The sound carried all the way up into the bleachers.
It was not loud. That was the thing about it. Alana would remember that for the rest of her life. In the middle of the music, and the band, and the crowd, it was not a loud sound at all. It was a small, dull, wet sound, like a green stick breaking. And then Britney screamed.
The music stopped. Someone in the booth had pulled the plug. The silence that followed was enormous. The whole pyramid had come apart; girls were climbing down, jumping down, some of them crying already, scattering backward on the mats. In the middle of the mats, Madison Cross was getting up. She was getting up fast. She was unhurt. She stood up and brushed off her skirt and turned around and looked down.
Britney was lying on her side on the mat, curled up, holding her right arm against her body with her left hand and screaming, high and thin and broken, over and over.
And Madison Cross stood over her, and her face was white with fury, and she shouted, so loud that the whole home side of the stadium heard it in the sudden silence:
"What did you do? You dropped me! You ruined it! You ruined everything, you stupid—" She turned on Tessa, who was standing a few feet away with both hands over her mouth. "And you! You were late! I told you! I told both of you! We were supposed to go on the six, I told you the six, I changed it at warmups and you—" She whirled back to Britney. "Get up! Get up, Britney, oh my God, stop being so dramatic, everybody's watching, get up!"
Britney did not get up. She was not screaming any more. She was sobbing, in big ragged gulps, curled around her arm.
None of the other girls moved. They stood scattered across the mats in their navy and gold, frozen, looking at Madison. Waiting to be told what to do. Coach Williams was running toward them from the far end of the track, but she was a long way off, at the other end of the formation, and she was not young, and the assistant coach was behind her with the first aid kit. In the stands, people were on their feet, craning, murmuring. Somebody was calling for a trainer. The football teams had come out of the tunnels for the second half and were standing on the sidelines in their helmets, staring.
And Madison Cross stood over Britney Walsh on the mat, in her crown and her uniform, with her hands on her hips, shouting at her to get up.
Alana did not decide to move. She would think about that later. There was no moment where she decided. She just found that she was moving.
She was on her feet. She was out of the blanket, and her hot chocolate was on the bench, spilling, and her mother was saying something sharp behind her, and she did not hear what. She did not take her crutches. She went down the aisle of the bleachers sideways, fast, holding the rail, hopping on her good foot, taking the steps two at a time with her bad one held up off the ground, people moving out of her way, somebody saying hey, hey, careful. The bleachers ended at a low metal railing, chest-high, with a six-foot drop on the other side down to the track. There was a gate in it, thirty yards away, down by the end zone, with a security guard beside it. Thirty yards on one foot. Too far.
She put both hands on the railing and swung herself over it.
She had done it a thousand times. Not over railings. Over vaulting boxes, in the gym in Chula Vista, at six in the morning, until her palms bled. She went over sideways, her weight on her arms, her bad leg tucked, and dropped the six feet down to the rubberized track and landed on her good foot, left foot, knee bent, absorbing it the way she had been taught, and pain went through her right ankle anyway, sharp and hot, from the jolt, and she ignored it. She was eight feet from the edge of the mats. She hopped. Two hops. Three. And then she was on the mats, and down on her knees beside Britney Walsh, and she had put herself, without thinking about it, between Britney and Madison.
"Britney," she said. "Britney. Look at me. It's Alana. Look at me."
Britney looked at her. Her face was gray and wet and twisted with pain, mascara running down her cheeks in long black streaks, her white ribbon come loose and trailing in her hair. Her eyes were wide and unfocused. She did not seem to know who Alana was. Then, slowly, she did. Alana saw it happen. She saw the recognition come into the girl's eyes, and with it, something else. Something like disbelief.
"What are you—" Britney gasped.