"Everyone out in the gym! Warm ups now. We can practice entering later." A mess of girls begin to cram towards the door, and I glance into the mirror. I pull my brown hair into a high pony tail, and pick up a glitter stick. This is a dress rehearsal, but, I've been looking for Shelby. I wipe the glitter stick on my face, leaving s sparkling trail across my flushed cheeks. Then I head for the gym.
I blow my whistle and immediately, everyone stops what their doing, and faces me in a line. All one hundred and nine faces turn towards me. Well, make that, one hundred in eight, because, as I do my head check, and count offs, Shelby isn't here. I count three times to make sure. This is bothering me, this isn't like Shelby, I mean, Shelby is always here. She's always wanted to take co captain away from Sandi. The day before a huge competition, she's at practice. So where is she now? "Does anyone know, where Shelby is?" Murmuring takes up and they shake there heads. "Nope" and, "Nada" ring through the air. "Well, Im going to wait a little for her, and while she's not here, I ought to take up something with you."
"Let's see now girls. We obviously, are here to practice our routine. But, we also, need to do a better dress rehearsal. You were doing ok, but usually, we are full on coordinated. I know its early, well..... 6:15 am, but, still. Now, we've got to practice entering, so, what I want you to do, is go towards the back. There are folders I've put together with information. Grab them and read through them, Im going to call Shelby." The girls walk towards the table, and I trot towards the lockers. When I walk in I nearly choke, it smells like vanilla, and really strong. I open one of the windows before unlocking my small office, that Sandi and I share, to get my phone. Shelby is in my contacts, and it only takes me a few minutes to get her on the line, I memorized her number too.
"Hello?" A groggy voice from the other end asks. "Shelby?" "Yes, this is she." I blink. She's fine, she's already waking up. "Oh no. Ohhh no. It's, what time is it?! Its, 6:17 am?!!?!??!? I HAVE TO GET TO PRACTICE!!!!" "Its me Shel, chill. I was wondering where you were." "Oh my god, Im soooo sorry. I really am, I-" "Just come on," I let out a little laugh, Shelby is so uptight about things. "I was just making sure that you were ok." "Well, I will be once Im at the gym!" She says perkily. "Ok, Ill see you Shelb, don't get hurt on the way over!" "Chaoo!!"
After this I feel so much better. I hope out to practice and find the girls leafing through the packets. "All of that sound good?" "Course, we can totally swing these times, now can we get practicing?!" I laugh at the overly excited team, and watch as the gym door busts open, and a fair, black haired, blue eyes, domestic beauty bounds through, letting in little bursts of sunlight.
"Hi!!!" "Shelby!!!" Sandi runs towards her and hugs her and the rest of the team begins to smile even more then before. "Well, now that everyones here, lets get to practice. Sandi, will you treat drill offs? "Course." Sandi gathers in main position and puts the shiny silver whistle into her mouth. The drill sounds and we gather into the lines. "Right face, left face, about face, half face..." Her voice drawns on and on, girls dropping out after a while. Im the last one standing. "Absolutely perfect. Eleanor, of course. You'll be competing in the drill downs tomorrow?" "Didn't you READ the packet? Yes. And so are you miss fancy pants so you better suck it up and do it perfectly." I smile as I say it. "Ok, Im leading, you got drill downs until 9, so get this down to the very last finger twitch." I lead drill downs until 10, and then log into facebook for break.
I talk to Jake, online, and smile like an idiot. As everyone else skips around, going out a little to get starbucks, or, talking, laughing, doing flips off of things, Im sitting in the bleachers talking to Jake. He sounds good. I can't wait until monday. I just love the feeling of his arms around me. There's no where else I'd rather be, in this entire world. If I had only one choice of where to be, it would be his arms. No competition. I smile to myself as I sip the strawberry swirl Jamba juice Shelby brought back for me. 11:11. I make a wish, and there's nothing more in the world, that I want, then for it to come true. I feel a warm glow come over me. Just as I'm about to tell him I have to go, because, seriously I do, we need to start our back flips and spring offs, he tells me he's got to go. Talk about fate. I get up and take the ice pack I've been putting on my ankle because, after just a little practice my leg is throbbing. I put it back in the fridge and conside rsports bracing my leg for the rest of practice, but I don't. I skip back out.
"Ok people, we have a lot of work to do. First we need to start peel offs, you've gotten really good all of you, but I had to reconfigure the lines a little bit, there are seven lines, starting from the back, its, 22, 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, and 8. On both sides there are groups of five. Four behind, and the fifth person standing in the back. This means that getting into the peel offs is harder, and, were gonna have to do them a little differently."
I walk them through the steps, and basically all the way until 2:50 practice entering, and peel offs. We haven't even got into drop catches, flips, one foot twice offs, back hand triple left springs, or double loop flips. I blink and show them the video. "You guys, hit, thee nail, right on the head. I mean, amazing, skills. I have never seen it this perfect. We got some serious flips, so pump it, cause we aren't even running into the full routine." With that, I grab some CD's pop them in and bump the volume up. I step back, clap my hands and jump up a good foot and a half off the ground I flip backwards, spring back on one hand and spring back up. I continue doing air splits, triple flips, and once Im done, I walk over to people, and begin to help the perfect their routines.
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