Fly Away (6 page)

“Oh, we'll win,” said Nice Teeth.

Back at the hotel, Arielle and I got dressed for dinner. “So,” I said, “are we going to that basketball game later? Ashleigh looked it up on Google Maps. It's close. Probably three bucks each by cab.”

Arielle smoothed an already-perfect eyebrow. “We won't get back from dinner until eight.”

I shrugged. “We'd be, like, twenty minutes late for the game. It would be fine.”

She didn't look convinced. “There's some stuff I need to do tonight on my laptop. Email and stuff. But you can go without me, Mar. I know Lucy and Ashleigh want to go.”

I was disappointed. How many chances would I get to hang out with hot university guys? Arielle was going to university next year. Maybe that was why it was no big deal to her. But I had a whole year to wait. And these weren't only university guys, they were basketball players. It was bad enough that I didn't have Liam to hang around with anymore. But Arielle? She and I used to have so much fun…

I ended up going with Lucy, Ashleigh and six other girls from our team. By the time I got back to the room at midnight— Coach's curfew—Arielle was already asleep.

When I woke up in the morning, she was gone.

chapter twelve

There were a dozen reasonable explanations for Arielle's empty bed, but it didn't matter. I panicked. The moment I realized she was gone, a bad feeling washed over me. I banged on the door next to ours, and Ashleigh answered. “She probably just went for a jog,” she mumbled.

“In downtown Toronto? I don't think so.”

Sharon appeared behind Ashleigh in the doorway, wearing pajamas in a monkey- and-banana pattern. “What's wrong?” she asked.

“Arielle's not in the room, and Marnie's all freaked out,” said Ashleigh.

“Wasn't she with you two last night?” Sharon asked. “Maybe she snuck out in the middle of the night with one of those ball players!”

Ashleigh rolled her eyes at me. Sharon loved a scandal. Even if she had to make one up.

I shook my head. “Arielle wasn't even with us at the basketball game last night. Don't make this worse, Sharon, just for your own entertainment.”

Sharon made a face at me like I'd hurt her feelings. As if her feelings even mattered at a time like this.

I had to alert Coach Saylor. I ducked back into my room and dressed as fast as I could. By the time I came out, a small crowd of cheerleaders in pajamas stood in the hall outside my door.

“What's going on?” asked Jada.

“Ari's gone.” I fought my way through the pack, striding quickly toward room 208, which Coach was sharing with one of the chaperones.

“What do you mean, gone?” Jada said.

“Gone, as in not here,” I snapped.

“Did she take all her stuff?”

Amy Jo's question stopped me in my tracks. I thought back to the room I'd just left. There'd been a blue skirt hanging in the closet and a bottle of contact lens solution on the counter.

“No,” I answered, suddenly relieved.

“Her stuff's still there.”

When I talked to Coach Saylor, she pointed out that it was eight in the morning. Arielle wasn't even late for breakfast yet. “She should have said where she was going,” Coach acknowledged, “but I've known Arielle a long time. Sometimes she needs space. Head back to your rooms and get dressed. Meet me in the restaurant at eight thirty. I'm sure Arielle will be back soon.”

The girls straggled away, leaving me feeling a bit sheepish. But I couldn't shake the bad feeling, no matter what anyone said.

Arielle did not come back for breakfast. And, she was not back in time for our ten-thirty bus to the conference center.

And, even worse, Arielle hadn't left behind all of her stuff. She'd left a suitcase, the skirt and the lens cleaner, but her makeup bag was gone and so were her laptop, her purse, her boots and her coat. All the important stuff.

It almost seemed as though Arielle had left the suitcase as a decoy. To avoid suspicion long enough to get away.

Once we figured that out, the real panic set in.

We left the bus idling outside for half an hour while we searched the hotel, knocking on doors, asking questions, handing out Coach's cell phone number to anyone who would take it. Since Arielle had left with her boots and her coat, we knew we were unlikely to find her inside, but we had to try. Finally, when we couldn't wait any longer and still make our competition slot on time, the chaperones herded all the girls onto the bus.

