t do even half of the skills and stunts you just pulled.”

  “You really have a natural gift, Max,” TJ added. “Your flexibility and body control aren’t things that most people can even learn at all, let alone just pick up like you have here today.”

  “Thanks,” I said, not sure what else to say.

  “I have a question for you Maxine, and I don’t need an answer now, but I want you to think about it,” Nicole finally said. When I nodded she continued. “We had a girl move out of town a few weeks ago, and we’re trying to replace her spot on the squad. It’s the same squad that Lexi and Halley are on, a Junior Level 3. We were hoping to bring up a girl from one of the lower level teams and offer them the spot, but after seeing what you can do we wanted to let you try out the spot for a little while. The tumbling the team does is easier than what you were trying today. But if you join that team we would like you to not just do the tumbling. We also want you to try to fly.”

  “Fly?” I asked. I was certain I had heard her wrong. Jumping high with a trampoline was one thing, but fly? It sounded crazy.

  “Your dad said he showed you a video from our website,” Nicole tried again. “When they hold girls up in the air or toss them up and catch them again, we call that flying. Based on your size and flexibility we think you would be perfect to fly in the spot of Heather, the girl who moved out of town.”

  “You don’t need to decide right now,” TJ reminded me. “We just want you to think about it for a few days.”

  “What would happen if I joined the team?” I asked, trying to understand the offer they were giving me.

  “Since it’s summer we practice twice a week, and then encourage the team to come to open gym on Saturdays or take tumbling classes once a week if they can,” Nicole explained. “Greg actually has a class on Tuesday and Friday that would be a perfect fit for you. It would mean that you would be at the gym a lot, but we would be able to teach you new stunts and skills while you’re also still trying out things on a team.”

  “That’s a lot for me to think about,” I sighed. “You said I can think about it for a few days, right?”

  “Absolutely. You can think about it as long as you need to,” Nicole said, resting a reassuring hand on my arm. “We have team practice for Blast, the squad we want you to join, on Tuesdays so if you wanted to come to the next practice or the tumbling class before it then that would be great. But if you need more time to think about it then that’s okay too. I gave your dad all the paperwork so you can look it over and chat about it at home as well.”

  “Okay,” I nodded.

  They waited then, I think expecting me to say something else. But I didn’t know what else to say. I had a feeling telling them I didn’t want to wear a skirt and glitter and one of those massive bows would not have gone over well. So, I decided it was better to say nothing. I tried to look thoughtful so my silence would be mistaken as me thinking extra hard about the decision. It must have worked since we all stood up and headed towards my dad at Nicole’s lead.

  “We’ll be in touch,” my dad said, after seeing the look on my face. “Thanks for everything today.”

  I think my dad must have shook TJ or Nicole’s hand, but I was suddenly very focused on leaving the gym. Without so much as a glance over my shoulder to say goodbye to Halley or Lexi, let alone any of the coaches, I walked outside and headed to where my dad's car sat waiting. In that instant, all I cared about was getting home.

  “One week,” I reminded myself with each pedal of my bike. “Two weeks. Two weeks.”

  I made it my mantra as I made my way across town to the gym I hoped I would never have to see again. If I could get through one week at the gym, then I could quit and walk away without worry or consequence. It was what my dad had promised. It was the only reason I was actually willing to go through with going to the gym and giving the whole cheerleading thing a try. Well, it was one of the reasons. The other reason was the promise that I would finally be allowed to get a cat if I gave two weeks a try. By the time my dad got me to agree to the deal, I had a list of at least 50 possible cat names all written down in a notebook in my nightstand.

  “You’re here!” a voice squealed as I was putting the lock onto my bike. I turned to see Lexi racing towards me.

  “Hey!” I smiled, genuinely glad to see her. As I expected she hugged me, something I had a feeling would be happening more and more with her. “Are you in the tumbling class too?”

  “Not normally,” she explained as we walked into the gym. “But Greg thought it would be a good idea for me to help you get to know people and get used to the class and the gym and everything.”

  As we finally entered the building, I looked around and saw that only a few people were sitting and stretching on the mat where Greg was standing and talking to Nicole. I set my helmet and cell phone in a cubby next to Lexi’s stuff, then walked over to sit on the mat and begin stretching as well. A few familiar faces turned to welcome me, but no names were connected to them for me. They could have been girls that Halley and Lexi told me were on the team that I was suddenly a part of, or just people from the open gym. Either way I tried to just copy the stretches that Lexi was performing while I waited for Greg to get started.

  “Alright,” Greg finally began after he was done chatting with Nicole. “We have a few new faces today, and with it comes a few new skill levels as well. So, I am going to be working with level 3, 4 and 5 skills, and Brett is going to be working with anyone level 1 or 2. Once you are all stretched and ready to go, I want you to check the progress chart. Then we can follow up on last week's skills before getting started today.”

