Their only obstacle is what to do with me. Every morning, Rack and Angel meet me and Grimshaw in the cemetery before school. We all have the first period free, so depending on the time and the weather, we hang out there for a while, drinking coffee. Grimshaw teaches them how to blow smoke rings, and they teach her cheers. While I do my homework, they discuss my many shortcomings as a cheerleader.

“Maybe she can just stand there,” Rack suggests, “and shake her pompoms.”

“But she can’t keep time,” Angel says. “Or remember the words. She has no sense of rhythm.”

I look up from solving a physics problem on acceleration. “I can lift,” I offer.

No, they decide I should just be injured. If I hurt my knee, my back, or my shoulder, that’ll keep me out of the way. They can pull me in if they need someone at the base of a pyramid.

“It’s cool,” says Grimshaw. “It’s not like we’re competing. We’re just having fun.”

Grimshaw’s eyes glow, her cheeks are pink, she looks like she’s in love, and all she’s talking about is cheerleading.

In Scot’s eyes, being a cheerleader is the first normal thing I’ve ever done. It’s so normal that it threatens to make the whole family normal. The first time I wear my purple and gold cheerleading sweater home, they act like Jesus Christ just rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.

“Oh!” my mother gasps when I enter the kitchen. “Oh, Serena!” She’s whipping up our weekly family dinner. “Sweetheart! Come and look!”

Scot rips himself away from the Sports Channel and appears in the doorway. “What is it?”

“Just look at Serena!” she warbles.

“Wow,” he says, through a mouthful of chips. “That is really fantastic. It fits nice, too. Purple’s your color.”

My mother cocks her head and looks at me. “Not with silver earrings, though,” she decides. She’s holding a big wooden spoon and flings drops of dressing around the kitchen as she talks. “Go upstairs and get a gold pair off my dresser.” Hypnotized by family approval, I go upstairs and do exactly as I’m told. I find the gold earrings and put them on. The cheerleader in the mirror waves at me. I wave back. She has blond hair and blue eyes. No Red Army hat. I don’t know what happened to it, but I suspect Grimshaw did something with it. The girl in the mirror tells me people in cheerleading sweaters and gold earrings are usually not communists. I tell her no, Mao said we could still swim among the fish in the sea. She tells me I’m doing this for my friend, so forget about Mao and just deal with it.