Fly Away Read online

  Fly Away

  Fly Away

  Nora Rock

  ORCA SPORTS

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  Copyright © 2010 Nora Rock

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Rock, Nora, 1968-

  Fly away / written by Nora Rock.

  (Orca sports)

  Also issued in an electronic format.

  ISBN 978-1-55469-341-2 (bound).--ISBN 978-1-55469-313-9 (pbk.)

  I. Title. II. Series: Orca sports

  PS8635.O32F59 2010 JC813’.6 C2010-903538-0

  First published in the United States, 2010

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2010928827

  Summary: Marnie is forced into a leadership role on her competitive cheerleading team, but it’s harder than she imagined to keep the Soar Starlings—and herself—aloft.

  Orca Book Publishers is dedicated to preserving the environment and has printed this book on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Typesetting by Nadja Penaluna

  Cover photography by Getty Images

  Author photo by Chuck Shumilak

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  PO Box 5626, Stn. B PO Box 468

  Victoria, BC Canada Custer, WA USA

  V8R 6S4 98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  13 12 11 10 • 4 3 2 1

  For Marley

  Contents

  chapter one

  chapter two

  chapter three

  chapter four

  chapter five

  chapter six

  chapter seven

  chapter eight

  chapter nine

  chapter ten

  chapter eleven

  chapter twelve

  chapter thirteen

  chapter fourteen

  chapter fifteen

  chapter sixteen

  chapter seventeen

  chapter eighteen

  chapter nineteen

  chapter twenty

  chapter twenty-one

  chapter twenty-two

  chapter twenty-three

  chapter twenty-four

  chapter twenty-five

  chapter twenty-six

  Acknowledgments

  chapter one

  When the paramedics came charging into Soar’s gym, every one of us stared at the same thing: their boots. Both of them—the woman and the man—wore heavy rubber-soled work boots that shed chunks of gray slush on the crash mats. If we have one rule at Soar, it’s no outdoor shoes on the mats. Seeing the paramedics run across the mats like that, with Coach Saylor waving them on, seemed to drive the message home: we’d witnessed a very serious accident.

  With the rescue team on the scene and Emma’s curled-up body blocked from view, I suddenly realized that my legs were shaking violently. Just as I was about to lose my balance, a steady hand grasped my forearm.

  “Whoa, girl,” whispered Arielle, guiding me to the floor. “You okay?”

  I nodded. The trembling had migrated upward to my shoulders, and now my teeth were chattering too. Arielle sat down beside me and draped one arm across my shoulders. We sat like that, in silence, while the paramedics eased Emma onto the stretcher and strapped her in. The woman paramedic was talking with Coach Saylor. I couldn’t make out what was being said because of the ringing in my ears.

  The paramedic looked at me and said something. I opened my mouth to speak, but I couldn’t make my jaw work.

  “I think she’s just in shock,” said Arielle. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

  I shook my head, thinking back to the accident. I remembered Emma’s body twisting in midair as she tried to avoid the base girl on her left. She was too far over for me to do anything to break her fall. I had reached for her and missed. Her shoulder dropped awkwardly toward the mat, hitting it with a sickening crunch.

  The paramedic gave me a quick once-over anyway, checking my pulse and looking into my eyes with a penlight. “She seems fine.”

  Arielle nodded. “I’ll keep an eye on her.”

  The other girls, who’d been whispering nervously while Emma was carried out, were beginning to gather around us.

  Coach Saylor had a hand up, trying to get our attention. “Girls!” she said. “Gather round. Sit down. Shona, Janelle, never mind the slush. Sit down, please.”

  The rest of my team—the Soar Starlings All-Star Cheerleaders, senior level five— obeyed. I could tell that some of them, like me, were grateful to get off shaky legs.

  “Girls, we’re done for today. I know you’re scared. But Emma’s in good hands. She’s on her way to the hospital. Her father will meet her there.”

  Arielle shifted beside me so that she could put her free arm across Priya’s shoulders. Priya was the rear spotter in Emma’s stunt group, the girl who boosts the flyer into the basket and then up into the air for aerial stunts. Emma had been hurt doing a back tuck. Like a backward somersault, but in midair. It’s one of the toughest throw moves, but Emma had done it dozens of times before.

  “You all know,” continued Coach Saylor, “that cheerleading is a dangerous sport. You Starlings are the most experienced team in this club. But no amount of experience can prevent all accidents. What happened to Emma”—Coach Saylor looked in turn at Priya, Amy Jo and Jada, the bases in Emma’s stunt group—“was nobody’s fault. I want you to understand that. And now, I want you to shower up, go home, and get a good night’s sleep. If I hear any news about Emma’s condition, I’ll post it on the team’s Facebook page. If you need to talk, don’t hesitate to call Arielle. Or call me at home. You understand?”

  Thirteen ponytails bobbed in unison.

  “Good,” said Coach.

  I stood up, steadier now. I felt okay.

  I turned to tell Arielle I was feeling better, but she was busy comforting Priya, who had burst into tears.

