Wednesday, August 22nd, 2018
I looked at the ragged line of klutzy, soon-to-be-fourth-and-fifth-graders, in shorts and T-shirts, determined to become elementary school cheerleaders. Had I ever been this clumsy? Gawd, I hoped not. I pasted on what I hoped was a cheerful smile. “That was a great start.”
“Hello, Sarah. We’ve been here since Monday,” a chunky brunette told me, all snark in a “Hello Kitty” T-shirt and pink shorts. “We suck.”
“Not as bad as I did at my first practice,” my partner, B.J. Larson, a newcomer to Junior Varsity said, smacking her gum. “I super-sucked.”
Five of the six girls giggled and pushed at each other. The sixth, Ms. Snark, cracked a smile.
“B.J., don’t say that.” I glared over my shoulder at her. “They’ve been working really hard and cheerleading isn’t easy.”
“Yeah.” B.J. blew a huge pink bubble, popped it and pulled the gum back into her mouth. “What I said, Sarah. It’s hard and they—“
“Suck!” our group chorused. More giggles and outright laughter.
I planted my fists on my hips. “That’s not the Highlander way. Our creed is, ‘We’re the best of the best’.”
“Yup,” B.J. said. “Even when we—”
“Suck!” they all yelled.
I saw Hailey Collins, the Varsity Cheer captain, give us the evil eye before she turned back to the award-winning middle school group of tweens and teens who’d been cheering and dancing together for the past three years. I’d hear about the “sucking” incident later, but maybe there’d be a natural disaster like a major earthquake or a tsunami, and she’d forget all about us when the world ended. By lunch-time when cheer camp ended for the day, our mini-squad was in step. They could all do the grapevine part of the dance in line and turn at the same time. Most importantly, they obviously all felt they were part of a team, their team. They hugged both me and B.J. before they bolted for their parents’ cars.
I grabbed B.J.’s arm when Hailey and Abbie Watkins started toward us. “Don’t leave. They’re the leaders of Varsity.”
“And their crap doesn’t stink.” B.J. tossed her head, bright red waves tumbling down, even though Hailey decided we were all supposed to braid our hair for cheer practice. “We’re as good as they are. Tell them to get lives, Sarah.”
“I can’t do that,” I whispered. Not when I knew what would happen if I lost it with the two of them. Hailey Collins was the Drama Diva of the academy, and nobody wanted to be on her bad side. I hastily put on my best smile when the two seniors got closer. “Hi.”
“Your group really got it together today,” Abbie said. “Nice job, Sarah.” She nodded at B.J. “Have we met?”
“Nope. I transferred into the academy last spring and Sarah talked me into trying out for cheerleading.” B.J. popped her gum. “I’m like her understudy.”
“Oh, so that’s why you don’t know the academy way,” Hailey informed her. She waved at the long, low, red brick buildings at the far end of the campus. “The elementary and middle schools are part of the academy and their students adhere to the same rules we do.”
“You don’t say.” B.J. played dumb and acted real innocent, but I knew it was a con. “Wow, I’m impressed.”
Hailey shuddered dramatically. “And nobody at the academy says ‘“suck.’”
“Even when they know they do?” B.J. widened emerald-green eyes and tried to sound even more naïve. “What a load of bull—”
I elbowed her. “I’m sorry, Hailey. It won’t happen again.”
“Till the next time something sucks,” B.J. said.
That earned us an even harsher frown from Hailey. “Have you read the academy handbook? The gum has to go. You’re expected to set a good example for the rest of the school, B.J.”
“Gee, I didn’t know school was in session.” B.J. smacked her gum again. “I thought this was August, but then I’m not blonde.”
Oh my Gawd! She was so busted.
Hailey narrowed sky-blue eyes and folded her arms. She’d dressed up for today in thin blue sweats and running shoes, but then she always looked like a teen model. We weren’t any competition for her. B.J. and I barely topped five feet. We weren’t tall or glamorous like Hailey. She wasn’t even sweating under her makeup, like I was. How could she stand the long-sleeved jacket over her tank top or the pants when the rest of us wore shorts? Despite my braid, black strands of hair stuck to my face, while Hailey’s sunshine gold hair gleamed in her own perfect braid that fell halfway down her back.
She gave B.J. the kind of frown that sent most of our Junior Varsity squad racing for the locker room. B.J. didn’t flinch. Dropping her voice to a snarl, Hailey demanded. “Do you know who I am?”
“No. God in a cheer uniform or just the witch of Stewart Falls Academy? Or is there a better way to spell it? Maybe with a capital B?”
“I can have you off your squad in a phone call.”
