by Zoe Evans
“Does that rule count if we’re not the ones competing?” said Matt as he loped away.
Jacqui came to my defense. “Just think of it as good practice for the future. Either way, we have a big day tomorrow.”
I got dressed in the locker room and was ready before Mom was. So I went back inside the gym to watch the Titans practicing. They’d been rehearsing their big cheer routine all afternoon. It looked INCREDIBLE. Their routine had it all: back handsprings, baskets, double fulls, and standing back tucks. And their dance sequence even had an arabesque double down! They are going to kick butt tomorrow, for sure. I started hooting for them on the sidelines during their routine, but when I did, Katie looked over at me and scowled. Like, seriously, looked angry. And I just don’t get it! If she really has this huge crush on Evan, then why is she still acting snotty toward me? This has to stop sometime. I mean, we’re going to be together for two days at this competition—if she keeps shooting eye daggers at me, I’ll never survive this weekend. GRRR.
LATER IN THE EVENING, MI CASA
“I’m in!” Lanie squealed into the phone the second I picked it up. I jumped backward onto my bed, grateful for my fluffy down comforter. Every bone in my body is exhausted from this week.
“In where?” I asked. Sometimes Lanie starts conversations as if we’d just stopped talking the minute before, like we have this live BFF wire connecting our every thought so we never have to, like, explain anything.
Lanie sounded breathless, she was so excited. “To the Regional Qualifier! Isn’t that awesome? I get to go with you guys and get the behind-the-scenes scoop on the Titans.”
I’m totally excited about Lanie coming with us-we’ve actually never been on a trip together! Still, I AM a teeny little bit worried about the kind of “scoop” she’s trying to get . . . but I need to just think positive. “That’s awesome, Lanes! This is gonna be so much fun!”
“Mind if I room with you and Jacqs?”
“Of course not!” I answered. “Wait, so, does my mom know already?” It was weird-I’d just been talking to her and she hadn’t said a thing.
“Yup, but we didn’t want to say anything until we knew for sure I could go. She wanted you to be surprised.”
Supersweet of her! Ok, so I know I’ve been, like, way harsh with my mom for the past few weeks, but she’s totally stepped up lately. Getting the Grizzlies to go to Regionals, surprising me with Lanie, letting me take the lead on this spirit rules idea—all completely awesome things to do for me .
When Lanie and I got off the phone, I realized that even though it’s gonna be UH—MAZING having Lanie there, I’m not TECHNICALLY going in order to have fun with my BFF-I’m going to study the teams and the cheers and really prepare the Grizzlies for what it means to compete. And judging by today’s practice, I’m gonna have my hands full. Not to mention dodging mean stares from Katie, the girl who hates love.
But back to the matter at hand: Right now I’m going to take a break from packing and review some rules for pumping up your team at competitions. I don’t want everyone to have the same panic attack Tabitha Sue had. Just imagine if I show up with a busload of cheerleaders with their heads stuck in paper bags because they’re hyperventilating! I’d, like, NEVER live that down. So I need to get on that bus tomorrow with a few reassuring things to say to the team. It’s our first away event, and we know that the Titans won’t be the only competitive team there. Tabitha Sue’s worry isn’t so out of nowhere. I’ve read that some teams can get really mean at these things. There was one team last year that put trash in the dorm rooms of the other competing teams. That won’t happen to us since we’re not competing, but if people are acting like that, who knows what kinds of things they might say when we’re practicing our not-so-advanced cheer moves. I need to figure out a way to tell the rest of the squad what I told Tabitha Sue tonight: All that matters is that we cheer at our best possible level.
Right before I got into bed, I got a text from Bevan (Woohoo!):
Had fun last nite. Movie next week?
Yay! Yay! Yay! Ok, so I know that I said I couldn’t possibly handle Katie’s death stares anymore, but for Bevan? I think I could manage . He’s just completely ADORBS, and after all my hard work with the Grizzlies and school, I deserve a little fun . . . don’t I?
Right after, I got a message from Evan. His call must’ve gone straight to voice mail for some reason. . . .
