Keep Jumping / No Hating Read online

  I said, “Charli, I’m sorry. I know this has taken a lot out of you, having to do it over and over again. Though you like dancing, this might be excruciating to teach the same basic moves a million times over.”

  “Please, girl, it ain’t even that at all. I’m captain, and I should work overtime with anyone on the squad who needs it. Can I ask you a question?” Charli inquired.

  “Sure.” I squinted and I wondered what was so heavy.

  “Here’s the thing, how do you always stay so fired up, so excited? I mean, yeah, lately you’ve been going through about this thing with your mom, but your mom has been tripping for years, and you’ve always seemed to hold it in. My dad has only been out of our house for a few weeks. I can’t even sleep at night. Can you please tell me how you do it?”

  I plopped down beside her. “I don’t know if I am doing it. I’ve been feeling like my life has been unraveling lately, and I’m not able to keep it together. I guess I just pretended to hold it in. I never really felt good enough, you know? Would a mother abandon a perfect child? Well, my mom abandoned me, and I haven’t felt good about myself since. That’s no way to be. No way to feel. That’s no way to think. Being down on yourself only makes you unattractive because the insecurities come out in many ways. Your grades suffer. You don’t care how you dress. You get self-conscious about how you dance. Charli Black, you can’t force your parents to work out their problems.”

  “Tell me about it,” she agreed.

  “But you can be there for them. Just keep telling yourself it has nothing to do with you. Hold your head up high, keep your confidence, and you’ll learn to adapt. I’ve got a feeling in your case it’s gonna work itself out. Keep moving and don’t focus on the drama,” I said. We hugged. And I realized that maybe I should follow my own advice.

  Later that day I was practicing with my stunting group. Eva, Ella, Randal, and I were having trouble keeping our stunt up. As we got ready for our first competition and we kept practicing, our pyramid was the one that kept falling. So we got together outside of practice to work on it. Randal’s tiny self was on top. Eva and Ella were the bases, and I was the back spot. Randal was really having a time with the switch up where you start from the ground and switch legs before stopping the stunt. Two people were to hold one foot, and then they had to let go and grab the opposite foot. If the person up top did not stay tight, they’d fall.

  When Ella and Eva dropped Randal for the third time, Randal sat down in the middle of the mat and said, “I don’t wanna do it anymore. I don’t care about doing it. You will have to find someone else to put up. Try Hallie.”

  Eva was about to go off, and Ella was about to tell her not to worry about it and that she’d get it. Randal needed more than someone being over-the-top mean, but she didn’t need someone telling her what she wanted to hear because that wouldn’t make it happen either. I told them both to take a break.

  I sat down beside Randal and said, “Girl, you can do this.”

  “I just like tumbling across the front, but since I can’t do fulls and layouts, Charli is chosen to flip across the front. Now I have to go up in the air. I wish I was more like you.”

  I started coughing at that moment. What in the world could Randal be talking about . . . she admired me? Uh-uh! I was so taken aback.

  “You got this desire,” she said. She could tell that I thought she was mistaken and possibly a little crazy.

  “What do you mean by desire?” I asked dubiously.

  “I mean, you want to be a cheerleader. You want to master every part of it. You’re fearless.”

  Disagreeing, I said, “No, I have a mental block.”

  “Yeah, but that’s only in tumbling. You wanna get it. I don’t want to do some of this stuff. I just wish I cared as much as you did. You’re like the poster child for cheerleading, for goodness’ sake. Where does that drive come from? To keep going and working and trying and pushing. Everybody’s been giving you a hard time on the squad for not holding up your end, but truth be told, there’s so many of us who don’t have things right. Some folks don’t have tight arms. Some girls’ jumps are a little off. It’s just obvious because you can’t tumble, but we all need to be on point if we wanna win, and I just wanna know how you don’t ever let any of that get to you.”

