Stealing Popular Read online

  See, once you notify the counselor’s office there’s a problem with your schedule, you’re supposed to continue going to your assigned classes and wait to be called down to the counseling office. That meant after leadership class (with Adair, thank God!), I was forced to spend the next three hours with Mrs. Notting and Miss Furdy in the gym.

  Mrs. Notting coached cheerleading, along with girls’ basketball, softball, and volleyball. Miss Furdy was the assistant cheer coach, and handled the track and cross-country teams. They weren’t exactly fashionistas. Coach Notting liked to wear nylon, size “small” tracksuits. Too bad she was a size large. The pants never hit past her ankles.

  Coach Notting chuckled when she saw my schedule card. “I didn’t know you liked PE this much, Sherwood.”

  “They said they’d call me down soon to fix it,” I said. “Probably by the end of the day.”

  Coach Notting clicked her tongue.

  “What?”

  “Try Thursday.”

  “Three days? I have to wait three days?”

  “Maybe a week,” added Miss Furdy, shaking her head.

  “It can get pretty chaotic trying to sort out all the computer glitches, and yours is a whopper,” said the coach. “But don’t worry, we’ll keep you busy while you’re ours.”

  I didn’t like the way she said “while you’re ours.” Like I was her slave. If I had to clean fungus out of the showers or unravel the Jupiter-sized ball of tangled jump ropes, I was going to drop out of middle school here and now.

  “She could be our model,” said Miss Furdy.

  I definitely did not like the sound of that. “I could go to the library,” I offered.

  “Get suited up, Sherwood,” said Coach Notting. “You’ll be our model today as we go over the dress code with each class.”

  “Uh . . . well . . .”

  “You do have your PE clothes.”

  I winced. “It’s only the first day of school. I thought—”

  “It stated very clearly in your ‘Welcome Back to Briar Green’ letter that you were to bring your PE clothes on the first day of class so you could place them in your assigned locker.”

  “There was a letter? I don’t remember any—”

  Coach Notting sighed. “Excuses, Sherwood, are like belly buttons. Everyone has one and what are they good for?”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “Apologies, Sherwood, are like traffic lights. If there’s no change, there can be no progress. Now go get suited up.”

  “But I didn’t—”

  “I know, I know. You don’t have your clothes.” She tossed me a key. “You should be able to find something that fits in the lost-and-found bin in the cabinet behind you.”

  For the next three hours I had to stand in front of the PE classes wearing someone else’s shirt (ew!) that wouldn’t stay down and someone else’s shorts (double ew!) that wouldn’t stay up. The shirt was so old, it had teeny lint balls stuck to it. The shorts smelled like spoiled milk. Well, I told myself it was spoiled milk. Denial can come in handy, now and then. Following each Modeling Session of Torture, the rest of the period was spent playing basketball. I noticed that Coach Notting and Miss Furdy divided the teams by social level: Somebodies and Sortabodies against Nobodies. Naturally, the Nobodies didn’t stand a chance. In third period Dijon, Évian, and Venice led their team to a 38 to 8 victory against a very frustrated team of Nobodies. I know, because I was on the Nobodies’ team. I scored all eight points. I would have scored more, but my teammate Renata Zickelfoos had coordination issues. She didn’t know how to dribble, pass, or shoot. She also had geography issues. Renata couldn’t remember which basket was ours. It was a long morning. When it was over, I had come to the conclusion that Coach Notting was like a pimple. Painful, embarrassing, and probably going to leave a scar. But she was right about one thing. I never did get called down to the counseling office.

  “Coco Simone?” I heard sizzling. My dad had flipped the toasted cheese. “Dinner’s about ready. Set the table?”

  “Okay.” I laid my drawing pencil on the glass coffee table and flipped to the back cover of my sketchbook. With my thumb I inched a curling scrap of drawing paper from the single pocket. The pencil portrait of her wasn’t a very good likeness. The forehead was too big. The eyes too far apart. There was a smudge near her left ear. Still, I had done it a long, long time ago, before my mother had left. And it was all I had. I placed the portrait of my mom gently in my palm. Each time I held it, the paper felt a little thinner.

