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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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 37:

 
HOURS PASSED BEFORE I was able to stop sobbing. It was then that I noticed Amy’s family and my parents all gathered around me. At the restaurant several other cops had arrived and my parents and other patrons gave accounts of what they had seen. When all was said and done the officer had let us file harassment charges, while Jarred and his mom faced separate charges for their conduct towards the officer. All of that occurred off in another plane of existence for me though, as I barely acknowledged anything. I had come out of my stupor just enough to keep my parents and Melanie from admitting me into a hospital. I had resumed my sobbing all the way until now, whenever that was.

“You’re safe now Tiffany, things are going be all right sweetie,” my mom was still repeating over and over again to me as she rocked me back and forth. As I controlled my emotions finally I felt exhausted. They seemed to notice I was coming out of it too, and conversation that had been going on stopped.

“Sorry…” I croaked meekly with a hoarse voice.

“It’s okay Tiffany, it’s understandable,” Melanie said across from me. I felt her hand brush my eyes with a Kleenex.

“Why?” I asked. I think they understood me.

“I don’t know,” Amy’s dad said, “her son had to get it from somewhere, and it must have been from her. I’m sure she was genuinely upset that her son lost his eye, and the broken arm and ribs can’t have helped her, no matter the reason. I have a feeling that she’ll be using insanity as a defense…” he said and stopped. I wondered if he was thinking he said too much.

“I’m sorry for being such a drama queen…” I said as I tried to sit up. I was really light headed though.

“If we thought you could help it we would have spanked you,” Dad said to me in a manner that made me wonder if he was joking or not. I hadn’t been spanked in years, although I was sure he could still do it to me and make it hurt… ‘He wouldn’t make me hurt though would he?’ I started thinking and had to force myself to control myself from going into another stupor.

“Here Tiff, drink this,” Amy said handing me a glass of water. I guzzled it down before I realized what I was doing. I was really dehydrated.

“Not too fast,” Melanie said too late. She sent Amy for another glass.

“Are you going to be okay?” Mom asked me.

I shook my head, “I don’t know… I thought I was finally starting to get past this…” I felt my chest heave two more sobs before I stopped it. I couldn’t fall into that pit again… I might not come out of it. For however long it was I tried so many times to control myself, but couldn’t. It scared me.

“Why don’t we get you changed into something more comfortable,” Mom suggested. I was still in my uniform so I shrugged.

“Okay…” I said. Mom and Melanie ended up helping me stand and helped me back to my bedroom. I didn’t even remember how we got home. I had to be undressed like a little kid… I just couldn’t manage my motor skills right then without falling over. After they managed to get me dressed, they helped me get back to the living room where I noticed I was freezing. I started shaking.

“Why am I so cold all of the sudden?” I asked my teeth chattering. Mom and Melanie looked worried while Amy went and got a blanket for me.

“I think you’re in shock sweetie,” Melanie told me gently.

“I know I’m in shock,” I chattered to them. Thankfully the spell didn’t last too long though… I was feeling good and numb by around six o’clock, just happy not to be bawling like a baby, freezing, or anything else at that moment. Amy’s dad and my dad had disappeared in the kitchen to talk after they saw I was okay, while Mom, Melanie, and Amy stayed by my side trying to help me any way they could.

About an hour after I had half of a grilled cheese sandwich, our phone rang. Coach Holt was checking up on me, making sure I was okay. “Would you like to talk to her yourself?” Mom asked her. “Here she is then,” Mom said while making the phone next to her chair in the living room stretch out to where I was.

“Hello?”

“Tiffany? I’ve been really worried about you. Are you alright?” Coach Holt asked anxiously even though she’d heard it from Mom a second ago.

“I don’t know about alright… but I’m doing better now. Thanks for calling and checking,” I told her.

“I’m still in shock by what happened there Tiffany, I’m so sorry, if there’s anything…”

“Coach, there’s nothing you could have done, or can do right now. Well… maybe please don’t think I’m a total nutcase,” I told her, wishing I could smile while saying that.

“I don’t think you’re anything of the sort sweeite, you’ve already had a horrible experience… and that mom just had to do that… Anyway, are you sure you’re okay?” She asked again.

“As okay as I can be right now,” I assured her.

“Well then I’ll see you Monday?” She asked.

“I’ll be there, we have a competition next week.” I told her with determination in my voice.

A few moments later I asked, “Why did I have to lose it so bad then?” I asked. I wanted so badly to understand what was wrong with me. Was I losing my mind? Did I need to be sent to the loony bin?

“I think it had to do with how tired and excited you were from the competition…” Melanie started off, “when you then had that shock in your system of seeing Jarred again, and the rest of it… Who can blame you?” She said the last part softly.

“I will be able to go to school on Monday, right?” I asked both of my moms.

“I don’t know sweetheart,” Mom started to say.

“I have to go,” I told her while looking at her in the eyes.

“We’ll see,” she said a moment later. “For now I think you should go ahead and get some rest in bed.”

Melanie nodded with her. I saw Amy look at her and she said, “You can stay here sweetie,” to her.

I was helped to a lesser degree down the hallway again and into my bed. Mom handed Emily to me as she tucked me in and kissed me goodnight. “I love you sweetheart,” she told me.

I closed my eyes as Amy moved about the room and the bathroom to get ready for bed herself. I was sure she wasn’t tired, but she cared enough for me that she wanted to go ahead and be there for me. I expected it to be a long night of nightmares that night, but I only remembered one. It was of Jarred’s mom blaming me for her son’s missing eye. Somehow his eye grew a mouth of its own where I had gouged it with my finger. I managed not to scream somehow when I woke up. I just rolled back over to bed and hugged Emily even tighter, tears pouring from my eyes.

 

SUNDAY AND MONDAY my parents and Amy’s parents watched me like a hawk to see if I would curl up into my shell again… but I managed not to. At school all of the girls from the squad were really protective of me, and when one kid made a rude comment about what he’d heard had happened, Kristina had all but broken his nose. I made it my mission to throw myself into the film project and dance, thinking of nothing else those days. That plan got fouled up a bit on Tuesday morning when Mom picked me up to take me to an appointment with Dr. Reynolds.

I managed not to completely lose it, but I did cry a lot in her office. Much of the time she asked Mom to stay out of the office so it was just the two of us. I wondered how the conversation had gone afterwards with the way Mom looked at me. When we went out to eat that afternoon she avoided taking me to Olive Garden like she normally did, instead we ate at the mall food court.

Wednesday was our last day before we left for the competition, and our principal decided we needed to have a pep rally before we left. At the pep rally we performed both of our “State Winning” routines for the students while in our normal cheer outfits. We’d all decided it wasn’t worth risking our other outfits for just a pep rally. The students, teachers, and parents who attended all gave us a lot of applause. After school Coach Holt had a quick meeting with us, but didn’t keep us that day for practice.

“I don’t want to over-practice you all more than I already have,” she said with a smile on her face. “Go home and get packed, get some rest, and I’ll see you here bright and early at four in the morning!” On my way out the door to go to where Amy’s mom was waiting for us she gave me a hug. Coach Holt had been incredibly supportive the whole time, but especially the last couple days she’d been watching me just as closely as my parents.

“Are you about packed Tiffany?” Melanie asked me as I got into her car.

“Sort of… not all the way though,” I told her honestly.

“Let’s go to your place and get you there then,” she said. The plan was for me to stay the night at their house. It wasn’t really possible for my parents to see me off in the morning anyway, so I was just going to say bye to them at dinner. When we pulled up into my driveway Melanie put the car in park and came in with Amy and I. My suitcases were already pulled out of the garage and laying open on my bed.

