Dreaming of Cheers (Standing Up to Life Book 3)

Chapter 1:

Part I: Spirited

THE ALARM WENT off in my room, pushing me to wake up to begin a busy Monday, beginning an equally busy week. I found myself padding into the bathroom attached to my room, jumping in the shower, and letting hot water roll down my body. I forced myself to be quick though, skipping washing my long hair, so that I could get my clothes on and go down the hall to Amy's room. The two of us had convinced our parents that it was necessary for me to stay over Sunday night so that we could do each other's hair for the day.

Today was our 'crazy-hair' day of spirit week at Holden Junior High. Since we were both co-captains on the dance squad we were expected to really go all out for each day. As I walked into her room she said, "Finally! I thought you were going to wait until we were late for school before you came in."

I just stuck my tongue out at her in response since I was too tired to say anything. "You or me first?" I asked in the most polite response I could give at five in the morning.

"Well seeing as how you're the most asleep and grouchy, why don't I do yours first Tiffany?" She suggested.

"Okay, thanks," I told her with the beginnings of a smile. Not being a morning person, I hadn't been incredibly thrilled with the thought of waking up an extra ninety minutes early for the day – but she was right. Pretty soon I felt her doing all manner of strange things with my hair. She had me move outside for a few minutes so she could use some spray hair color in our school colors on my hair.

After she put the color on, she sprayed some glitter stuff on and said, "Tag, you're it."

I looked at a clock and saw it was 6:10 already. "Okay, let's go back up to your room really quick."

On the way upstairs I saw my reflection in a hallway mirror. Amy had first of all started off with two lopsided pigtails off the top of my head. She'd then added a couple small braids here and there, and a couple other bunches of hair sticking out here and there. Topped off with the color and the glitter stuff... I don't think I could have looked any more ridiculous if I had tried. I grimaced and promised to myself that I would get even with her!

Forty minutes later I felt like I had done a pretty good job of making her hair at least as ridiculous as mine looked. I'd stolen her idea of pigtails, but had gone much farther, making like eight mini-pigtails all over her head. After adding a couple little braids, some funky hair accessories, spraying it with color and glitter, I decided that she was done. She looked in the mirror and shook her head. "Tiffany, I guess I should have known you'd get me at least as good," she said with a wink.

"So, is it 'crazy' enough?" I asked her.

"I don't think you two could do it any crazier if you tried," Amy's Mom, Melanie, answered behind us. "You two also couldn't be running any slower if you tried either," she added. "Let's get some breakfast in you before we can't because you're too late."

With that we began a flourish of eating breakfast and a seemingly normal day of going to school. As it was kind of chilly that day, I'd just worn some jeans and a long sleeve striped t-shirt. I noticed Amy was dressed the same way as we walked on out to her mom's car. By the time we arrived at school I was feeling awake and talkative. The two of us must have been driving her mom crazy because she just shook her head as she dropped us off in front of the school.

About the time I finished dropping off my saxophone, the bell rang and we went off to our first period class together. In the hallway we bumped into Kyle and David. Since they were both on the football team, they were also expected to at least make an attempt on their hair. Both of them had dyed their hair blue and sprayed their jersey number in white on top of that. "Tiffany, Amy, I don't think anyone is going to top your attempts at crazy hair," Kyle told me as we got to first hour history with Mr. Grainger.