“Did you like it?” I asked.
Penny nodded. “Yeah.”
“Any suggestions?”
They shook their heads. “Just do exactly what you did,” Sheila said. “You are good, Stacey. Really good.”
Well, I was as high as a kite. But I didn’t want to assume I’d get in. I practiced really hard Thursday evening, and then again on Friday after school.
Friday night was my dinner date with Robert. He knew I needed to eat right after the BSC meeting, so you know what he did? He decided to surprise me outside the Kishis’ at six.
As we barreled out of the house, Jessi was the first to see him. She stopped in her tracks and gasped, “Oh, wow! Is this him?”
Robert blushed, and we all cracked up. (Jessi, by the way, was mortified. She didn’t stop apologizing to me for a week.) By this time, the other members of the BSC, except for Shannon, had already met Robert. He’d sat at the BSC table in the cafeteria a couple of times.
Needless to say, every one of them liked him. (How could they not?)
Well, my weekend was off to a perfect start. We ate dinner at Robert’s house, and then his dad drove us to a rock concert in Stamford. That was where I learned, in the aisle of Row 34, that Robert was a very cool dancer.
The next day, Saturday, SMS had an afternoon game (which, of course, we won). Watching the cheerleaders, I felt great. I could do everything they could. Watching Robert, I felt even better. One time he actually winked at me from the court.
Our double date with Logan and Mary Anne that night was hysterical. We went bowling, and the only one who was able to roll the ball straight was … Mary Anne! It seemed to take years for her ball to reach the pins, but she always managed to knock some down. Logan looked a little upset by this, but Robert thought it was great. He called Mary Anne a natural athlete. He even invited her to try out for the basketball team. We went out for ice cream afterward (I ordered nachos). To tell you the truth, I don’t know how we were able to get any food in our mouths. We hardly stopped laughing.
Sunday was another practice day. Jessi came over for a final tuneup. We added a few new flourishes to the routine. I made sure Jessi pointed out even my slightest mistakes.
By the end of the session, I felt that I could do the routine in my sleep. My splits felt fabulous. My arms were strong. A smile never left my face.
I was ready.
“Breathe, Stacey. Just breathe.”
Jessi’s arm was around my shoulder. My knees were knocking against each other. The noise around me was deafening.
On the gym floor, dozens of girls were doing last-minute practicing. The bleachers in the SMS gym were chock full of boyfriends, girlfriends, and siblings. It looked as if half the female student body had shown up for tryouts. I didn’t even recognize some of the faces.
Tuesday had snuck up on me. I spent all weekend and all Monday impatiently waiting — but now that it was here, I was petrified.
Kristy, Mary Anne, Claudia, Shannon, and Mallory were sitting around me in the bleachers, like a wall of protection. (Yes, Mallory, who was getting over mono! She said she wouldn’t miss it for the world.) Behind them were Logan and Robert.
The BSC had pulled together to support me, despite the fact that most of them didn’t care much for The Group. We went over my routine move by move at the Monday meeting. We almost had to cut the meeting short because Kristy accidentally kicked the phone out of the wall during a cartwheel demonstration.
Now my friends had become my personal cheering squad. I couldn’t let them down.
I looked at the gym clock. Three forty-one. Four minutes to go. I tried to run through the combination in my head.
Bad idea.
“Jessi, what comes after chassé right?” I cried.
Jessi rolled her eyes. “Chassé left. Now stop it, Stacey. Don’t overthink.”
“Sing a song to yourself,” Mary Anne suggested.
“Relax,” Claudia said.
“Do some wind sprints,” was Kristy’s advice.
Stop thinking, sing, relax, and sprint.
Right. No problem.
Phwweeeeet!
A loud whistle made the gym go silent. I could hear Darcy’s voice call out, “Girls, please clear the floor and be quiet! We have to begin!”
Everyone scampered into the bleachers. The cheerleaders themselves were in front row center, sitting behind a big folding table. They were dressed in their SMS outfits, and each of them held a clipboard. Sheila’s hair was pulled back, and she looked like a movie star. Darcy and Corinne had tucked pencils neatly behind their ears. Penny and Margie were giggling about something with a couple of the girls I didn’t know.
