The Geek Girl's Guide to Cheerleading (4 page)

The weight room? In the basement? The renovated sections of the school were almost nice, but the basement?

“I want my girls toned!” Sheila cried.

“Remember when I said this cheerleading thing would pay off?” Moni said. “This wasn’t what I had in mind. Brian said a rat ran across his foot down there in gym class.”

A rat? From anyone other than Brian, I would take that as a joke. But Brian, mild-mannered math boy, was far too serious to joke about rats, especially after reading
1984
.

“After weight training,” Sheila continued above the groans, “it’s upstairs to the lobby for stretching and routine work—which is what we’ll do right now!”

Right now? In the lobby? In our scraggly gym clothes?

“Sheila, can we—,” a senior ventured.

“Out, out, out. We only have an hour left.”

An hour. I tugged at the tie of my faded drawstring shorts. How bad could it be?

Sheila herded us from the equipment storeroom, down the hall past the locker rooms, and into the lobby. The doors to the gym were wide open, and the varsity basketball team ran some kind of shooting drill inside. Sheila started us with a warm-up routine. I wasn’t sure how it happened, but the basketballs stopped thumping in the gymnasium. We’d finished stretches and were working our high kicks when the boys gathered at the doors to watch.

How bad could one hour be? Pretty bad. Humiliating, even. Right there—standing a head taller than all the other boys—was Jack Paulson. I tried not to look at him. I knew I would trip if I did. Much better to fade to the back. Maybe I didn’t know cheerleading but I was an expert at invisible.

“You know.” Moni’s words came between breaths. “Now would be a really good time for you to do the splits.”

Sheila beamed at us. “Moni, what a great idea. I just love your attitude. Bethany, would you care to demonstrate?”

I cared very much
not
to, thank-you-very-much. How could I stay invisible with my legs splayed across the lobby floor? Moni glanced at me and mouthed,
Sorry
.

Yeah, well, so was I. If Moni hadn’t been my best friend for two and a half years I would’ve…

But Sheila was waiting, the other girls were staring, and a hush had fallen over the boys gathered at the gym doors. Humiliation, meet Audience.

My limbs felt numb, but somehow I walked to the front of the group, drew in a deep breath, then let the air seep from my lungs while I eased my legs to the floor—sideways. And since I couldn’t feel anything but cold tile anyway, I planted my elbows on the floor and my chin on my fists. A single, long wolf whistle came from the gym.

“By the end of the season, I know all of you will be able to do this,” Sheila announced. “Shall we start?”

The rest of the squad slid to the floor…or at least tried to. Moni frowned. Maybe it was from pain, but probably it was Sheila, who was crouched next to her, saying, “Breathe, breathe, don’t forget to breathe.”

I turned my face toward the gym doors, where all the boys still stood. Or rather, all the boys except Jack. Where was he? Did he think I was showing off?

Coach Miller blocked my view and hustled the boys back inside. Only then did I realize that
I
had been the one who forgot to breathe. Now I could feel my limbs again, and each and every muscle was cramped. Standing might require assistance.

Across the lobby, in the gym, Jack tipped the ball through the net, then paused next to senior Ryan Nelson before getting back in line. Together they peered through the doors. And laughed.

At me?

I turned my head, as if I was fascinated by the trophy cases, and stayed that way until the reflection of Jack in the glass vanished.

Maybe because I dreaded actually wearing the uniform to school, the days slipped by. A week later, on Tuesday, there I was, in an impossibly short skirt, ready—more or less—to cheer wrestling that night. According to Sheila, wearing uniforms on game days promoted school spirit. So far, the only thing the outfits seemed to promote was hypothermia. My legs had felt like popsicles ever since I left home and I wasn’t sure if my knees could still bend, or if they would simply snap off when I tried to sit.

“I can’t believe you betrayed the brotherhood.”

I whirled from my locker, the cheerleading skirt swaying with the move.

Todd blocked my way, his arms folded over calculus and physics books and a rumpled plaid shirt. He probably glared, too, but his mop of bed-head hair and those fingerprint-smudged glasses shielded me from the effect.

“Could you say that again?” I asked. “In English this time?”

