Foreword by Carla Ann

The door opened slowly. Inside, the elite Holden Coyotes Dance Squad is busy learning a routine. The girls are smiling despite the sweat and exertion. Two captains in front of the squad appear even more intense. Moving as sisters and leading by example they prod their team, their aim set on State or even National titles, lofty goals for their first year team. Tiny Co-Captain Tiffany Jacobson is entirely in her element and it shows. No one could watch and disagree.

Principal Henry watched, unobserved, as her friend Mandy Holt worked the girls. ‘She’s right, they have the makings of a championship squad.’ She smiled at the irony. ‘It almost didn’t happen.’ Weeks ago factions had allied to prevent Tiffany from trying out. The girl’s family and friends had to take their fight before the school board. Tiffany herself had finally laid matters to rest, courageously facing down her accusers at the meeting. She had merely asked for the same chance as any other girl. Luckily, the Board agreed. ‘Thank God for that. I’d still be trying to fill vacant jobs — certainly Mandy’s.’

She’d never seen a child blossom like Tiffany had this year. From bright, confused, and scared little boy in a world of bullies to this self-aware girl with so much talent; her transformation from pariah to pretty insider was amazing. Her authenticity made her a virtual friend magnet. ‘It’s worth the trouble she’s caused me. She has such great friends… If only her enemies will let her be’. She wondered what struggles and triumphs her small charge would see this school year. A lucky educator is blessed to mentor at least one student in their career whose intelligence, talent, and drive spurs them to great things in adulthood. ‘I wonder if she’ll be one?’

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Viewing Note: This story should be viewed with the Edwardian Script ITC font installed on your Windows platform in the c:/Windows/Fonts directory. Microsoft Word installs this font automatically.

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The Legal Stuff: Dreaming of Cheers  © 2010 By Tiffany Shar
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright  © 2010 By Tiffany Shar. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
 
 
Preface
 
 
It’s been a long road to publishing this third book in my Standing Up to Life Series. I began writing the first book over two years ago, putting the first two books out in a quick succession of six months work. The third book became more challenging to finish as I had set my sights on only writing a trilogy. I declared myself finished last August, but found myself unhappy with the ending. Well seven months later I feel this is ready to give to you, my readers, and I hope you will enjoy it. It has not gone on the track I had expected, and indeed there will probably be at least one more book following this in order to complete Tiffany’s story. I hope you will find that your wait has been worth it.

Like the first two books I posted here, I will be posting a full copy here on BigCloset. This time I am going to upload two chapters per week to the site (except this week I will post three - two tonight). The full version should be completely posted by August. For those that cannot wait however, I have an e-book version of the full book available from Lulu.com as of today. You may find it at My Store. My assumption is that the majority of my readers would be more interested in this edition of the book rather than a hardback or paperback. If you enjoy this work perhaps you will consider supporting me by purchasing it ($5.95 for the eBook).

Thanks again, and I hope you enjoy reading Dreaming of Cheers!

Dedication
It amazes me that I have reached the end of another book, and it only seems fair that I give a dedication to all of the authors that have so inspired my view point, and whom I draw inspiration from — sometimes without even knowing it. First, to all the ghost writers who contributed under the names of Carolyn Keene, Franklin W. Dixon, Victor Appleton, and Gertrude Chandler Warner; you have my undying gratitude for being the light in my darkness as a child. Their works inspired my imagination and a desire to read like no others could. As a teenager and young adult I would like to thank authors such as J.K. Rowling, J.R. Tolkien, Christopher Paolini, Stephanie Meyer, Clive Cussler, and Tom Clancy for continuing their inspiration.

Life is too short to not imagine greater things. Imagination is something that comes easy as a child, growing ever more difficult with age. On account of that I would like to dedicate this lastly to my readers for indulging my own imagination of the tale of Tiffany and her friends.

Chapter 1:

THE ALARM WENT off in my room, pushing me to wake up to begin a busy Monday, beginning an equally busy week. I found myself padding into the bathroom attached to my room, jumping in the shower, and letting hot water roll down my body. I forced myself to be quick though, skipping washing my long hair, so that I could get my clothes on and go down the hall to Amy’s room. The two of us had convinced our parents that it was necessary for me to stay over Sunday night so that we could do each other’s hair for the day.

Today was our ‘crazy-hair’ day of spirit week at Holden Junior High. Since we were both co-captains on the dance squad we were expected to really go all out for each day. As I walked into her room she said, “Finally! I thought you were going to wait until we were late for school before you came in.”

I just stuck my tongue out at her in response since I was too tired to say anything. “You or me first?” I asked in the most polite response I could give at six in the morning.

“Well seeing as how you’re the most asleep and grouchy, why don’t I do yours first Tiffany?” She suggested.

