Synopsis:When Robert's lying, habitual stealing, and attitude about women gets to be too much for his mother, she comes up with a Plan to help her delinquent son turn around. .

I slowly eased my car into the school parking lot. I knew I should get out of the car, but something held me back. It was similar to the jitters I had during my first day of school, except far worse. OK Robert, deep breaths and you’ll be fine, just take it one step at a time. Apparently that wasn’t the best advice in the world.

I stepped out of the car, walked about halfway to the building, then realized that I had forgotten my purse. So I had to run back to my car and grab it. By the time I got inside the building I was out of breath.

Luckily, I had been asked to come to school early, the principal wanted to talk to me. Three guesses as to what he wanted to talk to me about. Anyway, I reported to the office. First thing I had to do was get a new ID card. Then I was sent to the principal’s office for my “big talk.”

“Have a seat Robert. My you are looking pretty today.”

“Cut to the chase, Principal Lewis. What did you want to talk to me about?” As if we both didn’t know.

“Well, son. We have a few things to talk about, so I’ll ‘cut to the chase’ as you so eloquently put it. We need to talk about what you can and can’t do during your time as a member of the fairer sex in our school.

OK."

"You can’t use the women’s restroom or locker rooms. You may use the men’s but I wouldn’t advice it. If I hear any reports of you inside a women’s restroom or locker room, you will be suspended and probably expelled. The school does have an intersex bathroom that you are encouraged to use.”

Blah, blah, blah! Yeah, I really was expecting most of this. Principal Lewis usually keeps a $500 bill sticking out of his back pocket, the jury’s still out on whether it’s real or not, and I was entertaining myself by thinking up ways to swipe it on my way out. Still he kept going on and on!

“Your mother and I have had several talks about your behavior. Let me tell you that I do not appreciate theft in my school. If it were up to me, you would no longer be attending this school. I just want you to know that your mother begged me to allow you to continue attending this school. Don’t throw away her trust, young man.”

I was a bit stunned. I didn’t know that Mom had gone through all that trouble for me. I was so stunned that I didn’t even try to swipe the $500 bill. I walked out of the office in a bit of a daze, but was stopped by one of the ladies working the desk. She had pulled up my academic records and noticed that I needed one more gym credit to graduate.

“Crap! What am I supposed to do about that?”
“Well, Honey, you can either take a gym class or you can find some kind of school approved extra curricular that would count towards a gym credit.”

“And how am I supposed to do either of those when I’m not allowed inside either locker room?”

“Well, I’ll talk to the principal about your problem and we’ll come up with a solution for you. In the meanwhile, go ahead and sign up for something you’d be interested in.”

Yeah, that was helpful. I’d have to think about it. I headed off to class and was met by an explosion of stares. I never realized how many heads turn to look at girls. I tried to shrug it off, but when you know what guys have going on in their heads, it can be rather repulsive. Still, I got to class and made it through the first few hours of school quite safely.

Lunchtime came around and I sat by myself, mostly cause I was unsure of where I belonged. I just sat by myself amongst a multitude of chattering students, trying very hard to stay hidden and unnoticeable.

Usually, I do this because it’s easier to “borrow” other people’s items when they don’t remember who you were or what you looked like. I quickly discovered that people don’t leave a good-looking girl alone. I had quite a few guys walk up to me with cheesy pickup lines and other stupid requests. Most of the girls stayed away, I guess they were still trying to make up their minds about the “new girl.” I was getting tired of all the attention and decided to look at one of the bulletin boards that had the club announcements on it.

I was still making up my mind on how to get my extra gym credit. I thought about gymnastics, I took it during my freshman year, but quickly dismissed the idea. I still knew a lot of the people on the team and I was afraid that I would be recognized there. Suddenly something caught my eye; cheerleading tryouts were in a few days! I thought about it and this could work. The cheerleaders wear their uniforms to school on days when they’ll need them so I wouldn’t have to change in a locker room.

I could always carry my gym stuff in my backpack and quickly change in a restroom for practice. I even had my gymnastics training to help me out. Cheerleading would be a perfect fit. Whoa! Slow down Robert! You a cheerleader? Well, I need the credits and this seemed to be a perfect time.

So I quickly sent off an email to Principal Lewis asking for his permission to tryout as well as to see if this would violate any of the rules he had set down.

“Rebecca! Hey Rebecca wait up!”

I was heading to my car and turned around. I recognized the girl headed towards me, Juliet O’Conner. She was one of the cheerleaders and I’d had the biggest crush on her since sophomore year. She always dressed really well and her makeup brought out her blue eyes and blond hair. I stopped walking and let her catch up.

“Hey you’re Rebecca right? I noticed you looking at the cheerleading tryouts. I just came over to introduce myself. I’m Juliet, but you can call me Julie. Hey good luck at the tryouts! If you need some help, let me know!”

“Thanks Julie! Yeah I’m not sure if I’m gonna join yet, but it’s nice to know that people are so nice here. At my last school most of the cheerleaders were snobs!”

“Yeah, we get that reputation. But here we’re really more of a family than anything else. Hey give me your number, we should totally hang out and go shopping or something sometime!”

“Oh well, I lost my phone, but I’ll let you know as soon as I have one.”

“Alright cool! Catcha later, girl!”

Ha! That was great! Julie wanted my number! Now I just had to get a cell phone. Usually, this meant taking someone else’s, but I wasn’t sure who Julie knew and who she didn’t. So, after school, I swung by the AT&T store and picked up a Go phone. Now I’m all set!