They all looked so breezy and confident. I would have given anything to switch places with them.
“All right, listen up!” Darcy shouted. “This is a much bigger group than we expected. We don’t want this to drag on until night, so we have to move fast. First you’re all going to learn a simple combination. We’ll circulate among you and let you know who makes the final cut. Whoever’s left gets to show us your own routine.”
A girl in the back of the bleachers shouted, “You mean, if you cut us we won’t be able to do the routine we prepared?”
Darcy gave her an icy look. “Uh, yes, that’s what I said. Now come on, let’s line up!”
The girls began running down the bleachers. They sounded like a herd of elephants.
Elephants, however, would never dream of dressing the way some of these girls did. Neon-pattern aerobic suits, French-cut leotards, expensive-looking shorts with button shirts tied at the waist. I was in the middle of a fashion show.
“Go ahead, Stacey!” Jessi whispered.
I stood up to a chorus of “Good luck!” from my friends. I adjusted my Danskin outfit and walked to the gym floor.
A logjam had formed in front of the cheerleaders. Everyone wanted to be in the front row. Girls were standing so close together, they would have knocked each other out if they had had to do a kick.
I guess that would have been one way of making the first cut.
“Whoa, stop it!” Darcy shouted. “Let’s spread out! You’re all going to get an equal chance!”
The cheerleaders plunged into the crowd, gently pushing and pulling the girls father into the gym. It made me think of cattle rustling.
When we were finally spread out, the cheerleaders distributed themselves around the gym. Darcy announced, “Okay, make sure you can see one of us. We’ll demonstrate the routine twice, and you join in the third time.”
I was on the left side of the group, at about the middle of the gym. Sheila had made sure to be the cheerleader nearest me. She saw me over her shoulder and gave a smile.
Darcy pressed a button on a boom box in the bleachers. A rock song blared through the gym.
Well, the combination they did was embarrassingly easy. A few simple steps, kicks, and turns, and one split at the end.
Everyone would be able to do it, I thought. It would be impossible for them to cut anybody.
I was wrong. You’d think some of those girls had never learned their right from their left. And their faces! Half of them looked as if they were being tortured. Not to mention the “cheer,” which sounded like a chain gang chant.
“You must be kidding!” Darcy’s voice boomed out. “Come on! Have some fun with this!”
After running through the routine a few more times, the cheerleaders began walking around the room. They would casually look over the crowd, then whisper into the ear of a girl.
I was one of the first who got a whisper. It was Sheila, saying, “Get away from these goons. We want to see your routine.”
I walked to the stands. My BSC friends were staring at me, all confused. “You got cut?” Jessi exclaimed.
“I got kept,” I said, “for the finals.”
They jumped up and cheered. We waited patiently until only the finalists (and their friends) were left in the stands — twelve finalists altogether.
/> In the back of the gym, near the locker room door, the rejected girls were murmuring and complaining. Some were sobbing. The one who had asked the question earlier was at the table in front, pleading with Darcy.
Before long that girl was running for the locker room door, weeping uncontrollably. Darcy just looked annoyed.
“Okay,” she announced. “I’m going to assign you each a number. Remember it, because that’s the order of your routine.”
She pointed to us, one by one, counting out numbers. I was five.
The torture began. Number One was Kathleen Lopez — tall, willowy-thin like a model, and stunning. She even looked great giving her cassette to Darcy. Her routine was pretty good, too. I was dying. “Jessi …” I moaned.
“No comparison,” Jessi whispered. “Not even close.”
Lisa Kedem, Ronnie Gallea, and Diane Magnani followed. Each of them had a decent routine — but none of them had been trained by the great Jessi Ramsey, and it showed.
I was beginning to calm down.
“Number Five!” Darcy shouted. “Who’s Number —”
“Here!” I said, jumping up.
From behind me, I heard: “Go!” “Good luck!” “Break a leg!” “Show ’em!”
Jessi and I shared a Look. Now she seemed more nervous than I did.
