Are you ready to meditate with Kori?
Climb up into your bed and make sure that you're super comfortable.
Check that everything is just right in your room,
So that you can relax your body and let go of your busy,
Busy day.
Tucker was bored.
He'd gone outside,
Found his stone underneath the Buddha statue.
He was holding it up to the sunshine,
Repeating,
Where are you,
My lovely fairy?
The sun shone through the veins in the white stone and the gold lit up.
And there she was,
His beautiful,
White-looking angel fairy,
Her wings big and wide.
She peered at him out through the stone and said,
You get just one wish.
One wish.
Tucker,
Of course,
Wished that he and Leo and his friends were human once again.
Everything instantly changed.
Tucker found himself on a football pitch.
He was wearing a cheerleading outfit.
Leo was stood next to him.
As Tucker gathered his self and his thoughts and his wits,
All trying to figure themselves out at the same time,
Like,
Where am I?
What happened?
What's this?
The noise hit him.
There were crowds and crowds and crowds of people filling the seats in the stands.
There were football players,
American football players,
Playing football on the pitch.
He instantly noticed Heidi,
Cherry and Vea all wearing cheerleading outfits,
Doing a cheer.
Tucker and Leo found themselves right there with them.
Cherry jumped off the top of one of her friend's shoulders,
Landed on the floor and said,
OMG,
Tucker,
What are you doing here?
Tucker shrugged his shoulders.
I've got no idea.
I can't cheerlead.
Leo looked very,
Very stressed.
Leo said,
Oh,
Gosh,
What on egg are we doing here?
Leo was just staring around blankly.
Cherry said,
Just get into it.
Just act like you know what you're doing.
Heidi turned around and noticed Tucker and Leo.
How long have you been there?
Said Heidi.
Tucker said,
We just got here.
How long have you been here?
Heidi said,
I don't know,
But I really like it.
Vea was too busy chanting out some kind of cheerleading song.
Give me an A.
Give me an M.
Give me an A.
Give me an M.
Give me a C.
She looked so cute as a cheerleader.
Her blonde ponytail was bouncing all over the place.
When she eventually figured it out that Cherry and Heidi were no longer doing the same cheer as her,
She stopped.
She stopped shaking her pom-poms.
She turned around and noticed Tucker and Leo.
Oh,
Hi,
Guys.
This is so much fun.
It's so much fun.
Cherry said,
No one's noticed.
They haven't noticed that we've just like joined the group.
Heidi said,
Yeah,
We've just been copying everyone.
I've always wanted to be a cheerleader.
Leo looked at Heidi and said,
You have?
Heidi said,
Well,
Yeah,
Like secretly inside.
I know I'm not really the cheerleading type,
But yeah,
It's really fun.
I had quite a lot of set judgments actually thinking about it.
I thought cheerleaders were all kind of just like,
You know,
A particular type of girl.
I didn't even realize boys could be a cheerleader.
And now,
Now we spent a little bit of time with them.
They're all so different.
I thought cheerleaders were just kind of like popular girls that,
Wow,
I hate to say it,
But maybe they're a little bit mean,
But they're not.
They're really nice guys.
You're going to love it,
Leo.
Leo said,
How many boys are on this squad?
Cherry said,
Like,
I think about ten.
There's loads of them,
Look.
Leo and Tucker looked around.
There were a lot of guys on the team.
And the guys seem to be doing a lot of like lifting and catching,
Different things like that.
One of the guys did three backflips in a row,
Three backflips.
He bounced off the ground over and over again,
Three times.
Leo gulped.
Oh,
I hope they don't think I can do that.
Cherry said,
Leo,
Don't worry about it.
This is your time to use your muscles.
You can use your muscles.
Look at you.
You've got some right muscles on you.
You'll be able to use them right now.
Are you ready to catch me,
Leo?
Leo panicked.
No,
No,
I'm not.
I don't know what to do.
Tucker said,
I'll have a go.
I'll have a go.
Tucker just followed Cherry's lead.
Cherry told Tucker to put his hands together.
She put one of her feet in his hands and then pushed off the other foot and jumped up onto his shoulders.
Tucker stood there.
She shouted down,
Hold on to me ankles.
Tucker held on to Cherry's ankles and Cherry started singing,
Give me an A.
She was shaking her pom-poms about.
The crowd was going wild.
Cherry said,
Listen to him.
Listen to him.
I can't believe it.
Heidi said,
I don't think they're doing that just for us.
I think they're doing that for the football players.
Vea said,
Oh,
I'm not so sure about that because every time I do this certain cartwheel,
I get lots and lots of applause and cheers.
I'm sure people are noticing.
Cherry said as she jumped down off Tucker's shoulders,
You can do a cartwheel.
Cherry followed Vea to practice doing a cartwheel.
Heidi said,
Leo,
Come on,
Try and do what Cherry and Tucker just did.
Leo put his hands together.
And Heidi used it to support herself to jump and push herself up.
And then she jumped onto his shoulders.
Leo was really proud of himself.
He actually thought it was quite easy.
