Intro by Carla Ann

“Tiffany, I’ve asked you how everything is going with people and the activities you’re involved in, but you haven’t mentioned how you are coping with everything.” She emphasized the ‘you,’ when she asked that.

“Well, better than I was last year,” I started. “Way better than last year… I have a lot of friends now, and I’m not getting picked on every day.” I saw her eyes boring into me looking for something else. “Alright, I don’t know how I’m doing right now.” I told her honestly.

“What do you mean?” She asked.

“Well for one I’m really tired of everyone guessing I’m five if I wear the wrong clothes.” I told her hesitantly. I was sure my parents had filled her in with everything anyway, “Tuesday was pajama day. Mom and I had found some cute pajamas with feet on them that would fit Amy and me, so we wore them for pajama day. We really did look cute dressed like that, and I was having a lot of fun with it. That was until the sub in English class thought that I was someone’s little sister that had come them to school that day.”

I was really surprised Dr. Reynolds didn’t laugh about it, but I continued, “Then the next day the whole squad was wearing shortalls and our hair done in pigtails and I looked to be about five again. One of my best friends even brought a doll to school to play a joke on the sub that we’d had. I don’t think she knew that it really upset me though. I’m not five, I’m twelve! Amy has grown about five inches here in the last couple months, but I’m still the same height I was last year. It’s good for cheerleading stuff because people can toss me so easily… but…” I was doing my best to not go into tears over all of this. “as long as we’ve got my puberty stopped then I won’t be doing much growing. That’s all on top of the fact that I’m never going to be able to have periods like my friends… and I’m stuck with this stupid thing between my legs,” I told her with a great deal of exasperation. “I’m so tired of having to look at it, or hide it, every time I turn around. I know you can’t do anything about it till I’m eighteen – but I wish it could be gone now!” I had gone to tears now.

---

Viewing Note: This story should be viewed with the Edwardian Script ITC font installed on your Windows platform in the c:/Windows/Fonts directory. Microsoft Word installs this font automatically.

---

 

---

 
The Legal Stuff: Dreaming of Cheers  © 2010 By Tiffany Shar
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright  © 2010 By Tiffany Shar. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
 
 
Preface
 
 
It’s been a long road to publishing this third book in my Standing Up to Life Series. I began writing the first book over two years ago, putting the first two books out in a quick succession of six months work. The third book became more challenging to finish as I had set my sights on only writing a trilogy. I declared myself finished last August, but found myself unhappy with the ending. Well seven months later I feel this is ready to give to you, my readers, and I hope you will enjoy it. It has not gone on the track I had expected, and indeed there will probably be at least one more book following this in order to complete Tiffany’s story. I hope you will find that your wait has been worth it.

Like the first two books I posted here, I will be posting a full copy here on BigCloset. This time I am going to upload two chapters per week to the site. The full version should be completely posted by August. For those that cannot wait however, I have an e-book version of the full book available from Lulu.com as of today. You may find it at My Store. My assumption is that the majority of my readers would be more interested in this edition of the book rather than a hardback or paperback. If you enjoy this work perhaps you will consider supporting me by purchasing it ($5.95 for the eBook).

Thanks again, and I hope you enjoy reading Dreaming of Cheers!

 

Chapter 22:

 
THE NEXT MORNING seemed really chaotic as I tried to get ready to leave. Mom had left me a ‘don’t forget,’ note on the bathroom mirror. Things like my pillow, stuffed animal, face stuff, etc. It was followed up by my dad hovering and making sure I’d already done the twenty things I’d already done. By the time Amy’s mom pulled up I was so ready to get my stuff in their car and get out of there I couldn’t stand it!

It was then that I realized I’d missed something overnight… Snow! I smiled as soon as I saw the skiff of it sitting outside. There wasn’t even enough to cover the rocks in our front yard, but it was still there! That also meant that I had to be more careful as I carried my stuff out to her car that morning. Twice I almost fell when I slipped on a patch of black ice beneath the snow.

