Bessica Lefter Bites Back (11 page)

“Wow,” I said.

“She was a phenomenal bee,” Ms. Penrod said. “Vicki went all the way to nationals.”

Vicki blushed. “And I almost won the whole shebang.”

I’d never heard of a shebang before, but Vicki still seemed pretty sad that she’d lost it.

“My dad wants to take me to Bear Galaxy,” I said.

Vicki’s and Ms. Penrod’s faces lit up.

“That’s great!” Vicki said.

“Yes. That’s fantastic! I love to see parental support,” Ms. Penrod said. “I’m going to let Vicki lead you through a few cheers. I’ve got stomachs to shape up.”

I watched Ms. Penrod walk off. It made me happy to think that she cared so much about my performance level.

“First things first,” Vicki said. “You need to come up with your basic five head-on cheers and your basic five head-off cheers.”

I nodded. Because this was about the only thing I’d learned at mascot clinic before I got caged in the cafeteria.

“Okay,” Vicki said. “Here’s the deal. In some mascot circles it’s taboo to take the head off in public,” Vicki said. “But you’re a sixth grader. So you should take the head off whenever it feels heavy or you feel deprived of fresh air.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. But then I had a question that I can’t believe I hadn’t already asked Duke or Pierre.
What would I do with my bear head once I took it off?
It was as if Vicki could read my mind.

“Whenever you take off your bear head, make sure you set it on a chair and not the ground,” Vicki said.

“Because somebody might accidentally kick it?” I asked.

Vicki looked surprised by that concern. “No. It’s bad luck to put your head on the floor.”

“Right,” I said.

“Moving on. Some cheers can easily be performed while wearing your head,” she said. “But others require the head to be taken off.”

“Makes sense,” I said. Vicki was a mascot genius.

“So how many cheers do you know?” Vicki asked.

“Two!” I said excitedly.

As soon as I’d realized at mascot clinic that everybody else knew cheers, I’d gone online and searched for some good ones.

“Let ’em rip,” Vicki said.

And I did. I clapped and swung my arms around and started. “Let’s push back. DEFENSE! Push ’em back. DEFENSE! Sack that quarterback! Grr!”

Vicki didn’t smile as much as I hoped she would when I finished. “What’s your other cheer?”

“Hey! Bears! SCORE! Hey! Bears! Win!” Then I clapped. “I say score! I say win! Go, Bears!
Grrr.
”

Vicki folded her arms across her chest. “Do you feel like a bear when you yell these things?”

I shook my head. Because I mostly felt like myself when I yelled these things. Except the part where I growled.

“I could growl for much longer,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s not enough,” Vicki said.

And I totally believed her.

“Okay. I’m going to focus on head-off cheers with you today. There are things you need to know.”

“Cool,” I said. I was hot from jogging, and even though I loved wearing the costume, I didn’t feel like practicing with the head on at the moment.

“First, I need to be honest with you,” Vicki said. “Your cheers are weak.”

“They are?” I asked. Because I’d found them on the Internet when I searched for
popular cheers.

“They aren’t bear authentic. And they don’t talk enough smack.”

“I’m supposed to be a bear who talks smack?” I asked. Nobody had mentioned that to me yet.

“That’s really the whole point of being a mascot. You talk smack to the other team, but mainly the opposing team’s mascot.”

“Oh,” I said.

“You say things that make it look like you’re going to fight each other.”

“I do?” I asked. I was unsure how I felt about that. I’d never said fighting words before.

“Yeah,” Vicki said. “It’s all part of why people watch you.”

Then Vicki taught me how to stand in ways that reflected my bearness.

“This is one stance I used to use for the bee,” Vicki said, sticking her butt out really far. “And this is how we should modify it for a bear.”

She squatted down a little.

“Doesn’t this look more like a bear to you?” she asked.

“No,” I said. Then I thought of an important question, so I asked it. “Why aren’t you in high school right now?”

