Yell Out / Do You

by Stephanie Perry Moore

  “Those other squads looked at us like we were trash, like they didn’t even think we should have been in the building,” Eva said.

  “Yeah, Eva’s right,” Randal agreed. “They rolled their eyes at us and looked down on us.”

  “And you guys are completely intimidated,” Whitney called out.

  “We do need to clean up our act a little bit,” Charli said. “We should all wear our hair the same way.”

  “Uh, news flash,” Eva said, “we don’t all have long hair that we can throw up in a ponytail. All black hair is not the same, and extensions are expensive.”

  “You wear extensions for anything else you want to,” I said. I was so sick and tired of her negative behind.

  Eva shouted, “Like I was even talking to you!”

  “This is a group meeting,” I yelled back.

  She got up. I got up. We were ready to throw down.

  Coach Woods came out of her office and said, “Enough about what happened at our last competition. There’s no use griping about it. The only reason we should focus on it is if we want to learn from our mistakes. Take some of the things and get better.”

  I sat. Eva sat. We had issues, but the team came first.

  Coach continued, “Charli’s mom is willing to do the bows. Whitney’s mom is going to make the buckets, and Randal’s mom is going to put some goodies in there for you guys to snack on every time.”

  I hated that my mom could not contribute. Financially, we were strapped. However, it was going to be nice to finish a competition and be able to go and see our names on some cute objects that held Gatorade, some snacks, and a nice trinket.

  “Whatever. I don’t think you gotta do what other people do,” Eva said, having the worst attitude, as usual.

  “Well, when in Rome, do as the Romans do,” Coach Woods said. “I like my squad to be well represented. We are not second class. Now that we know there is an area for goody bags, we will comply. That’s how we roll. We can show them we are worthy of first place. We have got a great routine, girls. We can win state. You’ve got to want it.”

  We all sat around pondering her challenge. I wished my sister would be more of a team player. However, I knew what drama we had at home. It was hard to smile when you were broke.

  On Saturday I was back at school. I went to the football field to volunteer to pass out water to the little kids at camp. Surprisingly, my dad was there with the player he represented who was in the NFL. The starting wide receiver for the Seattle Seahawks, Royal Jackson, was an alumnus of Lockwood High School.

  My brother wanted to try and play, but some of the boys were teasing him. Leo didn’t know I was watching him. My dad didn’t know I knew Leo. I could not believe how gentle the giant was with Evan. Before camp was over, my little brother knew how to hold the ball, tuck it away, and run for a touchdown. When they played the scrimmage football game for three- and four-year-olds, Evan scored twice. Of course my dad was overjoyed. When he thanked Leo, I went up to the two of them.

  “Hey,” Leo said in an excited tone.

  “Hey,” my dad said, happy to see me as well.

  “Hey, sister,” Evan said, running to my arms.

  “Hey, Evan.” I twirled him around like usual.

  “This is your dad?” Leo asked.

  “Yes,” I said to him before introducing him to my dad. “This is my friend Leo.”

  “Wow, what a wonderful young man. You definitely got the height, weight, and size for D1. I gotta keep an eye on you. You need to keep me in mind as an agent one day, guy,” my dad teased. “Leo, you know my daughter, huh?”

  “Yes, sir, I didn’t realize Ella was your daughter.”

  “Different last names, long story,” I said to Leo.

  “Sir, I just really want to tell you that your daughter saved me by—”

  “Ugh,” I pulled on Leo’s shirt and gave him a look like, Please, you don’t need to tell everything. Some things we need to keep quiet.

  CHAPTER 4

  Oh No

  Girls, we got a problem at this upcoming competition,” Coach Woods said to all of us at practice the next day.

  Though we had our second big competition coming up, none of us wanted to be at the school on a Sunday. But when Coach sent out a message saying we needed to have an important meeting, we were all there on pins and needles wondering what was going on. Coach told us to stretch while she talked to Eva and Randal in her office. Now she was in front of us not looking happy at all.