“Good morning Tiffany,” Amy’s mom said to me as she got out of the car and helped me carry some of my load. I kept my school backpack in the seat with me and everything else was put in the back of her car.

“Hey,” Amy said to me. “It snowed!” She said excitedly to me as I sat down next to her.

“Uh-huh!” I agreed with her.

“Now if only we could get enough sometime soon to cancel school for a day or two!”

“It’s going to have to do more than this though,” I said doubtfully. We didn’t get a snow day last year. I really wanted to have one though… anytime you could miss school was a good thing.

“At least there should be a lot more than this up at the resort tomorrow!” Amy was excited — I could tell.

I nodded. By the time we got to school the two of us were pretty wound up. As soon as we walked up to the building though, I found myself losing that quickly. Amy grabbed my hand and squeezed it as we walked in to drop off my sax. We were late enough to school that we just came out of the band room as the bell rang to go to first hour. All through the hallway I dreaded a repeat of recent events… but nothing happened.

During first hour we were able to talk as we worked on a crossword puzzle. “I’m so jealous of you two,” Kyle said.

“Yeah, you should take us up there sometime,” Lindsey said.

“We’ll see, my parents might be up for that sometime,” Amy said.

“That would be a lot of fun,” I agreed.

About five minutes before the bell I heard the office page Mr. Randolf. “Mr. Randolf, would you please send Tiffany down to the office?”

“She’s on her way,” he told the voice and he nodded at me to go.

It was a nerve racking walk to the office. I knew that this was going to be a meeting with my parents, Amy’s dad, Mrs. Henry, and me. Even though Mrs. Henry had been a much better principal so far than Mrs. Hinther had been, I still didn’t fully trust her. I could understand that it was difficult to figure out who was doing — and prove it, but still…

“Hey sweetie,” Mom told me as I walked into the office.

I went up and gave her and my dad a hug before gluing myself in between them. Amy’s dad came in a few minutes later. After he came we were led into the all too familiar conference room. Mrs. Henry was the one who led us in, saying, “If you’ll be patient for just a few more minutes I’ve been asked to have one of the school’s attorneys here for this meeting.”

Greg answered for us, “That’s fine; we can understand the districts’ caution.”

Mom and Dad took seats on either side of me, with Greg on the other end of mom, closer to Mrs. Henry. We sat for a few minutes before Mom quietly asked me if I’d remembered some things for the trip. I of course had remembered everything; she just was being a mother. When the school’s attorney came through the door into the conference room he said, “Hi, sorry I’m late,” as he took a seat next to Mrs. Henry. The school resource officer also came in and took a seat next to him.

“Okay, let’s go ahead and get this meeting started,” Mrs. Henry said. She began by introducing everyone since we didn’t know the school’s attorney, and he didn’t know us. It was a different one from who we had dealt with a few months ago. Both the school district and Greg brought out tape recorders to record the meeting. “I understand that you have some concerns Mr. and Mrs. Jacobson about some recent events here at school.”

“That’s correct Mrs. Henry,” my mom said. “We’re especially concerned about the recent threats she has been receiving, and the increase in taunting. We want to know what the school is going to do to help insure those students are dealt with.”

“Could you list the specific incidents?” The school’s attorney asked.

“Yes we can,” Greg started, “There have been numerous notes left…” he detailed every note that had been left and presented both parties with our copies as he mentioned them. “Most recently yesterday Tiffany opened her gym locker and discovered a girl had left a used tampon on top of her clothing, along with this threatening note.”

“We recognize that these are serious incidents, and the administration is investigating,” the attorney said.

“That’s nice, but how long is this going to take?” My mom asked, clearly irritated.

“Well, we unfortunately have no proof that we can use against any students,” Mrs. Henry said. “No one has seen anyone do these things, or been able to figure out who is behind it.”

“We’ve told you at least three of the students who are involved,” Dad said, “what more do you need?”

“It’s all hearsay at the moment,” the attorney said. “We can’t do anything without someone observing it happening.”

