Pretty Ugly

by Karyn Langhorne Folan

  Jamee sometimes felt as if she had become invisible. Cheerleading was an anchor that stopped that. It was hers, not Darcy’s. It was stable, not changing. She looked forward to it like an old friend.

  Snap!

  Jamee felt a pop just beneath her nose.

  “Hello, Earth to Jamee? Did you hear me?” Amberlynn asked, snapping her fingers again.

  Jamee blinked. “Sorry. What did you say?”

  Amberlynn rolled her bright brown eyes and grinned. “I said we both have to make this team, so we can hang out together. ” She jabbed Jamee with a playful elbow. “So no sleeping out there. We got a lot of competition. ”

  Jamee shook off her thoughts and looked around. The bleachers had filled with girls, each wearing a numbered sticker on her chest. It seemed every girl who had ever done a cartwheel had decided to come to the gym. Except for Tasha Jenkins, who sat a couple of rows down with some older-looking girls. Jamee didn’t see anyone from her middle school squad.

  “Wow, there are enough girls here to make about five cheering squads,” Jamee murmured, feeling suddenly nervous.

  “It’s true. You gotta figure that most of the girls who were on the squad last year will make it again,” Amberlynn said softly. “That means only, like, six of us will make it. ”

  Jamee took a deep breath. She had been a good cheerleader in middle school, but she knew Bluford was going to be a whole new world, just like her classes. For a split second, she remembered that she was supposed to meet Mrs. Guessner after school.

  But then Coach Seville strode into the gym. There was no turning back now.

  Chapter 2

  “Welcome, ladies!”

  Coach Seville, the advisor for the cheering squad, was a petite lady who had once been a gymnast. Jamee had heard rumors that she had gone to the Olympics when she was younger, but she was pretty sure that couldn’t be right. People who had competed in the Olympics didn’t end up at Bluford High, she figured.

  “I’m glad to see so many of you interested in cheering on Bluford’s Varsity squad,” she shouted. Jamee was surprised at how loud her voice was: the tiny woman could bellow across the gym as if she had a microphone.

  “But cheerleading isn’t about wearing cute uniforms. It is a sport—the most dangerous one in high school. Cheerleaders are athletes, as much as football players or basketball players. And as athletes, cheerleaders are expected to work as a team, to maintain a solid grade point average, and to reach for excellence. So if you’re here for a cute uniform, let me tell you right now, this is not the place for you. You might as well leave right now. ”

  She paused. The gym was quiet and tense. Jamee’s legs twitched with nervous energy.

  “We’re going to spend the next couple of days teaching you routines and jumps. Then, on Thursday, you’ll perform for me in small groups of three or four. Finally, on Friday, I’ll post the list of girls who’ve made the Varsity squad on the bulletin board outside. Everyone know where that is?”

  The crowd of girls mumbled and nodded from the bleachers.

  “Now in a few minutes, our captains—Crystal, Michelle, and Julesa— will teach you a routine. You’ll have some time to practice it today, to ask questions, to learn it. Tomorrow, we’ll work on jumps. At the minimum, you must be able to do a toe-touch, a herkie, a pike, and splits. If you don’t know what those are,” she smiled, “you’ll find out tomorrow. If you know any tumbling—gymnastics—you’ll definitely want to make sure you show me that by the time you and your group perform. Wednesday you’ll have a chance to put everything together and get any extra help before Thursday’s auditions. Does everyone understand?”

  There were some quiet murmurs from the girls in the stands.

  Coach Seville shook her head as if she was a little disappointed. “Ladies, you’re going to have to do better than that,” she said. “Crystal! Michelle! Julesa!” she bellowed. “Show ’em. ”

  “Yes, Coach!” the girls boomed.

  “Better. ” She turned toward the stands again. “Now let me hear you!”

  “Yes, Coach!” Jamee and the other girls shouted. The gym rocked with the sounds of their voices.

  “Okay. The co-captains will demonstrate, then it will be your turn. ”

  Crystal and her two co-captains did a routine, first really fast, then slowly three more times. Jamee had never heard the chant, but she recognized a lot of the moves from middle school. They had worked a step dance routine into the middle of the cheer that wasn’t familiar at all.