  “Competition cheerleading, just as with any sport, has academic responsibilities attached to it. The Georgia High School Sports Association has regulations that state you must have a two-point-o to compete in any sport. Two of our girls have fallen behind in this area and will not be able to compete. Thus we are going to have to adjust midstream.”

  “Adjust midstream? Huh? Can’t we just pull out?” Hallie asked.

  Coach Woods said, “No, you have ten days before the event to pull out. We are under that time period. So we’re locked in. If we forfeit now, we may forfeit state. Randal and Eva are both bases, so back spots will have to step it up when it comes to stunting. We might have to change some places around in the dance so that we don’t have holes, and on the tumbling passes …”

  Randal was waving her hand and Coach acknowledged her. “Yes, Randal?”

  “You don’t even need to say anything,” Whitney interrupted. “Because you can’t keep your grades up is why we’re in this situation. The only thing you need to be saying is that you’re sorry to all of us.”

  “I am sorry,” Randal said sarcastically, “but I was just gonna remind Coach that I’m not a base, I’m a flyer.”

  “Oh my gosh, that’s right, Randal. Now who’s going to go up high? Ella, you can do it,” Coach suggested.

  In my mind I thought, “Oh no! Oh my gosh! Uh-uh.” It was not that I was scared to be in the air, but although I was flexible, when I did the heel stretch I could tell I needed a little work.

  “And, Whitney, we don’t owe you any type of apology!” Eva shouted.

  Whitney jabbed back, “Says the girl who’s failing.”

  “Who says I’m failing? I can have a D and still not have a two-point-o, you idiot,” Eva said.

  “Okay, let’s watch the name calling,” Coach said.

  “And we can certainly see why she’s not an academic all-star. If something doesn’t go Eva’s way, all she wants to do is embarrass you by calling you names. Good for her,” Whitney said.

  “You’re so sarcastic. You might as well say what you mean and shoot direct versus sliding undercover comments, which cut just as deep.” Eva rolled her eyes.

  Coach said, “Girls, didn’t I tell you to settle down? We’ve got work to do.”

  “Can I call my mom for her to come pick me up?” Eva said.

  “Honey, you aren’t going anywhere. You are going to stay here and help us figure out this new formation. Besides, two weeks from now we have another competition, so you and Randal need to be here since we must practice for that as well,” Coach said, making sense.

  “Learning two formations is gonna get so confusing,” Hallie said.

  “We can do this, everybody,” Charli affirmed.

  The week flew by like a Learjet. It was pretty uneventful. I was speaking to no one at my house. Leo and I decided to become lab partners in chemistry, so on even days when we had that class, I looked forward to seeing him. Practices were exhausting because we tried to make the routine that looked fabulous for twenty people look dynamic with just eighteen.

  Game four was humdrum. It was an away game, and we played the sorriest team in our region. Seriously, I could have gone out there and sacked the slow quarterback who was practically my little brother’s size. We won, 56–0. On the bus on the way home, some of the cheerleaders were sitting with football players. I sat down, thinking that Eva was going to sit beside me, but she looked at me, rolled her eyes, and kept on walking to the back.

  When Leo came
on the bus, I started biting my lip. That was when I realized I wanted him to sit beside me, but he did not even look my way. When he got to my seat, he walked past it. I leaned my head against the window, yawned, and knew I needed to get some rest because we had a big competition in the morning. No need to stress over something that was not on anyway.

  Then I heard his deep voice say, “No one’s sitting by you? I’d like to if that’s all right. I’ll bet my shoulder would feel much more comfortable than that window.”

  I picked up my pom-poms and motioned for him to sit. His shoulders did feel good, better than any pillow I could remember. The sweet words he whispered in my ear made my pulse race.

  “You are beautiful. Go to sleep,” Leo said, and I did.