Inside one of them I put my dance team uniforms, including the one I’d worn to school. On top of that I put my pom-poms and duffle bag inside. I was able to get a few other things in there too before closing it up and putting some normal clothes in my other small suitcase. The main thing that went in there though were curling irons and a small portable blow dryer. While I wouldn’t normally take those while traveling… I needed them to do my hair for the competition. Melanie made a comment about how Amy and I could actually share those…

I packed my backpack with some other items, stashing a purse inside of there with the money my parents had given me for the trip. My makeup also went in there, so I knew it wouldn’t be totaled by the time I got to Orlando. All-in-all I packed carefully, making sure I had all of the pairs of shoes I would need, sweatshirts, my winter coat for getting to the airport and back. Melanie triple checked me on some things, especially like toothpaste and such. I had forgotten some hair scrunchies that had been made for our team, but other than that I’d done well.

“Good girl,” she even said as she gave me a hug.

“Bring Allie!” Amy said at the last minute.

“Huh?” I’d already put Emily in my suitcase.

“Seriously, bring Allie! I’ll bring mine too!” she said. I decided if she was going to, why not? I carried her in my arms with the intention of putting her in my backpack while we flew.

“You know I’m going to have a hard time getting people to believe I’m not seven if I’m carrying a doll around…” I grumbled to her.

“You’ve got boobs now!” She said laughing, “They’ll believe you now…”

I gave her a, ‘did you really just say that look?’ before hugging her and admitting she was right. The best thing about Amy was that she could almost always make me laugh. She was the most awesome sister I could have ever dreamed of having… I wished we’d been born that way sometimes.

I spent time hanging out in her room when we got to their house helping her to pack while holding Allie. She and her mom ran around in circles for a while before we left to meet my parents for dinner at a Mexican place. Other than the food court the day before it, was the first time I’d been in a restaurant since Saturday, and I was kind of nervous about it.

I fidgeted a little bit as we waited for my parents to get there, but when they arrived I was surprised when Mom came in with two small wrapped boxes in her hands. She handed one to me and one to Amy. “What’s this?” I asked.

“A surprise,” she told me, “go ahead girls, unwrap them.”

We both pulled the paper off and looked inside the boxes. There was a miniature uniform, exactly like our normal black cheerleading outfit. It was a perfect copy! It even had the little scripted ‘captain’ that Amy and I had sewn on our uniforms above our names. “How cute!” I said.

“Thank you!” Amy said while leaping up from her chair and going over to hug my mom. I did the same.

“Who made them?” I asked Mom.

“Abby at work saw your picture a couple months back… when I mentioned the dolls you two were getting for Christmas she mentioned that she could sew things for them if I wanted her to. A couple weeks ago I asked her to make these. I borrowed your uniform one weekend while you were gone Tiffany,” she told me.

“So this’ll fit Allie?” I asked.

“Should fit perfectly, she used another of those dolls to model off of.”

“Cute!” I said again.

Dinner was a fairly happy affair that night. I think Mom had decided I needed something to make me smile, she knew I would be apprehensive about being in a public restaurant after what happened that weekend. Amy and I gave my parents hugs goodbye as I left with her parents to go to their house. Before bed, Amy and I dressed our dolls in their new outfits. Melanie took a couple pictures with them like that and we promised we’d let her get some while we were on the trip.

I slept in my room at their place that night and felt safe, but nervous about the trip. The next day we would be performing in front of a group of really important judges… What would that be like?

 

Chapter 38:

 

THURSDAY MORNING ALL of us were supposed to wear our warm-up pants, dance team shirts, and warm-up jackets. I wore all of that plus a heavy coat on top! Amy’s dad dropped her mom, Amy, and I off at the school where we walked into the cafeteria and waited for the bus to get there. Amy and I both were carrying our dolls with their new outfits on. Both of us were so sleepy that we just found a seat and sat there.

“Hey Amy, Tiffany!” Coach Holt said coming back from her room.

“Hi,” we both mumbled.

“How cute!!!” she said when she saw our dolls. She held mine for a moment before saying, “I want one…”

“I’m sure my mom’s friend would make more of the outfits,” I told her.

“I might have to ask her,” she said when she handed Allie back to me. The rest of the girls started arriving and I was amused to see that every one of them was carrying a stuffed animal. They all had the same reaction to our dolls, and I found that I had to chase Allie down before we left the school. All of us were beginning to wake up about the time we got to the airport. Walking through security with the doll meant that the security guard was sure I was eight and needed my ‘mommy’ to walk through with me.

“She really is twelve,” Melanie told him.

As we walked away I just said to Amy, “so much for the boobs theory…”

 

MY EXPERIENCE ON the plane was similar to the security guard. The stewardess thought I was Amy’s little sister or something, and had come along for the competition. It took Melanie and Coach Holt several times to convince her she could treat me like a middle school kid. The first plane we were on was almost empty except for us, so we had the option of spreading out a bit more. I chose to sit next to Amy on the other side of her mother the whole time though. I felt safer that way.

While we were on our second flight, that took us into Orlando, we were acknowledged by the captain who said, “I would like to welcome the Holden Junior High Dance Squad, the New Mexico State Dance Champions, on board. They are en-route to a national dance competition. We wish them luck and thank you all for flying with us today.” All through that leg the stewardesses did believe I was my age, but all of them wanted to look at my doll. In fact there were a couple other ladies around that took turns looking at Amy’s doll as well.

“Too cute!” was the phrase used most frequently.

All of the thoughts of cute dolls went away when we landed in Orlando though. Coach Holt had a bus ready for us that took us to the hotel in the Disney Park area. “Ladies, here are your room keys. You need to be ready to work on hair and makeup in the common area on our floor in one hour,” she said. We’d barely had time to register the fact that it was sixty degrees warmer than home!

Amy and I hurried into the room we were sharing with her mom. Both of us quickly showered and dressed in the jazz pants and camisole set for the jazz routine. There were four moms on the trip, in addition to Coach Holt, to supervise us. All of them started up a beauty salon in one of the rooms on the same floor. “Hold still,” Melanie told me as I fidgeted a little under the hot curling iron.

“Sorry,” I told her. I was getting nervous, we all were.

After ten minutes of working on me — they’d been told to hurry — I was passed over to Kristina’s mom who was doing makeup. That took as long as my hair, but I was pretty much done afterwards. All of us had already painted our nails the night before, so other than height and hair color it was almost impossible to tell us apart from a distance. I took off to our room and spent some time looking at myself in the mirror — she’d put an awful lot of glitter on my eyebrows… All-in-all I would never have worn my makeup like that for anything else, but it was cute for the occasion.

I quickly gathered up my pom stuff and my other cheerleading uniform went into my bag as well and decided there was just enough room for one more thing… or doll. I smiled as I picked her up and gently set her in my bag. Amy popped in right then and decided that she needed to do the same with her doll, and we headed off to the common area again to wait until the group was ready to leave. We all talked a bit back and forth, but we were nervous enough it was minimal.

Coach Holt ushered us onto the bus quickly not long after that, handing us passes that said, “National Dance Association Competition Participant,” in a plastic sleeve. She had us hang them over our necks so that we could enter the competition area. The location for this preliminary round was a huge high school not far from the park. I knew we were getting close as the number of uniformed cheerleaders and drill team members increased exponentially.

“This is so exciting!!!” Amy said next to me. That set off a chorus of girls finally talking. It rose to a frenzied pitch by the time we reached the check-in point. The competition’s coordinators directed us to an area where we could store our bags until we were done with our second performance and then led us by a bathroom where we all went pee. I knew from experience I would need to go again as soon as we performed… but at least there was that much that wasn’t in there!