“This.” He waved a hand at the cheerleading uniform. “What is this supposed to be, Reynolds?”

I checked the urge to roll my eyes, then leaned close and whispered in his ear. “They’re called clothes. Perhaps you’ve heard of them?”

He sputtered a few words, but when Moni appeared I was saved somewhat from his wrath. His eyes widened. “Not you, too!”

“You didn’t tell him?” I asked her. That wasn’t exactly a fair question.
I
hadn’t told
anyone
. In fact, I was still hoping no one would notice. And yes, I realized the absurdity of that. Now.

“I thought
you
would,” Moni said. “I told Brian.”

On cue, Brian emerged from the stream of students and approached our group. As soon as he saw Todd’s face, he took a step back and tried to rejoin the masses. Too late. Todd was already reaching to grab his collar.

“You knew about this?” he said to Brian.

“Well…yeah.” Brian shrugged him off and straightened his shirt. “It’s kind of cool, isn’t it?”

“No, it is not cool. You can’t mess with these things.”

“I don’t know,” said Brian. I watched his eyes scan Moni from the toes of her white and silver Skechers to the purple and gold bows that held back all but the most rebellious of her curls. “I think they look cute.”

“They always look cute,” Todd said.

A compliment from Todd? Maybe we really
had
entered a new world order.

“Okay, so now they’re hot.” Brian wiggled his eyebrows. On his sweet, round face, it looked kind of weird, but Moni granted him one of her smiles.

Todd frowned. “Think you can you still rub two brain cells together in that outfit, Reynolds?”

“I aced my German test yesterday,” I told him.

“And Mr. Shaffer says I can stay in Math League,” Moni added, “even though cheerleading practice is at the same time.”

Todd stared. “There’s practice?”

The throng of kids carried us along the hall. I found myself walking backward and bumping into other students. Step. Bump. Step. Bump.

“What could you possibly need to practice?” Todd asked. “How to smile like an idiot at a bunch of brainless jocks?”

Step. Bump—and straight into Jack Paulson.

“Hey.” Jack spun. “I resemble that remark.”

Todd’s ears turned red. It wasn’t often someone could fluster the boy genius. “Sorry.” He adjusted the books in his arms. “I was just—”

Jack slapped Todd’s shoulder. “If the Nike fits, bro.”

For once I wasn’t paralyzed in Jack’s presence. I laughed. I mean,
If the Nike fits?
That was funny. I caught the look in Jack’s eye as my giggle started to fade. He held my gaze, and his expression changed slightly, in a way I couldn’t read.

“See you in reading?” he asked.

Commence para-lyze-ation. I nodded—at least, I think I did—before he turned to walk down the hall. The bell rang, lockers slammed, and we joined the crowd of students heading for class.

“This doesn’t change anything,” Todd stated. “It’s not going to make you…whatever it is you think it’s going to make you.”

“I don’t know,” Moni said. “I ran the gauntlet twice this morning without a single comment.”

The gauntlet? Well.
That
was a change.

“Really?” I asked. “Twice?”

Moni nodded, and when we passed the chemistry lab, she left us with a wave. Before she crossed the threshold, though, she ran back and caught Brian in a hug.

“Thanks,” she told him. Brian blushed and stared after her. It was obvious he was crushing. Moni was too, though from what I could gather, Brian’s online game character was moving forward way faster than the real-life boy seemed capable of.

“He gave me a wand last weekend,” Moni had said.

“A what?”

“A
wand
, Bethany. That’s got to be worth, maybe, seventy-five thousand points.”

“Has he asked you out yet?”

“In real life?”

I rolled my eyes.
“Of course
in real life.”

“Then…no.”

I was pondering how long it would take Brian to catch up with his virtual self when Todd poked me.

“Listen, Reynolds, you can still resign, right?”

I turned toward Todd, and a wave of students knocked me into him. We were pinned against a wall, with only millimeters separating me from Todd’s massive self-centeredness. “Why would I do that?”

“Just because Jack Paulson, the God of Mount Prairie Stone, condescends to talk to you,
once
, it doesn’t mean the natural order of things has changed.”

