Confessions of a Wannabe Cheerleader

by Zoe Evans

  “Later, Madison,” he said, loping off in that way cool guys always do. Like they always have somewhere important to be but there’s no rush to actually get there. On the other side of the spectrum, there’s me. I’m usually just kind of making a lot of jerky, spazzy movements while standing in one place.

  What is wrong with me? Do I need an official invitation to talk??

  I sighed and tried to put my game face on. I’d worry about Bevan later. My life was about to change. I could hear the Titans in the gym, chatting away. I went over to Clementine, since she’s the one who approached me at lunch.

  “Hey. So, you wanted to talk to me?” I asked, supernervous. I pulled on a pom—pom string too hard, picking it free.

  “Ohmigod, yeah,” said Clementine, who grabbed me by the elbow and practically dragged me over to where Katie stood. Then I saw Clementine’s gaze drop to my pom-poms.

  “Oh, sweetie, you won’t be needing those,” she said, pointing to them.

  “Oh, ok!” I said, putting them on the floor. “So, you just want me to do a cheer and dance routine, then?” I looked around for an iPod deck but didn’t find one. Oh, well, I could wing it. I motioned to the pom-poms. “I brought these just in case you wanted me to incorporate them into my cheer. But I can work without them, no prob.” I assumed a cheer position, with my legs apart and my hands straight at my sides.

  “Um,” said Clementine, “we don’t need you to cheer for us. We didn’t ask you here to recruit you. Like, seriously?” she said, looking at Hilary and then at Katie. “Ohmigod, no.” She burst out laughing.

  My heart dropped to my knees, and I could feel my face go beet red. I was sooooo embarrassed, I wanted to run right out of the gym and hide inside my locker for the rest of the year.

  “We actually wanted to talk to you about those amazing uniforms you designed for your squad,” said Katie, shoving her friend in the ribs. “We think they’re awesome. My friend took some pics on her iPhone at the game and sent them to us, and well, we would die to have uniforms like those for the Titans, too. I know it might be a little weird, but . . . we were thinking, maybe you could design something for us?”

  “Oh, uh. I guess, maybe . . . really? My uniform designs?” I stammered.

  “We’ll tell everyone you’re the designer, of course. It would mean a lot to our team,” said Katie.

  Clementine raised her eyebrow, sort of like to say, “You don’t really have a choice.”

  I think I must have gone into some kind of cheer—induced shock, because I can hardly remember what happened next. I had my hopes set so high on being recruited by the Titans that being asked to be their clothing designer was the farthest thing from my mind. It was like being at the top of a pyramid and then falling flat on my face. And this time, there was no gorgeous Bevan Ramsey looking over me.

  I do remember the Titans being really excited, jumping up and down, exclaiming that their new uniforms were going to be “the hottest.” I also remember Hilary saying she couldn’t wait to wear them to the next game, so I guess I must have said that I’d do it.

  I walked back to the Grizzly area of the gym and was grateful that no one from my team had been there to witness what had just gone down.

  Then it all started to make sense. The uniforms. That’s what the girls had been talking about at Steak & Fries. That’s what Katie was going to “freak” about. Not me or my cheer skillz. What had I been thinking?

  All through practice, I was in a total daze. I kept thinking about how stupid I must have looked when I walked up to them with my pom—poms and this cheery expression on my face. And the awful way Clementine had laughed . . .

  Jacqui wanted to teach the team power jumps, but I was like, “Can’t we just do a regular ol’ practice? I’m not feeling anything fancy.” And for the first time ever, I didn’t feel like staying after practice to work with Jacqui.

  Jacqui walked back with me to the locker room, peering at me as if an alien had invaded my body. And I don’t blame her-I’m not one to ever back down from taking things to the next level.

  “What was up with you at practice today?” Jacqui asked me as she grabbed a fresh towel from her locker.

  I thought about maybe not telling her what happened with Clementine and Katie just before. But then I figured if there’s any cheerleader who will understand what I’ve just been through, it’s Jacqui. When I was done telling her what happened, Jacqui was like, “Whoa. That sucks.”