The warm-up area was just down the hall from there. We took the time to stretch before running through our jazz routine a couple times. I was grateful they had scheduled us to warm up longer than for the state competition, I was so stiff from the plane flight! When we finished our run through, Coach had us quiet down. She wanted us to focus.

“Ladies, I’m so incredibly proud of how you’ve done this past six months!” she began her pep talk. “Winning State last weekend is something that I wouldn’t have dreamed possible back in October. You did it though, and I know you can do well today! This is our first time ever being here at nationals. Enjoy the competition, enjoy Florida… The weather sure beats back home right?” she smiled and laughed a little.

“No matter how you do today you’re going to bring honor to Holden and your hometown. Don’t let anything get in the way of that! I hope that we end this day with a spot in the finals, but this is my first time here too, so if we don’t we’ll try again next year,” she said. She continued to talk and try to take the pressure off of us. It helped some, but I didn’t want her to sell us short either. “Do the best you can today, and I think we’ll have a good chance of being up in the rankings at the end of the night!”

We gathered together as a team and lined up a little bit early to go in. “I’m nervous Amy,” I told her.

“You’ll be fine Tiff,” she told me with a smile as I looked back at her.

And then there was no more time for encouragement or well wishes, it was time to perform! The preliminary rounds were all being held around Orlando apparently. This high school was just where the junior high rounds were being done. ‘It’s just like any other gym…’ I told myself as we moved out to the floor. I was surprised though as it seemed to be almost as big as The Pit! I caught myself wondering how many high school students went there before forcing myself to concentrate on the routine.

“Next up for the junior high prelims is Holden Junior High, from New Mexico!” the announcer said and we took our cue to walk out to the floor.

‘It’s just like state…’ I told myself. I concentrated just as hard as I did at the finals of state, and found myself smiling just like I had there. I knew I had done well, and I believed the squad had too!

“Nice job ladies,” Coach told us on our way out.

We went back to the room where we left our bags and quickly changed into the unitards for the pom routine. I heard a panicked sob from next to me and realized it was Lindsey. “What’s wrong Lindsey?” I asked.

“I don’t have both of my poms!!!!” She cried.

Coach Holt came right over though and said, “It’s okay Lindsey, I brought three extra sets just in case…” She couldn’t finish whatever else she might have wanted to say though because Lindsey hugged her tightly saying ‘thank you,’ over and over again.

“One disaster averted,” I whispered to Amy who nodded at me. That had been one of my worst nightmares, so much so that I looked for them every time I looked in my bag just to make sure they were there.

None of us had long to breathe though because our pom routine was scheduled so closely to our jazz routine. It had taken ten minutes to get back, twenty minutes to change, ten minutes to chill out, and then we were heading back to the warm-up area. Coach Holt didn’t give us a long speech that time, she just said, “Concentrate, do it at least as well as you did Saturday and you’ll be fine,” to us.

I could sense the tensions of all of the girls much higher this time though. All of us remembered the disaster that was our preliminary round at state… I had a feeling such a round here would sink us. As we circled up to cheer beforehand, I could see the look of determination I knew was on my face, mirrored on every other girls’ face. We weren’t going to let that happen!

Before we went in again though Coach Holt reminded us to turn those determined expressions into happy smiles… it was always harder before than after. We took our starting positions for this routine and I noticed there were now more people were in the audience. I also noticed that I could see where the judges were sitting towards the front of the bleachers. I decided it was time to give them a show!

My energy level for that routine had never been higher. I forced myself to concentrate on every little detail, moving in unison and separately from the squad as demanded by the routine. The ending went better than it ever had, and then the cheering began. From my frozen pose I could even see the judges give us little hand claps… ‘that had to mean something right?’

We rose from the pose, did our head bob, and I felt the smiles from the girls on either side of me. Outside of the competition area we all began giggling and talking loudly. It had been a long day since we’d started at four that morning, but we were finished with our preliminary round. “How long until the results?” I asked Coach Holt.

“The ceremony for prelims is supposed to be at eight-thirty. We’re going to go eat something real quick, and then come back for them,” she said to me. Back in our room she gathered us all up and said, “Ladies, no matter what you should be proud of yourselves. You performed both routines better than you have ever done before, and you knew it when you came off of the floor. I could see it in your faces,” she said with a smile, “Before you leave, I need you to put on your other uniform quickly, so we can come right back to the awards ceremony. Any questions?” she asked.

“No? Then get changed!” She told us and we scurried down the halls to the bathroom. I quickly stripped out of the unitard, happy to not try strangling myself that time, before putting on the bloomers, skirt, and top of my normal style cheerleading outfit. In the bus I pulled out Allie and held her while Amy held her doll, Megan. Her mom giggled when she saw us and began taking a long series of pictures with her camera. Melanie had pulled all of the stops with her photography on this trip. She had brought some really big lenses for while we performed.

Dinner was at a Golden Corral. We all were hurried through the lines and I noticed once again we were garnering a lot of attention. I almost panicked for a moment when I thought about the last time we’d eaten out together, but remembered that we were a good fifteen-hundred miles away from home and all of that at least. Allie and Megan sat in our laps while we ate and the waitresses commented on how cute they were. The good thing about being in my uniform was that the doubt over my age went away.

“Let’s take them inside to the awards ceremony!” Amy said to me.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “What if we have to go up to the front, like with State?”

“I can babysit for you,” Melanie said with a smile.

“Oh… okay…” I said. I wasn’t sure why, but I was really attached to that doll. Soon we were out of time and hustled back on the bus to go back to the high school. Most of the seats were filling up, but we found one section we were able to squeeze into about halfway up the stands.

“You two stay on the outside so you can get out,” Coach Holt said before sitting behind us. We soon learned that because there were so many teams in the preliminary round there was no way to get even all of the captains comfortably on the floor.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the preliminary round results for the National Dance Association’s Junior High Competition!!!” I quickly wondered if all announcers took the same class in screaming loudly into the microphone… “Tonight is the culmination of results from three hard days of competition at the junior high level. Over two-hundred-and-fifty teams have competed in four different styles of dance. Tonight we will award places in each dance style from tenth through first. Those teams will automatically move onto the finals on Saturday morning at MGM Studios at Disney World!!!”

I felt like I was going to go deaf before he even announced any of the results. “Captains, if your team is called please report to the right hand, center, or left hand sides of the stands to exit onto the gym floor. Once there please report to the center where you will be given your trophy.”

“Our first category for tonight is high-kick…” he went through and began listing the schools and all of the stands went wild cheering for each team. We had no interest in that category, so we cheered loudly for everyone too. “The next category is Jazz,” he listed a few things before beginning the places. Each time as he counted down I felt the same knot in my stomach that I had felt last weekend. I didn’t believe we could possibly place that high out of that many squads.

“In fourth place, Peoria Junior High, from Illinois!” we heard. Their squad was loud and it looked like their high school must have been with them too based on how many girls were there. It was so loud for a second that I thought I was hearing things when I heard, “In third place, Holden Junior High from New Mexico!”

I looked at Amy stunned, she looked at me with a mirrored expression. In the meantime all of the girls in our squad and our four moms were going crazy. “Go you two!” Coach Holt told us while pushing us forward. We both ran to the front of the stands and to the center where a large trophy awaited us! Amy gave me a big hug as we lifted up the trophy and heard the screams from the rest of our squad. I couldn’t believe that we even placed! The names of the other two schools in our category blew right past me. I was too stunned to realize that both Amy and I were holding our dolls as well as the trophy. We both blushed heavily at that.

