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.

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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.

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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 35:

 
“WHAT KIND OF cameras are you hoping to use?” Mr. Randolph asked us on Thursday.

“…whatever they’ll give us?” I said hesitantly.

“Just on videotape?” he asked.

“Well… it would probably be really cool if we could do it on real film,” I admitted to him. In the last week I had looked up every resource at our school library, the town’s public library, and Amy and I had even gotten her mom to drive us into Albuquerque to look in their main branch to try and decide how to do things.

“Wouldn’t that be expensive?” he asked me. I don’t think he thought I had a clue what I was talking about.

“Yes it will be,” I said. “But, I’m hoping we’ll have some people come through for us today. When we were at the film festival everyone was offering to help us out if we wanted to do anything else… we’re just trying to take them up on that. Amy and I are hoping they’ll help us out,” I answered him honestly.

He gave us a dubious look and let us head off to the lab where we had adopted a computer as our own. Amy and I hadn’t slept a lot the last couple nights, but our page total was nearing sixty-five already. We were proud of ourselves for making it that far, but we had at least another twenty-five pages, and we wanted to finish it today. That was our goal. I had to work hard on not breaking down during that part of the script that we were working on though. We were already to a part where the three boys were tracking the protagonists down.

The heroine, her name was Allie — after my doll, had just looked up as the boys came around a bend in the ravine they were in. Amy and I focused all our energy that day to finishing the script. We were able almost get to the end during English. I was shaking a bit during band while I thought about how some of the scenes felt way too familiar. The boys ended up attacking Allie, not a lot, but some, before the one nerdy boy got together his ‘MacGyver’ like skills and got her free.

After dance practice we headed to Amy’s house, hoping to finish up the rough-draft of the script as I stayed the night. During dinner her dad said, “I got a message for you two today,” he said.

“Oh really?” Amy asked.

“Yeah, Lilly from Mattel called and said you’d called her about your project?” He looked clueless; apparently we hadn’t filled him in. We did really quickly and he nodded. “Anyway, she said that Mattel would be happy to provide you with the money to rent cameras, film, microphones, and developing of the film for a share of any proceeds.” He added the last part. That began a discussion with him about the legal ramifications of the help we’d asked for.

“Okay girls, I need to talk to them again tomorrow and hash out some of this. Do you almost have your script done to fax to this Mr. Spencer?”

“We’re hoping to finish tonight,” I told him.

“Good, I want you two to do that and see if you can get your English teacher to proof-read it tomorrow. It would be a good thing if we can fax it to him Saturday. In the meantime I’m going to call and talk to him myself tomorrow.”

The project seemed to take on a new immediacy at that point. Amy and I worked till midnight that night so that we could finish it off. It came to ninety-six pages total, and we both felt like it was going to be awesome! As I lay in bed that night I dreamt at first of the film making, how much fun it would be… but sometime in the night the dreams changed to nightmares again. I woke up at three in the morning drenched in sweat and alone in my room. I walked into my bathroom and paced in my bedroom for several minutes before trying to sleep again. ‘This is getting old real fast,’ I thought to myself.

The morning came far too early after that, and I had trouble staying awake at breakfast. Melanie saw that I was way more tired than Amy and I think she suspected that I’d been up again last night. She gave me a hug before we got out of the car asking, “Are you going to make it today, Tiff?”

“I’m going to try,” I told her. She gave me a worried look and let me go on into the school with Amy. In Mr. Randolph’s class we asked him, “May we go give our script to Ms. Damien to look over today?”

“May I see a copy of it too?” He asked.

Amy looked at me and said, “Sure, we made a couple copies last night,” she told him. Her parents’ printer had not been happy with us, and just printing four copies had taken all night as far as we could tell. We had put brads into them to hold the copies together. One of the books I’d read had said that it was the traditional way of sending our scripts. Amy and I had been learning a lot of stuff through the books we’d checked out. It seemed that the more we learned, the more excited we became. As we handed him the monstrosity he looked at us as though we were aliens.

“You did this in one week?” he asked incredulously.

“Uh-huh,” I nodded and smiled in a way that caused Amy and Ashley to giggle.

“Okay, go take another copy to Ms. Damien, I’m going to read through it today as well.”

The four of us from that class walked up to Ms. Damien’s classroom which was upstairs and in another wing of the school. “Hey ladies and Kyle,” she said to us as she looked up from her desk. I noticed that everyone in that class was busy reading silently out of our English textbooks.

“Hi Ms. Damien,” we said softly. “We’re bringing you the script. Do you think you could try to proofread it today?”

“Probably, how long… is it…?” She asked while gasping as Amy and I handed her the giant document. She gave us a similar look of disbelief, but it faded faster because she knew Amy and I well enough to know we were capable of just about anything.

“Wow…” she said as she began reading it right away in front of us just to skim it. “I don’t know that I’ll be able to get through all of this today…” she said, “but I’ll do my best,” she added. She signed the pass that we’d used to come to her class and the four of us returned to Mr. Randolph’s class.

