by Kieran Scott
“A geometry high,” I said. I whipped the folded test out of the back pocket of my jeans and unfolded it, holding it up for both of them to see. The red 90 was visible even through the back of the page.
“Oh . . . my . . . God. I don’t believe it,” Tara said, taking the test from me. She looked down at the page, slack-jawed. “I am a genius!”
“Apparently you are, ’Cause I couldn’t have done it without you,” I said. “So thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Tara said. She beamed with satisfaction as she handed the test back to me.
“So, I assume this means you’re competing?” Coach Holmes asked.
“I am all yours,” I told her, extending my arms.
“Good. Now get your butt changed. Let’s get cracking.”
During the final run-through of the routine that afternoon, I knew. I knew like you know for sure that a guy likes you, or that you’re kicking butt during an oral exam, or that you’re gonna hit the high note that you’ve never hit before.
We . . . were . . . on!
When I went up in my second basket toss, I caught so much air, I thought I was never coming down. Coach Holmes clenched her fist and shouted a “Yes!” as I was caught. My grin widened and I slammed into my next move. Our clasps were in perfect unison, the back tucks all stuck at exactly the right beat. I popped up into position for that last scale, then fell back into Chandra and Autumn’s arms. The next and last pyramid went up flawlessly. I took my position up front as Sage, Phoebe and Kimberly towered behind me. The music came to its crashing crescendo and we were all perfectly in place. Coach Holmes went wild!
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” she shouted as we all came down, grinning from ear to ear.
I flew into Mindy’s arms and hugged Felice and Phoebe. We all jumped up and down, somehow finding our way into a huge huddle in the middle of the gym—one big mass of laughing, sweaty, giddy girls.
“We are so there!” Tara shouted through all the glee. “We are so there!”
“Eyeliner in place . . . all hair curled under . . . no panty line to speak of. . . .” I turned and double-checked my backside in the full-length mirror. One could never be too careful about panty lines. “I think I’m ready,” I said to myself, relishing the mixture of nerves and excitement on my face.
My first date with Daniel. The moment I’d been waiting for since the second I’d met him. It was actually going to happen. The doorbell rang and my pulse rushed forward. I grabbed my purse and ran downstairs so I could get to the door before my parents did.
“Whoa! Slow down! You can’t compete with a broken leg!” my dad said as I blew by him and Mom.
“Be cool!” I warned them, hand on the doorknob.
“Are we ever anything else?” my mom asked.
I rolled my eyes at her, but smiled, and opened the door.
Daniel had a single white lily. He was wearing a blue short-sleeved button-down and khaki shorts and had some kind of product in his hair. This was definitely a real date.
“Hey,” he said. “You look . . . wow.”
Chalk one up for the little black dress. “Thanks! You too!”
“Here,” he said, holding out the lily. “For you.”
“Thanks,” I replied, grinning. This was when the parentals decided to make their presence known. They stepped out from behind the door and Daniel’s eyes widened.
“Hello, Daniel,” my mother said. I could immediately tell she approved.
“Mr. and Mrs. Gobrowski! Nice to meet you,” he said.
“You’re the young man who gave my daughter his jacket to use as a pillow in the slammer?” my father said.
“Dad!”
“Uh . . . yeah. That was me,” Daniel said.
“Well, that was very thoughtful of you,” my father said. “I trust neither one of you will be needing a prison pillow this evening?”
“Dad!”
“No, sir,” Daniel said. “And we’ll be back before curfew.”
“Yes, you will.”
“Okay! We’re going now!” I said. I handed my mom the flower and headed for Daniel’s car, only hoping he’d follow before my father could utter another word.
“Bye!” Daniel shouted over his shoulder.
I was already buckling my seat belt when he got in. “So, where’re we going?” I asked, the butterflies in my chest having a field day.
“Well, I promised something crazy, so I’m taking you to the craziest place in Sand Dune,” he said with that heart-stopping grin. “You ready?”
I grinned back. “You have no idea.”