  At the next cheerleading competition, we were intimidated as soon as we walked into the place. It was at a school in Suwannee, Georgia, that was two times the size of ours. There were people everywhere. We knew we were going up against eleven schools. The other teams’ moms, siblings, and friends were wearing T-shirts that supported their school. They held signs to pump up their cheerleaders as well.

  I think the last time we came to a meet we were too nervous to be aware of this. The only parents we had with us were Charli’s mom and Whitney’s mom. Other parents were working. Some of the other squads appeared to have football players in the audience cheering for them too. Our boys would probably laugh if we told them to come and support us. When we warmed up, we received all kinds of looks.

  Though Eva and Randal could not perform, Coach still made them come. Maybe we should have left Eva at home because she wanted to go over to the squad that we knew was dynamic and go off. They were from John’s Creek and they had a medieval theme to their outfits and routine. Every girl on that squad had two back handsprings and a standing tuck in their routine. They had twenty-four girls and did six stunts in the air, which they held for five seconds each and never bobbled.

  At least we had snacks on our table that said Lockwood Lions. At the last competition it was bare, and every other team had their table filled with goody bags. We were trying to keep up, but we still looked out of place.

  “Okay, I’m ’bout to go over there and tell them to quit looking at us like we’re slaves. They act like they never seen an all-black squad. Goodness,” Eva said with a roll of her neck at the JC girls.

  I stood up and got in Eva’s way. “You’re not going over there. You don’t even know those girls. Who cares what they think about us. You need to be helping us concentrate so we don’t go out there and get embarrassed—”

  Eva snapped, “Oh, y’all are gonna get embarrassed. Y’all have been dropping stunts all week. What makes you think you can go out there and hit stuff you couldn’t hit before? How you practice is how you will perform … that’s what Coach Woods always taught us. I don’t even know why you’re doing it.”

  “You’re so negative, Eva,” Hallie cried.

  “I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to my sister.”

  “Well, quit being so negative,” I retorted.

  Eva shoved me. “Get out of my way.”

  I shoved her back. She pulled my hair. I pulled hers. The broiling altercation had been in the works for a while. The problem was we were in the holding room with three other squads, and we looked like barbarians. Whatever the teams thought of us, the reality we were showing them was worse.

  “Eva and Ella, you all need to stop,” Whitney yelled.

  We kept tussling. However, when one of the girls from John’s Creek yelled out, “I knew they were animals!” Eva and I froze, realizing we had crossed the line. We were raised better than this, and now our squad could possibly be disqualifed because of our actions. It was not good.

  “Daddy, can you please just come and pick me up?” I cried when I got home from the competition where we were humiliated.

  “Just calm down, Ella. I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

  “You told me I could always call you and let you know if I needed something. Well, I don’t wanna stay here with Mom and Eva anymore. I want to move in with you, Dad. So can you please come and get me?”

  I did not like that he hesitated on the phone for a second. Did that mean he wanted to say no but did not know how to break my heart? Did that mean he had to run it by Samantha, but he did not want me to wait? Did that mean he had to talk to my mom to make sure it was okay, but he was still so mad at her that he did not care what she thought? I did not know, but I needed him to make a decision. Actually, I needed him to change my life.

  “I’m going to come and get you for now, but later we’ll have to—”

  “Thanks, Daddy, thanks!” I cried.

  “I’ll be leaving in five. Don’t think this is permanent; there are a lot of people to consider. This isn’t just a decision you and I can make.”

  “Dad, I’m unhappy. You are my father. I haven’t lived with you for years, and you just came in here telling Mom you wanted us. Either you want me there or you don’t.”

  “Like I said, I’m on my way, but you have to understand that this is not permanent. If you can’t get that, then I don’t need to come.”

  “Okay, okay, just come,” I said, treating my dad like he was my peer.

  “Watch your tone, Ella. I don’t know what’s going on over there, but I can clearly tell that you are upset. However, there are rules that you are going to have to abide by here.”

  “It’s not like I won’t be respectful to your precious Samantha,” I sneered.

  “Ella!” my dad thundered.