Some of the girls were whispering nervously. Others were silent. A few, like Sharon and Amy Jo, were crying. Realizing that we needed something distracting to do, Ms. Wilkinson—Keri's mom—suggested we do each other's hair. For competitions, we wear ponytails with ribbons in red, white and black, our team colors. Every Soar team wears black and white with one accent color. I fumbled hopelessly with Priya's fine, shiny hair. It kept slipping out of my fingers before I could get the elastic on.

“This is ridiculous!” I said, letting go of her hair and the ribbons. “Arielle is missing. Out there!” I pointed out the bus window at the unfamiliar city, with its graffiti-covered walls and crawling traffic. “And we're doing each other's hair and heading for a stupid competition like nothing has happened? We should—”

“Now, Marnie,” interrupted Ms. Wilkinson, “your coach is at the hotel right now, on the phone with the police—”

“But we should be helping!” said Lucy. “We should be looking for her!”

Ms. Wilkinson shook her head and spoke sternly. “No. Nobody leaves. This is a serious situation. We will not have another girl separated from this group. Do I make myself clear?”

Sharon let out a loud, choking sob.

Ms. Wilkinson softened. “I know it seems strange to be going into a competition at a time like this. I know it doesn't seem important compared to finding Arielle. But there's nothing more you girls can safely do to help.” She bent down and scooped up Priya's tangled ribbons. “You searched the hotel. Now you need to stay together.”

Ashleigh nodded her agreement. I marveled at her calmness. I'd never realized that bad situations bring out the best in natural leaders. I wished I was more like Ashleigh.

“You came here to perform,” Ms. Wilkinson continued. “It's better than sitting around the hotel in hysterics. So that's what we're going to do.”

Ms. Wilkinson reached for Priya's hairbrush, and I handed it over. Then I leaned forward, my head in my hands, while she finished my job.

chapter thirteen

Running away on the eve of a competition was the very last thing you would expect from Arielle. I looked out the bus window. Traffic was gridlocked on the roads, and people pushed past each other on the sidewalk. Busy city people, disappearing up side streets and into buildings with bars on the windows. Even the kids I saw looked tough. One boy a few years younger than me coasted dangerously close to the bus on a bike. He wore no helmet and steered expertly around the February slush piles, putting one hand on the side of the bus for stability. We were three hours' drive from Stratford, but Toronto could have been on another planet. It was so different from our little town. And Arielle was alone out there.

Maybe she'd run out to do an errand and had gotten lost.

With her computer and her makeup bag? No.

The bus squealed to a stop, interrupting my thoughts. I fell into step behind the other girls, lining up numbly in front of the baggage door to wait for my gym bag. I turned around when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Marnie,” said Ms. Wilkinson softly.

I looked up.

She beckoned for me to take a couple of steps away from the others, and then she spoke. “I know you're worried about your friend. But you're our assistant captain. These girls are going to need some leadership if they're going to get through this competition. Are you up to it?”

I nodded, but I wasn't convinced.

We walked in almost complete silence into the conference center. The lobby was packed with cheerleaders, most wearing their team ribbons and stage makeup. The girls—and a few boys—were talking and laughing, bubbling over with anticipation. It was the kind of exciting, charged environment you experience only at competitions. It was an environment that I usually loved. This was a moment that I'd always dreamed about: my first time arriving to compete as a flyer.

But that morning, my team walked into the conference center with all the energy of a shell-shocked band of disaster survivors. Arielle had been the head and heart of our team. Losing her felt like a knockout punch. We were acting like a broken team.

Ashleigh, who was a step ahead of the group, turned around and stared at me. I shrugged my shoulders at her. What?

She looked away in frustration and then shouted, “Starlings! This way! Team meeting!”

We pushed our way through the crowd, following Ashleigh's long auburn ponytail. We walked until we found our team's gathering spot, marked off with tape on the lobby floor. Some people were sitting in our spot, and it was so loud and crowded that it would have been impossible to talk there. Ashleigh led us through a curtain and into the auditorium seating area. We followed her up three flights of steps to the empty top tier of seats. Even with the competition going on below us, it was quieter there than in the lobby.