My eyes were trained on the back of Daniel’s head as I slammed my foot on the gas and cut the wheel as hard as I could. The wind stung my eyes and whipped my hair around. My skirt was riding up to precarious points. But I couldn’t stop. I had to catch him. It was do or die.
“Hey, Healy!” I shouted out as my go-cart roared up alongside his. “Eat my dust!”
I pressed the pedal all the way to the floor and cut him off on the sharpest turn. For a split second my stomach veered the wrong way and I had a vision of my little park-mobile flipping over and bursting into flames. But I made the turn and hit the finish line yards ahead of my date.
Nothing like a little healthy competition to get the night started right.
Daniel hopped out of his go-cart and stepped up next to mine. “Remind me never to get in a car with you,” he said.
“Hey. That’s how we drive in Jersey,” I said, struggling for a way to get out of the car without exposing my nether regions. Daniel finally offered me both his hands and pulled me up. My foot caught on the side of the go-cart and I fell sideways into him.
Daniel looked down at me. My whole body was pressed into his. And it was strong, solid, totally shiver-inducing. What did I expect from a guy who did footballwrestlingandtrack?
“You all right?” Daniel asked with a grin. He tucked some wayward hair behind my ear.
Oh, God. He was going to kiss me. He was going to kiss me right there on the motor speedway at Cartelli’s Family Amusement Park. I hadn’t been kissed since the eighth grade when Ronnie Wagner had coaxed me into the basement at his best friend Gareth’s birthday party. Did I even remember how to do it?
“Come on,” he said, reaching for my hand. “Mini-golf is next. I’ll kick your butt at mini-golf.”
So much for that.
I relished the warmth of Daniel’s hand around mine as we headed for the elaborate, twisty pathways of the mini-golf course. A couple of kids screamed as they chased by us, clutching helium balloons. I laughed and looked up at Daniel.
“How is this the craziest thing we’ve ever done?” I asked, grabbing a putter.
“Well, it’s not crazy for me. I’ve been here about a thousand times,” Daniel said. “But it’s the craziest thing Sand Dune has to offer, so this whole thing’s for you.”
“Well, that’s not fair,” I said as I dropped my yellow ball on the first putting green. “We were both supposed to get to do something crazy. What about you?”
“My crazy thing comes later,” he said with a mischievous grin.
“Oooh. Intriguing,” I said. “Naked bungee jumping? Midnight parasailing? Oooh! Are you gonna eat one of those Domino’s Philly Cheesesteak Pizzas?”
Daniel looked at me, amused. “You have one weird brain in there,” he said.
I smiled and whacked my ball right into a water trap. “I get that a lot.”
“There’s one more thing I want to do,” Daniel said as he pulled his car into my driveway that night. After go-carts, bumper cars, two rounds of mini-golf, batting cages and a banana split the size of my house, what was left to do? Unless . . .
He killed the engine and I could barely breathe. Was he going to kiss me now? I had thought he was going to do it on the speedway, then I’d thought he was going to do it after his first hole-in-one, then I’d thought he was going to do it over ice cream when he’d practically arm-wrestled me for the cherry.
But now. Now d
efinitely seemed like the moment.
Okay, don’t panic. Your lips will know what to do. Just like riding a bike. He smiled at me and the air in the car grew insanely warm. My eyes started to flutter closed, I did a mental check of my breath . . . and then the car door opened.
I blinked in surprise. What was going on?
The door let out that bong, bong, bong sound as Daniel popped the front seat forward and reached into the back to pull out . . . his guitar! This was it! He was finally going to play for me! This was even better than a kiss. Well, almost.
“Come on,” he said mischievously. He yanked his keys from the ignition and slammed the door. I scrambled out after him and followed him to the backyard.
“Where’re we going?” I asked.
“I need someplace to sit,” he replied.
I glanced up at my parents’ bedroom window as I walked over to turn the pool light on. The window was totally dark. Thank goodness. If Daniel was going to play right here and now, the last thing I needed was Mom and Dad walking in on the moment.