While we had been gone he had become absorbed in reading the script. He barely noticed that we were back at first. “Amy, Tiffany, you two really wrote this?” he asked as he had just finished up about page twenty.

We nodded.

“This is incredible. I’m going to talk with Ms. Damien about what else we can do to help you all.” He said.

“Oh, Mr. Randolph?” Ashley said excitedly, almost interrupting him.

“Yes Ashley…?”

“Is it too early to turn our research paper in?” She asked.

He stammered for a second, “Why don’t we consider this a rough draft and I’ll take a look at it…” Again he gave the four of us a look like we were aliens. While our group, plus David and Nikki, had been working hard, the vast majority of the had made almost no progress on their projects. It was hard for them to imagine what we were doing. For the rest of the day our group gathered in any spare moment and looked over the script. We began making lists of things that we would need such as props, costumes, equipment, and likely candidates for some of the filming locations.

The fact we weren’t sitting idle that day when she entered the classroom to start class was not missed by Ms. Damien. She spent some time talking to us for a bit while the rest of the class just read their assignment silently from their books. “Here,” she said at the end. “I managed to get through the script… you all owe me lunch,” she said with a wink. “I could hardly eat lunch because it was such an interesting read!”

Amy and I rifled through the pages and found red ink on most of them, it wasn’t quite oozing out like blood though. “Oh and Mr. Randolph gave me this copy to give back to you,” she said. His too was marked up some, but more from the history and story point of view. “I think this could be a really awesome project, but how are you going to do it? Won’t you need a lot of equipment?” she asked.

“Well we heard back from the lady who is the head of the Barbie division at Mattel yesterday,” Amy told her. We watched her eyes grow wide as Amy continued, “Anyway, Lilly seemed to think that Mattel would be willing to supply us with the money for renting cameras, paying for film, and all of that as long as they got a portion of profit down the road. They bought our other film, so she thinks they’ll want to do the same this time.”

“Incredible,” was all she could mutter.

“We also need to fax a copy of this to a professional film producer we met who was interested in helping out. I think he’s going to at least help us get setup with equipment maybe…”

“That’s cool,” she replied to us. The bell rang before we could talk anymore. Amy put both of the copies safely in her bag for us to take home.

We didn’t have dance practice after school, but I had to go to see Dr. Reynolds. She spent a lot of time asking me about my nightmares. I was embarrassed to do it, but I shared with her the worst of them from the past week. I was crying through most of the session feeling like a total baby. As we drove back home afterwards I was beginning to wonder what the point of it was, I felt worse than I had before I’d gone.

Mom and Dad took me to see a movie with Amy that night. I was grateful for Amy’s presence. Her presence seemed to keep my parents from asking too many questions. Mom had sat outside of the office for most of the session, so she really didn’t know what was going on every night. I’d been too self-conscious to share the information with her myself, even though I knew Dr. Reynolds must have afterwards. The movie was pretty good, but I wished that Kyle had been there to hold my hand like he had at the movie a few weeks before.

At home the two of us opened up our script on the computer and began making the changes that Mr. Randolph and Ms. Damien had suggested. Almost all of them from Mr. Randolph made the story better and more believable, while Ms. Damien saved us from spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors that might make things tougher to work with. That night Mom sent us both to bed early with warnings that she wouldn’t let us stay together for a week if we didn’t sleep. We both thought that would be impossible, but did as we were told because we were ‘good little girls,’ as Amy called us. Neither of us would really disobey our parents, so much so that we both had our own jokes about it.

When morning came I was glad Mom had sent us to bed earlier rather than later. Coach Holt worked us close to death that morning. By the time we got to the afternoon I was sure we were going to die. During a break six of us lay down on the gym floor with our heads next to each other and legs going out like wheels on a spoke. One of the girls said, “This is the last Saturday of this… right?”

“Next Saturday is State,” I told her… “Though I suppose if we didn’t make finals she could make us do all of this that day anyway…”

I heard a groan next to me from Ashley. “Please don’t give her any ideas Tiffany! She’s evil enough on her own.”

“What are you saying, Tiffany, that could possibly make me more evil?” I head a maniacal laugh and saw Coach giving us a demonic look.

“Nothing Coach Holt…” the other five said next to me in unison.

With that everyone started laughing and she got us all working on the routines some more. At three she had us get dressed in our jazz outfits and work on each other’s hair and makeup for our four o’clock performance. In addition to the audience, Ashley’s dad had his studio send a camera crew. The town’s newspaper also had a reporter there to write an article. Just before we did our jazz routine the newspaper reporter had us pose for a photo. Coach Holt introduced us a few minutes later and we came onto the floor just like we were going to for the competitions. When we were all set Coach Holt started the music for us.