  “But my hand slipped off her leg,” Priya said. “And I couldn’t—”

  “Shh!” said Arielle. “You heard the coach. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “But…”

  Arielle hugged Priya to calm her down. Over Priya’s back, she gave me a questioning look. I mimed shampooing my hair and pointed to the locker room. Arielle nodded.

  Arielle was our team captain and my best friend. This was her third and final year as a Starling. She’d be turning nineteen in January, which would make her too old to qualify as a senior for the spring championships. Arielle has been cheerleading since our club, Soar, opened, when she was eight years old. She’s exactly the kind of girl you imagine when you think “cheerleader.” She has straight honey-blond hair and long graceful limbs, and she’s never in a bad mood. As our captain, she has to deal with thirteen other teenage girls’ stresses and tantrums and complaints. She does it with a smile on her face. Some people think cheerleaders are ditzy and that our sport is not a true team sport. Those people have not met Arielle Kuypers.

  I took a quick shower, feeling jittery and distracted. The locker room was buzzing with theories about Emma’s condition. A few of the girls were insisting that she’d cracked her skull. “What else would make her p
ass out like that?” reasoned Shona. But Amy Jo, who’d been the closest to Emma when she landed, insisted that she hadn’t fallen on her head. I stayed out of it.

  I’d gotten a ride with Arielle, so, as usual, we were the last to leave. We shuffled quickly across the parking lot in a bitter January wind. I turned the heater on full blast when we got in Arielle’s car.

  She turned to me before pulling out. “Want to sleep over at my place tonight? You still seem kind of shaky.”

  “I’m fine,” I told her. “Besides, it’s Monday.”

  “Ah, yes,” she said. “Geek night.”

  chapter two

  Geek night is the night that my boyfriend Liam and I go to his cousin Eliza’s house to play Blood Plain. Blood Plain is a role-playing game, sort of like Dungeons and Dragons, but with North American Indians. My character is a Sioux squaw named Chumani.

  The game is really fun, and Liam’s cousin’s friends are cool. Most of them go to the University of Guelph, so they’re a little older than me and Liam, but they don’t talk down to us. I think Eliza’s just happy to have another girl there.

  I was looking forward to going. I knew that if I stayed home, I’d sit around replaying Emma’s accident over and over in my head and working myself up into a panic. But before we reached my house, I got a text from Liam saying he couldn’t go.

  “Why not?” Arielle asked.

  I shrugged. “He doesn’t say.” It was the second time he’d bailed on geek night that month.

  “Then you’re staying at my place after all,” said Arielle.

  We stopped at my house to leave a note for my mom. I stuffed some clothes in an overnight bag, and we headed for Arielle’s house.

  She lives in the coolest house I’ve ever seen. It’s supermodern, made up of lots of cubes. Arielle has a cube all to herself, with a bedroom, bathroom, art studio and its own entrance. I walked in ahead of her and gasped.

  “You finished it!”

  Arielle smiled. “Surprise!”

  In the middle of the room was Arielle’s latest painting. It was on a canvas as big as three refrigerators side by side. She’d painted people at a carnival, but not the way you’d paint them if someone told you to paint people at a carnival. It was so close-up that the people were life-size, most of them too tall to fit completely in the frame. Their backs were turned to the viewer, and they were watching something ahead of them. The only person whose face you could see was a little girl. She was half-turned, looking straight out of the canvas with terror in her eyes. I shuddered.

  “What do you think?” Arielle asked.

  I put my hands over my face. “It gives me the creeps!”

  Arielle laughed. “It’s supposed to.”

  “It’s really good,” I said. “It makes me feel guilty just looking at it. Like I’m a kidnapper about to grab her.”

  Arielle smiled happily and leaned the canvas against the wall with two others. All of Arielle’s paintings made you feel like you were missing something that lay just beyond the borders of the image.

  “It’s your best ever,” I added.

  “Thanks, Mar,” she said, tossing her cheerleading duffel into the corner.

  We headed to the kitchen to make some supper. It was late, and Arielle’s parents had already eaten. Arielle checked her phone to see if there was a call from Coach Saylor or from Emma’s dad, but there was nothing.

  “So,” she said when we’d carried our grilled cheese sandwiches to the couch, “what’s the deal with Liam?”

  I thought about pretending I didn’t know what she was talking about. But Arielle was my best friend. If there was anyone I could be open with, it was her. “I don’t know what’s going on,” I said softly. “That’s what scares me. He’s never kept anything from me before.” Liam and I had been dating for more than two years, since the summer before ninth grade, when he was about to turn sixteen.

  “You’ve tried to get him to talk?”

  “I’ve tried everything. He says there’s nothing wrong. But it’s like he’s a whole different person.” I bit my bottom lip to stop it from quivering.

  “I’m sorry to be such a baby,” I said. “I’m just a little shaken up.”

  “Me too,” Arielle said.

  “What about Priya?” I asked. “How do you think she’s doing?”

