Daring to Hope - Part 2

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Daring to Hope
 
Standing Up to Life: Book 2
 
Part 2 of 8
 
by Tiffany Shar

 
Synopsis

In many ways Tiffany is the newest girl in her small community near Albuquerque, New Mexico. In the whirlwind of the last few weeks she has emerged from the shell of a scared and confused little boy named Brandon. Ever since Tiffany's parents confirmed with her their suspicions of her deepest wants and needs, they've supported her completely. With solid support from her family, her best friend and family and surprisingly, her growing circle of other friends it seems she might have a chance for a successful future.

'Can all this last?' is one of the biggest questions on her mind now. 'Will everyone stick with me when things get tough?' She's had an amazingly easy last couple weeks and she knows it won't last. What will happen when she returns to school? And most importantly, what will her psychiatrist decide? Will her doctor force her to return to living the lie as Brandon? These fears and more whirl in her mind as she looks to an uncertain future.

Daring to Hope is the continuing story of a bright, talented, and beautiful girl, who dares to hope for a future that is one based on happy dreams.


Viewing Note: This story should be viewed with the Edwardian Script ITC font installed on your Windows platform in the c:/Windows/Fonts directory. Microsoft Word installs this font automatically.


 

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The Legal Stuff: Daring to Hope  © 2008 By Tiffany Shar
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright  © 2008 By Tiffany Shar. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
 
 
Preface
 
 
Last month I finally got around to publishing the first book of this trilogy, Standing Up to Life here at BigCloset. I had been delayed in publishing it there while trying to get it also published by Lulu.com. Well it’s taken me a bit longer on this book to get it up here as well, but here it is!

Like the first book I posted here, I am posting a standard copy of this here at BigCloset, and announcing that I have two versions available for purchasing through My Store at Lulu.com. Back by popular demand is the ebook download of the book. My assumption is that the majority of my readers would be most interested in this edition of the book. If you enjoy this work perhaps you will consider supporting me by purchasing it from my store($3.00 for the ebook). I also have a hardback edition that is available, and will work on making a paperback edition available as well here in the coming weeks. With both the paperback and hardback editions I hope to have them available through Amazon.com in a couple months as well, and will offer to have Erin sell it through her Amazon page at that time.

Thank you to all of you, my amazing readers! Your comments have kept me going through some times when I thought I would never be able to write or edit another minute! Speaking of editing, thanks to my amazing editor, Carla Ann, for helping me out with this large work. Now that this project is coming to a close I hope to be able to focus solely on Book 3, and have that ready for you all this summer. Since it is the concluding book of the series I wish to be sure that it’s done right. Thanks again, and I hope you enjoy this book!

     -Tiffany Shar


 
 

Part 2: Summer Dances (Continued)

 
 
Chapter 5
 
 
THE WEEKS BETWEEN my second appointment and the cheer camp flew by faster than I could have ever imagined. It seemed like every night I was either staying the night at Amy’s house, or she was staying the night at my house. Amazingly the two of us weren’t sick of each other yet. Our parents had gone with us to go see Apollo 13 when it came out in the theater on June 30th. Both Amy and I had cried at the movie because it had moved us so much. All-in-all, it had been a nice outing with our families as they became closer and closer friends.

Beyond that Amy and I had been working out almost every day on my skills to try and make it possible for me to fit in better at the camp. Thankfully between what I had already worked on as far as splits before, and my being a fairly quick study, she thought I honestly could have beaten a couple of the girls on our junior high squad out that past spring.

I didn’t know if she was just saying that or if it was actually true though. Either way she really was a better friend than anyone could ever have hoped for.

As we approached the week we were leaving we both received letters in the mail from the camp with what we should bring. There was standard stuff like wash cloths, towels, bedding, clothes, toiletries, etc. As Mom and I scanned through the list it said to have a ‘nice dress’ for the final night banquet.

We looked through my closet, and other than a dress that was really pretty -- but too juvenile (it was from the photo shoot Amy’s mom had set up), I really didn’t have anything that would fit in. Mom immediately went into mom shopping mode though and invited Amy and her mom along that evening to shop for dresses. Both of us ended up with a new dress and shoes to match that evening.

It seemed like just the next day we were in a car with Amy’s mom driving us out to California where the camp was held at one of their state universities. For whatever insane reason, we left at Two AM in the morning. Amy and I had been talking excitedly most of the way there. We had both taken a couple naps on the twelve hour trip, but overall we stayed up for most of it.

Once we got to the university we followed signs on the campus that led us to a registration table in the lobby of a building.

"Hi, I’m Becky. Are you both coming to the camp?" We both nodded. "Okay then can I get your names?"

We told her and she looked up our information.

"Okay, we have you both sharing a room with its’ own bathroom -- you’re really lucky for that -- you’ll be in the Smith Building on the fourth floor. You can drive up that way to drop them off," she added to Amy’s mom.

"You’ll need to be at the Harbrough Dining Hall at five for dinner and to be introduced to your squad for the week. At that point we’ll also go over rules and stuff too. Until then you just need to get settled in. There’s some camp clothing that you need to pick up over there," she said pointing at another table, "before you go though, they’ll tell you what to wear for tonight. Any questions?" We shook our heads. "Well welcome to cheer camp girls!"

"Thank you," Amy and I echoed as we walked away with a packet of stuff over to the other table she’d pointed out.

"What are your names?" The girls asked us.

We told them and they handed us each a box that was already filled for us. They had some other t-shirts that weren’t in there though. "What size are you Tiffany?"

I told her my size and one of them said, "You’re so lucky to be that skinny!"

I blushed and said, "Thanks."

"Now both of you need to go ahead and wear the blue shorts and the ringer tee that’s in there to dinner/tonight’s activities."

"Okay, thanks!" I said with a smile. She smiled right back at me. The girls looked like they were college age and had on ‘counselor’ badges.

Mrs. Hancock drove us over to where they said we could park to move in and helped us carry our suitcases upstairs. We took an elevator up to the fourth floor and found our room down a hallway and to the right. Amy opened it up with one of our keys and we stepped inside.

Well, it wasn’t the Hilton, but it could have been worse. There were two beds inside the room that were lofted up above a desk. Next to the desk was a dresser on each side. We also each had a small closet to ourselves, and after inspecting the bathroom decided we should be able to survive the five days just fine. We made another couple trips for things like our dresses, which we had put in garment bags to keep from getting wrinkled, and for the boxes we’d been given of clothing for the week.

Looking at our watches we saw that we had just over three hours to kill before dinner. Amy’s mom helped us make the beds and sort through the rest of our stuff. After all of that was done we began looking through our boxes of stuff and more than once the comment was made, ‘Why’d we bring our own clothes?’

"Hey, the mascot for our squad here is the same as our school!" Amy exclaimed. Our school mascot was the Coyote. She held up a shirt that was for our squad -- along with a pair of shorts that matched. All-in-all it looked like we would be wearing our own clothes maybe two days?

The bottom of the box was what surprised me the most. "Amy we get a real cheerleading uniform for this week?" I was shocked.

"Apparently." She said, also surprised.

"Well the camp costs enough they should put in two!" her mom said.

We took them out of the box and found that not only had the mascot for our school matched up -- the colors did too (Dark Blue, Gold, and Black). "Did they do that intentionally?" I asked, continuing to look at it.

"Well it’s a common enough mascot, and the colors are common too. We’ll have to ask though." Amy said

By the time we had gotten settled into our room, and changed into the clothes we were supposed to wear, we only had a little over an hour till dinner. Amy’s mom took several photos of us like that before we walked her out to her car. She was going to be spending the week with some family that lived in the area. Amy and I watched her drive off before starting to explore the campus.

It was such a unique concept of us being on our own that we both became hyper and were running around when we heard, "Hey, Ladies, where are you going?"

We both stopped and turned around. One of the girls that had checked us in earlier was standing there -- she now had on a shirt that said counselor and had ‘coyotes’ across the front of it. "We’re just exploring," Amy responded.

"Well you need to be going to dinner to find your tables... Hey, you’re in my group this week," she said as we got closer and she saw the mascot name on our shirts. "I’m Emily, I’ll be your counselor."