The two sides argued back and forth for a good thirty minutes. A few times Greg calmed my mom down in an attempt to keep things from getting out of control. She was really upset. He wasn’t real thrilled either though, saying, “So what you’re saying is that it’s probably going to be a case of Tiffany being physically harmed before you’re going to be able to do anything?”

The school officials just stared blankly at us in reply.

“If that’s the case you can plan on a much greater lawsuit being placed against the district when it does.” Greg told them.

“Mr. Hancock, how can you reasonably expect us to do anything more?” Mrs. Henry asked, seriously flabbergasted and not knowing what to do.

The schools’ attorney made a stop motion to her. “The district will do all in its power to protect Tiffany, perhaps she should transfer to the other junior high for her own safety?”

My parents just about lost it at that point, but Mr. Hancock made the same motion to my parents that the districts’ attorney had made to Mrs. Henry. “Obviously that is unacceptable. Tiffany is well adjusted here with a lot of close friends. She is heavily involved with band, choir, and the dance squad. If she weren’t in that situation we might be able to agree with that — but in the situation we are currently in, we find that unacceptable.”

The two sides argued for a while longer. I just wanted to cry, this wasn’t fair. Finally about twenty minutes later they conceded to call in the students we believed were involved, and to check their handwriting against the samples that we had of the notes. ‘It was the best they could do,’ they said.

My parents took what they could get there, and I named the names of the students I thought were probably involved. I did understand that it was hard for them to figure out for certain whom it was, but I wanted them to do something! They also said they would speak to teachers again reminding them to be out in the hallways watching out for me. We all stood up at the end of the meeting and my parents took the time to give me a hug and say, “Have fun this weekend,” to me.

I said thanks and then took the pass from Mrs. Henry to go back to class. It was already almost fourth period so I hurried to the last three minutes of choir so that I could walk with my friends to English. Amy saw me and let me in next to her on the riser — they were just finishing singing one of the songs for the Christmas Concert. I sang the last verse with them and then the bell rang.

“Have a good weekend!” Ms. Beecher told us.

“What happened?” Amy asked me quietly as we walked to math.

“Nothing really… they said they couldn’t prove which students were behind it.”

“That sucks,” she told me.

“Yeah it does… at one point they basically said they couldn’t do anything unless I got hurt physically again.”

“You’re kidding? What did my dad say about that?”

“He wasn’t happy…” I said, “Basically their response was that maybe I should go to the other junior high, your dad and my parents said that was unacceptable.”

“So did anything good happen out of it?” She asked worriedly.

“I don’t really think so. They said they’d call in Jared, Lucas, and Liza to talk to them — and that they’d compare their handwriting to the notes… but I don’t think anything is going to happen.”

“That sucks Tiffany, I’m sorry.” She told me. We both just silently walked to algebra from there. I was grateful at least that nothing else happened in that walk. Our test in that class was a lot easier than I’d hoped for, and I finished about twenty minutes early. I pulled out some other homework and worked on it until Amy finished. The two of us passed notes silently back and forth till the end of the class.

Though I was incredibly nervous the rest of the day, I was relieved that nothing else major happened. In home-ec Coach Holton quietly asked me, “How are you doing today?”

“Okay, I guess,” I told her.

She gave me a hug and said, “Hang in there Tiff, you’re a great girl and things’ll work out.” I just smiled at her, that was all I could do, and she added, “Oh, and before I forget, your mom dropped off the check for your trip today.”

“I’m glad she did that… I forgot about it last night,” I told her truthfully.

“Just make sure you give her a hug and say thank you when you see her tonight,” she told me.

“Well it’ll have to be Sunday actually, I won’t see them again until then.”

“What are you up to till then?” She asked with curiosity. Coach Holt was an awesome teacher, and she genuinely took an interest in me — and every student, something that I appreciated. I found myself telling her about the trip with Amy’s family up to go skiing. It was a fairly low-key class that day, so she ended up chatting with Amy and me during most of the class period.

