Dream Chaser Read online

  “Willow, come on,” Rick urged.

  I looked at him and hoped he couldn’t see my fear. I didn’t move.

  “You can do it,” Kyle said. “Let’s go.”

  I turned to Kyle and his grin of encouragement. He waited expectantly, eager to vault me into space. I liked Kyle, and I wanted to trust him, but I couldn’t. Not him, not even Rick, who had been one of my bases forever. I shook my head and stepped back away from the threatening catapult. The rest of the group had stopped the routine and watched the hold up. I was always the first one at practice, always eager to get started. Cheerleading was like playtime. Until last week, flying was my greatest thrill, and I couldn’t wait to go again. I always pushed for more difficult stunts and higher launches.

  Now the team stared in silence as panic squeezed my chest. I noticed Jilly and Rick share a glance.

  Jilly stepped to my side. “It’s okay, you can do it.”

  “No,” I whispered, paralyzed, arms glued to my side and palms moist with fear. My shoulders hunched tight, my breath came in shallow bursts.

  Jilly got in my face and spoke in slow quiet tones. “Let’s just try it again from the top. Willow, it’s just like getting on a bike.”

  Dread stalked me. I shook my head. “I can’t do this.”

  “You just need a little time. You’re still sore from last week.”

  She was trying to talk me off this ledge of terror, but it didn’t matter what she said. I looked at each of their faces, first Jilly, then Anna, Kyle and finally Rick. My face turned hot in a flush of panic as the words I longed to speak wouldn’t flow through the tightness in my throat. The squad surrounded me, sucking up all the breathable air. My chest tightened as they stared at my unusual behavior. They needed me for the next competition and I wanted to need them too, but they represented pain and fear and maybe even death.

  I didn’t want to fall again. I didn’t want to die.

  All it took to make me slam down into the mat last time was a simple distraction. How could I believe Rick and Kyle would catch me this time? Even if there were a dozen bases on a twenty-foot mat of feathers, there were no guarantees.

  I took another step back and shook my head. I looked at Jilly and whispered, “I think I quit.”

  “No!” She reacted as if I’d slapped her .

  “Willow.” Jilly took my arm and spoke like I was a scared little kid. “It’s going to be okay. You don’t have to do this right now. You can try again later.” She exchanged glances with the others.”

  “I quit,” I said again and felt more secure saying the words out loud.

  They stared, jaws open in shock. More kids squeezed closer as word spread.

  “Come on, you’re our Fearless Wonder,” Kyle teased. He’d always been my biggest supporter, but his eyes looked worried.

  “I quit,” I repeated, more fortified each time I said the words.

  “Hey, what’s going on? I step out for two minutes, and it’s a parking lot in here.” The squad peeled apart to let Ms. Klahn into the middle of the circle. “Is there a problem?” she asked, her brow furrowed when she discovered all eyes on me.

  I faced Coach. The rest of the squad no longer mattered. This woman taught me how to fly, how to reach for the stars and how to be the best I could. I gulped.

  “I quit,” I said quickly before I could chicken out of chickening out.

  Our eyes met and locked. Ms. Klahn could always read my emotions like a Vulcan in a mind meld. She held my gaze and saw my panic and terror.

  She knew. She saw it.

  I would never fly again. Fear had this girl grounded. Permanently.

  “Are you sure?” Ms. Klahn asked after a few moments.

  “Yes.” My heart tried to pound its way out of my chest.

  “I see.” Disappointment colored her face as she contemplated the situation for several beats. She looked into my frightened, determined eyes, and I knew she realized she couldn’t change the reality of the situation. She nodded in understanding. “You may go,” she said softly.

  Relief washed over me and took away the weight of the world that I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying. The stark fear and panic I felt earlier evaporated. I exhaled a breath I’d been holding. My shoulders sagged in release.

  “What about Regionals?” Anna blurted. “We can’t win without Willow. She’s the only one who can do kick triple twist basket.”

  “Looks like we’ll have to get back to work and redo the routine then. Let’s go. What are you all standing around for?” Ms. Klahn barked.

  I sure ruined her day, but it couldn’t be helped. This was about survival.

