To Die For

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Most people don’t take cheerleading seriously. If they only knew…

All-American girl, that’s me. If you look at the pictures in my high school yearbooks, you’ll see a girl with long blond hair, a tan, and a wide grin that shows off her perfect white teeth, courtesy of thousands of dollars spent on braces and fluoride washes. The teeth, that is, not the hair and the tan. I had the effortless confidence of the upper-middle-class American teenage princess; nothing bad could happen to me. After all, I was a cheerleader.

I admit it. Actually, I’m proud of it. A lot of people think cheerleaders are both brainless and snooty, but that’s only people who have never been a cheerleader. I forgive them their ignorance. Cheerleading is hard work, a demanding blend of skill and strength, and it’s dangerous. People frequently get injured, sometimes even killed, doing the cheers. Usually it’s girls getting injured: guys are the tossers; girls are the tossees. Technically we’re called “flyers,” which is really silly because of course we can’t fly. We’re tossed. The tossees are the ones who fall on their heads and break their necks.

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