A Non-Blonde Cheerleader in Love

by Kieran Scott

  “What?” about ten of us said in unison.

  “What? Daniel and Terrell called me to talk and . . . I thought it would help!” Rincon replied. He turned to Coach Holmes. “Remember that year we went to the final four and no one was speaking? Remember how much fun we had together on that trip?”

  “Leo, that was totally different,” Coach Holmes said. “I can’t believe you told a bunch of teenage boys to crash a teenage girls’ slumber party!”

  He blinked. Apparently the “teenage” part hadn’t occurred to him before. “Well, did you tell them to do this?” he said, whirling on her.

  “Of course not!”

  “But you’re condoning it,” he said.

  “Well, what do you want me to do? Shove them out there?” she asked.

  “I want you to get control of your squad!” he replied.

  Whoa. Smack all of us in the face, why don’t you? Coach Holmes stood up straight. She leveled him with a glare that could have brought whole cities to their knees.

  “Are you really going to speak to me like that?” she asked, quaking.

  “I don’t exactly have a choice,” he replied.

  “Then get out,” she said. “Get out of my school, get away from my squad and get away from me,” she said calmly.

  In the gym lobby there was complete silence. Out on the gym floor, Terrell and the others had finally, finally joined Daniel, but they sounded pathetic. “Go! Hey, here we go! Crabs! Go!”

  A couple of people in the stands responded with a lame “Go!” but everyone else just laughed. My heart twisted tighter and tighter and tighter inside my chest until, moments later, it mercifully stopped.

  “You really want to do this, Dee?” Rincon said.

  “Just go,” she said weakly.

  “Fine,” he said. Then he turned and stormed out, letting the door slam behind him.

  “Uh . . . your mighty, fighting Sand Dune Crab cheerleaders!” Dori said into the microphone, her nervous laugh echoing throughout the gym. “Let’s hear it for them!”

  We all looked at each other with dread as Coach Holmes stood there, catatonic.

  A wave of lackluster applause trickled through the crowd in the gym and I closed my eyes against the humiliated and sad tears that threatened to overflow. I wasn’t even humiliated for the guys. I was humiliated for myself. How could I have thought this was a good idea? The guys were miserable, our coaches were miserable, we were all miserable. Didn’t get much worse than that.

  “Thanks a lot, ladies,” Coach said, looking around at us. She ducked her head and walked back into the gym as if she were walking to meet her executioner.

  “Well. That was the most pep-free rally in history,” Tara said.

  I turned around and headed for the nearest bathroom stall.

  “That can’t be a good sign,” Chandra said when we walked into the auditorium that afternoon after school.

  We had found a note taped to the locker room door telling us all not to get changed and to meet here instead of at one of our practice locales. One look at Coach Holmes’ Unibomber scrawl and already we knew we were in serious trouble. When we saw Principal Buzzkill standing near the stage with Coach, their heads bent in conversation, we knew we were dead for sure. My legs turned to jelly as we walked down the center aisle. All four guys sat in the front row on the left side, facing resolutely forward. On the opposite side of the aisle, Jaimee and Autumn turned around in their seats, eyes wide, like lambs about to be sent to the slaughter.

  “What’s he doing here?” Tara hissed, coming up behind us.

  “My guess is, it’s not to offer us school spirit awards,” I told her.

  I dropped into a seat near the center of the second row and gradually all the chairs around me filled in. Autumn sat in front of me, her fingertips and thumbs pressed together and turned toward the rafters as she tried to meditate. Chandra unwrapped a huge Snickers bar and chomped down on it. Tara’s pen tapped against her notebook at a frightening speed.

  “All right. Now that everyone’s here, your principal would like to say a few words,” Coach Holmes announced.

  Principal Buzzkill cleared his throat and stepped forward. He held one arm across his chest and crooked the other so that his fist was covering his mouth, like a man in mourning. His pose was that serious and contemplative. His blond hair glinted under the auditorium lights, which also highlighted his tan skin and handsome features. A man that good-looking was never meant to be a principal. Especially not such a strict, scary one.

  The anticipation of a lecture is never fun. It’s even worse when you know you deserve it. Maybe if I admitted that I was wrong, he’d let me leave.

  Yeah. And maybe tomorrow he’d take us on a free field trip to Universal Studios.

  I took out a red pen and started drawing swirls on the cover of my history notebook. Anything to keep from mistakenly looking him in the eye.

