“So just do what you want to do,” Angel advises Grimshaw in the cemetery the next morning, “but we’ll do it as a separate team.”

“Like start our own dance team?”

“Yeah. For next semester. That’ll be better, anyway. Then we don’t have to deal with their stupid rules. We don’t have to deal with them at all.”

“And we can pick the girls we want anyway. I mean, ask them.”

“And can we still be cheerleaders, too?”

Rack shrugs. “Sure. The cheers are so old and so stupid anyway, and we know them all, so there’s nothing to practice.”

“And then we do halftime shows as the dance team.”

“Not her, though,” Grimshaw says, nodding in my direction. “She won’t have time.”

“You have to do your homework,” Angel tells me.

“I’m doing it.”

“You have to keep pulling down those big fat sexy A’s,” says Rack.

“I’m pulling them.”

“So make us proud.”

Grimshaw looks at me. “Do you think your mom would let us do it? Set up a separate dance squad and just get away from Nanci Lee?”

“Why wouldn’t she? She’s been pretty useful so far.”

Grimshaw gets even more excited about her idea for a new dance team than she was about reupholstering the dead old Colchis cheerleading. She also starts talking about how founding a high school dance team might be her shot at getting to New York City next year. Knowing she’d have to convince my mother the principal, Grimshaw outlines how exactly we could be both cheerleaders and start the dance team, and how it might help her get into a real dance school.

“Upward mobility,” I say.

Angel reaches back her hand, and Grimshaw slaps her high five.

After lunch, Grimshaw and I meet in my mother’s office to talk it over.

“Melody,” the principal starts. “I’m really liking this new Melody we’re seeing this year. Active, engaged, really participating.” Without her glasses, her eyes seem very round and bright. “For right now, though,” she says, “I’m thinking we should stick to cheerleading, and really focus on getting those grades up.”

“My grades are up,” Grimshaw says.

“And I think that’s great,” my mother says. “Good for you, really. So our next step should be let’s see if we can really sustain that. Let’s get those good grades locked right in, at least past midterms, and then we’ll see—”

“When?” I ask. “When will we see?”

“January, end of January.” My mother snaps her fingers. “Coming right up. And those good midterm grades will be on your transcript, which is so important for …” She searches the air above Grimshaw’s head for what it might be important for. “For the future, for your future.”

“So … we can’t start a dance team, then?”