“Okay, thanks,” I told her with the beginnings of a smile. Not being a morning person I hadn’t been incredibly thrilled with the thought of waking up an extra ninety minutes early for the day — but she was right. Pretty soon I felt her doing all manner of strange things with my hair. She had me move outside for a few minutes so she could use some spray hair color in our school colors on my hair.

After she put the color on she sprayed some glitter stuff on and said, “Tag, you’re it.”

I looked at a clock and saw it was 6:40 already. “Okay, let’s go back up to your room really quick.”

On the way upstairs I saw my reflection in a hallway mirror. Amy had first of all started off with two lopsided pigtails off the top of my head. She’d then added a couple small braids here and there, and a couple other bunches of hair sticking out here and there. Topped off with the color and the glitter stuff… I don’t think I could have looked any more ridiculous if I had tried. I grimaced and promised to myself that I would get even with her!

Forty minutes later I felt like I had done a pretty good job of making her hair at least as ridiculous as mine looked. I’d stolen her idea of pigtails, but had gone much farther, making like eight mini-pigtails all over her head. After adding a couple little braids, some funky hair accessories, spraying it with color and glitter, I decided that she was done. She looked in the mirror and shook her head. “Tiffany, I guess I should have known you’d get me at least as good,” she said with a wink.

“So is it ‘crazy’ enough?” I asked her.

“I don’t think you two could do it any crazier if you tried,” Amy’s Mom, Melanie, answered behind us. “You two also couldn’t be running any slower if you tried either,” she added. “Let’s get some breakfast in you before we can’t because you’re too late.”

With that we began a flourish of eating breakfast and a seemingly normal day of going to school. As it was kind of chilly that day I’d just worn some jeans and a long sleeve striped t-shirt. I noticed Amy was dressed the same way as we walked on out to her mom’s car. By the time we arrived at school I was feeling awake and talkative. The two of us must have been driving her mom crazy because she just shook her head as she dropped us off in front of the school.

About the time I finished dropping off my saxophone, the bell rang and we went off to our first period class together. In the hallway we bumped into Kyle and David. Since they were both on the football team they were also expected to at least make an attempt on their hair. Both of them had dyed their hair blue and sprayed their jersey number in white on top of that. “Tiffany, Amy, I don’t think anyone is going to top your attempts at crazy hair,” Kyle told me as we got to first hour history with Mr. Grainger.

I took that as the compliment that I knew it to be, while still sticking my tongue out at him like he deserved! As we sat down in class Mr. Grainger actually took down the names of all of us that had actually decided to participate today. He told us that each of us would be getting extra credit for the day. We all left his class smiling that day.

“So Tiffany, did you do anything fun this weekend?” Kyle asked me.

“My Mom and I went shopping for a bit in town on Saturday,” I answered. It was always kind of a pain to drive in twenty-five minutes or so to Albuquerque, but it was definitely worth it to shop! I’d gotten a really cute new top and skirt that I was hoping I would be able to wear at the dance.

“That sounds like fun I guess…” Kyle said without conviction.

“It was!” I told him with a smile.

My group of Kyle, Amy, Ashley and Lindsey all moved through the hallways without anything interesting happening. As we arrived in Mr. Grainger’s science classroom we all noticed a strange contraption standing off to the side of the classroom. It looked like something out of Frankenstein. Before any of us could go inspect it he directed us all to our seats.

After calling roll he began, “Ladies and Gentlemen, as we’re having ‘crazy-hair’ day today I thought of an experiment that goes along with what we’re learning about with electricity…” he lectured for a full ten minutes or so before leading us all over to the device we had all seen.

After telling us that it was called a ‘Van de Graaf Generator,’ he asked for a volunteer. No one raised their hands right away, but eventually Ashley stepped forward to do whatever Mr. Grainger wanted her to do. It sounded really simple — but kind of mysteriously dangerous — all he wanted was for her to put her hand on the metal ball that was on the top of a metal cylinder. Once Ashley had her hand there Mr. Grainger flipped a switch on a cord and we heard a small motor fire up.

Suddenly we all noticed Ashley’s hair begin sticking straight up and out and started giggling. Ashley said, “What?”

She didn’t catch on for a couple seconds that her hair was standing straight out. As soon as she did realize it though she screeched and pulled her hand off of the device. She had been one of the few girls in our class that hadn’t done a lot of extreme things with her hair — at least till now! We all had a good laugh about it and most of the people then took their turns with the generator. I had so much hairspray and such on my hair that it didn’t really make much of an impact on mine.

We all decided that was another reason to like Mr. Grainger, he was able to take and make class really fun sometimes!

After science class the day got pretty boring. Our choir teacher had to go to some meeting somewhere — so we just had a sub watching a movie. Amy and I had started to spend some time talking but the sub was being really mean about talking. She threatened to send anyone else who talked to the office! I’d already been there enough this year, and really didn’t want to head back.