“Okay,” Daniel said, sitting down sideways on a lounge chair. He placed his guitar on his knees and blew out a breath. “This is actually my something crazy,” he said. “Remember I told you I’ve never played for anyone before?”
“Yeah,” I said, smoothing my dress down under me as I sat.
“Well, besides Mr. Harrison, the guitar teacher at school,” he said. “But anyway, you’re gonna be my first.”
“I’m taking your guitar virginity!” I said. Then wanted to die.
But Daniel laughed. “Something like that. Anyway, I want to try out for the jazz ensemble this winter and I’m kind of freaking out about it.”
“Jazz ensemble?” I asked.
“It’s, like, this cool ten-piece band the school has,” Daniel explained. “They need a new guitarist, so . . .”
Suddenly something clicked into place. “That’s why you’re not doing wrestling!”
“Yeah . . . wow.” Daniel looked mildly disturbed. “How did you remember that?”
I pointed at my temple. “Steel trap,” I said. At least it was when it came to random factoids about guys I liked. But he didn’t need to know that.
“Well, anyway, you’re about to tell me whether or not I should bother risking the wrath of my father and trying out,” Daniel said, adjusting one of the strings.
“He wants you to wrestle?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Daniel replied. “And he can be pretty psycho about these things, so I’m only doing this if you say I’m really good. No pressure or anything.”
I laughed. “No. None at all.”
“Okay,” Daniel said. He cleared his throat. “Here goes.”
Daniel started to play and I was . . . mesmerized. I watched his fingers plucking at the strings, let the notes slip over me like a silky sheet. I didn’t recognize the piece, but it was slow and intricate and really, really sad. Daniel shook his head back and forth slightly as he played. He closed his eyes like the music was just taking him over. At the crescendo I actually shivered. It was like the chords were coming from inside of me.
This boy could not possibly be any more perfect. For the first time ever, I felt like I really might be falling in love. This had to be what it felt like.
And then he stopped and there was nothing but silence. A breeze rustled the palms above our heads.
“Well?” he said hopefully. “What do you think?”
At that moment I stopped wondering about whether we were ever going to kiss. I leaned forward, knocking our knees together, and kissed him myself, right on the lips.
For a split second he didn’t move. He didn’t respond in any way. And for a split second I thought I was going to have to kill myself right there.
But then, he slid the guitar away and cupped my face in his hands. It was such a sweet and tender thing to do, it sent everything inside of me racing. He was kissing me back! Daniel was kissing me back!
When we finally broke apart, I was all flushed and my eyelids felt so heavy, they didn’t want to open. Daniel’s were droopy too, and he looked a little dazed. Like he didn’t understand what was happening. But then he broke into a slow, wide grin.
“A girl who makes the first move,” he said. “I like it.”
I giggled and tried to stop my hands from shaking. I couldn’t believe I’d just done that.
“But I get to make the second,” he said.
Then, before I knew what was happening, Daniel had pulled me into his lap and was kissing me like I’d never been kissed before.
It was another movie moment. But this one lasted a good forty-five minutes. All PG-rated, of course.
We took a big yellow bus to the competition. A big yellow bus with a caravan of about thirty cars behind it. Parents, students, teachers—all with their cars covered in blue and yellow paint or trailing blue and yellow balloons and streamers—followed us from the Sand Dune High parking lot all the way to Clearwater High, where the competition was being held. I had never seen anything like it.
“This is insane,” I said, looking out the window as we made a turn so I could see the trail of cars, my parents’ and Gabe’s included.
“People take their cheerleading very seriously around here,” Whitney shouted.
She had to shout to be heard. The bus was loud. Sixteen hyped-up cheerleaders and their coach laughing, gabbing, pretending they weren’t scared to death? That translates into deafening. You’d think that after spending half the night gossiping, baking cookies and dancing together in Chandra’s living room, we would be totally out of steam, but we weren’t. I was more hyped-up than I’d ever been. All morning, I had felt first-day-of-school jitters compounded about twenty times. And also I really had to pee, like, every second. Somehow, shouting and laughing at the top of my lungs made it all feel better. I supposed everyone else was working the same remedy.