"I’m Tiffany." I said holding my hand out for a soft handshake. She shook my hand and Amy introduced herself too. She led us to where we were eating dinner and told us a little bit about herself. Emily was in her third year of college and had been a cheerleader since she was in grade school. Currently she was working on degrees in physics and psychology at the university we were at.

Amy and I both said wow about the physics part. ‘She must be really smart. How many girls do you know that would want to go into physics?’ we both thought. The three of us sat down at a table that had our mascot listed on it. Two other girls were already sitting down there. Their names were Rachel and Monica.

We all started talking about ourselves and different things. Monica was hoping to make her squad next year -- she was moving to a new school this year and had missed the tryouts. Rachel was going to be an eighth grader and seemed to be really cool.

About ten minutes before they were supposed to start everything off with a speech eleven other girls came and sit down with us; Christina, Katrina, Jennifer, Amanda, Stephanie, Camelia, Paula, Sarah, Erin, Melissa, and Katie. We didn’t have a lot of time to talk amongst ourselves before a really pretty lady stood up in front of a lectern and began speaking.

"Good evening Ladies, and welcome to the 1995 Southern California Cheer Camp!" She said with exclamation. We all cheered loudly.

"My name is Elizabeth Harding, and I’m the Director of the camp. This is our tenth year hosting this camp for individual girls to come learn and compete in squads of fifteen that we put you in. This year more than three-hundred of you girls have come to attend from all fifty states!"

She proceeded to make some other statements to get everyone pumped up. "Okay, while we have dinner tonight your goal is to find out as much about the other girls at your table as you can. Everyone understand?"

"Okay then," she started dismissing certain tables to go to the buffet line. Our table was in the second set of tables she dismissed.

Part of me wanted to just follow the other girls’ lead and just get salad... but I’m not that kind of girl. I ended up getting a couple slices of pizza and some pasta on my plate. I was pleasantly surprised to see that a lot of girls had way more food on their plates than I did.

When we sat back down at the table Emily began leading us in getting to know each other. Most of the things she started off with were really basic like; where are you from, are you on a cheer squad now, what grade, what’s your favorite color, etc. The questions got a little deeper than that after a while -- but not too much so. In the end we were all just really enjoying ourselves and I felt like I was getting to know the other girls in our group a little bit.

Amy and I both really liked Emily as a counselor -- she was so cool. We also really hit it off with Rachel, Monica, Stephanie and Katie. By the time we had finished dinner the six of us were already becoming closer to each other.

Mrs. Harding got back up on the lectern a little after we had all finished eating. "Well Ladies, I hope you’ve started getting to know your squad mates. You’re going to have to spend most of your time over the next week with these girls. At the end of this camp we have a traditional competition between squads to determine which squad is the best. We’ll award medals and trophies to the teams that place Fifth through First."

"We’ll also be keeping an eye out for the most outstanding cheerleader, most spirited cheerleader, and most improved cheerleader for the camp. Ladies the competition starts right now!"

There was a lot of loud screaming from all of us at this point.

"Now for tonight. It’s 6:30 right now. You’re going to be working with your squad on some teamwork building activities until 8:30 then you’ll all report to the stadium. Good luck, and have a great time! You’re all dismissed."

"Okay ladies, let’s get going." Emily said loudly, with excitement. She led us out of the room and immediately took off at a jogging pace. None of us had expected her to do that already, but we all took off after her and kept pace until we arrived in a grassy courtyard in between some of the buildings.

"OKAY, THIS IS going to be our main meeting place for squad practices. If your schedule says ‘team or squad meeting,’ you need to come here. We’ll be spending some time at the football stadium tonight, each night, and during some team sessions in a few days. Anyway, first I want everyone to get in a circle holding hands."

The fifteen of us did as we were asked. "Okay, now I want you all to reach across with your left hand and grab someone else’s hand..." she led us in a couple rotations of grabbing peoples hands until we were all locked together in one blob. "Okay, now you have to get everyone out of here without anyone letting go of each others hands..."

I wish I could have been the one watching this spectacle -- it was pretty funny. Pretty quickly we began working as a group telling one girl to slip under some others, or contort themselves in some strange way, until we were all back in a circle holding hands.

"Let’s see if you can do it again, but faster this time!" Emily said.

So we repeated the task. It was amazing how much faster we completed it that time. When we were all back in the circle she told us to sit down. She walked over to a bag that she had brought with her and got out a ball. She came over and sat down on the outside of the circle.

"Okay, the next thing we’re going to do is play a game so we learn each others names. As the ball goes around the circle the person holding it has to say their name and their favorite ice cream. They then pass it to the next person and they have to say the names and everyone’s favorites before them. Does everyone understand?"

We all nodded. I looked at where I was in the circle and immediately realized I was going to have to work really hard to remember it all. Amy was the only one that was going to be behind me... Better her than me!

She began, "My name is Emily and my favorite ice cream is rocky road."

The next girl said, "My name is Rachel, my favorite ice cream is cookie dough. This is Emily, her favorite ice cream is rocky road."

This continued around the circle until it got to me, "My name is Tiffany, I like strawberry. This is Monica, she likes chocolate, she’s..." all the way until, "And this is Emily, she likes rocky road." I was amazed I actually managed to get through it!

Amy, the showoff, did the whole thing twice as fast as I did! I’m not really that good with names though so maybe that was part of it. I was kind of surprised that Emily then did the whole thing herself -- and as fast if not faster than Amy. It amazed me how cheery she was... I didn’t think she was faking it either.

Emily looked at her watch before starting another activity. This one was an interesting challenge. She divided us up into six pairs and one trio to start off with -- I ended up with Rachel -- and gave us a challenge of only letting so many hands, elbows, etc. touch the ground. When we had done a couple as pairs she combined us into three groups of five. She used the same number of body parts still though!

From there we were grouped into the full squad to do the same set of tasks. Being up close and personal with all of the girls well within each others space broke the ice really quickly. By the end of the activity we were all giggling and joking together.

There were still a few girls that weren’t opening up a lot though; Christina, Jennifer and Amanda were either really shy -- or stuck up -- I wasn’t sure which. They weren’t being rude or anything, they just didn’t seem to be having as good of a time as the rest of us.

Since we had finished the last activity she had planned we headed over to the stadium. Amy and I linked arms with Rachel, Monica, and Stephanie and began skipping on our way over there. Emily turned around at that point and joined up with us followed by a few other girls. When we got to the stadium they assigned each squad a part of the field to stand on.

The lady that had been speaking earlier began talking through a wireless megaphone from the stands. "Okay ladies, I hope you all have gotten to know each other better over the past few hours. I would now like to introduce you to your coaches for this week. In addition to your counselor every squad will share a coach with one other squad..."

"The Coyotes will be sharing Coach Evans with the Eagles..."

"Before we call it a night we’re going to work on learning a few cheers all together. Be sure you learn them well as a squad, because beginning tomorrow, there will be a competition with these group cheers to determine who goes first for lunch and dinner. So Ladies are you ready?"

‘Yeah’ everyone screamed back at her. "Alright, let’s begin."

She taught us the first one -- running through it as a large group several times before telling us to work in our squads on it. Let me tell you, the noise from that many cheerleaders in one spot is absolutely incredible! I sure hoped no one was trying to sleep anywhere within a mile of the stadium.

We practiced with our group and Coach Evans came over to come help us. When she got over there I became a target really quickly. "What’s your name?"

"Tiffany," I replied.

"Okay Tiffany I need you to try this a little bit differently..." She showed me how she wanted to change the way I was putting out my arms. I felt so incredibly stupid -- some of the other girls weren’t having any problems. Honestly I didn’t think I had that many until she started working with me.

Once I had fixed the things that I was doing wrong she had us move on to the next part of the cheer. It seemed like only a few minutes later though she began getting on my case about other things in this part. This trend continued throughout the time that she came over to work with us. I was feeling really embarrassed.

When we had finished our time to practice as squads, Mrs. Harding had us do it as a group a couple times. After teaching us two more cheers she said, "Okay ladies you need to head back to your dorms. Your counselors will have a couple more things to talk about with you tonight, and then it’s lights out at 10. Goodnight!"

I began to walk away with Amy and the girls towards our dorm but was stopped by Coach Evans. "Tiffany, I know I was nagging at you a lot today -- but you really showed improvement in just that little bit of time. Are you on your squad at home?"