Not that I was a trouble maker mind you, I was just a little different from the rest of the girls and that caused plenty of problems in of itself. I hadn’t been born Tiffany… I’d been born as a boy named Brandon. Over the last year I realized that I really was Tiffany though, and had begun my journey towards outwardly becoming her this past summer. While I did have a lot of good friends that stuck behind me as I became who I believed I was, I had more than enough other kids who had decided to try and make my life a living hell.

Throughout the first part of the year so far I’d had a lot of ups and downs, including going in front of the school board and being on TV trying to keep from being forced to be Brandon at school. Most of all of that had culminated two weeks ago at the monthly board meeting. The board had decided in my favor, and I had been able to make the dance squad a week and half before this. It all seemed like much longer though — it had been really stressful.

Our boring choir class led to an even duller Algebra class. All of the work felt like busy work — I doubted Mr. Martin was going to grade any of it! I went to lunch with Amy, Kyle, and David all walking in a group with me.

“So Tiffany, have you figured out which group you’re going to go with in the parade?” Kyle asked me as we walked down the hall.

He was referring to a conflict I had trying to figure out whether to be with the band or with the dance squad during the parade. I was torn mainly because I had been looking forward to marching with the band since the beginning of the year. I’d only been on the dance squad for these past two weeks, but it’s something I’d been working on just as hard as band. I honestly hadn’t been able to decide what to do, and both Mrs. Remar and Coach Holt had been awesome in telling me to choose which one I wanted to do — they’d be fine with the decision either way.

Of course that didn’t make the decision any easier. In the end I’d only seen one way to decide fairly, and that was to flip a coin! I did this with Amy present last night at her house.

“Well I decided I’d flip a coin,” I told Kyle as we neared the lunch room doors, “and it came out as going with the band. I’m going to wear my dance uniform still, and I’ll dance with the squad during the pre-game that night at the high school game. That way I get a chance to do stuff with both groups.”

“That’s cool. I wish our Coach gave us the choice,” he said, “I’d probably still choose the football team, but it would have been nice to have the option to march with the band. I’m the best trumpet player in the group, and I know they could really use me there.”

“That’s also part of why I’m happy to go ahead and play with the band — I’m definitely the best saxophone player in the group,” I said as we both picked up trays to put our food onto. The two of us chatted about a couple other things as we walked over to our groups’ usual table and our group just talked about a little bit of everything. Before long we had moved our party outside to a round picnic bench.

I was sitting on the table part, next to Amy, with Kyle, David, Ashley, and Nikki standing up facing us. “So Tiffany, what kind of pajamas are you wearing tomorrow?” Ashley asked me.

“It’s a secret.” I said with a smile.

“Seriously?” she asked.

“You’ll just have to wait. My mom found them for me this past weekend while we were shopping. I think they’re going to be perfect for tomorrow.”

“Does Amy have the same set planned?” she asked.

“Yeah, why would you guess that?” I asked her.

“You know you two are inseparable, I really hope you two stay friends like this through school,” she told me.

“Me too,” I said somewhat soberly. It was one of my deepest fears to ever lose her as a friend. I had several sessions with my psychiatrist that she had posed such situations — and I broke down every time. I forced myself not to dwell on that thought once again though and tuned into the conversation that was happening next to me between Kyle, David, Nikki, and Amy.

They were all talking about the dance and who they’d heard was going with whom. “Why don’t we all just avoid all of the problems that come from asking each other out,” Amy was saying.

“What do you mean Amy?” David asked.

“Why don’t we just plan on going as a group. That way we can all dance with each other and not have to worry about hurt feelings.” She replied to him.

Everyone nodded their agreement, including myself, at this idea. I’d been kind of worried about what I would do if Kyle had asked me to the dance. What would I say? Of course I was also scared about the idea that he would go with someone else. I didn’t know if I liked him or not, my feelings were so mixed up there, but I was pretty sure I would have been incredibly jealous if he’d asked another girl to go. If he asked me though, that might have caused problems for him. ‘Couldn’t my life stop being so complicated?’ I silently asked myself.

“So it’s a deal then?” Amy asked everyone standing there. She smiled at the chorus of agreements that reached her ears and we heard the bell ring to go to the next class. Amy and I walked together to home ec. That day we were learning how to use some sewing machines… It wasn’t a complete disaster for me like most everyone else, but I wasn’t nearly as talented as one girl in our class. Amy actually asked her how she was so good at doing stuff — she responded by saying she’d been doing it since she was little.

The two of us both made fun of each other’s work to the point that we got a glare from Coach Holt. The two of us stopped laughing instantly at that point — we had no desire to have to run reminders or do something else for goofing around! Coach Holt also offered us extra credit for our hair that day. Not long after we found ourselves being pulled out by the yearbook staff for pictures too.