  Much like after the opening announcement at the open gym, once Greg was done talking everyone got up and scattered around the room. Many people walked over to the chart hanging on the wall near the water fountain. A few also headed over to the person I assumed was Brett. I recognized him as Lexi’s brother thanks to seeing him at the trampoline park. But, before I could even stand up, Greg came and took a seat next to me.

  “You, Lexi, Ashlyn, and Connor are going to be working with me today,” he explained. “Spend a little more time stretching and then we are going to get started on the air mat today.”

  I nodded and thanked Greg for letting me know. There wasn’t a big need to thank him in that moment, but I felt like after leaving so suddenly after the open gym, I needed to be a little bit nicer to people who were only trying to help me.

  Once we felt like we had done a pretty good job of doing all of the more basic stretches, Lexi and I walked over to where Greg and a few other people around my age were standing. I assumed they were Connor and Ashlyn. As soon as we walked up to the group and said a quick round of hellos and introductions, Greg began talking us through the warm ups. He wanted us to focus on these before we would start working on things like standing fulls and punch fronts. I didn't exactly know if a standing full was different than what I had already learned, and had no idea what was a punch front was,
but I knew I was going to find out soon enough. We worked on warming up with some cartwheels, roundoffs, and the basic moves followed by a back handspring or back tuck. I was feeling more and more confident with the moves, no longer having to think them through as much as the last time I was at the gym.

  “So did you really do a standing full on Saturday?” Connor asked me after I did a roundoff back handspring once again.

  “Almost,” I nodded.

  “How old are you?” he asked, looking at me as if he stared hard enough he would be able to figure it out on his own.

  “12,” I began, ready to follow it up by letting him know that my birthday was coming up, but Connor started talking before I could get the words in.

  “You’re really little.” Connor continued quickly once he saw the look on my face that was likely a mix between anger and confusion. “Being short and light while also being able to land a full in a tumbling pass is a big deal around here. I think if all of the 12 year olds at TNT had the same build as you we would win NCA and Worlds every year.”

  “Oh,” I said, not understanding in the slightest what had been said to me.

  Instead of worrying about it, I went back to working on the moves I knew. While I was working on them I could tell Connor was watching me. It made me nervous, even though I knew it shouldn’t. Part of it could have been that he reminded me of Peter so much, and the idea of Peter knowing I was at a cheer gym was a little terrifying. Connor was taller than Peter, but had very similar curly hair. His was a little darker, an almost black color, but his eyes were a dark green that were just a few shades off of Peters’. That was pretty much where the differences stopped. I always thought Peter had muscles and was pretty strong. But Connor would put him to shame easily. Connor had a build that was like a smaller version of Greg’s. I assumed it was because both of them got those muscles doing similar movements at the TNT gym. The one thing Connor had that was unlike anyone else, including Peter, were a more defined pair of dimples than I’d ever seen. I knew I had dimples as well, but they were minor compared to the ones that showed on Connor’s face every time he smiled. And he seemed to smile every time I landed a back tuck, or roundoff, or anything new really!

  “Alright Max,” Greg called out to me, thankfully pulling me away from thinking about Connor more. “I want you to try some moves on these mats.”

  I walked over to Greg then and began working on a front handspring. The movement felt weird at first, but quickly became easier and easier. I was more or less doing a handstand and then flipping my legs over so I could land on my back on yet another mat that reminded me of a piece of cheese. This cheese mat was more of a wedge, and it helped me to not fall all the way to the ground. Greg had me start pushing off more with my arms, like I would for a back handspring, and also spotting me in the motion. Before I knew it, we moved the cheese wedge and Greg spotted me again as I tried the move. I actually flipped around enough to land on my feet! I was shocked, but Greg had me do it a few more times before sending me off to try it on the normal spring loaded mat as well.

  The rest of the hour of tumbling class was spent in the same way. I would work on my own for a while and then Greg would call me over and work with me one-on-one. Lexi also tried to check in with me on how I was doing a couple of times, but I noticed she was also working on learning the skills as well. She had the front flip, or punch front, down before me, though I got it before the end of class; as long as I was using the air mat for an extra height boost.

  “Connor, can you show Max how to fill in the chart?” Greg asked as we sat stretching after the class time was over. Connor nodded then gestured for me to follow her as he walked over to the chart hanging on the wall. It was on the wall just past the offices where the water fountain sat between doors leading to men’s and women’s restrooms. The chart had the heading ‘TUMBLING SKILLS’ typed at the top with a pouch of stickers hanging next to it.

  “You can put one of those stickers here and here since you got all these skills, and then you can put an X here since you started this skill,” he explained quickly while pointing at all the various boxes that extended after my name on the chart.