“I practically live at her house sometimes,” I told her.

“Well I live at yours some of the time too,” Amy told her. “But I don’t have a room at your house like you do at mine,” she conceded.

Talking with Coach helped out with my nerves actually. After her class I found the rest of the day to be surprisingly better. By the time I got to band I was getting excited about leaving for the resort. Mrs. Remar had us run straight through our music, all three pieces, before having us put up early that day. I was glad that I wasn’t going to miss anything when I was suddenly called to the office about thirty minutes before school let out.

I found Melanie waiting in the office, and Amy came in right behind me. “You’re picking us up early?” Amy asked excitedly.

“Yes, we decided thirty minutes wouldn’t hurt either of you in your classes, and that way we can be up to the condo before dinnertime.”

We both echoed our thanks and followed her out to her car.

“Well let’s go home and meet up with your dad,” Amy’s mom told her as she let us in the car.

The drive to their house was quick, Amy and I were beginning to get more and more hyper as she drove. At their house we quickly loaded up the last couple things, used the bathroom, and took off. We were on our way up to the resort before school would have even been out! That helped cheer me up — something I’d needed after the morning.

“So what are we going to do first?” I asked Amy in the backseat.

“Well Mom and Dad want to stop by a ski shop in town on our way up to the condo. Then I think we’re going to get dinner down there somewhere too before heading up for the night.”

“Okay, cool.”

The topic switched back and forth to all sorts of things on the way up. Eventually the snow began to really pile up as we got into the town below the resort. “I can’t believe how much snow is down here already,” Amy’s mom said to her dad.

“Skiing should be really good tomorrow,” he replied.

“Yeah!” Amy said from next to me.

In town they pulled up to a sporting goods store that had been there for a long time. Whenever my parents and I occasionally drove up this direction we stopped there for my dad to look around. There were always lots of cool things he liked looking at, and fun toys that I would find too. Located on the main street in town, it had a quaint looking wooden and brick front to the store. From what my parents had told me, I think it had been open when they were kids. Her dad parallel parked the car along the street, and we went out Amy’s door since it opened to the sidewalk.

“Brrrrrr!” I said as soon as the door opened.

“It’s definitely colder here!” Amy agreed. The two of us quickly shuffled into the warm store, a bell clanged as the door shut behind us.

“I’m glad I brought my heavy coat,” I told Amy.

“Me too,” she agreed. The door dinged behind us as her parents came in. We followed them to the ski section.

“I think my skis are going to be fine for another season,” Amy’s dad said to her mom.

“I think mine will be too,” she replied.

“That just means we need to get new pairs for the girls,” he said.

My brain came to a screeching halt… ‘For the girls?’ They were going to buy a set for me? Skis were expensive! Not that that had stopped them in the past from spending money on me… but really?

Amy’s mom registered the thoughts on my face, “You didn’t think we were going to come in here and buy a pair of skis for Amy and not for you, did you?” she asked with a smile on her face.

“You really don’t have to…” I started to object.

“Yes we do Tiffany. I just talked to you about why last weekend. It’s fine,” she said with a smile.

“Thanks,” I managed to stutter out.

“Okay then, pick a set you like,” she told us both with smiles. She followed me to help me pick out a pair while Amy’s dad followed her. She showed me how to judge them by my height, recommending that I might want to go a little bit longer since I would probably grow some in the next few months. I found a pair of pink skis that seemed absolutely perfect for me! They were K2’s and featured some patterns with purple and white mixed in. ‘They’re cute,’ I thought.

“How about these?” I asked Melanie.

“They look cute Tiffany. I think they’ll work fine, let’s see if we can get you a pair of boots to go with them.” She walked over to the boots with me, carrying the set of skis I’d picked out.

Amy had somehow already managed to beat me over there. She saw the skis, “Those are great Tiffany!” She told me enthusiastically. “I just saw the perfect boots to go with them!” She grabbed me and showed me a pair of boots that were mostly grey color with a pink upper section, and purple latches. They did match the skis perfectly.

