Secret Santa

00 | The Nightmare Before Christmas

IT ALL STARTED AS A PRANK.

Particularly on the day when Joyce Sison saw her best friend Fallon Troland casually perform the most impressive pirouette she had ever seen. With a bit more prodding, Joyce had gotten her to confess her not-so-secret past in the performance arts. Before Fallon was this eyeliner-loving, mosh pit-frequenting hell raiser, she'd been a tutu-wearing toddler training as a child dancer for a Walmart version of Dance Moms that never aired.

Then, starting from middle school, her mom had shoehorned their ways into each and every extracurricular activity in which Fallon could show off her athleticism. An athleticism she had bought for her daughter, no less. Fallon had been signed up for gymnastics classes ever since she learned how to walk.

She hated it. All of it. As a matter of fact, she still did.

"Child abuse," is what she said it was.

But what type of best friend would Joyce be, just letting her best friend look back on a big part of her childhood in a negative light like that?

So, to spice up a skillset Fallon swore she never wanted, Joyce came up with this plan. A perfect plan, to be precise, to make her friend appreciate the hand she's been dealt. Or at the very least give her something to laugh at every time she looks back on how her talent came to be.

Because if there is anything Fallon liked more than she disliked her mom being the ultimate stage mom, it's definitely a good old prank.

It had all seemed so simple.

✓⠀Show up to the cheerleading try-outs.

✓⠀Show up snooty Caroline Hall, whose above-average hand-eye coordination and high school mentality had her treating other students on campus like second-class citizens.

✓⠀Resume a normal academic life, laying low and aiming high, except maybe with a hopefully humbled mean girl less inclined to give other people hell for existing within her ten-mile radius.

What wasn't part of the plan was Fallon thoroughly impressing the coach—so much that she had gone as far as to email her mom to help convince her daughter to "seriously reconsider" her spot in the cheerleading squad after she'd 'graciously' turned it down post-audition. Her mother, who Fallon believed shouldn't have been contacted in the first place to question her autonomy in the matter. Joyce didn't understand, being born and raised in the Philippines, with a family-oriented culture where obedience to one's parents is a trait more paramount than others. She had always assumed the same went for the societies on the other side of the continent.

But at the same time, she also thought that Mrs. Troland should know better than anyone that it is practically impossible to change Fallon's mind about anything.

And, for some reason, she did.

Which is why Joyce now sits on the bleachers, alone despite being surrounded by a boisterous crowd, as the cheer team of Windell College breaks up the in-game tension between the home team and the away team with a half-time performance to remember. Their cheerleaders are as fresh as ever, even after a day of coursework and everything else that college lives had to offer. Basking in the glow of the setting sun, their movements are similar to a beehive's, with unique quirks and twitches yet a singular goal met as a singular entity upon each formation.

Joyce has watched this routine about a dozen times over the past week during their rehearsals. So far, it has never ceased to amaze her. The complexity made everything seem new every time, with a previously unseen detail to notice per repetition.

Most of the time, she watches them as a singular entity. This time, she focuses on her friend.

Three vertical lines composed of cheerleaders has Fallon front and center. Her copper mane stands out from among the crowd, corkscrew curls bouncing from her updo with each swing. Both groups to her sides, a few feet away from where hers began, collectively set themselves into a triangular formation and led by two other girls at their respective anteriors.

At the back, spotters responsible for the stability of the upcoming stunt run to their spots close to the bases, who would be their foundation.

Figures from the front, in blue-and-white uniforms, somersault backwards.

Without losing momentum, the moving forces backflip up to the bases who are intersecting their flight trajectories. One moment they are upside down, then—

Their silhouettes, now right-side up, are thrown upwards.

("Flyers," they call themselves. An apt descriptor.)

Soaring through the sky, they switch orientation mid-air with successive toe touches reminding Joyce of Pacific Ocean waves from afar. The other flyers are launched first, so Fallon spins down last. Upon landing, she is immediately tossed from her back, a position opposite to her previous one. She ascends, and she holds out her arms in front of her lower ribs, both of her elbows bent, and her hands cupped and close to touch, as one would in ballet...

...manipulating the force of the toss with this, and with her thighs and knees straight but slightly crossed, feet slightly splitting toward the end of the motion like a mermaid's tail...

...to land her left leg in waiting palms, and raise her remaining limbs to the sky, knee first bent behind her back and foot held to her head before said appendage is held over her petite body, her open-mouthed smile playful, but the upward raise of her head triumphant.

Fallon has never been seen beaming so bright. Out of her costume, she is an entirely different person, but in-character, her audience would be none the wiser. The loathing she feels for the life she had lived to come to this point never spills into her sport, just as there are no traces of her cheerleader persona in her real punk rocker soul. Fallon knew how to compartmentalize.

("You don't mix competitive sports with personal issues," Fallon had once told Joyce, "the same way you don't mix business and pleasure. Hate isn't a performance-enhancing drug in cheer the same way it is with your music.")

The other flyers reposition themselves. They wait a moment after Fallon's scorpion before doing their own rendition, to become an exact replica of her execution—

Except someone screams.

It doesn't register right away. Not through the hubbub. The air, still buzzing from adrenaline, takes a few seconds too many to become subdued. But it does. It fades. Instead of those full-throated cries composed of college rivalries, murmurs of confusion fizz around the bleachers.

Time seems to slow down.

No synchrony is found in the squad now. It reminds Joyce of the final summer vacation that her family had spent with her grandparents in their province, where she had eaten merienda for the last time together with her cousins in a gazebo that their Lolo Ignacio had constructed with only bamboo slats and nipa leaves. Being the careless children that they were, a few crumbs from the sweet and salty snacks they had secretly pilfered from their sari-sari store had been scattered on the floor. And none of them thought better of leaving it unswept until the evening.

By the time they were caught, the crumbs had already attracted the attention of ants.

So Lola Zenaida tricked the culprits into cleaning up after themselves by making those chores sound like a grand adventure. In her best storytelling voice, the clever woman taught them all how to wipe up the ant trails, starting with a single drop of undiluted dishwashing liquid...

And Joyce had watched, fascinated, as they scurried away from the calamansi-scented poison.

The iron-clad discipline of the squad has been dashed the same way as those ants. Their once-tight formation disentangles from each other, uncharacteristically disoriented. Above them all, the ombré skies of orange, pinks, and blues dim to a darker shade of indigo. It suits the sudden crescendo of alarm in the air.

One of the spotters dart far from their cluster before she falls to her knees and gags.

Another base, who Fallon deemed quite dashing in the ultramarine uniform, is wild-eyed as he scampers into a completely different direction, his sight never leaving a spot on the grass.

But not everyone in the two-toned vests have changed positions. One figure remains unmoving in a flurry of movement. Joyce goes on her feet to get a better look.

Squinting at the field, she sees red where there should only be green.