  I walked through the throng of my friends and former squad members toward the locker room. Their eyes followed me, filled with a combination of shock, confusion and anger. Jilly ran after me.

  “Willow, wait. Think this through. You can’t walk away from cheer like this. Okay, you’re not ready to fly again yet. You just need some time. We’ll figure out Regionals, but we can’t win State without you.” Jilly pleaded. “Take a few days off, let your bruises heal. It’ll be okay. You can be a base at Regionals, nothing hard. Just don’t give up.”

  “Jilly, unless you plan on handing in your uniforms too, get back in formation,” Coach yelled across the gym.

  “The team needs you. You just can’t walk away so easily. I need you!” Jilly pressed.

  Easy didn’t begin to describe the mix of my pain and emotions.

  “Remember how we talked about Nationals, and that we were going to get our belly buttons pierced when we win?”

  I grimaced. My belly would remain pure and unmarred as the driven snow. No more National titles, no more competitions and certainly no belly piercing.

  “Come on, Willow. Work with me here,” Jilly leaned in close to my face and pleaded

  “No, you work with me! Nothing’s going to change.” I didn’t want to hurt Jilly, but I wouldn’t agree to something I couldn’t do anymore. She just didn’t get it.

  “Don’t say that. Promise you’ll think about it for a while. It’s the least you can do. This squad made a pact, and you were first to sign it. We had a deal.”

  Jilly was right. We’d all made a team pact. But everything changed the day I felt my body crunch into the gym floor. Pact or no pact, I wanted out.

  “Even if I wait a few days, it won’t change anything,” I said.

  “But you’ll think about it?” Jilly lit up as hope fueled her fire of determination.

  Crud. I wanted to be free of this, but I didn’t want to hurt my best friend either. “Fine, I’ll think about it, but don’t get your hopes up.” Maybe Jilly needed time to accept my decision.

  “Woo hoo!” Jilly leapt in the air. “You won’t regret it. Everything is going to be fine.”

  “Jilly.” Ms. Klahn yelled again.

  “Go. They need you.” I turned my back on my best friend and walked away.

  Everything would not be fine. Not fine at all.

  * * *

  Normally, Jilly dropped me home, but waiting for her to finish cheer was the last thing I needed to do. So, I walked home in the early darkness of a late February afternoon. The long cold walk helped clear my head from all the drama. My shoulders even began to release some of the tension I’d been clinging to. I let it all go. Well, all but the niggling reminder that Jilly made me agree to think more about quitting before I made it final.

  Now I had to figure out how to let Jilly down without hurting her feelings. Jilly was nothing if not persistent. That girl could maneuver people to do pretty much anything she wanted. She wasn’t used to hearing the word no.

  I crossed the street and jumped over icy patches on the frozen road. My toes were like icicles. Wearing flats with no socks wasn’t the best idea, but then again, I didn’t know I’d quit cheer today and have to walk home. I walked past a couple blocks of huge homes that overlooked Lake Monona and veered in a few blocks to the older homes built so close together that only a single lane drive
way separated them. By the time I reached our house on Oakridge, my fingers felt like frozen sausages, despite how far I pushed them into my pockets. I ran up the ancient wooden steps, across the porch and through the antique front door into the welcoming warmth of home.

  Inside, the aroma of cookies filled the house.

  My fluffy dog, Twinkie, skittered around the corner and jumped on me. “Hey girl.” I ruffled her ears. “Aren’t my hands cold?”

  Twinkie isn’t her real name. When I got her for my eleventh birthday, I was still in my dance obsession stage and named her Twyla after the famous dancer and choreographer Twyla Tharp. Unfortunately, when my little sister started to talk, she couldn’t say Twyla, so she started calling her Twinkie. Much to my frustration, it stuck. So my beautiful Twyla is a Twinkie.

  “Mom?” I called.

  “In the kitchen.” Her voice echoed off the high stucco ceiling.

  I dumped my school bag, balanced my coat on the entryway coat tree and wandered through the cluttered living room into the kitchen.

  “I didn’t think you were home until Thursday.” I rubbed my arms to warm up.