As soon as it started I focused just like I knew I had to, moving deliberately to every pose. At the end of the routine, the forty or so people in the audience gave us a big cheer. I had a smile on my face from the moment we entered, just as Coach had drilled us, but the enthusiastic crowd made that easy. As soon as we finished, and the applause diminished, she signaled and we hurried into the locker room to put on the unitard set for the pom-pom routine. Coach Holt followed us into the lockere room and times us at that point, loudly counting down from five minutes. Amy and I were the first done somehow in three minutes, the other girls fell in behind us to go back in quickly.

“Good job ladies,” she said with a smile as she led us back out to the gym. The pom routine to me seemed a lot harder. There were times when you put the poms down, times when you were jumping, and I felt that we must have been pushing the rules to the very edge with some of our more difficult moves. At the end when we were in our final pose, there were two girls behind me with their poms at different angles and mine were horizontal, I felt like we were in good shape for the next week. Once again the audience applauded and we left off the floor to have cake and ice cream with our parents. Coach Holt made us change first though.

“Great job Tiffany,” Mom said as she gave me a big hug. My grandparents had come too and they also gave me hugs. It ended up being a fun afternoon that led up to Amy and I having to stay at our own homes that night.

After my grandparents left I found myself sitting on my dad’s lap for some reason. “You know you’re getting way too tall for this,” he told me as he hugged me tight.

“I’m not tall,” I told him, “but I hope I get taller,” I replied with a tired smile. It was a comment that only a twelve year old girl could say and have it make sense, and only after a day of exhausting dance practice. I felt safe in his arms though, so I stayed there. He switched me from one knee to another after a bit since his leg had gone to sleep.

“Okay Tiffany, my legs can’t take this anymore,” he said softly. But I was asleep. He gently carried me to my room, and Sunday morning I couldn’t remember having had a nightmare that night.

 

SUNDAY AFTERNOON MY group met together at Amy’s house to try and plan how we were going to do the film. Amy’s dad had faxed a copy of the script to Robert Saturday morning, and I hoped he would be able to come through for us. “Won’t film be kind of hard to know how we’re doing?” Ashley asked.

“What do you mean?” David asked back.

“It takes a while for it to get developed. My dad says there’s a place in Albuquerque that can do it, but we have to drive it over there each day and we won’t get it back until the next day at least.” In addition to managing the TV station that he worked at, Ashley’s dad had worked in the film industry for a while. “Not to mention he said we’d probably need to go to one of the movie theaters to watch it…”

“So does he think we have to use the same kind of cameras we used before?” I asked her. Our project had looked good before, but you could tell the difference between it and a normal film. It seemed to me with as much work as we were doing that we might as well do it the hard way and do it right.

“He said it would be easier…” she said and there was a pause in our conversation.

“How about this?” I started, “Why don’t we wait and see if Mr. Spencer comes through for us. If he’s willing to come out and help us, or maybe he gets a professional camera crew to help us then we’ll use real film? Otherwise we’ll get them to rent some cameras with the digital betacam setup again,” I looked around at them and they all nodded.

“That seems okay,” Ashley agreed.

“Where are we going to get actors?” Amy asked.

“Well why don’t we use you, Nikki or Ashley, Kyle and David as the main characters,” I suggested.

“And what are you going to be doing?” Amy asked.

“Playing with the cameras,” I said with a smile. It met with some resistance at first, Ashley and Nikki didn’t like the idea of being on camera, but eventually Nikki was talked into it.

“What about the other three main characters?” Nikki asked.

“I bet I can get Jake and Anthony…” David said.

“And I know a couple other guys we can ask,” Kyle added.

“Well let’s get them asked so we can get clothing sizes… we’re going to need to start working on costumes,” Ashley said excitedly. That was what she had really wanted to do, we’d figured that out during her battle with Nikki on who would be in the film.

“I’ll pin them down this week,” he assured us.

“We should probably start working on a calendar up for this,” I said a bit later.

“Yeah,” Amy said. She ran into the kitchen and brought a calendar off of her refrigerator.

The six of us worked determinedly together for the next couple hours setting a tentative calendar of when we were filming. After the first weekend of February everyone was free for a couple weekends before track season started… it seemed like the ideal time to work on filming.

“So we’ll schedule the filming for the school scenes during this week?” Kyle suggested, pointing at the calendar. He had given us the idea to actually take the script and schedule each of the sections on certain days. It worked out that we could finish by the end of February and have all of March to put it together.

“Yeah… someone should probably talk to Mrs. Henry about that…” I said.

“I’ll do it,” Nikki offered.

“Thanks Nikki…” I said. I was sure I was the person who knew her the best in the group, but just because I knew her the best didn’t mean I wanted to be the one to talk to her!

We had just about seen everyone off when the phone rang. Amy ran to get it and said, “Tiffany get on the other line!”

I picked up and heard, “I think she’s on now Mr. Spencer,” I got excited.

“Yes I’m here,” I said calmer than I felt.