“Promise?” B.J. pulled out her cell and offered it to Hailey. “Want me to push the buttons for you? Or can you manage all by yourself?”
“Please, Hailey.” I knew I catered to her whims, and she had a lot of them. I still didn’t want B.J. off my squad. “B.J.’s the best flyer I’ve got and she’ll learn about SFA. We’re all committed to helping her do things the academy way—I swear.”
“And getting on J.V. when she just arrived,” Abbie said, with her quick smile. “That’s amazing. She’s got the drive you tell the squads that we want SFA cheerleaders to have, Hailey, and to model for the students here.”
Hailey glared at B.J. again. “All right. If your captain’s willing to stick up for you and my assistant is, too, I can wait to get rid of you.”
I watched her stalk across the lawn that we all called The Green to the driveway where her boyfriend, Jason Phillips, waited in his sports car. Tall, tawny-blond, and a super-hot football star, I dreamed about him more than I ever admitted.
“Be careful,” Abbie told us, her cobalt-blue eyes worried. “Hailey’s been on a roll this summer. Two of the varsity girls are on the verge of quitting, and the three guys already have. I can’t wait till Coach Olson gets back from vacation.”
Abbie didn’t allow either of us to ask who would replace the missing cheerleaders on the advanced squad. She walked off, tall and graceful. She’d led the girls’ basketball team to State last year and said they’d kick butt again this season.
“She’s cool,” B.J. said. “And she likes you.”
“Only because I took her cousin, Timber, cookies and I visited him every week he was in the hospital and rehab after that car accident last May. A lot of his friends were too busy to see Timber during the summer.”
“Yeah, well Queen Hailey’s a real hag.” B.J. headed over and picked up our sports bags. “Her boyfriend’s a creep, too.”
“Jason Phillips? How do you figure? He’s gorgeous. Last year he was the second-string quarterback but this fall, he’ll be leading the Highlanders since Timber hasn’t been cleared to play yet. Everybody says Jason’s fab.”
“He certainly thinks so,” B.J. said. “But he’s a loser. The whole time Hailey bitched you out, he kept ogling you.”
“Ogling?”
“Leering. Undressing you with his eyes like Liz says.” B.J. popped her gum one last time then spit it into a nearby garbage can. “Come on. Ringo’s waiting. Believe me, if he looked at another girl the way that Jason looked at you, I’d take him to the vet to be neutered with my puppy.”
I smiled, wondering if Jason actually had looked at me. Had he really seen me? “I’ll tell Ringo you said that.”
“He knows,” B.J. told me, walking beside me toward the parking lot and her boyfriend’s truck. “I don’t share. Never have. Never will.”
She tossed our bags in the back-seat of the pickup and climbed in next to the huge, blond, surfer boy behind the wheel. Big lip-lock as if they’d been apart for years, not three hours since he dropped us off.
When they came up for air, B.J. said, “I’m starving. Let’s go grab a pizza at Parthenon’s.”
“I can’t,” I said. “I have to get home and babysit my little stepsister.”
“Give it a rest. We barely do anything because you have to take care of Princess Priss,” B.J. said. “Who has her now? Your older brother, Warren?”
“No. He’s in Bellevue doing his internship. It’s my mom’s day off, but she told me to be home right after camp to—”
“Then she can take care of her husband’s kid instead of dumping her on you.”
“We could get the pizza to go,” B. J.’s boyfriend Ringo Taylor and my half-brother said. “We’ll grab some sodas and eat at Sarah’s instead of hiking the old railroad tracks above Pine Ridge.”
“I’d love that,” I told them. “But you both know my mom isn’t good about me having company.”
“Hey, she can’t be mean to us, or to you when I’m there,” B.J. said. “I’ll rat her out to her mom and Liz in a heartbeat.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
B.J. claimed to be a tough street kid from Seattle, but ever since she moved in with my grandaunt Liz and her husband, Ted, I had a guardian angel. If B.J. hadn’t raised a stink about needing me with her while she did a ton of activities this summer, I’d have been Cinderella again.
As for Ringo, we had different moms, but the same bio-dad who seemed to think running around town making babies was what a guy did. It amazed me that Ringo never blamed me for the soap opera in our lives, but his sister, Dallas who was close to my age had issues. Hey, I understood. They were stuck with the guy we all referred to as Smarmy Marvy. Luckily, my mother’s third husband adopted me and my older brother.
Meanwhile, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and running after my stepsister had been my lot in life, during all my school breaks, forever, but not this summer. Instead, I’d ridden my horse, Xanadu, taught horse camp, made money at my grandma’s stable, gone to movies, dog-clinics, and so much more. I would even be exhibiting Xanadu at the county fair this weekend while B.J. showed her puppy.