  “It wasn’t Priya’s fault, Marnie. Accidents happen. The whole group’s timing was off. Emma didn’t get enough height for the tuck. I’m sure she doesn’t blame Priya.”

  What Arielle said was true. No one girl can make or break a stunt on her own. The thrown back tuck is one of the hardest stunts we do. It takes perfectly timed cooperation.

  I took a deep breath, forced a smile and changed the subject. “So, you’ve been pretty intense with your painting lately. You still chatting with that guy online?” Arielle belonged to an online artists’ community. Even though she was still in high school, her work was starting to get some serious notice.

  Arielle nodded. “He’s been so fantastic, Marnie. He’s been telling me exactly what I need to do to move my career along.”

  “By not doing any shows?” I asked. Arielle had been invited to be part of an exhibition at a local art gallery, but she’d pulled out at the last minute. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me.

  She laughed. “I’m not quite ready. Besides,” she added, “what does it matter to you? You see my paintings all the time. You must be sick to death of my stuff by now.”

  I shook my head. “Impossible. You’re the best artist I know.”

  Arielle smiled. “More like the only artist you know.”

  chapter three

  Coach Saylor called while we were making up the daybed for me in Arielle’s room. Emma had just come out of surgery to fix a compound collarbone fracture. She was doing fine and had no head injury. She was also out of cheerleading for the rest of the season.

  I was so relieved. I had been afraid it was something much worse, especially since Emma had been unconscious. But Coach Saylor told Arielle that sometimes pain makes people pass out.

  This was supposed to be our big year. We’d placed second at the provincials the previous two years, and we were better than ever. While nobody came out and said it, we all felt like it was our turn to win it all. I could imagine how Emma was feeling about being out for the season. Emma is low-key and not outwardly competitive, but you never really know what’s going on in someone’s head. I bet she was pretty bummed.

  Nobody, not even Arielle, knew how badly I had wanted to take Sophia Damonte’s place as a flyer when she moved away last summer. Shona Bart was promoted instead, from level three. She’s really good, so I said nothing. Coach Saylor reminded me I was more valuable as a tumbler and that good tumblers are harder to find than good flyers. I understood, but I was really disappointed. Now here I was, wanting Emma’s spot before she’d even been released from hospital. I tried to force the thought out of my head. I had to get some sleep.

  Sure enough, I was tired and cranky the next day, and the school day seemed to crawl by. It was mid-January and bitterly cold, the kind of weather that makes me feel sluggish and antisocial. I knew, though, that I needed to talk to Liam. Since when could he cancel plans at the last minute and with no reason? I tracked him down in the cafeteria and stood behind his chair.

  Liam and I have rules about lunchtime. We eat lunch together Mondays and Thursdays only. We decided a long time ago that we didn’t want to be one of those couples that spend their high-school years stuck together like glue. You can miss out on a lot if you do that.

  Liam was sitting with some of his jock buddies. He plays football, and he’s on the wrestling team, so he’s friendly with a bunch of those guys. Liam sat a little apart from the group, with his head down. He was staring into his chili like it was some kind of science experiment. I put my hand on his shoulder.

  He turned around. “Hey, Mar.”

  “I know it’s not Thursday,” I said, “but we need to talk.”

 
I pushed his untouched chili aside and perched on the table, my back to the other guys.

  “What’s up?” Liam asked. He didn’t seem annoyed that I was bugging him on one of our “off” days, but he didn’t seem happy to see me either. He just seemed…blank.

  “That was the second time in a row you ditched geek night.”

  He shrugged, almost in slow motion. If I hadn’t known better, I would have worried that he was high. But Liam’s not like that.

  “I had a headache,” he said.

  “A bad one?” Maybe he was sick. Maybe he had mono or something.

  “A regular headache. No biggie.” He looked at me balefully, his big brown eyes full of annoyance.

  “Well then,” I said, “you should have taken a Tylenol and made it out to Eliza’s.”

  “Chill out, Mar,” he growled.

  I hopped down off the table in disgust.

  “Hey,” said the guy across the table from Liam, “you gonna eat this chili?”

  Liam shook his head, pushed the chili toward his friend and turned back to me. “You have cheerleading tomorrow?”

  I nodded.

  “What about Thursday? You free on Thursday night?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Then let’s do something on Thursday night. Okay?” He reached over and squeezed my arm, his palm warm on my skin.

  As I walked away, I realized I hadn’t told him about Emma’s accident. And he hadn’t even asked me how I was.

  On Wednesday, when we got to practice, a new girl was there. She had red hair cut in a cute bob. A couple of the younger girls gave her a welcoming hug. She’d been promoted from level three, so they had all been teammates before they became Starlings. Coach Saylor sure hadn’t wasted any time replacing Emma.

  “Girls,” Coach Saylor said after we gathered on the mats, “as you all know, Emma is recovering from surgery. She was discharged from hospital this morning, and her dad tells me she’s doing fine. Arielle bought her a gift from the team”— Coach gestured toward a gift bag sitting on a table in the corner—“so you’ll all need to chip in.”