After a minute,
Heidi jumped down and landed next to him.
See,
I told you.
Leo said,
Yeah,
That was really fun.
Then Leo started to look around and see what all the other cheerleading guys were doing.
Before long,
Tucker and Leo were actually doing some really cool stuff.
They had girls balancing on their shoulders,
Doing pyramids,
Doing all sorts of things.
At one point,
There were three different girls that climbed up and did like a pyramid on top of their shoulders.
It was so cool.
And they were doing different dance moves.
The music was blaring out really loud.
And then this one girl said,
OK,
OK,
Everyone,
Halftime's coming.
This is us.
This is our spot.
This is super important.
Let's go team.
We can do this.
We can do this.
The music got really,
Really loud.
And it looked like the whole cheerleading squad was doing some kind of routine that everyone knew,
Except Heidi,
Cherry,
Vea,
Tucker and Leo.
But somehow,
In some magical,
Weird,
Strange way,
Heidi,
Cherry,
Vea,
Tucker and Leo got it.
They knew what they were doing.
They were like natural cheerleaders.
They did the whole halftime performance and had the most amazing time.
Each one of them loved it,
Absolutely loved it.
Who'd have thought cheerleaders had this much fun,
Said Leo at the end.
I really like this.
Tucker said,
It's awesome.
It's awesome,
Man.
It's awesome.
Cherry said,
OMG,
It was like so cool.
It was just like the best.
It was so cool.
I'm so excited.
I'm like so humped.
I'm so humped.
Vea said,
Humped?
Is humped like a cool word?
I thought it was like pumped.
Cherry said,
Oh,
Yeah,
Yeah,
I was so pumped,
So pumped.
And then they all started laughing.
They were just getting used to this pre-teen kind of deal,
Being human and all of that stuff.
It was really,
Really challenging at times.
There was so many things to it.
So much pressure.
Pressure to be cool.
Pressure to dress cool.
Pressure to act cool.
Pressure to talk cool.
Why did you have to be so cool all the time?
But cheerleading just seemed to come natural to every single one of them.
And they absolutely loved it.
They were definitely in their element being in the cheer team.
Afterwards,
When the game was over,
They were all sat down on the football pitch.
The crowds had started to leave.
Things had started to quiet down.
They didn't want to go home.
The big lights turned on in the arena.
As it was getting darker,
The sun was going down.
They all just sat there.
Cherry said,
Well,
I can definitely put that on my done it list.
Because that was just like amazing.
Tucker said,
I felt awesome.
I really liked it.
It was really cool.
And there was a lot of really,
Really nice people on the cheerleading team.
Heidi said,
Yeah,
I was so impressed.
And one thing I didn't realize that now I will know and never look at them the same is how hard they work.
They are so fit.
They are so,
So strong.
They said,
Oh,
Yes,
My,
I couldn't believe it.
I couldn't believe how athletic you have to be to be a cheerleader and be on the cheerleading team.
Who would have thought it?
I bet they work out all the time and practice and practice and practice and practice.
Leo said,
Yeah,
All the guys had to be really strong.
Cherry said,
Oh,
Leo,
Stop bragging about your muscles.
No one had ever really noticed that Leo had got quite a few muscles.
Not until today,
Lifting everyone and doing all the different cheerleading things that they were doing.
Tucker said,
What about my muscles?
Tucker was squeezing his arms together,
Trying to pump up his pecs on his chest.
And everyone rolled around laughing.
Tucker didn't have as many muscles as Leo.
Leo was obviously the silent warrior,
Shy and quiet,
But very,
Very strong type.
Who would have thought it?
Tucker said that he had decided that he was going to start lifting weights.
That way he'd get bigger muscles.
Cherry said,
Oh,
I'd like to see the day.
I think I could probably lift more than you,
Tucker.
Tucker just said,
You watch this space,
Cherry.
Watch this space.
The next time you see me,
I'm going to be pumped.
I'm going to be so pumped you won't recognize me.
Cherry said,
Oh,
I'm Jay,
Tucker,
You're so funny.
And just laughed and elbowed him in the ribs.
They stayed there for even longer until some guy that looked like the gardener
Or the handyman around the stadium chucked them out.
They went out onto the main street outside of the football arena.
Now it was all lights.
It was dark outside.
They decided to get on the bus and go home together.
This was going to be their first bus ride.
They all got on the bus,
Sat on the seats,
And watched everything go by.
The different stores and restaurants and people on the streets.
Cherry said,
Did you see that girl's dress?
That was so awesome.
She zoomed by that fast that Vea missed it.
Oh,
I would have liked to have seen that.
What was it like?
They started talking about the dress.
Heidi had a book in her backpack.
She pulled it out and started reading.
Tucker and Leo were just doing stuff on their phones.
Probably just scrolling on social media,
Doing their thing.
Until eventually they separated.
The cats went home and Tucker and Leo went home.
And the next morning when they all woke up,
They found themselves back in their cat and dog bodies.
Never would they ever look at cheerleaders the same again.
There was a lot more to it than they thought.
And cheerleading was pretty darn awesome.
The End