“Hey, Mads, it’s me. Just wanted to say good luck, I guess, for tomorrow. Have fun.”
It was supersweet of him to think of me tonight, but other than tonight’s call, I feel like Evan’s practically disappeared off the face of the earth. We used to meet up during school and talk practically every night. He’s probably too busy hanging out with Katie. Then again, I guess I’ve been pretty busy too. It just kinda stinks that we can’t still be close, even though we both have other stuff—and other people—in our lives. It just feels . . . well . . . WRONG.
Great. Now I am SO not going to be able to get a good night’s sleep tonight. Way to take your own advice, Mads.
Wow. Waking up feels like it happened AGES ago. When my cell’s alarm went off to its usual Rihanna song, I was so NOT pumped to get out from under my comfy covers. It was still dark out, can you believe?! The only people who get up when it’s still dark out are, like, farmers!! I threw ice—cold water on my face to wake myself up (ick!).
Mom came padding down the hall. She leaned into the crack of my door. “Knock, knock, Mads! You up? Or do you need the pom—pom wake-up?”
The pom—pom wake—up is when Mom takes my oldest pom—pom and tickles my face with it. But those are on really bad wake—up days. Luckily, once I remembered the big day we had ahead of us, I was full of adrenaline.
“Thanks, Mom, but I’m up,” I shouted from my bathroom.
“All right. I’ll be downstairs making coffee.”
Of course she was ready to go. She’d probably been up since, like, 4 a.m.
I’d been up late tagging parts of the Spirit Rules book that I thought would help today and, just as I’d thought, could not fall asleep for the life of me. I tried everything: counting sheep, counting back from a thousand, counting pom-poms, counting the number of times Bevan touched my arm on our last date (17!!!), and even picturing myself floating down a slow—moving river. That usually helps with my most sleepless nights, but last night was a D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R and I pretty much just ended up putting Bevan in the boat with me and surrounded us with lily pads and singing frogs.
I got downstairs and poured a giant mug of OJ. T.G.-after drinking that, I finally started to feel more like myself.
“You ready? All packed?” Mom asked as she stirred some milk into what I guessed was her second coffee cup of the morning.
I pointed to my bag sitting by the front door. “All packed and ready to go.”
When we drove up to school, where the charter bus was waiting for us, I was shocked to see that almost every Titan was already there, sitting in a circle with their bags in the middle.
“Are we late or something?” I asked Mom.
Mom furrowed her brow and looked at her watch. “Nope. We’re early. But not as early as the Titans, it seems.”
I wondered if they even went home last night. I wouldn’t be surprised if Coach Whipley had them practice until the wee hours and then just had them camp out for the rest of the night to build stamina or something.
Mom went to talk to the bus driver about directions to the competition, so I went over to sit with Jacqui. Jacqui had been the first Grizzly on the scene. She was giving the Titans dirty looks in between reading her Us Weekly on the sidewalk.
“You ok there?” I said jokingly as I approached her.
“Yeah,” she said, shielding the rays of early morning sun from her eyes as she looked up at me. Jacqui nodded in the direction of the Titans. “Look at them. They’re even wearing matching velour sweat suits. New ones. Could they be more annoying?”
I hadn’t noticed the
Titans’ outfits until now. If my hours logged at the mall told me anything, these looked like custom—made Juicy Couture sweat suits. Their drawstring pants said “Titans” on the butt, and their zippered hoodies said “Port Angeles.” All their gym bags were silver and sparkly. All that, and these duds were probably just for the bus ride! They had completely separate outfits to wear at the competition itself—Clementine had done a little fashion show with them earlier this week, but THESE I hadn’t seen. “Whoa,” was all I could muster.
“They look like they just stepped out of a cheer catalog,” Jacqui huffed.
It was true. On top of their perfect outfits, they were wearing tons of makeup, and their ponytails were completely free of bumps. No one had given us the memo that we were entering a fashion show. I mean, if they had, we would have been prepared.
Well, we would have tried, anyway.