  “Cheering is a dream come true. When it comes to this mental block thing, I’m trying to push past it. I’m going to be honest with you, I’m not all the way there. But I got to deal with myself about that and face my fears head on. The sky is the limit for me, and the sky is the limit for you too. I’m not only going to cheer for myself, but I wanna do my part for the team. You must ask yourself, how badly do you want this, and who are you really doing it for? And if you got a firm grasp on why this is important to you, you’ll figure out how to master it. I’ve been going to this gym, and I didn’t wanna tell anybody, so please don’t share it yet. They can help you get better at this stuff.”

  “So do have your tumbling?” Randal asked the magic question.

  “Just pray for me,” I responded and she nodded.

  I went out to get a sip of water. The twins met me and just kept staring at me. I stared back but could not understand.

  “What? Do I have something on my face?” I asked.

  Eva said, “Nah, we just saw you over there talking to Randal. You got a gift, girl.”

  “You really do,” Ella replied.

  “I’m confused. I know I got a mouth on me,” I said, knowing they always called me the bigmouthed one.

  “Yeah, lately you’ve been really tamed,” Ella said. “But you are never mean with what you say to people. I like that you have purpose, but you aren’t blunt.”

  Eva said, “And I know I need to learn how to be more diplomatic. I’m just not trying to be so political like my sister, sugarcoating everything.”

  “Ha-ha-ha,” Ella said. “Though she’s right, Hallie. I hate that I’m so nice. People think I’m a push-over.” She looked at Eva and rolled her eyes. “But I never want to be so mean to people. I like a good balance between the two of us. You are that balance. Actually, you are the balance between all five of us. I mean, Randal barely says anything, so the best time to hang out with her is when you don’t want to be bothered, and Charli—”

  Like a twin finishes the other’s thoughts, Eva cut in and said, “And Charli’s so high society. Sometimes I wonder if she can relate to people who aren’t perfect. She would just bounce. We love you, girl. That’s all. So come on, let’s get back out there.”

  We all walked back to the mats. I realized that I was so hard on myself because I felt inferior to my friends. After spending time with all four of them, I realized they admired something about me too. Knowing they saw something great in me kept me motivated to keep doing what I was doing, stay in my lane, and be proud of Hallie Ray. I had it going on too. How cool.

  It was the second game of the season, and we were 1–0 and so were our rivals, the MLK Tigers. The place was jumping. Before kickoff there was so much hype. The bands were battling. The dancers were trying to outdo each other, and the crowds were yelling back and forth to see who made the most noise. There was absolutely no place in the world I wanted to be more than in front of our home crowd doing my thang.

  Right before kickoff Coach Woods came up to me and killed my joyous mood by saying, “So it’s been a couple of weeks. Where are you with the required skills?”

  “I’ve got it,” I said to her, knowing that I did know how to tumble, but I had only been working with my girls on our routine and stunting.

  “You’ve got it?” she said, wanting reassurance. “Wow, okay. I’m proud of you, Hallie. I knew you could do it.”

  “Thanks, Coach, I won’t let you down.” I nervously walked back into position.

  I didn’t know if Coach believed me or had to test me, but she said, “Girls, I’m going to play our competition music. Mark the stunts, but I want to make sure you guys have the moves.”

  I knew everyone
had the moves but me. Charli worked with me, and now I needed to show her I could do it. When the music played, I did my thing as if we were in front of judges getting scored. As soon as we were done, she gave me a thumbs-up. Thankfully, I passed the coach’s test—the first one anyway.

  We got crushed in the first quarter. There were two quick, long passes, a weak left side, and just like that we were behind. Wax had the potential of being a D1 running back, but even he was getting stuffed. When defense was called to get back out on the field, they let a TD get scored off another long bomb.

  Lions’ fans held their breaths in the second quarter. We did nothing with our offensive possession, but when defense got out on the field, there was an interception. Our stand went nuts. Not only did the boy catch the ball, but he was ditching and dodging the opposing players. He took the ball in for a score. Our sidelines burst with excitement.

