For punishment for burning the house down, Renfro gave Sketchy one of her most sadistic, inhumane punishments ever.
She had the doctors post-pone the cell phone removal so that he could walk around for a month with a Samsung stuck to one side of his head.
Fortunately, Original Cindy's mother (and Alec's father) invited Max's family to stay at their "giant tacky castle" while they got their house back together. Of course, Renfro wouldn't stand living in a tacky castle such as Cindy's for too long. The contracters were hired and paid by the time the night was finished.
On the good side, this meant Max was able to help Original Cindy with her cheers on a more frequent basis. On the bad side, this meant more of Alec on a more frequent basis. As if having him in five of her classes wasn't enough! Now she had to compete with him for hot water in the shower, too! (Well, he'd suggested taking a shower together, but Max wasn't about to go for that idea.)
But, on the bright side, Logan finally called. On the ugly side, it had been on the night that Max went dancing after seeing the West Gillette Chameleons, and he'd gotten her voice message box.
And, well, the cheer squad weren't all offended by the fact that Valerie had stolen cheers from another team.
"It's like an unwritten rule of cheerleading," Brin said. "Teams can steal other teams cheers a few times, just like singers can steal songs a few times. I mean, paging Dr. Britney Spears!"
"We won trophies with their cheers, Brin!" Max exclaimed. "That completely violates whatever unwritten rules there are!"
"Why are we even worrying about this?" Brin asked. "The West Gillette Chameleons have never gone to even Regionals with their routines! They can't prove anything. If anything, we can say that they stole our cheers."
"We spent a lot of time on those routines, Max," Syl agreed. "To give them up and try to make a new one would be total suicide."
"Exactly," Brin said. Max looked towards Zack.
"What about you, Mr. Brutal-Honesty? What do you think?" she asked. Zack shrugged.
"They've got a point, Max," he said. "And we've got a new person on the squad. It'll take a week at least to make up a new cheer, and we'll already have to be teaching Cindy the basics -"
"Ya'll are unbelievable!" Original Cindy finally burst. "We're talking about cheating here and ya'll act like we're talking about taking the last piece of cheesecake or somethin'!"
"Same diff, new girl," Brin shrugged it off. "Val stole their cheesecake, and now they're probably a little bit mad. We ate the cheesecake, and it was good, and now there's no going back because the cheesecake eating regionals are only a few weeks away, so we might as well go along with our original plans. Who's with me?" Most of the team raised their hands except for OC, Joshua, Max and Tinga.
"I don't think it's a good plan at all," Tinga said. "My horoscope says that the upcoming month will bring a big embarassment."
"You sure that isn't last year's horoscope?" a cruel voice asked from the doorway. "Because you getting knocked up was a real embarassment for the school!" Everyone snapped around to see White holding a video camera pointed at them.
"White!" Max shouted. "I'm going to kick your ass!"
"I don't care now that I've got evidence that you guys are stealing cheers from... who was it? Oh, yeah, the West Gillette Chameleons - what the hell type of mascot is that? No wonder your cheers suck!" he jeered.
He was so focused on the screen of his video camera, that he didn't see Joshua racing up the side stairs to the door until Joshua was in his line of sight. White let out a shriek as Joshua tackled him.
Max had no idea a man in a ninety-pound dog suit could be so stealthy.
In the next second, Zane was headed up the stairs, too. He was quickly followed by the entire squad.
Zane grabbed the camera that White had accidently dropped and pointed it at the two struggling on the ground.
"Josh, get him in the teeth!" Zane shouted. "Make sure he won't be on television for the rest of senior year!"
Then, the impossible happened.
White pulled Joshua's head off. Joshua's head rolled away, then teetered on the edge of the bleachers and bounced down the seats.
Everyone's eyes widened.
"How the hell does that thing fit under a mascot head?" Syl exclaimed with a look of surprise.
A/N: I told you it'd come off. I was really planning to have Joshua's head come off later in the story, but it seemed to fit better here. And, yes, Tinga was previously pregnant in this story.
If you want to find out what's under Joshua's mask, review!