We waited on the curb for the rest of the team to join us. Tabitha Sue pulled up a few minutes later with Katarina. Tabitha Sue was wearing her usual ripped jeans and big sweatshirt. Katarina had on stretch pants and UGGs. And Jared, well—he came out of his dad’s car sporting the nerdy hipster look, with a superfitted blazer, black—rimmed glasses, and loafers with no socks. (It’s not really worth mentioning that Ian and Matt made zero effort for the occasion. I was just lucky they didn’t wear their usual muscle—revealing Ts.)
“We would have been better off if we’d asked the team to wear the uniform,” I muttered.
“Def,” said Jacqui.
Someone tapped me on the back. I whizzed around, and there was Lanie. Yay! I quickly forgot about my annoyance at our outfits.
“Hey, ladies,” said Lanie. “Who’s up for a round of ‘900 Bottles’? It’s gonna be a long trip.” She bounded up the stairs of the bus and then turned around. “Mads. Share a seat with me?”
I had been planning on sitting with Jacqui, but Jaqui gave me a wink. “I’ll sit across from you guys.” She knows that Lanie’s sometimes touchy about me and Jacqui being friends, even though Lanie’s totally cool with Jacqui now. Jeez, I really hope this bus ride is mellow. Seeing the Titans this early in the a.m. has totally given me chills. . . .
MID-MORNING, ON THE BUS
Ok, so all morning I had been waiting for a second bus to pull up—a second one just for the Titans. I figured since they had multiple outfits, why not their own bus, too? I had this image of a sparkly bus with “Titans” written across the side, with built—in refrigerators stocked with Vitaminwater and Gatorade and seats that, like, reclined automatically. Seriously, I wouldn’t put it past them. Speaking of, Lanie was probably having a field day with the Titans’ new outfits. I was sure she was already wondering where they got the money for those.
That’s when I saw the Titans lining up to board the bus we were already on! Awkward . I guess they don’t always get BEYOND special treatment. The problem? I didn’t want any of the Titans to hear my speech to my team. I’d been planning to go to the front of the bus and do my thing, but now the thought was intimidating. I had to make do with an old—fashioned team huddle in the back of the bus.
I called everyone to the back of the bus.
“Ok, team,” I said when everyone was huddled in close. The bus kept rocking and bouncing. I stepped on Jacqui’s toe, making her wince. “Ooh, sorry!”
“No pain, no gain, right?” Jacqui smiled.
I made eye contact with each person as I was talking (spirit rule, remember?). “Even though we’re not competing, we have something to work for today too. Not just the Titans. We’ve been practicing a ton, and today is the day we’ll show off what we’ve learned. In front of some of the best cheerleaders in our area. As The Spirit Rules says, confidence is the best stunt you can master.”
Everyone in the circle nodded, to my surprise. I definitely expected an eye roll or two.
“You should all be proud of everything you’ve learned in just under a month. That’s huge, people! To learn everything you have in so little time, and being practically all beginners, you guys are amazing.”
Ian and Matt did their Quagmire from Family Guy imitation-“Awww right, giggity giggity”-and high—fived each other.
“That’s not to say you’re perfect or anything,” snapped Jaqui. Her eyes were focused on Matt and Ian, and she looked pretty angry. Jacqui’s told me she’s losing patience with Matt and Ian making annoying comments all the time.
“Whoa, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” joked Matt.
“Do you want me to talk to Coach Carolyn?” threatened Jacqui.
Matt and Ian both shook their heads.
“All right, then,” said Jacqui. She looked satisfied now that they were cowering.
I decided to continue with my pep talk to cut the tension. “You guys might be nervous about performing in front of all these other squads, but just forget about that. This is not our competition, but it is an opportunity. Today we’re going to show them everything we’ve got. We may not be the best, but we are going to do our personal best. And that’s really what matters here today.” I looked around me. I think they got what I was saying.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Jacqui. She wasn’t so good at the mushy stuff. “It’s true. We couldn’t be more proud. Of all of you.”
I think I caught Matt blushing, but I can’t be too sure.
Before we got out of our huddle, I led the team in a new cheer we’ve been practicing recently.