I took my cassette and walked to Darcy, flashing my biggest, happy-to-be-here smile.
What happened next? It’s all a blur. My body was on auto-pilot. Here’s what I remember: I kept smiling. I didn’t lose my place. And the cheerleaders did not take their eyes off me during my performance.
When I was done, my BSC friends gave me a loud standing ovation.
I stood up, panting and sweaty. My breathing sounded like a hacksaw in the vast gym. Very chic.
I couldn’t help staring at the cheerleaders. I knew they couldn’t tell me on the spot whether I’d be chosen, but I wanted to see something — a signal, a facial expression.
They were all huddled over their clipboards, writing furiously. But as I began walking back to the stands, Sheila looked up and gave me a confident nod.
My friends were still standing. “You were sensational!” Shannon said.
“Definitely the best!” Kristy cried.
“Sssshhhhh, Kristy, not so loud!” Mary Anne warned. “Be polite.”
“She’s right, though,” Robert said in a softer voice. “Far and away the best!”
Jessi was beaming with pride. “I agree. I am sooo proud of you!”
We stayed to watch the others. After tryouts were finally over, Darcy turned and said, “Thank you for coming. You were all fantastic. We’ll make our decision by Friday, and it’s going to be a hard one. See you then.”
The twelve girls and their friends cheered wildly. I’m sure the other finalists felt just as relieved as I did.
As we stood to leave, Jessi leaned forward and whispered in my ear. “You know what? You’re a shoo-in.”
My friends nodded.
“Really?” I replied. “You’re not just being polite?”
“No way,” Jessi said. “Cross my heart.”
“Stace,” Robert added, putting his arm around me, “you were a nine-one-one.”
I glanced at the cheerleader table. The girls were in furious conversation, but Sheila was looking right at me. She grinned from ear to ear and gave me a thumbs-up sign.
I nearly shrieked.
Claudia was on a mission To Create An Artist. She had done it once before, with a sitting charge named Rosie Wilder. Rosie had a million talents but was unhappy, and Claudia helped her realize she loved art more than anything else.
Tiffany was going to be Claud’s next project.
Claud arrived at the Kilbournes’ energetic and happy. Shannon was at some meeting, as usual. Mrs. Kilbourne and Maria were rushing off to a swim meet.
“Tiffany’s in the rec room!” was the last thing Mrs. Kilbourne said. “Enter at your own risk! ’Bye!”
Claudia cheerfully walked to the rec room and pushed the door open. “Hi, Ti —”
Bonk. The door hit something and went no further.
“Hey, quit it!” a voice shouted.
Claudia peeked through the crack in the door. “It’s Claudia, your —”
Two tries, two unfinished sentences. Claudia could only stare.
She had never seen such a mess — Claudia, the winner of the Least Likely to See Her Own Bedroom Floor Award.
Photo albums and a camera were stacked on the TV set. A tennis racket, baseball glove, and softball lay on the couch, next to a cassette recorder and about a dozen tapes. The floor was covered with jigsaw puzzle pieces, stamps, an old guitar, Polaroid pictures, photography magazines, coins, lumps of modeling clay, paste, glue, paints, chalk, plastic containers, a model-making kit, and books about horses, birds, jogging, sculpting, music, and space travel.
Tiffany stood up and waded through the junk. She pulled a huge easel away from the door and said, “Okay, come in.”
Claudia took a couple of steps in, but that was as far as she could go. “Uh … what are you doing?”
“Lots of things,” Tiffany replied.
“Are these all … hobbies?” Claudia asked.
Tiffany whirled around and gave her an accusing look. “Who told you?”
“What?”
“Who told you? Did Mary Anne tell you I was looking for a hobby?”
“Well, yeah. Was it supposed to be a secret?”
Tiffany pushed aside the tennis racket and plopped onto the couch. “I guess not.” She let out a huge sigh. “Do you have a hobby?”
“Uh-huh. Art. Can I sit next to you?”
“Yeah.” Tiffany put the cassette player on the floor and Claudia sat down. “Music is easy to listen to,” Tiffany went on, “but it’s real hard to play. I tried playing the guitar. I even read a book about it. But when I played I sounded like a dying cat.”