Was it that obvious? "No, I’m new to the school this year," I replied. Well that was honest wasn’t it?

"I wondered. Anyway, keep trying as hard as you were doing today -- it’ll come eventually." She said and walked away.

That sure left me feeling good about myself. ‘It’ll come eventually?’ I told myself to ignore the ‘I wondered’ comment, it could only make me mad.

Amy interrupted my chance to dwell on that by saying, "Come on Tiff. Don’t let it get to you, you’re doing great! Mom sent some popcorn bags with me -- I want to go pop some in the microwave in the dorm."

"You brought popcorn?" Rachel asked.

"Yeah, do you want to join us?" Amy asked.

"Sure!" Rachel smiled and walked back to the dorm talking to us.

While we walked back we learned that she was going to be the Captain of her squad next year. She was an eighth grader from a suburb in Phoenix and was really cool. The three of us were quickly becoming a close trio. Once we got back to the dorm we met Emily and the rest of the girls in the lounge that was closest to our rooms. All of our squad was staying on the same floor, in a single row of rooms.

"Okay ladies, I need to go over some rules that you need to follow this week..." she went over things like the curfew time, being on time, what to wear tomorrow, "and if you need anything, or have any special needs at all find me, one of the other counselors, or the residence director -- downstairs."

"If it’s a medical or life-or-death emergency call ext. 7777 -- don’t call 9-1-1 because they don’t know as much about the campus. Security will take care of getting people where they’re supposed to be. Understand?"

We all nodded.

"Okay then ladies, you have forty-five minutes until you need to be in your rooms with lights out. I will come by and knock on your doors at 6:30 to make sure you all are awake for getting ready for breakfast at 7:30. You’re free to go."

Amy and I hurried back to our room and changed into our pajamas before we went back to the lounge to use the microwave in the adjoining kitchen. Rachel met up with us and had Monica and Stephanie with her. Stephanie had two other bags of popcorn and a thing of Oreos with her.

"Can we join in too?" Stephanie asked.

"Absolutely," Amy started.

"Especially for an Oreo," we both said at the same time.

We looked at each other and giggled a bit. The other girls were also amused. "So you two already knew each other?" Monica asked as we sat down.

"Yeah, we go to the same school together." I started.

"I’ve known Tiffany since Kindergarten, but really it’s been this past year that we’ve become inseparable. My parents keep saying maybe they should make the spare bedroom Tiffany’s with as much as she stays over."

"That’s neat that you guys were able to come and do this together," Rachel said.

"Did you guys know any of the others before coming?" I asked.

"I met Stephanie here last year," Rachel said. "We’ve written back and forth quite a bit over the last year."

"This is my first year so I don’t know anyone from before," Monica said.

We all talked about different stuff for about twenty minutes when Emily came by. She stole a cookie and some popcorn while talking to us for a little bit. She eventually sent us back to our rooms to get some sleep.

It certainly didn’t take long to get there that night.
 
 
Chapter 6
 
 
THE NEXT MORNING Amy woke up before me at 6 AM to get into the shower. As soon as she was done she let me in to take a shower. Once I was dressed I opened the door to the bathroom and we worked in front of the sink together until 7 AM. There was a brief interruption at 6:30 when Emily came. She knocked to check and that we were awake, but otherwise we both worked non-stop in the bathroom to get ready.

At 7:20 the two of us wandered down to the cafeteria where we were supposed to be eating breakfast. We were both in a set of cotton shorts that we had brought along with us. For our tops we had a camp t-shirt that had a really cute cheer slogan on it. Both of us were pretty drowsy as we showed a door person the ID tags that had been given to us.

Amy and I filled our trays and then went to find a seat. Rachel, Stephanie, Monica and Emily were already sitting at a table marked as reserved for our squad. We both sat down and began munching on our food. As we all started waking up everyone began looking at the schedules that were in the binders they had given us.

"So the next thing for us is stunts? What all are we going to be doing Emily?" I asked.

"Well we’ll be working basic lifts with two girls holding up one girl, and some basic tosses today." She replied.

"So are you ready to be tossed today?" Monica asked with a semi-evil smile.

"...Me?" I asked.

"Well you and Amy are definitely the smallest girls on our squad." Rachel replied.

"I take it you haven’t been tossed before?" Monica asked.

"No, I can’t say that I have."

"It’s a lot of fun Tiff," Amy said reassuringly.

"I’m sure it will be," I said forcing a smile. My body was going to be getting tossed in the air like rag doll... what had Amy gotten me into?!

Of course they were right. I had hardly grown this past year. I was now 4’3" and had actually lost some weight down to sixty-seven pounds. That had mainly happened because I stopped drinking Cokes when I began thinking I wanted to be a girl... (yeah apparently it is that bad for you...) I was still healthy though and I wasn’t in any danger of starvation.

The conversation continued until Emily announced it was time to leave to go meet Coach Evans and the Eagles in one of the gyms. I was deep in thought when we arrived. Coach Evans had us all sit down in a small row of bleachers on the outside part of the gym floor. Out on the gym floor they had tons of mats down to cushion falls... great! I could be dropped and it would only hurt a little -- instead of a lot!

Coach Evans had the two counselors come out and join several other cheerleaders -- including some guys -- out on the floor. The group demonstrated how to do lifts with two girls on the bottom and one on top, they showed how to get that girl back down safely and catch her, they showed some basic tosses, and all the while I’m thinking ‘how many times am I going to fall/drop before we get this right...?’

When they finished the demonstration she took our squad first and divided us up into five trios. I ended up with Stephanie and Rachel as my two partners. At least I felt like I could trust them. After a lot of stretching, Emily and the other demonstrators began coming around while we practiced. They first worked on making sure that everyone on the bottom was using the proper technique. After that they focused on helping me stand the right way so as not to cause my own problems.

That of course is way harder than it sounds. They dropped me a couple times because they weren’t quite doing the right things. Then they dropped me several times because I lost my balance... yeah... Eventually though after about a half hour of non-stop work we were able to get me up in the air without the ground collisions.

After that they began working on dismounting and the girls catching me. I was fortunate on that one as Stephanie and Rachel had both been doing this a long time. The only reason they had struggled in the beginning was a difference in the way they had been taught. As long as I kept my body the way it was supposed to be they were able to get me down just fine.

Of course about the time I thought we were finally getting it Coach Evans made her way over. "Tiffany come on, you’ve got to keep your body straighter..." Ten minutes later I felt thoroughly stupid again.

I think Rachel and Stephanie realized that she was taking a toll on me. When Coach Evans (I really was beginning to think Coach Eeeevvil) left, they both began reassuring me that I was really doing fine. She was just picking on me for no real good reason. That brought a smile back to my face and we began working again.

After about two hours of this my ankles, butt, and everything else were sorer than I had ever imagined. It looked like Rachel and Stephanie were just as tired. Of course they were the ones doing all of the work -- I was just the one getting dropped.

As we walked to the next thing Rachel and Stephanie were talking with Monica and Katie. They all mentioned how sore they were, but Monica and Katie responded quietly, "Hey at least you have Tiffany -- she doesn’t weigh much at all -- we ended up having to toss Amanda. Not that she’s fat, but she probably outweighs Tiffany by a good thirty pounds!" They all giggled about that as we entered an auditorium for a leadership class.

I had no idea what they were going to be discussing in the leadership classes prior to that day. There was not a single person in my past that would have considered me a leader -- everyone looked down on me far too much. That being said, I actually felt like I had a better idea of why that had always been as I listened to the speaker.

It was an hour of motivational speaking and practice exercises that seemed to fly by very quickly. The speaker was definitely very accomplished at doing her job. I came out of there wondering if maybe I might be able to go into next year in a better position. That lasted until I remembered I wasn’t really a girl -- and everyone at school was going to know it and hate me.

I was actually amazed that I had kept the girls from figuring that out so far today. There had definitely been a lot of personal contact that could have given me away. Fortunately Dr. Reynolds had discussed some ways of keeping my parts out of the way -- I had used every one of them today. It had caused some pain in some ways, but anything was worth it to keep the others from finding out about me!

