McKinley Park is about 6 blocks from my home. I used to play there as a kid. Well, I played caroms. A table game that was like billiards which required you to use a cue, to push rings around a wooden table. Sort of a poor man’s pool table. The park rarely had enough funding, so little table games kept us occupied. That’s how I met Taylor. He was, until recently, my partner in crime.

Our parents didn’t believe in video games, so we had to entertain ourselves in more… creative activities. The air horn was probably one of our more open pranks. Saran Wrap on toilet seats, condoms on doorknobs, relabeling canned produce, harmless stuff. For the most part, nobody ever really got hurt from one of our pranks. That’s why I didn’t think that anyone would get hurt from the air horn prank. Hey, with three girls under her what are the chances that none of them would catch her? Instead, all three covered their ears, and Amber fell straight to the grass landing on, so I thought, on her back.

The way to the park runs through our neighborhood of two-story homes. Most have lawns that had been overrun with weeds. Nobody hires gardeners most barely scrape by. I think this once used to be a pretty nice neighborhood. It began it’s decline years before I was born. It hasn’t improved since. The park is pretty empty these days. Most parents keep their boys busy with video games. The girls, well they go to their friends’ homes. Amber always had a few friends over. I guess that’s why she became popular enough to be a cheerleader. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve painfully learned it takes more than popularity to be one of them.

I spent most of my life avoiding people. Most people I encountered were bigger than me and typically meaner. Taylor didn't have it much better. We figured that if we hung out together, they picked on us less. So we kept to ourselves and just played our little jokes.

McKinley Park is a fairly typical park lots of pine trees for shade, a recreation hall, a sand box, and a grass field. Dotting the perimeter of the was exercise stations and a concrete pathway. The idea was that you’d jog a bit, reach the next station and follow the exercises that were posted on the signs. There was also a few tables with benches set under a row of sycamore trees that could be used by the public.

Since it was the end of summer, early September actually, the grass field was more hay and straw than actual green grass. I reached the park, and the grass field is empty. I checked my watch and find that it’s 10 minutes to 9:00 AM and I don't see anyone at the park. The recreation hall opens up at 9:30 AM on weekends, so I waited over at the swings in the sandbox.

I placed my backpack on the foot of the slide. I sit on the swing across from the end of the slide. I haven’t been on a swing since I was 6 or 7. Amber used to come with me to the park on weekends until she met her friends. I think none of her friends made cheerleader and she abandoned them for her new pompom endowed squadmates.

I lazily rock back and forth on the swing. There's nobody here. I get it in my head to have a go on the swing. I’d used to try to get the swing as high as it could possibly go and at the peak jump off. I think that scared enough people that someone finally told my mom and a week later we stopped coming to the park.

So back and forth I go the swing squeaks and squeals. I climb higher with each shift in momentum. I almost have the swing parallel to the ground when I leap off the swing and land on my feet but fall forward into a front handspring and land flat on my back with a cloud of fine sand surrounding me. “It doesn’t work on sand.” I hear a voice call out. I pick my head up, and there are two girls standing there. I think I recognize the pale blonde, wearing gray yoga pants with pink lines on the seams and a black sports bra as one of our cheerleaders. The one I don’t know, the tall brunette who’s probably wearing a sports bra, though it’s covered with a slouchy oversized T-shirt and she’s wearing sweatpants.

“Yeah, I think I need work on my dismount,” I say with a bit of a smile. “Were you the one that sent the note?”

“What note?” The cheerleader looks at me puzzled.

“Oh.” I’m unable to contain my disappointment.

“You’re Amber’s brother right?” The brunette I don’t recognize chimes in.

“Yeah, that would be me,” I say dumbly.

“You know that was a jerk thing to do to your own sister.” She says the anger in her voice is palpable.

I get to my feet, dust myself off, and walk over to the slide and retrieve my backpack. “I think this was a bad idea.”

“What are you doing here anyway?” The cheerleader looks at me annoyed. “Why are you here? I can’t believe you’re on the team.”

“He’s on the team to keep Amber spot open.” a voice from behind me. Her disappointing tone I recognize as Monica. She continues, “We need at 8 on the team to really have a chance for competition.” I turn to find Monica followed by the rest of the squad. Her disgust is rather apparent, “We barely have enough people for the routine we have. With Lisa out (looking over at the tall brunette I was chided by earlier) and now Amber; we’re down to seven. With seven, we still need to do the same number of lifts with the girls we have. Which means we have to do lifts where one girl held up and supported by only one other. None of us can lift and hold up another girl by ourselves. That's why we do two pyramids instead. If we go down to seven, we only have one pyramid and us our routine becomes less difficult, so a lower base score. We can go with an even smaller squad, six girls, but one of you has to sit out as an alternate. With six girls we’re in the ‘small group category’ for competition. Unlike other schools, we don’t have a ‘Junior Varsity’ team to bring girls in if one of us gets hurt.” With that last phrase, she looks at me and glares.

