Its 5:00 in the morning and I’ve never been more happy to be up this early. Today’s the day, I told myself. Did I pack everything I need? Uniform? Bow? Bag? I rushed downstairs, startling my Mom. “Mom!” I said, “Did you wash my uniform? Did you pack bobby pins? Did you..” “Woah woah woah” she said interrupting me, “Calm down Brandi, its only Worlds.” Only Worlds?! She must be out of her mind. This is a huge day for our team. “Its already 5:30 Brandi, hurry we have to meet Coach Stacey at the airport in fifteen minutes.” “Okay Mom, I’m ready, lets go to Worlds.”
We’ve finally reached the airport and the first person I see is Lexi. Lexi is my bestfriend. We’ve been bestfriends since third grade. She’s a short, brown headed, green eyed girl, and my favorite flyer of course. We’ve been through everything together and we’re definitely inseparable. When she finally sees me I hurry and catch up with her to be sure we can sit together on the plane. Next I see Coach. “7,8,9..” she’s saying. She counts me last because as usual Mom and I are the latest. “Alright girls,” says coach, “Lets go win Worlds.” We all cheered our favorite cheer in the middle of Seaside Airport, and then we were on our way.
As we boarded the plane, Lexi and I rushed to get window seats. This was a first time experience for the both of us. Finally we took off. We had a five hour plane ride from here on out. As we took off, our eyes never left the window. As we flew into the clouds I gradually started to doze off. hopefully when I awake Worlds will be waiting for me.
“Brandi, Brandi!” Lexi says shaking me. “Wake up, wake up, we’re here, we’re here!” I wake up startled,excited, and anxious all in one. “Alright folks, we’ll be landing in five minutes, please exit in an orderly fashion. Enjoy your trip, and be safe,” said the pilot. As were getting off the plane, we all find our luggage and head to the nicest hotel in Orlando, Florida, compliments of the competition directors.
We pull into Hilton Orlando, and everyone is in awe of the huge building. The attendants all rush out and help us unpack. Coach Stacey heads to the desk to check in and get our room keys. When she returns we each get our roomies and run to our room. As you could’ve already assumed, Lexi, her mom, and my mom and I are all rooming together. We reach our room and we are ecstatic at the size of the room. It was beyond a master suite. We’ve never been in such a luxurious place in our lives. We could already tell this was going to be a great and adventurous week. “Tomorrow is the big day ladies,” my mom said. “I cant wait,” Lexi and I both said. “It’s 10:00 girls, y’all have a big day tomorrow, time for bed,” said Lexi’s mom. We need the rest, so we just went to bed.
As we woke up the next morning, everything was so hectic. All the early morning jitters hit us like big black train. We finally settled down enough to get our uniform on and makeup finished. The last thing to get done was our hair. As soon as she put our bow in, we packed our bag and we at last was heading to meet our team in the lobby. “Alright girls” Coach Stacey said, “Today is the biggest day of the season, we’ve come so far, we can’t go back now. Just remember always show facials, be sharp with your movements, shake hard, and hit the stunts. The most important thing to remember is, if someone falls or if someone gets hurt push ten times harder. All I ask of you, is just put 100% and work the hardest you can.” After that we said a quick prayer and went to the competition.
When we made it to the competition Coach signed us in, and we had to go straight back to the warm up room. Turns out that we perform fourth out of one hundred. That made us that much more anxious. We warmed up tumbling, stunts, dances, and ran through the routine one time before administration came and told us it was show time. Finally, this was the last time we would run our routine, this is what it all come down to. These last three minutes and twenty seconds counted the most. We were ready. We could actually win this. As the emotions flooded through our minds, the announcer called out “And now put your hands together for The Seaside Elite Team!” We ran out and got in our first positions. “Showtime ladies.”
Anticipation fills the room, as everyones eyes diverts to us. Then the music start, and we begin what could carry out our future. We were all hitting every stunt, every tumbling pass, and every movement we did. The crowd was ecstatic at how great we were doing. There was never a silent moment until, Lexi’s stunt fell. She fell right on her arm. We all knew it had to be broken, but her last tumbling pass was coming up, and it could make or break us. We could tell she was hurting but it was time for her last tumbling pass. As we were all dancing on the outskirts, right down the middle Lexi did her newest tumbling pass. Flipping and turning in the air, and lastly.. She stuck it! That was it. Our routine was finished now all we could do is take Lex to get medical assistance, wait and pray. Now that we all put 100% into it all we had to do is wait patiently.
The suspense ate us alive. As we watched other groups perform, we knew we had to better than them. We waited nervously on Lexi to get back from the hospital. So many thoughts and so many emotions was going through my head at the moment. Did we do good enough to win? Is Lexi okay? Is she coming back? When’s the last team going to go? Then all my questions were answered. The last team was performing and they were our biggest rival. As we watched in silence, their first pyramid fell, their tumbling passes didn’t get over. We just knew we had this. Lexi was back with bad news, her arm was broken in three different places. On the bright side, this was our last competition of the season. At last awards was here. Would we win? or could we win?
They were naming off eighth place, then seventh. When it was finally down to third, we were excited that our name still had not been called. Then announcer said “Now ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for your 2014 Worlds winner.” He waited what felt like a whole century, and then he said while opening the envelope, “Your Worlds champions are…. The Seaside Elite Team.” We all jumped to our feet and ran to get our brand new trophy. We won!! The crowd went crazy. Now that we won we could go finish our week off in Disney. This was by far the best week of my life.