The problem was, this kind of move wasn’t permitted for cheerleaders in competition in Merry’s age group.
The problem was that their knees were higher and even unsteadier than a balance beam and there was no mat underneath. Coach killed her every time she saw Merry do that move, or a twist catch, or anything she wasn’t supposed to be doing. But when Coach yelled at her, it was almost like the way you yelled at a little kid, half laughing as you did it.
“Coach Everson says she’s told you no upside down, not even in high school,” said Sunday. “Only college. It’s, like, illegal.”
Crystal Fish, with one leg extended in standing splits against the concrete wall of the practice gym, said, “Please, Coach would slaughter us. You just started back not even two months ago. You’re her little doll face. If you hit your hand, we’ll be toast. Include me not.”
“We’ll be able to catch her no problem and once she’s in the stand, I’ll give her help going over,” said Kellen Fish, Merry’s anchor and Crystal’s big brother. Kellen was a freshman.
“Then we can both get killed,” Crystal said placidly. “That would wipe out our whole family.”
“Listen,” Merry begged. “We need to do this! Otherwise . . . we just don’t have anything. The girls from P.S. 15 actually should win, because they had to sell Sally Snax to even buy their uniforms. They get the sympathy vote. And the other girls probably don’t even have to go to class for weeks before a meet. You know, private school rules?”
“Merry . . . don’t make us get in trouble. It’s just a meet,” said Kim.
“And like we won’t have ten more next year,” Crystal said languidly. “I plan on living to be twenty. Your units up there in the old bleachers will kill us if coach doesn’t. No way, Mer.”
“Way, Fish. I’m the captain!”
Crystal looked at Meredith as though she were a little bug. Then she lowered her beautiful, ballet-turned leg and said, “You are CO-captain. With me, Brynn. It’s your competition. Your loss. Coach will kick you out. I mean, out for good. You’ll have to start wearing stripper outfits like the Pom Pom girls.”
“It’s not fair! You had all your meets when I just got to sit there!” Merry cried, bursting into tears. “You cheered for basketball when they went to third in state for the first time! Now I get my last chance and you’re just going to crap out on me? Come on. I can land this. Me and Kim and Caitlin and Kellen have done it dozens of times. Dozens. Coach even knows.”
“And she’s fine about it, right?” Crystal asked.
“No, but she knows about it,” Merry said.
She glanced up at Coach Everson, who had taken her place kneeling in front of the stage according to the rules. Coaches were not allowed to speak to the girls for ten minutes before they competed. But Coach was watching the conversation with a sharp eye, as though she knew something was up.
“She knows about it,” Kim repeated, trying to back Merry up, but leery of Coach Everson’s look, which seemed to be boring holes in her back. Kim glanced between Merry and the rest of the group. Alli seemed to be on Merry’s side. So did Caitlin.
But Crystal was like a power queen. You could almost see lightning come out of her fingernails. She looked mad, and Crystal’s mad was like anyone else’s crazy.
Merry dialed down.
“Listen,” Merry said, sensing she was pushing too hard. “I have a better idea. I’ll do a full-split in the air, a toe-touch dismount, from you guys’ shoulders. But we won’t stop there. We’ll do something else. Caitlin, you can do a back-flip from a standstill. Alli, you can! You do two in a row into a split. And I’ll do something else. Let’s go then. Everybody! Competition smiles! Ridgeline spirit! Let’s run the gauntlet.” The girls and Kellen formed a double line, Merry grabbed Alli’s hand and ran through, followed by all the others until they leapt into line. When they reached the end, the whole squad shouted, “Ridgeline Rockets! Dream team!” Meredith, pumped her fist.
As they ran out, Crystal whispered, “You watch it. I mean it. You’ll be in another coma if we get in trouble!” Crystal said. “You won’t be responsible. You’ll be in the newspaper again for most comas in a six-month period. Probably on CNN.”
In the stands, Mallory told her parents, “She’s going to get caught in the basket and she’s thinking she’ll do a pike out of it, like off a balance beam. Be prepared.”
Tim and Campbell stood up to stop her; but the first notes of “No More Take Backs” had already begun.