  I sat on the bench in the locker room, just shaking my head. “Right now I just feel like a giant idiot.” I could feel the tears bubbling up in my eyes.

  “You? An idiot? Please. It’s those girls. . . .” I could see Jacqui start to get superangry, like she wanted to punch a wall.

  “I wanted to be a Titan so badly,” I said despondently.

  “Madison,” Jacqui said, “Clementine knew what she was doing when she came up to you at lunch. She’s a calculating person, and she chose her words very carefully. She wanted to see you fall.” Jacqui had a look on her face that told me this wasn’t the first time Clementine had set someone like me up to look stupid.

  “Well, either way,” I said, “I guess this means the closest I’ll ever get to being a Titan is being their clothing designer. My life’s dream,” I said, twirling my finger in the air with mock excitement and wiping the tears from my face.

  When I got home, Mom was all over me about my attitude at practice too.

  “I just don’t feel like talking about it, ok?”

  “Madison, you’re the co—captain of this team. You have to have a good attitude at practices,” she said, placing some reheated Chinese food on the table.

  “Mom, didn’t we just talk last night about not talking about cheer when we’re at home?”

  Mom sat down across from me. T.G. she wasn’t wearing last night’s tracksuit or I would have lost it. SERIOUSLY lost it.

  “It’s just that you’ve been acting a little strange lately, Mads. You’ve been angrier than usual. And today at practice, you completely weren’t yourself.”

  I don’t know what came over me, but I blurted out, “Maybe I’d be able to be more myself if you weren’t trailing my every move. Do you ever think about that, Mom? Do you know any other kids who spend morning, noon, and night with their moms? You’re here in the morning when I have breakfast, you’re my coach at cheerleading practice, and then, when I’m home, you either follow me around with ideas about cheerleading or you nag me about my stupid ATTITUDE! Sometimes I just need a break!”

  Mom just sat there, listening to my rant patiently.

  “Are you finished?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I mumbled into my sauteéed string beans and shrimp. Just getting that off my chest made me suddenly feel a lot better. Like this pressure behind my neck had been taken away.

  “Well, I’m glad to know how you feel, Madison. I just wish you’d told me somewhat . . . differently. It seems like you’ve been carrying this around for a while.”

  “Yeah, I guess I have. It’s been building up.”

  Mom gave me a half smile with her naturally cherry—stained lips, the kind that only need a spot of gloss to look like she’s wearing the perfect lipstick stain. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

  I don’t really know what she means by that, but I hope it means she’s gonna stop bugging me about cheer stuff when we’re at home. The thing is, I know that actually isn’t why I got mad at her tonight. Tonight I’m mad at myself. I’d gotten THIS close to being a Titan, or at least in my head I had, and then Clementine basically sat on my dream and squashed it with her oh-so-perfect butt. But what I want most of all is to be able to tell Mom all about what happened today. She’d totally understand. More than Lanie, more than Jacqui. No one on Earth shares my dreams of me becoming a Titan more than Mom. And, of course, the one person who I want to talk to about it the most is the one person I just screamed my head off at.

  Nice going, Mads.

  I know it’s going to
take forever to fall asleep tonight. I hate nights like this.

  Yay for friends! Lanie and E are the best. When they started receiving one—word texts from me late Friday night, they sensed I needed a friendervention. It didn’t take much guessing for them to figure out that my little rendezvous with the Titans didn’t exactly turn out as I’d hoped.

  “We R taking U to ur Mothership,” Lanie texted me Saturday morning.

  “Gym?” I texted back warily, because that is soooooo not the way to cheer a girlfriend up. (No pun intended!)

  “No, weirdo. The mall. 1pm, Hot Trax, b thr.”

  Evan had taken off from work at the comic book store, and Lanie was going to skip out on a reading by one of her favorite spoken—word performers at the local library. (Yes, she’s for real.) I couldn’t believe they did that just for poor, loser-y, me.

  “I don’t know what I’d do without you guys, you know that?” I said when I met up with them in front of Hot Trax. Hot Trax is the number one spot to see and be seen at the mall. It’s basically one of those T—shirt stores where they sell gag gifts and apparel related to pop culture or whatever It Band is “it” at the time. I can’t remember the last time I bought anything there. I think we all just go there to see who’s around.

