The Cheerleader's Guide to Roller Derby

Chapter Nine: Miss Toddlers in Tiaras

Cher N. Misery guided me into a storage room. She settled me on a box and handed a stack of tissues to me. She stepped back out of the room long enough to instruct the other girls to jog around the track, then closed the door behind us.

"Pinterest?" she said.

I blew my nose and nodded.

"It gets a couple of girls every call out. I swear, I don't know who keeps putting that stuff on there. Somewhere, in some town, tutus must still be the thing but, here? They're kind of 2010. The young ones still like them though."

Like rocking the pre-teen look was going to make me feel better.

She pulled up a box for herself and sat down across from me. "The thing is -- What's your name?"

"Chantal."

"The thing is, Chantal, you can recover from this. You met Red at the callout meeting, the one with the braid? She seemed pretty cool, right?"

I nodded.

"You know what she wore to her first practice? A Girl Scout uniform. Whip It." She rolled her eyes.

I didn't know what 'whip it' meant, but I would sooner die than be caught in a Girl Scout uniform. That shade of green has always looked terrible on me.

"Today she is one of the most respected jammers in the league."

Whatever her point was, I hoped she'd get to it. I had just enough strength left to run out, grab my coat and make it to my car before I died of shame.

"You can quit if you want to," she said. "Then all those girls out on the track will ever know about you is that you let one stupid choice defeat you."

Seemed like a pretty good plan to me.

"Or you can go out there and show them that you are more than that. It's your move."

With that, she stood and exited the room, leaving the door open just a crack.

Come on, I thought, I'm a cheerleader. Motivation is kind of my specialty. Did she really expect me to fall for something as cheesy as the old "Hey, You Can Do It If You Put Your Mind To It" crap? I'd cheered at enough games to know that sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.

And sometimes you sneak out when nobody's looking.

But first I planned to tear off the tutu, throw it to the floor and stomp on it a few times. Once this was accomplished, I peeked through the crack in the door. Coach Misery had the team in the downward dog yoga position by then. It was my chance. I sprinted toward the rows of seats and grabbed my coat. I left the bag of equipment behind because, well, because. I abandoned the tutus too. I never wanted to see another one of those as long as I lived, which might not be too long considering the way my heart was pumping.

I raced for the door and had almost reached it when it flew open. In bounced Moni Fredrickson shouting, "Ohmigod, I'm sorry! I'm late again, aren't I?"

She was wearing ... wait for it ... a tutu. A caution orange tutu. With matching bows knotted around a pair of curly, springy yellow pigtails.

I tucked myself into a corner to watch as the girls on the track scrambled to stand. I heard a familiar snort. "Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. We have a winner! Come on in and accept your crown. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present your new -- Miss Toddlers in Tiaras!"

Maybe it was because her glasses were fogged over. Maybe, like me, she'd been frozen with humiliation. For whatever reason, Moni didn't move. Not even a muscle. Cher N. Misery did though. She race walked off the track and grabbed another box of tissues.

With everyone's attention focused on the two of them, I slipped out the door and left the world of roller derby behind.

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I told myself I was just letting my car warm up but, I'll be honest with you, I didn't want to leave until I'd witnessed Moni's walk of shame. I'd waited five minutes though, and the girl had still not come out of the door. After ten minutes I convinced myself that she must be holding out for her own downward dog moment. When twenty minutes had passed, and still no Moni, I had to admit: She wasn't leaving.

You've heard how curiosity killed the cat, right? Go ahead, call me Kitty. I was only going to poke my head in again for a second, but quick peeks inside are not the norm for Minnesota winters. Once again, I was snow blind. I could hear all the girls still laughing though. And I almost felt bad for Moni.

My vision started to stabilize. I found Moni's bright orange tutu and bows, not crumpled in the changing area -- but out on the track. Skating. And she was laughing too.

A choir full of huhs? hows? and what the eff's? fired in my brain. I didn't have time to process any of them because another figure stood out then. It was Cher N. Misery. She was shouting, "Chantal! So glad you decided to join us!"

Four skaters rolled to a stop. "Chantal?" they all said at once. "Chantal Simmons?"

One of them was, of course, Moni. Two of the others were Q-Tip and Coffee. The fourth was the girl dressed in black, the one who had called me out for wearing the tutu and humiliated me. Who was she?

I was about to find out.

The girl skated toward me purposefully. She stopped just a foot from me, placed her hands on her hips and looked me over. "Long time, no see," she said, and shoved my shoulder.

I scanned this girl's face and my memory, trying to decide if she had, perhaps, been a former victim of mine. If I was going to get my butt kicked, I preferred to know who was doing it, and why. There was something about her that was familiar but I couldn't place the face with either a name ... or a situation that I was about to regret.

"It's me," the girl said, with a smile breaking out on her face. "Cara. From Pop's? We used to skate together on Sundays, remember?"

I stared at her broad shoulders and slim hips, her black hair and the even blacker eyeliner rimming her eyes. It was hard to match up the girl who stood before me with the scrawny freckle faced Cara I used to race around the roller rink. But she was in there somewhere, I guess. And the sooner I acknowledged her, the less likely she was to beat me to a pulp.

"Ohmigod, Cara!" I said, and threw my arms open, inviting a hug.

Which she declined.

"I've got an image to uphold," she whispered. "And by the way, around here they call me Scare Bear." With that, she turned to the group and said, "Listen up, freshies." There was a note of disdain in her voice but I was pretty sure that was for the girls out on the track and not me. "This is my old friend Chantal. And she is Bad. Ass."

I was?

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