Disclaimer: That '70s Show copyright The Carsey-Werner Company, LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC.

CHAPTER THIRTY
SACRIFICING THE QUEEN

The light of the setting sun was fading, but oil lanterns supplemented it. They were strategically placed on mounds of hard-packed dirt and held by volunteers. Students had rearranged themselves on the summit of Granny Hill. They were positioned around a raised stretch of rock, where the cheer-off would take place. It was flat enough to be safe for the competitors, but each would be spotted by non-competing teammates. Jackie and Julie had insisted on it.

Currently, the cheer squad was gathered by the outcrop, and Coach Ferguson stood atop it, holding his Packers cap upside-down. "The order of cheerleaders will be chosen at random," he said and plucked a piece of paper from his cap. "Leslie Canon is first!"

Applause, whistles, and hoots burst from the audience. Students from band, who'd improvised percussion instruments for the cheer-off, banged wooden spoons on pots, and Jackie clapped herself. Her anticipation had converted to energy, needing release.

"Patty Frumkin is second!" Coach Ferguson said after pulling the next piece of paper. Patty grasped Carla, but Patty's face was hard to read.

Coach Ferguson rummaged in his cap and chose another name. "Jackie Burkhart is third, meaning Valerie Clayton will be last."

Mrs. Fletcher repeated the order of competitors: "Leslie, Patty, Jackie, Valerie!" She was acting as emcee to Coach Ferguson's referee, but someone from the audience shouted, "What about Julie?"

The questioner sounded like Susan, and it instigated a chant of, "Julie! Julie!" in the audience.

Mrs. Fletcher gestured at Coach Ferguson, and he helped her climb the outcrop. "Julie sprained her ankle on the ropes course yesterday!" she shouted. "She had to bow out!"

"Bullshit!" Buddy Morgan said above dozens of boos. He had a spot in the first row of the audience. Dale Hackel sat beside him, the friend he'd hiked the Trumpeter River trail with. "She smoked that ropes course yesterday."

A new chant of, "Bullshit! Bullshit!" emerged from the . Fletcher blushed, but Coach Ferguson blew on his whistle.

"If Julie doesn't want to compete," he said, "she doesn't have to compete."

"I'm not competing!" Julie said from the base of the outcrop.

The audience expressed a mixture of disappointment and frustration, but Valerie coiled her arm around Julie's shoulders. "Don't be shy, Julie! Do it for school spirit."

The chant of, "Julie! Julie!" began again, but it could've easily been, "Conspiracy! Conspiracy!" Valerie must have realized that possibility, and this was her preventative measure.

"You can cheer last," she said, "so you'll have time to come up with a routine."

Julie's brow wrinkled. "If you're sure..."

"I insist."

"All right," Julie said, and the crowd cheered louder.

Coach Ferguson descended the outcrop. He assisted Mrs. Fletcher as she climbed down, and Valerie ordered the spotters to their places. Leslie, meanwhile, spoke to the students in band, and Julie tugged Jackie aside.

"What the hell was that?" Julie whispered.

"Valerie's playing you."

"But why? What does she think she'll accomplish?"

"Suppression of suspicion," Jackie whispered, same as what Leslie was after. She'd had every opportunity to aggravate Valerie further. To tell her about Michael and Ms. McGee, but she'd gain nothing by revealing their affair now. Michael's possessiveness of Jackie dwarfed it in importance. "People already believe the worst of her," Jackie went on. "They're simply waiting for confirmation—"

The band students played a four-beat measure, recreating the rhythm from Queen's "We Will Rock You". Half of them clanked their pots twice. The other half followed with a clap, and the audience joined in.

Leslie tossed her coat to the ground and ascended the outcrop. She was wearing a stomach-baring blouse and butt-hugger jeans, and her strategy became clear. She was going for sex appeal, despite how the cold made her shiver.

The spotters glanced at one another behind her back. Their disdain was visible from the sidelines, but boys in the crowd hollered and whistled. Coach Ferguson, however, was quiet. He'd be timing the routines with a stopwatch, and he signaled Leslie with a blast of his own whistle.

She started with three consecutive toe-touch jumps. Her height was decent, but the rest of her routine was padded with suggestive cheer motions. She jutted out her left hip during a right high V. Jutted out her right hip at a left diagonal. It was bad form. Her posture should have remained rigid, but she continued with her hip-wiggling.

Boys were chanting her name by the end of her performance. She curtsied, thanking them with a glimpse of her cleavage. .

"No substance," Julie whispered to Jackie from the sidelines.

"No class," Jackie whispered back. "This is a cheer competition, not strip tease."