  “Amir Knight with the interception and touchdown. Go Lions! Amir, where have you been all our lives?” the announcer joked.

  Hearing the loudspeaker, I froze. I knew I heard the name right, but that couldn’t be! Was Amir now playing football? Ever since I’d passionately attacked him, we had not spoken. He didn’t call me, and I wasn’t picking up the phone to call him. Thinking on it, I realized that he had not been at Cheertowne. Was it because he was on the football team? Now everything was making sense.

  We made the extra point, and after the kickoff we were back on defense. I wanted to cheer. I wanted to yell. I wanted to shake my tushie. However, there was something in me that ignored the crowd. I turned and looked at the field. On the first play of that series, there was another long throw and it was intercepted again, but not because the quarterback didn’t throw it to his man. Amir came clear across field and took it. Though he didn’t take it in that time for a touchdown, he was still amazing.

  The announcer screamed, “Amir Knight with another interception.”

  Our quarterback, Blake Strong, came in and threw a touchdown pass to Landon King. Just like that we were back in the game, tied with the Tigers 14–14. I was still tripping Amir was ballin’.

  Charli came over to me and started jumping up and down, “Did you see that? Do you know who that was? Two interceptions! The boy is bad. Oh my gosh!”

  Eva came rushing over to me. “Why didn’t you tell us your boy could play?”

  “Right,” Ella said. “He’s got swag, girl.”

  Randal chimed in. “You told us he wasn’t in any activities. Your Amir went from benchwarmer to stud.”

  Throwing up my pom-poms I said, “No, honestly y’all, I didn’t know he was playing football.”

  I looked over at Charli who had a very bold grin. She knew something. I should have known when she said Brenton was hanging with Amir that there was more to it.

  “What?” she giggled.

  “Did you know? You said he was hanging out with Brenton. Is this why? Are they teammates now?” I asked Charli.

  “Yes.”

  “Uh, why didn’t you tell me?” I wondered.

  Charli blurted out, “He didn’t want you to know.”

  “Huh?” Eva said, “That’s crazy, why not? She loves football. Maybe he thought he wouldn’t be any good.”

  I chimed in, “No, that’s not what it is. He hates me. We’re not talking anymore. We had a big blowup. I guess he felt that it was none of my business. I’m happy for him though. He is really good. He should be out there, and that’s where we needed him. So we’ve got a secondary.”

  “Look at you, acting like you don’t care,” Charli said. She gave me a little shove. “He likes you, girl, I know he does. Brenton says he talks about you all the time.”

  “Ladies, quit yapping your mouths and get out there on the field,” Coach Woods shouted. “It’s halftime. You need to be able to walk straight on when the players go off so you don’t waste time on the clock. The band has to play after you are introduced!”

  The team was running past us, and out of all the ninety-something players, I immediately spotted Amir. I did not know if he wanted me to find him or what because his helmet was still on. It was like we had magnetic chemistry. We were just drawn together. Amir must have wanted to see me because he stopped running and took off his helmet.

  I asked, “You’re playing ball now?”

  He turned the tables on me. “So you’re flipping now?”

  “Amir, get on to that locker room. There’s no time for socializing,” Coach Strong called out.

  The cheerleaders lined up in alphabetical order for the introductions. With the last name Ray, I was at the end. When it came time for us to tumble, I just knew I could do it. I had been practicing at the gym. Mentally I was ready. My girls believed in me, and I believed in myself. Even Amir cared enough to give me a psychological boost. I knew he meant it if he was out there doing what I thought he could do. Now I needed to get out there and do what he knew I could. When my name was called, I just stood there. Nobody had me tied up. Nobody was laughing. Yeah, it seemed as if everything was going in slow motion.

  I heard Charli call out, “You got this, Hallie, flip.”

  Ella said, “Come on, Hallie, just tumble. You can do it, sweetie.”

  Salty Eva mouthed, “If you don’t tumble . . .”