One of the girls from the team that placed below us said, “Cute!” when she saw them. “Do all of the girls on your squad have them?”

“No, just us — my mommy had the outfits made for them,” I told her and blushed when I thought about what I had just said.

“I want one…” she said longingly.

We both stood there waiting for them to get through the hip-hop results before getting to our last category. During that wait I watched the girls next to us get seventh place in hip-hop, we both congratulated them. They quietly asked if we were in the pom competition which we told them yes. “We’ll be pulling for you,” the one girl said.

The idea of placing in both of the categories seemed ludicrous at best, and when the announcer said that a-hundred-and-fifty squads had competed in the pom category it made it seem even less likely. But the impossible happened! “In Fourth Place, Holden Junior High from New Mexico!!!!” Amy and I were both stunned again as we grabbed the second trophy of the night.

By the time they announced the rankings overall we were both emotionally shot. I looked at her and she looked at me wondering if it was all a dream. It had to be. By placing in two categories we knew we were already ranked above ten of the schools that made the finals. Because of where we placed though, we were entering the finals ranked seventh overall.

“I can’t believe it!” I said as we grabbed a smaller seventh place trophy for the overall rankings. At the end of the ceremony I wondered how we were going to manage two dolls and three large trophies, but the whole squad rushed us — making it a moot point. We all jumped around hugging each other for a long while. Melanie took pictures of us altogether with the trophies and said, “Say Finalists!!!!” I knew that picture would have bigger smiles in it than any other we’d ever taken.

By the time we made it out to the bus in front of the school my voice was hoarse from all of the screaming. Allie and Megan were both posed outside the bus with each doll holding a hand on each of the trophies. All of the girls had decided that they were the mascots for us as we left the competition. One of the moms suggested we make a quick stop at a grocery store for some ice cream. She thought we deserved a quick little party. The bus driver pulled over at a Winn-Dixie, and Melanie’s mom returned shortly after with some cups, ice cream, and root beer to make root beer floats.

“This is awesome,” Kristina said leaning over the seat that I was sitting in across from Amy.

“I can’t believe we even stood a chance…” I replied to her. “The couple teams that we saw were really good!”

“Yeah,” Amy said.

“Do you think we can do better at finals?” Lindsey asked from a nearby seat.

I shrugged, “Why not?”

Coach Holt made her appearance in the aisle way right then and said, “It’ll be easier to make up some points Saturday in each of the categories just because there were so many groups in the preliminary rounds.”

‘That makes sense…’

“How in the world do they keep track of all of them?” Kristina’s mom asked as the bus began moving.

“I don’t know,” was the honest answer that Coach gave.

At the hotel they got permission for us to gather in the breakfast area and we had our floats. There were several other squads staying there that we saw come and go, but since they all looked really down I guessed they hadn’t made finals. I felt bad for them, I was sure they had worked at least as hard as we had… And this was only our first year doing it. It was about midnight when we got to our room and Melanie reminded me to call my parents, “Oh…” I said.

I didn’t want to say it, but Melanie was enough of a parent to me I’d forgotten my real parents didn’t know… “Hello?” I heard a tired voice answer the phone.

“Mommy?” I asked.

“Tiffany? How’d it go?” Mom asked sleepily.

“Is daddy there too?” I asked.

“He got called out a little while ago actually, how’d you do?” she asked again.

“Well we made the finals!!!” I told her. I heard her squeal on the other side of the phone and she made me tell her everything. “So we got third in jazz and fourth in pom-poms!” I told her.

“That’s great sweetie!” After a seconds pause, “It’s midnight there now right?” She asked.

“Umm… yeah, I guess it is…”

“Then you need to get to bed, I’ll talk to you more tomorrow maybe… and if I don’t talk to you then we’ll see you Sunday.” She promised me.

“Okay, I love you,” I told her.

“I love you too baby, good night,” she told me.

Amy called her dad quickly a moment later, before Melanie forced the two of us to go to bed. Amy ended up crawling into the bed with me like we’d done during the trip here last spring. Emily was in my arms as I went to bed that night, and I hoped that maybe this night would wipe out last Saturday’s memories.

 

FRIDAY MORNING MELANIE woke Amy and I up at eight local time. That was six our time, so we were both pretty groggy. I didn’t remember waking up the previous night screaming, and didn’t want to ask if I had, so I decided I must not have. Or at least I would tell myself I hadn’t. We showered and put on shorts with a squad shirt like we’d been told to do for that day. I was looking forward to letting the sun hit my legs. They hadn’t seen the sun for a couple months and were really white.

All of the squad was done eating breakfast downstairs by nine in the morning. One of the girls started saying that we all needed our hair in pigtails for some reason, so we all quickly did that on our way to Magic Kingdom. “Ladies you need to stay with one of the sponsors at all times. If you want to stay in larger a group, that’s fine too, but I want you with a sponsor,” Coach Holt was outlining the rules for the thousandth time that day. “I want all of you to have ridden the monorail over to Epcot by seven or so for the fireworks at eight.”

She looked like she was going to add another rule but stopped herself and said, “Ladies have a good time today, we’ll be back competing here tomorrow, so enjoy the break!”

At the park I went with Melanie, Amy, Ashley, and Lindsey. That was the official group at least, unofficially we also had Allie and Megan along for the ride. We’d had so much fun with them at the competition yesterday we decided they needed to go with us through the park today. “I wish we had shirts for them that are the same as ours,” Amy groused as we posed for one group picture before we split up.

“Yeah… if we’d known we were doing this maybe we could have had some made!” I told her amused. Instead we found some smaller Minnie ears for their heads and enjoyed getting them in the picture at Splash Mountain with us. Since we had just been there this past summer we had fun… but it wasn’t quite the thrill it had been before. Our group chose to leave that park and go to Epcot earlier rather than later. There was one new ride that had been built after we were there that we went to, and then we just decided to shop along the global area.

Dinner that night was at a Chinese place where all of us used chopsticks to eat instead of forks. Lindsey in particular was terrible with them and we had a really great laugh when the waiter came and put a rubber band on the back of the chopsticks to try and help her out. She turned a bright shade of red and we ended up buying her a nice pair of chopsticks for her to remember the day by. As we walked out of that restaurant we met up with the rest of the squad. We all just hung out by the side of the water talking until the fireworks began an hour or so later.

“They were pretty,” Amy said later, “but I’m still so worked up about the competition it was hard to enjoy them.” I had nodded when she said that and left towards the bus. I couldn’t help but think about how I had held Kyle’s hand while leaving from almost that exact spot the previous year. I found myself missing him. But as we got back to the hotel we had one thing on our minds, our routines.

Coach Holt had arranged for us to use one of the conference rooms when we got back to run through the routine together. We did each several times before Coach Holt told us, “You’ll be fine tomorrow girls…” a pep talk followed before she said, “Okay, our first performance is for jazz at nine forty-five, followed by pom at eleven twenty. I want everyone in their jazz costume, down here, eating, at seven tomorrow morning. That means hair done as well, so plan to meet with one of the moms at six or so… and, I have to say this, DON’T get food on your outfit.” I groaned as the time kept getting earlier. They ended up moving breakfast to six so that they could do hair and makeup right after that.

“Okay ladies, it’s nine-forty right now, I want you in bed in twenty minutes!” She told us as she pushed us upstairs to our rooms.