  “Surprise,” she said and pulled a pan of white bean cranberry cookies from the oven. Even cookies were healthy at our house. “I’m here until Sunday, then I’m on the Tokyo route. What are you doing home so early? You’re usually not home for another hour or so.” She placed the pan on the stovetop to cool.

  “Yeah, that’s something I need to talk to you about.” I stepped to the stove and opened the oven door. Hot air poured out, and I held my hands out to warm them as if it were a roaring fire. I inhaled the warm air. Twinkie lay in the corner and kept watch.

  Mom faced the counter, dropping dough onto a clean pan with her fingers. She wore her light brown hair stuffed into a clip at the back of her head with loose strands hanging out. She wore an old faded denim shirt, loose sweats and Birkenstocks with socks.

  “What’s up?” she asked, rubbing an itch on her nose with her arm.

  Inching backward for maximum heat exposure, I turned to warm my rear end. “I quit cheer today. Sort of.” I added, since Jilly roped me into delaying the inevitable.

  “Really?” Mom stopped messing with the cookie sheet and turned to me, her fingers covered in dough. “I thought you loved cheer.”

  “I did, but now I don’t know. I think it’s time to do something else.” I rotated again in front of the open oven door like a rotisserie chicken in front of the oven.

  “What’s the ‘sort of’ part?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Jilly. She kind of made me promise to give it a few more days before I make up my mind.”

  “You mean more time for her to change your mind?” Mom grinned and then plopped a blob of dough into her mouth.

  “Pretty much.” I turned and grabbed a warm cookie from the counter.

  “Did you have a fight with Jilly?” She reached around me for the cookie pan from the stove.

  “Why would you say that?” I took a bite of cookie.

  “Considering how much cheer has been your life, it’s a logical question. I would hate to see a pattern develop.”

  “There’s no pattern and there’s nothing to worry about. I think you’ve spent too many hours at 30,000 feet.”

  “I have and I’m sorry I wasn’t here the day of your accident.”

  “It’s okay. I’m fine.”

  “Yes, you are, but I hear your Foods grade isn’t.” She winked

  “That little snot. Breezy is the world’s biggest blabber mouth.”

  “How about your Dad? He and I have a secret connection with clandestine meetings and covert communication about our kids.”

  “Oh, I should have known. What else did he say?”

  “That you have a C minus in that class?”

  “What a narc! I told him not to tell. It’s a dumb class and should have been an easy A.”

  “Haven’t you learned by now that your father and I don’t do secrets?” She held out a chunk of cookie dough. I swiped it up with my finger and ate it.

  “So what’s going on with you and the rest of the squad?”

  “I don’t know...nothing really.”

  “If you say so. I’d hate to see you quit for the wrong reasons. Are you warm enough yet? Because pretty soon the kitchen is going to be so hot this pan of cookies will bake without closing the oven door.”

  “Actually, I am. Thanks.” I snapped the oven door shut, grabbed a handful of cookies, and left the kitchen.

  Chapter 4

  The next morning, I sat on the edge of our crowded bay window watching for Jilly. It was a tight fit among the bunch of pots and planters placed to catch the short winter sunlight. Every fall, my dad hauls in all the plants from the front porch and garden. It’s a veritable potter’s hell of scraggly looking cilantro, garlic, and sprouts. The plants looked pretty bad this time of year, but Dad insists on his organic garden.

  Jilly pulled up in the beat-up Chevy her brother gave her when he left for college.

  “Bye, see you tonight,” I yelled to no one in particular and rushed out the door. Outside, frost covered the steps and sidewalk as the morning sun hadn’t risen high enough to melt it. I hopped into the warm car and pushed my book bag on the floor.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Jilly said. “I changed clothes like five times. I couldn’t make up my mind.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m in no hurry to get to first block. I have a group project in Marketing. Jessica is in my group, and she’s been a real bitch since she got kicked out of that musical.”

  “Oh my God, I heard her parents were so pissed about the pot brownies. Her dad is a cop, and he went totally postal.” Jilly backed out of the driveway and onto the road.

  “You have to admit, that was a pretty stupid thing to do, bringing it to school.”

