The next day passes in a complete blur. During practice that morning, a counselor on the demonstration squad asks for a volunteer, and for some bizarre reason, I raise my hand along with several others. Coach Adams looks directly at me, nods, and motions for me to come out to join them.

  When I walk out onto the mats where they are, they speak quietly to me for a few minutes about what they want me to do. From there they build a massive pyramid, and just guess who is going to be at the top, me! Holding myself rigid, one of the male cheerleaders grabs me by my waist and tosses me like I weigh nothing. I’m caught by the top two girls and lifted up into the air, where I hold my stance, pull up one leg to my thigh, and thrust my right arm into the air with probably the biggest smile of my life!

  When it’s time to dismount, a couple of guys catch me. Honestly, I’m amazed that these guys are cheerleaders. Just looking at them, they could easily be a wrestler or fullback on any football team you want to name. They are really cute, too. A bit too old for me, but cute nonetheless.

  To say this is the best moment of my life so far doesn’t nearly cover it. I’m so proud of myself I’m literally about to burst! The compliments from the counselors and the male cheerleaders didn’t hurt one tiny bit either. Best of all, Coach Adams smiles and nods approvingly at me.

  The next thing I know, the two who caught me come over and talk to me for a moment, and after I agree, they lift me up and then toss me so high in the air I thought I could see the roof of our dorm. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but not by much. I’m quite a bit smaller and lighter than the girls they are used to working with, so I went much higher.

  Ava comes over, pats my shoulder, and says, “Great job, Rei. Go on back to the squad.”

  I’m grinning so big my cheeks hurt as I amble back. When I step back beside Emma, she pokes me in the side, and says, “No fair!” All I could do was giggle. For some odd reason, the rest of the day didn’t seem to be as challenging as it was yesterday.

  After stunt practice, we work on the chant that we chose, and finally, we work on our dance routine until most of us are ready to drop from exhaustion. Strangely, Coach Adams stands impassively off to the side during our st run through. When we finish, she merely nods and leaves the room.

  We have a knockout competition in the morning, and then the remaining squads would go again until only 5 squads are left. Those 5 squads would perform again in the final round after lunch. Following that is the awards ceremony, when they would announce the winners. The public is invited to attend the finals and awards ceremony. Emma’s mom would be attending along with a few of her friends, from what she said.

  Once the ceremony is over, we’re supposed to pick up our bags and head home. As you can see, it’s going to be a long, hard day. Thankfully, Emma’s mom said we wouldn’t even try to drive all the way home, so we’d be staying at a hotel that night.

  Emma interrupts my reverie while we were eating lunch, “Rei, are you ready for the dance tonight?”

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

  After eating and another lecture, we’re released to go get ready for tonight. After we shower, we help each other get ready. Hair, nails, makeup—the whole enchida, basically. As I look at myself in the mirror, I think, ‘As much as I’ve hated and enjoyed this, I’m gd it’s almost over.

  We pick up our clutches, drop in our makeup, and phones. Gotta take pictures, you know? Then, head down to the lounge to meet everyone, as we’re supposed to go over as a group. As the other girls join us, they all compliment us, and we compliment them. The fshes of cameras were almost constant while we wait for the st girl to arrive. Finally, Mia arrives in the lounge, and after a few more pictures, we walk over to the hall where the dance is being held.

  Just inside the door, Ava has us go into a dark room, and she brings out a small light. After lighting it, she states, “We’re going to pass this around. When it gets to you, I want you to tell us what you think is the best part of being here this st week. Thoughts, feelings, whatever you want.”

  Of course, since she’s holding the light, she starts us out. “I’m amazed by how quickly you dies came together. It’s rare that a squad just seems to click as you dies have. Your dedication and hard work have been a sight to see.”

  She passes the light to Coach Adams.

  “Ladies, I have to agree with what Ava said; you've all done superbly this week. You bore up to my overbearing demands and pickiness. You should all be very proud of yourselves, especially you, Rei. I know I was especially hard on you, but I see a lot of potential in you. You can reach much farther than you think. The only thing you ck at the moment is confidence in yourself, but I’m fairly sure that’ll come with a bit more time. ”

  Did I die and go to heaven, or what? Coach Adams actually complimented me!

  Each girl shares her thoughts in turn, and finally, it reaches me. “This has been exhausting, infuriating, and yet, a lot of fun. More fun than I could ever imagine, and I hope that I can return next year.” I pause and look around at each girl as I smile. “I have no doubt in my mind that we're going to do spectacurly tomorrow as a squad.”

  The light soon finishes the rounds and returns to Ava, who has us stand and leads us in our squad cheer.

  I’m not going to go into detail about the dance. I mean, it isn’t as if a rge number of girls dancing together is much to talk about. We did have a lot of fun, and it helps to blow off a lot of tension that has built up.