  Randal smiled and crossed her fingers. Running was not an option. Sink or swim, I had to stand there. All the hard work did not matter. All the positive words meant nothing. All the trying was pointless because when it came time to show up, I shut down and could not do it.

  CHAPTER 7

  Dreams Realized

  When we came off the field, Coach Woods walked right over to me, and I felt my dream of being a varsity cheerleader slipping from my grasp. She had given me leeway. She had put me on her team though I did not have all the skills. She has taken a chance on me. She had pumped me up. She told me I could do it, but when it came time to show her that I could, I failed.

  Before she said anything, I exclaimed, “So do I need to turn in my pom-poms right now and bring my uniform next week after I wash it or what?”

  Coach Woods smirked, “Oh, I’m not going to let you off that easily. You told me you could do it. You might need a little more time, but I’m holding you to it. We’re counting on you, Hallie.” She lifted my chin. “I believe in you.”

  I could have hugged her at that moment. The rest of the cheerleaders came up to me and encouraged me as well. It was like someone told them that negative reinforcement was not the way to get me to comply with what they needed. As a person who needed words of affirmation, they were going all out with kind phrases. Emotion was taking me over.

  I had done many flips in the gym, so I knew I could do it. Since the team did not give up on me, I was going to overcome my fear and perform. I had to be successful. I had to conquer what was in my way. I had to move what was blocking me.

  “Go get yourself something to drink, get ready for second half, come back out, and be the best cheerleader I have,” Coach Woods said. “What you do is contagious because you are so enthusiastic. Trust what is in your heart and relax. We’ll worry about all the rest of this stuff next week.” She gave me a quick hug and walked away to handle some other small drama.

  After every home game, some sport or club hosted a dance. Our principal, Dr. Sapp, said as long as we did not lose our minds and acted like we had some common sense, we could keep having parties. There was something different about this particular party. I walked in with my girls. All heads turned to look at us, but this time I did not feel like I didn’t belong. I was not envious or jealous anymore of the attention my girls were getting. Since my head was held high, I got some whistles my way. I was the last girl standing alone two weeks ago when all my friends were asked to dance. However, before we even got situated, Amir came out of nowhere.

  The fine dude said, “Excuse me, ladies, you mind if I take your girl away for a second?”

  Eva pushed me into him. “No, big baller, dance with her.”

  “Eva!�
� I blushed.

  “If that’s okay with you, of course,” he asked me.

  Quickly I clarified, “Yes, that’s great.”

  My girls oohed and aahed as I walked arm and arm with Amir to the dance floor. It was a slow song. I had to admit, my heart started racing as he put his arms around my waist. It took our bodies no time to get in sync with the music and with each other. He pulled back just a little so that our eyes would meet.

  “I don’t want to play any games with you,” Amir admitted to me. “It’s been killing me not to talk to you and tell you all that I’ve been going through.”

  Not getting the magnitude of what he wanted to say, I said, “Yeah, I am surprised you were out on the football field. Please tell me you didn’t think you needed to play football for me. You had my heart anyway.”

  It was important to me that Amir knew I wasn’t shallow. Even though we hadn’t been talking, I had still thought of him. He did not need to be a baller on the field to be the baller of my heart.

  Seeing him smile, he said, “I know. Turns out you were right. Football is in my blood, and I needed to try playing.”

  “I’m sure your dad must have been really proud,” I said, knowing they were disconnected. “Was he here tonight?”

  Amir looked away. Something was not right. It seemed I’d upset him.

  “What’s wrong? Did I say something?” I asked with concern.

  “That’s been a part of my drama. I wanted to reach out to you because I thought that you would understand.”

  “Why, because my life is so screwed because of my mom?” I uttered.

  “Yeah, did you find her? Have y’all talked to her?”

  I shook my head and looked away. Then I realized what he wanted to talk to me about did not involve my drama. The fact that he wanted to open up to me meant a lot.