by Kirsten Rue
During homeroom, Assistant Principal McCloud’s blustery-sounding voice comes in over the loudspeaker.
“Sixth grade teachers, please distribute your ballots.” My homeroom teacher slides a pink slip of paper with three names printed on it across my desk. “Students, please fill in the bubble next to the name of one of these students. Running this year, we have Tim Watkins, Esperanza Vasquez, and Stella Sweet.” I can almost hear the grouchiness in McCloud’s voice.
I fill in my bubble as carefully as I can, making sure not to mark outside the lines. I also draw a star around my bubble just to make it extra cute. My homeroom teacher collects the ballot slips, and that’s that. Now I have to wait the entire day to find out the results. At lunch, I can’t help staring at the Geeks’ table and Tim Watkins. Other kids keep coming up to him and giving him pats on the back and friendly punches in the arm.
I don’t get it. Nobody’s coming up to our table. I mean, I know most of the other kids are usually too afraid to come to our table, but couldn’t they make an exception just this once?
“Don’t worry!” Madison, my most loyal Sweet, reassures me. “I talked to a girl in my homeroom and she said everyone she knows is voting for you.”
“What was the girl’s name?”
“Um . . . just some girl. But she’s definitely voting for you.”
“Okay . . . if she’s even real.”
Once again, Alexa is not in her seat at the table, even though I specifically asked her not to skip school today. Sarah H. and Sara N.H. are doing that annoying thing where they roll a bouncy ball across the table. Avery is drawing something in her notebook—a picture of the Eiffel Tower. I must not be very hungry today, because even though I have a Diet Coke and sliced vegetables and even some Sun Chips, I don’t want to eat a single thing. I just keep imagining life without the Cheer Squad. We would have no dancing, no cheering at school events. It would be terrible! Not to mention, the Sweets would lose a major reason for existing. The Geeks have, well, geek stuff, the Lardos have football, the Choir kids have choir . . . the list goes on. Without the Sweet Squad, all we really have is matching scrunchies. We don’t even like each other that much—not really.
I try to find my other competitor, Esperanza, in the crowd. When I finally spot her, I realize that she’s laughing and talking. She doesn’t look worried about the election, either. Not even at all. Am I the only one who’s not feeling like herself?
When the moment of truth comes, I’m in my second-to-last class of the day, which happens to be Ms. Arple’s science class. I’m supposed to be illustrating a sketch of the parts of a volcano, but I can barely concentrate. Next to me at her desk, I swear Avery is adding an Eiffel Tower to her volcano drawing. In Avery’s world, Eiffel Towers are everywhere. I’m just starting to give up hope on ever hearing the election news when the intercom crackles over our heads. I jump a little in my seat. Avery crosses her fingers and grabs my hand. I cross the fingers on my other hand, too.
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it is now time for your sixth grade election results.” I can hear McCloud coughing on the other end of the speakers and the sound of papers rustling. “One second . . . one second . . . Ah! Here it is. The winner of the sixth grade class presidential election is . . .” The kids in my science class beat their desks to make it sound like a drumroll. “. . . Esperanza Vasquez!” Avery squeezes my fingers so tightly that I can feel the band of the ring she always wears on her pinkie. That’s the first thing I register: pain in my fingers, and then it sinks in. This is WAY worse than fumbling the ball. This is more like missing a three-point shot and losing the whole game.
I LOST?!
The Cheer Squad
I feel completely numb. After class, Avery helps me gather up my notebooks and pens, which is nice of her I guess. The other students won’t really make eye contact with me, but that doesn’t stop me from looking at them. Which of you didn’t vote for me? I want to ask them. Why? It just doesn’t make sense. I mean, I only wanted to win so that I could save an important after school activity. Now there will be no meeting Principal Presley for me. And without the support of the whole grade, how can I convince the principal that the Sweet Squad has to stay?