  “What happened this afternoon was unacceptable,” Principal Buzzkill began. As usual, the man pulled no punches. Right to the point, like an arrow to a bull’s-eye. “Pep rallies are an important component of student life at this school. They are meant to engender school spirit and pride. What you people pulled today undermined everything that event stands for. Now, your coach has been trying to explain to me the reasoning behind your actions, and as far as I’m concerned, those reasons are unacceptable. As cheerleaders, your first responsibility is to this school, not to your own petty arguments.”

  The longer he spoke, the further my head bowed. My skin felt like someone had lit a Bunsen burner beneath it. My pen dug deeper and deeper into my notebook cover with each new swirl.

  “Now, I need to meet with the vice principal and the director of athletics to decide what, if any, punishment we’ll hand down for this sorry display,” Buzzkill continued. “But let me just leave you with this one thought. Pep rallies are a privilege, not a right. And privileges can easily be revoked.”

  No. No way. My head snapped up at this and, of course, I looked right into his cold, dead eyes. The man didn’t so much as flinch. I glanced at Tara, who looked like someone had just told her Paul Mitchell was discontinuing her favorite line of hair care products. Damn, Buzzkill was good. He knew exactly where and how hard to twist the screws. I mean, taking away our pep rallies? Why not just drive a stake into our hearts already?

  “Coach Holmes? They’re all yours,” he said.

  Then he walked out, head held high like a man who’d just severely beaten down the enemy.

  “He can’t do that, can he?” Tara said as soon as the door was closed. “We have to have pep rallies.”

  “Like you care,” Terrell said.

  “Yeah, we didn’t exactly have one today,” Daniel said. “And whose fault is that?”

  “Yours,” Sage replied vehemently. “If you hadn’t been such total a—”

  “That’s enough!” Coach shouted, silencing everyone.

  For the first time I realized how unlike herself she looked. Normally the most powerful woman in any room, Coach now looked small and skinny and wan. Her cheeks were slightly sunken and her eyes were tired and makeup-free. Weird. I could have sworn she’d been wearing her usual liner and shadow earlier, which meant that either she had taken it off between the pep rally and now or . . . or she’d been crying.

  Gulp. Apparently these arguments between her and Rincon were pretty serious.

  Coach Holmes took a deep breath and ran both hands over her face. I exchanged a disturbed glance with Chandra. This was not the Coach we knew and loved and sort of feared. This was someone else entirely.

  “Okay, listen, I am willing to admit that I made a mistake here,” she said finally.

  Double gulp. Seriously?

  “I should have never opened up the tryouts to guys because clearly this group is not yet mature enough to handle a coed existence,” she said, staring us down.

  Zing. Okay. There was a little bit of her left in there.

  “But we have a bit of a problem,�
�� she continued, crossing her arms over her chest. “This school needs a cheerleading squad, so as much as I might like to after today’s debacle, I can’t disband the team.”

  Um . . . ouch!

  “But I also can’t throw the guys off the squad, or the girls, without a lawsuit,” she continued. “So here we are,” she said, throwing her arms wide and then letting them slap down. “We are stuck together. And I am out of ideas.”

  I glanced across the aisle at the guys. For once they looked as shamed and small as the rest of us did. Daniel’s face was blotched with red and Steven was leaning his elbow on the armrest, holding his hand over his mouth.

  “So I put it to you,” Coach said finally. She started to gather up her things—her jacket, her bag, her clipboard. “You all need to find a way to fix this and you need to do it fast. Otherwise this season is going to be a total wash.” She started up the aisle, then paused right at the end of our row and turned halfway around. Like she couldn’t even bear to fully look at us anymore. ”I expect to see all of you here tonight at seven for the pregame warm-up. You can give me your solution at that time.”

  As soon as Coach was gone, the room was filled with sighs, like someone had just let the air out of two dozen balloons. We shifted in our seats. Sage and Karianna whispered to each other. Everyone was waiting for someone else to say something first. But what?

  We’re sorry? Did anyone other than me want to say that? And even if we did, would the guys care?

  “Well?” Terrell said finally, turning in his seat and hooking his arm around the back of the chair.

  “Well what?” Tara replied.

  “You really got nothing to say,” Terrell said. “Nothing at all.”

  Tara simply sat there and stared straight ahead, shaking her head in disbelief. Could she really not see that the guys deserved an apology?

  “We’re sorry, all right?” I blurted, standing up.

  “Annisa!” Chandra said.

  “No! We’re not!” Sage put in, whipping around to face me.

  “What’s wrong with you guys?” I asked, feeling desperate enough to pop. “If someone did to us what we just did to them, you’d be freaking out.”

  “They need to apologize to us first,” Tara told me, standing as well. “That’s the way it works.”

  “Like we’re really going to apologize after what you just did to us,” Daniel said.