  “Yes,” said Lanie, nodding her head vigorously. “Yes, we know.”

  We were just browsing around when . . . behold!! Guess who I saw checking out the retro T-shirts? My heart. My love. My one and only. Bevan Ramsey. Lanie registered the heat rushing to my face when I noticed him. “Do you need me to get you an ice bucket or something?” she said loud enough for the whole store to hear.

  “Shh!” I whispered, running to hide behind the nearest rack. First of all, the last thing I’d said to him hardly qualified as English. Second of all, I was sure my humiliation with the Titans had gotten around to all their friends by now. No way did I feel like making a fool of myself in front of him today.

  “Ohmigod. What do I do?” I said, frantic.

  “Um, you could try talking this time,” she answered. “Let him know you’re actually not a mute. That should earn you some points back.”

  Before I could speak, she pushed the rack aside and looked at me like I was a badly behaved child screaming at the top of my lungs in a department store.

  “Madison Jane Hays, get out from behind that death metal T—shirt this instant!”

  Evan came sauntering by holding a Boys II Men lunch box. “How old school is this?” Then he poked his head into my hiding spot. “Hey, Madison, what are you doing?”

  “Oh, nothing,” I said, pretending to admire a T—shirt with a bloody skull on it. “I was just, uh, getting a closer look at the silk-screening. Thinking of taking it up as a hobby. Think of all the money we’d save on T-shirts, huh, guys?”

  “Mm hmm,” said Lanie, unconvinced.

  I sighed and shuffled out of my hiding space only to find that Bevan was right around the corner by the sneakers. But before I could bolt out of there, he’d already locked eyes on me.

  Those root-beer-colored eyes. Sigh. (BTW, just to clarify, root-beer-colored things, like eyes, are good. Not to be confused with root-beer-FLAVORED things, like gummy worms, which are bad. Very, very bad.)

  “Hey Madison, what’s up?”

  Lanie quietly moved to another part of the store, leaving the two of us alone. (Evan was lurking nearby—I could see him out of the corner of my eye—but I tried not to focus on that.) “Just, you know.” I shrugged. “Shopping.”

  “Cool.” He nodded. “Me too. Me and my boys.” He pointed over to his friends from soccer who were fooling around with some figurines. “You here with friends?”

  “Yeah, but they, uh, seem to have disappeared or are busy being weird. Or both.” I had a momentary freak—out of “so, what should I say right now?” but then I reasoned that since Bevan plays soccer, that’s a safe subject. “So, you guys are having a good season, huh?” I asked.

  “Yeah, it’s cool. I’m proud of the team,” he said modestly.

  Awkward silence.

  “I see you and Jacqui have been hanging a lot after practice,” he said.

  I couldn’t stop thinking, “He’s noticed me! OMG, he’s noticed me!!!

  “Yeah, she’s an awesome cheerleader,” I said. “I’m really happy that she joined our team. She’s taught us a ton.”

  “Yeah, she’s pretty cool. It’s crazy what happened with her and the Titans,” he said. “Tough break.”

  So sweet of him to care .

  “Yeah, it seemed pretty rough on her,” I agreed. “But she’s pretty happy, I think.” I shrugged.

  “Oh, I meant to ask you something the other day,” he said. One of those amazing dimples of his began to show, and my heart started to beat really fast again.

  Finally! This was the part where my life would turn around. Bevan was going to ask me to go to every dance until the end of the year. No, until the end of school! Or to marry him! Yes, Bevan, I, Madison Jane Hays, do take you, oh-perfect-looking-soccer-player, to . . .

  “How’s it feel?” he asked, staring at my face.

  “What?” I asked, confused.

  “Your nose. How’s it feel—you know, since I practically ran you over? It looks like it healed perfectly.” He was doing it again—staring inches away from my face.

  I could smell his shampoo from that close. It smelled like lavender with a hint of mint. I had to hold my hands down at my sides to restrain them from not reaching out and ruffling his mop of hair.