“I’m not feeling well,” I whisper to Avery. “I might go home.” On the other hand, I don’t want to look even MORE defeated by vanishing from school right after losing the election. Isn’t this the part of the game where you pretend to congratulate the other team and shake their hands? I picture tracking Esperanza down to shake her hand, but I have to say, I’m not a huge fan of the idea.
“Stella?” Ms. Arple calls out as I’m almost out of class. “Can I talk to you a second?” Oh, great, now I’m probably getting a lecture from my cheer coach, too. SO unfair.
“Go ahead without me,” I tell Avery. Then I turn to Ms. Arple. I’m feeling sulky and rude and not in the mood one bit, but I hold my tongue.
“Come sit down over here,” Ms. Arple says, beckoning to the comfy armchair that stands next to her desk. I sit down and swing my legs back and forth over the ground. My feet don’t quite touch the floor. I told you I was short.
Ms. Arple sits at her desk and hands over a box of Kleenex. “Do you need one of these?” she asks.
Feeling embarrassed, I pluck a Kleenex from the top of the box and dab at my eyes a little bit. I’m just glad that no other kids from Halsey are in here to see Stella Sweet—scary, mean Stella Sweet—actually wiping her nose with a Kleenex.
“I know you’re disappointed,” Ms. Arple begins. “Heck, I’m disappointed, too. I love coaching the cheer squad.” I nod. “Can I tell you something, though? A story?” “Sure.”
“Well, you might have noticed that I’m not exactly cheerleader material,” Ms. Arple says with a little laugh. “Especially when I first wanted to cheer, I was just about the opposite of the typical type. I had— have—freckles and I used to wear glasses and I even had a really short haircut. A terrible haircut that I got the summer before sixth grade. I was, well, I think the word would be ‘geek.’“
“You used to have glasses?” I ask.
“I still have them, actually. Anyway, back to my story. The truth was that, despite not looking the part of your typical cheerleader—not looking like, say, you and your friends—I loved to cheer. I loved the dancing and the cheers themselves and the routines. So, even though my friends warned me that I was setting myself up for failure, I tried out for the team.”
“And?’“ I hate to admit it, but now that I’m kinda into this story, I’m impatient to find out what happens.
“And . . . I made it on the team. We had open tryouts, so even though the other girls probably wouldn’t have picked me based on my looks, I still got a chance to try. I danced my heart out that day.” Ms. Arple smiles a little bit at the memory. “Once I made it on the team, I never looked back. I ended up becoming great friends with the other girls. They actually turned out to be pretty cool—everyone just thought they were a certain way, even if they weren’t. So, I got to know the people behind the popularity and our team got even bigger over the years, with lots of different girls and boys. I think having those differences helped us to become national champions when I was in high school.”
“Wow,” I say. I’ve only heard rumors about Ms. Arple being a national champion. This is my first time hearing the actual story.
“I know you want to save the team, Stella,” Ms. Arple says. “But have you thought about other ways to
do it?”
I think back to Ms. Arple first telling us about Halsey School’s new ruling on extracurricular activities. About how clubs with less than ten members were going to be cut. At the time, that number—ten— had made no impression on me. I wanted to save the squad, but I wanted it to stay the same, too. I wanted it to be a team where I made the rules, and I got to choose all the girls. It was supposed to be exclusive and closed to everyone but me and the other Sweets. Yet . . . Ms. Arple has a point. There is still a way to save the
Sweet Squad for next year.
“Are you saying that we should have open try-outs?” I ask her.
She gives me a smile and pats me on the shoulder. “I’m saying that maybe that’s not such a bad idea.”
As I walk to my next class, I feel completely lost in thought. I think about what Ms. Arple said in her story—about different people making the team stronger. That is exactly the opposite of the Sweet Squad and me, where we all try to look and act alike. All these years, I’ve mostly just judged the other students by their outsides. Count on smart, nerdy, but fairly cool Ms. Arple to bury a message in her story about how that’s maybe the wrong way to go. I’m still thinking about all of this when I run into Esperanza Vasquez. And by run, I mean we smack into each other. I even drop my pencil and notebook on the floor.
