When the staircase finally stopped, I found myself standing in a tiny little room, barely big enough to turn around in. The air was sort of heavy like in a dungeon or a swamp. And it was very, very dark inside.
“So what now?” I asked, feeling really overwhelmed. “Where to?”
“The canal,” Tina said, and I suddenly realized that the black, ripply place in front of us was running water, not a wall.
“Oh, my gosh!” I exclaimed. I jumped as a raft floated by. There wasn’t much room for jumping around in that space, so, leave it to me, I jumped all over Tina.
“Watch it, Jendra,” she said. “We’ll work on your cheerleading moves later. Just get on the raft.”
We both climbed aboard, and Tina picked up a long, wooden pole and started to push us forward.
“This is really weird,” I said. “It’s like something you would see in a creepy old horror movie.”
Suddenly Tina stopped poling and knelt down at the side of the raft. She dipped her hand into the water, and then stood up and sprinkled a few drops of it on my head. “Do you swear silence and secrecy?”
“To what?” I squeaked, ruining her solemn ceremony. My voice was sounding ultra high for some reason. Maybe because I was nervous.
Tina sounded exasperated with me again. “Just say yes, Jendra!” she exclaimed with a sigh. “It isn’t that hard!”
“Okay,” I said, feeling dumb. “Yes.”
“If you betray our secret, Death will seize your soul!” she finished spookily.
“Hey!” I yelped. “That’s severe. You didn’t tell me a threat like that was coming, or I might not have said yes.”
“Just shut up and everything will be fine,” Tina assured me shortly.
We ran out of water just about then, so Tina pulled our raft over to the bank, and we got out on a tiny piece of ground. There wasn’t much room to stand again, and it was still really dark. In fact, all I could see was a big green door, at least three times as tall as I was, with big brass bolts all over it. I didn’t know what was beyond the door, but something must have been pretty hot in there because steam was spraying out all along the sides.
I cocked an eyebrow suspiciously. “What is this?” I demanded. “The door to Hell or something?”
“Close,” said Tina, which wasn’t very reassuring.
“What’s making all that steam?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” Tina told me. With much less effort than I would have expected, she tapped on the door three times in the middle and it opened up.
Suddenly I was met with the shock of my life.
All the cheerleaders were in there, sitting on the ground in a circle, eating Pop Rox. That was a big enough shock by itself because I hadn’t seen anybody eating Pop Rox in at least five years, and I was just pretty darn sure that they didn’t even make them anymore. But that was nothing compared to the real surprise.
In the middle of the room, there was this huge—and I mean huge—glass case. It was at least nine feet tall, maybe taller, and it was extremely shiny. In the center, on a golden shelf, sat a single green and black pompon.
“Uh, not to be rude,” I blurted out uncomfortably, staring at the pompon. “But what’s that?”
Tina’s gray eyes flashed brightly. With a slow smile that gradually got bigger and bigger, she announced theatrically, “The sacred pompon!”
“The sacred pompon?” I squeaked.
Lien Hua stood up and came over to me. “You know, the sacred pompon! We worship it!”
“Wicked, huh?” said Jamey Fitzhughston, who seemed glad that I appeared to be so horrified.
“Actually, I was thinking more of evil,” I said uncomfortably.
Tina burst out laughing. “Evil?” she said with a giggle. “Oh, Jendra, don’t be silly. The pompon is a thing of goodness. It protects us from the evils that attack.”
“Evils?” I repeated suspiciously. “What kind of evils?”
“Jendra,” said Tina. “Please, please don’t be so naive. You may not believe this, but there are dozens of groups at school that are hostile to cheerleaders. Their most intense desire is to destroy us. But thanks to the pompons, they can’t do that. And that is why we’ve built the pompons a sacred shrine.”
They all smiled, and I wanted to run away. My parents are pretty conservative, okay? They’re so strict they wouldn’t let me pierce my ears until I turned twelve, so I only shudder to think how they would react to sacred pompons. I knew I definitely had to get out of there and fast. I tried to think up some excuse.
“Uh, excuse me,” I blurted out instantly. “But I think I have appendicitis!”
Tina grabbed me by the arm. “Nice try, Jendra,” she said. “But don’t be scared. There’s no reason for you to run away. The ceremony hasn’t even started yet.”
“Ceremony?” I repeated flatly.
“Your initiation,” Jamey Fitzhughston reminded me, and I felt my stomach sink.
“Oh, yeah,” I said faintly. “That. Great.” I walked around nervously for a minute before somebody finally pulled me down so I could sit with the rest of them.
“It’s kind of hot in here,” I said. “Is anybody else hot?”
“The pompon generates heat when we gather for a ceremony,” Tina told me solemnly.
That explained the steam around the door, but I still had a lot of unanswered questions. I just kept staring up at the pompon in the glass case. It was really pretty in a way.
“Gorgeous isn’t it?” said Tina. “You know, it has given us great wisdom. The pompon can give you wisdom, too, Jendra, if you’ll only join us.”
That sounded kind of ominous to me. I tried to remember the techniques for resisting peer pressure they had taught us in our D.A.R.E. program, but I was drawing a complete blank. After all, there’s a big difference between a police officer pretending to try to sell you drugs and a cheerleader really trying to get you to worship a pompon. Although, come to think of it, I guess both scenarios are pretty strange. But the point is, I had no clue how to escape.