Mrs. Fletcher darted to the base of the outcrop, applauding. "Thank you, Leslie! Next, we have Patty Frumkin!"

The band students changed rhythms at Patty's request. It was still a four-beat measure but had a faster tempo, an emphasis on the first beat, and no rests.

Patty stood in the ready position on the outcrop, hands on her hips, legs shoulder-width apart. Unlike Leslie, she was wearing a sweatshirt, and Coach Ferguson's whistle signaled her.

She began impressively with pike-out, a pike that shifted into a toe-touch. She followed that with a double nine. Strutted across the outcrop with series of punch-ups—alternatingly thrusting each arm in the air—and performed a spread eagle jump, essentially a combination of a high V with a tuck.

The audience clapped enthusiastically when she finished. Her jumps had been high and precise, but cheering seemed to be an afterthought.

On the sidelines, Julie leaned close to Jackie. "She should be a flyer, not a base."

Jackie agreed. Patty's broad shoulders had disqualified her for a flyer in Valerie's eyes, but Patty's talents were being wasted at the bottom.

"Would you hold this for me?" Jackie said to Julie and removed her coat. Underneath was a body-clinging but warm sweater. She removed her gloves, too, and stuffed them in her coat pockets.

Julie took Jackie's coat and draped it over her arms. "Break Valerie's ego."

Jackie grinned. She'd try. Her muscles were warmed up. Her blood was revved up, and she raced to the band students. "Four-beat rhythm," she said. "Same tempo as Patty's but emphasize every other beat."

Jimmy Headgear—Jimmy Schultz—saluted her with his wooden spoon. He and his bandmates gave her the frantic heartbeat she'd asked for, and Mrs. Fletcher announced Jackie's name to applause.

The sound was thrilling, but Steven's cheers fluttered her stomach. He was rooting for her, not the acclaim her successes might bring him. It was an entirely new boyfriend experience.

She climbed to the outcrop's right-most edge. Both Leslie and Patty had started at the center, and Coach Ferguson cast her a confused look.

"I'm ready," she said.

"You sure?" Coach Ferguson said. Either he didn't remember her solo routine from state last year, or he had no confidence in her to pull it off on this rock. But she nodded, and he clicked his stopwatch.

Jackie opened with an aerial cartwheel. She landed near the outcrop's left-most edge but in complete control of her balance. The crowd's explosive response muffled the percussive beat, but pausing wasn't an option. She performed a right hurdler, a high toe-touch, and finished the combo with a tuck jump.

She was at at the center of the outcrop now. Her arms shot to a left bow-and-arrow position—"Hit 'em high!"—to a broken T—"Hit 'em low!"—to a right bow-and arrow—"Go, team, go!"

She sashayed a few steps to the right. "V is for victory!" she shouted, executing a low-V-to-high-V sequence. "V is for Vikings!" she shouted, repeating the sequence but ended in the touchdown pose.

For her finale, she leapt into the air with another right hurdler, performed a pike-out, and jumped off the outcrop with a back handspring. The rock scraped her palms. A fingernail cracked, but she landed on her feet. .

The audience roared with applause. She winced at the volume and covered her ears, but Steven and their friends rose, clapping and whistling. They were giving her a standing ovation, and her face grew hotter than it already was.

Julie wrapped Jackie's coat around Jackie's shoulders. "You were incredible!" she said, leading Jackie from the outcrop. "Absolutely incredible!"

"I could've gotten more height in the pike-out," Jackie said. She was trembling from adrenaline, but she managed to put her coat on properly.

"A little, but your transitions were flawless."

They returned to sidelines, where Patty and Leslie were seated on a blanket. Leslie's focus was clearly on Valerie, who was walking toward the outcrop—but Patty reached for Jackie's hand.

Jackie let her grab it, and Patty said, "I loved your routine! You really know how to put on a show."

"Gymnastics," Leslie muttered. "It was a gymnastics routine."

Julie chuckled incredulously. "Jealous much? Jackie's opener was fireworks, and to get transitions like hers takes a lot of practice. Hell, I'm jealous."

"So am I." Patty smiled up at Jackie. "In a good way. I … I almost forgot why I became a cheerleader, but today made me remember."

"Thank you!" Jackie said, for their praise and for praising her openly. Teammates weren't supposed to compliment one another, not without Valerie's consent. But their self-confidence had expanded, their sense of individuality increased. A team was only as strong as its weakest member, but Valerie had used their vulnerabilities to weaken them all.

