Matt Casey's nieces and nephew

Chapter 16

The cheerleaders were practicing a few new dance moves that had Grace a little on edge which Ellie tried to calm her down about. The twin girls are great dancers, graceful and elegant. Twelve years of ballet will do that to girls, but the part of cheerleading with flips and flying through the air was new to Grace but not Ellie as she did a little cheerleading in LA. The triplets old school had separate cheerleading and dance teams so they never had to learn the cheer side of performing. Grace loved it though, and she caught on quickly with most things, but all the turns and flips in the air had her nervous.

Gracie wasn't tall by any means and she an average build, which made her a great candidate for the top of the pyramids and to be thrown in the air. She had worked with Elle, Claire and Rachel a lot when the girls first joined but she was able to fly under the radar and stay a dancer that did floor work such as cart wheels and round offs and a few flips.

But when Tina sprained her ankle, Grace had to step up. She was the next smallest girl and she had to train with the bases to do twists and flips now in the air. It wasn't that she was overly bad at it, but she was always perfect with dance and it annoyed her that this wasn't coming easily to her. She wasn't sure if it was because she didn't trust the bases or because she was scared, but either way, Grace needed to figure out how to do this.

They were practicing a move called the helicopter. They would hoist her up, she'd hold position on one foot, then they would throw her and she was to do a twist and they would catch her. It didn't take her long to figure out how to balance and hold the pose and she understood the twist, she just had to trust that they would catch her.

"Okay, Grace," Claire said. "They're going to give you a bit of height and you're going to twist onto your side for a full rotation before they catch you. Are you ready?"

Grace nodded and took a deep breath. She put her hands on their shoulders and they lifted her up. She balances and held the position perfectly, before she was thrown into the air. She tried to turn but she didn't quite get enough height and she came crashing to the mat with her bases. They tried again and again and again, and each time Grace just couldn't get the hang on it. She wasn't in sync with her bases. They would throw her too high or not high enough, throwing Grace off. And when they did throw her at the right height, Grace would mess up the turn.

"Alright, we'll try again tomorrow." Claire said after Grace crashed to the ground for the eleventh time.

Claire helped Grace up and they made their way to the locker room. "I'm never going to get the hang of this."

"Sure you will," Ellie reassured. "You just need to get out of your head. Stop thinking and just let your body do it. You have a tendency to overthink things."

Grace smirked. "Yeah, I do, don't I?"

Claire nodded with a smile. "Just a little. So, what's up with you and Tyler?"

"He's in a mood," Grace rolled her eyes. "I asked him to come to dinner tomorrow night with my Uncle and he got all mad about it. Saying he had practice and was going out with the guys."

"They're all PMSing because Coach is running two a day practises to get ready for the tournament next weekend." She said. "Nick is being grumpy too."

"Well it caused a big fight at lunch and the stupid thing is, I texted him about it on Monday and he was fine with it. All I was doing was reminding him and he completely lost it on me."

"So was Alex to think about it" Ellie tells them.

"I say screw them," Claire said. "They don't have a game tomorrow so let's have a girls night and we'll just ignore them. Let's see how they like it."