Kelly McClymer-Salem Witch 02 Competition's A Witch (22 page)

I spent about thirty seconds screaming silently in joy. And then I ran outside to intercept Angelo before he got home and found out from his mother that we’d cancelled his gardening service.

He smiled when he saw me coming down the walk, and I wondered if I would ever get used to the feeling his smile sent through me. “That was a great sweet sixteen party. Thanks for inviting me. I forgot to tell you so on Halloween because you disappeared and left me with Tara.”

“Don’t be silly. You don’t have to thank me. We’re neighbors.”

He winced. “I know my mom can be pushy, but she means well.”

“Of course she does. She’s a mom.”

“Uber-mom is more like it, I’m afraid. You might want to warn your mother that my mother has decided that I should
go to your school. She thinks it must be really exclusive because no one knows much about it.”

“It’s just a school.” I didn’t panic at what he said, because Mrs. Kenton wouldn’t have any luck finding a form to apply. And it would drive Mom batty when the nosy neighbor kept hinting. Maybe I’d conjure up an incredible disappearing application form—one that disintegrated slowly on the way from our house to theirs? Or maybe not. I didn’t need to be grounded for pulling magical pranks on the mortal neighbors.

Angelo leaned on our fence, obviously prepared to chat. That felt good. “I never see you around. They sure keep you busy at that school of yours.”

“Just the usual—although cheerleading practice and games keep me busy. But I like busy.” Not that I would mind hanging out with Angelo. Maybe when I got the hang of regular magic classes …

“Cheerleader, huh? I should have guessed.”

“Why?” I didn’t like the smile he had when he said “cheerleader.” “You’re not one of those prejudiced types who thinks cheerleaders are just airheads with Barbie doll figures, are you?”

“Absolutely not.” He crossed his heart with his index finger.

“Good thing.” I raised the pitch of my voice to match his mother’s “This
is
an exclusive neighborhood, you know.”

He laughed, and I was glad he hadn’t taken offense. His
mother was a true piece of work, but she was also his mother. I knew my mother could drive me absolutely batty, but I didn’t like it when someone else pointed it out.

Tobias came trotting out, his Game Boy in hand. “Mom needs you, Pru.”

Sure she did.

“Well, I’ll see you around, busy girl.” Angelo took the hint and headed toward his house. I watched him walk, enjoying the view.

Darn. I had intended to ask if he’d like to go driving with me, Samuel, and Tara. But I just couldn’t find a way to work it in to the conversation. I guess I’d have to be sure to catch him again. Soon.

Look out! Swoooosh!
Here come the Wiiiiitches!
Outta tha way! Swoooosh!
The Witches are here to staaaay!

The team had worked hard, finally, but it was crunch time. We walked into the gymnasium where it was all going to happen and I started to feel the rush, just like always.

Celestina winced and put her hands over her ears.

“Awesome!” Tara and the others moved forward, drinking everything in. So did I. I loved the
sound
of Regionals. Okay, sound is way too vanilla a word for the awesomely chaotic, cacophonous array of screams, giggles, duhs, and
omigods that echoed through the enormous gym. There was nothing else like it. Except maybe Nationals. But that was putting the trophy before the competition. If the Witches didn’t do well, we wouldn’t be going to Nationals. Not unless we could squeeze in another regional tournament—and do well at it. You needed to place in the top twenty at a Regional to get an invitation to Nationals.

Last year’s regional champions were practicing on the floor. They were not quite flawless—it took competition adrenaline to get to that level, for most teams. But they were close. They were doing triple backflips with strong landings, and they had flyers that actually looked like they were flying. Not to mention impeccable timing. And their uniforms were way cute, too. Probably designer.

Celestina didn’t even bother trying to talk above the noise of the room, she just sent a whisper directly to my ear. “Do we have a chance here? They’re magnificent.”

“A good team always has a chance,” I whispered back.

Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t think the Witches had much of a chance. Even though there’d been a major attitude adjustment since my pom-pom meltdown, we’d only had a week of winning attitude to work with. Snapping a tight move was still optional for half the squad. But I’d seen miracles happen at tournaments before, so I wasn’t ruling anything out until the last team pranced off the field. I’m an optimist that way. Especially
since the letter came freeing me from remedial magic classes.

As I looked around the room, soaking it all in, I was shocked to see Samuel, Maria, and Denise sitting in the front row of the bleachers, waving
GO, WITCHES
signs.

When your friends come through for you in a way you never expected, it makes all the fear and doubt go away for a split second.

I walked over to say hi, wondering if Maria and Denise would talk to me. I had my answer when Maria jumped up and hugged me. “Congratulations, Pru! I’m so glad you got out of remedial magic. I know how much you hated it.”

“It’s made me a little crazy, I guess.” I tried to think of a way to apologize without making anyone mad all over again.

Denise shrugged. “You were trying to build the team. Samuel explained it.” She looked at the nearly flawless team as they finished their routine and scattered off the floor. “How do you think you’ll do?”

“The best we can.”

Maria giggled. “Oh dear, that doesn’t sound good.”

“I don’t know why you do this at all.” Samuel looked pained. “The noise in this place is amazing.”

I grinned at him. “Wait until the cheering for the cheerleaders begins.”

“I thought cheerleaders were supposed to cheer for other
people, not be cheered themselves. Doesn’t that go against the peppiness principle?” Denise. Sigh. That’s what you get when you have fringie friends.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Wish us luck!”

“Luck.” They said it in unison, like they meant it. Kewl.

I went back to my team. The Salem Witches. We looked great in our uniforms. It helps that witches don’t have bad-hair days unless they’re in a bad magical vortex. But the excitement in the gym was contagious.

“Feel at home with all this dirt shuffling?” Elektra asked me. She could be the snarkiest when she was scared. She reminded me of some of the girls back at Beverly Hills who got really nasty right before competition.

“I am home.” I smiled. They could see I meant it. But I don’t think it helped. Not that I blamed them. I remembered my first competition. All the girls were nervous. Finally, surrounded by girls who had mastered the art of working as a team, the Witches had an inkling of how much it mattered. I was afraid it would be too little, too late. Although a very small part of me was hoping that I was wrong. That we could pull it out and wow the crowd. I’d kept the choreography simple, and the Witches didn’t have a huge fear of falling because we were allowed to use protective magic as long as it was undetectable to humans and didn’t affect the routine.

The temptation to cast spells right and left to make us look less foolish was strong, but I didn’t do it. Not just because I couldn’t, but because I took the rules that Coach had given us very seriously. If you can’t win without cheating, it doesn’t mean a thing.

Having to watch all the other teams was excruciating. I could feel all the confidence we’d felt as a team slowly leach away as we watched the backflips and perfect form. I noticed we sat forward in sync every time a foot slipped, or a cheerleader stumbled. There were a few falls, and my heart broke for those girls. I knew how it felt to stumble in front of the crowd.

When it was our turn, we ran onto the floor and waved, looking as confident as all the other girls had looked. It was part of the job. But I hoped against hope that we wouldn’t make any mistakes so memorable that we’d be the gossip for the next ten years. I’d seen it happen to one team a few years ago. They’d thrown a flyer up and then pulled apart. They were supposed to come together again and catch her. Only they didn’t, and she landed in a heap on the floor. Ouch.

Our first moves went well—simple, uncomplicated, but coordinated. The crowd hushed as we began to clap, and even let out an
oooh
of appreciation for our coordinated backflip pair: Elektra and Charity, the only two who could be sure to be in sync. We didn’t have a winning routine, we
couldn’t do the dynamite moves—the whole team with multiple coordinated backflips, synchronization that seemed supernatural—but we were looking good. Until we got to the one move I wasn’t sure was wise to put in the routine.