“I called because I’m looking at the script you girls wrote and I’m really amazed by it!” he said to us. He sounded a little excited actually. “I don’t know if you remembered our conversation at the film festival but the Mattel executives and I were in agreement that a film written and produced by average twelve and thirteen year olds would be dynamite… and I think this has potential to be that and more…” he talked with us for a while and we motioned Amy’s dad to get on the phone after a bit, and was joined by her mother too. “So here’s my idea… I have plenty of cameras, dollies, sound equipment, and such from the studio that I can offer you guys for use. I talked to Lilly at Mattel and they’re willing to front the cash for the film and processing… I’ll get you the equipment and a few camera operators to show you how to run things. When are you going to film?” He asked.

We listed off the weeks we’d planned on filming. He listened intently and seemed to jot some notes down before saying, “That’s a great shooting schedule,” he started, “and I’m free for all but the last day of your filming if you would like me to come give you a hand as well.”

“Really?” Amy and I said together excited.

“Hold on for a second Mr. Spencer, before we agree to anything we’re going to need to see a contract for rights and everything.”

“Of course Mr. Hancock, I’ll have one of my secretaries fax you something tomorrow?” He suggested.

“That’ll work… and if I find it satisfactory I think this will work out.”

“Great! The other thing we need to talk about then is when you’re editing it. You said it needed to be done by the end of March right?” he asked. We said ‘yes,’ “Well that’s pushing it, but I think if you come out here to the studio in L.A. with the kids during their spring break in March we can get a rough version done. We may need to do some additional work before we think about putting it in the box office.”

By the end of the conversation Amy and I were so wound up her parents gave up trying to calm us down. The agreement that was made by the end of the phone call was that all decisions were up to us. Our entire group had agreed to let me be the producer and director for the project, so that really meant the decisions would be up to me. That thought had shivers and nerves tingling up and down my spine as I went to bed. ‘Would this be even better than our last film?’ I wondered to myself.

‘I hope so,’ I answered as I drifted to sleep.

 

THROUGHOUT THE NEXT day Amy and I told all of our friends the exciting news about our project. Mr. Randolph and Ms. Damien both were thrilled by it as well, but being the cautionary adults set up a meeting to talk about it with Mrs. Henry. They scheduled it during seventh period that day when they both had prep periods.

“Hi,” she said to all of us as we gathered around the conference table, “Mr. Randolph and Ms. Damien said we should all meet about your project?” she asked.

“We’re doing another film,” I started off — so much for Nikki doing the talking to her.

After about twenty minutes of questions and answers she said, “I don’t see any problem with it, but I do think there needs to be a release form signed by whoever participates,” she directed that towards Ms. Damien and Mr. Randolph.

“I think we can come up with something,” Ms. Damien told her.

“Just keep me up to date with stuff, I don’t see any problems with it,” she told us finally at the end of the meeting. We finished just in time to head to dance practice after school, but I was glad to have that meeting over with. The less time I spent in the office, the better. The rest of the week we spent time lining up places to film outside of the school. We decided to use Amy’s house, Ashley’s house, and finally my grandparents’ ranch as the other main locations.

The casting call process was the other thing that took up a large part of our week. We decided to see who else might be interested in acting in the film, and held auditions. Amy, Kyle, David, and Nikki stayed in their roles, but we also added in three boys and several teachers to play the adults. My grandparents were even going to be playing a small part in the film.

With all of that figured out, we took a trip into Albuquerque and hit some thrift stores for clothes for the characters. Amy and Nikki already had outfits that would work, but Kyle needed geekier clothes. David and the other guys also needed clothes to match their characters. Amy and I were so excited about this project that we were actually disappointed when we had a snow day that Thursday. We’d been planning on working on making some props that day. Coach Holt called us at lunch time and asked that all of us go ahead and come in for a practice at two-thirty though.

Amy and I had been playing in the snow most of that day, making snowmen with the foot of snow that had fallen overnight. That meant we were already tired when we got to practice. I noticed most of the girls looked to have done the same thing. It had been the first real snowfall that winter. We forced ourselves to give Coach Holt a good practice though, since it would be our last before State the next day.

At Amy’s house that night the two of us fidgeted nervously about the house. Neither of us could calm down for bed. My last memory was still being up at two in the morning and looking at the alarm clock that was set to wake me in four hours. When sleep eventually came my nightmares returned as they usually did when I was stressed, but these were the normal silly kind, like finding myself naked during the performance the next day.

 
 

Chapter 36:

 

“TEACHERS PLEASE EXCUSE this interruption, but would you please release the girls that are on the dance squad to the locker room at this time?” Mrs. Henry said over the intercom. After a pause she added, “Students please wish them luck at their state competition tonight and tomorrow.” Amy and I had been talking to Coach Holt at her desk while her sub had been working with the rest of the class in home-ec. The three of us walked together to the locker room.

“Okay, I know it’s going to be cold outside, but please go ahead and get your outfit for the pom routine on. Once you get dressed please come see me or Kristina’s mom so that we can get your hair done…” the smell of hairspray was thick in the locker room by the time all we were all ready. As soon as Amy and I had our hair set we started helping with everyone’s makeup. It was a long process, and before we knew it the bell rang for the end of school and the girls’ PE classes all marched past the locker room to go home.

