Althena Book 2

5. Bad Day

After school gets out, Lila finds me and drags me outside. "We're out here for practice. Unless it's raining, then they move the tables in the cafeteria."

"Why?"

"Too many sports for 2 gyms."

"How do they do that?"

"Varsity practices at 3. JV practices at 4. MV practices in the morning. Volleyball has the little gym. Basketball is the big one. Ice hockey is in the rink. Wrestling has a room with a lot of pads in it. It's beside the weight room. There's also a swimming team. The pool is past the cafeteria, down the weird hallway. The girls basketball team fits their practices somewhere too. Not sure where. It must be at 5. They only have 1 team though."

"I haven't seen the pool."

"I'll give you a tour after practice."

"Nice."

"At 3. We practice with everyone. All the cheerleaders are out here. It'll be like this all week. We have to go over the chants and basic cheers. Next week, we break into groups."

"When is the first match?"

"Three weeks."

"I thought we did pep rallies for those?"

"We do for home games. But this pep rally is to introduce the varsity teams. Everyone's name gets read. It's a whole thing."

Practice is something. There are almost 40 of us. We get divided into 5 rows. We're supposed to remember where we're at. This is our spot for when we're all together. I'm pretty much right in the middle. The seniors are in the front row and the rest of us are placed randomly. I'm beside Kristen. At least I'm by someone on my team.

Tadita stands on a box in the front of us. "The first one is easy. LET'S GET FIRED UP. Clap your hands." She does it. "Now you do it. Seniors, check your row."

Some girl watches me do it. "That looks good but make sure you lock your elbow. You don't want jiggly arms."

She keeps going and I glance at Kristen. She's about to fall over, she's laughing so hard. She puts her arm around me and quietly says, "All her arms do is jiggle." She puts her hand on her stomach. "I'm gonna puke. Imagine June trying to correct anyone."

I burst out laughing with her.

"Next chant. DANCE TO THE BEAT. Swing your hips and clap. TURN UP THE HEAT. Do a hurdle jump after. Seniors, check them."

This goes on for an hour. Then we take the JV hockey cheer team to my house. Lauren is sure someone will steal our ideas.

We sit around the living room, and watch the videos the boys recorded.

Then Conner shows up with his entire team. "Woman, I need the TV."

"We're using it."

"Well, I need it now. We have to watch these plays."

I put my hands on my hips. "We're watching our routine."

"Go practice. We need it for a little bit."

"WE NEED..."

Mike jumps in the middle of everyone. "There are 80 tv's here. What the f**k are you arguing about?"

"We need room for everybody. The basement doesn't have any furniture."

"Use the kitchen, Conner."

"There's not enough room."

Drogon comes in with Monte. "For f***s sake Conner, use the theater. You can plug your phone into the box on the side. Pull the screen down. It's huge and has lots of seating."

"That will work." He leads them downstairs.

Drogon rubs his face. "I'm going to order furniture and electronics for the basement."

"Don't fill it up. We need some room to practice."

"Alright." He kisses my head and walks out.

Mike smiles at us. "I'm ordering pizza for dinner. There are too many kids here now. Did you watch your cheer?"

"Yes."

"The flips at the end are the best."

Jenna points at the tv. "No. When I get tossed is."

"Let's practice more."

We run outside and get lined up. Mike asks, "How does it work? Do you start in the gym like this? Show me how it starts."

We get into our big group spots and Amber explains it to him. He helps us work out how to get introduced and when to go to the front. Then we start our cheer. He motions for the JV to come up before we need them. It works perfectly. Him and Monte get some more videos for us. Then we go in and eat.

The next day, for science, we work with our partners again. We have to weigh each pile of stuff. But first we have to weigh the paper so we know what to take off. It's confusing. Then we round the weights to the thousandth place to get a total weight. I f**k it up. I thought the thousandth place was the 4th spot. It's not. So, after Akmae teaches me math, he works it out himself. I'm pretty sure he'll never be my partner again. He's not mean about it, I'm just stupid.

I spend the rest of the morning 1-second away from crying. Conner tries to talk to me, but I shake my head at him.

During tutoring, Mrs. Crew gets what happened out of me and I have a full on breakdown. Penn calls Drogon in to calm me down. I want to leave though. I'm too stupid for this.

Drogon puts me on his lap and rubs my back. "You're not stupid, babygirl. You didn't know something, but that's why you're here. This is a place to learn those things."

"Everybody else already knows."

"You'll catch up, baby. You're so smart."

"It's only the second day." I sob into his chest.

Mrs. Crew sits on the other side of the table. "I went through the work you did. You had the place value wrong. You rounded everything to the ten thousandth place. But in the work you did, the rounding was correct. The calculations were correct. You did it, but to one extra space. That's all. It's not worth getting worked up over. And it certainly doesn't make you dumb. It makes you smarter, you did extra work, and your work was right."

"Be patient with yourself, baby. And people have to start over on math problems all the time. You're going to mess up a little step at the beginning and have to redo the whole thing. That's what happens and what school is for."

Mr. Penn comes in. "Sorry, a couple of boys were fighting over a girl who doesn't like either of them. How is everything going here?"

Mrs. Crew smiles. "We're calming down. It was a bad science class this morning."

I play with Drogon's shirt button and snuggle him. He smells good.

The bell wakes me up. He kisses my fingers. "It's 3, baby. Do you have practice today?"

"Yea."

"You go do that. I'll come out in a little bit."

I give him a kiss and stand up. Penn and Crew are still sitting there. They must have been talking. "Bye."

"Have fun."

I change quickly and run to the field. We go over the cheers and chants for the first half hour, then we switch to the fight song routine. We stay in our spots and do the whole thing 5 times. At the end, she stands on her box. Penn and Drogon are out here watching.

"Varsity teams. On Friday, you will be announced during the pep rally. We will do the fight song routine twice. The first time, the Varsity basketball cheer team will stand in the front. The 2nd time will be the Varsity hockey cheer team. You can make up your own cheer if you would like. It must be with the fight song. The rest of us will be doing the fight song routine behind you. You can plan whatever you want. I will not make up the cheer for you. You must practice it on your own. That being said, I know you girls like to flirt and look sexy." We crack up laughing. "However, this is a school event. All students aged 12 and up will be there. You must remain focused on our sport. Make sure it is appropriate for everyone. You're free to go."

I run to Drogon and jump.

He holds me over his head. "You woke up full of energy."

Tadita comes over. "What were you saying, Mr. Penn?"

"Royal protocol states that Thena must be announced as the queen. We're trying to work out what needs to be said. How are you having them announced?"

Drogon puts me on my feet and I jump again. "You don't have to do that."

"Yes, they do, woman. If you're getting announced, it has to be as the queen. That's the highest title you own. It can't be skipped."

"Fine. Can I change the protocol?"

"No."

Tadita smiles. "They are announced when the team comes to the front as the varsity ice hockey cheer team. Then their names are read. After the cheer, the ice hockey boys' names are read."

Drogon nods. "Announcing the team first, is fine. Her name and title will need to be read before anyone else's on the team is."

I shake my head. "On the video, they announce the captain of the team first."

"Queen trumps varsity captain, baby."

"Fine, but you're dealing with Amber."

They crack up laughing. Mr. Penn nods. "I don't know if she'll agree with that. I'll break it to her."

Lila pulls on my arm. "Let's go practice."