Revenge of the Cheerleaders (4 page)

"Bad boys have a certain attraction, but they grow up to be bad men, and we all know where that leads." She meant my father. He was the type of fate we had to keep Adrian from. Because really, the only nice thing you can say about my father is that he stays far away from us. My parents divorced when I was eight and now he lives in Chicago in some low-rent dive he shares with several colonies of cockroaches.

Still, I didn't think me keeping an eye on Adrian was going to do any good. She didn't need an eye. She needed an ankle bracelet and a prison guard.

Chapter 4

I
wore my cheerleading uniform to school the next day. We wear them on game days as a reminder for the students to come see the game. I always feel on display when I wear it. Somehow it transforms me from Chelsea the normal person into someone who's upbeat and peppy. You're not supposed to be depressed while wearing a cheerleading uniform. You can't have a bad hair day or skimp on your makeup. It's like going to school as Barbie. Anyway, I didn't really feel like smiling and being full of school spirit, because as soon as I got to school I ran into Mike and Naomi strolling down the hallway holding hands.

He never held hands with me in school. They passed by me in a wave of coolness, and I walked on, feeling alone and acutely aware that the only guy who'd spoken to me today was Samantha's boyfriend, Logan. And all he'd said was, "Hey Chelsea, where's Samantha?"

Logan is so smitten with her that my hair could catch on fire and he wouldn't notice.

I could have gone and flirted with some of the football players to show Mike that I didn't care about him anymore. That's what any other girl would have done. But I didn't feel like it. A lot of the guys on the team had known Mike was seeing Naomi behind my back and covered for him so I wouldn't find out.

How could I trust any of them after that?

Lately when I cheered and yelled, "Go team!" I mentally added where I wanted them to go.

So anyway, I didn't feel all that peppy come pep assembly time, but luckily Samantha was in charge of calling people down from the bleachers to participate in the games we'd set up. I just had to stand there, clap, and concentrate on not looking at the spot where Mike and Naomi sat. Then came our dance number to "Be True to Your School." It was the last thing we had planned for the assembly, the thing that was supposed to infuse the crowd with school spirit.

We stood in formation out on the gym floor. I told myself not to be nervous, even though the whole school sat in front of me watching. I would not trip. I would not accidentally fling one of my pom-poms into the crowd. We'd practiced this so many times that as soon as the music started, the dance moves would come to me automatically.

One of the J.V. cheerleaders stood by my boom box, waiting for Samantha's signal to start the music. Samantha walked to the microphone and smiled up at the audience. "This is a song that tells how we all feel about our school. If you know the words, sing along, and let's show the team how we feel about Greyhound pride." She walked back to our formation, then nodded to the J.V. cheerleader.

I clung to my pom-poms, already hearing the first few beats of the song in my mind. But they didn't come. What blared into the gym wasn't a Beach Boys tune at all. It took me a few moments to react, to understand, and by then the crowd was already hooting and clapping. Instead of my Beach Boys CD, one of Rick's CDs was in my boom box.

In between the howling of the electric guitar, Rick's voice sang out, "School is a waste of time! School work corrodes your mind! Who needs teachers any more? Show 'em what trash bins are for."

All that came out before the J.V. cheerleader realized that this wasn't the song we had meant to play, and she needed to shut off the music.

Amid the noise from the crowd, everyone in the squad turned to me. "Where did that come from?" Samantha asked.

"What happened to our CD?" Rachel said at the same time.

Aubrie ran over to the boom box, I guess to check and make sure that our Beach Boys song wasn't somewhere hidden in it. I felt my face flush. "I don't know. I never took our CD out of my boom box last night so I didn't bother to check to see if it was still there . . . Rick must have switched them after I left."

From the bleachers some of Rick's friends sang out the words to his song. Several teachers hurried over to stop them but that didn't keep the audience from joining in. After all, we had told people to sing along. Across the gym at the boom box, Aubrie held up Rick's CD and talked with Mrs. Jones, who kept shaking her head angrily. Then she strode over to us. "Well, it looks like you'll have to do the dance without the music."

We all glanced at one another. None of us wanted to stand in front of the school and do a dance number without music. It would be like synchronized miming or something.

"We won't be able to keep track of the beats without the music," I said. "We'll get out of synch and it will look strange. Let's just perform the number next pep assembly."

Mrs. Jones's voice came out in a clipped rhythm. "Tonight at the game our team will have to improvise when things get tough. Do you want to show them and the entire school that you're not willing to do the same?" She waved us back to our positions. "If you can't do the number without music, I'll go to the microphone and sing it for you."

"But . . . " I said, then looked at Samantha for help because I was too surprised to think of anything else to say.

Samantha said, "We don't mind waiting. It'll be better with the real music."

Mrs. Jones put her hands on her hips. "We are not ending this pep assembly by broadcasting a song about how school corrodes the mind." She waved a hand as though to wipe away any more protests. "It will be fine. I know the song by heart."

What could we say to that? We walked to our places in stunned silence—well, silence except for the crowd, who hooted and clapped when they saw us retake our positions. Crowds can sense when humiliation is about to happen.