“Ladies, you’re going to do well tonight, I know it!” Coach Holt told us. “Just make sure you focus and do your best!” She smiled at all of us seemingly for the first time in a week. “Check your bags and make sure you have everything you need — then head out to the bus!” She said with a note of excitement in her own voice. That morning had been a waste of time for all of us on the squad, none of us could concentrate. The teachers all commented on it to us and gave up. They were also fighting the hyperness that having had a snow day the day before had wrought.

On the bus Coach asked us to sit quietly and focus on what we had to do. It was tough though, all I wanted to do was talk nervously to Amy who was sitting next to me. Amy looked at me with the same look I knew I had to have in my eyes. We ended up holding hands through the trip into town. It was the first time I’d ever been to where they were hosting the tournament. The Pit in Albuquerque is at UNM, and is exactly that, a big deep ‘pit’ of an arena where they hold basketball games. We pulled into the parking lot at four and were given fifteen minutes to go pee and get a drink before being led to a warm-up area. I needed most of the time just to remove all my layers…

After a lot of stretching, we went through the routine by counts once, and then with the music before Coach Holt had us come sit down around her. “Ladies you’re doing an incredible job, just make sure that you do that well out there and I think we’ll make the finals.”

“Captains, anything to add?” She asked Amy and me.

This was kind of unexpected, but I felt we had to say something, “We’ve worked really hard for this, its’ ours to do well. Just don’t get distracted by anything else and we’ll be back here tomorrow!” I said.

Amy went next, “Look, this is our first year ever of having a dance squad! Look how awesome we’re doing! Like Tiff said, just focus, do your job, and it’s going to go great. Coach Holt has taught us well, we’re going to do great!”

At that point our guide said, “It’s time,” to us. We quickly gathered in a circle with our hands and screamed, “Coyotes!!!” at the top of our lungs before lining up to go out to the floor.

We walked through to an opening where we could see stands that were filled here and there by different colors of squads. The competition actually started the night before for high school, and had continued through this afternoon when they had the junior high squads go. I think the idea was that junior high school students shouldn’t miss as much school, and that we didn’t have basketball games to cheer at that night. From my vantage the arena looked huge! I could see the performance mat in the middle of the floor that we would be using for our performance.

“Ladies and Gentlemen! Please welcome, from Holden Junior High, the Coyotes!” the announcer came over in a big voice and announced us as we marched to our starting marks. I knew that I had my pom-poms in both hands put together, with my arms at the same angle as everyone else without looking. I kept the smile on my face even though all I wanted to do was throw up as I looked at the stands of people. We all fell into our starting spots and waited for the music to start.

The music came on louder than I’d ever heard it before, and I found myself jump a bit as it startled me. I ended up moving just a tiny bit early on my first move. I corrected and moved in time with everyone else as the dance went, but I couldn’t help but notice that some of the other girls seemed to be slightly off here and there too. I did my best to lock in my part and focus all of my concentration on the dance. I was sure that we had still done well, but it wasn’t as good as it had been twenty minutes earlier. Coach Holt had trained us to keep the smile on our face no matter what, but it was hard as we walked out. I knew we could do better!

“Damnit!” I heard one girl swear when we were off the floor.

“Language!” Coach Holt said to her, but I could hear in her voice she felt the same way.

“How bad…?” one of the girls started to ask but Amy and I glared her into silence quickly.

Coach Holt paced in front of us for a few moments and then returned when she’d cooled down some. “Ladies, you and I know that wasn’t your best, but we have to move on in the competition,” she said calmly. “I want everyone to go get a drink of water real quick, then use the bathroom! Then let’s go back out and show the judges how much better you can do!”

I felt a tingle down my spine, but not a full tingle. I was feeling pretty down as I and the other girls followed her instructions. As I sat down to pee I almost got stuck in the unitard. Just as I was getting ready to call for help from Amy though I managed to get free. I started giggling a little bit then as I finished up and pulled everything back on.

“What’s so funny Tiff?” Amy asked when I emerged.

“Oh I just tried to strangle myself with my unitard… nothing to worry about.”

There was so much tension in the room that it took just that pin prick for all the rest of the girls to start giggling too. It was infectious. “Okay Ladies, we’ve got to go out and do better, forget about the last performance,” I found myself saying, “let’s do well enough to make finals and we’ll do better with the pom routine tomorrow!”

I heard a chorus of agreement and we all moved outside smiling much more than when we entered. Coach Holt looked at us strangely but didn’t knock the looks on our faces. We were led back upstairs where we changed into the jazz pants and the camisole for our jazz routine. Within a half-hour we were right back in the same warm-up area running through our jazz routine.