“Don’t flip out,” Mallory said. “If she was going to get big-time hurt, I’d know it.”
“You mean, you’d know it in a weird twin way? Is she going to get little time hurt?” Tim yelled over the noise.
Mally shrugged. She pretended to shake a toy eight-ball in her hands. “My sources say no.” She laughed. “Come on, Dad. I know it because I’m her sister and I can tell when she’s trying to be all goody-goody when she’s really being sneaky. I can tell because I heard them say they’d do it if they weren’t in first after the early rounds. Duh.”
“This isn’t a joke Mallory,” Campbell said, in the voice usually followed by you’re-grounded.
But she had to look away then. Down on the floor, the routine was going like silk.
“Step and step,” Merry said quietly. “Kick, kick. One, two, three, jump. One, two, three, down on four, up, five six,“ she gave David her most glistening smile. He smiled, with a hint of a nod. “Hip, Hip, shake it. Hip, hip, shake it, last time,” Meredith went on. “Now down on your knees . . .” The girls next ran forward, and slid to the floor. In a line, they slipped into synchronized forward rolls, next jumping to their feet and performing a few steps of of hip-hop, ending in a high toe-kick. The whole line then dropped to their knees and knelt on all fours. Beginning with Crystal at the far left, each cheerleader used the girl next to her as a chair: With her back balanced on the back of the girl beneath her, Caitlin, Alli, Sunny and the others lay back and did horizontal splits in the air. When they traded places for a second series of splits, each motion sharp and on the beat, it had a stylish silhouette effect Coach liked to call “the Rockettes,”—although most of the girls had never heard of the most famous kick line in America.
Meredith said, “Okay last time. Now ready . . .”
To either side, Sunday and Mimi went up to their two-legged stands, their feet planted on the knees of the sturdier girls. Kellen and Kim hoisted Alli and Crystal to the second tier and they pulled Merry and Caitlin to the top of the pyramid, where all three first stood with both arms and then one leg extended.
The crowd cheered and the prep-school girls tapped their toes impatiently.
“Now, let’s do it!” Merry instructed them.
With a moment of hesitation she hoped wasn’t obvious, Merry dropped from her mount into the basket formed by Kim and Kellen. Then she was standing on Kellen’s and Kim’s sturdy hands. Even she was aghast at the fear factor. She’d never done a full-split toe-touch dismount. But seven years of gymnastics paid off as Kellen and Kim helped Meredith get the height and do the classy dismount. At her side, she saw Alli and Caitlin drop off their top tier, then face away from the crowd.
They did two consecutive back flips into a full split.
But Merry did a front flip, a back flip and landed in a horizontal split, waving at the crowd like a madwoman.
So she hadn’t done the full pike she’d planned in the gym.
They’d have lost points for it anyhow.
By the way the judges were smiling at her, she knew she’d done enough.
All old people, like the coaches, remembered that old Nadia Comenici move from the Romanian gymnastics team of about 1904.
They’d departed from the plan, but that wasn’t a cause for a points deduction.
Merry signed happily. Dream team perfect.
Of course, her mother would be having a bird about the split dismount—technically, you could break a leg—but if she fled away from the trophy ceremony before her f
amily could make it down out of the stands . . . Hi. Smile. Smile. Big trophy. Hand it to Crystal.
Bye Bye. She was off toward the bus.
“Hotdog beach,” said one of the girls from Prep World with a glamorous platinum sneer.
Even one of the four judges had to stop herself from applauding. She quickly glanced around with a guilty gaze before bending over her clipboard. But then all four of the judges bent to confer. Merry bit her lip. She knew they were going to be docked for an illegal move. But she knew that in their hearts, judges were hotdoggers, too. They had to be impressed.
Campbell wanted to be angrier than she was. But all around her, athletes—even boys—were cheering for these little girls who had turned a sissy pastime into a demonstration of raw guts and power. How mad could she get?
Merry watched the judges closely. From the judges’ body language, the Ridgeline Rockets knew the cup was theirs, but they could only stand politely, in rest stand, until the verdict was final. People in the stands were screaming, on their feet.
“Did you see that little girl?” a father called out.
“She’s my daughter!” Tim roared. Campbell elbowed him in the ribs.
