No sooner do I rinse my pte and pce it in the dishwasher than the doorbell rings. I give Mom a hug and kiss and make my way to the door to meet Kelly and Emma. After my usual dive bomb hug from Kelly and a quick hug from Emma, we walk to the school.

  Along the way, Emma says, “You remembered to wear your dance outfit under your clothes, right?” I nod and she continues. “Good, you don’t want to be showing everyone your panties, even if you do wear cute ones. Oh, and a great choice of an outfit. Cute is always best and remember to smile during your routine. That’s one thing they are adamant about.”

  Kelly chimes in with, “Also, take it one thing at a time and if you do mess up, don’t giggle or get flustered and stop. Never stop, just keep going. They’ll ding you for mistakes, but ding you a heck of a lot more if you stop.”

  I ugh and they look at me funny. “Rex, I know all this. Okay? How many times have we gone over everything?” I pause and pull them both in for a hug, and murmur, “Thank you for everything. I’ll do my very best to pass. Trust me, I’ve got this. You two have made sure I do, alright?”

  They both “Mhmm,” and after a few more seconds, I let them go. They each grab one of my hands and we continue the short walk to school. When we arrived, I looked around to see that there were far fewer people than I expected. Kelly said that there were only 4 girls on the squad st year and I see 11, including us. Of course, that also includes Karen, whose Mom is also here, although she’s the only parent in attendance.

  We walk over to the other girls. Karen, you already know, but there’s also Kaitlynn, Shelly, and Bethany. I’ve already met them at the sleepovers Emma and Kelly had. The others introduce themselves as Sophia, Bel, Ava, and Anika.

  Soon, the coach blows her whistle and we gather around her. “Okay, girls. For those who don’t know me, I'm the cheerleading coach, Mrs. Kato.” She looks at me when she says that, so I suppose she knows everyone else. “I know most of you, but for those of you who don’t know the drill, you’ll be graded on your cheers, how crisp and accurate your moves are, and on basic tumbling. You’ll have 5 minutes to showcase yourself to us, so do your best and good luck!”

  I already knew there was no set routine we had to perform because that’s what Kelly said, so we worked up a retively short routine and practiced until I had it down to the point of performing without having to think about it. One of the things I learned, and that amazed them that I was able to do, is cartwheels into a front handspring and nd in full front splits. I was rather proud of myself for that one.

  One by one, the coach calls our names to perform. Even though I don’t like her, I have to admit that Karen is rather good and it’s no wonder she made the squad. Her personality is a different story, ugh! Soon enough, it's finally my turn and I run through my routine, making sure I smile as I do, finish with cartwheels into the handspring into front splits, and yell out, “Go Big Red!” From the looks of the coach and the other two doing the judging, they are rather impressed.

  Once everyone has finished, they have us take a seat while they compare notes. In my opinion, Bethany, Ava, and Shelly didn’t do all that well since their moves were rather sloppy, so I have doubts that they’ll make it. I realize that I’m new to all this, but 4 hours of practice every day for 3 weeks makes a huge difference. Plus, I had two cheerleaders teaching me exactly what I needed to know to make the squad. So, I’m fairly sure that I will make it.

  15 minutes ter, the coach blew her whistle to get our attention. Once she has it, she continues, “I’d like to thank everyone for coming today. To start, everyone did pretty well, unfortunately, not everyone did as well as they could have. So, if I call your name, I expect to see you here starting Monday. Emma, Karen, Rei, Kelly, Sophia, Bel, Kaitlynn, and Anika. I hope this doesn’t discourage the other dies from trying again. Ladies, I’ll see you on Monday.”

  Emma and Kelly are both smirking as they look at me and Kelly says, “See, we told you that you’d make it.”

  Their smug attitude makes me giggle and then grin. “You did, but it’s all thanks to your help that I made it onto the squad.” I pull them into a hug and murmur, “Thank you so much.”

  And, I mean it. I originally didn’t even want to be bothered with it, though you know why I changed my mind. I may have to deal with a snippy, backstabbing Karen, but every other girl I’ve met has been very nice.