“It was a half day, and Ms. Penrod wanted me to come and help catch you up to speed. She said you’d missed the mascot clinic. And I’m glad I came. We need to dial up your bear mojo.”

“What’s mojo?” I asked.

“It’s the magic quality that all good, charismatic mascots have.”

“How do I dial it up?” I asked.

Vicki backed away from me and clapped her hands
together. “Okay. If you ever feel your mojo waning, you should have a couple of comic go-to moves.”

Things felt very advanced. It was like Vicki thought she was talking to a high school person and not a sixth grader.

“Here’s one of my favorite comic moves.” Vicki swung her arms in circles. “Windmill arms!”
Faster. Faster.
“It’s funny because it’s a countermove. Audiences like it because it’s an action that runs counter to an animal’s natural behavior.”

It did look funny.

“Jumping rope is a good mojo-building countermove for you,” Vicki said. “Got it?”

At the mention of “mojo-building countermove,” Alice Potgeiser came bouncing into the room. “Vicki!” she cheered.

They knew each other because when Vicki was the bee, Alice was a cheerleader. And so they’d cheered at lots of games together. I was surprised that Vicki liked Alice. Because Vicki seemed like such a decent person. And Alice Potgeiser seemed like a jerkwad.

But maybe Vicki liked jerkwads. Because Alice ran full speed toward her and Vicki stopped making windmill arms and they hugged each other. It made me gag a little. Then they stopped hugging and Alice asked, “Why are you here?”

“I’m teaching Bessica some cheers,” Vicki said.

Alice did not enjoy hearing this. Her lip curled into a snarl. “You are?”

And it was like I could read Alice Potgeiser’s mind. She was upset that Vicki was teaching me cheers because Alice was hoping I wouldn’t learn any good cheers and would show up and suck. It felt terrible to know that the person I shared mascot duties with wanted me to look terrible in front of the entire school. I was beginning to think she
had
locked me in Flat Creek’s cafeteria during mascot clinic.

“Bessica is cheering against T.J. the Snake River Tiger,” Alice said.

Vicki looked at me and her eyes got huge. “You’re so brave!”

“No I’m not,” I said. Because it wasn’t like I was going to be cheering against a real tiger. It was just a boy named T.J. in a mascot costume with an excellent swishy tail.

“T.J. talks more smack than anybody. And he has a crazy-loud cheer voice,” Vicki said.

“Super-crazy-loud,” Alice added. “And sometimes he plays pranks.”

“Huh,” I said. Alice and Vicki were freaking me out a little bit.

“Yeah, he’s a prankster,” Vicki said. “You can’t turn your back on him. He likes to stick signs on mascots.”

“What kind of signs?” I asked.

“Rude signs,” Vicki said. “It’s part of his shtick.”

The things coming out of Vicki’s mouth were starting to make me feel nervous.

“Don’t make that face,” Vicki said. “Everything is going to be fine. You’ll love being mascot. Just learn five good cheers to chant with the bear head on, and five good cheers to chant with the bear head off, and never turn your back on T.J. the Tiger.”

“That’s a lot to remember,” I said.

“But you’re a natural,” Vicki said. “Here.”

Then she handed me a piece of paper with a bunch of cheers written on the front and back.

“They’re seven of the best cheers I know,” Vicki said.

I glanced through them. They were all bear cheers. “This is really nice of you,” I said.

“Knock ’em dead!” Vicki said.

Then she and Alice walked off giggling. And I took my cheer sheet and started trying to memorize all the cheers. Some of them seemed a little mean, but I learned them anyway. Because if Vicki Docker told me it was important to talk smack, then I was going to do just that.

“I
can’t believe you want to feed a lizard,” my mom said as Noll was carrying the aquarium from our front door into my bedroom.

When I’d learned that Noll would be relocating his lizard to my bedroom and that I wouldn’t be venturing over to his bedroom to feed Bianca, the arrangement had become a little less exciting. But I didn’t admit that to anybody.