When we finished up with the leadership presentation each squad was brought up to the stage and told to do one of the cheers from yesterday. The judges all discussed the squads for a few minutes, and then they announced that we were able to eat second. Coach Evans had done some pointing at me after we had gone -- I wondered if I had cost us being first. I put that thought out of my head quickly though since second out of twenty ain’t bad.

I definitely did my best to stop being lightest person at that meal -- I was so hungry! Of course when I looked around, everyone, especially Amanda looked like they were doing the same thing. How could skinny girls eat this much?

After lunch we had a small break and then met up at the meeting place to work on cheers. Emily had a tube of sunscreen that she passed around to all of us. She also made sure that we all had full water bottles before we began since it was so hot that day. Once we had thoroughly slathered on the sunscreen she worked on making sure that we would need to empty the water bottles.

We first spent some time practicing the cheers that we had worked on last night. From there Emily began teaching us all some cheers that she thought could be good for our competition on Saturday. Rachel and Stephanie seemed to have some ideas of their own that they added to hers, and before I knew it we had like fifteen cheers that I had to memorize.

Each girl wrote the cheers down in her notebook -- all vowing not to let any of the other squads see their work. After several hours of work Coach Evans came by to see how we were doing.

She smiled at the cheers that we’d come up with -- I think she thought we were on the right track. As we practiced them she once again seemed to be focusing her attention on me. Coach spent less time on me this time though... I wasn’t sure if that meant I was getting better or she’d written me off as a lost cause.

We finished up at about four and left to go participate in a craft activity. Every team was given butcher paper and told to work on creating some banners for their squad to hang up on Saturday. We definitely had some artistic talent on our team with some of the girls. For my part I just tried to paint something that was recognizable.

By the time we reached dinner I had kind of refreshed my energy level a bit. At least the banners weren’t physical work and weren’t being done out in the hot sun. As we all sat down with our food I was surprised anyone had the energy to talk.

"Tiffany, you’ve never done any of this stuff before?" Rachel asked.

"No. I guess it shows that much?"

"At first, but you really have caught on quickly since then. You’ll be doing it at least as well if not better than a lot of the girls by the end of the week Tiffany."

"You’re doing fine Tiff," Amy said to me. "I think we’re going to have to get you on the squad back home just so we have someone who is actually easier to lift than me," she said with a wink.

The other girls gave her kind of a questioning glance. "There are only two of us on our squad at home that are really liftable, the other girls both too tall and too heavy." She said.

They all nodded. We made it through dinner with the girls telling various stories about the guys at their school. Discussions on how hot or not some of the boys sounded continued for the entire lunch. I just giggled when I was supposed to since I really hadn’t developed any opinions one way or another yet.

After dinner we were given some space in a large dance classroom with mirrors along the wall. Coach Evans was waiting for us when we came in. "Okay ladies, you have one more thing that we’re going to be working really hard on today -- your dance routine."

I was excited and scared at the same time. I had never danced outside of the PE class stuff like line and square dancing. I could even survive the two-step. Would I be able to even come close to keeping up with these girls on this? Amy had tried to help me with some of this before we left -- maybe I wouldn’t be a complete idiot.

That turned out to be wishful thinking very quickly. I was terrible!

About the only thing I could say for myself is at least I was able to feel the beat and move with it. Playing an instrument had helped out with that. I just couldn’t keep up with remembering all of the moves even though I tried incredibly hard. Of course Coach Evans was all over me.

Two Hours. Two Hours of pure-and-total-torture trying to get things right! I figured the rest of the girls must hate me after it was all said and done. About the only thing that could be said for me is that I could finally make it through the routine at a snails pace by the end of the practice.

"Tiffany may I see you for a second?" Coach asked.

Great! More comments on how terrible I was. "Yes Coach?"

"You’re doing better, but you’re going to have to spend some time practicing outside of our practices to get it right. I don’t see any reason why you can’t have it learned by tomorrow’s rehearsal."

"Yes ma’am, I’ll do my best" I replied to her.

With that she left to head over to the stadium ahead of us. The other squad that she was coaching had their rehearsal while we had been doing banners earlier. I wondered how they were doing with their routine -- she had said every team had a different one.

We all walked back to the stadium for another hour of group cheers. That didn’t seem hard compared to the dancing -- and I must have been doing better there because Coach only said like one or two things to me there. When all was said and done at 8:45 we were sent back to our dorms.

Before we left Emily said, "Ladies, go take some time and take a shower and rest up for a little while. I’ll meet you in the lounge for our last activity at 9:30."

There was a chorus of cheers since we were all beyond sweaty at this point. As Amy and I walked back she put her arm around my shoulders, "You’re doing fine Tiff. Coach Evans is just pickier than anyone I’ve ever met. You’ll be fine by Saturday," she said with a smile. What would I do without her?

"Thanks Amy." I said giving her a sweaty hug. When we reached our room Amy called the bathroom first (she was really good at calling things first) and she quickly got in the shower.

While she was in there I heard a knock on the door. I’d been silently practicing the dance routine and so I was even a bit sweatier when I opened the door. "Hey Emily," I said.

"Do you have a moment Tiffany?" She asked me.

"Sure, what’s up?"

"I just wanted to see how you were doing. You had a really hard day today with Coach Evans."

"Yeah, I’m pretty terrible at this aren’t I?" I asked her.

"Tiffany you’re doing fine. If you were on any of the other squads I don’t think Coach Evans would be focusing any of her attention on you. I think this squad is probably one of the strongest here at camp -- so she’s pushing everyone harder because of that. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that if you wanted some help tonight after our last activity I’d be willing to help you out."

"I’ll help too," Amy said behind me, while drying her hair with a towel.

"Thanks, I think I’ll take you up on your offer. But first, I really would like to have a shower!" I told her with a smile.

"Sure Tiff. Do you mind if I call you Tiff? I’ve heard some of the other girls like Amy call you that."

"That’s fine, I go by either." I said while thinking that I really hadn’t gone by either before a month ago...

"Okay go take a shower and I’ll help you out after our last thing tonight." She said as she left the room. I rushed in and out of the shower faster than I normally did so I could give Mom and Dad a call.

I found a pay phone on our floor and used a calling card they had given me to call them. "Hey," I said when Dad picked up the phone.

"Hey, it’s Tiffany," Dad said to Mom. I heard her pick up.

"How are you doing?" Mom asked.

"I’m tired -- this is a lot of work," I told her.

"I bet," Dad said. "Is everything going well though?" he asked.

"Yeah, you can definitely tell that I haven’t done this stuff before -- but I’m catching on quickly. Our squad got second in the challenge this morning to decide who goes to lunch and dinner first," I replied excitedly. I told them about what we had been doing all day and yesterday as quickly as I could before having to go.

"I’ll call you guys again in a couple days, I don’t think I’ll have a chance tomorrow," I told them.

"That’s great Tiffany, we love you, goodnight." They both said to me before I hung up. I got to the lounge with just a minute or so to spare.

I found a seat on the floor next to Amy and Rachel.

"Okay ladies, something that’s always been a tradition in my groups at cheer camp is to have a bedtime story," Emily said with a smile.

"So here it is..." She began to tell a really awesome story with a kid’s picture book. Okay so I felt like I was about three and a half or something, but it was a lot of fun! The only girls who didn’t look like they were enjoying it were the usual suspects. Particularly Amanda looked like she would have liked nothing but to be elsewhere -- but hey the rest of us had fun with it.

We all talked for a few minutes after she was done with her story before we headed back to our rooms to go to sleep. Or, I should say everyone else went back to their rooms to sleep. Amy, Emily, and I put some different clothes on and began working through the routine with me in the lounge for an hour-and-a-half.

By the time I crawled into bed at 11:30 I was so exhausted I didn’t even change my clothes.
 
 
Chapter 7
 
 
AS LIGHT BEGAN to pour into the window of our dorm room Amy prodded me to wake up. "Come on Tiffany, you need to get ready." After about ten minutes of her poking, prodding, and harassing me (in which I wondered if my mom had been giving her lessons) I finally made it into the bathroom. A quick shower was had before heading to breakfast.

We did stunts again that morning -- and for the first half just reviewed everything that we had done the day before. We actually were all doing really well in our squad and I had made considerable progress from the beginning of yesterday. They then began having us come together with our trios to work together then while Amy and I were on top.

