Three Cheers for...Who? (5 page)

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Authors: Nancy Krulik

BOOK: Three Cheers for...Who?
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“What are you doing, Lacey?” Rachel asked. “You're the one on top, remember?”
Katie gulped. The top? Already, two girls were climbing onto the backs of the three girls on the second level of the pyramid. That meant Katie was going to have to climb over those girls and stand all the way at the top of the pyramid. And that was really, really high up.
This was
soooo
not good!
Chapter 8
“Lacey, what are you waiting for?” Tess said. She sounded annoyed. “Come on.”
A cheerleader in the bottom row said, “Hurry up. My back is killing me.”
But the pyramid was too high and scary to climb up. There was only so much a fourth-grade girl could do—even if that fourth-grade girl was stuck inside a high school cheerleader's body.
Now there was laughing coming from the other side of the gym floor. The Stallions' cheerleaders were pointing at her.
“That squad is the worst,” one of them said, loud enough for Katie to hear. “We'll definitely beat those losers at the state competition.”
Now Katie felt really bad. The Cherrydale High cheerleaders were not losers. They were really good—at least they were when Katie wasn't on their squad.
“I'll show them!” Katie cheered quietly to herself. She put her foot on the back of one of the cheerleaders on the bottom row and began to climb up the pyramid.
Slowly, Katie managed to climb over the first girl, then hoist herself over to the next row. So far so good. Katie took a deep breath and told herself not to look down. Grabbing on to Rachel's shoulders, Katie somehow scrambled her way to the top and, trying not to wobble, Katie stood up as tall as she could. Then she spread her arms up in a
V
for victory.
“I did it!” Katie shouted. “I did ... WHOA!”
Katie went flying backward off the pyramid, waving her arms wildly up and down as she fell.
Oof!
A moment later Katie landed right on her rear end.
Ouch!
Crash!
Katie wasn't the only one falling. The girls in the pyramid were knocked to either side as Katie fell. They all hit the ground.
Everyone in the gym started laughing—including the Cherrydale High fans.
“Lacey! What is the matter with you?” Tess, the team captain, hissed.
Suddenly tears started falling from Katie's eyes. She just couldn't stay in the gym another minute. And so she did a very fourth-grade girl kind of thing.
She took off and ran. She ran past the squid who was laughing so hard, he was rolling around on the floor. She didn't stop running until she couldn't hear any laughter. By then, she was completely lost somewhere in the huge high school.
Suddenly, Katie felt a cool breeze blowing on the back of her neck. She looked around for an open window. But there weren't any.
That could only mean one thing. This was no ordinary wind. This was the magic wind. It was back!
The magic wind got stronger and stronger after that. It began whipping around wildly, like a powerful tornado. A tornado that was only spinning around Katie. It was blowing so hard, Katie was afraid it might blow her all the way to the real pyramids—in Egypt!
And then it stopped. Just like that. The magic wind was gone. Katie Kazoo was back!
So was Lacey. And, boy, did she look confused!
“What am I doing here?” she asked Katie.
That was a hard question to answer. “Everyone was laughing, so I had to ... I mean
you
had to ...”
Lacey got a funny look on her face. “I ran out of the gym,” she said slowly. “Because everyone was laughing at me. I sort of remember. It's all kind of fuzzy.”
Katie frowned. She felt terrible about what had just happened in the gym. “Well, they weren't just laughing at you,” she told Lacey. “The whole pyramid fell.”
“Because of me,” Lacey said. She shook her head. “I don't know what happened. One minute I was up there, and the n—”
“You were down on the floor,” Katie said, finishing her sentence.
“Yeah,” Lacey said. She rubbed her rear end. “I don't know how I lost my balance.”
“It's not your fault,” Katie told her. “You were up really high. It's a very difficult trick.”
Lacey shook her head. “Katie, how would you know?” she said.
“I know. Believe me,” Katie said. “I'm sorry for what I said the other day. Being a cheerleader takes a lot of skill.”
“That's okay.” Then Lacey gave Katie a funny look. “What are you doing out here, anyway?”
Oh man. How could Katie explain that?
“I ... um . . . well . . . I was looking for the candy machines and I made a wrong turn,” said.
“A majorly wrong turn,” Lacey said. She stood up. “Come on. We'll go get Emma and walk back to our house.”
“But you can't leave,” Katie told her. “The game's only half over. You still have cheers to do.”
“I'm not going back,” Lacey said. “I don't want to be laughed at again.”
“But you can't quit,” Katie said. “Your team needs you.”
“It's called a squad,” Lacey corrected her.
“Same thing,” Katie said. “You're the one who told me that cheerleaders were athletes, remember?”
Lacey shrugged. “I guess. But what does that have to do with anything?”
“Well, real athletes don't quit,” Katie told her. “They keep playing until the game is over. So if you're a real athlete ...”
“I'll go back in there and keep cheering,” Lacey said, standing up and finishing the sentence. “You know, you're pretty smart for a fourth-grader.”
Katie smiled. That was a big compliment—especially from a high school teenager. Lacey was actually a nice person. At least she was when she didn't have pom-poms in her hands.
Chapter 9
When Lacey returned to the gym, all the other cheerleaders refused to talk to her. They kept shooting her dirty looks behind her back.
Katie couldn't believe it. “Those girls are being really mean to your sister,” Katie said once she returned to her seat in the bleachers with the candy she bought in the lobby. She handed Emma W. one of the two packages of red licorice she had. “It's not fair.”
“I know,” Emma W. said. “Anyone can make a mistake.”
“Exactly,” Katie said.
“The thing is,” Emma W. continued, “Lacey's been on top of the pyramid a whole bunch of times, and she's never fallen. So why today?”
Katie frowned. She knew why. But of course she could never explain it to Emma W.
“The other cheerleaders will get over it,” Katie said hopefully. “By the end of the game they'll probably forget all about what happened.”
But that wasn't what happened. In fact, right after the game, the cheerleading coach asked the girls to stay for a squad meeting. Katie and Emma W. could hear everything she was saying from where they were sitting on the bleachers. They were waiting for Lacey to walk home. But that was going to have to wait.

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