  I pulled the sharpie from where it hung and quickly crossed out the ‘ine’ at the end of my name before marking the X he mentioned. Then, I grabbed two stickers and put them in place. Once I was done, I looked over the rest of the chart and saw that I had the same stickers as Lexi, each of us having more than anyone else. Well, anyone but Connor that is. After his name was a row of stickers that went all the way to the end of the page.

  “If you have all the stickers why do you still come to the class?” I asked, turning to face Connor as I leaned against the wall next to the chart.

  “Greg asked me to come this week,” he admitted quickly. “He said that a new girl was coming by and he wanted me to see her tumble and help out. You’re the only new person today, so it was easy to figure out who he was talking about even though he never told me your name.”

  “But why did you need to be here?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest after glancing over where Greg stood talking to Lexi and Ashlyn.

  “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, everyone at the gym is sort of freaking out about you,” Connor replied, much to my surprise. “Usually when someone comes in and is as good as you are, they’ve done years of cheer or at least some gymnastics. But then here you come, brand new, and already this good. It happens every now and then where people are just naturals at cheerleading, but they’re usually little. Like Sasha.” He paused to point at a little girl that was doing a back tuck. “She’s only 4 but can do a lot of hard skills already. She can pick up things easily, but they’re all things that the other little kids will get eventually too. You, on the other hand, walked in here and started throwing skills that one of the girls on my team can’t do yet, and I’m on a senior level 5.”

  “So everyone is freaking out that I can do some flips and stuff?” I was having a hard time wrapping my head around everything still.

  “I don’t think so,” he said after thinking for a beat. “They were shocked when you could do all of that, but then I also heard Nicole mention how flexible you are. I think they have bigger plans for you yet.”

  Before I could ask anything about what those “bigger plans” might be, Lexi ran up to add a sticker to her chart. She was out of breath and was talking about how excited she was to finally add the mark after so many weeks of trying, but I wasn’t listening. I was instead watching as Nicole and TJ walked over to Greg. They had a clipboard and were taking notes, occasionally looking my way. After I saw them look at me once, I only watched them out of the corner of my eye. Sure enough, they looked at me a few more times before Lexi grabbed my arm and my attention.

  “Let’s go get water before our practice starts,” she grinned, dragging me away from the water fountain and towards where our stuff was waiting. “Did you bring a water bottle?”

  “No,” I said simply as we walked. “Should I have?”

  “Yeah,” she nodded. “But I bet Nicole or Tonya will let you have one from the gym. Mine’s a gym water bottle too.”

  I watched as Lexi pulled a water bottle out of her bag. It was black with TNT in silver glittery letters on the plastic material. I noticed it matched her tank top, a black thick strap cotton tank with TNT in glittery red letters. That was the same one Halley had on at the trampoline park. She also had on similar tight red shorts, then completed the look with a bright red bow in her hair. Even after seeing Halley wearing the outfit just days before, it was a lot to take in all the same.

  After Lexi raced off to get me a water bottle from the ‘team shop,’ Connor came over and sat with me. He was stretching and trying to make small talk, but I was watching the girls arrive through the gym with growing shock. Every girl that walked in was wearing the same outfit as Lexi. They had the glitter bows, glittery shirts, and the red shorts. The only thing they showed up with that wasn’t matching was their shoes, but they quickly c
hanged those as well. I realized even Lexi was wearing the same white ones that matched the rest of the team. I looked at my own grey shirt, green basketball shorts, and white and black running shoes with a frown.

  “Alright Ladies,” a voice called out. “On your lines, it’s time to get started.”

  “But first,” TJ added, turning to face me as the rest of the girls in matching outfits began moving onto the blue mat. “We have an important announcement.”

  When my dad and I made the move from Florida to Texas, it was during summer. I arrived to a new town and a new home and a new school at a time when not many people would notice. I just showed up and met Peter and Kyle and had friends by the time school started in September. I was able to start the year without standing up in front of everyone and telling them things about me so we could all be friends since everyone was arriving to new classes and teachers as well. In fact, at the time, I didn’t know it was something I needed to worry about. But when a new boy moved to my class a month later, I realized I had dodged a bullet by starting the school year off on day one.

  At TNT, however, I wasn’t quite so lucky. I stood there next to TJ and Nicole and tried to think of something to say. They had already told everyone that my name was Maxine, which of course I corrected. After that they simply said I was going to be joining team practices. That was when they encouraged me to say something and I just froze.

  “Why don’t you tell us about your family,” Nicole offered once the pause was turning rather awkward.

  “My dad’s a scientist,” I shrugged. “He’s says he’s going to cure cancer one day.”

  “And what about your mom?” TJ asked. Beside me I could tell Nicole was about to say something but I beat her to it.

  “She died when I was younger,” I said, causing little murmurs through the crowd of girls that were staring at me. “That’s why my dad wants to cure cancer. Then no one else has to die.”