The nice thing after home-ec was that we only had two more classes left in our day. First up was English with Ms. Damien. She complimented Amy and I on our hair, but didn’t offer us extra credit for it. I think there were a lot of us in that class that were disappointed by that. We read a story out of our literature book that day aloud in class. All-in-all, it was just another normal English class.

When Kyle and I got to band with Nikki we all took our seats and Mrs. Remar warmed us up. Immediately after that she told us, “Put all of your instruments across your laps.”

We all did as we were told and watched as she began passing out letters to all of us. After she was sure that everyone had received a copy she began to speak again, “Okay ladies and gentlemen, I have a lot I need to cover on this today, and not nearly enough time. Before I forget please be sure to bring tennis shoes tomorrow — we’re going to practice marching around the track for the parade. That’ll be one of the few times we’ll be able to practice marching before we get together with the other junior high on Friday before the parade.”

That kind of threw a kink in my plans for the next day with my pajamas. ‘I guess I’ll just have to change into my shoes that are in my cheer bag,’ I told myself. I forced myself to pay attention though as she went on.

“Friday the other junior high school is going to come here right afterschool to work together for a little bit before we head off to the parade. You need to wear your band shirts and blue jeans for this parade. Make sure you wear comfortable tennis shoes that day — I don’t want to see any flip flops!” she said menacingly. “Does everyone understand? Any questions?” She asked.

Of course there were questions — a lot of stupid ones really. The only one that was decent was a question about whether or not we’d have time after the dance, before the practice started, to change for the parade. Somehow she managed to not sigh as she answered the questions, but we had wasted a lot of time by the end of it.

“Okay the next thing that you need to look at is on the next page!” she said while flipping her own paper over. I saw that it was about the trip to Denver that we were going to take in April. “This is an information letter on the trip we’re going to take to Denver this spring. Make sure your parents see it!” She proceeded to go through all of the details, including when the first deposit was due and our first fundraiser that was going to start in a couple weeks.

The more she talked about the trip, the more excited I became! A few other things happened in class that day — but not a lot of playing. The only thing we really did was run through Louie, Louie one time before she had us put up our instruments. I had to hurry when the bell rang to get down to the faculty bathroom to change into my cheerleading practice gear, before then hurrying on down the hallway to the gym. Amy wasn’t able to meet me that day, but I’d decided I’d probably be safe enough going on my own to do this.

A couple weeks ago I wouldn’t have felt safe doing it, and I probably shouldn’t have felt that way then — but thankfully nothing happened on my walk to the cafeteria where we practiced. We spent the first hour-and-a-half working on our cheer routines with the whole group. After that part of practice all of us that were on the dance squad worked on our dance routine that we were performing at pre-game at the high school on Friday. We were doing the same routine on Thursday for our game as well, but we didn’t see it as important as Friday.

While we practiced the dance routine, the girls who were just on the cheerleading squad, all eight of them, were sent with butcher paper and worked on making signs for the football game and pep rally. During the dance practice my hair started flopping into my eyes and really becoming a nuisance — the hair spray had worn off. Apparently it looked even more ridiculous than before because when Amy saw it after practice she just about died laughing. “Tiffany, I think you need to go home and wash your hair,” she said with a wink.

“I hope it doesn’t take too long to get this stuff out, I have gymnastics practice in an hour,” I responded to her.

“It shouldn’t take an hour,” she paused for a second, “I hope.”

I glared at her a little, but smiled. “I think you’re going to have even more fun Amy, yours hasn’t even come loose yet,” I told her. She didn’t look happy with that knowledge while we got into her mom’s car. She was going to drop me off at my house — it saved a trip for my mom.

“How was your day girls?” her mom asked.

“Good,” we both answered. She struck up a conversation as we drove, but I was so tired already that I didn’t respond a whole lot. As she dropped me off at my house Amy told me to call her if I got a chance to talk about the next day. I promised I would before heading into the house and telling mom I was taking a shower.

I spent a good thirty minutes undoing braids, shampooing, re-shampooing, and re-shampooing my hair before I finally gave up and threw some conditioner in my hair. I hoped that I had gotten out all of the hair coloring and glitter that she had put into my hair. My only consolation was the knowledge that Amy was probably having just as much fun trying to get hers out!

As I got out of the shower mom began pounding on the door, “Tiffany?”

“Yes Mommy?”

“If you want to get something to eat you need to hurry up! You only have ten minutes until we need to leave!”

“Alright, I’m hurrying. Just let me throw on my clothes, I’ll brush out my hair while I’m eating.” I yelled at her through the door. I hurried through my changing like I said I would and ran out of the bathroom and to the table where she had dinner waiting for me.

She’d made a pot roast in the crock-pot that day with mashed potatoes. She’d already dished up a plate for me and I ate down as much of it as I could in the eight minutes I had left. From there I got into the car with my stuff for my gymnastics lesson.

“Hi Tiffany, how are you doing?” Tara, my instructor, asked me as I came in.

