In seventh grade, Brittany Blythe dreamed of being a cheerleader. Her school's coaches were less than enthusiastic. "They said, 'I don't know how you'll be able to do it,' she recalls. "'You won't be able to do it. '" But Brittany, now a junior at Strath Haven High School near Philadelphia, persisted . And when the junior team cheerleaders won a tournament last year, she was right there, dancing and cheering with the rest of the team. Not bad for someone whose legs were cut off below the knee when she was two years old. Brittany, 18, was born without shinbones --"just blood and muscle tissue", as she puts it. When she tried to walk, her legs twisted. After the operation, she adapted quickly. "From day one, I basically jumped up and wanted to do everything," she says. Prosthetic legs  allowed her to move around upright, but too slowly to keep up with her friends. Brittany's solution: take the legs off and walk on her knees---sometimes she still does when safety and comfort permit. She's rarely _ . Other children laughed at her through the years, especially in junior high school, but she says the challenge only made her stronger. Now she's trying to convince her coaches to let her remove the prostheses and be a flyer, the cheerleader who's thrown in the air and caught by her teammates. Brittany doesn't think her problems are more difficult than the next person's. "My disability was the first thing I had to get through, and that's going to prepare me for the future," she says. "It's all just a test: If someone throws you a curve ball , what are you going to do?" What did Brittany do to keep up with her friends?
She used a pair of walking sticks. She practiced hard every day. She walked on her knees. She asked her friends for help