I swallowed the urge to tell him I talked with Jack all the time. More than once, anyway. In the hall after tryouts, in Independent Reading…Okay, so really, Jack talked, I mostly stammered. Natural order aside, sometimes we came close to real conversation. But I knew—and so did Todd—that it didn’t mean Jack would ask me to the prom, or even sit within ten feet of me in the cafeteria.

“Uh, I need to get to class,” I said. We both did. But even though we were heading for the same room, I scooted away from him.

“See?” Todd said. “It’s starting already.”

His words glued me to the floor. A few students turning in to history smacked into me. “What’s starting?” I asked.

“The whole cheerleader thing. Next you won’t even sit with us at lunch.”

Not at this rate
. “Look.” I drilled a slightly chewed fingernail against his chest. “You’re the one acting like a jerk. Not me.”

“I’m just trying to warn you. Nothing good can come from this.” Todd flipped his mop of hair and marched into class.

The frost outside was nothing compared to the icicles forming at our history table. Todd actually shielded his face from me with his hand. Where was his sense of irony? Wasn’t Todd the one who
hated
high school—the cliques, the politics, the “buddy” shoves into lockers that echoed through the hallway and rattled his jaw? He of all people should get the cosmic humor in all of this. Instead there he was, acting like someone who…someone who thought popularity mattered.

I pulled out my notebook and a pencil. I’d gone along with Moni’s cheerleading scheme to help her, sure, but that was just the start of it. The more I thought about it, the more I felt like I had something to prove: Popularity
shouldn’t
matter. Not in cheerleading and not in anything else, either. Of course, deep down, I worried that it did. My pencil rolled across the table toward Todd’s notebook. Instead of stopping it, he picked up his books and let it roll off the edge and onto the floor.

What was next? Would he delete me from his IM friends list? Scratch my name off our shared report? Please. I groped for the pencil, trying not to display my purple butt. What did Todd know about cheerleading, anyway?

When Jack Paulson entered Independent Reading, he looked right at me. Or rather, he looked at my face, glanced at my bare legs, then centered on my face again. Gah. I struggled to hold back a blush. And failed.

He took his seat next to me, stretching his own long legs along the desk in front of him. “I’ve been meaning to thank you for this.” He let a thick book thump on the desk. “At least, I think so. Maybe.”

I caught a flash of the library’s copy of
The Lord of the Rings
when he hefted it a second time. I’d suggested it to him in one of our almost conversations.

“Wilker says if I get through the whole thing and tell him stuff that isn’t in the movies, I’ll definitely get a B, maybe even an A.”

“That’s great,” I said, or something equally scintillating.

“My grade point average could use it.” Jack grinned. “So, what are you reading—today?”

It was his standing joke. Independent Reading class meant, well, independent reading. There were a few books we read together as a group, but most of our time was spent on books of our own choice—and I brought in a new novel at least twice a week. Sometimes I thought I’d caught Jack staring at me while I read. For him, reading was mostly a spectator sport.

I pulled
Pride and Prejudice
out of my bag and laid it on the desk. It was the second of our class reading projects, and we were due to start on it soon.

“I’ve already read it,” I said, “but—”

The second bell rang, and Mr. Wilker rapped on his desk to quiet the remaining talkers. “Everyone needs one of these before Monday,” he announced, waving his own well-worn copy of
Pride and Prejudice
. “We’ll begin discussing the first couple of chapters then.”

Jack groaned. I glanced his way, and he gave me a weak smile. “I’m on the library’s waiting list, here
and
downtown,” he whispered. “Who knew that dumb book was so popular?” He laughed, but in his eyes I thought I saw a hint of worry—
about buying the book?
Everyone in Prairie Stone knew about Jack’s mom, the cancer, his handyman dad, and the insurance that hadn’t even begun to cover all the medical bills.

Jack leaned across the aisle. “So what’s it about?” he asked. “I tried looking at SparkNotes—boy meets girl, boy pisses girl off.”

“Something like that,” I said. “Things get off to a rough start. First time they meet, Mr. Darcy disses Elizabeth.” I sat back and held in a sigh. God, did I know how
that
went. The first time I’d laid eyes on Jack, he’d been laughing at me. But that had been freshman year—ancient history, or so I hoped.