  “That’s the hard part,” Amberlynn whispered. “That’s how they’re gonna weed us out. ”

  Jamee nodded. It looked challenging.

  “All right!” Coach Seville hollered. “Off your behinds and onto the floor!”

  Jamee and the other girls lined up in long rows that covered the gym from one end to the other. Amberlynn stood on Jamee’s left and a skinny girl in glasses took the place on her right. Crystal, Michelle, and Julesa stood in front of the large group.

  “And ready?” Crystal cried.

  “Ready!” Michelle and Julesa shouted back.

  “Three, two, one . . . let’s go!”

  The routine was even more difficult than it looked from the bleachers. Jamee was soon struggling to keep the chant and the movements together in her mind. As tough as the cheer was, the step routine in the middle was even worse. The girl next to Jamee was having a really hard time. She jumped when she should have clapped, pivoted right when she should have moved left, and stomped when she should have slid to the side. At one point, she came too close to Jamee and stomped her foot so hard, Jamee felt her toes throbbing inside her shoes.

  “Sorry,” the girl mumbled each time she and Jamee bumped into each other. “Sorry. ” She sounded so nervous Jamee wondered how she had found the courage to try out.

  “It’s okay,” Jamee said, but it really wasn’t. There was no way this girl would make the Bluford cheerleading squad— even if she had a month to practice.

  At last it was over.

  “All right, ladies,” Coach Seville boomed over them. “Does everyone have it?”

  A few girls nodded, and a few others murmured quiet “yeahs. ” But the clumsy girl beside Jamee shouted out, “Yes, Coach!” She was so loud she sounded as if someone had stuck a pin in her.

  Jamee heard snickering and turned her head. Tasha Jenkins had covered her mouth with her hand. She was standing beside one of the girls she had sat with on the bleachers, a tall girl with long, straight hair that didn’t look real. She was really pretty but wore a lot of makeup. Jamee knew Mom would have said “Wash your face” if she had caught Jamee going out like that.

  “Pathetic,” the long haired girl murmured behind her hand.

  “Who’s that?” Jamee asked Amberlynn, careful to keep her voice down.

  “Her name is Vanessa Pierce,” Amberlynn whispered back. “She’s a junior. She didn’t make the squad last year. I heard she hasn’t stopped practicing since then. ”

  “How does Tasha know her?”

  Amberlynn just shrugged.

  There were a few more giggles, but then they suddenly stopped. Jamee looked up and saw that Coach Seville was approaching. She had a scowl on her face as she slowly paced closer and stopped in front of the nervous toestomping girl.

  “That’s what I want to hear! Enthusiasm!” Coach Seville said, squinting at the girl’s yellow sticker. “Number thirty-five. What’s your name?”

  The girl pushed her glasses up her nose and grinned. “Angel,” she replied. “Angel McAllister. ”

  “Well, I like your spirit, Angel McAllister,” Coach Seville said. “Spirit and enthusiasm are a big part of being a good cheerleader. ”

  “Thank you,” Angel said.

  “Suck up!” someone croaked from the back of the gym.

  Angel hung her head. Jamee felt sorry for her, but in a way, the heckler was right. In spite of her loudness and Coach Seville’s compliment, Angel didn’t seem particularly confident or
enthusiastic.

  Coach Seville’s head jerked upward, and she glared toward the back of the gym.

  “If I hear that again, the person who says it will be asked to leave and not be permitted to audition at all. ” She said the last two words so firmly Jamee knew she meant business. “On this squad, we treat each other with respect. You hear me?”

  “Yes,” the girls mumbled.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you,” barked the coach.

  “YES!” answered the girls, much louder this time.

  “That’s better!” Coach Seville replied, grabbing a clipboard off the edge of the bleachers. “Now, I’m going to break you into smaller groups and give you a few more minutes to practice. And then, just to get you ready for auditions, I’m going to ask each group to perform for us. Are you ready?”

  A loud “Yes, Coach” erupted from all over the room as the girls scrambled to get ready. But this time, Jamee noticed that Angel didn’t join in. Instead, the skinny girl stared at her shoes as if she had never seen them before.