As I lay down that night I couldn’t go to sleep for a really long time. I noticed Amy rolled around a lot too, so I knew she wasn’t sleeping well either. By the time Melanie woke us up the next morning I wasn’t honestly sure that I had slept at all. “Come on sleepy heads,” she told us and pushed Amy first to the bathroom. I sat up and looked for my bag where I had put my jazz outfit after prelims. Melanie noticed it was wrinkled a bit so she got the iron out while I took a shower.

“You asleep in there?” She asked me a bit later during my shower and I realized I’d lost track of time. I’d been thinking about what it would be like to actually win a national trophy…

All of us looked sleepy at the beginning of breakfast, but by the time ‘the moms’ as they were being lovingly referred to, finished our hair and makeup we were all getting excited. ‘Well, excited and scared. More like terrified really…’ I told myself as I made a last check of everything before grabbing Allie and heading out to the bus. When we boarded the bus Melanie gave Amy and me a hug, telling us we’d be great. All of us had put our participant tags back on our necks for entry into MGM Studios for the event. There was a large stage and outdoor auditorium in the park that was being used for this and the awards ceremony that night.

“I hate having to wait until tonight until we know!” Amber complained to Lindsey as we lined up in the aisle to get off the bus.

“Yeah! Eight o’clock is way too far from this morning.” Lindsey commiserated. I silently agreed with them — ‘that’ an incredibly long time we have to wait!’

Coach Holt led us towards the gates of the park where I could see several people from the competition standing around. “What school are you?” One of them asked when we walked up to them.

“Holden Junior High,” Coach Holt told them.

They looked over some forms for a second, had her sign off on a few, and then said, “If you’ll follow Rachel here, she’ll show you where you can store your equipment and where you can make outfit changes between your performances. Good luck ladies,” the man doing the registration said to us.

Rachel walked us through the turnstiles and down several of the walkways until we came to the outside of the amphitheater. “That’s where you’re going to be performing,” she told us as we walked by it. Not too far down around the back of the amphitheater we found a building built up behind the stage. She led us to a large room where several other squads were working on their makeup, hair, and chatting quietly waiting for their turn. At the end of the area we saw a sign that said, ‘Holden Coyotes,’ with space for us to put our bags, and several mirrors with bright light bulbs all around them for us to see our nervous reflections.

“Here you all go!” Rachel said happily. “Your warm-up is in forty-five minutes, get settled and then I’ll be back to walk you over there!” I could tell that she had been a really peppy cheerleader in high school. Rachel walked over to talk to another uniformed competition person leaving us to Coach Holt’s whims.

“Okay ladies, first thing first, I saw bathrooms down that hallway, go use them!” she suggested.

None of us were dumb enough not to go at that chance. Fifteen minutes had already passed when we got back. All of the moms took that opportunity to recheck makeup and hair. I had what must have been half of a can of hairspray used to glue everything in, ‘just in case!’ Kristina’s mom had said. I found myself voluntarily stretching on the floor while the other girls were being worked on. While we still had fifteen minutes left before the warm-up Coach Holt joined us in stretching on the floor. None of us were quiet though, everyone chattered about whatever came to their brains.

“Tiffany!!!” Kristina whispered excitedly next to me.

“What?”

“Do you see that boy over there?” I looked over and saw a boy that was in one of the guy uniforms of a squad farther down. He looked like he was about fourteen or fifteen, ‘probably fourteen,’ I guessed.

“What about him?” I asked. My quick view said he was pretty cute by most standards, but a little old for me.

“He was so checking you out!”

“Nuh-uh,” I told her.

“He was!”

I shrugged, putting on my performance smile. “It’s not like it doesn’t happen all the time,” I put one hand up to my face and blinked at her while doing the bob we did at the end of the routines. She and Ashley just started giggling hysterically.

“Okay ladies,” Coach Holt said quietly while all of us were in side-splits and leaning over to grab our feet. “You’ve done it. You’ve made it to the finals. It’s all I could have hoped for, and more!” She looked around with pride at us. “Now it’s time to see how far you can raise the bar. All of you know what you can do to improve — you just need to do it. Rachel should be coming for us any second now, just remember to focus! Don’t let the stage throw you off; the mat is the same size as it was on the court yesterday and at State last weekend….” She was choosing to use that moment to say some of the things she was afraid of running out of time in the warm-up.

When it seemed like she was about done with what she was saying Rachel came up to us and asked, “Are you ready?” with a big smile on her face.

“Yes!” I said convincingly with a smile on my own. I was ready for this, at least as ready as I would ever be, and I was excited to get into the warm-up room. This wasn’t going to be a nervous trip, I was determined to go onto that stage with confidence!

“Let’s go then girls!” Rachel led us out of that building and to a neighboring closed off area where we were able to run through the routine twice with the music before circling up again.

Coach didn’t have a whole lot more to say. Once again she looked at Amy and me. Amy went first and said a few things and I took the time to gather my thoughts. “Look,” I began when she nodded towards me, “we’re ready. We’re ready to go out there and absolutely rock that stage out there. For my part I’m so thankful to have been able to be a part of this squad… You all know this has been a rough year for me.” I paused and gathered my next statement. “This squad is one of the things that have made it all worth it. We’re at Nationals! I met some girls this last summer that would have died to make it this far! Some of them I know for a fact were in the prelims. We beat their squads and we’re here. All that’s left for us to do is go out and win this category, and then poms in a couple hours! We just have to stay focused and we can do it! The judges didn’t see anything yesterday, let’s show them what we’re really made of,” I said while blushing and feeling self-conscious all of the sudden.

All of the girls clapped though and I got a lot of hugs before we all gathered together in a circle. “Coyotes!” We screamed together and lined up for our trip into the amphitheater.

We were all smiles as we walked back through the area we had for storing our stuff, down a hallway, and finally out a door to the sight of a thousand cheerleaders sitting and standing in the seats waiting to see what we brought to the competition. It made me smile more to think that we were going to do awesome in a few short moments. My starting position was taken confidently.

People say when something bad happens time slows… it definitely does, as I knew from experience. I wasn’t expecting to feel the same sensation after all of the confidence we’d built up to. As the music began I felt myself move exactly where and when I wanted to move, and felt like I could have done the whole routine twice as fast. I knew we were doing really well though, so I just concentrated on staying perfectly in tempo with the routine. It was a great audience that cheered for us when we did some of our cooler moves. By the end of it I was sure by applause alone we had to have done great! I was a bundle of adrenaline as we bobbed our heads and marched off the stage to a standing ovation behind us.

In the staging area Coach Holt patted us all on the back and we all exchanged hugs. “I think we did it on that one,” I told Amy.

“Don’t jinx us Tiff,” she told me. Her smile though told me she thought so too. We hurried through a photo set with a photographer and Coach told the photographer and us that we would fill out any order forms when we came through after the pom routine.

“Ladies we’ve got to get ready for the pom set now. Go ahead and go down to the bathroom and get changed!” Coach Holt ordered us as we straggled through our area. On my way to the bathroom I gave Melanie a great big hug before grabbing my bag and taking it with me. Allie was on the top of the stack in the bag so I had to pull her out. Once I was out of my jazz pants I set her on top of the bag and smiled as her eyes closed and she looked like she was sleeping. It was a quick change to get my unitard on and get my pom-poms out of the bag. When everything was back in the bag I left Allie out and carried her in the crook of my arm out to the staging area with Amy. Her mom took some pictures for us of her and Megan together in front of the ‘Holden Coyotes’ sign as well as with the two of us and the squad.

A few makeup touchups were done and we were once again on our way to the warm-up area. The pom routine was run twice too, and the gathering turned into a hug fest before getting in line and Coach saying, “Do it just like you did earlier.”

