by Zoe Evans
The swim meet was going great—our team was kicking butt.
GET FRESH! GET WET!
PORT ANGELES SWIM TEAM HAS OUR BET!
We cheered, doing some choreography I’d taught the team earlier last week.
Mom gave us the thumbs—up as Jacqui, Katarina, and I went into our first formation. Katarina almost kicked Jared in the face with her shoe, but she stayed up there long enough to lift her arms into a V. Ian and Matt did some back walkovers—being careful not to fall into the pool, of course.
And the whole team did some great toe touches—even Tabitha Sue, who couldn’t even touch her toes from a standing position when we first got together in September! We didn’t do them at the same time, but hey, we’re on our way.
In the end, our team won by a huge margin.
Lana Hendrick, the captain of the swim team, is one of the most built girls I’ve, like, ever seen. I know that cheerleading takes a lot of muscle, but cheerleaders tend to look longer and leaner. Swimmers, wow. They look like they can lift horses. “Nice job!” I said to Lana.
“Hey, you too,” she said. “Looks like the Grizzlies have come a long way.”
“Thanks!” I beamed. We’ve never gotten props from other teams before. It was a first. I wanted to take a snapshot of the moment and frame it.
We all sprinted down the hall toward the locker rooms when the meet was over.
“Guess what, Grizzlies?” I said to the squad. “The swim captain and her team think we’re the bomb.”
The team let go a stream of “Woohoo’s,” “Awesome’s,” and “Cool’s.”
Yep, we are definitely on our way .
LATER THAT DAY, THE LIBRARY
Later on I went to meet Lanie in the library, where she was working on finishing her article. As the smell of dusty books entered my nose, I remembered I hadn’t looked at the due date for the Spirit Rules book in a while. Ugh. Nothing is worse than an overdue library book—if you keep one too long at our school, they make you work student—helper shifts reshelving stinky old books. Gross.
Lanie was sitting in the far corner of the library, where it’s unusually dark and where all the real losers in school usually sit. Everyone calls it the “Dark Side” for two reasons: One is because it’s always dark (I think there must be a bunch of lights out that no one has bothered replacing), and the other is that once you’ve been spotted there, people will talk about you like you’re a big nerd. I’m not calling Lanie a loser-DUH, she’s my BFF. I’m just saying that the kids who hang out on the Dark Side are so afraid of the rest of the world, they literally hide out in the scariest, darkest areas of the library until their parents can pick them up at the end of the day. Most of them aren’t even reading or doing work anyway. (As I walked toward Lanie, I noted three separate people playing some sort of role—playing video game on their laptops.) It was a good thing I found her. Sitting in that part of the library is, like, social suicide.
I tapped Lanie on the shoulder and she nearly jumped out of her seat.
“Whoa, you spooked me,” she said, her eyes wide.
“Sorry. They really should turn up the music in here,” I joked. “Then people might not be so afraid if they’re approached from behind. Um, Lanie, why are you sitting on the Dark Side? This place is C-R-E-E-P-Y.”
Lanie looked around her as if realizing where she’d been this whole time. She frowned. “Oops. I didn’t realize that’s where I was. I’ve been so obsessed with finishing this article, I didn’t even look where I was going.”
“Well, it is pretty quiet and depressing back here.”
“Jeez, Mads,” Lanie joked, “what a surprise. Quiet. In a library! Who would have thunk it?”
We both laughed. Lanie is always making fun of me for not being more the studious type. I make fun of her for being a dork sometimes. It’s very symbiotic.
Anyway, Lanie had a ton of papers in front of her, all of them marked in red. But one pile was just black type and otherwise completely spotless.
“Here,” she said, handing that one to me.
I looked down. The headline read “Who’s Flipping Out over Athletic Funding?”
So it looked like Lanie had proven what I’ve been thinking all along. The Titans earn their cash fair and square. I couldn’t wait to read it, but then I remembered why she was showing it to me.
And I felt totally guilty.
