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

  Once we’re in pce, the Emcee says, “First off, I’d like to congratute all of the squads who’ve performed today; it is not easy to practice in this short amount of time with people you barely know and perform as well as you have! But, before we announce the finalists, please, give a hand to all the dies who performed for you this morning.”

  The audience’s appuse and cheering is almost deafening. After it dies down, the Emcee says, “And now I would like to announce the finalists for today’s competition. The finalists are, in no particur order, squad 3 led by Coach Jell… Squad 11 led by Coach Adams…”

  Immediately, we all began jumping, cheering, and hugging each other before we were finally told to settle down and get back in position by Ava. That left me in such a happy daze that I didn’t even hear the rest of who would be competing in the finals with us.

  “The finals will begin at 1:00. At the conclusion of the final’s performance…”

  Honestly, I just tuned her out at this point since she’s just telling the audience the times and sequence of events after lunch. When we’re dismissed for lunch, all of us walk over to the cafeteria, chattering away at each other excitedly. It seems all of us have the same idea since I notice that we all have light lunches. It wouldn’t do to have cramps during our performance, now would it? As we eat, it’s easy to see how nervous we all are. Sure, we made the finals, but we want first pce. The thing is, we have to beat 4 other teams to do that, and they are at least as good as we are.

  At 12:30, we met Coach Adams in the end zone, where she told us to meet her. She then led us to a spot away from the stadium to prepare.

  “Alright, dies, I’m very impressed with how well you performed this morning. I looked at the judges’ tally sheets, and you missed first pce by three points... Three points. That’s it.” She pauses to let that sink in. “I believe that you can gain more than those three points. You can bet your cute little asses that Coach Melson will be pushing her girls to do better than they did this morning. She knows just how closely matched we are, and in my opinion, she should be worried!

  “Technically, you dies are better than them since your dance routine was much harder than theirs. So, this is what we did wrong...”

  She proceeds to tell us all of the things we did wrong that morning. She listed all of the things the judges dinged us on. All of it was minor, but when you’re this closely matched, there’s no such thing as a minor mistake.

  We move to our starting positions for our routine and walk through it slowly as Coach Adams points out where each girl is making a mistake. We run through it five more times before she has us run through it again at full speed and is satisfied.

  Performance pcement was randomly chosen for the finals, so our squad is the second to st to perform. Only this time, instead of performing one part of our routines, we’d be doing them one after the other. We begin with our chant, then our cheer, and finally our dance routine.

  Standing there in our final pose, I can’t think of a way that we could have done any better than we did. I am so proud of our squad. We trot off the field waving to the crowd. Now we just have one squad that needs to perform, and then we get to wait for the judges’ decision. Fingers crossed, I think we’ll pce quite well.

  I hear several girls groan as the st squad messes up their dance. But all I could think when I saw it was that at least we won’t come in st.

  Then the emcee calls us all back out onto the field, and we nervously stand there as the judges discuss each squad’s performance. Finally, about 10 minutes ter, they motion for the emcee to come over and talk to her for a few moments, then hand her a folded sheet of paper.

  The Emcee walks back to the stage set up on the field and clears her throat. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she says, holding up the sheet of paper. “I have the judges’ decision. The judges have informed me that this is the hardest decision they’ve had to make in quite some time. It was a tight competition since only one point separates first and second pce.

  “So, without further ado, in fifth pce is squad 18 led by Coach Bennett.” The squad captain and their coach trot up to the stage and are handed a trophy. The audience cheers for them.

  “Fourth pce goes to squad 14 led by Coach Merritt.” The squad captain and their coach trot up to the stage and are handed a trophy while the audience cps and cheers for them.

  “Third pce is squad 3 led by Coach Jell.” Again, the squad captain and their coach trot up to the stage and are handed a trophy. The audience cps and cheers for them. So far so good, but I’m really on edge now, and I almost can’t breathe.

  “And finally, in first pce is squad... 11, led by Coach Adams!” All of us lose it, yelling, jumping around, and hugging each other as the coach and Olivia go to the stage to collect our trophy. I can’t even wrap my head around the fact that we won. It was a close call, but as they say, a miss by an inch is as good as a mile when it comes to winning or losing.

  After the ceremony, we head back, where each of us is given the appropriate trophy to take home with us, and Coach Adams pulls me to the side for a moment. “Rei, you have a natural fir for this, so if you keep up the hard work, you’ll go far. I’m going to be keeping my eye on you, so if you keep improving as you have here, I’ll likely be inviting you to cheer at my college.”

  All I can do is nod dumbly in answer. I enjoy cheerleading. Well, it’s more like, I love it. So, hell yeah! I’d love to be a cheerleader for her. She may be a tough cookie and more than a little picky, but she cares, and it shows. I find it funny that at first, I didn’t want to even try out.