This time though Coach didn’t have us run it without the music, we just ran straight through it once, and then she sat us back down. “Ladies you all still did better than most of the junior high squads that are performing here on your poms routine. The thing is though, you’re going to have to step it up to make sure that we make finals and have a chance to do better tomorrow,” I almost smiled by how familiar her words were. ‘Perhaps she should have been just having me talk?’

“I know the volume of the music, the size of the floor, and everything else threw you off a bit. Don’t let that happen this time,” she told us. After several more minutes we had a group hug around her and then circled up another time before lining up. We were lined up before the guide told us we needed to leave this time.

Walking into the arena that time I felt different, we’d done the first routine, we survived, and I knew we could blow them away this time with this routine. The first part of the song started up, but I didn’t startle that time. I kept my body moving in exact time with the music. I made sure that I followed every little thing that Coach had ever said to us. We had a big move coming up, ‘nail it, nail it,’ I said to myself.

And… I did! By the time we arrived at the end of the song I wasn’t fake smiling, it was a real smile. I had done really well, and as far as I could tell the rest of my friends had as well! In the hallway as we left that time there was a moment of giggling, screaming, and then lots of crying as the stress took its toll on all of us.

“Come on girls, let’s get you some food, get you dressed for the awards ceremony, and then come back,” she told us. As we left the bottom we ran into our parents. Every girl had someone that came and embraced them before letting us go get food. My parents walked beside me while Amy’s walked beside her.

We had some pizza that had been delivered and changed into our standard cheerleading uniform. It was already time for the awards ceremony when we finished. We were able to watch the last two performances by other squads, both in the same junior high category. One was just okay, but the last one was phenomenal. They were perfect as far as I could tell, and I really liked their routine. After a few minutes the announcer came over the system and said, “Ladies and Gentlemen please give us a few minutes to tabulate the results. At this time would all squad captains please make your way down to the floor on the west side of the arena. Meanwhile we would like to invite you to watch your very own Lobo’s cheerleading squad!”

The UNM group came running out of the tunnel we had been in to enter, tumbling, jumping, and excitedly entering all the way in. They proceeded to do a mixture of cheer and dance routines for fifteen minutes. Amy and I missed most of it though as we hurried to make it down to the floor. From the floor I could see my teammates clustered together in the center now with our parents sitting in a section just behind them.

“I’m getting really nervous now Amy,” I told her.

“Me too,” she said and we gave each other a hug for good luck.

“Captains?” a lady asked from us in the mean time.

“Yes ma’am,” was the general chorus.

“I’m going to call your school in alphabetical order. Please line up then and don’t talk so we can get this finished quickly.” She proceeded to call about fifteen schools before calling, “Holden,” and Amy and I joined the line. In all I guessed there were about forty junior high schools in attendance for the event. Some had just entered in cheer events — others looked to be like us and in it for the dance events.

They had us all lined up while the UNM squad was still out there cheering and getting the audience pumped up. When they finished, the announcer proceeded to explain some of the rules of the competition. “Squads may enter in up to two categories for our competition. In each category teams are awarded points that count for that event and towards their overall total…” more details were given, but I found myself tuning it out. I knew everything about it already, there was no point in listening much more.

“Okay ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the captains of today’s squads!” With that we were given a cue to walk out. I found that Amy and I fell into a step pattern just like we did with our squads, eventually noticing that everyone was all but in step together. It was kind of funny.

After they lined us up they began calling the categories. The loudest applause at first was definitely for the cheer category. Finally the last two of the dance categories were called. “Our next category is Pom-Poms. The most competitive category with thirty squads participating…” he called out places beginning with tenth. When they got to fourth I was getting worried that maybe we weren’t going to be called at all! It was the most competitive category, maybe we hadn’t even made the cut. “In third place, with a score of ninety-six point eight… THE HOLDEN JUNIOR HIGH COYOTES!”

Amy and I did a jump at that point and took a step up to collect the trophy for the place. It wasn’t first, but with as bad as we had done I doubted we would get that high! Amy and I smiled because we knew that if we’d done that well in that category we had to have done better in the jazz competition.

“Our final category of the night is Jazz. This was also a very competitive category this year, with the difference between tenth and first just five full points….” I started biting my nails mentally even though I was locked into the same pose as Amy. They rolled through all of the places, “Second place goes to East Rio, with a score of ninety-six point nine.”

“That brings us to first place ladies and gentlemen…” the announcer went on and I was now sure we had lost far lower than that. I couldn’t believe it… we’d done better on our jazz routine! “And first place in the jazz category goes to….. HOLDEN COYOTES!!!”

I screamed a lot as I jumped in the air and did the splits. I heard everyone from our team scream in the stands, and everyone seemed to applaud us. This trophy was far bigger than the one we’d gotten for third. We stepped back in line and waited for the instructions to leave, completely forgetting about the final part of the prelims. At that point they announced the overall state preliminary cheer results, and the state preliminary dance results.