  “What a day,” I whispered. “Her Fabulousness and the Royal Court are up to their usual tricks. Dijon kicked Fawn out of her own locker. Can you believe that? It looks like she’s going to be even more of a pain than last year, if that’s possible. And guess what? I’ve got three periods of PE with Coach Notting. Talk about a nightmare. But don’t worry, the counselors will straighten everything out. Dad won’t have to call the school or anything. I met my new locker partner. Her name is Liezel. You’d like her. She’s nothing like Stocklifter. Oh, and I grew half an inch. Aunt Iona measured me. She says she’s pretty sure I grew overnight, but you know how she exaggerates—”

  “Coco?”

  “Coming.” Lightly touching my lips to the paper, I slipped my mother back into her pocket and closed the book.

  Five

  “I’m not doing it, Adair.”

  “But you promised.”

  “I did not.”

  “You said you’d support me when I tried out for cheer.”

  “I meant from the bleachers.”

  “I don’t need you in the bleachers. I need someone to cheer with me. Fawn, will you tell her?”

  Cheerleading? Was she serious? Ewwww, with three extra w’s and a cherry on top. Of all the things in the world I hated, cheerleading was right up there between wolf spiders and flu shots. My first week of school had been horrendous enough without adding cheer to the mix. I’d finally gotten my class schedule sorted out, only to discover I had one class with Fawn (PE), one with Adair (leadership), and three with Her Fabulousness. Three! Worse, one of those classes was PE. Worse than worse, I had to get dressed (and undressed!) next to Dijon. She had perfect skin and perfect toes. I had a million arm freckles and crooked toes. The one bright spot in my schedule of despair was learning that Fawn, Adair, and I had the same lunch.

  “I can’t cheer,” I told Adair. “I have absolutely no flexibility. I can’t even touch my toes. See?” I threw my chest forward, wriggling my fingers several inches short of my tennis shoes. “I’d ruin it for you, for sure. Fawn, will you tell her?”

  Fawn, sitting on the grass with her knees to her chin, pulled her vintage 1970s oatmeal-colored tunic down over her knees. Then she crooked her finger. At me.

  Wearily, I went down to her level.

  “Last year,” Fawn said quietly, “she missed being first alternate by two points.”

  “So?” A tsunami of a headache was roaring through my brain.

  “We’re her best friends, and it’s our duty to help her fulfill her destiny.”

  “Not if I don’t know any of the cheers.”

  “You only have to do two for the tryout. Adair can teach them to you right now. It’ll be easy.”

  If it was so easy, how come Fawn wasn’t doing it?

  I twisted my hoodie strings around my wrists. You didn’t have to know Adair long to realize how much she wanted to be a cheerleader. She never wasted a moment standing still if she could be throwing her arms up and twisting and bouncing to a chant only she could hear. It could get annoying, especially in a car. I wanted Adair to pursue her passion. Truly, I did. But why did her dream have to involve my humiliation?

  “Everybody tries out in pairs,” said Fawn. “All she needs is someone to stand up and do the cheers with her in front of the judging panel. You don’t have to be good at it, Coco. You just have to do it.”

  “Pleeeeease?” said Adair, falling to the ground beside us. “Please be my partner?” />
  I looked from Adair’s hopeful, blue eyes into Fawn’s hopeful, brown ones. I had no chance, mainly because there were four big, sad eyes against my two little, weak ones. That, and because I was also sitting on an anthill.

  Flicking ants off my ankles, I said, “All right, I’ll do it, but I’m wearing my hood up.”

  “Deal,” said Adair.

  “And my sunglasses.”

  “Okay.”

  “And I refuse to do any cheers that involve barking.”

  Don’t think I didn’t catch the “uh-oh” look that passed between them.

  Forty-eight minutes later I was in a gym hotter than the orchid house at the arboretum, flapping my arms, kicking my legs, and yelling at the top of my lungs:

  We are the St. Bernards.

  Victory is in the cards.

  Stand tall and raise the roof.

  Paws up! Let’s woof, woof, WOOF!