“I’m doing well,” I told her convincingly, “but this week is definitely going to be a long week,” I told her. I shared with her about the spirit week stuff as we did some stretches. I was in a one-on-one instructor situation with her, so I didn’t have to worry about sharing her with anyone. I had been really busy with some issues with the school board and an attack on me so we had missed several sessions up until last week, so we were just really beginning to get on to some new things at the end of the lesson.

“So I’ll see you next week?” She asked me as she walked me back to the front of the building at eight.

“As far as I know I don’t have anything else going on. I’m really sorry I missed those few weeks.”

“It’s okay Tiffany, you have had a lot of things going on,” she told me with a warm smile, “I’m glad to hear that things are starting to calm down for you.”

“Thanks,” I told her with a smile of my own. I’d been initially afraid that she would have freaked out about my having been born a boy… but she had been completely cool about it.

My mom drove me home and I focused on getting as much homework as I could get done before mom would want me to go to bed. As I finished the last part of my math homework, just before nine, the phone rang and I realized I’d forgotten to call Amy when I got home.

Sure enough a few minutes later I heard, “Tiffany! It’s Amy!” from the living room.

As I picked it up I said, “Sorry I didn’t call, I was trying to get homework done and completely forgot.”

“It’s okay Tiff, I figured you were probably still trying to cool down from gymnastics too.”

“So what’s up?” I asked her.

“Well I was going to see if it would be alright if my mom dropped me off a little early tomorrow and we can work on getting ready at your house?”

“What about her giving us a ride?” I asked.

“She said she’d be fine coming back for us to go to school.”

“If she’s okay with that I am too. What time were you thinking?”

“Probably about 6:30?” she suggested.

A gasp came out of my throat…

“Oh come on it won’t be that bad Tiffany. We’re just going in our pajamas after all so how much do you need to do to get ready before then?”

“What else?” I asked with added drama, “what about makeup, and hair, and all that stuff!” I said cutely.

“Oh stop being a drama queen, we’ll do our hair together tomorrow again, and, we’ll keep it simple. No billions of braids, hairspray, or whatever else you put in my hair this morning,” she said.

“Okay already.” I answered. “I’ll see you at 6:30,” I told her with a smile.

“See you then, goodnight,” she told me.

“Good night,” I replied before hanging the phone up. It had been a long day — and tomorrow was going to be just as long. I finished up with the rest of my homework as quickly as I could before finding myself going to bed about fifteen minutes early… I was tired.

Chapter 2:

THE DOORBELL RANG at six-thirty that morning, and I went to get it. “Hey Amy,” I said as I showed her in. I had to smile as I looked at her since she was dressed in the same pajamas as I was. While shopping last weekend mom and I had seen some of those footed pajamas I’d had when I was really little. We’d easily found a purple set for me that fit well, but Amy had a growth spurt this past month so we’d gotten the largest size hoping that she’d still be short enough for them. I was glad to see she was.

“You look cute,” I told her.

“So do you,” she said smiling back at me.

“Okay, so we’re both dressed, what did you want to do?” I asked her.

“Pigtails!” she responded pushing me towards my room and leading me to a makeup table that I had in there. She pulled at my hair for a couple minutes before tying a pigtail on each side of my head with purple ribbon. Amy was incredibly good at tying pretty bows with them, and I blushed a bit at how childish I looked. When she finished she exclaimed, “My turn!”

I returned the favor, though my bows weren’t as pretty as hers. When I finished I was amused and smiling. “We look like we’re maybe four,” I told her with a grin.

“Yep!” She said. “Everyone’s going to make fun of us all day probably — but it’ll be funny!” she said.

The prospect of everyone making fun of us all day didn’t sit well with me… but at least they’d be doing it in a more friendly way I hoped. She seemed to notice my concern because she said, “Oh Tiffany it won’t be like that…”

“I know Amy. Besides I’m the one who picked out the pajamas.” I told her while forcing myself to smile. “So what else are we doing?”

She looked at her watch and I realized it was already seven-fifteen. “Well we don’t really have much time for anything else. Did you eat breakfast yet?” She asked me.

“No. You?”

“Not yet, I was running late.”

“Why don’t we go get some cereal and I’ll make some toast,” I suggested and we began moving forward with our day. Before I knew it we were stepping into the hallway of school with lots of giggles following us. We’d both finished off the look by bringing a stuffed animal with us. Amy’s mom had taken tons of pictures with us like that and almost made us late.

When I got into social studies I saw that a lot more kids had dressed up for today than had yesterday. Ashley and Lindsey ran up to the two of us, “You look adorable!” Lindsey said to me.

“Thanks,” I told her.

“Where in the world did you find those big enough for you two?” Ashley asked.

“My mom and I were at the mall this weekend and we saw them. It was actually pretty easy for me to find them in my size — I’m only a size seven — but Amy went and grew some this month so we were lucky to find one bigger pair that was tall enough.”