They’d all wanted the pyramid so badly that I had relented. Now, as we tried to get it together to make a sharp one, I regretted my decision. Just like every other cheering move, a great pyramid looks easy, but a bad pyramid looks … bad. I knew Coach would make sure no one fell on the floor. But there was no way she could ease the ego damage that would be inflicted if things didn’t go well.

The crowd hushed, and then murmured. Not in a good way. We hadn’t pulled it off, and it had cost us.

There’s something about competition. A mindset, a fever, I don’t know what you call it. Maybe the zone. When you’re in it, you can do no wrong. When you get knocked out of it“you’re toast. And we were. We fell out of the pyramid and couldn’t get the rhythm back. Our clapping was off, our moves just a touch soft and slow instead of sharp and fierce. The crowd was kind. They clapped.

My team knew. This may have been their first regional competition, but they knew just-miss failure when they saw it reflected in the faces in the crowd. In the sympathetic smiles of the judges. I could see the knowledge sink in. It stiffened our team smiles and made our chants wooden.

As our team struggled to come even halfway to the level
of the other cheerleading teams, I knew that there was no way to make up for the hard work and sweat we hadn’t put in before the competition. That assessment was probably a very mortal way of looking at things, but so be it. Samuel was right, I needed to be true to Pru—both my mortal half and my witch half. When it came to cheering, I didn’t see how avoiding hard work and putting down the synchronization of mortal teams could spell anything but L! O! S! E! R! Rah! Rah!

I just wish I didn’t feel like it was all my fault. I had known all along what we needed to do and I couldn’t find a way to make it happen. And as much as I’d like to blame it on Tara’s touchiness about her team—or even the cheerleaders themselves—I felt responsible. At the time, I had tried everything I could think of, but now I wished I had pushed just a little bit harder. Twenty-twenty hindsight, I guess.

The girls didn’t want to stay for the final judging, but I insisted and Coach Gertie backed me up.

“Why should we stay? We sucked, and everyone knows it,” Elektra complained.

That was easy for me. “It’s called good sportsmanship. And it’s important. Especially if we want to try for the next Regional so we can get an invitation to Nationals.”

“Are you joking?” Tara looked shocked. “I’d never want to look so foolish ever again.”

“Me neither,” I said, shrugging. “But why is that our only
choice? We can improve. I know we can.” If I could learn sixteen years’ worth of magic in under six months, why couldn’t the team be ready to sweep a Regional in that time?

“What makes you think so?” Yvette asked.

“Everyone has the skills. If you listen to me, we’ll get there. If you back each other up, we’ll be there.”

“By March, when Nationals are?” She sounded hopeful. Which made me hopeful. A little.

But I knew that letting doubts stop you was a waste of time. You had to believe you could do it, or you probably wouldn’t. “If you don’t believe, you’ll never succeed.”

“That’s a platitude.” Tara looked unhappy. But I knew how to turn her around. Dangling another date with Angelo in front of her was the perfect bribe to get me all kinds of cooperation.

Elektra wasn’t willing to let go of the doubt. “A crock, you mean. You can believe all you want, but if you can’t do something, you can’t do it.”

“Think of it this way: You can’t just believe your way into something. You have to work. But you can believe your way into success one step at a time.”

Coach Gertie nodded. “Prudence is right, girls.”

A little more hope mixed in with the doubt on their faces.

I knew what we needed: an acknowledgment that we had done our best. “Losing sucks, doesn’t it?”

Everybody nodded like bobblehead dolls.

“But, Sunita—you didn’t drop Elektra, did you?”

Sunita shook her head with a puzzled little frown.

“That was the first time you didn’t drop her, wasn’t it?”

She nodded, a look of surprised delight crossing her face.

“So we all did a little better. We succeeded where we had been failing.”

“Tell that to the judges.” I couldn’t tell who had muttered that, but it didn’t matter. We all felt it.