I am shaking uncontrollably with excitement as I stand in line with all my friends and classmates. I look behind me to my friend, Madison, and I say, “I am so nervous. I hope I do not forget the cheers.” Madison responds, “Do not worry we are going to do great!” Then all of a sudden, Katie, the mascot, calls out from the center of the gym, “Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the Cirque de Ragdolls!” and I think to myself, “Here we go.”

Earlier that day, I wake up to the sound of an alarm clock at 5:30 in the morning. I instantly feel queasy, and I feel my stomach turning upside down. I bolt straight to the bathroom so that I can do my makeup first. I take out my bright red lipstick and carefully draw out two circles on my cheeks, a triangle on my nose, and then I put the lipstick on my lips. I then take out a black eyeliner and draw out a line that connected my mouth to my rosy cheeks, and I drew three lines underneath my eyes. “Izzy we have to go now!” Caroline, my friend, screamed. I quickly put on my ragdoll shirt and dashed to the car. Once Caroline and I get to school, we walk over to the Performing Arts Center, or PAC, and meet with the other Board members, who worked on the costumes for Spirit Day. When we see the costumes, we instantly feel excited and anxious, ready to get the day started. The costume was a ring leader outfit with a black top hat, dark and light blue pants, white vest, red coat with gold buttons, a red bow tie, and white cuffs, which were all made out of construction paper and table runner. Once everyone got to school to get dressed into their costumes, I felt even more excited and nervous.

By lunchtime, everyone was running around in the cafeteria and all of the my classmates were eating any candy they saw so that they could get energy for what was about to happen. The large cafeteria ended up smelling of sugar and sweet candy, and all you can see were packets of pixie dust lying around. All of a sudden, the time has come and everyone starts rushing into Duplantis Gym to start Spirit Day. Once I get into the gym, I instantly hear everyone talking all at once and see other grades filling into the stands. I then get into my spot, and I start fidgeting at the cuffs on my wrists. I can feel my heart pounding out of my chest, and I know I am ready because I can feel a massive rush of energy flowing in my body. After talking to my friends, I hear Katie, our mascot who is dressed up as a lion in a cage, yell out, “Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the Cirque de Ragdolls.”

All of the girls on the floor instantly stand up straight and start marching to the beat of a circus toon. I look up and I see girls from other grades watching us in awe, which makes me feel confident that this is going to be a good Spirit Day. Once everyone marches into a circle around Katie, Katie raises her Spirit stick and everyone goes crazy, screaming at the top of their lungs. When Katie put her stick down, everyone is so silent they can hear a pin drop in the room, and Katie begins calling our class cheer. When we finish our class cheer, Katie raises her stick again and we all go crazy, screaming so loud that the people down the hall can hear us. I start swinging my arms around, and I start jumping up and down, while at the same time I am screaming. Katie goes into more and more cheers, and by the end of the ten minutes, I feel exhausted and sweaty from jumping and screaming. I then think to myself, I only have five more minutes to go crazy, so I start yelling louder and push through to the end. Katie then calls our closing cheer and we all drop to the floor in a wave. I look at my friends and their costumes are all torn up and their makeup is smeared on their faces. We start chanting Katie’s name and our class president’s name, Caroline. Eighth grade, our little sister’s, started chanting “Big sis, big sis, big sis!” and I felt a sudden rush of pride. I was so proud of how well my class did and how we made our little sister’s proud. I was so happy and content over how loud and in sync the girls in my grade were for those fifteen minutes, and when I reflect back to this moment I will always realize how proud I am to be a ragdoll.