Page 100 of Campus Heat

LAST HOME GAME!

HIGHLANDERS VS WESTCONN.

LET’S PACK THE STANDS!

I don’t know if it was the look or the way they had managed to motivate me, but I felt a small, quiet sense of satisfaction settle in my chest. This expedition had started as a simple idea. We wanted to make a few posters to show our support for the team and maybe grow their following, but somewhere along the way the entire campus had gotten involved.

“It’s looking really good! Much better than the plain old boring white.”

I turned around and nearly fell over Jenna. She had another stack of fliers pressed to her chest.

“You think?” I asked as another wave of nervous energy washed over me.

Jenna glanced down the hall and smiled. “Just look at them.”

I followed her gaze and saw two freshmen walking up to us. They had their backpacks slung over their shoulders, and one of them slowed down to read a poster. Then he nodded approvingly.

“Hey,” he said as they approached us. “Good luck for tomorrow.”

I blinked in disbelief. Nothing like that had ever happened before. “Thanks.”

The guys kept walking, and another group of students passed a few minutes later. One girl stopped briefly and adjusted a poster that had come loose on one side.

“Go, Highlanders,” she said casually before continuing down the hall.

I exchanged a look with Jenna. “That’s new.”

Jenna grinned. “There are no memes.”

“And no nasty comments,” I added.

The two of us walked toward the student center, and for the first time I noticed how our footsteps echoed against the tile floor. It felt like the calm before the storm. Like we were about to make history, the kind that those exact tiles would remember for years to come. Like we were leaving our mark on Havenport.

The campus itself felt different, too. There were students lingering in small groups outside the buildings. People were talking about tomorrow’s game like it actually mattered, and a few of them were even wearing the school colors. For the first time in the entire season, it felt like people were actually rooting for the team. Near the quad, we passed the new batch of cheerleaders as they were heading to practice.

“Elizabeth,” one of them called out. “Did you put up all those posters?”

“It was a team effort,” I said. “But yes, I put up some of them.”

She gave me a dazzling smile. “They look amazing. I’m sure they’ll get a lot of attention.”

“Yeah,” another girl added. “People are actually talking about attending the game.”

A smile played at the corners of my lips. “That’s the idea.”

As we continued across the campus, Jenna bumped into me. I looked over at her and was met with the same smile she had plastered across her face since she first came to meet me. She was enthusiastic, and it was becoming contagious, but deep down I secretly prayed for the best.

“The tides are shifting,” she whispered ominously.

I looked back at everything we had just passed and for a moment I allowed myself to believe that maybe they were.

*

We had gathered outside the athletic building and were waiting to be called into Harris’s classroom for the emergency meeting he called. Jenna and I were very concerned because he had never asked the cheer squad to join before, so it could only be something bad, right?

I leaned against the brick wall, nervously adjusting the sleeves of my jacket as the other girls chatted casually nearby. Across the courtyard, the football players started arriving in small groups, and they looked just as anxious as we were, but apparently they were determined not to show it.

Cam was the first to notice me, and he raised his arms dramatically. “Poster queen!”