After I got back home, I went upstairs and changed into something a little more comfortable. A pair of sweat pants with my tank tops was perfect for practicing my gymnastics. If I did tryout for the cheerleading squad, I’d need to be at the top of my game! After going though a few floor exercises, I was exhausted, but happy with how much I remembered. I was just about to fire up my computer when Mom called me downstairs.

“Yeah Mom? What’s up?”

“Becky, I need you to help me with dinner. Go wash your hands and then you can cut these carrots and tomatoes for the salad.”

“Help with dinner? Since when do I have to help with dinner?”

“Becky, we talked about this. No child of mine shirks responsibility and as long as you’re my daughter, one of those responsibilities is helping me cook.”

With a long sigh I walked over, washed my hands, and began making the salad. It was actually quite fun. Figuring out what flavors would go together was something that actually had me entertained. Maybe if nothing worked out I could get a career in cooking. I was setting the table when Josh walked in. I could see him visibly gulp, then sneer.

“Well, well, well! Check out my sis! Practicing for the day you have a husband and kids of your own?”

“Yes, Josh. And since we’re on the topic, how bout you practice treating a women correctly for the days you have a wife of your own?”

There was Mom, making a situation better and worse at the same time. I finished eating dinner in relative silence, helped Mom clean up after dinner, did homework, and went to bed.

For the most part, the days flew by. I stayed quiet at school, came home to practice my cheer routine, and then helped Mom with dinner. Principal Lewis approved my plan and Josh seemed to be leaving me alone for the most part, So for now, life was pretty good!

Thursday morning I got up extra early. I had to make sure my makeup was perfect before the cheerleader tryouts. I made sure to put a spare pair of gym clothes in my bag. Nothing much, just a sports bra, some black shorts, and a pink tank top. I wasn’t sure how I’d do, I’d never actually worn any of the items but Mom had said that that was what the other girls would be wearing.

Other girls? Where did that come from? The girls, the girls, not other girls! I’m not a girl! Apparently my subconscious was falling into this role much to easily.

Anyway, school could not go by fast enough. After school, I quickly changed into my gym clothes and rushed to the gym. The shorts still felt waaay to short, I hadn’t worn exercise shorts to school before, and the amount of leg they showed was hard to get used to. The sports bra was nice though. I got to the gym just in time. There were about 9 other, I mean, 9 girls there. I looked around and most of them were pretty hot!

Easy there Robert, can’t get too excited now. Anyway we had to hand in our permission slips then line up in staggered rows of three.

“All right ladies. Welcome to tryouts for this years Wildcat’s cheer squad. This is not going to be easy and only three of you will make the squad. So good luck girls!”

With that Coach Swann walked to the bleachers. The captains of the squad would run us through the tryouts and eventually vote on who got onto the squad. The squad had twelve girls with three captains. The three captains were Juliet O’Conner, Elizabeth Swift, and Rachel Dawn. They had us do a few cheers, then a little free style dancing. Finally it was time for us to demonstrate our floor exercises.

I was the last one up. I walked up to the starting line, took a deep breath, and launched into a few handsprings across the gym. I proceeded to go through the rest of my routine then landed in perfect gymnastic form. That was honestly the hardest part: landing like a girl instead of the way my muscles had memorized the landing. I was greeted by claps and cheers; none of the other girls had any gymnastics training so my showing was definitely the most impressive.

“Nice job girls! The captains and I will discuss the tryouts and results will be posted tomorrow during lunch.”

With that the tryouts were over. The whole way home I could feel myself struggling with my tryout. On the one hand, I had done really well and I was pretty sure I’d get in. On the other hand, I was a boy! What sane 17 year-old male tries out for his school’s cheerleading squad? Still, I needed the credit, that’s the only reason I’m doing this.

The next day at lunch, I joined the huddle of girls anxiously awaiting the posting of the results of the tryout. Elizabeth walked over to the board and pinned up the list and immediately everyone in the group surged forward.

I was almost close enough to see the names when I turned around and heard Heather Riley yell at Elizabeth, “You bitch! I’m your friend and yet you don’t even get me a spot on the squad! And to spit in my face you let some new girl from Kansas onto the squad!”

With that she stormed off. Still I had an idea which girl she was talking about. I wandered off to sit and eat lunch. The enormity of my situation was just dawning on me. For so long, I had tried to stay under the radar. Hoping that if I didn’t attract any attention, I’d be able to avoid being detected. Now I’d not only be performing with a group of girls, but I’d be doing so in front of most of the school! I was sitting there just sitting with my thoughts when Juliet came and sat her tray down next to me.

“Hey girl! I was really impressed with your tryout. Congrats on making the team! Hey listen, I was wondering if you’d like to come shopping with me? Just the two of us, it’ll be great! Do you need a ride? I can drive you to the mall!”

In stunned silence I managed to stammer out answers to her questions. Apparently she wasn’t going to let me get a word in. “Sure, I’d love to go to the mall with you. I have a car, so I’ll just follow you there after school. Is that OK?”

“OK? That’s great! I’ll catch up with you after school. TTYL!”

With that she walked off. I wasn’t sure what shocked me more: Julie wanting to be my friend or the fact that I’d agreed to be one of those airheaded girls who I saw at the mall. Whatever happened, this afternoon was going to be an interesting one.

Thank you all for reading! I'm sorry this chapter took so long, it's been a busy time in my life and I haven't had much time to write. This chapter still seems to be more setup but hopefully we're still moving along well. As always comments, criticism, and kudos are appreciated!
Bethany