The squad they had put together to demonstrate stuff yesterday put on an even greater show today. The coolest things they did we probably wouldn’t be able to do until college. The guys in particular were able to throw Emily a huge distance into the air. As they did that I began wondering what it would be like to be thrown that high -- surely they could easily get me higher right?

We also were given a lot of individual help on jumping. Thankfully this was one area that Amy had already been helping me out at a lot. Rachel was even impressed with how well I was doing on those. Coach Evans just watched me once and walked by.

The morning saw some more leadership training combined with ideas of different events that you could have at school. They discussed what you could do during a spirit week and different themes you could have. It was actually more interesting than I ever would have thought it could be. There was plenty of interaction between all of us and the speaker -- so it really was a lot of fun.

Just before lunch we had the competition for who went first. I was really amazed because we actually won the competition that day. A lot of the girls talked back and forth at lunch that we might actually win the competition at the end of the week!

After lunch we did more work on our cheers and I was quite surprised that I remembered all of them from yesterday. I had guessed that it would take me all of the days just to remember them. Emily pronounced the ‘words good’ and ‘chanting acceptable’, but then said it was time to start adding some stuff to them. Before long the stunts we had been working on were worked into those cheers.

The routines for each cheer weren’t as complicated as the dance routines -- but they weren’t easy either. We drilled all of that non-stop, taking special care for about three of the cheers that we were thinking about using for the competition. Emily said we would have to choose one for the competition, but we wanted to have choices up until that point.

In the last half hour of our session that afternoon Coach Evans came by and didn’t say anything to me. I thought she had decided that I was a lost cause at that point -- but I swore I saw her smile for a second. Must have been the light though because the next thing I knew she was getting onto me for something else.

The second afternoon session was when we worked on our dance routine that day. I arrived at the dance classroom with lots of little butterflies flying around in my stomach. Would the extra practice that I had done last night pay off? I was so tired at this point I hoped it had been worth it.

We started rehearsal by going through the routine at half-speed move by move. I hit every movement of my hands, feet, and body at all of the right times. ‘So far so good,’ I thought to myself. From there we sped everything up another notch. I still hit everything when I was supposed to.

Eventually after speeding it up several more times Coach Evans said, "Okay ladies, with the music this time."

Amazingly we had been practicing it faster than the music -- so it wasn’t quite as hard as it had been. I just kept counting to myself over an over again through our sets, and concentrating so much, that I barely registered the fact that I was in the final pose and we were done.

"Not bad ladies. Several of you..." God she could nitpick at anything! We were soon repeating the dance again and again.

Finally after about the tenth run-through of the routine she came over to me. "Tiffany, smile," she said. "You’ve gotten the moves down, but it won’t do any good if you can’t put a smile on your face and make people think you’re having fun." And with that she walked away. Speaking of smiling couldn’t she do it once in a while?

So in addition to counting, thinking, bending, and contorting my body -- I had to smile. I swear smiling took more concentration than the rest of it combined!

When we got through she had us all sit down in front of her. "Ladies I’m extremely impressed with how quickly you’ve picked this up. I gave you the harder routine of the two I brought with me for this week and you’ve gotten it learned faster than any of the other squads as far as I know. I think you’re going to do very well the day after tomorrow at the competition."

"That doesn’t mean I’m going to let up on you all though -- there are plenty of things we can clean up. I also have a couple ideas that Emily suggested we try out too to make things more interesting. We’ll try them out tomorrow. For now I hope you all enjoy your evening -- you should have a lot of fun."

As we all stood up she pulled me aside. "Tiffany, how much more did you work last night?"

"An hour-and-a-half," I replied.

"It really shows. You are easily one of the hardest working girls that I have ever seen come to this camp. Just make sure that you have fun while you’re doing this too, okay?"

"Yes, ma’am," I replied with a smile. She was actually complimenting me. Amy had stayed by my side during this time. Maybe she wasn’t quite as evil as I thought.

"You’re also doing quite well Amy. You should definitely be a captain at your school your eighth grade year."

"Thanks," she said.

"You two don’t separate from each other much do you?" She asked.

"Not really," we said at the same time.

"Well anyway you both should get going back to your dorm, keep up the good work." She told us.

When we got outside I started skipping and Amy joined in. We stopped and just started to giggle endlessly when we got to our dorm. "Tiffany we seriously have to get you onto our squad at school. I don’t know how we’ll do it -- but I think we have to. You’re doing way too well at all of this stuff for you not to do it."

"Thanks Amy, let’s just see how the year goes. I’m not sure that I’m going to be welcome to walk the hallways at school -- let alone perform as a cheerleader..."

"We’ll make it work somehow Tiff. I’ll always be there for you." She said as we entered our room.

"Shower first," I exclaimed. I giggled with glee. I never won these contests!

"Cheater!" she said with plenty of her own giggling.

I got into the shower and let the water wash all of the sweat and work on some of the pain I was feeling. I couldn’t believe how sore I was after only a couple days. Tonight’s activity was to have a massive pool party with everyone. I was very careful in hiding my parts -- a pool party was definitely an easy place for people to find out about me if I wasn’t cautious. The thought of the other girls finding out my secret was terrifying to say the least.

I got out of the bathroom just wearing my swimsuit -- a one-piece, Mom wouldn’t let me buy a bikini yet (or ever she seemed to think...) -- and asked Amy, "can you see anything?"

She knew what I meant, "No Tiff, there’s nothing I can see."

"Thanks, the bathroom’s all yours then." I told her. While she was taking a shower I put on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt over the top of my swimsuit. She came out fairly quickly with her own one-piece suit on. I think she wore it as moral support for me -- we’d probably be the only two girls in one.

She also put on a pair of shorts and a shirt before we headed down for dinner. It was nice knowing that we were going to be able to relax tonight -- we’d been working so hard non-stop up ‘til now. At dinner we all sat with our squads and enjoyed just talking to people.

Our trip to Florida came up with Katie at one point, "So you actually came out to Orlando for a field trip?" She asked surprised.

"Yeah, it was a lot of fun," I replied.

"I bet it was. Our school would never let sixth graders take a trip that far." She said.

"It was a special program, and only ‘kind of’ sponsored by the school." Amy replied.

"Still that’s really cool. If you two ever come back out there you’ll have to look me up. I only live thirty minutes outside of Orlando."

"It must be cool to live there," I said.

"It’s kind of nice -- I don’t know -- it’s what I’m used to. You guys are lucky enough to get snow; I’ve never seen that before." She said.

"You’ve never seen snow?!?" Amy replied incredulously.

"Neither have I," Christina said. "They have had a couple storms in my home town in Texas a few times... but none while I’ve been alive."

"That’s crazy!" Amy replied. Of course that was going to boggle her mind. She’d grown up with her parents having a condo near a ski resort -- and she had skied her whole life.

The rest of dinner was then made up of conversation on things that some people had never done or seen. It was a lot of fun.

After dinner we all made our way to the pool and had ourselves a massive party with all of the squads. There were a lot of games played between squads, getting to know other girls, and just having fun with loud party music blaring in the background. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that a lot of other girls must have moms like mine -- they were in one-piece suits too.

An hour into the party they shut the music off and all of the girls began doing the group cheers together in the water. It was kind of difficult to do the jumps in the water, but we all gave it our best. We did a couple of other group activities for a half hour or so before we were let loose to do whatever again with the music blaring.

After a couple hours we were all booted out of the pool and sent back to the dorms to relax. Amy and I both rinsed our bodies off real quick in the shower before putting our pajamas on. Out in the lounge Stephanie brought out a set of nail supplies and polish she had brought with her -- quickly all of the girls began working to paint each others nails in our squads’ colors. It was at that point that I thought to ask something I’d been meaning to ask, Emily had just come into the room.

"Hey, does everyone else have the coyote and these colors as their school mascot? Or is it just a coincidence that it matches up with the school Amy and I attend?"

Eight of the other girls actually said that it was the same for them, but the rest didn’t have anything to do with that mascot. Christina actually said, "If I showed up to school wearing the uniform they gave us I would probably be hung from the nearest tree! That’s the uniform our rival school wears."

"They try and match you all up somewhat when they put together the squads. At least trying to match up the mascots -- it’s never perfect though." Emily said.

