Young Writers Society

“G-O!” A pause and a clap. “G-O! gooooooo Dingos!”

Strong legs clad in black leggings bounced up and down like on a trampoline, while black and orange pom-poms were thrusted up in the air to make a swishing noise. The legs and the pom-poms were brought back down to the ground—the pom-poms had been dropped—and a clap rang around the field again. Five legging-clad legs formed a split and arms formed jazz hands, while five orange t-shirt wearing torsos and arms flung themselves in the air for a backflip. The split-legged girls picked up their pom-poms and brought them out in front of them, wiggling them around to create an effect. The ones that did the backflip held up their hands in sassy poses, not being able to do anything else with their hands. Their lipstick-covered mouths opened up to scream the classic “WOOOOOO!”

“Good job girls!” the coach, named Nora Stewart, said. She was a petite little woman, with messy, dirty blonde hair that blew around her face in the gentle wind. “Drink break!”

Several of the girls signed in relief and stood up or stooped down to grab their pom-poms, stepping off of the black pad that contrasted nicely with their white tennis shoes. One of the ones who didn’t groan was a girl named Meissa Josephine Parker—a positive girl that teachers would call a sweetheart with a bounce always in her step. Her coach described her as hardworking and one of the most valuable members of her team—who got up from her split and walked over to the oaken water bench, which the older girls had dubbed the “Birthing Bench.”

“So, Jill, are you getting to that backflip?” Meissa asked Jill, a tall Hispanic girl with curly brown hair. “I saw that you almost tripped during that last try there.”

Meissa wasn’t wrong; Jill had stumbled after not landing on her feet right. Even though both of the girls were amazing cheerleaders for their age—being in elementary school and making the middle school varsity team—Jill still had much trouble with her backflip.

They sat down on the bench while Meissa took a long swing of her drink. “Better than your singing skills, that’s for sure,” Jill teased, earning a dirty look from her best friend. “Besides, the only reason why you’re not doing the backflip is because you’re too short to be in the back.”

They did this often, I’ve noticed. They teased each other, mostly about Jill’s gymnastic ability and looks or Meissa’s height and singing skill. They were the perfect example of best friends, doing everything together. Even though they were polar opposites—one was tall and one was short, one hispanic and one Irish, one with average grades and one with very high grades in the A+ range, one with an ancient name and one with an average one—they found themselves to be perfect to one another.

Meissa’s freckles gleamed in the fading sunlight, the breeze ruffling her long, blood-red hair as she laughed. The laugh was a beautiful sound, not much unlike church bells tolling at Easter. Dimples appeared on her face as well, which would make any fifth grade boy fall in love with her.

It’s funny how smiles and laughs could become so cold in just a year.

“Alright, drink break over!” Coach Nora shouted, clapping her tan hands like a perfect cheerleader. “We’ll do one more round and then y'all are going home, ya hear me?”

“Yes ma’am!” all of the girls shouted in unison, some saluting. They ran back to their positions, white sneakers thumping against the black asphalt and onto the black mat. There, they practiced their routine again. When Meissa looked back, she was pleased to note that Jill had sticked the landing, her sneakers thumping against the mat with a quiet bump.

It was time to go home.

Meissa and Jill walked down the street towards their houses. Being neighbors, they loved to walk down the busy, cracked highway together, hand-in-hand, talking about school, gossip, and cheerleading like the ordinary fourth and fifth grader would talk about.

“Have you heard about the new kid who just moved into the school?” Jill asked Meissa when they were halfway home. By now, Meissa’s legs were burning with fatigue and it was at this point where Meissa wished she hadn’t run four times around the track-and-field to warm up.

Then she realized that Jill was talking.

“Hmm, what?” Meissa asked, and mentally slapped herself. She sounded like an idiot.

“I asked if you heard about the new kid that just moved in,” Jill said. “He’s in your grade, remember? I think his name is... Christopher, I believe? Christopher Navarrete. I saw him in the hallways, taking a tour of the school—he’s super hot.”

“You’re kidding,” Meissa said. “There’s a new, hot kid? One that’s not nerdy? Does he look like a bad boy?” She said this with too much interest, Jill noted.

“No! Not like that!” Jill shouted. She needed to steer Meissa off of that path as much as possible. She was only nine, for goodness sakes! “He’s just super hot for his age. Maybe he’s a year older than you.”

“Everyone in that grade’s a year older than me,” Meissa pointed out. “Except for Brandon, but he’s been held back two years.”

“That is true...”

The details on how Meissa somehow got straight A+’s but yet never really was observant or anything like the ‘smarter kids’ were were unknown at the time. Meissa’s explanation was that she just knew stuff somehow. She also claimed that she felt like she was cheating, but it didn’t bother her. She just... knew what the questions were going to be and how to answer them. It was like it resonated from her very soul (in her teachers’ voices, no less!) so she skipped a grade and was in the Gifted Program. Yet, fifth grade was just as hard as third grade was to her.

There was some awkward silence after that statement. Suddenly, Jill piped up: “I saw him enter Jo’s earlier. Maybe he likes bubble tea!”

“Really?” This peaked Meissa’s interest. She loved Jo’s Bubble Place; it sold the best bubble tea in Louisiana, in her opinion. “That’s interesting. We might be able to meet there someday, if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah! I might be able to hook you up with him,” Jill said, winking. “I’m pretty sure that he’s in the same lunch period as me.”

“Which means he’s not in mine,” Meissa grumbled. She pouted, her pink lipstick stretched out to reveal the skin tone underneath. “Ugh.”

“What? It’s not your fault that they mix grades in lunch periods,” Jill sighed. “It’s the administrators. They want you to meet friends from other grades.”

“Now you sound like the administrators!” Meissa laughed. This earned giggles out of all of them.

They walked for some time, laughing and joking like true friends would. They arrived in their town with arms looped around each other. When they reached the intersection that would separate them, Meissa unlooped her pale arm from Jill’s shoulder.

The sun had set by now.

“And it is here we part ways,” Jill said, bowing. Meissa didn’t get it; it was probably some line from a movie or something that Meissa didn’t get. She hated movies.

“See you later, alligator,” Meissa laughed to amuse her friend, waving. She turned around as she heard her friends’ voice:

“After a while, crocodile.”