“What’s wrong with having a smaller team?” I ask.

“It means we’re less competitive and there's less of a chance for some of the seniors on the squad to get scholarships for college. Your little PRANK, put your own sister in the hospital, ruined our routine and all but guaranteed that the seniors on the squad have zero chance at a cheerleader scholarship for college.”

I have eight girls looking at me with disgust now. Lisa sums it up. “So, you cut Amber, ask one of the girls to ‘volunteer’ as an alternate and squad changes the whole routine with six girls? Or the little prankster joins the squad until Amber returns. Then what? Hope she’s well enough to compete and stay in sync with the squad?”

“Or YOU come back to the squad,” Monica says to Lisa, almost pleading with her.

“Look, I’ll help get your little prankster get up to speed, but I’m not coming back to cheerleading.”

Monica looks dejected and turns to the girls. “Alright, let’s get warmed up.”

We go through another 2 hours of warm up. Stretches, drills, routines, and other skills. After practice is over, Lisa comes over to me. “It’s Aaron right?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” I say wiping my brow with a towel. I pull my water bottle out from my backpack and begin to drink.

“About all that, earlier I mean…” She restarts the conversation, “I’m surprised you’re trying so hard.” she says without a hint of a smile.

“Well, it was because they threatened to expel me if I didn’t improve or I quit the squad. Then there’s the guilt of putting my sister in the hospital and that she’d be cut if I screwed this up. And… nevermind…”

“You’re feeling it aren’t you?” she says slyly.

“Feeling what?” I ask.

“What it feels like to be part of something? Something more than just being alone?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” I’m more defensive.

“I’m offering to help you with cheerleading, you want it?”

“What's the catch?”

“The catch it that you take this seriously. Monica wasn’t kidding about the mess you made. Well, that and you don’t ask me to rejoin the squad.”

“So what’s the story? Why did you leave?” I ask.

“Health reasons. I wouldn’t pass the physical.” Lisa has a faraway look to her. I can read the disappointment on her face. “Look, I have some spare time on weekends, and I can probably help you during lunch period on a few things.”

“I’ll take all the help I can get.” I’m finally happy to get someone on my side.

“I’m Lisa Cramer by the way.” she says extending her hand.

“Aaron Stewart,” I say back with a smile. Shaking her hand.

“So did they tell you if you were going to perform during the football games?”

“Not a word. The coach only said ‘practices, fundraisers, and charity events.”

“Oh, that’s disappointing,” she says sarcastically. “But I guess since you don’t have a uniform it would look weird.”

“You don’t think that they’d?”

“No, the football games aren’t that important, they’re just good practice for working with the crowd during competition.”

“Well, at least I don’t have to worry about that.”

“The thing is, you seem to distance yourself from the group. Why is that?”

“I think they hate me.”

“They probably do and probably will, until you give them a reason not to.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve never been part of a team have you?”

“No, not really.”

“Teams require cohesion. Look at them.” pointing to the girls who are still chatting away at the tables eating their lunch.

“So, they're all together. I’m the outsider. But what does it matter? I’m just temporary right?”

“But they still have to work with you. The squad’s coordination hinges on all of the girls working together. The team has to be in sync. Squad can’t be at its best when you’re not really part of the group.”

“You sound like you miss it.”

“You promised, remember. I can’t go back to the team.”

“So you helping me is like helping the team?”

“Kind of. I left the team before the competition last year. They still had enough girls to compete. Too many graduated, so there wasn’t enough to make a full team this year. With me gone… well…”

“I ‘get’ guilt. Believe me I really ‘get’ guilt.”

“I just want the best for them, you know?” Lisa says sadly.

The rest of the squad departs in a flurry of hugs. I’m left there alone with Lisa. “So did you send the note?”

“What note?”

“There was a note saying where the practice was this morning. It was shoved under my door yesterday evening.”

“I didn’t send any note, I didn’t know there was practice today. I came here with my friend Cindy, you met her earlier. If you want, I can work with you some more today. You do need to work on your endurance. You probably should take up running.”

“I get enough running, shuttling cones back and forth after practice.”

“Coach Tompkins, has you running cones?”

“Yeah, I have no idea why. It seems like a waste of time.”

“Are you sure she only said practice, charity event, and fundraising?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Tumbling runs take a lot out of you. You need to do a lot of sprinting to generate enough speed to sustain some of those passes.”

“Well, she had me working with Coach Reed on tumbling.”

“Oh…”