"Stephanie and I were on this squad last year," Rachel said. "So we both decided to make it a tradition. Of course next year if we come we’ll be in a different camp set -- but hey maybe we can get the same mascot group there."

"That would be cool," Stephanie said.

We worked on each other’s nails for a good hour before Emily said it was time for that night’s story. She told another cute story that made all of us smile, even the unfriendly girls, before we all headed to bed.

As I laid down on my bed I said, "Amy?"

"Yeah Tiffany?"

"Thank you so much for bringing me along with you. I wasn’t honestly sure I was cut out for this kind of stuff, but I’m having a lot of fun."

"No problem Tiff, we’re just going to have to figure out a way to get you on the school team. If nothing else we’ll get you on in April -- you’ll easily beat out the other girls then." She told me.

"I hope so. I just know it’ll be a long fight to get to April..."

"We’ll get through it Tiff, I promise you."

I couldn’t leave it at that, I got up and gave her a hug before laying back down. "’Night Amy."
 
 
Chapter 8
 
 
THE FOURTH DAY passed by far quicker than I could have believed. We worked incredibly hard all day as a squad doing one practice after another. During the stunt practice that morning the college cheer squad asked for a volunteer -- for some strange reason I raised my hand. The college kids looked at all of the hands raised and Coach Evans gave them a nod towards me.

When I got down to where they were they spoke to me for a few minutes on what they wanted me to do. From there they built a massive pyramid -- and had me climb on top! At the top I was held in the air by two girls -- who acted like it was no big deal. It was incredibly cool. When we dismounted from it a couple of the guys caught me. I was really amazed that these guys did cheerleading -- they looked like they could have been varsity wrestlers.

I got a fun surprise then when they lifted me up in the air and tossed me. I wasn’t really expecting to get an opportunity like that -- but as I came down from a lot of height, trusted them to catch me. Thankfully they did!

When I got back with my squad I was absolutely grinning from ear to ear. Amy poked me. "Not fair," she whispered to me. The work didn’t seem as insanely difficult the rest of the day. In fact, I spent most of the time wondering why I’d had trouble smiling the day before.

When all was said and done by the end of the day we had all chosen which cheer routine we were going to perform for the competition. We had also worked up our chant and our dance to a really high level. I hoped that Amy’s mom brought her video camera to record our performances.

The way this camp worked, we would have the initial competition in the morning, and then the top five squads would perform them again in the afternoon. Following that we would have an awards ceremony when they would announce the winners. Parents were welcome to attend the finals and ceremony with their kids if they wanted. Amy’s mom was going to serve as both our ‘moms’ for the event. She already was like that for me most of the time anymore...

Anyway, once the ceremony was done we would move ourselves out of the dorms and we were going to start back home. Amy’s mom had said we would stay in Yuma, Arizona that night. She didn’t want to try and drive all the way home that night, so that seemed like a good spot to stop at.

Amy interrupted my thoughts about the next day while we were eating lunch, "So Tiffany are you ready for the dance tonight?"

"Yeah, I guess." I told her. "It’s kind of sad though since it’s the last night we’ll be here."

"You’re sounding more and more like a girl all the time," she told me quietly.

"Thanks," I replied back to her with a small smile.

With that we went to another practice, followed by yet another practice, before we were given a chance to go shower before dressing up for that night. We both put on our dresses and put makeup on. I had managed to convince mom to let me bring my makeup for this trip on the promise that I would not wear it every day. Really I’d been in no danger of breaking that promise. With as much as we’d been working and sweating, any makeup I could have put on wouldn’t have lasted five minutes anyway.

Tonight and tomorrow weren’t every day though -- so I made myself as pretty as I could.

The two of us worked on our hair together. We’d gotten the same haircut a month before so we decided we’d go as twins with our hair that night. By the time we finished up with our hair, we both pronounced each other as looking cute. A quick look in the mirror made me wonder how many people would assume that we were actually twins!

We both helped each other touch up before going out with our cameras to the lounge. As the other girls came out they all complimented us, and we complimented them. The flashes of cameras were almost constant while we waited for the last couple girls to arrive. As our squad entered the ballroom where they were hosting the event a lot eyes turned towards us. I know I’m biased, but I believe that we were one of the better looking squads there that night.

We had a fun night that finished when we broke into our squads. With the fifteen girls in our squad, Emily, and Coach Evans, we all sat in a circle in a dark quad of the campus. That was kind of awkward given how we were dressed, but we made it work.

All of the lights were off in our vicinity, and Emily brought out a large candle that she lit. "When the candle gets to you share whatever thoughts and memories that you’ve made this week with the group." Emily told us.

She then began to share with us her thoughts, "I’ve been amazed by how quickly you ladies came together. It’s not often that one of the squads at this camp comes together as well as you have. Your hard work has absolutely been inspiring to me. I’d especially like to say to Tiffany I can’t believe how far you’ve come this week. I think that when you get a chance to try out for your squad you’ll be sure to make it." She said stuff to most of the girls before passing it off to Coach Evans.

"Ladies I’m of the same opinion of Emily -- you’ve all been magnificent this week. You’ve bore up to my constant barrage of orders and pickiness. You should all be very proud of yourselves." She gave some comments to each of us -- especially me on my improvement again, before passing it on. Coach Evans then stood up to go to her other squad.

Each girl shared her thoughts in turn, and as it got to me I had to stop crying long enough to speak. "I want to thank everyone for the wonderful time that I’ve had with you. It’s been more fun than I could have ever imagined being here, and I hope that I can return next year with you. We’ll all have to stay in contact so we can let each other know how the others are doing. More than anything I know we’re going to do spectacularly well tomorrow as a squad."

I passed it on to the next girl then and resumed my sniffling and crying. ‘So much for my makeup,’ I thought. When the candle returned to Emily she led us in a squad cheer before extinguishing the candle and leaving us in darkness. We all walked back from there in silence, not really wanting to spoil the memory of camp by talking.

Back in the dorms we began talking about the next day and how we were getting ready for the competition. Our first performance was our chant at 9:25, our cheer routine at 10, and our dance routine was to be at 11. After our cheer routine we were to get our pictures taken by a photography company that would be there.

It was decided that we would all go to breakfast dressed in pajamas at 7:30, then work together on our hair, makeup, and warm-up till 9 when we would be in position to perform. Emily gave us some suggestions and tips and after we heard one more story she said, "Technically the camp is okay with you all staying up till midnight tonight, but I’d really recommend that you go to bed now so you’re better rested for tomorrow." It was 10:15 at that point.

We all looked at each other and silently agreed that was a good idea. The squad wanted to not only go into the competition and do well -- we wanted to win. All of us quickly headed for bed and forced ourselves to sleep. It wasn’t easy that night.

WE WOKE UP as planned and met at breakfast in our pajamas. Amy and I brought our cameras to breakfast and took several shots of everyone there. Emily pushed us to eat quickly so we could get back and get ready.

From there on the morning up to our first event was a complete and total blur. The next thing I knew it was almost nine and we were taking photos of ourselves in our uniforms. All of our hair was put up into high pony-tails and tied with two ribbons matching our colors. Emily had gotten the ribbon sometime over the past week for us, and we all thanked her.

Rachel and Emily went to work at making everyone have the right look of makeup for the day. It was really exaggerated from anything I had done before -- they told me it was so our facial expressions would stand out. For the most part I didn’t mind, we all looked pretty, but I would never wear it like this normally.

At 9:25 we marched onto the track of the stadium for our chant performance. It was kind of terrifying in a way to be in front of the judges and a huge crowd of family members. I guessed there were probably six to eight hundred people in the stands. I tried not to let that make me nervous though.

We took our spots on the track and Rachel led us in our chant. This morning we had elected her our team captain and she now bore a C on the uniform she had. Like the snap of a set of fingers it was over and we were heading off to prepare for our next performance. The audience had really gotten into our cheer, and had cheered loudly for us, but they were probably doing that for everyone I figured.

After running through the moves in our cheer routine we gathered together for a pep talk from Emily and Coach Evans. They both said we had done very well so far and we just needed to keep it up. Soon after that we were doing our cheer routine.

