Chapter Three

Making The Team

I sighed as the teacher announced that it was time for the math quiz. Mr. Russell walked up to me with a copy of the quiz in hand. He was a tall man, with brown hair combed back and a tucked in formal violet shirt. He sat on the empty desk in front of me with his feet on the chair and began reading off the questions to me.

"The sum of the interior angles of a trapezoid is..."

"I..don't know... 180 degrees?"I guessed.

"That is wrong, Jason." Mr. Russell raised an eyebrow. "Next question: Ninety-six divided by three is what?"

"32." I answer proudly. Mr. Russell nods with a smile on his face.

"Correct. Final question: 10 + 11 + 12 =... What?"

"33."

"Excellent. You got two out of three correct. Good job, Jason."

Another fifteen minutes and I was out of math class and on my way to lunch. I stopped at Howard's class, where he was still getting his things together.

"Hey, Howard!Wanna go get some food?"

He turns around and grins. "Sure, dude. I'm thinking there's a slice of pizza with my name on it down in the cafeteria."

As he got his things and met me at the door, we were about to head out when a group of guys from the football team came around the corner and blocked our way. Among them was Adam, Chuck and Bryce.

"Actually, meat, you've already got lunch plans." Adam said. I scowled at him and he scowled back.

"What are you talking about, Adam?"Howard asked.

"Hmm... Well, you remember what our team mascot is, right?"

"Sure we do!,"I exclaim. "It's a lizard."

"Huh... Well I guess you're not as completely brain-dead as you look."Adam scoffed.

I began getting fed up with his beating around the bush and stepped forward. "Can we just get to the point?What's going on here?"

"If you want to have any chance of becoming a Fighting Lizard," He explained. "There's a test you wannabes have to pass. Chuck... The Lizard Box, please."

"You got it!Man, I love hazing recruits!"Chuck beamed as he handed a small brown box over.

Adam grinned. "You all know how a lizard can shed its tail and run away, right? Well, we've got quite a delicacy for you today." He opened the box to show us a dozen or so lizard tails laying inside. Howard put his hand to his mouth in disgust.

"Take whichever one looks juiciest,"Adam said. "You're each going to eat a tail on the count of three."

Howard reluctantly grabbed one and I did afterwards.

"This one doesn't look so bad.."He lied.

"They all look equally bad to me." I said bluntly.

Chuck stepped forward and held up one finger and began counting up. "One..two..three!"

Both me and Howard quickly swallowed the tails whole, shivering slightly from the revolting taste, but glad to be done with it.

"Nice man!We're Lizards now," Howard stopped and held his hand to his mouth. "Eww.. I think I can feel it wiggling in my stomach!"

I tried my best to hide my disgust. "That wasn't so bad."

Chuck patted us on the shoulders and smiled. "I knew you had it in you, guys!Welcome to the team!"

Adam, on the other hand, still had a bone to pick with us. "Ha. When Bryce was a recruit, he ate five lizard tails and didn't blink... And you think you can beat him on the field?"

Bryce simply followed as Adam and most of the other players walked away, all except for Chuck, who stayed behind. He smiled at us with put his arms around our shoulders.

"Hey, now that you guys have passed the test, you should come to my party this Friday."

"Sure thing... Just as long as you serve better food." I grinned.

He returned the grin. "Heh, I'll do my best. See you there!"

Me and Howard continued to the cafeteria once we were alone again and ate in the comfort of each other's company. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, and it passed by pretty quick.

The next day at lunch, as I was walking to my table, I overhead Taylor and Amanda who were sitting on the table by the doors. They seemed to be upset.

"... And then Paula is like 'You breathe loud... Stop it.' But how am I supposed to stop breathing?"Amanda wiped some tears from her eyes with a napkin. "And then... And then she said I was fat!"

"You're totally not fat!," Taylor frowned. "You're totally cute! Paula has been stepping over the line lately... Maybe we should do something..."

Amanda wiped the last of her tears and spotted me walking near the table. "Oh!That guy Jason is coming this way!Is he cool?I can't remember..."

"I dunno... I guess we could talk to him and find out." Taylor said.

The two of them got up and walked over to me. I decided not to mention to Amanda how red her eyes looked, instead I focused on Taylor's question.

"Hey, Jason. Did you see 'Desperate Midwives' last night?"

"That's the show with Bloke Livery, right?"I inquired.