“Whoops, sorry!” Esperanza says with a shy smile. Then she thrusts out her hand at me. “Good race,” she says. I’m stunned. Esperanza is being a good sport. She’s doing that thing where you shake the loser’s hand as you walk off the court. And after every mean thing I’ve said about her and Tim in the last couple of weeks . . . I’m not going to lie—I feel a little bit ashamed.
“I’m sure you’ll be a great president,” I say to her, shaking her hand. I have to admit, it feels kind of good to relax and just be nice for once. “Congratulations!” With that Esperanza spins away down the hall. As I watch her walk away, I think of Tim Watkins saying “We won’t quit” the other week. Well, I won’t quit, either. I think I’m just learning that I’m going to have to do some things in a different way. Maybe not the Stella Sweet Way I’ve been doing things so far, but so what? Change can be good.
Next, I head over to the area where the Doomsday Geeks like to stand in front of the lockers. Tim Watkins is right in the center of the cluster, his friends giving him high fives, even though he lost. I push my way into the center, too. The other kids freeze in mid-high five and go quiet. They give each other looks.
“Tim, I need to know something,” I say, standing as tall as I can in front of him. “Why didn’t I win?”
Tim looks around a little bit uncomfortably. He’s probably worried that this is a mean prank, but for once, it’s not. When he sees I’m not budging, he sighs and shrugs his shoulders. “Here goes nothing . . . you know what elected officials do, right Stella? Well, er, when someone votes, it’s because they think that the person running is going to, like, go to bat for them. In exchange for the vote, the person who gets elected is supposed to do things that help the voter. The elected person is supposed to help the people—all the people—whether they voted or not. That’s why she’s a ‘representative.’ She represents the people who voted. So. If you want to know my opinion?”
“I do.”
“The other kids didn’t vote for you because they knew you didn’t care about making things any better for them. You only wanted the victory for yourself.”
“Thank you, Tim,” I say, holding out my hand. “This was helpful.” He looks around again like he seriously can’t believe this is happening, but he also looks relieved. “Good race.” We shake hands.
The next day at lunch, I break it to the other Sweets. “There are going to be some changes around here. We’re going to have cheer tryouts. And I’m canceling my big birthday party. I think I just want a small party. Just with you guys.”
The other girls immediately start babbling in protest. “We can’t let just anyone on the squad!” Madison whines.
“How come I had to practically beg to join the Sweets and now just anyone can join?” Sara N.H. complains. Sarah H. chimes in and agrees, though I notice that Dana is actually smiling, which is like the first time I’ve ever seen her smile (not even kidding).
“Ladies. LADIES!” I hold up my hand in a Quiet Coyote symbol and they shut up. “I want us to have the best cheer squad in the whole city. Even better than Jefferson’s. We need more than ten people to keep the team. AND, I think having some different faces will actually help us.”
“I don’t know . . .”Avery grumbles. “Will they— the new team members—still be called Sweets?
“Maybe, maybe not. Maybe we won’t even use the word ‘Sweet’ at all anymore.”
“Really?!?”
“Whoa, chill. I’m just thinking out loud. The POINT is that we have to change or we’re going to be left behind. We can’t just save the cheer squad for ourselves. We have to save it because it’s good for the whole school.”
“Stella, are you feeling okay?” Madison asks. “You are acting seriously weird.”
“Honestly, Mads? I’ve never felt better.”
In my head, I’m planning our sign-up table. We can re-use my election banner and wrap it around the whole table. There will be pencils with those fluffball thingies at the top and the sign-up sheets will be pink (obviously). The whole row of us will sit there smiling, answering questions about the Sweet—er, Cheer Squad. We’ll have something glass—a fishbowl or something—where we can drop in the sheets after other girls have signed up. And by the end of the day, with the fishbowl full of new names, and who knows, possibly new friends, we’ll go over to my house and have cake and it will be fun. We’ll just talk. We’ll just be the girls we were before we became the Sweets.
. . . But we’ll probably still pull a prank on my older brother because, geez—you didn’t expect me to become an angel overnight, did you?