  “Well, she never was the sharpest tool in the shed,” said Jilly. “Speaking of which, I’ve been thinking about your problem.”

  “Why does not being the sharpest tool in the shed make you think of me, and what is my problem?” I gripped the strap of my bag. I did not want to go down this road again with Jilly.

  “You know, cheer. Quitting is not the brightest thing; plus, your quitting is a problem.”

  Great, here we go already. What’d that take? Twelve seconds?

  “So, I realized that you’re a little scared about flying again, which makes total sense. Heck, you bit the mat pretty hard. You should be scared.”

  I’m not scared, I’m terrified!

  “And it was only a week ago, so you’re probably still a little sore from the fall.” Jilly tried to talk and watch the road at the same time.

  “You want to see my bruises? They’ve changed from black and blue to green and yellow.” I pulled my coat and shirt back to reveal my multi-colored shoulder.

  “Ew! Does it hurt?” She cringed.

  “Not anymore.” I adjusted my coat back in place.

  Jilly snapped back to her bubbly self. “So about cheer. I think we need to ease you back. Do some little stuff first. Do a scorpion, and then after a while a simple toe touch basket toss. Work your way back up to the hard stuff.”

  My chest tightened at the mere mention of stunts. What was wrong with me anyway? Why did I switch to panic mode every time I thought about cheer? But what I did know is that there was no way Jilly or the even the entire cheer squad could force me back in that gym. Not happening.

  “You know, Jilly, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I’m pretty much done.”

  Jilly delivered a stubborn glare. “No you’re not! You promised to give it some time, and this is not giving it time. You can’t just shut cheer out; shut ME out! You have an obligation to the squad and even the school. We need to go back to Nationals and defend our title. No one can fly like you! No one else can do half of those tricks!”

  Jilly was right about the stunts. No one else had the nerve to even try some of them. Rick and Kyle have amazing power when t
hey toss. Most of the girls are afraid of being teamed with them. The guys strength gave me more time to complete all the twists and flips. Most of the girls were too chicken to try. I chewed at my lip with a combination of guilt and worry about how I’d make sure Jilly didn’t twist my arm and get me back to cheer.

  “If we don’t have you, we lose Nationals. Heck, we’ll be lucky to get through Regionals on Saturday. We need you back as soon as you can.”

  “You’ll win Regionals easy. The biggest competition is from West, and you’ll wipe the floor with them.” I tried to distract Jilly from her argument.

  “Okay, this weekend shouldn’t be a huge problem, but still, we can only go so far without you.” Jilly pulled into the student parking lot where kids walked between cars toward the doors like a swarm of locust.

  “So what are you guys doing to rework the routine?”

  “Anna is taking your place, but she won’t do a Double Down Twist Cradle and her Rainbow isn’t that good. I’m in her place.”

  “What? You’re flying? Why didn’t you tell me?” I couldn’t believe it. Jilly was our best tumbler, so Coach never had her fly.

  Jilly grinned as she pulled into a parking spot. “See why we need you back so bad? With me flying, I’m bound to screw it up.”

  “No, you’re not. You’ll do great.” I grabbed my bag and got out. Jilly beeped the car locked. “I’m so proud of you, you’re a flyer now.” I bumped Jilly’s shoulders as we walked.

  “Stop changing the subject. You are coming back. Hear me! Take two more days off, and then you’re back at practice putting the rest of us to shame.”

  Why bother arguing? I wasn’t coming back. I didn’t know how I’d eventually convince Jilly. There would have to be a really good reason, but what? What would make it impossible for me to do cheer, other than another accident?

  * * *

  During choir, Jilly wouldn’t stop bugging me. She kept scribbling notes on our sheet music with all the reasons I couldn’t quit. Ms. Fuller, our choir teacher, kept giving her the evil eye.

  The bell finally rang and saved me from reading any more of Jilly’s annoying scribbles. Our music looked like a graffiti rag with pencil scrawls in every space. Glad to escape, I grabbed my bag and headed for the door. Now I had to endure the entire squad in the atrium at lunch. Jilly made sure everyone knew I agreed to rethink quitting. But it didn’t matter what they said or how much Jilly begged. I would never fly again.