“I want some too!” Lindsey said with a smile.

That class actually went really well. There was something about the ‘little girl’ cuteness look that seemed to draw the eyes of the boys more than normal that day. I wasn’t sure what their thoughts were though — was I in danger? Or were they just looking with disbelief? I had a pretty embarrassing, but really funny moment, going to English that day.

At the last second before we entered the classroom Amy rushed to the bathroom leaving me alone to enter the class. As I came in I noticed that we had a sub that day — Ms. Damien was absent. The sub came up to me and asked, “So who’s your big sister?”

I looked at the older lady like she was nuts, and asked, “huh?”

“I think it’s really cute that you came with your older sister today on pajama day, who is she?” She asked again.

“Umm… I’m in this class as a student?” I suggested.

“You’re a seventh grader?”

“Yes ma’am,” I said. Ashley had caught the whole conversation and was cracking up laughing. Meanwhile I turned red.

“Well… I’m sorry,” she said embarrassed herself. “What’s your name sweetie?” she asked.
“I’m Tiffany,” I told her.

“Well it’s nice to meet you Tiffany.” There was a pause as she saw Amy walk in, “I see you both came dressed the same today?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Well you two both look adorable.” She said before beginning class. After a brief set of instructions we began working together in small groups. Ashley and Nikki both began laughing about the sub’s comments and had to fill Amy in. The sub came by and checked on us while we were working.

Amy couldn’t help herself, she asked the sub, “So I’m just curious, how old did you think Tiffany was?”

I was mortified when the sub answered… “I don’t know, four or five.”

With that we all started laughing. I figured it was laugh or cry… actually I ended up doing both after all was said and done because I was laughing so hard. As I walked to band that day with Nikki, Ashley, and Kyle, Kyle got a strange gleam in his eye. “You want a piggyback ride Tiff?” He asked mischievously.

“Umm… I guess?” I answered not really knowing what to say.

Before I knew what was really happening I had my arms around his neck and my legs around him and he was trotting towards the band hall. I kind of squealed a bit in excitement. I looked back to see Ashley and Nikki shaking their heads at me. We walked into the band hall like that only to get the stare of death from Mrs. Remar.

He quickly put me down and I went to get my saxophone out. We both quickly began practicing what we were supposed to be doing before class started. “I’m glad you all look so comfortable today,” she told us as we started class. I looked around and saw that most of the band had dressed up except for about three kids. That was of course before she said, “Okay, let’s go outside.”

Oh no… I completely forgot about the marching today… I quickly checked my backpack and was relieved to see I had a pair of tennis shoes in there for practice later. I managed to somehow stuff my feet into the shoes (kind of tough because of the feet on the pajamas) and headed outside. She lined up the whole band and began describing how we were going to march. It was really strange, she wanted us to roll our feet ‘like a tube of toothpaste’ in time with the beat. That part wasn’t a problem from the dance stuff I’d been doing recently. Even rolling my feet wouldn’t have been a problem if not for the fact that my feet felt so cramped in my shoes. We had a couple of ‘interesting’ run-throughs of the music while marching around the track before going back inside.

As soon as we got back in I took the shoes off. If my feet could talk they would have been screaming ‘thank you’ at me. I hadn’t wanted to get the feet of these pajamas all dirty though. After I finished putting my saxophone away I heard Mrs. Remar say, “Tiffany, Kyle, would you come here for a moment.” She directed us into her office.

“Yes Mrs. Remar,” I asked innocently. I had no doubts that it would be about how we came into class.

When Kyle was there she asked, “So why did you two choose to enter that way today?” she asked calmly.

“Umm…” I said.

“It was a joke Mrs. Remar,” Kyle started surprising me. “In our last class we had a sub that thought she was someone’s little sister when we came in. I thought it would be kind of funny to give her a piggyback ride.” I was kind of annoyed that I’d become a part of a joke in this story… but I had fun and I knew he didn’t mean it that way.

“Just how old did she think Tiffany was?” she asked without expression.

“She guessed that I was four or five,” I told her trying to keep the smile from my face. I too thought that was pretty funny now on reflection.

I swear I saw the beginning of a smile on her face, but it disappeared just as quickly. “I expect more mature behavior from both of you in the future.” She looked over at me, “Tiffany I don’t believe you are actually four, don’t forget that.”

“Yes ma’am,” I said with my throat all lumped up.

“Yes ma’am,” Kyle said next to me.

“So she really thought you were someone’s little sister?” She asked allowing the smile to actually show.

I felt a surge of relief in my body.

“We couldn’t believe it, it was really funny,” Kyle told her.

“Well I suppose the pajamas and your height with the hair…” she paused. “Still she should have been able to know better,” she shook her head. “Are you two both coming to jazz tonight?” she asked opening her door back up to the band hall again.