  He looked so hurt, I just wanted to go over there and hug him. But there was a giant force field between us, keeping me from moving a muscle.

  “Wait a minute, apologize for what?” Terrell asked, incredulous. “What the hell do we need to apologize for?”

  Tara let out an indignant laugh-squeal that echoed through the room.

  “Uh . . . I don’t know . . . for the slumber party, for the props box?” Sage said. “Or how about for your very existence?”

  My head fell forward. Sage had just gone one too far.

  “That’s it. I’m outta here,” Daniel said, grabbing his varsity jacket.

  He stormed out, slamming into the wooden door so hard, it flew open and crashed back against the outer wall.

  Terrell slowly gathered his things, shaking his head and chuckling derisively. “Nice work,” he said as he paused in the center aisle. “Hope you girls come up with something good to tell Coach tonight, because I’m gonna have nothing to say.”

  I swallowed hard and looked around at my friends. Never had I seen so much misery and anger.

  “You guys coming?” he asked.

  Instantly, Joe and Steven were on their feet. The three of them trudged out together, leaving the rest of us to clean up the mess. Unfortunately, it seemed like there wasn’t a cheerleader among us who had a single clue where to start.

  16

  Maybe I’m just a glutton for punishment. Or maybe I’m an eternal optimist. Or maybe I just loved the guy. But whatever the reason, after I left school that afternoon, I went directly to Daniel’s house, do not pass “Go,” do not collect two hundred dollars. I felt so bad for what we’d done to him, I had to try to apologize again. Even if I was still a little bit angry about the slumber party and the props box, what we had done that day had been so much worse. Besides, we had to start somewhere trying to fix this thing.

  At least I thought we did. Hopefully he felt the same way.

  As I walked up the driveway to his house, I felt so unwelcome, I kept waiting for a pit bull to come running around the side of the house and attack. Or for someone to fire a warning shot from one of the upstairs windows. But neither of those happened and soon enough I was reaching for the doorbell, shaking so much that I actually missed the button and jammed my finger into the wall. I got it on the second try.

  Moments later the curtain on the side window was drawn aside and Daniel peeked out. He paused for a moment, then let the curtain drop. I half expected my heart to burst out and fall into my hands. Is that where that expression comes from? She came with her heart in her hands?

  Kind of gross when you think about it.

  It took so long for the door to open, I half thought he’d decided to just leave me there. Not that I could blame him. But then, finally, the doorknob turned.

  And I was face-to-face with Daniel’s mother. All five-foot-ten of her. I suppose you had to be that big to handle giving birth to, and then raising, four football-playing boys. Daniel was the baby and he was at least six feet tall.

  But wait, what was going on here? Did I just hallucinate? Had I or had I not seen Daniel in the window? Had he really sent his mother to get rid of me?

  This was not a good sign for the future of our relationship.

  “Hi there, hon,” Mrs. Healy said. The slight Southern accent left over from her girlhood in Alabama gave her voice a natural soothing quality. She also threw in a sympathetic head tilt. My first real clue that I was getting nowhere near my maybe-boyfriend.

  Ugh. My maybe-boyfriend. Again. How had we gone from I-love-yous to maybe-ness in just a few weeks?

  “Uh . . . hi,” I said, feeling like a clueless idiot. An itty-bitty little clueless idiot who was shrinking smaller by the second. “Is . . . Daniel here?”

  “I’m sorry, Annisa, but he doesn’t really feel like talkin’ right now,” she said, in a conciliatory tone that made me think of nurses and hospitals and really bad news. She leaned forward and whispered, “I think he just needs some time to cool off. You know how boys can be.”

  No. I didn’t. Not really. Maybe I should ask her to give me lessons. Having raised four of them, she could be like my guy guru. Teach me, O wise one.

  “Uh . . . sure,” I said, backing away. “Can you just . . . just tell him I’ll see him at the game?” I asked.

  “Sure thing, hon,” she said with a kind smile. A kind smile that made me think she knew something that I didn’t. Like how Daniel was never going to speak to me again.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Then I turned and ran before I ended up weeping in front of my maybe-boyfriend’s mother.

  That night, the squad completely sucked. I mean, we sucked like we had never sucked before. After the first quarter Tara called the “Let’s Go” cheer and half the squad started doing a newish cheer we’d learned that started with the words “Let’s go” while the other half launched into the classic “Let’s Go” cheer. We ended up shouting over one another in a garble of messed-up chants, and stepping on each other’s toes as we stumbled through opposing formation changes. Then Lindsey threw up a high V when she should have low-V-ed and punched Karianna right in the face.