Campbell stood up and began shouting, in a voice she hoped Merry could hear, that Meredith wouldn’t be leaving the house until summer. Merry sneaked a glance at her coach. Becky Everson had her hands in her pockets and was looking down at the toes of her shoes. But finally, she seemed to decide that it would improve appearances if she was behind her squad, win or lose. Slowly, Coach began to applaud, too. She would give Merry a lecture. But she admired her guts.
The judges stood.
After the announcement of the winners and the victory cheer, Kim came running and lifted Merry off the ground. “My total hero!” she said. “The flying shrimp rides again!”
David appeared behind his sister and said, “Some move, Meredith.”
“Just for you!” Merry giggled, flipping one of her hands in a parody of her crowd wave.
“Too bad you’re a baby girl, shrimp,” David said, and Kim punched him.
Meredith could have fainted with pure joy.
Will Brent seemed to shrink in her mind to a little mannequin, and then to a concept. She saw her parents approaching, with Campbell literally shaking her fist.
“Run!” Merry yelled. “Here come my parents! See you at home! Love you, Mom! I gotta make the bus!” Campbell broke into a fast trot, but Merry lost herself in the crowd.
“You’ll never catch her,” Mallory told her mother.
“She was pretty amazing,” Tim admitted.
“She’s practically a convalescent!” Campbell said.
“I just said she was pretty amazing. She’s got a lot of guts. You can’t deny her that, Cam.”
“It’s because she has this big crush on Kim’s brother,” Mallory told them. Adam stuck a finger down his throat and mimed gagging.
“That’s absurd,” Campbell said. “She’s a child, and he must be seventeen.”
“He’s sixteen,” said Mallory. “I agree with Adam.”
“I’m five years older than you are,” Tim reminded Campbell, mussing her hair.
“Shut up,” Campbell said. “That was a different time. . . .”
“Pioneer times,” said Adam.
“You, too,” Campbell told him. She was disgruntled. “This ruins the whole trophy thing. Why did she take such a chance? And David Jellico? Bonnie would kill him if he’s encouraging her. It’s ridiculous. She’s thirteen!”
“I’m hungry,” said Adam.
Campbell did a quick inventory. The crowd was shoving her forward toward the doors. Astonishingly, Adam was still wearing both his gloves. She could feel the lump of her leather driving gloves in her own pocket, hear the sharp jingle of her keys. Tim’s sleepy, goofy grin told her that she would be driving home. And she didn’t want to spend two hours waiting to get out of the parking lot. Grabbing Adam’s hand, she broke into a trot, calling back that she’d get the van and pick Mally and Tim up. Her phone vibrated. She snapped it open. Meredith! The little minx. She was apologizing in advance. Well. It had been a lousy few months for Merry. She deserved this. Campbell typed back, Congrats, brat.
No one noticed that Mallory had stopped and was slumped against the school wall, panting, her lips pale. Tim was still talking with her, talking through the routine as if she were a step behind him, pointing out that though his heart was in his stomach when he saw Merry dismount, he secretly knew she could do it. Tim said, “You don’t think your dad’s so old, do you, Mal? Adam? Where’s Adam? Oh, he went with Mom. You know I can still beat you one-on-one . . . Mallory? Mal?”
He whirled and sprinted back up the long hall. Fifty feet ahead of them, Campbell heard him and started to fight her way back through the crowd. People were still talking about Meredith: Did you see that short, little girl flip? Isn’t it something what kids can do now? No one seemed to notice Mallory at all.
Sweeping Mallory up in his arms, Tim crouched against the concrete wall and called out to Campbell, “What is it? Look at her, please?”
“Sit down,” said Campbell. All of them sat down on the floor of the hall. Her eyes on her watch, she laid her fingers against Mallory’s wrist. “She’s sweating. Her pulse is racing. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. Mally? Are you sick to your stomach?”
“No,” said Mallory. How could she explain? How could she explain the waking dream that had gone streaking across her mind like a sped-up snippet of film?
She could as easily explain the composition of the rings of Saturn to an infant.
What she could ask, finally, was, “Is Merry taking the bus? Or did she ride with Kim?”