As we began clapping our hands and yelling together I made sure that I moved me hands to my sides, out, etc. at all the right times. The end of our routine called for a daring move to do two 3 level pyramids. I was on the top of one pyramid while Amy was on top of the other.

The squad before us had dropped a girl trying to do the same thing... I was really hoping it wouldn’t be like that for me. As we held our last pose in that position Rachel tumbled down the track in front of the pyramid. The stadium erupted in applause as we finished. I saw a number of them stand while doing so -- I just kind of blushed. As we jumped down off the pyramid I was happy to not have fallen and broken anything! We ran as a team back towards the one of the end zones.

Amy came over to me, "That was awesome Tiffany," she said giving me a hug.

I squealed and said, "yeah, that was great!"

"Too bad we’ll never be able to pull that one off at school." She said.

All of us kept congratulating each other and were led by Emily to a spot outside where they were taking our pictures. Each of us had our pictures taken both individually and as a group after checking to make sure we still looked alright. Amy ended up redoing my ponytail since it had shifted a little when we dismounted from the pyramid.

The company taking the pictures gave us an order form to send them to buy the pictures when we got home. They told us we could also come back after the preliminary round to have our parents pay. I wondered if Amy’s mom would be willing to get me a package... What am I asking? She’d probably already have it done by the time we found her.

From there we began huddling as a group and talking about the last portion of the preliminary competition. Coach Evans told us it was going to be the last stage for us making it into the finals -- if we nailed this we should be in the Final Five for the afternoon performance.

"Come on ladies, you can do it!" Emily told us as we got ready to line up to go back into the stadium for our final performance. We all gathered together and put our hands together and did a final chant before marching out for our dance routine.

The dance routine that we had worked on had been designed specifically for performing on the football field. We came on from the rear part of the football field towards the stands that seemed fuller than the last time we had been in there. When we got to our marks all of us put our hands out to our sides with pom-poms in each, our heads down, and waited for the music to start.

In what seemed both an eternity, and a really short amount of time, I heard the opening beats to our routine start up. I was completely on autopilot as I put my hands where they were supposed to be on each count, jumping, moving, everything as we had been taught. In my head I counted the moves as we had done again and again over the past few days: and then it was done.

From our ending, a frozen pose, we moved together off of the field and went into the stands to watch the last couple groups and relax.

As we sat down Amy’s mom came up to us and gave us both a big hug, "Amy, Tiffany your squad did great!"

"Thanks," we both told her.

At that point we both spent about ten minutes talking non-stop. One of us would say one thing and the other would finish the idea. I think the chances of her having understood anything from us right then were almost nil! We introduced her to all of our new friends as ‘Amy’s mom -- but she claims me too!’ It was a lot of fun.

She sat with us and watched the last four squads perform their routines. Amy and I both were really hoping that we had done well enough -- one of the squads we saw was really good... I wasn’t sure if we honestly could compete with them or not.

"Ladies and Gentlemen thank you for attending today’s preliminary performance. At this time all of the participants need to report to the track for the preliminary awards ceremony."

We all filed back down and proceeded to participate in a short procession onto the field to the spots we stood in during our night sessions. The beginning of the ceremony was opened with all of us doing two of our group cheers together. Amy’s mom captured that event on video tape -- it was s-o-o awesome!

Mrs. Harding spoke over the stadium’s sound system, "I would first of all like to congratulate all of the squads that performed today; it is not easy to come together in this little time to perform like they have! Before we announce the finalists please give a hand for each of these squads..."

"The Coyotes!..." We all jumped in the air and cheered...

"And the Wolverines, please give a hand for all of these fantastic girls!" Again everyone together jumped up and cheered.

A few moments later the field became silent and Mrs. Harding said, "And now I would like to announce the finalists for today’s competition. These squads will perform their three events again in the finals. The squads are in no particular order: The Badgers, The Wolverines, The Coyotes..." That was the last of that part I heard as we all began jumping, cheering, and hugging each other before we were shushed by Emily and told to get back in position.

"The finalists need to be ready to perform again at 2pm. They will have a meeting with their coaches at 1:30 to prepare. At the conclusion of the finals performance..." she proceeded to explain that we would have a couple exhibition performances by some cheer squads, and then they would announce the individual awards for the camp before the places.

When we came off the field we all went to the cafeteria together, picking up families of all of the girls on the way over. As we ate together there was a lot of tension in the air -- we were all really nervous. Sure we had made the finals, but we wanted to be the best! I didn’t really care about the individual awards -- there was no way that I was going to be named outstanding cheerleader or anything like that.

Rachel had participated in a jump competition the day before, and Stephanie had done a tumbling competition as well. Those were separate events and we were all hoping that they had done really well. None of us ate much at lunch, even though all of the parents (including Amy’s mom), were trying to force us to eat.

At 1:30 we met Coach Evans on an end zone where she had told us to meet her. She then led us to a spot away from the stadium to prepare.

"Okay ladies, I was very impressed with how well you performed. I picked up the judges comments and you were ranked second behind the Wolverines by about three points."

We all kind of steamed on that for a few moments. She chose to let it sit there and simmer -- she wanted it to push us to step up at the finals.

"So I think we need to make up more than those three points -- they’re definitely going to try and do better than they did this time. So you’re going to have to not only earn three more points, but I would guess another seven points more. This is how I think we can do it..." she proceeded to tell us all of the things we had done wrong over that morning. She read the list of things the judges has knocked us on.

We all stood together and began going through a few of the motions that had been an issue. Our squad was the second to last to perform on all of the events -- so we had a little bit more time to work. This time instead of doing the chant and then leaving, we performed the chant and went straight into our cheer. Both of those events went off better than I had ever done them -- I didn’t know about everyone else -- but I knew I had improved.

About twenty minutes later we were back on the field repeating our dance routine. The feeling I had when we completed it was like no other I had ever felt. I knew I had done my best -- there had been no more to give. Standing there in our final pose, I could feel the tears that were welling up and trying to escape my eyes. I was so proud of how I had done -- and how the squad had done -- but so scared to see what the judges had to say...

We took a spot on the side of the field while the last cheer squad did their dance. As I watched them I could see why they had placed lower than us in the prelims, and fully believed that we were still going to be ahead of them. If nothing else we shouldn’t come in last I thought!

The only thing left before the awards ceremony was the exhibition performances. There were three squads that performed; the reigning national high school champions (who were from one of the local schools), a squad of our counselors, and the university’s well renowned squad.

All three of their performances were absolutely stunning. We had watched them do some cool stuff this past week, but they outdid every single thing at this performance. The stunts and dancing they demonstrated were incredible! It left me with a feeling that I wanted to be able to be that good more than anything else.

The exhibition performances were over after a half-hour and it was time to start the rest of the ceremonies.
 
 
Chapter 9
 
 
OUR SQUADS WERE lined back up on the field, and all of the rest of the girls were seated together by their squads in the stands -- it was a sea of color. Up there they were chatting away completely unconcerned about what our fates were down on the field. It was basically over for most of them -- there might be some individuals that would still have a chance for awards -- but their squads were done.

That was in stark contrast to the sound on the field: silent. I don’t think some of the girls on the field had ever shut up before... I know Amy and I rarely did. Mrs. Harding stepped up to a microphone that was now connected so she could speak from the field.

"Ladies and Gentlemen to conclude our camp we would like to present awards to both individuals and to squads for their fantastic work this week! We’ll start first with the individual awards..."

I was kind of tuning out the awards a bit at that point -- that was until Rachel won the Jump competition, and Stephanie was the runner-up in the tumbling competition. We all cheered loudly for them and I started to go right back to just standing and tuning stuff out.

"And now we have three final awards to give, outstanding cheerleader, outstanding captain, and most improved cheerleader. We’ll start with the last award first. This young lady’s coach wrote, ‘when she first arrived here she was completely green with no experience. She seemed to be struggling through every little thing. I had my doubts that she would manage to be ready for the competition today. However, she worked longer and harder than any girl I’ve ever seen at this camp -- earning the respect of her squad and myself by learning her routines as well as anyone.’"

"This award comes with a $500 scholarship for a college of this young lady’s choice. That young lady is.... Tiffany Jacobson!!!"