Mrs. Jones walked to the microphone and took it in her hand. "I want you all to join me in singing, 'Be True to Your School.' It's for our team." Then she started singing.

No one joined her. I'm not sure whether it was because they didn't know the words (probably) or whether they just had more sense (also probably).

I'd like to say that Mrs. Jones is a great singer, but that would be lying. She sang the first few lines off-key and from there plunged into what could only be described as a rendition of the Beach Boys being pummeled by waves.

The only advantage to doing a dance number while your advisor butchers a song, is that everyone is so focused on her, they don't pay much attention to what you're doing. Rachel kept lagging behind the rest of us, I assume because she'd gone into shock or something, but I don't think anyone noticed. Then halfway through the first chorus Mrs. Jones stopped, then repeated the line she'd already sung—this is certain to throw off dancers, and half of us repeated the move that went with that line while the other half went on to the next move.

Which goes to show you that even when you don't think things can get worse, they really can.

She stumbled over a few more lines, repeated another one, and then stopped. It was clear she'd forgotten the words. It wasn't clear what we were supposed to do about it. After that "You have to improvise when things get tough" lecture I didn't expect her to quit, but I was a little afraid she'd start on another song altogether, and then we'd have to, I don't know, improvise Rockettes-style leg kicks in the background just for something to do while she sang.

Without thinking long enough to talk myself out of it, I jogged up to the microphone and stood by Mrs. Jones. She may have forgotten the lyrics, but I hadn't. I sang out and my voice stayed surprisingly steady. Mrs. Jones stopped singing all together and let me do a solo. Thank goodness I'd taken choir for three years. My voice never cracked.

A verse and a chorus later it was done. Everyone clapped, although this may have been because they were glad the whole thing was over.

I walked back to the group and it hit me, really hit me, that I'd just sung an a cappella solo in front of the whole school—friends, enemies, and ex-boyfriends alike. I'd probably be called Beach Girl for the rest of my senior year.

I was so going to kill Rick and Adrian for this.

After the assembly the principal called the cheerleading squad into her office. We stood in a line—like soldiers in miniskirts—while she lectured us about playing anti-school music in a school-sponsored pep assembly. She asked us if "Show 'em what trash bins are for," was some sort of threat against the teachers and then quoted, word for word, the nonviolence policy the school had. She kept saying that the school took threats against people very seriously. I tried to explain that it had all been a mix-up, but she listened to my explanation with her lips pressed together in an angry frown, like she didn't believe me.

Talk about no sense of humor. The rest of the school was laughing about the incident, but no, not the principal.

Then she hauled Rick into the office to ask him about everything. Any other guy would have just fessed up that he and Adrian used my boom box to play his music, and they forgot to put my Beach Boys CD back, but not Rick. He was all, "I don't know why Chelsea played my song at the pep assembly. I never thought she was a fan of my music, but it looks like her taste in bands is improving." Then he gave me the thumbs-up sign. "Rock on, Chels."

Which made me think it hadn't been accidental at all. While the principal wrapped up her lecture with a stern warning that as cheerleaders we were ambassadors of the school and nothing like this had better happen again, I went over all the facts in my mind. We had a stereo system in the living room that had better speakers than my boom box. If the maroon-haired duo had wanted to listen to one of Rick's CDs, why had they chosen my boom box? Also, Adrian had a boom box in her room, why not use that one? And why lie about it to the principal?

The only reason I could see was that Rick wanted to make a fool of me at the pep assembly and now he wanted to get me in trouble.

As we all left the principal's office he turned back to me and said, "Hey, sorry this happened. I know how annoying it is when you're in front of a crowd, trying to perform and the music just disappears. Like say, when someone unplugs your band equipment in the middle of a concert."

"I didn't do that," I said. Which was technically true. I hadn't done it; the stranger I was chasing down had.

"Right. We're both innocent. And by the way, I'm innocent of anything else that happens too." He walked off before I could respond. Which was probably for the best. I mean, there is a big difference between accidentally unplugging someone's equipment as you run by, and purposely setting out to sabotage, humiliate, and then get a whole squad of cheerleaders in trouble. Rachel and Aubrie hadn't even been at his dance. So why take revenge on them?

And what exactly did he mean that he was innocent of anything else that happened? Was that some sort of threat?

At lunch Samantha and I explained to Aubrie and Rachel what had happened at the dance. I pushed my salad around my plate without eating it. "So not only is he dating Adrian, now apparently he's trying to ruin my life, one painful day at a time."

Samantha pulled an apple from her lunch sack. "But you sounded really good up there singing."

"Did I?"

Aubrie nodded. "I wish I could sing that well."

My frustration with Rick momentarily evaporated while I considered this. I'd taken choir up until junior year, but to tell you the truth, I'd only signed up for it to get out of taking orchestra. I'd seen those flute and clarinet players wiping the spit out of their instruments and I'm sorry, but anything that involves large quantities of spit doesn't appeal to me. Mr. Metzerol, the music teacher, had never really forgiven me for not joining the show choir, but cheerleading practice was more important.

Still, it was nice to know that I hadn't made a total fool of myself. So there, Rick.