Dare Me Part 5

That's when we know: we're paying for Beth's sins.

The jump drill comes, and then the high kicks and then floor crunches and then running the gym track until RiRi throws up in the corner, a sloshing mix of slim-fast and sugar-free powdered donuts.

Beth, though, she sacks up. I'll give her that. At least she doesn't make it any worse for any of us. Sweat glittering on her, dappling her eyelashes, she kills it.

She will not sit down after, when we all collapse on the mats, our sweaty limbs crisscrossing. She will not sit down, will not let the steel slip from between her shoulders.

She has so much pride that, even if I'm weary of her, of her fighting ways, her gauntlet-tossing, I can't say there isn't something else that beams in me. An old ember licked to fresh fire again. Beth, the old Beth, before high school, before Ben Trammel, all the boys and self-sorrow, the divorce and the adderall and the suspensions.

That Beth at the bike racks, third grade, her braids dangling, her chin up, fists knotted around a pair of dull scissors, peeling into Brady Carr's tire. Brady Carr, who shoved me off the spinabout, tearing a long strip of skin from my ankle to my knee.

Tugging the rubber from his tire, her fingernails ripped red, she looked up at me, grinning wide, front teeth gapped and wild heroic.

How could you ever forget that?

We all want to "take it to the next level"-that's what we keep calling it. For us, the next level means doing a real basket toss, with three or four girls hurling a Flyer ten, fifteen, twenty feet in the air, and that Flyer flipping and twisting her way back down into their arms. And not even Beth has ever done a stunt like this, not this high, not without a mat. We were never that kind of squad, not a tourney squad. Not a serious squad.

Once we master a basket toss, we can do real stunts, real pyramids, because they are pyramids that end with true flying, with girls loaded up and slingshot into the air. The gasp-ahh awesomeness we've always dreamed of.

We have been YouTubing basket tosses all day, watching sprightly girl after sprightly girl get thrown by her huskier squadmates into the air and then try to ride it as far as she can. Arms extended, back arched, she is reaching for something, and only stops when she has to.

Mostly, though, we watch girls fall.

"A girl over at St. Reggie's died doing a basket toss that high last year," Emily says, her voice grave, like she's giving a press conference on TV. "She landed chest down in everyone's arms and her spleen popped like a balloon."

"Spleens don't pop," Beth says, though how she knows this is unclear.

"But I heard she had mono," someone says.

"What's that got to do with it?"

"It makes your spleen swell."

"No one here has mono."

"You don't always know."

"They banned it in my cousin's school," someone says.

"You can't ban mono," Beth says.

"You're not even allowed to do them on spring floors."

"Who could get their heels over their head like that?" spiral-curled RiRi wonders, lifting one of her legs off the floor.

"You do," Beth says. "Every Sat.u.r.day night."

"So are you ready for it, Beth?" Emily grins.

"Ready for what?"

Tacy rolls her eyes. "Like it'd be anyone but you, Beth. You're Top Girl."

Beth almost smiles.

It's a relief to see it. To see how much she wants it. When Coach gives her the spot, it'll make everything better. Maybe, Maybe, I think, high on hunger, I think, high on hunger, they will even become friends. they will even become friends.

Of course, we all want it. (Even me, five inches taller than Beth, a tragedy of birth.) It's the star shot, and we feel our bodies hardening, we feel our speed quickening, our blood pounding, thick and strong.

Tosses, two-and-a-half pyramids, tabletops, thigh stands, split stands, Wolf Walls-Coach says they're what separates you from just another a.s.s-shaking pep squad.

"So we're not an a.s.s-shaking pep squad?" Beth mutters, her voice smoke-thick, her eyes shot through with blood and boredom. "If I wanted to be an ath-lete," she says, "I'd've joined the other d.y.k.es on field hockey."

Three-oh-seven and Coach strolls into the gym, her hair wound softly into a ponytail.

"Let's get started on that toss," she says. "We need four to make the cradle underneath-two Bases, and a back and a front spot to get enough power."

She pauses. "But who's going to be our Flyer?"

Our two killer Bases, Mindy and Cori Brisky, their legs like t.i.tanium pikes, saunter over, eyeing all of us. Wondering which one of our lives will depend on the strength of their flintlock collarbones, our feet lodged there, rising high.

I think, for a second, it might be me.

And why shouldn't it be me, twisting high, propelled skyward, all eyes battened to me, my body bullet-hard and glorious?

But it has to be Beth. We all know it. Beth practically stepping forward, all five feet and ninety pounds of her, stomach tight as anyone fed solely on tar and battery acid.

She's our Flyer. Missed practices, insolence, but still she is our Flyer. Of course she is.

(Except the voice inside that says, Me, me, me. It should be me.