“When I sing, I sound like a howling dog,” Claudia said. “Maybe we could do a duet.”
Tiffany smiled. “What kind of art do you do?”
“Painting, sculpture, drawing, everything.”
“Well, I tried everything.”
“You couldn’t have given it much of a chance, Tiffany —”
“I did. But I stink. Also I didn’t like it. It’s too messy.”
“What did you like?”
“Nothing! I try to hit a tennis ball against the garage door, and I miss half the time. When I take pictures, I cut people’s heads off. Jigsaw puzzles are boring. Birds all look the same to me, and so do horses. Besides I’ve seen them and they’re smelly. We don’t have a piano. And I get sick licking stamps.”
“Uh, Tiffany, maybe you should think of going a little slower, picking one thing —”
“I can’t!” Tiffany got up from the sofa. She began stalking around the room, kicking things aside. “I can tell when I’m bad at something. I have to find a hobby I can win at.”
“Win? Who are you trying to beat?”
“My sisters! Didn’t Mary Anne tell you that? That’s why I’m doing this. Mary Anne told me to.”
“Wait a minute,” Claudia said. “I don’t think Mary Anne meant that you should try to compete with your sisters.”
“She did! Ask her! We can call her up —”
“No, that’s okay. Look, Tiffany, this isn’t making you happy, is it?”
Tiffany moped over to the couch again and sank into the cushion. “No.”
“I think you may be doing this the wrong way. I mean, a hobby is something you should enjoy. It doesn’t matter how good you are at it. It’s not supposed to be, like, a weapon against your sisters.”
Tiffany mumbled something.
“You know,” Claudia continued, “my older sister, Janine, is so smart it’s disgusting.”
“Shannon is like that!”
“Well, I felt so inferior to Janine that I used to escape to my room all the time and just draw pictures. It made me forget how stupid I felt. T
hen I got into painting, and papier-mâché, jewelry-making. Now I’ve become pretty good at all of it, and I want to be an artist for a living someday. I didn’t try to be better than my sister. I stuck to the thing I liked.”
Tiffany looked deep in thought. (Either that or bored out of her mind. Claudia wasn’t sure which.)
“Tiffany,” Claudia said, “what do you like? What really interests you? Come on, first thing that comes to your mind.”
For a moment, Tiffany said nothing. Then she looked up at Claudia and said in a tiny voice, “Flowers.”
“Flowers?”
“I guess.”
“You like looking at them?”
Tiffany’s face lost all its gloominess. “I like everything about them — planting, watering, watching them grow, arranging them, and drying the petals to make sachets.”
It wasn’t what Claudia had expected. But boy, was she glad to see Tiffany excited about something.
“That’s a great hobby, Tiffany!” Claudia said. “Maybe your parents can let you grow a garden in the spring. I mean, there’s not much you can do now, but —”
“Sure there is, silly!” Tiffany bolted from the couch and ran out of the room, slipping over all her junk. Moments later she returned with a stack of magazines and an encyclopedia. “We get House and Garden. I always look at the pictures when Mom and Dad are through. See, I can use these pictures to plan my garden. Then I can look up the plants and flowers I don’t know in the encyclopedia.”
“How about mapping it out on paper?” Claudia asked.
Tiffany squealed with delight. “Ooh, then I can draw it with colored pencils!”
She ran off again, this time returning with pencils and huge sheets of paper.
Claudia said Tiffany worked on her garden plan the rest of the afternoon. When Mrs. Kilbourne came home she couldn’t believe the change. She offered to adopt Claudia (jokingly, I think).
As Claudia left, she could see Tiffany and Maria staking out a corner of the backyard. They were gesturing at the dirt and talking a mile a minute.
I don’t know how I kept food down. But there I was, in the SMS cafeteria on Thursday, somehow eating a Salisbury steak. (I wish someone would tell me why they call a hamburger with old brown sauce “Salisbury steak.” Did someone named Salisbury invent the sauce? If so, he should have been arrested.)