Part 6 (1/2)

And when we try to get her higher, Tacy's landings are rougher. There are incidents: elbow to the eye, index finger bent back, Tacy's grasping hand clawing my face.

But I focus on Tacy, and I don't show my fear. That's what Coach tells me. ”Don't let her see it on you, or it'll swallow her.”

Coach tells us you can fall from eleven feet and still land safely on a spring floor, our practice floor.

She says that knowing that, game time, Tacy will be flying high over not a spring floor but the merciless ground of the Mohawks' football field.

”Slaussen,” Coach says, ”you gotta want it. Don't do it if you don't want it.”

And Tacy, her back straighter, her eyes clearer, her chin higher than I've ever seen on this meek and weak girl, replies, ”I want it, Coach. I want it.”

Tacy. Here was the head-smacking convert.

I can feel Beth's eyeroll without even looking.

”I knew that one was wasting our time,” Beth says.

But I don't say anything. I am watching Tacy's avid eyes.

Friday night, when we set foot on the Mohawks' field, the frosted ground beneath us, how can we not picture Tacy's skull splitting daintily in two?

And two of the Mohawk squad b.i.t.c.hes, the rangiest with legs like spires, circle us before and start gaming us with tales of blood sport. A mix of fish tales, trash talk, and camaraderie.

”JV year, the girl was fronting a new Flyer learning her twist,” the blonde Mohawk says, gum smacking, ”and when the Flyer spun around her legs came apart and knocked out both Bases. One popped a lip and the other had to get a face cut glued shut. Coach caught it on video and replays it at all our after-parties.”

”I was practicing my back handspring,” the scrubby redhead says, ”and I kicked Heather and knocked her teeth right out of her face. It was insane. Teeth and blood were flying everywhere. I felt soooo bad.”

There is a breathless momentum to it. I know how it goes. It's fun when you're doing it, like hearing a ghost story.

Forty-five minutes from now, though, it will not be fun for Tacy, standing fifteen feet in the air, two spindly girls holding her up, ready to toss her.

Tacy is gray, into green.

Beth saunters over. She gives me a look, one I know from her captain days. I nod.

”That's enough,” I interrupt everyone. ”Don't know about you hardcore b.i.t.c.hes, but we'd rather spend our pre-game time getting pretty.”

But the blonde Mohawk, eyes hard on Tacy, won't stop working her. ”This one kid, she had a body just like yours. And she hit the tramp bar, hard. Her head was bleeding a lot, lot, and she had to go to the ER. Turns out the skin on her head had split and you could see all this pink stuff underneath. She needed staples to pull it back together. We couldn't get her to come back to cheer no matter how hard we tried. Now she's isn't doing anything at all.” and she had to go to the ER. Turns out the skin on her head had split and you could see all this pink stuff underneath. She needed staples to pull it back together. We couldn't get her to come back to cheer no matter how hard we tried. Now she's isn't doing anything at all.”

”Slaussen,” Beth shouts, looming over us now. ”Coach wants you.”

Rabbit-like, Tacy skitters away.

For a second, I think it's done. But it's not.

Beth surveys the Mohawk girls.

”Once,” Beth starts, and I know what she's going to do, and this is why she was captain. ”I was standing on this girl's shoulders and I slipped and fell flat on my back.”

Everyone gasps politely.

”The crack was so loud they heard it in the parking lot,” I add.

”My first thought,” Beth says, shaking her head, ”was how am I going to tell my mom?”

Everyone nods appreciatively.

”I was lucky,” she says, her cool gaze on those Mohawks, s.h.i.+vering a little now in their long timbers. ”I was only paralyzed for six weeks. They bolted this metal ring into my skull with pins to hold my head and neck in place. It's called a halo, if you want to know.”

We two, in such sync, like the old days, like before Coach, before last summer.

Reaching across, I touch Beth's hair lightly with my fingertips. ”The doctors said if she'd been an inch to the right or left,” I say, ”she would have died.”

”But I didn't,” Beth says. ”And nothing would ever stop me from cheering anyway.

”They gave me the coolest purple cast. And Coach tells me I'm the best Flyer she ever had.”

Under the bank of stadium lights, Tacy's face poppy pink with purpose and mania, we raise her up, her hands releasing our trembling shoulders, and she rockets herself, thrusting her legs in either direction, arms pressed against her ears and flying higher than I've ever seen.

So high that a wild shake ripples through all of us, our cradled arms vibrating with awe and wonder.

Vibrating so strongly that it runs through me, it does, and I feel my left arm slacken, ever so slightly, and a shudder bores through me, and if it weren't for RiRi next to me, feeling my tremor, flas.h.i.+ng me her terror, a starry span of panic before my eyes, I wouldn't have driven that steel back into my blood, my muscles, my everything.

Made it tight and iron-fast for Tacy, who seemed to be in the air for minutes, hours, a radiant creature with white-blond hair spread wing-like, finally sinking safely, ecstatically, into all our arms.

It's hours later, and we're in Emily's dad's car sneaking swigs of blackberry cordial, swiped from RiRi's garage, where her brother hides it.

We're waiting in the parking lot of the Electric Crayon, its neon sign radiating s.e.x and chaos, the cordial tickling our mouths and bellies almost unbearably.

We've never been on Haber Road before, except the time we went with RiRi's sister to Modern Women's Clinic to get ofloxacin and she told us after how she almost choked when they stuck that big swab down her throat, but it was still better than what Tim Martinson had stuck down her throat.

We all laughed even though it didn't really seem funny and none of us want to end up at Modern Women's Clinic ever, the matted-down wall-to-wall, and the buzzing fluorescent lights, and the girl behind the front desk who sang softly to herself, ”Boys trying to touch my junk-junk-junk. Gonna get me some crunk-crunk-crunk.” ”Boys trying to touch my junk-junk-junk. Gonna get me some crunk-crunk-crunk.”

An hour slides by before Tacy finally comes out of the Electric Crayon, tugging her jeans down so we can see the Sutton Grove eagle soaring there, the envy so strong it almost makes me burst.

Coach, she wouldn't come with us no matter how much we begged. But she did slip Tacy forty bucks for it. Two smooth twenties, tucked in our new Flyer's trembling hands.

We never heard of any coach doing that, ever.