“Give her room!” one of the coaches yells out.
“She’s not moving.” Mutters one girl, Ellie, I think is her name.
“Try not to move her!”, That might have been Dianna.
“Oh S**t!”, that’s me…I'm trying to hide the air horn. I thought it would be an awesome gag to go to the first day the cheerleaders practice their lifts and test out the air horn. Well while they hoist one in the air. Or more precisely when my sister, Amber is in the air. She’s been down for a while. I’m sweating bullets. A couple of her teammates are standing in their practice outfits crying at their fallen teammate. The rest look on with concern.

“You little S**t! Look at what you did to your sister!” that would be Monica staring daggers at me. My sophomore sister is not moving. Monica runs at me as my eyes open wide. Taylor, my buddy next to me, yells “Come on, let’s get out of here,” and begins to pull at my arm. He pulls away from me, and he’s in a dead sprint. Monica is almost upon me. One of the assistant coaches grabs her before she could do, whatever it is she was had in mind, in her enraged state. She’s foaming at the mouth. “you little s**t! You could have killed her! Did you think that was funny?” I just stand there staring at my sister being held down by her squadmates.

The paramedics arrive at the football field where the practice was taking place. Monica is verbally hurling expletives in my direction. “Don’t you even care?” She tries to break free of the coach, who is trying to bear hug her to calm her. I’m still frozen transfixed as an ambulance arrives. “You ruined everything!” the Monica continues to shout in my direction. They’ve got my sister on backboard now? A neck collar? It wasn’t that bad of a fall. The rest of the squad is in tears as they load Amber onto a gurney and into the awaiting ambulance.

The ambulance pulls away. The squad turns to watch the commotion by the squad’s cheer captain. The air horn slips from my grasp and onto the bleacher steps. The coach comes over to me. Her angered could scare the calm out of a reflecting pool. She walks up to me. “You’re coming with me to the hospital.” She says holding her anger in. “I want you to see what that prank of yours did to your own sister.” I’ll let your parents deal with you there. She grabs the air horn and my wrists and drags me to her car. She sits me in the back seat, we have no other passengers.

She’s eerily silent on the car ride to the hospital. That scares me worse than if she would yell at me. A million things go through my mind. How badly hurt is Amber? How much trouble am I in? What are my parents going to do to me when they find out it was me that put her in the hospital? Each stop light is an eternity. Part of me wants to get there as quickly as possible. Some part of me is afraid of what awaits me there.

We pull into the hospital parking lot and parks the car. I realize why she put me in the back seat when she exits the vehicle. My door doesn’t open from the inside. Child safety locks. She opens my door and grabs me by the wrist. I’m too frazzled to struggle. She leads me into the ER with ease. My parents have not arrived at the ER yet, but several of the squad have started to show up. I haven’t seen 7 teens and 3 adults so ready to kill me in the same room at the same time.

My folks arrive and meet up with the coach. I’m sitting on the plastic chair in the ER and haven’t stopped worrying about my sister. The coach is explaining in animated detail what happened to my sister. I watch as the expression on my parent’s face go from concern to unqualified anger. Dad looks like he’s ready to whoop me, mom looks like she going to let him.

A doctor comes out of the double door and pulls my parents into a conference room. I don’t know anything about hospitals, but when the Doctor wants to speak with you in private, that’s not a good sign. Two hours go by, the rest of the squad continues to take turns giving me dirty looks. My parents have yet to emerge. The parents of each of the cheerleaders begin to arrive and retrieve their daughters. The shared look of disgust is directed in my direction by each of the parents. I imagine that each parent thinks that it could have been their child.