I was getting fidgety during the cheer results. The ten schools were called in their point order, and trophies given to third through first places. After an eternity they started calling out the places for the dance competition. We won second!!! I was happy given everything, and we were announced as a finalist. As we were dismissed Amy and I carried our three trophies with us up to a staircase where we could meet our squad.

It was a never ending scream fest for about twenty minutes and parents took lots of pictures. Meanwhile Coach Holt looked over the results and our scores before getting everyone’s attention. “Okay, I’ll let you get out of here in a few minutes,” she told us. “But first thing, everyone will need to be ready to get on the bus at nine tomorrow morning. Please come dressed in your jazz outfit, we’ll be doing that routine first. Moms if you could please help make sure the girls are all set with the same hair and makeup as they started off with tonight, that would really help…” She continued to go over some things before saying, “Great job ladies, we just need to do a bit better and I think we can win the pom category and overall too!”

My dad carried my duffle bag for me on the way to our car. After we got loaded up, Amy’s parents and mine drove from The Pit to a restaurant near the university that served cinnamon rolls all night. We all ate one and talked excitedly until they decided it was time to get us home. I wanted to stay with Amy… but both of our mom’s wanted control over getting us dressed the next day. I didn’t want to rob my mom of that, or her mom of that, so we both slept at our own houses that night.

I had calmed down enough on the ride home that I fell right asleep after I showered and put my pajamas on. ‘That was so much fun!!!!’ a voice in my head screamed over and over again at me.

 

MOM WOKE ME the next morning early and helped me get my hair set, do my makeup, and get completely ready for the jazz routine.

“Hey Tiffany!” I heard Amy say as I got out of my mom’s car at the school.

I gave her a hug and said, “You look great!”

“So do you!” she said. We were both hyper as we boarded the bus to leave. Our parents were going to follow us in their cars.

“Ladies start focusing,” Coach said as we pulled away from the school. “Listen up! I want to tell you what the judges dinged us on so that we can fix it…” She spent the entire drive correcting different mistakes and even had us do some of the arm motions from our seats. By the time we got back to The Pit I felt like we were ready to go. Unfortunately as soon as we got off of the bus, until we performed, my stomach was back to feeling like a truck full of butterflies had been unloaded inside of it. I did my best though just to focus and get ready.

The jazz portion of the competition had ten finalists who had randomly been selected for order. It was the first part of the dance competition that morning, beginning at ten. The cheer portions had just finished up before that. I felt bad for the squads that had to be there to cheer and do stunts at eight… As we walked back through the tunnel and into The Pit again I felt my stomach tighten, but it loosened as I forced myself to take a deep breath.

“Good luck girls!” I heard Coach say as we walked in step to our starting spots again.

As the music started I remembered everything that she had told us. I felt my feet and hands do everything I asked them to, and was smiling big at the end. When we finished, and just before we walked off, we bobbed our heads so that our hair flicked a bit before turning to the left and leaving the floor of the competition.

“Great job ladies!!!!” Coach Holt fairly screamed as we came out. “Remember to do it just that way next Thursday!”

The squad made it back through the labyrinth and we all hit the bathroom. Coach Holt had us change into our pom routine outfit, but let us go watch a few of the hip-hop groups perform to relax and kill some time. Amy and my parents came up and hung out with us for a little bit then. As we passed through the entry way I saw a “State Championship” shirt that I wanted. I was just about to point to it, but mom said, “You already have one sitting in our car.”

“Really?”

“Yes, and a couple other surprises. You don’t need to go spend any more money for us, we’re doing well on our own,” she said with a smile. I gave her a big hug and clung onto her for a bit until we had to get ready for the last performance. We had drawn the second spot for the pom category.

There was a stretching and calm down session again before we ran through the routine once and lined up. It all began to feel normal to do the procedure this time. “Ladies, this is it. If you do this as well as you did the last routine you’ll win state, I’m sure of that. I’ve had a lot of fun the last couple days listening to coaches complain because this brand new squad has come from nowhere and is kicking the pants off of their girls!” She beamed with pride.

“Remember to do your best out there. Show the rest of the squads why you were accepted to Nationals, and why you deserve to be state champions!” Her enthusiasm was infectious. We all screamed and cheered there before refocusing and lining up.

While we waited for the announcement to go I couldn’t help but think about how things hadn’t gone so well yesterday. I focused on making sure that I didn’t repeat my mistakes. I spent a quick moment gripping my poms a little tighter before the voice came on. “Ladies and gentlemen please welcome the Holden Junior High Coyotes!!!!” I could just make out the crowd with my peripheral vision as we walked out to our spots. It was a lot more crowded inside the stadium than it had been the day before.

I shut that out though as I took my spot.

Boom! I heard the first beat of the song and moved my body perfectly with the routine. It was another of the moments like I’d had earlier in the day. I seemed to sense calm out of the chaos and I knew that I did great. From our final pose the audience roared with applause. I walked back out of the arena with tears flowing through my eyes. It was over!

“Sweetie you did great!” I felt arms move around me as I met up with a line of parents upstairs. Mom and Dad gave me big hugs before trading me to Amy’s parents. The two of us were both crying, and I noticed the rest of the squad was too.