  That done, we head back to our rooms to clean up, change clothes, and finish packing so we can head home. Thankfully, Emma’s mom has already informed us that we’ll be staying overnight at a hotel rather than driving back since it’s already been a very long, tiring day.

  As you can guess, cheer camp was a lot of work, but we learned so much and made some good friends as well.

  We carry everything down to the van, load it up, and the three of us crawl into the van. As tired as we are, you’d think we’d be quiet on the drive to the hotel, but you’d be wrong; we chattered up a storm.

  As Mrs. Albert checks us in, I see a rge gift shop and a rather fancy-looking restaurant, as well as a cafe-looking pce across from it in the lobby. The bellman carries our bags up to our suite. Once Mrs. Albert tips the bellman, she turns to us and says, “Okay, girls. You’re free to do what you want until 6. You need to be back then because you need to dress for dinner. I’m sure you saw the gift shop, and they also have a pool you can py in. Just remember to take your phones with you and be back on time, please.”

  Of course, we promise we will and waste little time in heading to our bedroom to dig through our bags for our flip-flops, coverups, and bikinis. Nothing was said by any of us about what we wanted to do, but then again, we’re so close, nothing needs to be said when it comes to this. We all love swimming, so given the chance, you can be sure that’s where we’ll be found.

  When I undress, Kelly surprises me when she says, “Jesus, Rei! How? I mean, really, just how are you so big? When we first met you, you had the smallest boobs amongst us, but now, you have the biggest.”

  I merely gnce at her and snort as I arch an eyebrow. “Have you met my mom?” I return to dressing as Emma and Kelly ugh. She’s right though; we’ve had to repce my lingerie 3 times so far this year. Apparently, the boobie fairy loves me, but hopefully, their growth won’t continue at the breakneck pace of this year. If it does, I’m going to be overly endowed like my mom, and honestly, I’d prefer not to have DD boobs like her. First off, I might get used to them, but I’m sure they’d get in the way and throw me off bance all the time, and secondly, I get enough attention from boys already without having cow tits.

  Seriously, I’m 13 and wear a 32B bra. My damn boobs are big enough already; thank you very much. With just how rge they are now, considering how petite I am, they look huge. So, if I’ll grow taller instead of my boobs seemingly growing overnight, I’ll be happy. Sure, I’ve gained an inch or so in height, but for the little height I grew, Jer gained three or four inches. Jer may not care about my height, but I do. I’m tired of being one of the shortest girls in our grade.

  Look, I don’t dislike how I look at all. So, don’t get me wrong, and I don’t want to sound vain when I say this, but I do look good, damn good as a matter of fact. I’m well toned, as in defined abdominal muscles along with shapely, long legs that are killer if I go by what Jer tells me. Plus, I’m absolutely adorable. Add together me being fit, my boobs, cute butt, and slender waist; I have more than a decent set of curves for my age.

  Anyway, we change, drop our phones, wallets, and other needed things into our bags, and head down to the pool. We don’t py much, more float around or dip into the water to cool off, but otherwise, we pretty much y on some lounges, enjoy the sun, and talk while we listen to music. I set an arm on my phone for 5 so we’d have time to drop by the gift shop, so when it goes off, we gather our things, put on our coverups, and make our way over to it.

  As we enter, a rather pretty clerk says, “Welcome, dies. Let me know if you need any help.”

  We reply, “Hello,” and nod at her, then begin looking around. I find several little things to buy as souvenirs for my family and boyfriend. I also found a rather cute pair of amethyst earrings.

  When we head over to check out, the clerk asks, “Would you like to charge this to your room, or?”

  Emma charges it to the room while Kelly and I pay for our purchases. It wouldn’t be right to try to make her mom pay for all this, even if our parents would reimburse her. Regardless, my total is less than 200, so I have more than enough in my account to pay for it. Between the money I’m given every month for clothes and my retively liberal allowance for helping out around the house, I have a fairly rge amount of money. Of course, other than buying clothes, I never really spend much since Jer pays for everything when we go anywhere.

  Back upstairs, we drop our bags off in our room, take turns showering, and Emma’s mom pokes her head in to say she’ll do our hair after we dress. We already know we have to wear our cocktail dresses we brought with us for dinner, so dressing is easy. Just add stockings and our heels, then do our makeup. As we’re working on our makeup, Emma’s mom comes back in and styles our hair for us. In my opinion, between the way we’re dressed, the makeup, and our hair, we look to be 15 or 16, not 13.

  Dinner is fabulous, though, toward the end, all of us are about ready to fall asleep. Back upstairs in our room, we wearily undress, clean our faces, and crawl into bed and are probably out before our heads hit the pillows.

  The next morning, we’re woken up early and told to dress comfortably. For us, that means a skirt, a halter top, ankle socks, and sports shoes. After dressing, we pack everything again and carry it out to the van, then head back inside to the cafe to eat. A half-hour ter, we’re on the road and heading home.