Dad comes out of the ER and head straight in my direction. “Aaron, We’re going home.” He says with the tension in his body so evident that I suspect if he lost control over it I would be in a hospital bed right next to Amber. I stand, and the blood begins to flow through my legs leaving pins and needles in its wake. I want to ask how she is. I don’t. There’s barely enough focus on my dad’s mind to operate a vehicle to take us home. He’s quiet too on the ride home. I expected him to yell at me as we entered the house. He doesn’t. He ignores me and walks upstairs to his room. I sit on the couch waiting for what is to come. He descends the stairs with my mom’s duffle bag. And walks back to the garage. I hear the car pull away and I’m left in sheer panic I don’t know what is going on.

I wake up in a daze the next morning. The house is still empty. Did they come home last night? There’s not breakfast on the table. I get started with a bowl of cereal and head off to school. Since I’m a freshman, I’m pretty much low man on the totem pole. Well, when I arrived at school word had already spread. Now, I’m probably a worm buried under the totem pole. All throughout the day the students, even the other freshmen are giving me dirty looks. As school ended, I was about to head for home when a couple of the biggest guys I’ve ever seen pull me aside. They grab me and pull me to a part of the school I’ve never been to. “You think that was funny?” One of the pair says angrily at me. “You think you’re clever messing with our cheerleaders you little turd?” I think I’m about to be pounded.

“Mr. Roberts and Mr. Unger, I do hope that you aren’t taking liberties with our students. Any infraction would threaten your eligibility and this… student… has some ‘restitution’ that he’s going to need to work on.” The same cheer coach that dragged me in her car yesterday had intervened on my behalf. I was surprised. “Now then, I think that the two of you are going home was that correct?” She asks in a tone that made them glad they weren’t me. “Yes, ma’am straight home.” The pair walks off with haste.

She eyes me up and down. “As for you. After you’ve spoken to your parents this evening, see me after school tomorrow. Be sure to bring some sweats and a towel tomorrow, you’re going to need it.” She grinned.

I walked home to find an empty house. I couldn’t drive so I couldn’t visit my sister. I didn’t know where in the hospital she was. I found a note on the table and 25 dollars. Basically, I should order a pizza for dinner. Not knowing how bad Amber was injured kept torturing my mind. The pizza arrived half an hour later, I barely made my way through a single slice. Worry fed me. Guilt was all I had to quench my thirst. By now I would happily accept any punishment just to know if she was alright. By sundown, I broke down sobbing. There was no one to console me. I deserved it. I deserved all of it. I cried myself into a slumber that evening. I didn’t even have enough energy to move off the couch.

I woke the next morning on the same couch a blanket covered over me to keep the chill off me. Mom was there in the kitchen her bloodshot eyes a telltale sign of the lack of sleep she had had over the past two nights. I entered the room. I hadn’t heard her voice in two days. She looked up at me with contempt. I had never seen that look on my mother’s face. It’s a look I hope to never see again. “she’s still in a coma.” Her words plain as if she was asking me ‘to pass the sugar.' She scooted back the chair as she stood. “Mrs. Tompkins will need your help with your sister’s squad while your sister recovers. You will do whatever she asks without question or hesitation. Nod if you understand.” I nod, mournful of the fact that my sister’s condition was graver than I thought. “Good.” She gets up walks upstairs to her room and shuts the door.

I arrive at school, again I’m the pariah. I’m ostracized, and even Taylor has abandoned me. I eat lunch alone. People even clear the table as I arrive. School ends and I arrive at the football field where my prank started it all. I walk over sullen to Mrs. Tompkins who explains my punishment to me; “Because of your callous act, we are one cheerleader short. You will fill in on practice days, fundraisers, and charity events that your sister cannot until she recovers and can fully rejoin the team. Normally, we’d cut your sister and bring in a new girl. After the stunt you pulled, none of the girls in the school want to try out. You will learn all the routines and fill her spot. Drop out or fail to improve, and we’ll have you expelled for your stunt. Is that clear?” I nod. “Practice is officially on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays; the football games are on Fridays. If you are nice, maybe some of the girls will work with you on the other days. I wanted you expelled, but this is a creative solution that doesn’t punish the rest of the girls."