“I know she’s on the bus. She just sent me a little text message! I assume that Kim is, too,” Campbell said. “What’s this got to do with Merry?”
“I really, really did see it, then,” Mallory whispered.
For the second time in three months, which also was the second time in her life, Mallory fainted.
The beauty of Ridgeline was in things such as this—a doctor who would leave home late on a Saturday afternoon and unlock the clinic personally because a child she’d delivered was in trouble. Dr. Staats was at the clinic before Campbell wheeled into the parking lot. When Campbell saw the doctor’s familiar car, a snazzy vintage Corvette, she exhaled with relief.
“Can Adam please leave?” Mallory begged. “Please? He’s acting retarded and making me nuts.”
“Take him outside, Tim,” Campbell said. Reluctantly, covertly grabbing a few more surgical gloves as he passed, Adam followed his father out into the waiting room. Mallory supposed she should be grateful for Dr. Staats coming over to the clinic on her day off. Campbell insisted at first that they stop at the nearest urgent care; Mallory protested so loudly that her father jumped and Campbell swerved: If she had to see a doctor—and she did not have to see a doctor—then it was going to be her doctor, though this was absurd because she was fine and all she wanted to do was go home and why didn’t anyone get that?
And then, suddenly, in what seemed to all of them to be the middle of her rant, Mallory fell asleep and didn’t wake up until they were in the Ridgeline Medical Specialists parking lot. Although she couldn’t know, this would be the pattern: the lurid picture, colored like a bad movie in shaky cam, slammed against her visual field, the faint, the hysteria—then sleep.
“Mally, have you ever had a blackout before?” Dr. Staats asked.
“Not like this,” Mallory said. “It wasn’t exactly a blackout. I passed out during the fire. This was just . . . I can’t explain it. It was like a shock.”
“Like something frightened you?”
Yes, Mallory thought. Like something frightened me. And I’d love to tell you what but you’d put me in the hospital for going psycho. Which I probably actually am.
“Sometimes when people enter puberty, hormonal changes . . .” the doctor began.
“It wasn’t that,” Mallory answered
. “I know it wasn’t.”
“You might not feel developed in other ways,” Campbell began.
Mallory put her hands over her ears.
“Oh, please kill me,” she said through her teeth. “Doctor Staats, have you met my mother? My mother is a nurse! We’ve had the changes-in-a-woman’s-body conversation about every Thursday since I was nine years old. It’s right before the if-you-ever-need-birth-control-you-know-you-can-tell-me conversation. I’ve never even kissed a boy. Please!” Mally pleaded. “I’d know if I were having my period. Or a mood swing. Or anything. And if I was, Meredith would be having it, too. Maybe we should go home. What if Merry fainted, too, Mom? What if she’s on the kitchen floor and hit her head?”
“I called her. She’s fine,” said Campbell.
Great, Mally thought. The least Meredith could do was go crazy at the same time.
“She’s just worried about you. Kim is there with her.”
Kim? Mallory thought. Oh, no, please no, I can’t talk to her with Kim there!
So Mallory concentrated on how to get Kim out of their house, or at least out of earshot, while Dr. Staats and Mally’s mother talked for about six hours about possible reasons for Mallory’s dizziness, from low blood sugar to an ear infection. Finally, Dr. Staats patted Campbell’s arm, gave her a lab slip, and promised to rush the blood work through.
Mally thought she would scream if she didn’t get out of the room.
She didn’t want to tell Merry what she’d seen.
But she had to.
Who else was there?
She thought of Eden. No. Eden was a high-school girl, a basically normal, decent person. Mallory had already creeped her out once. She thought of Drew. She longed for Drew. But did she really want her only true friend to think she was nuts?
Mallory just knew that Merry had blabbed something to Kim and she was furious. How much had Merry told about what was happening to them? No matter what she’d said, it was too much. It was dangerous—especially with Kim! The fewer people who knew, the better. She flipped open her cell phone and texted Merry: Lts tlk wen I gt hm. Aln. K? She hoped she wasn’t interfering with the monitors for someone stroking out somewhere else in the clinic. It said right on the front door that cell phones were not allowed. No. She remembered now. The clinic was closed. They were the only ones there.