“Wow I like them!” I told her. We asked the salesman that was helping Amy already to get a pair in my size.

“How do they fit?” Melanie asked me.

“Pretty good,” I hesitated, “but they might be a little big.” I added.

The salesman heard me and had me bend a bit and walk around before saying they’d probably be good for me for the year since I was growing. “Okay, now that we have those let’s get you a set of bindings,” her mom led me to yet another section with Amy not far behind me. She’d had to go for a little bit bigger boot and that took a couple minutes. We found a perfect set that matched up with the skis, again pink and purple.

“Are you satisfied?” The salesman asked as he came up behind us.

“Yes, I think these will work fine for her,” Melanie told the salesman. “How long will it take you to do the setup on them?”

“Well…” he thought for a second, “give me thirty minutes?”

“Sounds good,” she said as she helped him put the skis on the counter that ran along the side of the store.

“Here,” Amy’s dad said as he brought the setup Amy had chosen and set it on the counter too. “Okay, let’s pick out some new ski pants and jackets,” he told Amy and me.

I was in shock that they were spending this much on me. The skis and boots alone had come to well over five-hundred dollars for me alone. “We forgot poles!” Amy told her parents as we walked over to the clothing section. That was quickly fixed, Amy and I picked out the same poles that were mainly white with some purple and pink designs going up the pole. We just sat that stuff on the counter before going back to the clothing section.

“Tiffany, we should get matching jackets and pants!” Amy told me excitedly. I had been with her mom so I hadn’t realized just how hyper she had gotten. I really didn’t notice it much though since I was pretty giddy myself. We went through the couple racks of jackets and pants in our sizes before deciding on a set that matched. The pants were a light pink with a couple of white stripes on the front on either side of the legs. We had picked out a pair of white jackets to go with them, but her mom pointed out they’d be impossible to keep clean, so we found a pair of jackets that were mainly in the same color pink, with a section along the inside of the arms, and down the sides, that were in a darker pink.

All-in-all we easily killed the thirty minutes trying on clothes before showing her dad the final product, “You two look great,” he told us.

“Definitely two cute girls,” her mom added while giving us both a quick hug.

I smiled. When I was with them and Amy like this, it felt like we were a family, and more importantly that I had a sister that I’d always wanted. There were a few more things thrown on the pile like gloves. We made a quick check to make sure the boots fit into the bindings alright, and that the bindings were set to the right tension for us, before Amy’s dad brought the checkbook out and paid for everything.

I didn’t even want to imagine that total, so I purposely looked away at Amy to try and keep myself from feeling bad. Her parents carried the bags of clothing and jackets out while we carried our skis. “Thank you!” I told both of them with a hug once I’d put them next to their car.

“You’re very welcome Tiffany,” they both told me. Her dad strapped the skis on their rooftop ski rack and then led us down the street to a restaurant to eat dinner. The temperature outside was freezing, but I was feeling pretty warm from all of my excitement. It wasn’t a long walk though to a Mexican restaurant that was on the Main Street.

Dinner was good. Amy and I split a combination plate that had a chile relleno, a taco, a couple of enchiladas, and some beans and rice. It was good, but I was glad we had split the plate since I was barely able to finish my half. Her parents talked with us quite a bit during dinner, and I learned they were just as excited to be up there as we were. Her dad had grown up skiing a lot when he was a kid. He even worked as a ski instructor during the weekends during his last year in high school. That had slowed down when he’d gone to an Ivy League school out east, where he’d met her mom, but even then he tried to make trips up to New York as often as he could.

“It wasn’t really a good substitute, but it was something,” he told me as we stood up to go.

“Okay, let’s go to the condo,” Melanie said and led us back down the street to our car.

Amy and I walked silently behind her parents, and the ride up to the condo was quiet.

“You awake back there?” her mom asked at one point.

“Sort of…” was my quiet response.

Amy actually was really close to sleeping, but she said “Yeah, I’m awake too.”