“You worship this pompon?” I asked in disbelief. My mouth had fallen open so wide it must have looked like I had some kind of freaky degenerative disorder. “So,” I said slowly, “this is like—a cult?”
“No,” Tina assured me smoothly with a big grin. She must have noticed how freaked out I looked. I couldn’t hide it. “No, Jendra, think of it more like a club.”
“Like the baby-sitters’ club,” added Lien Hua helpfully.
“Exactly,” said Tina, “like the baby-sitters’ club—but . . . not.” She smiled brightly. “Understand?”
“Not really,” I said. “It still seems an awful lot like a cult to me. So, what do you guys do here?”
“Pray to the pompon and ask for her wisdom,” Tina replied.
Oh, no! This wasn’t a cult! Where could I have gotten such a silly idea?
“Her wisdom?” I repeated, arching an eyebrow. “Are you trying to tell me that this is a female pompon?”
“Of course,” Tina told me. “Why do you think pompons always travel in pairs? They definitely have genders. This pompon is named Athena, to honor the Greek goddess Athena, patroness of wisdom, the olive, defensive warfare, and cheerleaders.”
“Cheerleaders?” I repeated suspiciously. “I don’t remember that last one from our ancient mythology unit.”
Tina waved that aside. “Well, Jendra, you’re only in seventh grade,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders and a roll of her eyes. “Nothing you’ve learned up to this point is really true.”
“Okay,” barked Jamey Fitzhughston, holding up a brown paper bag, “we’ve wasted enough time. Let’s get started. Today we’re going to pray for poor old Chrystal, while we perform a ceremony to send her uniform into another dimension.” She pulled the hideous coyote suit out of the bag, unlocked the glass case, and set the suit on the shelf next to the pompon.
“You don’t mind about the uniform, do you, Jendra?” asked Tina innocently. “We’ll have to get you another one or something. But the secret rites must be heeded.”
“Yeah, whatever,” I agreed even though I had no clue where she was coming from with that. I’m not real big on secret rites, you know? “Listen, can I leave?” I knew they wouldn’t like that, but I didn’t want to stick around and play the virgin sacrifice.
“Not yet,” Tina said. “If you’re really scared of Athena, you can wait on the raft while we finish the ceremony.”
“Okay,” I said. I don’t know if she expected me to do that or not, but that’s what I did. It only took them a few minutes to finish, and when they did, Tina rejoined me on the boat.
“You can come back inside now,” she said, tugging on my sleeve. “It’s time for your initiation.”
“Oh, great,” I groaned. I sort of had to follow her. I really didn’t have much choice.
“So what do you want me to do?” I asked, standing expectantly in front of “Athena.” The mascot uniform, I noticed, had disappeared.
“Take off all your clothes,” Lien Hua told me immediately. “And then hop around in a circle three times, while you sing the Barney song!”
“What?” I exclaimed. That didn’t sound like much of a secret ceremony to me.
“Lien Hua!” Jamey whined, slapping her. Lien Hua was lying on the floor giggling wildly, so I kind of figured she hadn’t been serious.
“Just ignore her, Jendra,” Tina assured me. “Really, it’s much, much simpler than that. All you have to do is cut off a lock of your hair and place it next to the pompon.”
“What?” I exclaimed again. But nobody slapped Tina, and she didn’t start giggling or anything, so I figured she had been serious.
“But why do I have to do that?” I demanded.
“Because,” Tina said, making it sound as simple as slice and bake, “you’re the new mascot. You and Chrystal both wore the coyote costume, and now you must bond in spirit by merging cells in another realm.”
“What?” I shrieked. I didn’t particularly want to bond with anybody in spirit. Especially not with somebody who had just been spirited away to Australia.
“Jendra, just put your hair on the shelf!” Tina snapped with a heavy sigh, like I really tried her patience a lot or something. As if all that was just business as usual to me.
“I don’t have anything to cut it with,” I said.
“That’s okay,” said Tina. “Here.” And at that instant both Jamey and Lien Hua whipped out a pair of scissors and started hacking away at my hair.
“Aaah!” I screeched.
“Oh, sorry,” said Lien Hua. “I guess I cut a little too much.”
“Me, too,” admitted Jamey. I wondered if she’d done it on purpose.
In horror I felt my head. Not only was my hair completely uneven now, I also had a huge bald spot right in the center of my scalp.
“Sorry,” said Lien Hua.
“You moron,” Tina scolded. “Now we’re going to have to fix her hair.”
“I hope so,” I said.
Tina was watching me expectantly, so I took a handful of hair over and set it inside the case. I wondered if something phenomenal was going to happen next, but nothing did.
“Jamey and the others can finish up here,” Tina said, grabbing my hand. “I’ll take you back up the stairs now for punch and cookies.”
“Punch and cookies?” I repeated slowly. I had seen a lot of freaky, freaky stuff that day, and as much as I liked Chips Ahoy, I really didn’t think they would be much of a cure-all. And I didn’t want any punch, either.
Basically, I just wanted to go home.