We all marched with confidence back onto that stage and worked to repeat our perfection from earlier. As I walked off of that stage I was sure that we had done the best we could have done, and if that wasn’t enough I didn’t care. We were led into the backstage area again and out to the photographer’s area. This time, just before we took the picture, Melanie showed up and handed us our two dolls to hold in the picture. The photographer looked annoyed, but took the picture anyway. He asked us to leave them out for one picture though. All of us spent way too much money and bought one of each picture we’d taken since we were in different outfits.

“Well, one last change for the day,” Coach told us with a smile as she directed us to go ahead and change into our cheer uniforms. As I walked out of the stall I’d changed in, I looked up at myself and couldn’t believe it was me. To think that I was just barely becoming best friends with Amy at this time the year before and now at the national dance competition finals…

I started crying.

Amy came over and gave me a hug, I noticed she was too. Before long the whole squad was embraced in a big hug in the bathroom and Coach Holt came to check on us. “Good thing we used waterproof makeup huh?” she said with tears in her own eyes.

 
 

Chapter 39:

 

WHEN WE WERE all composed ‘The Moms’ fixed our makeup, we all packed up our bags, and then went out to leave them on the bus. Coach reminded us several times to make sure we kept the ‘participant’ badges on over our necks and we were given some meal vouchers for in the park. “I want you to all meet at Tower of Terror at three,” she said.

“…Wh…Why?” Kristina asked. I loved her, but she was a scaredy-cat when it came time to ride ‘fun’ rides.

“I think it would be a shame if we didn’t have all of you on that ride and us to take a picture,” she said simply.

“It’ll be fun!” I told her and gripped her arm tightly. Even though we were allowed to split off our group stayed together, finding a place that served pizza to spend our vouchers on. I was so hungry though I ended up splitting an extra piece with Amy. We’d all had gotten the tears out of our systems and were all smiling again. No matter what happened, we’d had a blast on the trip.

There wasn’t a lot of time to hit rides before we were going on Tower of Terror, but we hit a couple things like Star Wars. A little bit of shopping was done by all of us, but I think we were all planning on spending money on dance competition stuff when we went back after the Tower ride. The park was fairly slow that day, other than competition participants, so we were able to walk through the line quickly and they let us all on together. There was one extra seat on the ride and they kept it that way for us. Kristina kept looking around like we were crazy, but I was looking forward to the ride.

“What did you get me into?” She asked as we followed the track and didn’t drop right away like we all expected. A few moments later though I was hanging onto Allie tightly and we dropped down multiple stories. As the camera flash happened I was sure that I had managed to smile and look cute. But I was sure that Kristina was helping maintain the reputation of the ride ‘terrorizing’ the riders. She didn’t look like she felt real great as we got off the ride. She seemed to be walking forward one step at a time.

Amy and I in the meantime were all smiles! We ran over to the photo counter and looked for our picture. “There!” Amy said pointing since she found it first.

“That’s awesome!” Lindsey said as she came up from behind us and put her arms over our shoulders.

“I love that the whole squad including Megan and Allie are in it!” Ashley said on the other side of Amy. There were a lot of squeals and every girl purchased a copy of the photo for herself.

“Well ladies let’s head back to the amphitheater and you can all watch the high school jazz and pom finals.” Coach said.

She had to stop at the entrance to the amphitheater though because we all wanted to buy competition shirts, patches, and other things. I had a hundred-and-fifty dollars in my wallet that I was prepared to spend on stuff there, but Melanie insisted that she pay for it all. I didn’t argue, I knew it would be pointless. Besides, I really did appreciate it. I gave her a really big hug as I walked next to her on one side, Amy on the other, down through the crowds of people to get a seat in the Amphitheater. We were in luck that one of the moms had gone with Coach Holt to get us a set of seats during the break, so we were able to all sit together.

As the high school jazz finals began I could feel all of the jaws around me drop, including my own. It was amazing!!! We were all hoarse by the end of the last finalists’ routine. Our squad was terrible by their standards, and we all knew it. At the same we all said, “We’ll be doing that by high school…” It was exciting, and it just about blew all of our minds to watch the routines. Some of the schools even had music that was composed just for their routine… ‘That has to be expensive!’ I thought to myself.

The pom finals were a little bit more like ours in music selections. They were pieced together pop tunes with good beats. The amazingly outstanding part though, was their routines. My eyes popped out of my head as I watched them pull off a staggered move that had to have taken forever to get right! At the end of the last pom routine Coach Holt led us out to the park where we had just enough time to get something to eat before returning to find seats for the awards ceremony.

“I’m so nervous,” Amy said to me while showing her shaking hand. I gave her a hug and all of us started to giggle and talk loudly to bleed off some of the stress. While everyone was coming in to get settled they had a live rock band come play on the stage. All of the squads had fun doing moves to some of the more famous songs that we’d seen routines to. There was more screaming going on in that crowd than you would find anywhere else, and we all just had a blast doing it!

Eventually the lights around the outer part of the amphitheater dimmed and an announcer took the stage with another lady. “Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the 1996 National Dance Association Championships, Finals Awards Ceremony!!!!!”

There was a ton of screaming before the other lady continued. “Tonight we’re going to reveal the results of the week’s competition. In all, over Six-HUNDRED squads have competed to earn their way to a total of eighty available finals slots in four styles of dancing. Tonight we’ll reveal the results of all of these dancers’ hard work!” She went on for a long time before saying, “Before we go though I would like to invite this years’ college champion dance squad to the stage to perform a routine for you!” There was a ton of cheering and their squad came out and did an amazing routine made up of all four styles of dancing!

“Wow!” Melanie said next to me and I agreed.

“Give them another round of applause!!!” The lady said as she came back out after they were finished. She paused and looked out to the audience before saying, “Would you all like to know the results?”

We all screamed.

She looked at her stage partner and said, “Maybe we should wait till next year, I don’t think they really want it… Would you all like to know the results?” She asked again and the screaming grew even louder.

She smiled before saying, “Alright…we’ll begin with high-kick…” She read off the results and I cheered with everyone else with the teams. They actually announced all of the ten places in reverse order leading up to first place. Hip-hop was called next, and it was time to hear the jazz results. “In tenth place…” she called off each of the places one at a time. I honestly expected her to call us off at third or fourth again, and I found my heart pounding out of my chest when she called second place.

I looked at Amy and said, “No Way!”

“In first place, the national junior high champion jazz dance squad is… The Holden Junior High Coyotes from New Mexico!!!!”

I didn’t remember the next few minutes of running up to the stage with Amy. The only way I knew it happened was because she had pictures of us with a large zoom lens that she showed us when we got back home. The trophy was big enough that the two of us had to work to carry it back with us. In the meantime the competition’s photographer snapped pictures wildly at the two of us. We’d left Allie and Megan in her mom’s care, and stayed up on the stage as requested at the end of it since we were in the next category.

“The next category, pom-poms, is one of the most traditional categories for this competition. It is also one of the stiffest for competition. Every year this category sees more squads compete in it than any other. No one in the finals this year scored anything less than a ninety-seven out of a hundred on their routines! Every girl that competed in this should be proud of herself.” She said.

As she called out tenth, then ninth, all the way down through fourth I kept expecting her to call us. There was no way we could have won that category… ‘We’d done well, but not that well,’ I told myself. “Third Place… Holden Junior High!” she said.