But, if not me, Beth.) "Slaussen," Coach says, turning to Tacy, the ewe.

I feel myself stone-sinking.

"You ready to fly?" she asks her.

There's a hush to everything, and a closeness in the air.

Not Beth.

And Tacy? Tacy?

Tacy Slaussen, that little pink-eyed nothing, the one Beth used to call "Cottontail"?

But then I see it. Coach is putting Tacy-Tacy of the barking phone, Tacy, Beth's baby b.i.t.c.h-on the guillotine.

In my head, I hear the ear-popping crack, head clacking against the gym floor. Spleen splattered. So many ways to go wrong, to ruin yourself. Your legs like barrettes bent back, your body matchstick-snapped.

A pretty world of being pretty decimated in one splintering second.

That's what I secretly wanted, just moments ago?

I did. I still do. Those five inches, and no one will ever ask me.

None of us dare look at Beth, but we all watch Tacy, her flushed face. You can see her heart beating all over her skin.

When I do sneak a look at Beth, I see she's not even looking up, coiling the drawstrings on her hoodie into a candy cane twist.

"Coughlin," Coach says to Mindy, whose boulder shoulders are ringed with bruises two seasons a year. "She'll be all yours. What do you think?"

Pausing, Mindy appraises Tacy.

"I could totally base her," she replies, looking at Coach as if with a thick wagging tail.

Coach nods. "Elevator her up and let's see what she's got. One-two. One-two."

Mindy and Cori grab wrists, make a square.

"Three-four," Coach counts. Coach counts.

Tacy, her tendril limbs limply offering themselves, plants her foot in their wrist-weaved basket. One pancake palm on Tacy's back, the other just below her behind. Back spotter Paige Shepherd loads her in.

"Five-six," and Mindy and Cori lift Tacy from waist to shoulder, Tacy fumbling frantically for their shoulders, Paige hustling to back base her. and Mindy and Cori lift Tacy from waist to shoulder, Tacy fumbling frantically for their shoulders, Paige hustling to back base her.

And up she goes.

"Seven-eight!"

And the girls, fingers flicking, legs rocking, toss her into the air.

Tacy's mouth open, struck.

Airborne.

Her whole body quivering like a plucked string.

Too scared to tuck, pike, toe touch, anything.

"Soften!" shouts Coach.

Tacy sinking back down, all three girls scrambling, one of Tacy's legs jamming into Mindy's collarbone.

But they catch her. They don't let her hit the floor.

Tacy, walking it off, crying like a little b.i.t.c.h.

For an hour, Tacy falls and falls, over and over again.

Foot to face. Shin to shoulder. Face to mat.

Mindy and Cori angrier and angrier the more knocks they take, elevatoring her up with greater and greater force.

Tacy starts sobbing a half hour in, and never stops.

Off to her office for a phone call, Coach deputizes Beth to count in her absence.

Beth, looking at her, her mouth a straight line, says nothing. But when Coach's office door shuts, she starts counting.

One-two-three-four, f.u.c.king ex-tend Slaussen! Slaussen!

Who can deny it is a masterful play? Take away the princess's crown and give it to the lady-in-waiting. The handmaiden. The servant.

Never, in all my lieutenant years, have I seen anyone go toe-to-toe with Beth. Never anyone who couldn't be felled with an errant Facebook rumor, a photoshopped image (RiRi s.k.a.n.king it up over spring break), the pilfered text message sent to the entire school. This was different.

Different because no one had ever taken her on, and different because no one had ever wanted to do so on our behalf. Coach did it for us.

And her will was strong as Beth's maybe. Maybe.

Watching Tacy, shin red-streaked, a long bone bruise readying to bloom on her forearm, we all know what's happened.

We all know why, that Sat.u.r.day, Tacy will be landing, at terrible and just velocity, in our meager arms-arms weary from ten hours of dieter's tea and celery shreds-we all know why.

Because Coach sees Beth for what she is and knows she has to overthrow her.

And Tacy?

A pullet-p.a.w.n.

Two days till the game, we are practicing like Tacy's life depends on it, since it does.

I'm the front spotter because Coach says I have in focus what I lack in heft.

We start with a straight ride, no twists or toe touches or kick arches. We've practiced all week and never once missed, our hands wrapped around each other's locked wrists, steeling our arms so tight, bolting them in place, a safe little girl-cradle for Tacy's quaking feet.

Then, rubber-banding our arms to spring her shaking body up into the air, all our eyes on Tacy, making that promise to her, the birdy panic on her face as she flies, flies, flies.

But, had we slipped, any of us, had one of our arms weakened, her leg curled the wrong way, her body twisted an inch or less, she'd have hit a spring floor.