  Suddenly, I heard someone clear his throat loudly behind me. Bevan instinctively straightened up and put his hands in his jeans pockets.

  “Dude, we’re heading to Sneaker City. You comin’?” said the throat—clearing soccer friend.

  “Yeah, man, be right there,” he said with a quick nod of his head. “So, I’ll see you around, Madison, I guess.”

  I picked up some stationery that was on a nearby table, just to have something in my hand. “Yeah, later,” I said.

  “Have fun, uh, shopping,” he said, smiling toward the stationery I was holding. When I looked down, I saw I was holding Hannah Montana stationery. SERIOUSLY???

  That is just so my life.

  I looked for Lanes and Evan, and they were sitting outside Hot Trax sipping sodas.

  “Whoa, girl. I didn’t realize you had it that bad for this guy,” Lanie said. “You really pulled out the stops: the hair twirl, the doe eyes, the giggle.”

  “I don’t know what the big deal is,” said Evan, kicking around a discarded bottle cap. “He’s just a stupid jock. Don’t you hate those kinds of guys?”

  “Bevan’s not a jock,” I said, grabbing Evan’s soda from his hand. I took a long sip. “He’s really nice.”

  “He almost gave you a concussion,” said Evan. “And yes, you may have a sip of my drink.”

  Evan is usually a big sharer, especially when it comes to me and his food. It’s, like, our thing. So he was being totally weird.

  “That near—concussion was not on purpose,” said Lanie.

  Evan glared at her.

  “What? I’m just stating the facts.”

  “Listen, we don’t really need to argue about this. Yes, I have a crush. What’s the big deal?”

  “Nothing,” said Lanie cheerily. “We just like giving you a hard time,” she said, getting up from the mall bench. “Right, Evan?”

  “Yeah, whatever,” said Evan.

  What got into Evan today? It’s, like, what? Does Bevan use his puppy as a soccer ball or something? Suddenly Evan hates Bevan (ha, a new cheer!) with all his guts?

  At least the mall excursion helped get me out of my funk. Friends + mall food + hot crush = cure for the blues any day.

  I should have seen this one coming a mile away, since Mom has been acting really weird all weekend. The telltale signs were there: the discarded spoons of Nutella in the sink, for one. Mom likes to keep a jar of Nutella in the cabinet, and whenever she has a craving she just has a tablespo
on of the stuff. But when she’s feeling depressed, she’ll take a spoonful, put it in the sink, and then two seconds later decide she needs another. And another. So by the end of the night our sink is, like, blanketed in spoons that have each only been used once. One time I asked her why she just doesn’t commit to one large spoon and have, like, a mini bowl of the stuff. “Because that would be disgusting, Madison,” she huffed.

  So anyway, there were the spoons of Nutella in the sink. And, Mom didn’t sing a single chant all weekend. It was kind of like if you’re used to having the radio on all the time, turned to a certain station, on high volume, and then all of a sudden . . . radio silence. That’s what being around Mom was like this past weekend. Not one cheer. Not one “G-G-G-Grizzlies! We’ll tear it up and tear it down!” Nothing.

  We hadn’t really talked since our little whatever-it-was on Friday night. Mom knows to give me my space after I act like that. But usually the next day we’re totally fine. Not this time . . .

  “Hey, Madison,” asked Ian after warm-up. “Is your mom a bit under the weather today?” Chuckle, chuckle.

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  But I totally knew that Mom’s ’tude wasn’t going to be easy to hide from the rest of the team. She was practically broadcasting, “Hello! I’m in a foul mood. Make me mad or else.” She didn’t crack any jokes at the beginning of practice, and she was wearing this permafrown.

  At the end of practice Mom was like, “All right everyone, I have to tell you something, and it’s not going to be easy.”

  Oh, boy. This isn’t going to be good.

  Everyone on the team got into this circle around Mom and had these really serious looks on their faces. It was like she was about to tell us that someone died, or something like that.

  “The Grizzlies are in a tremendously great place right now. I’m so proud of all of you. But I’ve given this a lot of thought,” she said, folding her hands in front of her. “And I think coaching the Grizzlies isn’t the best thing for me right now.”