CHAPTER TWO
About a week into the school year, Tyrone, Tasha, Pablo, and Uniqua were sitting in the cafeteria, eating their various lunches. Austin had grabbed his mixed grasses and ran to his math class to get some extra help on functions. Although Austin was very smart, he had only gotten into the honors program through the aid and private tutoring of all his math teachers, and this year was to be no different.
Anyways, the Austin-less group was taking advantage of Austin's absence to comment on the changes they had noticed in his behavior. Tyrone took charge, asking everyone to share what they had noticed seemed off about Austin lately.
"Well," started Tasha primly, "he stopped having any sense of style, he just wears running shorts and an old t-shirt every day now. He used to have a remotely decent sense of fashion, but now he looks like a slob, just like every other teenage boy around here."
"Yeah, he has, but more importantly, he stopped being cool to me. He used to kinda hang with me and Tyrone, but now he ignores me if he sees me in the hallway, and he even once told me to leave him alone. I think he just wants to look good for those jock guys he started chilling with," Pablo complained.
With an outraged tone, Uniqua expressed the most pressing issue in her mind, "He doesn't want to do the school musical!" with this exclamation, bickering babble broke out from three sides of the table.
"Quiet down!" Tyrone broke out his rare shouting voice to regain order. " So Austin has changed, and I don't think any of you like these changes; I know I certainly don't. So the question is, why is Austin acting like this now? And what can we do about it?"
"Well, almost every time he lashes out, he says something about things being girly. Maybe that's part of it," Uniqua pointed out.
"Really? I hadn't noticed" Tasha said offhandedly.
"Ooh, ooh, I know!" claimed Pablo, "Maybe he wants to be more popular, so he is trying to fit in."
"That would certainly explain why he is being so mean to us, that's how everyone else acts," said Uniqua with a sigh. Sometimes, being the theatre clique really sucked.
"Austin said he would be back for the last ten minutes of lunch, so he should be here in about five more minutes. So that brings us to the final problem. What should we do about Austin's new behavior?" Tyrone said, prompting the beginning of the end of the conversation.
"Well we have to do something," whined Pablo "I can't stand it when he is so mean. It just isn't right."
Tasha had a rebuttal, "Why don't we leave him alone? Maybe he is finding his true self, maybe he really doesn't belong with us, or in the musical. We shouldn't be sticking our noses in his business anyways"
Uniqua, always the problem solver, knew what to do. "I'll go talk to him. I'll just make sure that he is okay and doesn't need help or anything." Her solution satisfied everyone, so they switched their conversation to small talk and school gossip in the nick of time as Austin returned to the cafeteria.
"Excuse me Ms. Kangaroo? Is Austin home?"Uniqua's voice was slightly higher pitched than normal, partially due to her worry about the impending conversation, and partially because she felt that the pitch made her seem more polite to adults.
"Oh, yes, he is in his room, doing some homework, you can just go right up. Would you like to grab some cookies before you go up? I just took some oatmeal raisin ones out of the oven."
Uniqua politely accepted the offer, and took three cookies, shoving a fourth into her mouth before heading up to Austin's room. When she arrived, she saw Austin sitting on his bed, looking at pictures of muscular guys without shirts.
"That doesn't look like homework to me." Uniqua said pointedly.
Austin quickly slammed his laptop shut, and looked up at his pal with a guilty smile. "No, it isn't homework, I was just… looking at pictures of who I want to be. I really need to bulk up if I want to do football." Austin blurted the last bit out quickly.
"Okay," Uniqua replied warily, "Good luck with… bulking up… I guess…" She regained her composure, then continued. "So, we've noticed that you've been acting kind of differently lately, dressing more casually, ignoring us, not signing up for the musical" Uniqua didn't mean to sound angry, but she was still really bothered that anyone, let alone Austin could possibly feel sports were more important than the musical. "I'm just here to make sure everything is going okay."
Austin was taken aback. My friends really care that much about me? I didn't even realize they noticed me. He was so delighted to know his friends cared, but he still wasn't ready to share what was actually on his mind.
"Well that's really nice of you to come check on me, but everything is fine. I promise. I'm just really worried about the football tryouts. That's all."
"If you insist, but if something is wrong, don't forget that you can tell me anything. Matter of fact, you can tell any of us anything. We will always be here for you, and encourage you no matter what"
"Thanks Uniqua, but I promise, I'm good. Now can you leave? I actually have some homework I have to do."
Uniqua left, still unsatisfied, and as she left, she noticed that Austin had not started doing homework, but had instead returned to ogling the muscle-man photos.
That Friday, Austin's big day arrived. He waited anxiously for school to end, his leg bobbing with pent up energy every class. Finally it was the afternoon, and Austin put on all his padding and headed out to the football field behind the school with all the other guys. Austin doesn't really know anyone there very well, but he latches onto a group of guys in his gym class that he had been hanging out with. They are talking about a football camp they all went to over the summer, and how much it was going to help them with the upcoming tryouts. One guy, James was talking about how he felt incredibly unprepared because it had been ages since he had last practiced in the ropes.
This conversation caused Austin to panic, as he didn't even know what the ropes were, let alone practice in them. A shocking realization then punched Austin in the gut. He didn't know the first thing about being a good football player. All he had done to prepare for this tryout was go to the gym a bit to get in shape, toss around a football in the front yard with his dad, and look up all the rules of the game on the internet. His only prayer of getting of the team was the hope that the coach would see his enthusiasm and let him in for that alone.
Surprisingly, on the first exercise, a test of agility, Austin excelled, probably due to his background in dance. The guys, who had originally seen Austin only as a hopeless wanna-be, started to look at him with a hint of admiration in their eyes. Sadly, that spark was quickly put out when Austin epically failed at the passing exercise and scrimmages. Once the torturous embarrassment of failure was over, Austin walked home with his head hung in shame, shuffling his feet slowly.
I wish today never happened. I had no chance of making the team. I don't even know what I was thinking. Austin mentally berated himself for his stupidity.
"So, how did it go honey?" Austin's ever-cheerful mother asked him when he walked in the door.
"Terrible. I'm never doing a sport ever again."
Austin's angry grumble surprised his mother, but she quickly regained composure and offered an optimistic reply. "Aww, sweetie, I'm sure it wasn't as bad as you think, and besides, maybe you will do better at basketball this winter."
"No, I'm not getting on the team, and I'm not trying out for basketball either." Austin stomped to his room muttering about how no one understands him.