  Jamee could hear her muttering to herself, “Left, left, right, kick, clap, slap, turn . . . left, left, right, kick, clap, slap, turn” repeating the order of the steps to herself like a chant. It was sort of weird.

  Coach Seville then counted them off. Jamee, Amberlynn, and Angel were assigned to different groups. Jamee forgot all about the strange girl as she practiced the routine with her group. They stumbled a bit, but by the time Coach Seville boomed out “Time’s up!” she was pretty sure she wouldn’t embarrass herself in front of the other girls.

  “Group one, front and center, please!”

  A line of girls rose from the bleachers, including Angel and Tasha’s new friend Vanessa.

  “Go home,” Vanessa muttered to Angel as she strutted past her onto the gym floor. Jamee looked up in surprise. She glanced at Coach Seville, who didn’t seem to hear Vanessa’s comment.

  Angel looked as if she had been slapped.

  “Crystal’s going to count off,” Coach Seville told them. “Then you start. Ready?”

  “Ready!” the girls in the group shouted back, sounding like a military drill team saluting their general.

  Crystal counted off and they started. Most of the girls had the opening of the cheer down, but there were a couple who messed up from the first sequence.

  “And break!” they chanted, moving into the step routine.

  Jamee watched as everything fell apart. She was surprised to see how messy the girls looked. Most didn’t seem to remember the steps, and two of the girls just stopped halfway through. The only two girls who did anything close to the routine were Vanessa . . . and Angel. Vanessa did everything so perfectly it was as if she had made it up herself. She even tossed her hair and swung her hips and smiled as if she was selling something. Jamee had to give it to her. The girl could move.

  But to Jamee’s surprise, Angel could, too. She stepped left instead of right twice and bumped into the girl next to her once. But that didn’t matter because she recovered immediately and kept going, with her head down and her eyes locked on her feet. She didn’t look up at all—not even long enough to see how much the other girls were messing up. When the sequence ended, the girls on the bleachers clapped politely.

  “Thank you, ladies. Some of you have a lot of work to do before Thursday. And almost all of you need to find your smile. Even when you mess up, you should be smiling,” Coach Seville said. “Let’s go, group two. ”

  Vanessa strolled off the floor with a big grin on her face. Tasha nearly fell out of the bleachers to congratulate her. Jamee didn’t like watching it. Besides, Amberlynn’s group was up next. She crossed her fingers for her friend as Crystal called out.

  “Ready? Three, two, one . . . let’s go!” and the group began their cheer.

  Amberlynn did pretty well. Like Vanessa, she kept her head up with a big smile on her face as Coach Seville said, even though she messed up a few times. Then Jamee’s group got called.

  Jamee gave it all she had, pushing away Mrs. Guessner and her algebra test and the gnawing feeling that she was making a mistake. Instead, she kept her head up with a smile on her face, and she pushed.

  When the step routine began, she heard a strange voice in the back of her mind, like a chant.

  “Left, left, right, kick, clap, slap, turn. ” It was Angel’s, and it helped.

  When she finished, Jamee was sweating, but she knew she hadn’t missed a single step.

  “That was great!” Amberlynn said, squeezing Jamee’s shoulder. “Actually, it was perfect! How’d you memorize it so fast?”

  “It wasn’t me really,” Jamee began. “It was—”

  “That’s all for today, everyone!” Coach Seville’s loud voice interrupted her. “See you here tomorrow, same time. ”

  Jamee and Amberlynn stood up with the other girls and filed out of the gym. Jamee took a quick look around for Angel McAllister. She almost wanted to thank her.

  But the odd girl was already gone.

  Chapter 3

  “Yo, Jamee,” Desmond Hodden yelled as she came out of the building. “It’s about time, girl. I was about to come into that gym and get you myself. ”

  “Yeah, right,” Jamee said with a smile as he approached. “Coach Seville woulda kicked your butt all over the gym if you’d stepped foot in there. ”

  “You’re probably right. That woman’s fierce!” Dez said before giving her a sloppy kiss.

  Jamee had been seeing Dez all summer. He was the nicest boy she had ever hung out with, even though Darcy thought they kissed too much. So what? Jamee figured. Darcy wasn’t Mom, and Jamee wasn’t about to let her sister tell her how to be with boys. Forget that.