I handed it back to her, shaking my head. “Lanes, I don’t need to read this,” I explained. “I trust you that the article is completely fair and that you did your best job as a writer.”
Lanie rolled her eyes. “I’m not showing it to you because of that, dork. I know you trust me. I want you to read it because you’re my best friend.”
Awww! Seriously, I was so touched. And this is why I could never survive without Lanie. She’s like . . . the salt to my pepper, the vanilla ice cream to my root beer (Mmm . . . delish! Might have to make one of those later), the soup to my spoon .
Ready for the really, really good news? Bevan’s and my date tonight was AWESOME. I mean, if I could record audio in this journal, I’d be singing the “awesome” in a superhigh operatic voice for emphasis. THAT’S how awesome it was. We went to a stupid movie and laughed our heads off the entire time. I thought the smile would have to be surgically removed from my face. And in the middle of the movie, he went to grab my hand, which I’d been keeping in my lap. I mean, what else do you do with it? If I’d left it on the armrest he would have thought for sure I was, like, begging for him to hold it (which I so OBVS was, but that’s beside the point). PLUS, that would have made it übereasy to get caught in a case of mixed messages. Like, say he was shifting and accidentally knocked my arm and I thought he was reaching for me instead-we’re talking total and utter embarrassment. But keeping it in my lap meant he had to make, like, a genuine effort to reach over and grab it. Which he totally did . And then he smiled at me.
“Thanks for coming out tonight,” he said afterward at the ice cream place near the theater. I didn’t care that it was chilly out—I like ice cream any day. Especially when I’m eating it with Bevan.
“Of course,” I said. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Bevan hesitated and licked his rum raisin cone. “I don’t know. I guess I’ve been worried that you’d just stop speaking to me again. I thought maybe you’d be so hung up on what people thought about us dating—with the whole Katie thing-”
I can’t believe that Bevan Ramsey—the coolest guy I know—was worrying about losing little ol’ me. “No, I’m so over that,” I said, cutting him off. “I’m not going to disappear like the last time. I really like being with you. I’m done with the whole Katie thing.”
He raised an eyebrow questioningly. I hadn’t told him about my big fight with Katie. “Long story,” I said. “But it had a good ending.”
“I like stories,” said Bevan.
So I told him everything that happened at the qualifier. The face—off between Katie and me, how it almost ruined her competition, and then our talk on the bus.
“She probably just needed to get it out of her system,” I explained. “And in the end, she was the bigger person for, like, bringing it up. I would probably have been too shy to go up to her and talk about the tension between the two of us.”
“Katie is an in-your-face kinda girl,” he said.
“Meaning?” I asked hesitantly.
Bevan sighed heavily. “Let’s just say that I prefer the drama—free type.” Then he held out his ice cream cone to me and asked, “Wanna kiss?”
My heart started beating superfast. We hadn’t kissed yet, and I was dying to . . . but the way he was doing it seemed kinda strange. First of all, I’m not an expert or anything, but I was thinking that the cone would kind of get in the way if he kept holding it there like that. Second, I always imagined that kisses happened romantically and in the moment—not the way he did it like he was asking for a piece of gum or whether or not someone was sitting in the empty seat next to me.
He was still holding his cone out to me. If we were gonna kiss, I’d have to be careful not to crash into his cone. AWKWARD much?
Suddenly he laughed, apparently realizing what I was thinking. “I meant an ice cream kiss. Here,” he said, taking my cone from my hand and mashing it against his. He handed it back to me, rum raisin ice cream now sitting on top of my vanilla chocolate chip.
I took a bite, dying from embarrassment.
And then he leaned into me, brushed a strand of hair out of my face, and said, “Of course, we could do the regular kind too.” (I think he may have blushed, too, but no confirmation on that bit.)
Then he leaned forward and kissed me.
Just so there’s no confusion, I’m going to go ahead and write that again: BEVAN RAMSEY KISSED ME!!!
CAN YOU BELIEVE???!!!
