They Called Her a Routine Thief at the Pep Rally, Then the Judge's Own Score Sheet Came Out of Her Bag
"Second-year flyer, off the floor before the pep rally," Coach Bevan said, and her open palm caught Rowan across the cheekbone.
Rowan Delaine is seventeen, the quietest girl on the exhibition squad, and in three hours she is supposed to fly center at the pep rally. She has one notebook, one thin silver chain, and a mother who died two winters ago.
Nan Kress stands at the booster table with her phone in her hand and her daughter already changed into the flyer uniform. Nan wants that spot saved for her own kid tonight.
Bevan told the gym the choreography was stolen. She said the rival team's routine was lifted, and she said Rowan's name with the squad circled around her. Rowan held her cheek and said nothing.
Then Rowan walked to her duffel at the tape line and pulled out a spiral notebook. The cover was soft from handling, and page four had a coffee ring on it that matched the opening pose exactly.
"Your notebook doesn't mean a thing," Bevan said, and called the front office.
Devin Hoyt was standing behind Rowan's right shoulder. Devin is the girl who laughed loudest. Devin also had her phone in her pocket, still recording from practice.
The recorder held a timestamp — 6:12 a.m., Tuesday. In the still, Coach Bevan stands alone at the booster table with a second gym's binder open in front of her, writing out the same routine in her own hand.
Rowan turned the screen toward the athletic director when he came through the door. Bevan said the notebook proved nothing and that Devin was a liar.
The last thing that came out of Rowan's bag was a single white page. It was the judge's duplicate score sheet from the spring qualifier, with the routine name on the top line and the "received" box initialed in blue ink — Bevan's own hand, three years of signatures the gym had seen a hundred times.
Devin read the initials out loud.
Bevan said, "That's not my hand."
Then the page just stayed there, held up in the middle of the squad circle, and nobody moved to take it from Rowan.
That is where it stops — the second routine sheet is still in the air, and so is everything the gym did behind the routine transfer.
Advertisement