  We return to the dorm to find the next day's schedule posted on our doors. We’re sted to perform our chant in the 5th slot at 9:25. Our cheer routine is sted 1st at 10:00, and our dance routine was to be 3rd at 11:10. After all of that, we’re scheduled for pictures to be taken.

  After the dance, all of us quickly head off to bed since it’s been a long day and tomorrow will be the same.

  We wake early, throw on some casual clothes, and go eat. After we eat, we head back to the dorm with everyone so we can get ready. You know the drill by now: hair, makeup, and finally dressing in the uniforms we were given. All of our hair is in high ponytails and braided with two colors of ribbons that match our uniform colors. Several girls work together in almost an assembly line fashion, putting makeup on all of us that’s more than a little over the top. Apparently, it’s so our expressions are clearer to the judges and audience. I get that, but while my makeup might be okay for our routines, I’ll never wear it like this normally.

  Ava takes several photos of us all together, and finally, we need to leave or we’ll be te for the start.

  Shortly before 8:30, we gather our squads out on the track as the emcee announces each squad and its members. Of course, we jump and yell as each person is introduced, regardless of what squad they belong to. After that, we clear the field, and the actual program begins at 9:00 with the first squad marching out to do their chant.

  At 9:25, we marched onto the field for our turn. I’m a bit nervous that we are performing in front of the judges and an audience of probably 1,000 people. I try very hard to forget they are even there and focus on what we’re doing. It helps, somewhat.

  We take our positions, and Olivia leads us in our chant. This morning we elected her to be our team captain, and she now has a C on her uniform just above her stenciled name. As focused as I am, it seems that our chant is over just after we started, then we march off to get ready for the next part of the program.

  After performing yet another walk-through of our cheer routine, Ava calls us over, and Coach Adams tells us, “I watched the judges as you performed your chant. Going by their expressions, you did quite well. If you can show the judges the same energy and synchronization, I believe you’ll pce quite high in the ranks, so keep it up.”

  Soon after, we head back out onto the field to perform our cheer routine. We run out onto the field, yelling, cheering, and performing some gymnastics. Mostly, our cheer routine is like you would see normally, but Coach Adams incorporated dual tri-level pyramids with Emma and me as the capstones.

  After we dismount, it’s quiet for a few moments, then the stadium erupts in appuse and screams as we stand there in formation, smiling and breathing hard. Several of them even stand as they appud. I feel almost giddy as Olivia leads us off the field.

  Emma comes bounding over to hug me and excitedly says, “Rei, that was the best thing I’ve ever experienced!”

  Needless to say, all of us are just as excited as she is. “It was great, wasn’t it?”

  Kelly has joined us and says, “Too bad our coach will never allow us to do things like that at school.”

  Emma sticks her tongue out at her and replies, “True, but we don’t have her as a coach next year, remember?”

  Coach Adams calls us together and tells us, “Alright, dies. That was awesome. I'm pretty sure you outperformed the rest of the squads with that routine. If you nail your dance routine, and I have no doubt you will, we should be in the top 5, which means we’ll be doing this again this afternoon for the finals.”

  “Ladies, I know you can do it,” Ava tells us as we get in line to go back into the stadium for our final performance of the morning.

  We literally prance onto the field. I notice that it’s quite a bit louder than earlier when we were out here, so I take a quick look to see the stand is completely packed and even people standing in front of it on the edges of the field.

  When we reach our marks, all of us put our heads down, then wait for the music to start. It seems to take forever for the music to begin, but honestly, I don’t even notice the noise or anything else until the opening beat of the music. I react automatically, jumping, moving, everything, as we had been taught.

  Finally, we reach the ending, which is Emma and I being held in the air by two other members of our squad while several others freeze in pce in various poses. Just before they toss me up to catch me for my dismount, I gnce at Emma to see she nailed the move. The moment Emma and I touch the ground, everyone unfreezes, yells, and performs various gymnastic moves that we’d been working on. Then Olivia leads us off the field.

  Before we can even sit down to catch our breath, Emma's mom almost trots over to us and grabs us, and she gives the three of us a huge hug as she excims, “Your squad did so well compared to the others!”

  “Thanks, but would you mind letting us go? We’re hot, sweaty, and tired,” Emma tells her.

  She ughs, but she lets us go. “Come find me when they release you. Oh, I already filled out the forms for all three of you and paid for the pictures. I can’t wait to see them.” Without waiting for us to even catch up with what she’s gushing about, she says, “I’ll see you ter,” then leaves as suddenly as she came.

  After we rest a little while and cool off, we walk over to watch the remaining squads perform their routines. Out of all of them, only a few squads that we saw were anywhere close to being good enough to make the finals. Several of them were completely out of sync.

  It takes all of about 10 minutes after the st performance before the Emcee comes back out onto the field and says, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’d like to thank you for attending this morning's performance. At this time, all of the participants need to gather back on the field for the preliminary awards ceremony.”

  Quickly lining up in our squads, we march back out onto the field and stand facing the judge's table.