  Speaking of Karen, I’m going to have to figure out a way of dealing with her because there is no way I am going to put up with her ‘I’m better than you’ attitude that seems to stem from her parents being well-off. She may not realize it, but my Mom and Dad are probably far better off money-wise than they are. After all, they are massive stakeholders in their company. For that matter, no one’s family who pays for them to attend Hoffstead could be poor as it’s an expensive school. In my opinion, that girl needs a rather hard comeuppance. Something to think about, but I suppose if she leaves me alone, I will leave her alone. Not that I think that’s all that likely with her personality.

  We almost run home and after saying ‘ter’ we head to our respective houses. I don’t even make it inside when Mom comes rushing out to me to demand, “Well?” I decide to tease her a little and paste a sad expression on my face as I look down and she says, “Oh, I’m so sorry, Honey. There’s always next year.”

  I quietly say, “You know that I gave it my all to make the squad, right?”

  “I know, you promised me that you would.”

  I grin mischievously as I look up at her. “Then, it shouldn’t surprise you that I made it.”

  Her eyes widen as she smiles “You little snot! You made me think you didn’t,” and ughs. She pulls me to her and hugs me tightly. “I’m so proud of you.”

  After she releases me, I head upstairs to gather up my things for swimming, along with a change of clothes and a nightgown since I’ll be spending the night at Kelly’s. Then I change into one of my bikinis and slip on a cover-up. It should be fairly obvious that we’re meeting up at the Jensen’s to go swimming because they have the nicest pool in the neighborhood so we tend to gather there. I’m sure others will be there as well.

  Of course, that also means Jeremy will most likely be there as well. He’s backed off a bit where I am concerned, but I don’t believe for a moment that he’s given up on me since I still catch him watching me from time to time. Especially since I began wearing bikinis.

  Emma is by far the cutest of all of us, but I tend to catch the most attention for one feature, my eyes. Emma and Kelly were right about that. As my circle of friends and acquaintances grows, so does the number of compliments I receive about my eyes. I can honestly say that I enjoy that they set me apart from everyone else. Oh, I’m sure that I will run into at least one more who thinks my eyes are weird. I already have Karen, who said something rather rude about them, but as Emma said, F’ the bitch!

  I should probably mention that Mom has taken me shopping several times in the intervening weeks to round out my wardrobe, although I still only have the original two pairs of jeans that she bought me. During our trips to the mall to window shop, I’ve bought myself several more bikinis because, you know, just one style isn’t enough.

  Even though I’ve decided to be what I always wanted to be, the girl from my dreams, I’m still not sure about dating someone. I might be comfortable with myself, but I’m not that comfortable.

  Anyway, once I’m ready I troop downstairs to meet up with David and Diane and we make our way over to the Jensen’s. After we ate lunch, we pumped up a few pool mattresses and sunned ourselves as we floated around.

  Now, the first time I wore a bikini, David gave me quite an odd look, which I blew off. I just thought it was David being strange about me wearing one for the first time, but he’s still giving me odd looks even now.

  Paddling over to him, I quietly ask, “What’s your deal?”

  “Huh?”

  “You keep giving me these strange looks when I wear a bikini.” Deciding to tease him a little, I grin pyfully as I say, “Oh, that’s it, so you like my bikini.”

  He blushes and halfway stammers out, “I-if it was on a gi...another girl, then yeah I might, but no, I don’t like it.”

  I pull my sungsses down on my nose as I frown because I think I look great in it. “Why’s that?”

  “It’s far too sexy and revealing for someone your age. I can’t believe Mom allowed you to buy that. Has Dad even seen you in it?”

  I roll my eyes and wave my arms around to all the other girls in the pool. “Of course, Dad has seen me in it. All the other girls are wearing simir suits. So, what’s...” Then it dawns on me. “Ah, so that’s it. You’re uncomfortable seeing me wearing one. By the way, Mom was the one who chose this bikini.”

  “You could’ve refused.”

  “What? No way! I like the style and the way I look in this.“ Then a thought hits me and I ask in what I consider to be a sultry tone. “Hey, don’t you think I look like those girls in those magazines you like so much?”

  I giggle as he blushes furiously, which is exactly what I was after. I suppose he tries to cover up his embarrassment because he responds, “As if that could ever happen,” and then he spshes me in the face. I let out a rather girly scream, spsh him back and ugh. Spshing me once more, he gives me a dirty look and paddles away from me as quickly as he can.