I Was a Non-Blonde Cheerleader

by Kieran Scott

  Okay, so maybe he could pull off serious in that outfit.

  “That Fighting Crab was constructed by the class of 1985 as their graduating gift to this school,” Principal Buzzkill said, pointing toward the end zone. “That crab predated your births. It was a symbol of this school’s strength, of its spirit, of its tradition. Look at it now.”

  Hundreds of heads turned to look at the remnants of the Fighting Crab.

  “Thanks to this ridiculous prank war, our mascot has been obliterated,” Principal Buzzkill continued. “That crab survived hurricanes and tropical storms for twenty years, and now it’s gone forever. I don’t know how this travesty sits with the rest of you, but I, for one, feel sick.”

  My stomach turned, poisoned by a sensation that felt a lot like guilt. I could just imagine those poor kids from the class of ‘85, working their little Duran Duran–loving tails off on that crab, celebrating with a Miami Vice party when it was finished. What would they think if they came back to visit the school and saw the fallen crab?

  But still, it wasn’t like we’d destroyed the little guy. Those idiots from West Wind had done it. It wasn’t our fault.

  Except for the fact that you started the prank war, my little angel whispered to me. You, you, you, you, you. Wait a minute. Were angels even allowed to taunt people?

  “I thought I had made myself clear when I told certain members of the football team and cheerleading squad to cease and desist, but apparently I did not,” Principal Buzzkill continued. “So I’ve decided to take my message to the entire student body. Now, I want all of you to listen up and listen good. This prank war ends now.”

  “Whatever,” Tara said, shifting in her seat behind me. I saw Bobby and Christopher exchange a look a few rows ahead to my left. “Yeah, okay, dude,” Bobby mouthed, then laughed.

  “If I hear that anything else has happened at West Wind High, I will have no choice but to forfeit this Saturday’s game.”

  A collective gasp went up over the bleachers. My heart dropped. Forfeit!? To West Wind? This guy was a buzzkill!

  “He wouldn’t,” Tara said.

  “Believe me when I say that I will not hesitate to do this,” Principal Buzzkill continued. “And for those of you who are unclear on what a forfeit means, if we forfeit, we lose. We lose the rivalry game to West Wind High because whoever is committing these pranks refused to take the high road.”

  He paused and scanned the crowd ever so slowly, seeming to make eye contact with every last student. When his gaze fell on me and the rest of the squad, I could feel the high-beam burn on my face. I looked away guiltily and he moved on.

  “You’re dismissed,” he said finally. “Return to first period.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Whitney ranted as we headed back toward the school in a pack. “He wouldn’t actually forfeit, would he?”

  “I don’t know. I believed him,” Mindy replied, hugging her notebooks to her chest.

  “But they killed the crab! How can we not retaliate after they killed the crab?” Chandra wailed, her eyes wide.

  “You guys, maybe it’s all for the best,” Tara said.

  She was met with stunned silence. Tara Timothy was throwing in the towel? Little Miss Never Say Die? How could she say this was for the best?

  “What?” she replied to our confusion. “This will give us more time to practice for regionals. And we need practice. Believe me.”

  Mindy and I looked at each other, knowing she was talking about us. I couldn’t argue her point, however. The routine was complex and everyone else had had months to perfect it. Mindy and I were way behind.

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It was kind of a relief to be released from prank-war duty. Now I would also have time to study for the geometry test that was rapidly approaching and catch up in the rest of my classes. Tara was right. Buzzkill’s ultimatum was actually a blessing in disguise.

  “So, Annisa!” Sage piped up, walking up from the back of the crowd to fall into step with me. “Can I bring anything tomorrow night?”

  Once I got over the shock that Sage was actually daring to talk to me, I was able to focus on my bafflement over what she had said.

  “Bring anything where?” I asked as we filed back into the school.

  “You know. To the big party!” Sage replied, laughing like we were old friends in on some personal joke together. God! Can you say split personalities?

