THE DAILY WRITE

It’s Victory for You and Me

What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done because of peer pressure?

It seemed like a good enough idea at the time. What made it a really good idea was that my new school was super prim and proper. Our cheerleaders were not allowed to do any splits or flips or sexy moves, and definitely nothing too athletic… I might actually have a prayer! All they were allowed to do was jump up and down, clap their hands, wave their arms, and look cute with pompoms. And I KNEW I could at least do THAT. So my friends and I decided that we would ALL give it a try. We would try out to be cheerleaders.

We knew we would all stand a pretty good chance. We could almost taste the salty-sweet taste of victory on our sweaty brows. And we were driven to be the best cheerleaders we could be.

On the appointed day, we showed up in our t-shirts and sweatpants, ready for cheerleader tryouts. I thought it would be a matter of us showing them which of us could yell the loudest, jump the highest, clap the hardest, and swing those pompoms. “Go Team, Go!” We were ready for anything.

So, here’s how it played out. The cheerleaders from last year would teach all the new candidates a certain cheer. This happened on a Monday. On the following Monday, we would perform that cheer, lots of times, in lots of different groups. And by the end of next Monday’s tryout, they would announce which lucky girls would be selected to be on the new team of cheerleaders for this academic year. Yay!

The cheer we learned was easy enough. Oh sure, a couple of tricky hand movements, and a few steps that required some balance while we’d be reciting a catchy rhyme. And when we got to the last line of the cheer, we would do some skipping/galloping steps, and then throw ourselves forward while arching our backs in perfect form, while screaming the words “A,B,C and 1,2,3, it’s a victory for you and me!”

The cheer was easy enough to learn and remember. What we really had to practice and perfect was the arching of the back on that final step of the cheer. If we could nail that part of the cheer, well, victory would be ours for the whole coming year.

We had seven days to learn and perfect that cheer. Every waking moment, we were practicing. Stepping, turning, spinning, clapping, galloping, and arching our backs for that final jump at the end. By Friday of that week, we were ALL ready to nail that cheer. We were going to master that cheer as it had never been mastered before. Then, it happened.

I was on my way to lunch that Friday, cheering happily to myself. I was so full of enthusiasm for the cheer-in-progress. …Is now a good time to tell you that the whole building was made of cell block concrete? Will that help you imagine the sound of my skull making full contact with that unforgiving cell block concrete wall?

One minute I was cheering my cheer, and in the very next instant, everything went black before my eyes. One minute I was screaming, “A,B,C, and 1,2,3, it’s a victory for you and … BOOM!” My head was ringing. I could hardly balance myself. And I definitely could not see straight.

This next part amazes me most of all: I told no one.

Three days later was the Monday of the cheerleader tryouts. I never told my friends why, (my head was still ringing) but I told them I was certain that I was never meant to be a cheerleader. “Go on ahead without me, I said, and good luck! … Please. Just save yourselves!!!”

Key message: Some of us were never meant to be cheerleaders. I think I’ve known that all along.