And now for the bad news: When I came home tonight, Mom was in this really strange mood. She was in the kitchen humming to herself and dancing with a bottle of sparkling wine, her fave. She poured herself a little glass, sighing dreamily.
“Oh, Madison,” she said as we sat across from each other at the table. She chewed daintily on her steamed asparagus. “Falling in love in school. There’s nothing like it.”
My mouth went totally dry. Ew, ew, ew. Was she trying to talk to me about Bevan? I’m close to my mom and all, but I don’t really need to bond with her over boy stuff.
She randomly launched into this whole story about one of her many boyfriends in high school. “He was a football player, like your dad. But this was before Dad transferred to the school,” she said quickly. She went on and on describing him to me. “Sweet, smart, and had a killer bod,” she said, then laughed to herself. “No one says that anymore, huh? ‘Bod’?”
“No, not really,” I said, embarrassed.
Please oh please, I prayed to myself. Please end this conversation now. Awkward!
“Mr. Datner kind of reminds me of him.” She sighed.
DOUBLE UGH. It was all making sense now! Mom had been hanging with Mr. Datner every second she wasn’t with us at the qualifier. I’d been so busy with my own drama to think much of it. And then they sat together on the way back. Of course, I just thought that’s what chaperones on school trips do—hang out and talk. It’s not like she was gonna join in on Grizzly gossip.
“What would you think if I went out on a date with Mr. Datner? Would that be ok with you, Madington? Even though he works at the school?”
Grrr. . . . Ok, so this is why parents are so annoying. After all the awesome things she’s done for me since, like, birth, and all the UH—MAZING things she’s done for the Grizzlies, I couldn’t actually say no, could I? Especially after I already got mad at her for having a matching coach jumpsuit and begged her not to get an office at school.
“Yeah, Mom. Whatever, sure.”
I mean, I AM glad she’s finally going to go out on a date-it’s been forever since she’s been excited about anyone. And I know that Dad having a girlfriend is hard for her, even though she never says anything to me about it.
But still. Yuck. Mom and Mr. Datner? Talk about the opposite of cool. I can just imagine what it will be like at school, running into the two of them holding hands or something. It’s one thing to have your divorced parents date new people. It’s another thing to have to be around it all day-like, during school hours.
Sheesh. Just when I thought the drama was dying down, life served up another cup o’ CRAZY. Well, I’ll just do what I always do when life drives me nuts. Pick up my pom-poms, jump high into the air, and hope that when I come down, I’ll land on my feet. Like it says in The Spirit Rules: When Life Throws You Lemons, Write a Cheer About It!
Oh, and PS—Check it, Lanie’s ROCKIN’ cheer article:
Who’s Flipping Out over Athletic Funding? by Lanie Marks
Think all’s equal in love and, um, sports? Guess again. When it comes to allocating school funds, some teams get a bigger piece of the pie. You’ll probably be surprised to find that the team at Port Angeles that receives the most financial support is not football, not basketball, but cheerleading. Why? Because the Port Angeles Titans bring home the most medals, rally the most support for the school, and get the best grades of any sports team.
“Our athletic program is one of the best in the state,” says school principal Mary Gershon. “We take great pride in the fact that we can provide all athletic teams with the resources they need to succeed.” Athletic teams require school funds for a variety of needs: athletic training supplies, uniforms, coach salaries, competitive events, and safety insurance.
Some people feel that while the school is known to give generously to all its sports teams, the Titan cheerleaders have an unfair advantage. Edgar Holland, who does not play a sport at Port Angeles, believes that “the cheerleaders in our school definitely get treated better than kids on other sports teams. They always have new uniforms, they get the most space in the gym, and they never have to do fund—raisers for their events.”
Margaret Wilcox, captain of the Port Angeles girls’ soccer team, has a similar sentiment: “I don’t think cheerleading should even have a section in the yearbook. Of course they bring home more medals than we do—they can sign up for as many competitions as they want. It’s not like that in soccer. And who’s to say the events they compete in are even that hard?”