  I stopped in the middle of the hallway, a skittering sense of foreboding running all over my body. Some of the cheerleaders kept moving, but a few of them hovered around to watch the conversation unfold.

  “What big party?” I asked.

  “Gabe’s big party?” she said, rolling her eyes as if I was some previously unclassified breed of doofus.

  “Gabe is having a party?!” I blurted.

  “Wow. You guys really need to work on your communication skills,” Sage said, shaking her head. “Everyone knows about the party.”

  Then she walked off, the rest of the squad minus Autumn and Mindy following her. I heard Sage reciting the details all the way down the hall while the others grabbed pens and scratched them into their notebooks.

  “Did you guys know my brother was having a party?” I asked, still stunned.

  “Sage called me about it last night,” Mindy said, biting her lip.

  “I already got my mom to lend me her punch bowl,” Autumn put in. “Though if I get another negative reading, I’m definitely staying home this time.”

  I followed them down the hall, my mind reeling. I couldn’t believe this. Gabe had promised he wouldn’t have a party. What was wrong with him? The kid needed to join Partyers Anonymous. And where did he get off inviting people from my school? Didn’t he have friends of his own?

  Some guy I recognized from the meeting the night before grinned at me as I rounded the corner. “Hey, new girl! See you at the party tomorrow night!” he called out. He and his friends slapped hands as they walked on.

  My nostrils flared to twice their normal size. I was going to have to lock my brother in a closet somewhere. There was no way in hell I was going to let him throw a party at my house tomorrow night. It was time for me to put my size five and a half foot down.

  “Omigod! You’re Annisa, right? Are you Annisa!?”

  I was flattened up against the wall by four freshman cheerleaders wearing matching yellow shirts and blue shorts. There was enough bubbliness among them to pop a champagne cork.

  “Yeah . . . ,” I said, fearing for my life.

  “Omigod! We heard about your party? And we were wondering? Do you think we could come? I mean, are they going to let freshmen in? Because, we’re cheerleaders, you know? Do you think we could get in because we’re cheerleaders?”

  Each one of them had at least one sentence in this verbal diarrhea, but they were so fast, I could never focus on who, exactly, was speaking.

  “I don’t think it’ll be a problem,” I said, wondering who the “they” were that might keep these poor girls out of my house.

  They all squealed and one of them hugged me harder than I’d ever been hugged before. I had to laugh. Maybe this party wasn’t the worst idea. I mean, if it could make people that happy . . . Plus, random students had been talking to me all day in the halls—people I’d never spoken to before. It was like I was famous. And not because I had appeared on the school paper with my skirt up.

  “Hey, Jersey.”

  Heart thump.

  “Daniel!” I said, turning to face him. He was looking much more chipper than he had the night before.

  “So, I heard about this party your brother’s throwing,” he said. “Pretty cool.”

  “Yeah. I guess,” I replied.

  “You know, nothing interesting ever happened around here until you came along,” he said with a grin.

  I felt a rush of euphoria throughout my body. Had anyone ever said anything so totally perfect?

  “Well, I gotta get to practice. See you later,” he said.
/>
  He was gone before I could recover my voice. Okay, so maybe my brother had actually done me a huge favor with this party thing. Maybe it was going to be the most monumental night of my life. I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned around, all smiles, expecting more accolades and appreciation for my hosting of the social event of the year. Instead, I was met with the hard-as-steel eyes of Bethany Goow.

  “Thanks for inviting me to your little party,” she said.

  “It’s not my—”

  “God! Will you stop at nothing to make them like you?” she blurted, stuffing her hands under her arms.

  What? I was no foot-kissing ingratiator! I was a revolutionary, remember?

  “Okay, wait a second,” I said indignantly. “That’s not what this is about.”

  “Oh, really? Sure looks that way to me,” Bethany said. “Suddenly all you care about is hanging out with them, sitting at assemblies with them, running all over town like a lemming with them.”

  “Bethany, I made a commitment to the team when I tried out,” I said, trying to remain patient. “Being on a competition squad takes a lot of work.”