“Why don’t you two go ahead and throw on your pajamas when we get inside, and then I’ll make some hot chocolate for all of us before you go to bed.”

“Okay,” we both responded sleepily.

As soon as we pulled into the driveway in front of their condo we opened our doors and began grabbing bags. I’d brought a backpack and a small suitcase that I pulled behind me on its wheels. Amy’s dad unlocked the front door and I immediately realized that it was cold inside! “Brrr…” Amy said behind me.

“Yeah, it’s cold in here honey,” Melanie said to her husband.

“Let me see what the thermostat is set at,” he said as he came in with arms full of stuff. He walked over to a box on the wall next to the kitchen and said, “I guess I forgot to set this back higher when I came here to check on things last month,” he said apologetically. “I’ve set it up to seventy though, and it should warm up soon enough. Until then I’ll get a fire going,” he said to answer the glare coming from his wife.

“Come on Tiff,” Amy said to me, “Let’s go take our stuff upstairs and switch into pajamas…” and after a second she added, “and a couple of sweatshirts each!” That occasioned a hurt glance from her dad, but she just smiled.

Upstairs I felt memories well up in the back of my eyes. This was the place where I’d first really felt like I had a real friend… it was also the first place I’d ever had my hair done into pigtails… I couldn’t believe I was back here, and how far I’d come since I’d been here last. Amy and her parents had been up a couple times over the summer, but I’d been busy with my parents on all of those occasions. Her parents also came up a couple more times when Amy was at my house for some alone time away from her… or the girls… as they tended to say now.

“Hey Tiffany,” I heard at the same time as I felt a tap on my shoulder, “you awake?” Amy asked me.

“Yeah, it’s just… this is where it started,” I told her honestly.

She gave me a hug and said, “I understand. Come on though, let’s get dressed, it’s freezing up here!” Amy gave me a smile that always helped no matter what I was feeling. In this case I wasn’t even sure what I was feeling, but it still helped. I put on the pajamas I’d brought with me quickly in the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror really quick and saw my hair was a total mess. When we had gotten in the car I had thrown it into a ponytail…. But it had since become a hideous mess, so I just pulled out the scrunchie and fluffed it a little while planning on grabbing my hairbrush out in our room.

After I used the bathroom I headed out to her room to find her looking at some of the dolls she had sitting on a shelf. I sensed she was having a memory trip of her own as she smiled at me. “Ready?” she asked.

“Hopefully your dad has a fire going,” I chattered my teeth as I spoke to her. She grabbed my hand and the two of us skipped down the stairs. Her dad stood over a small but growing fire as we came down. Amy went to a closet and grabbed a couple blankets and the two of us huddled next to each other in front of the fireplace. I heard her dad say, ‘we’re lucky we came up here this weekend, if we hadn’t the pipes might have frozen…’

“Amy did you know your parents were going to buy all of this stuff for me today?” I asked her quietly.

She shook her head, “I mean, I kind of thought they might, but I was pretty surprised when we started shopping today.” She paused, “I guess you really are my sister now aren’t you,” she said with a smile. My arm was around her shoulder underneath the blanket and I gave her a quick hug.

We just sat there silently for a while watching the flames of the growing fire. We could hear the heater working to warm up the condo. We could feel it get warmer, as we savored the hot chocolate her mom brought us — it was so peaceful. It was so nice to be away from school. Her parents had been moving around the condo trying to get things put away and organized a bit before they came and sat down on a couch behind us.

“Why don’t you two come sit next to us?” Melanie asked. I looked at Amy who shrugged and we got up and sat in between her parents. I sat next to her mom who began stroking my hair after a bit. I must have eventually drifted off to sleep because the next thing I knew was I was being carried upstairs. Melanie was actually carrying me, to my surprise, and I heard her softly say to her husband, “Tiffany’s actually still light enough I can do this without throwing my back out. I can’t believe they both fell asleep…” I heard her say before she quietly placed me in the bottom bunk bed and tucked me. I feigned being asleep the whole time; it felt so good to be carried.