Kyle nodded. I said, “Yes, I may be a little late though depending on how long we run practice after school. I’d really like to have a shower and eat before coming.”

“That should be fine Tiffany, I’m really glad that you’re playing with the group.”

“Thanks,” I said. “We’d better get to our practices Kyle,” I told him as we walked out of her office. Kyle was actually nice enough to go ahead and walk me to the restroom where I was changing into my practice clothes. He left me there and I quickly changed. I was still carrying my stuffed tiger as I walked down the hall to the cafeteria.

“Hey Brandon!” I heard from behind me. I refused to turn around; I already knew who it was. It had to be Jarred, a boy that I’d been having some problems with at the beginning of the year. I was almost to the cafeteria when I heard the footsteps get closer.

“Hey Freak stop!” he ordered me. I just opened the cafeteria door and walked through continuing to ignore him. I was really glad when I saw Amy standing near the door and calmly walked over towards her. I think she could tell something was wrong though.

“What happened?” She asked me.

“Nothing I guess… Jarred was calling after me in the hall first saying ‘Brandon’ and then saying ‘Freak stop.’” I was trembling a bit.

“It’s okay Tiffany. Look I think it’s time we talked to Coach Holt about getting you nearer to us during changing periods.”

“How could that possibly work?” I asked her.

“I don’t know, let’s go ask. I don’t want to see anything else happen to you this year from that creep.”

She began pulling me over towards Coach who was standing off to the side of the gym with a clipboard making notes. “Coach Holt, may Tiffany and I speak to you for a moment?” Amy asked respectfully.

“Sure. What’s up ladies?” She asked us.

“Umm… I think it’s time that we do something different with Tiffany changing for cheer practice.” Amy said softly.

“Is something wrong with what we’re doing now?” she asked me.

I was doing the best not to get really upset by the hallway encounter. It wasn’t even really an encounter was it? “I had a kid start trying to get me to stop so he could cause problems on my way over here.” I answered.

“What kind of problems?” She asked me.

I related what had happened, “It’s not enough for me to go to the principal over. And, it isn’t anything that anyone could fix at this point.” I added.

“But we need to watch out for you don’t we,” Coach said with a small smile. “Let me think about it a little bit more. Talk to me during home-ec tomorrow, I should be able to get you somewhere a little more secure than there. I have an idea but I want to run it by the other coaches and Mrs. Henry before I say that we can do it for certain.”

“Thanks Coach,” I told her.

She put her hand on my shoulder, “Tiffany you’re an incredibly special young lady and I don’t want to see anything bad happen to you. If you ever have anything at all that’s bothering you feel free to come talk to me, okay?”

I nodded and the three of us moved to begin practice. We continued the same routine of doing normal cheerleading practice for about ninety minutes before moving onto dance squad practice. During practice one of our friends, Lindsey, kept messing up for some reason. Coach was getting mad at her, something I really didn’t want to see happen. We were given a five minute break and I pulled her aside, “Hey Lindsey is everything alright?”

She looked like she was about to cry. “I… umm…” She sniffled and looked confused whether or not she should tell me. “I’m just having a really bad day Tiffany. My parents were fighting with each other last night, and then I fought with my Mom this morning. Coach keeps yelling at me about stuff, and… add to that I think I’m starting my first period…” at that point she just started bawling.

I gave her a hug and held her, “It’s okay Lindsey.” I said to her soothingly and helped her get herself back together after a few minutes. She still wasn’t happy, but she was doing better. I’d pulled her off outside of view from everyone else ‘so hopefully no one else really saw it,’ I thought to myself.

When she seemed stable enough I walked her over to the bathroom before running down to the one I was using and running back. When I got back I saw that Ashley had taken over for me with her. They both gave me a small smile back. Coach Holt said, “Tiffany, Amy, may I see you for a moment?”

‘Great, what now?’ I thought to myself.

“Tiffany is everything alright with Lindsey,” she asked me softly when we were both there.
“Oh is that where you were?” Amy asked.

I nodded at Amy. “She’s having kind of a rough day Coach. Maybe lay off her a little bit?”
“Do I need to?” She asked concerned.

“It might help her not mess up as much. She’s got a lot of things happening right now. Don’t tell her I said anything to you though.” I told her worriedly.

“I won’t say anything, don’t worry about that. I appreciate you were taking care of her — it’s a sign that I was right to pick you as one of the captains.”

That caused me to smile a little. I still felt really bad for Lindsey though, all of that stuff happening at once would not be fun. She talked with us for a few minutes about some other stuff she was thinking about before presenting it to the squad. “Okay ladies. Tomorrow is the multiplicity day of the week. Here are the shirts you all should wear tomorrow.” She passed out a t-shirt to each of us that had alternating stripes of a larger dark blue and smaller gold stripe. They also had rings around the collar and sleeve of gold.

“What are we doing for our hair tomorrow?” She looked at Amy and me.