While competitive cheerleading is still not technically considered a sport in most schools, one look at the Titans at work may lead one to think that should change. This reporter spent several weeks witnessing the Titans at practices, games, and competitions. During practice, the Titans are not only charged with learning new stunts and routines, but they also must run long distances and lift weights in the weight room, like other competitive sports teams at our school. But unlike many sports at Port Angeles, on any given day, a cheerleader is at risk of causing severe damage to his or her health. The maneuvers that they do—which at the very least can be described as gymnastic (and should be described as death-defying)—take both emotional and physical tolls on the body.
Cheerleading coach for the Titans, Judith Whipley, shared a chilling story about one of her cheerleaders a few years ago. “She went up from a basket toss and into a rewind but panicked on her way down. Any slight change in a routine can result in injury. In this case, her spotters weren’t able to catch her in time, and she broke her arm.”
As recently as last week, when the Titans competed to place into Regionals at Sunset Valley’s Regional Qualifier, one squad member had to be pulled from competing after she landed on her shoulder during a routine and broke several bones. The Grizzlies—a novice squad—offered up one of their own to take her place: Jacqueline Sawyer, a former member of the Titan squad. The Titans taught Jacqueline the routine in a matter of hours, and when it was their turn to compete in the final round of the competition, the crowd was spellbound as they watched the squad execute motions and jumps that seemed to defy gravity.
One of the judges that day, Michelle Cooper, gushed, “They had the best dance routine of any team here. It’s hard to find a team that is so synchronized in their movements and also so creative.”
Says Principal Gershon: “It’s true, our cheerleaders do receive more funding than the other departments. But it wasn’t always this way. The cheerleaders at Port Angeles used to have to spend all their own money, even to pay a coach. This was years ago, but still. No other team had to struggle for recognition like our cheerleading squad. And the administration firmly believes that those sports that win the most games, participate in the most competitions, and show the most school spirit in a given year should, in fact, receive more funds the following year. We’re not automatically favorable toward the Titans. If, say, the lacrosse team started filling the awards cabinet with gold medals, we would be happy to switch things up.”
Some argue that the school should distribute funds among all the departments equally. B
ut if that was the case, would the football and soccer teams be content to know that they would receive only as much money as the debate team, for example? Before people start knocking down the Port Angeles system for sports funding, they might want to consider the strength of their own team first. Or they might want to ask themselves, “Would I be able to do a full layout twist if my life depended on it?”
I mean, really how can you NOT totally love it??!!
Oh, BTW, what does Katie mean about Evan being into ME??!! This whole week has been NUTS!!!! I haven’t had time to think about that part of Katie’s and my convo. She can’t have been right about that—it has to be a misunderstanding or something. Evan liking me as anything more than a friend is pure MADNESS. The Evan who makes fun of all my cheers and peppy spirit? The Evan who obsesses over the Titan cheerleaders like it’s his job? The Evan who hasn’t spoken to me, basically in, like, weeks? Not possible. Note to Self: MUST DISCUSS WITH LANIE FIRST THING TOMORROW!!!
Because, I mean, Me + E = C-R-A-Z-Y.
and now an excerpt from the next book in the series . . .
Ugh. I can’t believe what just happened! So it’s winter break—you know, a time when I’m supposed to be maxin’ and relaxin’ and just overall vegging out. And that’s EXACTLY what I planned on doing-well, except for Grizzly practice, but that’s fun for me—before The Phone Call. But instead? I’m having a major freak—out session. I mean, I should have guessed. Me? Being drama free? Ha-ha. Fat chance.
Something crazy just happened and I’m so confused about what to do. I was v—chatting a little while ago with Lanie, trying to make plans for later, when Mom knocked on my door.
“It’s your dad,” she said. “He needs to talk to you about something.”
I’d heard the phone ring a few minutes before, but since Mom didn’t scream for me to get it immediately (like she usually does when he calls), I figured it was for her.