"Up, down, left, right!" Cale ordered from his lawn chair on the football field. "Arms up, people! Arms up! Get that girl up higher, Thompson!"
"My name is Jondy," Jondy yelled angrily; her legs wobbled a bit in Zack's hands. Sometimes, even the docile Jondy got pulled to her limits.
"It's five o'clock," Brin said, looking at her watch as Krit put her back down. "Practice is officially over, and I've got a violin class at five thirty."
"I've got piano lessons," Syl informed him.
"Swim team practice in, like, five minutes," Zack said. "Me and Zane are both on the team."
"Joshua and Jondy have yoga class at five thirty," Joshua told Cale. More and more, the others volunteered their information. Max herself had work.
"I don't care if you have a stick up your ass and need to get to the emergency room!" Cale roared.
"You mean like you do?" Brin asked under her breath.
"You're going to practice until it's midnight if I say so," Cale said. "You're going to perfect this damn cheer and you're going to like it."
"He's. An. Idiot," Brin said, kicking off her shoes and pulling off her track pants in the locker room thirty minutes later. "'I don't care! I don't care! I don't care!'" she mimicked Cale in a ridiculous high-pitched voice.
"I - " Jondy pouted in defeat. "I see what you mean. He's always saying everything I do is sissy," she said, tying the laces on her sneakers and stuffing all of her clothes in the locker.
"Exactly!" Brin exclaimed. She pulled the jeans she'd been wearing earlier on and stood up again. "And what sucks is that we can't fire him because then we'll have no cheer! No cheer means no regionals; no regionals means no nationals and no nationals means no trophies and no trophies means that we've got a significantly smaller pool of colleges that want us because everyone knows they want winners!"
"Not like we actually study, right?" Syl said under her breath.
"Exactly!" Jondy agreed. "Wait..."
"Doesn't matter anyways," Brin shrugged. "You know we're going to lose, right? I mean how the hell could we win with a cheer like that? It's about as probable as Joshua passing his exit exams."
"Better hope he doesn't hear you say that," Syl commented. "Josh's six-foot-five and made of all muscle under that suit. He could rip you apart."
"Point is," Brin said, stuffing all of her gear into her bag. "Prepare to actually try on our exams because none of us are going to get the scholarship we want with the way we're going." She shook her head sadly. "Hope Maxie's not going to have a breakdown or anything like in the eighth grade when we got last place - "
There was a slam from the other side of the lockers and all three girls peaked around them to see Max leaving the room in what was basically a dead run. Tinga looked over the top of the lockers at them.
"Nice job, Brin. I've never really met anyone who could tear life dreams down like you can," she said bitingly before disappearing on the other side again.
"Hey, hey, hey, hey, Maxie," Alec stopped Max once she'd gotten out of the locker room.
"Go away," Max snapped. "I just want to get home."
"Dude, we live in the same house. Eventually you're going to hear what I have to say," Alec said. "But, really, now's the time I need to ask this."
"What?" Max asked.
Alec peered around the corner of the building, then looked back at Max. "Those Red guys... how fast are they?"
"What the hell kind of stupid question is that?"
"Just the hell kind that's either going to save my life or severely shorten it," Alec told her. "How fast are they?"
Max shrugged. "I've seen one of them chase down a moving train - but he was a senior and that was, like, three years ago and he died about two minutes after that. I think his brain exploded or something."
"Good to know," Alec said nervously, still looking around shiftily.
"What'd you do?" Max asked, with her hands on her hips. Alec didn't answer. "I know you did something so you might as well 'fess up."
"It's just," Alec shrugged. "Those Red guys are awful protective of their uniforms, aren't they?" He turned around again to glance around the building, then he hurriedly started walking away. "Want a ride home?"
Max looked around the building to see the Reds - all sixteen - with their usual blue, gold and white uniforms dyed pink.
"Alec!" she shouted.
"Is that a 'yes'?"
"Why'd you do that?" Max asked when they were both safely settled in Alec's black SUV and about three streets away from the school and counting.
"It was a bet, all right?" Alec bit his lip. "Biggs won me in poker - first time ever - and he told me that he wanted me to dye the uniforms of the school's basketball team bright pink, then take a picture."
"So if Biggs told you to jump off a bridge, would you?" Max inquired sarcastically.
"Hey, we're talking about completely different topics here," he pointed out.
"Who is Biggs, anyways?" Max asked; she'd heard OC bring up the name once or twice before, but usually in the context of 'Biggs - that damn asshole'. "And what is this mysterious power he has over you?"
"Oh." Another shrug. "Biggs fixes my bike for free. That's how he's got so much power over me."
Max's attention was caught. "Biggs fixes your bike?"
"Yep."
"So he would know where to get a good bike for cheap, right?"
Alec chuckled. "Biggs is a fixer-upper. People sell him bikes, he fixes them and sells them to other people. He gets good bikes for cheap."
"Huh..."
Ending Note: WHOOOO! More than one hundred reviews! Ohhh, life is sweet when you are writer.
So, sorry for the long wait with the chapter (well, longer than usual. I like to get them out every few days). There were a few technical difficulties, but expect the next chapter pretty soon.
I'm working on pictures for the characters (inspired by HoneyX5452's pics) and trying to figure out how to put them up on a journal, so those should be up soon. In the mean time, keep reviewing! It gives me more fire to actually finish the chapter I'm on!