I heard another dad asked the question, “Did you all do that badly?”

There was a chorus of shaking heads and we just all started tearing up more. I heard the mom of the girl say, “They’re just tired, it’s a lot of stress!” she told her husband. I think she was glaring at him too, but I couldn’t tell through the water that was streaming through my eyes.

Thirty minutes later all of us were cleaning up our makeup and putting on the cheer uniforms once again. I was really grateful to my mommy who helped out with the makeup. “I’m not going to buy you anything but waterproof from now on…” she had told me with a smile.

Since there were only nineteen squads remaining for the finals we all were asked to line up behind one another in lines on the court. It reminded me a lot of the competition at the camp this past summer. Just like then, I felt like we’d done really well, but I didn’t know if it was enough. ‘We have to win first if we want to have a chance at Nationals…’ I told myself. It seemed impossible to compete at that level if we couldn’t at least make first in our own rural state.

There was silence for a long while during the tabulation. “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the 1996 New Mexico Junior High State Cheer and Dance Finals Competition!!!”

“Please give all of the young people on the court another round of applause for a fantastic set of performances these past two days!!!” I didn’t know how the announcer could possibly keep his voice going like that, but he did. “First we will award places in each of the categories. Trophies will be given for fourth through first place.”

He proceeded to list off the cheer categories first. Then he got to the hip-hop category which had been kind of entertaining to watch. I smiled as I remembered my dad squirming throughout the whole session we’d watched and heard him mutter to my mom “I don’t want Tiffany ever doing that style of dance…” She had giggled, and I had pretended not to hear it. The high school squad did perform routines in that category sometimes, although they were just performing in the same categories as we were this year as well. Truthfully I liked jazz and poms the best. I thought it was the most fun type of dancing for us to do.

“And now for the Jazz category…” he waited. “In seventh place…” he listed squad after squad, and I knew when we weren’t listed as second or third we had to be first. “And in First place for Jazz Dance is Holden Junior High!” As a squad we did a cheer and I got hoisted up on top of a pyramid before being let down to grab a monstrous trophy with Amy. We set it down at our feet and stood back at attention.

The same routine was passed through for the pom routine. This time as we passed third and second place though, I was fearful we weren’t going to be called. Sure enough though we were called, “First Place, Holden Junior High!!!” Another cheer, this one repeated while Amy and I grabbed the trophy. While we both grabbed a side of the trophy I was blinded by a lot of camera flashes. After winning two categories we were guaranteed the state dance trophy, and as we received it all of us hugged each other.

“Great job girls!” Coach Holt said as we posed for photographs afterwards. They had brought the preliminary trophies in too, and between all of them we had six trophies arrayed in front of us! We also each got a gold medal for being the state dance champions!

“Okay, that’s enough pictures for now, let’s get you all out of here and go eat,” she told us.

Mrs. Henry appeared right then and said, “The school is buying lunch for all of you! Congratulations ladies!”

Lunch was at a packed Olive Garden. It kind of sucked as they rotated us into some tables and our parents had to sit away from us. Amy, Kristina, Ashley, and I clung together though and ended up next to Coach Holt. It was a jubilant meal, and all of us enjoyed the looks of the boys that walked by our table.

I was enjoying myself up until I saw him.

Amy saw my face turn to anger and fear. She instinctively grabbed onto my hand to keep me calm. I couldn’t help but want to puke at that moment though, because there in front of us stood Jarred and his mom trying to get a table. His left eye was covered in gauze and his right arm was in a cast. The one good eye though focused in on me and shot me a look of pure hatred. That was nothing though compared to when his mom realized who I was.

She came screaming over to my table, “You fucking bitch!! You ruined my son!!!!!”

“Excuse me Ma’am, please step away from her,” I heard Coach Holt tell her while getting in between her and I.

“Get out of my way, I’m going to poke her eye out too and see how she likes it!” A blur of motion happened right then and I found myself being embraced by Amy and Melanie.

“DON’T YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT TOUCHING MY DAUGHTER!!!” My mom screamed at her while getting in between Coach Holt and her. “Your son deserved what he got! Now back off!”

In the meantime I saw a police officer appear out of nowhere and say to Jarred’s mom, “Ma’am I need you to step outside with me please.”

“No,” his mom said.

“I’ll ask politely again ma’am,” the officer suggested.

“No way in hell are you…” she started and the officer went ahead and pulled out a set of handcuffs to use on her. Before I knew it she was half-way into the handcuffs when Jarred tried to attack the officer. Another officer appeared and between the two of them they were both handcuffed and led away. I barely knew what was happening before it was over.

I was hysterical. I sobbed and sobbed, barely able to breathe. On a day that should have been an incredibly happy and memorable occasion, all I could do was cry and hope that I might be safe somewhere, someday. My parents held me tight and I didn’t have a clue about what was going on around me for a long time.