G-R-I-Z-Z-L-Y. STOMP, ROAR, DO IT SOME MORE.
GOOOOO, GRIZZLIES!
When I went back to my seat, I noticed that Katie had moved to the empty one behind me. Perfect. And totally weird because her whole team was sitting at the front of the bus. What the . . . ?! Now we can’t talk about anything without her listening in.
And I can feel Katie pressing her knee into my chair. I just know she’s doing this on purpose to annoy me. Whenever I get up to talk to someone, her eyes follow me around the bus. So much for her being distracted by her thing with Evan.
I guess since it’s a long bus ride, someone was bound to come up with the idea of a buswide sing-along. Next thing I knew, we were singing a medley of Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Katy Perry, and Taylor Swift. Jared started singing a Colbie Caillat love song, which made even the coolest Titan give in and sing for a bit. It was almost easy to pretend we were just a group of kids-friends, even—off on some chartered—bus adventure. Then Coach Whipley turned around and gave me a nasty look. But I don’t care. This is OUR bus too. A little singing never killed anyone.
As soon as we get to Sunset Valley Day, the school where the competition is taking place, the Titans will have to report to check in. The Titans are one of the teams scheduled to compete early on. Sucks for them! Just by being near them, I can feel their anxious energy. It’s like a force buzzing all throughout the bus. I feel a little better knowing that even Titans get nervous. They’re not superhuman, after all. But I just know they’ll qualify for Regionals. They always do. Maybe for the Titans there’s never a moment to sit back and be like, “We got this.” As much as I would love to compete today, I’m kind of glad to not be a part of all that tension. Us Grizzlies are just here to have fun.
Mostly.
I have never seen so many pom—poms in one place. The gym at Sunset Valley Day is insanely HUGE—practically the size of a football field. And it’s filled wall to wall with cheerleaders. We squeezed through a team of girls in white and red cheer outfits. “Come on, girls!” one of them shouted. “Get your game faces on!” Everywhere around me was a chorus of shouting, cheering, or clapping, as squads got together wherever they could find space to practice. On top of that was the insanely loud announcer’s voice over the speaker. I looked back at my fellow teammates and saw that everyone—except Jacqui (who had been to these many times)-was in the same “OMG” state.
We made our way through the crowds to locate our seats in the audience. It seemed as if all the cheerleaders there had invited their moms, dads, grandmas, and best friends to the meet. Sever
al spectators were dressed in team colors to support their cheerleaders. Tabitha Sue stuck close to me as we plowed through the masses.
“Wow. It’s just like in the movies,” she said, craning her neck to look toward the ceiling.
A giant banner hung across almost an entire wall, reading “Welcome to the Spring Valley Regional Qualifier.” Underneath hung flags of the school mascots from each competing school. Once we found our seats, Mom told us we should head backstage to the official warm—up area to watch the Titans. She was struggling to be heard among the ridiculously loud noises all around us. “Come on, Grizzlies. I want to see one hundred percent excitement and support coming from you guys when the Titans are out there.”
We sat on the mat to watch the Titans as they practiced tumbling. “Point those toes!” barked Coach Whipley as one girl did a handspring into a full. She did it again, this time with perfect form. “Yeah! You got it!” said Katie encouragingly.
Each team member did a few tumbles and jumps across the mat. We cheered so hard on the sidelines I was worried we’d all lose our voices by the end of the day.
“Port Angeles Titans, you have four minutes left to warm up,” said one of the staff members for the qualifier. The Titans walked over to their mat to run through their routine once more. Clementine was rubbing her hands together, a tense expression on her face. The second their music came on, they sprang into action. Half the team tumbled across the mat doing various kinds of jumps and twists in midair. The other half started building a pyramid. Katie was hoisted to the top of the pyramid, with a cheerleader on either side of her. She lifted her leg up high to the side of her body, arching just a little to get into a perfect heel-stretch. Katie held the pose, smiling from ear to ear before falling back, letting her teammates catch her before she went up in the air again into a rewind. The team attempted their second pyramid, but this time one of the Titans bobbled a little bit in her cradle.