“Sit,” Ashleigh said.

All twelve of us sat.

“Not you, Marnie,” she whispered.

Oh, right. I was the assistant captain. I stood up, and Ashleigh took my seat.

“Uh…,” I began, “…like Ms. Wilkinson said on the bus…I know it feels weird, being here without Ari. But she…um…would have wanted us to compete…”

Shona, who'd been unusually quiet all day, piped up. “Then why isn't she here?”

“Pardon?” I asked. The other girls turned and stared at Shona.

But Shona was not deterred. “How could she ditch us a few hours before we're supposed to go on?”

“Well, obviously,” I answered, “nobody—”

“Everybody talks about Arielle like she can do no wrong,” said Shona. “But look at us. We go on in forty minutes. We're short a base. Sharon won't stop blubbering. Nobody's warmed up. What kind of captain does this to her team?”

I stared at her, my mouth hanging open.

“I can't believe you think this competition is more important than Arielle's safety!” Lucy said.

“Oh, come on,” Shona said. “Arielle's safe. She's probably on the number fifty-two bus right now, going to some art gallery.

She blew us off.”

“She did not!” I said.

“She did,” said Shona. “And don't pretend you weren't in on it. Why else would she make you assistant captain?”

“Shona,” I said, fighting to keep my anger under control, “if I had any idea where Arielle was, do you really think I would keep it secret?”

Ashleigh jumped to her feet. “Enough! All of you. If we have any hope of getting this done, we have to focus on cheerleading. Sharon, can you take Arielle's place in stunt group three?”

Sharon was a tumbler. The way the routine was choreographed, she wasn't tied to any stunt group, though she sometimes acted as spotter.

“How should I know?” Sharon wailed. “I don't know Ari's part!”

Besides, I thought, she was hysterical. If I were Keri, the group-three flyer, I wouldn't want to put my safety in Sharon's shaky hands.

“I'll do it,” volunteered Jada. Like Ashleigh, Jada was one of the few girls who were handling this whole situation with some maturity and composure. The way I was supposed to be handling it, as assistant captain.

Arielle wasn't even there, and I'd still managed to let her down.

Ashleigh nodded. “Thank you, Jada. Now we'll find an empty spot in the hall to stretch, and then I'll ask the organizers if they'll let us into the on-deck room a few minutes early. Maybe they'll be understanding.”

The on-deck room at this competition was not really a room. It was the southernmost third of the stadium floor. It was divided from the north side by a high curtain, put up to hide the sound equipment and to provide a backdrop to the performance mats. There were mats on the south side too, but these were reserved for teams warming up. Normally, they don't let you into the warm-up area until about fifteen minutes before you go on. Some creative begging on Ashleigh's part got us a little corner where we could work out the choreography changes made necessary by Arielle's disappearance.

Lucy, Priya and I lined up in front of Keri's stunt group so that Jada could copy Lucy's positioning. Being a good base meant knowing two things—where to place your hands for the lifts and throws, and how to time all your movements with the flyer's momentum. Jada had been a base before Emma's accident. Every competition song has its own rhythm, and each stunt group has its own particular signals, apart from the usual beat-counting, to communicate timing.

With Jada and the rest of group three watching, I performed the slow turning arabesque from “Midsummer,” and then the tuck throw from “Groovy” while the rest of the girls counted the beats. It wasn't until Lucy and Priya put me down that I realized I hadn't felt nervous doing the stunts. In fact, I hadn't thought about my own performance at all. I'd just concentrated on keeping my movements precise so that Jada could follow Lucy.

Maybe that was the trick—to stop thinking so much about myself as a performer and more about how I fit in with the team. Maybe that was how girls like Ashleigh and Jada—and Arielle, of course—stayed so calm.

chapter fourteen

Despite my own little discovery, the ten minutes of extra practice in the on-deck room didn't make any difference. We could have practiced all day, and we still would have stunk. We moved like a band of zombies out there.

When we walked off the mats, Coach Saylor was waiting for us. Some of the girls barely even looked up at her.