“It will be great,” I said.

“Do the crickets ever escape?” my mom asked. Her face was very wrinkled with concern.

Noll had been extra conscientious and brought us a bag of crickets that he’d already gut loaded with vitamins. He was going to give us a quick lesson on how to feed Bianca.

“The top is a little loose, so on occasion they do escape,” Noll said as he set the aquarium down right next to my jewelry box. “But if you coat them in the calcium powder I brought they turn a bright white color and are very easy to spot on carpet.”

My mom and I looked down at my green bedroom carpet. It suddenly seemed obvious that we were going to have to capture escaped crickets.

“Add roughly a tablespoon of the calcium powder,” Noll said.

I watched Noll open the plastic bag, drop in the powder, and shake it ferociously. The little crickets inside were smaller than dimes and they bounced around inside the plastic until they were ghost white.

“Now you dump them in the cage.” Noll lifted the corner of the lid off, tipped the bag, and poured the white crickets into the aquarium. Bianca must have been starving. Because she raced over to a group of them and snapped up three very quickly.

“Whoa,” I said.

“When will you be back?” my mom asked.

“Two weeks,” Noll said.

“But your parents will be collecting Bianca and her setup before then, right?” my mom asked.

“Or we can keep Bianca here until you get back,” I said. “I don’t mind.”

I glanced at my mom and smiled. But she didn’t smile back.

“You’re so awesome, Bessica,” Noll said.

“I know,” I said.

“You’ve got my cell number, right?” he asked.

“I do,” I said. My life felt pretty wonderful.

“Call if you need anything,” he said.

“I will,” I said. This was one of the best conversations I’d ever had in my whole life.

I walked him to the door and then watched gorgeous Noll Beck leave my house. I stared through the window as he walked back across our yard.

“Aah!”
my mom screamed. It was coming from my bedroom, so I ran there.

Wow. The top must have been a little loose, like Noll said. Because on the carpet I spotted three white crickets racing under my bed.

“Gross,” I said.

“Do you think your grandma is going to enjoy living in a house with crickets and a lizard?”

I smiled huge when my mom said this. Because Grandma was coming home today!

“Mom,” I said. “Grandma is going to be so excited to see us that she probably won’t notice the crickets or Bianca for a week.”

My mother rolled her eyes. “Are you going to pick them up?”

“They’re already under my bed,” I said.

“You’re just going to let them live under there?” my mom asked.

My dad walked into my room. “Why the scream?” Then he looked at the lizard cage. “I always wanted a lizard. Noll Beck is a lucky young man.”

“I don’t feel lucky,” my mom said.

Then I heard something that sounded like a car in the driveway. “Maybe that’s Grandma!” So I grabbed the sign I’d made using markers, glitter, and ribbons that said
DON’T EVER LEAVE AGAIN, GRANDMA
and ran as fast as I could.

But it wasn’t her.

Waiting in the front yard for Grandma to show up while holding my sign was one of the most exciting things I’d ever done in my whole life. I hadn’t seen Grandma in over six weeks. And any minute she was going to be back home. I didn’t realize one person could miss another person as much as I’d missed Grandma. It sort of made the fact that Sylvie hated me and had uninvited me from her birthday party matter a little less.

While I stood by the mailbox and stared at the road and waited and waited and waited, I wondered what fun things Grandma and I would do once she got back. We’d go to the mall. We’d go to the park. And she’d start making me desserts again!

“You could wait inside,” my mom said.

I jumped a little. I hadn’t even known my mom was standing by me and the mailbox.

“I want to see her as soon as she gets here,” I said.

“Maybe you should do something besides wait,” my mom said.

That was a pretty good suggestion. I set my sign on the grass and placed a small rock on it and pulled out my phone. “I’ll text Grandma.”

Me: How much longer until you are here?

“They might be out of range,” my mother explained.

But they weren’t, because my phone buzzed. And it was a message from Grandma.

Grandma: About an hour away! See you soon!