Free The Geek Girl's Guide to Cheerleading by Charity Tahmaseb, Darcy Vance Page A

the bet,” Rick said, and Jack frowned. “You know, the one about—”
    Jack stared at his shoes. “C’mon, man, that’s not—”
    “Fair to tell them about it?” Rick interrupted.
    Jack looked up, panic on his face.
    “I don’t remember any rules that said we couldn’t, come to think of it.” Rick ruffled Moni’s pom-poms. “I don’t remember any rules at all. Ladies.” He held out his hands to indicate both himself and Jack. “We have this bet.”
    Jack immediately went back to inspecting his shoes, but Rick continued on, completely at ease. Like I said, he was smooth.
    “One of us thinks you’ll be here to cheer for the next home meet,” Rick explained, “and one of us thinks this was an…”
    Jack looked up again. Something Rick said had seemed to erase the tension from his jaw and around his eyes. He smiled. “An anomaly,” he added. “One of us thinks this was an anomaly,” he clarified, tilting his head toward Rick and winking.
    “Ooh. Big word for a jock.” Rick gave Jack a shove. “You studying for the SATs or something?” He reached out and caught one of Moni’s ringlets and watched it spiral around his finger. The curl sprang back when he let go, and continued bouncing as Rick walked toward the locker room.
    With Rick gone, Moni regained her composure—and her voice. “So what did you bet?”
    “Fifty bucks.”
    Fifty dollars? That was a lot, or at least, it was a lot to me. I was sure it was to Jack as well.
    “Our mere presence is worth fifty dollars…,” Moni mused. “Money in your pocket.”
    Jack smiled, but there was that unreadable look again.
    I fought to connect my vocal cords to my brain. “And all we have to do is show up?” I asked.
    The tension returned to Jack’s eyes for a split second. “Well that, and—”
    “And what?” I asked. “How do we help you win?”
    “Telling you would be against the rules.” He left us with that and headed for the boys’ locker room.
    I pushed down my own tension and called out to him, “Wait a minute. I thought there were no rules.”
    Jack smiled and waved before turning into the hallway.
    “Whoa,” Moni said. “What did I tell you? This cheerleading thing? Paying off. Big-time.”

5
     
    From The Prairie Stone High Varsity Cheerleading Guide :
     
    Time to take center stage—or court. Pep rallies are your chance to really let your school spirit shine. Dedicated fans will always attend a big game, but what about the fair-weather fan? Now’s your chance to convince them. Get out there and make heads turn!
     
    F or the first time all year, Moni managed to arrive at school early the next morning, and we headed up to the library. If I thought she was taking the cheerleading thing too seriously, well, here was the proof. She scanned the nonfiction shelves for books on basketball, wrestling, and even gymnastics.
    Meanwhile, I was working frantically on my latest Life at Prairie Stone column. Todd was right; it was overdue. And, after his supreme obnoxiousness yesterday, I didn’t want to prove that the only thing cheerleading really could change was me— into a slacker . But by the time I’d come home from the wrestling meet, I could barely lift a pencil, never mind write a whole column.
    At least I already had my interview—a senior who split his day between Prairie Stone High and Prairie Stone State, where my dad taught. I hadn’t known it before, but Jarrod Scott was taking one of my dad’s classes, Intro to Psychology.
    Moni hurried back and forth, pulling books from the shelves and plopping them on the table where I sat. I held the digital recorder to my ear. I’d listened to the entire interview twice but kept coming back to one quote: “We were talking about change in your dad’s class and how we resist it,” Jarrod said, “even when something good happens to us.”
    It was an interesting idea. I thought I could write the column around it if I got rid of the “dad” part. That had been weird,