Mrs. Fletcher and a five-beat measure announced Valerie's arrival on the outcrop. Coach Ferguson blew on his whistle, and Valerie tossed her hair in a dance two measures long. She jumped a double nine and a pike at the wrong beat. Clapped and chanted, "Go, Vikings, go!" at weird intervals, and people in the audience laughed.

Valerie carried on, though, with front and side hurdlers. But her height was lousy, and she rushed through an awkward sequence of cheer motions.

People laughed harder at Valerie's finale. It was a cacophony of ill-combined jumps. She'd followed a toe-touch with a double hook—a jump where both legs were bent at the knee and curved in the same direction—and a tuck. The order should have been reversed, and her fists shook. The audience's reaction must have clued her in.

"Julie sabotaged me!" she screamed. "It was her choreography!"

Mitch popped up from the audience. He was three rows deep and said, "See? I told you that—"

"Valerie doesn't choreograph her own routines!" Timmy shouted from somewhere. "Valerie doesn't choreograph her—"

"Hearsay!" Susan said beside Mitch. "Let's gather real evidence before we convict. We haven't seen Julie's routine. If its rhythm and flow match the squad's, then we'll know."

People voiced their agreement, but Julie clung to Jackie's arm. "What should I do?"

"Cheer," Jackie said. "Cheer for yourself and the school."

"Okay." Julie heaved a few breaths and released her. "Okay. I can do this."

She went to the outcrop, but Valerie hadn't descended from it. Coach Ferguson offered to help Valerie climb down, but she smacked away his hand.

"Everyone's sabotaging me!" she said "My squad, my boyfriend—and Jackie Burkhart is the whore behind it! She—"

"That's enough, Clayton!" Coach Ferguson said. "Let's go—"

"It's not enough!" Mitch said, stepping forward. "She blackmailed my cousin. You remember Linda? She was cheer captain two years ago, and—"

Coach Ferguson pointed at him. "Miller, shut it!" He turned to Julie next, who'd stopped a few feet shy of the outcrop. "How long have you been choreographing the squad?" he said.

"She hasn't!" Valerie shouted, but he waved at her dismissively.

"I-I'd rather discuss this in private if we could," Julie said, and Jackie hurried to her side. She was obviously scared, but she wasn't alone. Jackie would stand by her, even it meant expulsion from the squad.

"There's little privacy to be had here," Coach Ferguson said, indicating the audience of almost a hundred students. "But the cheer-off—cheer exhibition—whatever you want to call it—is done." He blasted on his whistle, and students began folding their blankets.

"Jackie is a whore!" Valerie chanted from the outcrop. She raised her arms in a high V. "Jackie is whore!"

Someone in the crowd responded by shouting, "Make Julie captain!"

"Make Julie captain!" someone else shouted, and the chant gained traction.

"Nothing is changing until the school does an official investigation!" Coach Ferguson said, and the chant died to Jackie's surprise.

Julie slouched and cupped her forehead. "Thank God," she whispered. Another surprise, and Jackie suppressed a giggle. She and Julie had read each other totally wrong over the years. Julie used to behave like an attention-seeking glory hound, but Jackie had behaved the same way.

"Jackie is a whore!" Valerie continued to scream. "Jackie is—"

Coach Ferguson scrambled onto the outcrop. "Get off this rock, or I'll haul you off it."

She fell silent but looked to Mrs. Fletcher below. Mrs. Fletcher had always been one of Valerie's biggest supporters, but she said, "Please cooperate. You've struck a teacher, slandered a classmate … you're facing suspension."

"She's not just facing it," Coach Ferguson said. "She's earned it. Clayton, off!"

Valerie caught Jackie's gaze before descending the outcrop. The accusation in her eyes staggered Jackie's breath, but Jackie stood tall. Julie was with her, and her other friends had pushed to the front of the crowd. Steven and Donna were, no doubt, controlling themselves. Otherwise, they would've acted like Jackie's personal body guards.

The students were dispersing however. Most of the cheer squad had retreated, but Leslie remained on the sidelines. She was cramming her blanket into her backpack, but Valerie grabbed her wrist.

Leslie wrenched free. "I'm busy."

"Not anymore!" Valerie tried a second snatch at Leslie's wrist, but Coach Ferguson separated them. He and Mrs. Fletcher ushered Valerie to a distant part of the summit, probably for a lengthy lecture.

"We won!" Julie said and embraced Jackie in a sideways hug. "Valerie's going to learn what it's like to be at the bottom!"

"Yeah," Jackie said but felt no sense of justice. The crowd's mob mentality was terrifying. Valerie had become the symbol of social inequality. If left to their impulses, students might have stoned her to death.