It wasn’t first, but I hadn’t expected first, so I was still screaming and jumping with Amy as we grabbed the slightly less humongous trophy. They motioned for us all to stay on the stage for the next section. “We have one final category of awards for the junior high dance squads, the ‘overall’ places are determined by adding the places that any squad achieves in two categories. The lowest score earns first place and so down the line. In case of tie we look at any categories that overlap between squads and average the points before determining the winner based on those points.”

I watched some faces fall on the stage from girls whose squads hadn’t made the two categories in finals. Their awards were done with. They awarded seven trophies this time, and I was hoping we’d managed to crack into those seven places. I watched as these trophies, even the seventh place trophy, were all bigger than the first place trophy we held in our hands. When our school was called I didn’t even register what place it was for several minutes… I just screamed and the rest of the squad joined us up on the stage.

Third place.

We weren’t the overall champions, but I thought it was pretty good! So did the girls! Once the applause and our squad had settled down they called the last two places. We showed good sportsmanship and cheered loudly for all of those squads that had done better than us. We had won the jazz category, so we did have a national title to our names already, what could we possibly complain about?

 

WITH THE JUNIOR high awards ceremony done they had us go back to our seats where we all hugged Coach Holden, Melanie, and the other moms before settling down and watching the high school awards. I had picked my own favorites in each of the categories we’d watched and was happy when they placed well. None of the rest of the awards ceremony stuck with my mind though. I was too busy with my mind racing, ‘National Jazz Dance Champions!!!’I kept screaming in my head.

Our squad was careful to stay together as we left the Amphitheater and walked out to the buses. Amy’s mom took a dozen pictures of us with our six trophies from the competition lined up in front of us, three medals around our necks — two bronze and one gold, and Allie and Megan found a seat on top of the largest trophy. Coach Holt decided that we were due for a treat and the bus driver found us an all-night diner that we were able to get pie or shakes at.

“I’m so proud of you girls!” Coach Holt said as she got our attention while in the middle of my shake. “You worked so hard, and to do this much in not quite five months is extraordinary! You’ll remember this for the rest of your lives girls. About practice on Monday…” she said with a smile and my face fell. We were still going to have practice? Couldn’t we have one day off?!? “Don’t come,” she said simply before letting us get back to our desserts.

The wait staff in the diner had all inquired about what we were celebrating. When they found out what it was about they congratulated us and brought us a couple extra pies to split up for free. To say we were in the middle of a massive sugar high doesn’t do justice to us. We got to the hotel about eleven-forty five, just in time for us to have to go to our rooms. All of us were allowed to call home first though.

“Hello?” I heard my dad pick up the phone.

“Daddy!!!” I nearly screamed into the phone before gaining control of myself. “Is Mommy there too?”

“Hold on just a second,” he pulled the phone away from his ear and said loudly, “It’s Tiffany!”

She was on a second later, “How did it go?” she asked inquisitively.

“Well… we only got third place in pom-poms,” I said disappointedly.

“Sweetie that’s really good though!” She said thinking she needed to cheer me up…

“But we took the championship trophy in jazz!!!” I said happily.

“Way to go!” My dad said on the other side.

“…And third overall in the nation!” I added as mom also said congratulations.

I talked with them some more for about five minutes before I figured I needed to hang up so Amy could call her dad. She would have done so on her moms’ cell phone, but it had died early in the afternoon. “I need to let you go, I’ll see you tomorrow at the airport though right?” I asked hesitantly.

“Of course sweetie, we wouldn’t miss it!” She said excitedly. “We love you,” she said.

“I love you guys too,” I told her and hung up the phone smiling. Our plane was supposed to leave at ten in the morning, so we weren’t allowed to stay up late. I watched as Amy called her dad and told him about the results. She too was hyper and excited, and neither of us slept at first when her mom turned the lights off and worked in the bathroom to get ready for bed herself.

“I can’t believe it all happened,” I told Amy softly.

“I can’t either.”

“Amy, I don’t know what I would have ever done without you. Thanks again for everything…” I told her.

“You keep thanking me… for what?” She asked.

“Umm… let’s see, well there was first doing my hair last year… then playing with your dolls, then letting me dress in your clothes, helping me stay sane when my parents found out, the whole getting me ready and having me tag along to cheer camp… and yeah, just about a million things,” I said with a teary eyed smile.

She gave me a hug and we only separated because I was afraid of what her mom would think otherwise. I didn’t think of it like that, and I knew Amy didn’t, we were just sisters. As I finally drifted off to sleep that night I couldn’t imagine a better sister to have.

 

SUNDAY MORNING WE were rushed to get out of the hotel and get to the airport. All of us had two sets of warm-ups for the squad, and we had to wear the second set to go home in. However Coach Holt let us all wear our National Championship shirts instead of our squad shirts. Everyone had purchased one, so we were all uniform still. She also said, “Girls keep your medals handy, when we come off of the plane I want you to be wearing them…”

Since Amy and I didn’t want to spend the whole plane flight ‘clinking’ as we called it, we carefully put our medals around the dolls necks. The stewardesses had a lot of fun with us on the return flights home, and as we rolled up to the airport in Albuquerque I couldn’t help but feel a lot of anticipation. Amy and I both took our medals back from our dolls at that point and put them around our necks. I looked around to see the rest of the squad putting them around their necks too. We were as far forward in the plane as you could be without being first class so we came off early.

I started crying as soon as I saw the signs.

All of our parents were standing outside the gate with posters saying ‘national champions,’ ‘congratulations,’ and other things. As I saw my parents standing next to Amy’s dad, I broke into a run and hugged them hard.

“Welcome home princess,” my dad said to me as he actually picked me up and hugged me.

Dad sat me down so I could give my mom a hug, “I missed you,” she told me as her arms encircled my shoulders. When she released me I gave Amy’s dad a hug too.

There were a few other parents that I greeted and gave friendly hugs to, Ashley’s dad was one of them. “Hey Tiffany,” he said to me.

It was then that I noticed the TV camera that was in the lobby from his studio. They were just kind of sitting off to the side I think filming us as we came off of the plane. Coach Holt asked everyone to pose for one more picture with our parents really quick. Mr. Sanders had his cameraman from his station take it for us, and then we began walking back through the airport with our parents. My dad had taken my backpack from me so I didn’t have to carry it. I had placed Allie gently in my bag, and was holding both of my parents hands as we walked to the baggage claim.

“I think we should have a party for the girls,” I heard Melanie tell my mom on the other side of her.

“That would be fun, when were you thinking?”

“This Friday?” Melanie suggested.

“…Tiffany won’t be able to make it if you do it then… Honor Band is this weekend,” she told her.

Honor Band? I’d completely forgotten about that… I needed to practice that music, I hadn’t even hardly looked at it since December!

“We could do it the next week?” She suggested. “That might let us plan a little bit more that way too.”

The two of them continued to discuss plans for a party that sounded like it was going to be a sleepover. By the time we got my two bags from the luggage belts they were asking other moms what they thought of the plan. All of us were too tired to care much more than to say, “That sounds like fun!”

At our vehicles I gave Coach Holt, Amy and her parents all another hug before getting into my parents car. All I wanted to do at that point was sleep! It was only three in the afternoon though, so it seemed almost pointless. My body ended up overriding my brain though, before we had even made it back on the interstate to head to my home town I was sound asleep.

The next thing I heard was, “Tiffany, wake up sweetie,” and I saw that we were already pulled into the driveway at home.

“Did I sleep all the way here?” I wondered sleepily aloud.

“Yes sweetie, you’ve been conked out almost since the moment you got into the car!” Mom said shaking her head. “I figured we were going to have to carry you inside.” She added.