  My first thought, as I gazed out into the bleachers filled with about fifty stunned cheerleader wannabes, was someone was going to pay for this. And pay big. Fawn had remained outside, saying she didn’t want to make me nervous. Nice try. She knew better than to be anywhere in the vicinity of me when I finished. While Adair and I did our cheers, Her Fabulousness and the Royal Court sat in the front row, pointing and snickering. Even the three judges—Coach Notting, Miss Furdy, and Mrs. Ignazio, an English teacher who coached girls’ softball—couldn’t hide their grins. I didn’t blame them. If there was a cheerleading manual, which there probably was, I could have been the poster girl for every single “don’t” in the book. If I wasn’t hopping on the wrong foot or saying the wrong words, then I was facing the wrong direction. Only one thing kept me from bolting from the gym as fast as my uncoordinated feet could take me: Adair. She was smiling bigger than I had ever seen her smile. Her movements were graceful and perfectly synchronized with her words. She oozed school spirit. Even her competition couldn’t help but love her. The other girls were cheering along with her. Fawn was right. This was where Adair belonged. It was her destiny. So, for her, I stayed. And barked. And made a complete goober out of myself, bopping around and shouting:

  S-T B-E-R.

  I say, S-T B-E-R.

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

  S-T B-E-R.

  I say, N-A-R-D-S.

  Go, go, go!

  Goooooo, Briar Green!

  ’Cause we the machine

  That’s gonna steamroll over you!

  Who wrote this stuff?

  Adair finished our second cheer with a back handspring and a full split! I finished our second cheer with a gazelle leap, and split the rear of my jeans.

  When a bunch of girls began applauding for Adair, Her Fabulousness and her court turned around and gave them nasty glares. The girls dropped their hands and looked anywhere but at us. I struggled out of my hoodie and tied the sleeves around my waist to hide my unfortunate accident.

  “Thank you, ladies,” said Coach Notting, briskly marking on her score sheet with a pencil.

  Adair clung to me as we walked away. “How do you think it went?”

  With just three pairs of girls left to audition, I could honestly say, “You’re going to look amazing in green and silver.”

  My friend beamed.

  “Cadence and Willow were great too,” I said. Cadence Steele and Willow Christopher were two Nobodies who had tried out ahead of us. Willow had tons of energy and could jump higher than my waist! And Cadence had the best dance moves of anyone out there, except Adair. “I bet they’ll make it with you.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” muttered Adair.

  I understood. The competition was tough, and the Somebodies had the edge. Still, most of the Somebodies had been less than stellar. Her Fabulousness didn’t make any mistakes in front of the judges, but she was, clearly, bored. Dijon hadn’t put an ounce of enthusiasm into her cheers. She didn’t yell. She spoke. Once, she even yawned in the middle of a cheer. Évian had plenty of spirit, all right, but was worse than me when it came to remembering the words. Venice and Truffle couldn’t stop giggling throughout their entire audition. They didn’t even finish their second cheer. If ever there was a chance for one or two or maybe even three talented Nobodies to make the team, this was the year!

  “When will you know the results?” I asked Adair.

  “Let’s see . . . probably next Monday or Tuesday. Mrs. Rivkin usually posts the list on the ASB bulletin board outside the cafeteria.” She glanced up at the clock. “I’ve got to get going. My mom will be waiting. Thanks for cheering with me, Coco. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  “Anytime.” I crossed my eyes. “Kidding!”

  Fawn was in the same spot on the grass where we’d left her. Seeing me approach, she lowered her e-reader. “How’d it go?”

  “Adair was brilliant.”

  “And you?”

  “Could be the first girl in Big Mess cheerleading history to get a negative score.”

  She tilted her head. “Why are you walking funny?”

  “To keep this from getting worse.” I whipped around and flipped up the back of my jacket.

  “Oh ho, ho!”

  “You should know I’m plotting my revenge against you.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” she said, reaching for her backpack. “You plot. I’ll sew.” Fawn was going to be a famous fashion designer one day. She was always attaching all kinds of lace, fringe, beads, and assorted dangly things to her vintage outfits, which meant she carried a needle and thread with her for when the lace, fringe, beads, and assorted dangly things fell off.