That wasn't what Jackie had been fighting for. Valerie was a fallen tyrant, who treated people as serfs or worse. She needed to be held accountable for her actions, but social equality shouldn't require her head on a stake.

The bonfire had been lit. Fuelwood crackled and snapped, and students took turns roasting marshmallows. They were smiling and joking—celebrating. Their time in the woods was almost finished, but Jackie had little celebration in her. A thousand-mile forest awaited her in Point Place.

She was with Steven, hoping to decompress, but kids from every social strata spoke to her. Some gave congratulations on her cheer performance. Others expressed satisfaction at Valerie's humiliation, and a few asked if the cheer squad would eschew its superiority complex.

The disruptions were understandable but frustrating. Her responses grew increasingly less enthusiastic, and Steven clearly noticed. He curled his arm around her waist, whispered, "Real estate's too congested," and led her to a sparsely-populated area by the bonfire.

Their friends followed with their sticks and marshmallows. She was happy for their company but roasted a marshmallow halfheartedly. The end of this trip meant facing a possible ordeal with her parents. They'd gone to Cancún, Mexico to fix their relationship. But they could be filing for divorce, making love, or cheating on each other, and Jackie wouldn't find out until she was home.

"You okay?" Steven said. "Your twig's gone flaccid."

She raised her stick. The flames charred her marshmallow black, and she offered it to him. "Not a big marshmallow eater."

"You're lying, but we don't gotta talk about it."

"Thanks," she said and leaned her head on his shoulder. "I will … eventually. Just stay with me."

He did, along with their friends, as the fire brightened the night to day. Its heat warmed the autumn air, and she unbuttoned her coat. It was constricting, and she had to seize what freedom as she could.

"Do you think tonight will actually change anything at this school?" Eric said. He and Donna had entwined arms, and their sticks were crossed in the flames.

"If Valerie isn't demoted, students will riot," Donna said. "Jackie, if you were cheer captain, how would you run the squad?"

Jackie dropped her stick on the ground. "I won't be captain. I'm better at choreographing solo routines than team ones. But I'd guarantee everyone had a voice, even those I don't want to hear." She glanced to the left then to the right, but Valerie was nowhere in sight. "Maybe I'd learn something."

Steven patted her hip and grinned. He seemed proud of her, and that sloughed some of the day from her skin.

"Ai—" Fez's marshmallow melted off his stick and into the fire. "That is the fifth one! I've run out of 'mallows."

"Take mine." Jackie tossed him her pack of marshmallows. She wasn't in the mood for sweets—or for an interview, but Susan approached their group. Instead of holding a pen and a pad of paper, though, a marshmallow-skewered stick was in her hand.

"Some night, huh?" she said, but her focus was on Fez. "Having trouble?"

"Yes," he said. "The fire keeps eating my 'mallows."

"I can teach you how to roast them properly..." She gripped his wrist, positioned his stick in the flames, and pulled it out when the surface of his marshmallow blackened.

Fez nibbled on the marshmallow, and his eyebrows rose. "That is the most delicious 'mallow I have ever tasted!"

"The trick is removing it from the fire before it softens."

"I see." He ate the rest of the marshmallow and successfully roasted his next one himself. "This activity has gone from harsh to mellow. You are a good teacher."

She giggled. "And you're good with puns."

"At last, a woman who appreciates my humor."

"I appreciate a lot about you, hot stuff."

She extended her hand to him. He grasped it, and they dashed from the fire together.

"One thing's changed in this school," Steven said. "Fez might get lucky."

"Well, he is an over-sharer," Eric said. "I bet you he told Susan he's a virgin during his interview."

Donna pointed her stick at Fez and Susan's shrinking backs. "Guess he finally told the right person."

Jackie laughed. Fez and Susan was a pair she never would've imagined, but Susan had integrity and experience, and Fez could be a devoted boyfriend. They might make a good couple.

"Feelin' a little better?" Steven said.

A perfectly scorched marshmallow sat on the tip of his stick. She stole a bite, and her eyes shut as the bitterness of the char dissolved into hot sugar. Her lie to him earlier was pathetic. She adored marshmallows, and she wasn't exactly fine, and he'd known both without asking. "A little," she said.

He embraced her, arms cloaking her in a warmth deeper than the bonfire's. "Feel however you feel, Grasshopper. Whatever it is, I'm gonna ride it out with you."

She blinked back tears and held him tightly. "I'm terrified," she said against his shoulder. Her parents might leave each other. Leave her, but their weaknesses wouldn't become hers. She had Steven and their friends. More importantly, she had herself again. "But as scared as I am..." she said, "I also feel strong."