Kelly McClymer-Salem Witch 02 Competition's A Witch Read Online Free PDF Page B

here!
Witches must be in the atmosphere!
I said, Brrrr, it’s time to light a flame!
Witches, burn the court and shout our name!
    Confession time: Practice was more fun in Salem than it had been in Beverly Hills. Don’t get me wrong—my old team was awesome, and they deserved their three national championship wins. And I’m not saying it wasn’t a ton harder to cheer in witch 3-D. But the special effects were beyond rad. For example, when we did our take on the traditional brr, it’s cold cheer, we made snow fall from the ceiling and land gently on our heads and shoulders—and then made it disappear before ithit the floor and turned things slippery. My old team would wear last year’s style for a chance to do something like that.
    It wasn’t just the special effects, either. The regular moves were off the hook when you didn’t need to stand on the floor or have eight sweaty hands holding your legs. I mean, back in Beverly Hills I could do a split on the floor. And a fine-looking split too, even if it wasn’t the most dramatic move, what with all the triple backflips nowadays. Here at Agatha’s? I had my pick of floor, wall, and ceiling beams. Or I could just hang in midair. Kewl, for sure. If I could figure out how to do it without looking like a twenty-four-karat idiot.
    I know you’re not supposed to worry about messing up when you’re learning at warp speed, but my rep couldn’t afford another hit on the competence front. My status on the team was shaky enough already. I didn’t need the girls to know that my magic skills were not only rusty but possibly poser-alert level. Of course, I knew there were whispers. With girls, there are always whispers. We can’t help it. When we’re not talking out loud to each other, we’re whispering behind each other’s backs. That was one of the few things that translated from Beverly Hills High to Agatha’s.
    So far, I’d managed to head the whispers off with a smile and a slightly sad glance away. Let them think I keep my Talent to myself. That I don’t like to show off. That I’m still adjusting to life in Salem. Anything is better than the truth.
    But every time I hesitated to perform a stunt during practicebecause I was afraid I’d do something lame like use the floor instead of hover in midair like I was supposed to, I knew there were poser-seeking cheerleader eyes looking for my weak spot.
    Not that I blamed them for being on constant poser alert. It’s necessary to know if you can trust your teammates in cheerleading. Otherwise you may end up with a split lip or a broken leg. Or worse, look like a dork with pom-poms. So if I wanted to be a cheerleader, I had to live with the fact that my secret could come out: I was not a very good witch. At least, not yet. I refused to give up on forever unless I did something horrendous like turn myself into a ten-foot purple python. With feathers. Not that I worried about it a lot. Only every third breath or so.
    And so despite the kewl moves, practice could be a little stressful. Especially the day Coach Gertie blew her whistle and called my name. “Prudence, if we’re going to have a chance to win the regionals, we need to know what we don’t know. So I’d like you to tell us how we can win our first competition.”
    I had been practicing walking on a ceiling beam with the confidence I used to have on the balance beam—before I had a humiliating dive-and-spew incident during tryouts—when her voice boomed out. I nearly fell off the beam before I caught myself and smiled down at Coach Gertie like I welcomed the opportunity to be front and center for show-and-tell.
    She turned to the thunderstruck Tara, who had stopped practicing her dive rolls in mid-dive, and gestured to theother girls to stop their practice too. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful? To show what the Witches can do by winning our first-ever competition?”
    There was a halfhearted cheer of agreement. Not the best introduction to the idea of winning.