  We had about forty minutes before Fawn’s mom was due to pick us up. Fawn said that was plenty of time to fix my seam, so we went into the girls’ locker room. I led us to my PE locker in the last row, sat down on the bench, and took off my jeans. Fawn got to work on the repair. It was chilly sitting in my underwear. I was debating whether I should put on my gym shorts when we heard a clang.

  “It must have been ninety degrees in that gym.”

  I knew that voice. It was Miss Furdy.

  “My head is pounding.”

  And Mrs. Ignazio.

  “I think I may have some aspirin in my purse.”

  And Coach Notting.

  “The cheer judges,” I hissed at Fawn. “They’re here!”

  Her head shot up, a piece of thread hanging from her mouth.

  We weren’t doing anything wrong, but it sure felt that way. We could hear Coach Notting unlocking the door to the office. “That’s one of the biggest turnouts we’ve ever had for cheer.”

  “It’s going to be tough narrowing down the field,” said Mrs. Ignazio. “Some of the girls were wonderful dancers, and others had more athletic ability. And then there were those who lit up the room with their energy, like the Christopher girl. Now, she’s what cheerleading is all about.”

  Mrs. Ignazio liked Willow. Our Willow. Nobody Willow!

  “Yes,” said Miss Furdy, dragging out the word so I knew a “but” was coming. “A sparkling personality is great, but we must take other things into consideration too.”

  “Other things?” Mrs. Ignazio seemed confused.

  “You know, like . . . well, I hate to say it, but we do have to look at physical appearance as well.”

  My breath caught in my throat.

  Unbelievable!

  Fawn’s mouth had formed a big O, no doubt, to match mine. We were both thinking the same thing. We knew what Miss Furdy meant, and she was wrong. Willow was not fat. She had muscular thighs, sure, but that’s because she swam and played on the girls’ soccer team. And even if she wasn’t a size two, so what? In fact, not being perfect would make her a good role model for the younger girls. The important thing was, Willow would be an outstanding cheerleader. I wanted to leap to my feet, march into the coach’s office, and tell them exactly that. But I didn’t. For one thing, I was in my underwear. For another, it could get Adair disqualified. If the judges saw me, they’d think I had deliberately eavesdropped. W
e had to get out of there without being seen. But how? Coach Notting’s office was between us and the only exit that wasn’t a fire door.

  My heart started flailing.

  My palms felt sticky.

  My legs were starting to turn a weird shade of blotchy violet.

  I wasn’t sure what to do. Fawn and I were trapped in the Big Mess girls’ locker room with no way out!

  Six

  I mouthed the word “hurry” to Fawn. Not that she needed me to tell her. The sewing needle was flying through denim.

  “What did you think of the Steele girl?” asked Coach Notting.

  “Steele? Steele. Steele.” Miss Furdy was searching. “Cadence Steele. Here she is. Let’s see . . . I wrote down ‘good dancer,’ but for some reason I can’t seem to recall her. She wasn’t the one wearing sunglasses, was she?”

  “No,” Coach Notting cut in. “That was Coco Sherwood.”

  Wincing, I cocked my head.

  “Ah, right, the girl with the coordination issues,” said Miss Furdy. “It didn’t look like she’d put in much practice time, but I liked her effort level. She didn’t give up, even after she made mistakes.”

  Me? Give up? Never.

  Well, if it hadn’t been for Adair . . .

  Miss Furdy read my mind. “Of course, it helped that she was cheering with the Clarke girl.”

  “Adair was impressive,” said Coach Notting.

  Fawn’s hand paused in midair. She looked at me and smiled.

  I pumped my fist. Yes!

  “She certainly was,” said Miss Furdy. “Very bubbly and vivacious.”

  Yes and more yes!

  “She’s quite striking,” said Mrs. Ignazio. “And her dancing and gymnastic skills were excellent.”

  YES!

  I jumped off the bench and thrust my arms skyward. There could be no doubt now that Adair was going to make the squad. Finally, a Nobody was going to live her dream, and I had helped to make it come true! Pride surged through every limb in my body.

  “There’s no denying Adair Clarke was good,” said Coach Notting with a long sigh. “But . . .”