3 Cheerleaders Who Throw Up

Chapter 3 Cheerleaders Who Throw Up When my mom dropped me off for our next practice, she didn't even try to hug me. Some of the ragamuffins from the first practice didn't come back. I guess they couldn't take it. Coach Hyatt wasn't there yet. But you'll never believe in a million hundred years who pulled up in a blue minivan. A bunch of girls! It was that annoying Andrea Young, her crybaby friend Emily, and some other girly girls. They piled out of the minivan and came over to us. "Hi, Arlo!" said Andrea, who calls me by my real name because she knows I don't

like it. Andrea was wearing earrings that were little footballs and a necklace shaped like a goalpost. "What are YOU doing here?" I asked. "We're cheerleaders!" said Emily. I knew Andrea took ballet classes after school. She takes Irish step dancing, too. And modern dance. And clog dancing. That girl sure likes to dance. But I didn't know she did cheerleading, too. "Since when do you do cheerleading?" I asked Andrea. "I've been cheering since I was four years old," Andrea said. "Don't you get tired?" I asked. "Very funny, Arlo." "How can you cheer for football?" Michael asked Andrea. "You probably don't even know what a touchdown is."

"Yeah!" agreed Ryan. "A touchdown is a scoring play in which any part of the ball, while legally in the possession of a player who is inbounds, crosses the plane of the opponent's goal line," Andrea said. "I read a book about football, so now I know all about it." I hate her. Why can't a goalpost fall on Andrea's head? "Do you want to hear one of our cheers?" asked Emily. "We wrote them ourselves." "Oh yes," I said, "I'd love to… in the next century." So of course Andrea and Emily did their cheer anyway. They danced around while chanting:

"Jump in the air! Fall in the dirt. Just make sure no one gets hurt! Go… Moose!" "That cheer is lame," I told them. "You're mean, Arlo!" Andrea said. Their cheer was lame. Football cheers should be cool. I made up a cheer on the spot that was way better than their dumb

cheer. "Bust 'em! Beat 'em! Make 'em bleed! Hit 'em till their eyeballs fall out." "That doesn't even rhyme," Emily said. "And it's so violent!" said Andrea. "We only do positive cheers that don't hurt anyone's feelings." "Yes," said Emily. "It's not whether you win or lose; it's how you play the game. Isn't the important thing to have fun?" "No!" I said. "Where'd you get that crazy idea?" The girls did one of their routines where they throw each other up in the air while they do a cheer. "Laugh and play and shout and sing! Winning isn't everything!

Go… Moose!" What a lame cheer. But I had to admit that Andrea and her friends were pretty good at throwing each other up. In the air, that is. If you threw up a person, it would be disgusting. I remembered that in fizz ed, Andrea is always the one who can balance feathers, juggle scarves, and do stuff better than anybody else. She's a good soccer player, too. But she's still annoying. "Do you want to see us make a human pyramid?" asked Emily. "Why don't you go to Egypt and make a real pyramid," I suggested. "And don't come back." "Humphf!" said Andrea. She and the other cheerleaders stormed away to practice at the other end of the field. When girls get mad, they always say "Humphf." Nobody knows why.