Brown arrived at try-outs in a pair of workout shorts and a T-shirt. “I was talking to the girls, they said the tryouts were easy,” Brown says. But first, there were rules. The girls sat on the floor and waited for the coach to speak. “She said … we were supposed to represent the school, have respect for people, for each other, and for everybody else. We had to be nice, you know, watch our mouths, no chewing gum during practice because you’d get demerits for that.” Brown says the coach explained that the team also had an “honest system,” requiring the cheerleaders to be honest with one another.

At Ashwaubenon High, there was both a dance team and a cheer squad, and they were fierce rivals. The dance team required gymnastic maneuvers and strict dance training. Though both teams waved pom poms, the cheer squad was much less challenging. The established cheerleaders taught the new girls the official cheer of the Jaguars. The routines at try-outs were simple, which was a relief to Brown. “I couldn’t do cartwheels,” she says, “I couldn’t do flips. I couldn’t do any of that.”

It didn’t matter. There were no football players, and the bleachers were empty, but their chants filled the stadium. Brown fell into the hypnotic routine, with the handclaps and chanting. There was just one nagging feeling. Unlike the other girls, afterwards she would return home to her miserable apartment. “I was living two different lives,” she says, “two different people.” But for now, she had a new, intoxicating mantra: “Go! Go! Go! Fight! Fight! Fight! Win! Win! Win! Go! Fight! Win!”

* * *

On August 8, 2008, Johnson invited the cheerleaders to a pool party at her home. Brown was a ball of nerves. It had been 19 years since she was first a sophomore. Katy Perry now dominated the Hot 100. When she arrived, the cheerleaders were catching rays in tiny two-piece suits, enjoying the fading Wisconsin summer. Brown, anxious about the stretch marks from her pregnancies, wore a one-piece underneath a t-shirt, an outfit that she says puzzled the other girls.

“I told [them] the reason I had the T-shirt on, you know, was that I used to be really fat. I lost all the weight,” she says.

“She’s just shy, leave her alone,” Brown recalls a cheerleader saying.

Then she jumped in the pool. Brown tried her best to fit in, playing volleyball, and copying how the other girls nibbled at the cheese, pepperoni, and sausage pizzas.

“I just remember eating it how my daughter would eat it,” Brown says, “little bites.” Music thumped from a stereo. The games segued into cheer routines, and Brown began to enjoy herself. “We had the first home game to practice for,” says Brown, still hoping to be chosen for the squad. From the stereo the sound of fiddling violins soared across the backyard. The girls lined up and waited for the song to kick in:

If it hadn't been for Cotton-Eye Joe, I'd been married a long time ago. Where did you come from, where did you go? Where did you come from, Cotton-Eye Joe?

Brown danced to “Cotton-Eye Joe”—the 1995 record by the novelty country band Rednex—more times than any 33-year-old woman should ever have to. The routine was a series of hops and twirls. “It wasn’t rocket science,” Brown says. But spinning around in circles for an hour made the girls dizzy. They collapsed with laughter. The way she tells it, Brown hadn’t been that happy in years.