Everyone around Delilah smothered her in a group hug. Several girls squealed and shushed themselves, because whatever we said could be heard over the intercom. I imagined those squeals would be funny to hear if you were sitting in band. It was the sort of thing Robert and I would have rolled our eyes at together.
But I finally understood the emotion behind those squeals. I was thrilled for Delilah. When I’d heard her name, I’d let out the tiniest squeal myself. At least some good had come out of this warped experience. She’d wanted so badly to make the line. Now if she could figure out how not to faint on the football field during the halftime show next fall, she would be golden.
Ms. Zuccala called two juniors’ names, and they jumped up and down together. Then, “Addison Johnson.”
Addison put both hands to her mouth. That was all I saw before she was obscured by girls hugging her. I was happy she’d made the squad. Really happy. If I kept telling myself this, maybe I would feel it.
No . . . I was a terrible person, because all I felt was dread. She had made the majorette line, and I hadn’t. She would lord it over me. She would hang out with the other majorettes from now on. I would go crawling back to Robert and admit that he’d been right. Majorette tryouts were a popularity contest. They had nothing to do with talent, since Addison had made it.
Ms. Zuccala called a junior’s name. Addison walked over to Delilah, hugged her, and whispered to her. Addison very deliberately did not look at me. I should have approached them and hugged them both. But I knew Addison had not forgotten the three-baton fiasco. When she was in this mood, she would stare at me coldly and turn her back on me.
Luckily, the stress of the majorette announcements would be over in the next ten seconds. The girls whose names hadn’t been called made fists and squeezed their eyes shut like they had a chance of making the squad, even though the alphabetical order had already passed them over. Didn’t they realize this? The last girl called had been an S. There were only two people left in the room who could possibly make the squad: Charlene Tandekar and—
“Gemma Van Cleve,” Ms. Zuccala announced.
I froze. Was she still calling out the names of the girls who’d made the line? Or had I been daydreaming, and she’d moved on to the names of the Losers?
Bodies jostled me from all sides. People were jumping up and down and hugging me, I realized after a few panicked seconds. I pasted my majorette grin on my face and hugged them back. I might even have managed a squeal. I was a majorette now. My brain told me I should be happy, but all I felt was numb.
Several of the girls who hadn’t made it burst out of Ms. Zuccala’s office to have a dramatic cry. The more gracious losers congratulated the new majorettes. Through the bustle, Addison snuck between girls and finally reached me. She threw her arms around me and hugged me hard enough to hurt. Then she whispered in my ear, “I’m so glad you made it. Now you can vote for me for head majorette.” She held me at arm’s length. “Our moms are going to be so happy! We’re majorettes together, just like they were!”
“Yeah,” I managed. Addison’s mom would be ecstatic. I wasn’t sure my mom really cared, but she would act politely cheerful. Maybe my dad would be happy for me. I would call him to tell him the news, but sometimes he didn’t return my calls for a month, and he usually called back during school when he must know my ringer was off.
Addison was definitely happy. She would be voted head majorette for our senior year. The only other choices were Delilah, who was too nervous, and me.
I was not the type to be head majorette. I was not the type to be a majorette at all. Slowly my brain was processing what had happened to me. The school had chosen me for my talent, despite the purple streaks in my hair and my weight. I should be happy. Instead, I worried that being a majorette with Addison would provide her with new ways to torture me.
The final bell rang. I caught Delilah on her way out of Ms. Zuccala’s office, overcame my natural disinclination to hugging, and gave her the big squeeze she deserved. As Addison and I jogged down the front stairs, into the bright spring afternoon, and walked down the hill to her car, all these kids I knew only vaguely or had never noticed before in my life waved to me as I passed and congratulated me. The third time this happened, Addison stomped her foot and protested, “I made majorette too!” I hoped for Addison’s sake that they hadn’t heard her.
My cell phone beeped with a text message. I only got texts from Addison, who was walking a few steps ahead of me, white fists squeezing the life out of her batons, and who obviously did not have her thumbs on her phone. And from Robert.
I stopped and dug out my phone. Robert had changed his mind, right? He was proud of me, and he’d convinced the rest of our band friends to be proud of me too. I clicked to his message.
You sold out.
There in the warm sunlight, I went cold, except for my cheeks, which felt like they were flaming hot.
Realizing I was not following her, Addison walked back to where I stood. She peered over my shoulder at the message.
“I guess he doesn’t want to be friends anymore,” I said, trying to sound like I didn’t care.
“He’s such an ass.” Addison had always hated Robert. “If he did want to be your friend, you’d be insane to be his.”
Addison was never right about anything. But I had to admit, at least silently to myself, that she’d hit on the truth this time. Robert knew I didn’t want to be a majorette, but he also knew the tryout was important to me, if only for warped reasons. We’d been friends for two years. We’d sat together on every band trip when Addison was with her boyfriend of the week and Robert’s younger girlfriend wasn’t around. I had achieved something, and he owed me more than an insult.
Thinking about this, I realized that I had achieved something. Addison was looking over my shoulder, interested in my social life, rather than the other way around. That had never happened before. Never, in the six years we had been best friends. Now that I was a majorette (I was a majorette! So weird!), I might actually get a social life. Every majorette at my school had one—a real one that included boyfriends, not just unrequited crushes.
But I would need to fight for mine. For the first time ever, I was enjoying some mediocre level of social acceptance. Unless I took immediate action, I would lose my newly favorable position at my school when my fat roll was exposed to the world. Every week this fall, I would be forced to wear a skintight sequined leotard on a football field in front of the entire student body and thousands more people packing the stadium. I was determined not to be the comic relief.