“It’s not.”
“Look at that herd and tell me why I should care what those people think of me.”
Ridley had a point. As Link moved up and down the court, the eyes of the entire cheer squad were glued to him as if they were one person. Which, basically, they were. I didn’t even watch the court after a while. I already knew Link could probably hit a jumper from the stands, with his superstrength.
Ethan, he’s jumping too high.
By about three feet. Lena was stressing, but I knew Link had been fantasizing about this moment his entire life.
Yep.
And running too fast.
Yep.
Aren’t you going to say something?
Nope.
Nothing was going to stop him. Word had gotten around that Link had kicked up his game over the summer, and it seemed like half the school had shown up at practice to see for themselves. I couldn’t decide if it was further proof of how boring life was in Gatlin, or how bad our new Linkubus was at Mortal camouflage.
Savannah had the cheerleaders up and moving. To be fair, it was their practice, too. But to be fair to the rest of us, we weren’t exactly expecting Savannah’s new routines. From the looks of it, Emily, Eden, and Charlotte weren’t expecting them either. Emily didn’t even get off the bench.
From the sidelines, Savannah was jumping almost as high as Link. “Give me an L!”
“You’re not serious.” Lena almost spit out her soda.
You could hear Savannah across the gym. “Give me an I!”
I shook my head. “Oh, she’s serious. There’s nothing ironic about Savannah Snow.”
“Give me an N!”
“We are never going to hear the end of this.” Lena looked at Ridley. She was chewing gum like Ronnie Weeks slapping on nicotine patches when he quit smoking. The more Savannah jumped, the harder Ridley chewed.
“Give me a K!”
“Give me a break.” Ridley spit out her gum and stuck it underneath the bench. Before we could stop her, she was climbing over the aluminum bleachers, down to the court—superhigh sandals, pink-striped hair, black miniskirt, and all.
“Oh no.” Lena started to get up, but I pulled her back down.
“You can’t stop it from happening, L.”
“What is she doing?” Lena couldn’t bear to look.
Ridley was talking to Savannah, tightening the low-slung belt with the poisonous insect trapped in it, like a gladiator gearing up for battle. At first I strained to listen, but within seconds they were shouting.
“What’s your problem?” Savannah snapped.
Ridley grinned. “Nothing. Oh, wait… you.”
Savannah dropped her pom-poms on the gym floor. “You’re a skank. If you want to lure some other guy into your skanky trap, be my guest. But Link is one of us.”
“Here’s the thing, Barbie. I’ve already trapped him, and since I’m trying to play nice, this is me giving you fair warning. Back off before you get hurt.”
Savannah crossed her arms over her chest. “Make me.”
It looked like they needed a ref.