I looked at Amy and shrugged, so she said, “Pigtails or ponytails?” She suggested looking at the other girls.

Ashley said, “I’d prefer a ponytail I think… but on the other hand pigtails look pretty cute.”

Everyone went back and forth for several minutes before we flipped a coin and it came out as pigtails. “Two days in a row Amy,” I told her. I hadn’t really cared one way or another, but I did agree that they were cute!

Coach Holt handed out some ribbons then too before asking, “Did everyone find a pair of short-alls?”

“I’m going to look like I’m five again aren’t I?” I whispered to Amy. She just replied with a giggle. Meanwhile everyone nodded.

“Someone make sure you bring a stuffed animal for Tiffany again,” Kristina, a new eighth grade friend I’d made this year razzed.

“I’m sure we can find another sub who thinks I came with my big sister tomorrow…” I decided I had to get in something too to make myself feel better. I was the smallest girl on the squad, and as earlier had suggested I looked young because of it.

Everyone giggled at that. “Alright ladies enough… I want to run the routine one more time before we stop for the night.”

I heard someone say, “You promise?”

I too had my doubts. She was only second to Mrs. Remar about lying about ‘one more time’ on something.

“If you do it right…” she said to a chorus of groans. “Come on ladies stop your whining let’s get going. We could always do some laps around the track first if you’re going to whine much more.”

Everyone was silent at that point and got to their spots for the routine we were doing at pre-game on Friday. Shockingly she didn’t lie. We actually got out of practice early that night — it was only five-thirty when we finished up. “Tiffany hold up a second,” Coach Holt said as I was walking out the door to go change.

“Yes ma’am?”

“I just thought I would walk you down there to keep you company.” She told me as we walked down the hall.

“Thank you,” I told her. “I’m not as worried about right now though. The only other people who are around are the football players. And they’re all pretty much either behind me or they leave me alone,” I finished.

“I know, but I feel bad about earlier.”

“I appreciate that,” I told her.

I changed back into my pajamas before she walked with me back towards the locker rooms. I found Amy and Kristina waiting.

“Tiffany, you and Amy really look cute like that,” Kristina said.

I just kind of blushed and said, “Thanks.”

Amy’s mom was a bit late in picking us up that night so I didn’t have a lot of time to eat before returning back to the school for Jazz practice. I definitely missed my shower opportunity… At least the pajamas were comfortable, even if they made me look like I was a little kid. Both of our mom’s had laughed endlessly when we told them about the sub’s comment. I had to remind myself not to get hurt about it. Besides, ‘I was the one who picked them out,’ I reminded myself.

At jazz that night Mrs. Remar began rehearsal by working on ‘improvisation.’ She taught us a scale and told us to make up a song with it. It was probably one of the hardest things I’d done in music so far. I gave it a good try, I wasn’t the worst, but I definitely didn’t really get it. I kept just using the notes in the order they were in. Meanwhile, Kyle was coming out with some stuff that sounded really cool. I don’t know how he was able to figure things out that quickly… It was so hard for me!

We spent half of rehearsal working on improvising before she handed out a song for the Christmas concert. As she handed me the first alto saxophone part I noticed it said a word over a section of the music, ‘solo.’ It had a bunch of things written above a difficult looking part to play. “Ummm… Mrs. Remar?” I got her attention, “What does all of this mean?” I said pointing to it.

“Those are the scales you would use to make up the solo if you want to improvise it,” she told me. I must have looked terrified, “Or, you can learn the written solo. I’d actually like to work with you on ‘making it up’ though,” she told me with a smile.

“Umm… Okay.” I told her. “I think I’ll try the written part for now though.” I told her.
“That’s fine,” she told me.

As it turned out we didn’t even make it that far in the piece that night. I was relieved, ‘at least I’d get a chance to practice it before having to play it,’ I thought. As I left jazz that night and got into the car I was amazed by how chilly it was. We passed a bank with a sign outside I could see that it was already down to forty-five degrees. I was really grateful for the warm material of my pajamas as I hadn’t even thought about bringing a jacket to rehearsal.

At home I took the much needed shower and then changed into another set of pajamas for the night. Truth-be-told I really liked the footed pajamas, I had when I was little too, but you couldn’t wear something for twenty-four hours! I made sure that I had everything else ready for the next day, homework done, before calling Amy to talk to her for a little while.

“So do you want to stay the night at my house on Friday after the game?” Amy asked me.

“I’d like to, but let me check with my parents first.” I told her. “I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

We said goodnight to each other and I sat down on the couch in the living room to watch TV. Mom shook me awake at ten, I hadn’t even realized I’d fallen asleep, “Tiffany let’s get you into bed, okay?”

All I could do was sleepily nod and move towards my bedroom. I laid down on my bed, my mom pulled my covers up while giving me a goodnight kiss and turning the lights out. With that another long day finished up.