  A couple of hours later, I was at my dad’s place. I was in heaven in my own room with my own adjoining bath and my own TV. Peace and quiet abounded. Everyone thought having a twin was wonderful, but it really was too much. We had to share everything.

  I went downstairs to see what was in the kitchen for me to snack on. I did not get to walk all the way in. I heard my dad and Samantha arguing.

  “Look, you could’ve asked me if it was okay for her to come. We’re in the middle of planning this big wedding. I needed that guest room to put a lot of the wedding things in. You should have seen the way she strolled in here. She was quite comfortable,” Samantha ranted.

  My dad tried to calm her and said, “It’s not permanent. I told her that. I haven’t been able to talk to her mom about it. I haven’t been able to talk to you about it.”

  “So you just took the kid from her apartment? We’re both attorneys, Calvin. That’s really crazy. Her mom has custody of her. What if she comes looking for her and calls the cops? And I don’t want Evan to get all attached and then she has to leave.”

  “What’s wrong with him getting attached to his sister?” my dad defended.

  Samantha just rolled her eyes. I had a suspicion that she wasn’t feeling me. Now that was confirmed. She never pushed my dad to get to know me because she wanted to be his only woman.

  “You want me to go tell my daughter right now that you don’t want her to be here?”

  “You should’ve asked me in the first place before you just brought her here.”

  “Do you want me to tell her to leave?”

  Samantha huffed and puffed and just turned away. I did not want to leave. I had to break the tension.

  Stepping into the kitchen, I said, “Excuse me. Dad, do you mind taking me to the library? They are doing some tutoring up there, and I signed up to help. I was gonna blow it off, but I think it’s best to get out of here.”

  My dad looked at Samantha, clearly upset because he knew I heard everything. He looked at her like, See? Look what you are doing to my daughter. She looked back at me like it was all my fault. He was my dad and even if she became his wife, as long as he wanted me in his life, I was going to be there. I was not leaving because she was making things uncomfortable. Samantha rolled her eyes at me and walked away.

  “I got a couple of errands to run anyway. I’ll just drop you off at the library. The one at the school?” he asked.

  “Yes
, sir.”

  “And I’ll be back to pick you up. You okay with all of that?”

  Worried he was flustered, I said, “As long as you’re good, I’m good.”

  He put his arms around me. “Don’t you worry about all this.”

  When we got to the library, he told me he was going to be back in an hour. I rushed in and just fell apart. I was putting tension on my parents. Was I being selfish by just leaving and not telling my mom? Now I had made my dad’s life tougher by being some place that his future wife did not want me to be. Even all that hard work with cheerleading seemed for naught, as the parents of our competition laughed at us when our stunts failed. By the end of our routine, things were so bad the crowd was actually cheering for us to make it through the dance. It was an amazing crowd transformation that was appreciated, but it also humiliated us all. Some girls threatened to quit. Now, standing here alone in the library, it all became too much. I walked to a back corner, slid to the floor and cried.

  “Ella? Are you okay?” Leo whispered, caressing my face. “I saw you rush in here, and I don’t want you to be sad. You wanna talk about it?”

  In a pitiful tone, I said, “What’s there to talk about? I hate my twin sister. My mom hates me. I should hate her because she spent all my dad’s child support and made me think he never paid it. We might get kicked out of our apartment. The cheerleaders suck. I want to live with my dad, but his fiancée hates the idea. Nothing’s going right in my life.”

  Leo leaned down beside me and put his lips to mine. It was as if our tongues were doing a dance. Though it was new to me, nothing was forced. I took my hands and pulled him closer. We were practically on the floor already and when I leaned all the way down, he was on top of me.

  He said, “I’ve been thinking about you. I want you. Is that okay? Can I make you feel good?”

  He parted my legs. He ran his hand from the inside of my foot all the way to my kneecap. I had to move his hand before it rose any higher. Even though I had on jeans, I was getting too excited. Quickly, I sat up, got to my feet, and backed away.