“Okay.” I pulled the pickup door closed. “Pizza! Let’s do it.”
* * *
The Evergreen State Fair opened on Thursday and ran from the end of August through Labor Day. This year, my grandma’s 4-H Club, the Horse Heaven Angels, were scheduled to show our horses on the first Saturday. That meant we had a Friday night vet check. I was in luck, since my Aunt Cathy, the Pine Ridge veterinarian volunteered to haul my Arabian mare when she came to do the horsy inspections. I just had to meet them in the parking lot at the fairgrounds. No problem there.
My older brother, Warren, loved going to the fair. He wasn’t into the exhibits. He preferred the carnival. He’d go through the booths, wasting money on trying to win prizes, then go on the most challenging rides to impress all the girls. This year he had company. Timber Watkins came along.
As soon as we pulled off the highway and Warren drove toward the horse gate, I said, “If you help me prep the stalls for the club, I’ll get you in through the exhibitor gate and then you won’t have to pay for parking.”
From the passenger seat, Timber glanced over his shoulder and smiled. “Sounds like a winner.”
“You’re easy.” Warren signaled for a right turn into the fairgrounds. “You didn’t even hold out for more chocolate chip cookies.”
“I’ll get them anyway and you don’t want Sarah doing ten stalls by herself.”
“Good point,” I said. “But you’ll have to wait till next week since I can’t make cookies up here.”
“No problem.” Timber grinned at me, laugh wrinkles around his night-dark eyes. “Your ‘Kitchen Sink’ cookies with all the trimmings are worth it.”
At six foot four, Timber was taller than most of the guys at Stewart Falls Academy. Thick, coal black hair curled around his tanned face. Rumors around school had it that his nose had been broken in a barroom brawl up in Pine Ridge, but he never admitted that. He was a scholarship student who could play any sport and had taken the football team to State last year. He was a totally nice guy, and he never complained when I showed up at his tutoring sessions last spring and summer. It was either that or stay home to babysit Priscilla all the time. And I’d do anything to avoid being with the brat. Who’d blame me, well, other than my mom and stepdad?
Two hours later, Xanadu was settled into a stall at the end of the barn. I’d bathed her on Wednesday afternoon and her chestnut coat still gleamed. While she ate her alfalfa and grass hay, I groomed her and explained how important the next day would be. She flicked her ears and kept on chewing.
“The higher the ribbons, the more money we make from the premiums. That’s how you get extras like organic carrots.” She nosed me at the sound of the ‘c’ word, and I handed her one.
She crunched it up like a horsy vacuum cleaner. Then, she nickered and nosed me for a second one. More treats while I fussed over her. I straightened out her flaxen mane and brushed it until each hair floated. Her white blaze and three white socks came next.
I heard a low yip and glanced at the front of the stall. B.J. stood in the aisle with her half-grown puppy, Guard, a black and white heeler mix. He’d jumped up on my tack trunk to see inside the stall. He obviously thought the fair was a tail-wagging good time. “What’s up?”
“Guard and I came to get you for supper,” B.J. told me. “Ted’s buying us whatever we want to eat and there’s a ton of food places. Liz says the fair only comes once a year. Let’s do it.”
“Okay.” I petted Xanadu again and promised to come back and check on her before the barns were locked up for the night.
When we headed through the carnival, Timber waved at us and hustled over to join us. “Hi, B.J. Where are you going to be? Warren and I will bring over Sarah’s suitcase. He says she’s staying here for the weekend.”
I tipped back my head and stared up at him. “But my mom said I have to be home every night.”
“And then Warren says you may not make it back in time for your horse-show classes.” Timber shrugged big, broad shoulders. “Hey, I’m just the guy who packs stuff around. Argue with your bro, Sarah, not me.”
I looked at B.J., then back at Timber. “I never argue with Warren. He always does what’s best for me.”
“Yeah. He’s a good guy.”
“Takes one to know one,” B.J. said. “We’re over by the dog park, Timber. Get Warren and come have supper with us.”
“You got it.”
After he left, I elbowed her. “What are you doing? I thought you and Ringo were solid.”
“We are and Timber’s not looking at me, Sarah. He’s stuck on you.” B.J. started walking away.
I stared after her then caught up with her in a couple steps. “He’s nice, but he’s not my kind of guy. I like him as a person, not a boy-friend.”
“Hey, you can do a lot worse than nice,” B.J. said. “Believe me, I know.”
“I’m holding out for hot and romantic.”