I reached into my bag and toyed with Jordan’s lucky pen. It had arrived via UPS that morning and I had cried when I opened the package. It was the pen Derek Jeter had signed a baseball with for her two summers ago at Yankee Stadium, and it had been her lucky charm ever since. (Jordan worshipped Derek in a seriously unhealthy way. Like a borderline-stalker way.) So basically it was a big deal that she had let it out of her sight—that she had dared trust it to the United Parcel Service. I wished she was there in person, but having the Derek Jeter pen meant a lot.
We arrived at Clearwater, a one-story structure with a huge WELCOME CHEERLEADERS banner draped across the front door, and clambered out of the bus. A crowd of girls in yellow-and-black warm-up suits, their hair crimped and slicked back into ponytails, rushed inside ahead of us. The second we were through the door, we were assaulted by the spirit cheer from all directions.
“We got spirit, yes we do! We got spirit, how ’bout you!?”
My whole squad instantly took the cheer up without even blinking. Thank God I was toward the back. I was too dumbstruck to process anything that quickly.
“We got spirit, yes we do! We got spirit, how ’bout you!?”
The entire Sand Dune squad, minus me, pointed at the crimped bumblebee girls. Once they did their round, everyone applauded and we were able to move on.
The school lobby was awash with color. A squad of girls in black and green huddled in the corner while their captain gave instructions, her tone intense. As we passed by a hallway, I saw a couple of girls practicing a stunt and nearly taking the climber’s head off because the ceiling was too low. Something slammed into my shoulder as a pack of red-and-white girls jogged by me and crowded into the bathroom. No one bothered to apologize, but I didn’t blame them. There was too much adrenaline bounding around to think straight.
“How many teams are in this thing, anyway?” I asked, pressing my damp palms into my skirt.
“Twelve in our division. Plus Clearwater will probably do an exhibition performance,” Coach Holmes said.
“The hosting team doesn’t compete,” Phoebe explained.
“Twelve?” I said, my throat going dry. “Isn’t that kind of a lot?”
“Don’t think about that now,” Tara said, grabbing my arm. “We have more important issues to deal with.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Like your hair,” Chandra told me.
I knew this was coming. Everyone else on the squad had their blonde tresses pulled back in French braids and tied off with the same blue, yellow and white bow. Everyone except Whitney, who had managed to secure her choppy ‘do back with what looked like a year’s supply of hairspray and more bobby pins than I knew existed on Earth. Uniformity definitely mattered.
“Okay, let’s do this,” Tara said, pulling me into a corner with Chandra and Whitney.
“Let’s do what, exactly?” I asked as Chandra crouched to the ground and yanked open a duffel bag. “Please tell me you don’t have Herbal Essences Amazon Gold in there.”
“I wish,” Tara said.
“Don’t move and this will be painless,” Whitney told me.
She lied. First they emptied about half a can of aerosol spray into my hair (good-bye, ozone layer!). My forehead took such a dousing I knew I’d be unclogging my pores until the end of time. Then Whitney smoothed my hair back behind my ears and started shoving bobby pins in along the base of my skull.
“Um . . . ow!” I said.
“Be a woman,” Tara said testily.
Chandra clenched one of the SDH bows in her teeth and examined the back of my head. “She’s got a little length back here,” she said, pulling at my hair so hard, my head snapped back. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Ten minutes of prodding, yanking and griping later, and I had a My Little Pony–sized ponytail sticking out the back of my head, secured with the approved SDH cheerleader ribbon. My scalp burned and my temples throbbed. Everything felt so tight, I was sure my eyes were pulled into slits.
Tara, Whitney and Chandra stepped back to check their work.
“Not bad,” Whitney said with a nod.
“She looks the same from the front,” Chandra said. “Well . . . almost.”