“I’m awake…” I lied and started getting my stuff out of the car. Inside Mom and I headed to my bedroom where we started going through everything.

“I like your new shirt sweetie.” She told me as we started pulling stuff out to wash it.

“Thanks!” I said with a smile.

“What else did you get?” She asked me. I showed her a couple other shirts, a sweatshirt, a keychain, and a couple pins to attach to my backpack, and a couple patches.

“I’m so proud of you,” she told me as she looked at the medals and led me back out to the dining room.

“What are we doing for dinner?” My dad asked her. I looked at the microwave clock and realized it was already five.

“I thought maybe we should go out and eat…” Mom started when the doorbell rang. I stood up and went out to see who it was. As I looked out the window I could see Amy’s mom’s car sitting outside.

I opened the door and saw Amy and her parents standing there, “Hey,” she said, “long time no see…” she smiled. I let them in and noticed that Amy’s mom had a bag from a photo place in her hands. ‘No way can she have already gotten those developed…’ I thought to myself.

“Hey guys,” my dad said as they came in.

Once everyone had greeted each other again we sat down at the kitchen table. “We thought we’d bring by a copy of the set of pictures I took while we were there,” Melanie told my parents.

“Thanks!” I said excitedly. I couldn’t wait to see them.

“We were going to suggest that maybe we go get dinner somewhere and we can all look at the pictures there,” she said.

“I haven’t even gotten to look at them yet,” Amy complained to me quietly.

“We were kind of leaning that way too as far as dinner,” my mom told her. “Let’s just go hit Applebee’s?” she suggested.

Everyone shrugged and said that was fine. I grabbed my coat and quickly redid my hair into a new ponytail. I looked longingly at the sack of pictures that we left behind, even knowing Melanie had another set in her car. “Come on slow-poke,” Amy said as she pulled me out of the house. We ended up both riding in my parents’ car to the restaurant.

“So did you have a good time?” My mom asked Amy.

“Uh-huh,” she said about as tired as I felt.

“You two are so tired,” Mom said with a smile on her face. “Are you going to make it through dinner?” She asked.

“Maybe,” was the unison response. We giggled a bit and we found that tired energy that every girl has inside of them. By the time we got to the restaurant we were talking and giggling non-stop while telling my parents about the trip.

“It sounds like you had a really great time,” my dad said as he held open the door for us to walk inside.

We smiled at him. The restaurant was busy so it took us a bit to get a table. All the time while we were waiting though it was a non-stop giggle fest. “May we look at the pictures while we’re waiting?” Amy asked when they made us sit down. We were ‘making our parents nervous,’ as we had been standing there.

“Not yet,” Melanie told us. Both of us made pouting faces but she just shook her head.

From next to her an older lady said, “My girls used to get the same way sometimes.”

“They’re good kids, just a little tired,” Melanie said as she stroked a piece of Amy’s hair out of her face. “The three of us,” she said pointing at herself, Amy, and I, “just got back from Orlando and a national dance competition there.”

“Cool,” she said. “How’d you all do?” She asked in a friendly manner.

“Really good!” I said.

“We took first place in jazz and third in pom-poms,” Amy told her.

“And that got us third place overall,” I told her with a big smile. I kind of bounced as I said that.

“How many teams?” Another lady standing up nearby asked.

“About three-hundred,” Melanie told her.

“Wow, congratulations.” A couple people echoed that.

“Greg, party of Six?” we heard nearby.

“Right here,” Amy’s dad said as we stood. The conversations were all politely ended and we were led to a really big round table with really tall seats, that I almost had to have help to get into.

“May we look now?” I asked as soon as we had placed our orders and given the menu back to the waitress.

“Alright,” Melanie said.

With that we began opening the envelopes of pictures and going through them. In all she had taken twenty rolls of pictures!!! “Tiffany this one’s adorable!” Mom said as she looked at one of Amy and I in our cheer outfits with the dolls dressed like us. I blushed for a moment and buried my face in another picture. Mom and Melanie pulled some like that were really good. She promised to get some bigger copies to my mom.

There were some amazing pictures of Amy and I individually while we were doing our routines. ‘Melanie you’re a really good photographer…’ Mom and dad made similar comments out loud too. Our pictures that we took together right after the competition, in front of the bus, were awesome! We looked great, everyone was smiling, and it just seemed… awesome. The picture after we got off the plane with all of the parents was nice too, but the energy we had in the other one was incredible.

When the food arrived we put the pictures safely away and got to eating. Amy and I had both ordered off of the kids menu since we were more tired than hungry. After dinner we went to our own houses just because of all of the things we would need to do to make sure we had our stuff for school the next day.

I was so tired I went ahead and put my pajamas on when we got home. I didn’t go to bed though, I went and sat on the couch with Allie for a bit and tried to figure out what was next. I’d been so busy planning for this competition for months that the rest of it was kind of off to the background. Until Mom had said something today I’d all but forgotten about the Honor Band that was going to be Friday and Saturday. What was that going to be like? I remembered I’d met that one boy and girl from the other school, they seemed nice enough. Kyle and Nikki at least were supposed to be going… and Lauren, even though I barely knew her. There were also two other boys, Jake and Anthony, who had made it. They were also eighth graders so I didn’t really know them much either. I’d never had any problems from them.

That was in addition to the filming… the cameras and equipment were supposed to arrive this week. We wouldn’t be doing anything with them till the next week, but we were supposed to start filming pretty much right then. We’d have to get people rehearsing lines if we wanted it to seem even half-way decent…

“Tiffany?” I heard mom ask next to me. I hadn’t even noticed she’d sat next to me.

“Huh?”

“I think you should go to bed, you had a really long trip,” she told me.

“Yeah… you’re probably right,” I said with a yawn.

“Come on, let’s go,” she said and led me down to my bedroom where she tucked me in.

“I’m so proud of you sweetie, you’re the most incredible daughter I could ever have dreamed of having.” She said as she kissed me on the forehead. I gave her a hug around her shoulders and then she turned the light off and left the room, closing the door behind her.

I couldn’t help but stay awake a little longer though and think about everything that had happened in one short year. What would the rest of the school year bring? As I hugged Emily, burrowing deeper into the covers, I felt like I could see a future for myself. If I could do all that I had done in the past year, what could I do beyond that? I closed my eyes that night knowing that I had people that would always be there for me. Even during my darkest times they were there. How could I not succeed? There was still so much in front of me this year. Just next week was honor band, the week after we were supposed to start filming, a band trip in April… I just hoped I wouldn’t get overwhelmed by it all.

I rolled over again, took a deep breath in, and said quietly, “Good night Allie,” to my doll and kissed her on the top of her forehead, closed my eyes, and drifted off to sleep.

 

Finis Book 3

 
 
 

I would like to take a moment and thank all of you who have faithfully followed the series thus far. Your comments, votes, and hit counts have brightened many of my days and given me the desire to continue writing when I might not have. I am currently planning on a Book 4, but it may be some time before it is completed. I’m hoping to actually start working on writing it in the next month and hope to have it well on its way soon. Please be patient with me… it will come… but I have a busy ‘real’ life that takes priority much of the time.

 
I would like to thank those of you who have purchased the book already for your support! For those that haven’t yet, but have enjoyed the book, perhaps you’ll consider purchasing a copy to support me? There is a handy link below if you wish to purchase the ebook.

 
Finally I’d like to thank Carla Ann once again for her help in editing this work. It is a sizeable work and her time, help, and friendship is greatly appreciated!

 
Thanks again to everyone, and I’ll see you in Book 4!!!

Sincerely,

 

Tiffany Shar

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