  “Dang, J!” he cried, looking at the clothes she wore to cheerleading practice. “These shorts are short!” He grinned and then broke into some lines of a popular song.

  Baby got a booty; it’s workin’ double

  duty

  Fillin’ out her jeans, she’s my little

  cutie—

  “Stop it, Dez!” Jamee yelled, suddenly feeling embarrassed. Many of the girls from tryouts were hanging around in front of the school, and Dez’s singing had gotten their attention. Some were staring at them. Jamee cringed inside and started walking.

  “Hey, it’s just a song,” Dez laughed as he fell into step beside her. “I was just messin’ around, that’s all. Besides, you look good. Why can’t I speak the truth? It’s what guys do with their girlfriends, right?” He dropped an arm over her shoulder.

  “That’s not the point,” Jamee said. She wanted to get away from the front of the school where everyone could hear them.

  “Hey, Jamee! Hold up!”

  Jamee turned. Tasha Jenkins was behind them, along with Vanessa Pierce and a couple of other girls Jamee didn’t know.

  Dez’s arm dropped off Jamee’s shoulder as the girls approached.

  Even though Tasha had also gone to Irving Middle School, Jamee never really considered her a friend. There was always something a bit fake about her that kept Jamee from getting too close. Tasha’s smile always seemed to be just a little too big, or her eyes just a little too curious, even now as she walked closer.

  “I want you to meet some people. Jamee, this is Vanessa. ” Tasha sounded as if she was introducing them to royalty. “And her friends Renita and Kym. This is Jamee. And her boyfriend, Desmond. ”

  Vanessa looked Jamee over as if she was inspecting something.

  “You were good, Jamee. You’ll probably make the squad unless you screw up big time on Thursday,” she said confidently. “Trust me. I’ve been through this before. Last year, I knew the first day who was going to make it and who wasn’t. ” She flipped her head and made her long hair fly.

  Up close, Jamee was sure Vanessa’s hair wasn’t real, but it still looked nice. And with her curvy hips and her chest filling her T-shirt, Vanessa seemed like the kind of girl you would see in a magazine. Jamee suddenly felt small and almost boyish, no matter w
hat Dez said. His eyes were on Vanessa, too.

  “I would’ve made it last year, but I sprained my ankle doing a roundoff and had to sit out while it healed,” she explained. “But from what I’ve seen, I think you’re good enough to make it. ”

  “Thanks,” Jamee replied, almost blushing. There was something about being praised by Vanessa that made her feel as if she had already made the cheerleading squad.

  “But I have to say, some of these girls were just a mess,” Vanessa continued, her face scrunching as if she saw something that disgusted her. “You know, the ones stepping on people’s toes? Mumbling the steps to themselves? The ones who can’t even cheer and smile at the same time?” She rolled her eyes. “We don’t need no clumsy girls embarrassing us, do we?”

  “No way,” Renita agreed. She was lighter-skinned, with curly hair that framed her face. “People will laugh us off the field when we play Zamora. We can’t have that. ”

  Though no one said it, Jamee knew they were talking about Angel. She felt awkward talking about the girl behind her back.

  “I saw you, Jamee. You got stepped on, like, a million times,” Vanessa said sympathetically. “Seriously, I felt bad for you. ”

  “It wasn’t that bad,” Jamee said, trying to change the subject. “I mean, everyone was messin’ up at first. ” She knew she wasn’t telling the whole truth. Angel had been really uncoordinated in the beginning. And her foot still hurt from where the girl had stomped it.

  “I’m sorry, but that girl Angel was the worst,” Kym cut in. She had brown skin and wore her hair pulled back in a smooth black bun. “Did you see the look on her face while she was doing the routine?” she asked. Then she scrunched her face into a tight frown, imitating Angel. “She looked retarded or something. ”

  Tasha cackled loudly. Too loudly, Jamee thought.

  “That’s funny!” she cried, clapping her hands. “Retarded. That’s exactly what she looked like!” Tasha crossed her eyes and twisted her lips, making her face distorted and ugly. “Go Bluford!” she yelled, her voice loud and unnatural, mocking the way Angel yelled out during practice.