I stood there in shock as my eyes went wide... Me? Amy prodded me to go up to the front where they had a small trophy and an envelope for me. I stopped to pose with Mrs. Harding and Coach Evans while holding them, and then proceeded to hug Coach Evans and saying thank you over and over again. Everything was all blurry from the tears flowing down my face. Who would have thought I would win an award this week?

As I got back to my squad I received tons of hugs before we got back into our lines. The rest of the awards went to girls that we didn’t know -- or at least I didn’t know -- and she moved onto the part that we cared about.

"And now ladies and gentlemen we will conclude today with the results of our final competition. In Fifth Place, The Badgers!" Their squad jumped up and down and they all ran up to grab the trophies for each girl. "In Fourth Place, the Spartans!"

"In Third Place, the Wildcats!"

"In Second Place..." This would be the moment... had we improved or had we stayed in Second place? "The Wolverines!" there was ever so slight a pause, then over the roar of the crowd, "And our champions are The Coyotes!!"

We were all completely ecstatic and showing it by doing jumps in the air. Some of the girls began tumbling -- all of us were screaming -- before rushing up to grab our trophies and fall back in. We were finding it impossible to stand still!

"Thank you all for attending our camp this year -- we hope to see you again next year!" She said as we all began hugging each other over and over again. We had parents that came on the field to take pictures of us with our trophies and a medal that we had all gotten (I actually had two trophies and an envelope -- I had no idea what to do with the envelope).

Amy’s mom was no exception to the other parents; she took a dozen pictures of us all together, and then another dozen of Amy and me together. As she was switching rolls of film Coach Evans walked up to us.

"Congratulations you two," she said with a smile and hugged us both. "Tiffany I hope you keep working on your skills -- you honestly should be able to keep up with any normal squad at this point for tryouts. Anyway, I have something I wanted to give you real quick," she said handing me a large manila envelope.

I opened it up and there were three 8x10 pictures in there of me; one on top of the pyramid with the demonstration squad, one with me in the air on the really high toss, and another with that group. They were really neat shots. I was certain Mom would be putting them up on the wall at home! "Thank you Coach," I told her.

"No problem. Congratulations again Tiffany, I hope to see you next year!" She said goodbye to Amy’s mom as well real quick before walking away.

When she left, Amy’s mom took more individual pictures of Amy and me. After she had finished another roll we went to the dorm to get all of our stuff moved out.

"Umm... Melanie?" remembering that she had asked me to call her that instead of Mrs. Hancock.

"Yes Tiffany?" She asked smiling back at me as we were walking back there..

"Do you have a cell phone?" I asked.

"Yes I do sweetie. Would you like to call your parents and tell them how you did?" She asked.

"May I, I promise to be short with the call..."

"Absolutely sweetie! Then Amy you need to call your dad and let him know too."

"Kay mom," Amy replied.

I was handed her cell phone and began to dial to talk to my parents. It rang twice and mom picked up, "Hello?"

"Mommy! You’ll never guess what happened today?"

"Hold on a sec honey," I heard her put the phone down in her hand and yell, ‘Joe, Tiffany’s on,’

"Hey sweetie!" Dad said on the other end,

"Hey!!! You’ll never guess what happened!!!" I said excitedly, "I won the most improved cheerleader award at camp!!!"

"That’s great sweetie," Mom said.

"Yes, sweetie that’s fantastic!" Dad said.

"And that’s not all! So I got a trophy for the award right? But I also got a $500 scholarship to any college I want later on."

"Wow that’s cool Tiffany," Dad replied.

"And, our squad also won first place at the competition today!" I told them.

"You have had a really good time haven’t you?" Mom asked.

"Yeah I have. I can’t wait to show you the trophies and my uniform and everything else!" I said it all so quickly I’d be surprised if my parents caught even half of it.

"We can’t wait to see them sweetie." Mom said.

"Are you on Amy’s mom’s cell phone?" Dad asked.

"Yeah, I should probably get off it. But I was so excited I wanted you to know!" I replied to them.

"That’s great sweetie, we’ll see you tomorrow," Mom said.

"I love you guys," I told them. There were the usual replies of ‘we love you too,’ as I hung up.

By the time I hung up we had reached the dorm and Amy called her dad. I was really surprised when she called him the first thing that she said was ‘you’ll never guess what happened! Tiffany won the most improved...’ Our winning First Place as a squad was her second thing. She really did care about me as a friend.

Her dad was really excited for us both and actually asked her to hand me the phone so he could congratulate me. We talked briefly before handing the phone to her mom. They discussed us leaving and then she hung up.

After that we had the hard work of moving all of our stuff down to her car. It took several trips and we switched clothes to a set of cheerleading shirts that her mom had bought for us from the camp while we had been performing in the morning. They were really cute! With those and a pair of shorts we climbed into her car and began driving towards home.

The two of us talked endlessly to her mom as we got on the road and drove towards Yuma where we were going to stay the night. A couple hours into the trip she pulled over at a Cracker Barrel for us to eat dinner. The hostess said we had about a thirty minute wait, something her mom assured me was worth it, and we began shopping after a bathroom break.

There were a lot of cool knickknacks in the store. Amy and I ended up picking up a couple of car games and a bunch of different candy before we were called. "Melanie, party of three?"

The waitress had menus and led us over to a table. Amy and I looked through the menu for a few minutes and began playing with the peg game on the table when the waitress came up to us. "Hi I’m Jennifer and I’ll be serving you. What would you like to drink?"

We told her our drink orders and she went back for them.

"So you’re both cheerleaders?" She asked us.

"We’re just coming back from a cheer camp," I said. "I’m not on the school’s squad yet -- I’m hoping maybe next year. Amy’s on the squad though."

"That’s cool. I really like those shirts," she said before going away.

I wondered at that point, ‘if I could actually become a cheerleader if it would help me?’ It would certainly help raise my status. As we sat there at dinner I just talked with Amy and her mom and only thought about how fun the last week had been. No one had known me -- and no one had any idea that I was a boy, at least physically. I was really fortunate I had managed to keep that from everyone...

After dinner we returned to the car and began driving some more. Amy and I played one of the car games for a little bit -- but fell asleep for the rest of the trip. We were woken up by her mom long enough to check into the hotel, change into our pajamas, and fall asleep in bed.


 
To Be Continued...

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Comments

If there were any lingering doubts

in my mind about whether this was the proper direction for Tiffany, they disappeared when it became obvious to me that no one at the cheer camp even suspected her history!

What an amazing read this is!

Hugs
Carla

PS Please, if you read a story help encourage the author by leaving a comment. They mean so much!

This had the team flavor

...that Camp Kumoni had in the First Book. I found it very enticing and physically painful after reading about all the exercise moves. I was so glad Tiffany made an effort and won something there! I certainly hope she does as well in school and integrating, as well as avoiding the bigots. I am so waiting to see who she decides to date and whether that person will be a boy, or, surprise- a girl!

 
Sephrena Lynn Miller
BigCloset TopShelf

"I'll never be the girl I used to be, but I'll be the woman I was meant to be!"

Young enough for hope.

I think you have a lot of talent and I look forward to reading more of your work.

Gwendolyn

This sounds really corny but...

...these stories really are getting more interesting by the episode!

I suspected Tiff would end with "Most Improved Cheerleader" after the coach's comments on her improvement on Day 2, and I suspected the team as a whole might win overall. But full kudos to her for putting in all the necessary extra effort - and not being 'discovered' at all during the camp!

 


There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't...

As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!

Tiffany def. seems to be a

Team orientated, goal type of individual whom will go the extra mile to make her friends happy & thus wins their hearts and respect. She's shown this mutiple times over the two book storyline to this point. And I believe it'll be what keeps more in the school on her side if things get ruff or out of hand. yes, she stresses alot, but anyone in her position would. & what can i say bout Amy - if I ever had a friend like her, she'd be in a constant bearhug from me, cause I wouldnt know what else to do to tell her how much i appreciated her friendship. as far as sexual relationships go, I suspect the two boys that were on the FLA trip will play a major role in both Tiff's & Amy's future (smiles)

*cheering*

This is such an awesome sequal to "Standing Up to Life"! I especially loved the cheer camp, and all the friends Tiffany and Amy made there. I wonder if they'll ever run into each other later? It'd be awesome if they did! :)