  “Oh, right. And I’m sure spending every waking hour working on a prank war is right at the top of the squad’s official responsibilities,” she shot back.

  “The prank war was your idea!” I practically shouted, drawing a bit of a crowd to our argument. “How can you be mad at me for that?”

  “Please,” she said, throwing up a hand. “If you don’t know, then it’s not even worth it.”

  I felt as if she’d actually used that hand to punch me in the stomach. Where did she get off talking to me like that? Like I was supposed to know why the prank war made her so mad? I thought she was psyched about it.

  “Have fun at your party,” she shouted as she walked away.

  “It’s not my party!” I shouted back, all the frustration of the day going into that one exclamation.

  As much as I racked my brain, I couldn’t think of a single reason for Bethany to be pissed about the prank war other than the fact that she was jealous—jealous of the time I was spending with the squad. But it was an extracurricular. Those took up time. Bethany spent five hours a night working on her website. She of all people should understand what it means to make a commitment.

  “Hey,” Mindy said, approaching me. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m fine,” I said. “Let’s go to practice. I feel like I could do about ten million push-ups right about now.”

  As we headed off for the locker room, I started to wonder if I had been wrong about Bethany all along. Maybe she wasn’t as cool as I’d thought she was. Maybe she was just selfish and snobby.

  Maybe it was time for me to move on.

  “I can’t believe I kicked Felice in the face,” I said, my body aching as Mindy and I retreated to the locker room after an exhausting practice. “I’m never going to get all these stunts.”

  “Yes you will,” Mindy said. “You’re doing great. You’ve learned a liberty, a scorpion and a double-base extension in less than two weeks. That’s crazy.”

  “Now, if I could just learn to dismount without maiming my teammates,” I joked.

  We sat down on a bench to try on the new cheerleading kicks Coach Holmes had ordered for us. My body was bruised, battered and way angry at me, but I couldn’t wait to get into those shoes. Somehow just having them made the whole thing seem official.

  “They’re so white,” Mindy said, standing in front of the full-length mirror. “They make my feet look like a couple of cruise ships.”

  “They’re not that bad,” I said with a laugh.

  I was about to get up and check my own reflection when we heard the door swing open. Mindy and I caught each other’s eyes as Tara’s voice filled the locker room. I had thought everyone had already gone home.

  “Come on, Phoebe, you have to go,” Tara said. “It’s gonna be fun. Remember fun?”

  “Yes, I remember fun,” Phoebe’s morose voice replied. “I’m just not in the mood for a party right now.”

  Mindy tiptoed over to me and perched on the bench. We both sat there in rigid silence. Should we make noise and let them know we were there, or eavesdrop like we were already doing? I was too petrified to move, so apparently we were going with option B.

  “Pheebs, is there anything we can do?” Whitney’s voice chimed in. “If you just want to talk, we could go over to Dolly’s, have some ice cream.”

  “Nah. I think I’m just gonna go home,” Phoebe said.

  Her voice broke on the word “home.” I looked at Mindy. I couldn’t take this anymore. So what if she’d told me to stay away from her—repeatedly? She sounded so heartbroken, I had to try to help.

  I stood up, bit back my fear of the senior triumvirate and walked around the corner. They were sitting in a huddle on the low bench, and they all looked startled when they saw me there. Phoebe was as pale as a cloud and her eyes were rimmed with red.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey.” Whitney was the only one who answered.

  “I was just . . . over there and I heard you guys talking, and . . .” I swallowed hard and steeled myself. “Phoebe, I’m really sorry about everything, and if there’s ever anything I can do—”

  Suddenly Phoebe burst into tears and ran for the bathroom section of the locker room. I heard a stall door slam and convulsing sobs ricocheted off the tile walls. It was beyond awful. Had anyone ever hated me as much as Phoebe Cook did right then?

  “Nice one, brain trust,” Tara said, getting up and following after her friend.

  Whitney gave me a sympathetic look before joining them. I grabbed my stuff and headed out the back door with a quick good-bye to Mindy. It was about time for me and my social ineptitude to call it a day.

  When I walked into my ever-deteriorating house fifteen minutes later, the first thing I heard was a laugh. A girl’s laugh. A familiarly cloying girl’s laugh.

  Sitting in the living room with Gabe, Tucker and Joe was none other than Sage Barnard. She was sipping a soda, twirling her hair around her finger and inching her bare knees closer and closer to my brother’s thigh.

  Can you say überslut?

  Suddenly every positive my brain had recorded about the upcoming party was forgotten. I forgot about how many people had spoken to me that day who had never acknowledged my existence before. I forgot about the chatter-happy cheerleaders. I forgot about Daniel’s sentence of perfection. I had had a bad day topped off by a horrendous afternoon and two minutes of concentrated misery in the locker room.

  I had to take it out on someone. And at that moment, Gabe-rot was the nearest thing I had to a scapegoat.

  “Gabe?” I said, dropping my bags on the floor behind the couch. “Can I talk to you? Alone?”

  Gabe and Sage looked over their shoulders at me.

  “Baby sis! Take a load off! We’re just about to start the Godfather marathon,” Gabe said.

  “No, thanks. I really need to talk to you,” I said, pointedly ignoring Sage’s presence. “In the kitchen?”

  Gabe laughed. “We’re all friends here, dude. Whatever you got to say to me, you can say in front of my buds.”

  “Okay, fine,” I said, riding my wave of righteous indignation. I walked around to the front of the couch and lifted my chin. “It’s about the party. Thanks to someone’s serious lack of subtlety, this thing has turned into an open house.”

  Gabe blinked. “So?”

  “So? You swore—no parties,” I said. “Mom and Dad are going to freak.”

  Now they all laughed. Sage was sitting in my living room, laughing at me.

  “Mom and Dad are not going to freak, because Mom and Dad are not going to find out,” Gabe said.

  “Please! They always find out,” I said. “Can’t we just tone it down a little? Invite a few close friends or something? Does it have to be the party of the century?”

  There was a moment of prolonged silence. Gabe looked around at Tucker and Joe and nodded slowly
, as if he were mulling it over. For a split second I believed that I had gotten through to him.

  Then he cracked up laughing again and the rest of them joined in. “I’m sorry, I just can’t keep a straight face,” he said. He stood up, cupped my face in his hands and tilted his head condescendingly. “Poor little baby,” he said, patting my cheek. “Why don’t you go up to your room and I’ll come read you a bedtime story in a couple of hours?”

  This sent Tucker, Joe and Sage into hysterics. I felt like I was about to burst into tears. My brother had embarrassed me a million times in the past, but how could he humiliate me in front of his friends like that? In front of Sage!

  I grabbed my stuff, ran upstairs and slammed my door. Gabe-rot was so going to pay for this. I had no idea how, but I was going to make him pay.

  The party was like a scene from a movie. More because I was sitting in the corner, munching on popcorn and watching it happen, than because it was so wild. Bethany hadn’t returned my calls, so I was hanging with Mindy. We had taken refuge in the little alcove near the stairs for most of the night, watching as more and more people I didn’t know poured in through every available door. The noise level hovered somewhere around the decibel of Times Square, Millennium Eve.

  Sage and Gabe were sitting on one end of the couch. Sage’s hands were on his chest, her head kept touching his shoulder and Gabe was smiling like heaven had plunked an angel right in his lap.

  Barf.

  Daniel wasn’t there yet, so he hadn’t been subjected to this disgusting display. I wasn’t sure whether to hope he’d show and see what a bitch Sage was, or whether to hope he wouldn’t show and therefore not get his heart broken.

  It’s tough having a conscience.

  “I cannot believe her,” I said, looking away before the image of Sage twisting one of Gabe’s curls around her finger was burned on my brain forever.

  “I know. Why doesn’t she just break up with Daniel already?” Mindy said.

  “Does she want to break up with Daniel?” I asked, intrigued.