Taylor frowned at me. "No! That's 'Gossip Grill'!Don't you know anything?"

I was slightly taken back by the reply and decided to turn and continue on to my table. I guess Howard was right about watching TV.

The rest of the day passed by and soon the bell rung for school out. I departed from Howard and hit the track to do some laps for awhile. I managed to get a couple done before I spotted Raven standing by the gate waiting for me. I grabbed my towel from the bench and walked over to her while cleaning up my face.

"Hey there, fast-and-sweaty,"She smiled. "You got plans this Saturday?"

I grinned. "Nope!You wanna hang out?"

"Sure!What do you wanna do?"

"How about.."I thought for a moment. There was a mall nearby, I could take her there. Or to the movies, a classical date spot. Then again, dinner sounded pretty good as well. Pondering these for a few seconds, I decided. "... We go see a movie?"

"Great!I'll be looking forward to it!"Raven smiled and left.

I smile to myself and do a few more laps before heading home.

In class the next day, I was writing some notes down when I felt a tap on my shoulder and I turned around to see the guy behind me, Ryan, grinning at me.

"Psst!Jason!My buddy and I are gonna hit the beach!Want to get out of here with us?"

At the moment, Spud intervened to my right. "Don't do it, Jason... For the sake of your GPA!"

Ryan rolled his eyes. "Whatever. So, You in or not, Jason?"

"I've got to work on my grades, man." I replied, shrugging.

"Fine..your loss." Ryan frowned as I turned back around.

And I was glad I didn't ditch. The teacher assigned an in-class assignment where you had to grab a partner. I ended up with Spud and through some twist of events, we ended up talking about something completely unrelated to the project.

"Pluto is not a planet!"I said. "The International Astronomical Union said so!"

"I defy their classification!"Spud shot back. "It devalues the contributions of Le Verrier, Lowell, and Tombaugh!"

Ms. Prez walked over and lifted an eyebrow at us. "Jason... Spud... I'm glad you two are having a scientific debate... but that has nothing to do with the subject we're studying now. Still, I'm giving you a little extra credit today for promoting intelligent discourse!"

We turned in our assignment at the end of class and continued on with the rest of our school day. Pretty soon, the bell rung and I drove on over to the gym to work out before going home. As I entered the weight room, I noticed a few guys from school hanging around in there.

"Hey, Jason!"Chuck smiled upon seeing me and waved me over. "You here to join the Buff Club?"

"Uh... What's that?"I asked.

"It's the club for dudes who want to get strong." Jacob replied.

Another guy whom Chuck introduced as Zach spoke up. He had spiked up blonde hair and was pretty buff already. "If you join up, you might eventually look as good as me!"

Chuck pointed to a barbell on the floor. "Why don't you try lifting this here... We'll see where you're at so far!"

I walked over to the barbell and grabbed hold. I bent my knees and easily lifted it off the ground and above my head with a grin on my face. "This is easy!"

Jacob blinked in astonishment. "Whoa!I can barely lift that much!Of course, I'm also the weakest guy on the team."

"Not bad, Jason." Chuck smiled and clapped his hands. "I'm impressed."

"At this rate, maybe you'll be as strong as Adam one day." Zach said.

Shrugging, I worked out with the guys for a few hours before saying my goodbyes and heading home. It was Wednesday, so that meant another 'Unsupervised study' night, which in turn, meant another free night to do whatever I wanted. I decided to watch some TV, keep up with what was new. After that incident with Taylor and Amanda, I felt it might help to be knowledgeable about the latest shows.

A few days passed by uneventfully and finally, the big day came for the scrimmage between me and Bryce. As me and Howard walked to the field, two little girls who looked like twins ran up to Howard.

"Kay?Kel?What are you doing here?"He questioned.

"Our school is just down the street!"I couldn't tell who it was who spoke. "Mom and Dad said we could come here after school every Friday to watch you play soccer!"

"Uh, I think you kids mean 'football'" I corrected.

"Sure." One of them said.

"Howard," I looked to him. "I didn't know you had little sisters."

He sighed. "The twins are usually too busy getting into trouble to be properly introduced to anyone."

"This is boring!"One of the girls said. "Let's go buy candy!"

The two ran off to the nearest vending machine and we continued on to the field. I grinned at Howard.

"They seem like a handful..."

"You don't know the half of it.." He frowned.

We quickly got to the field and joined the other players on the grass as Coach began barking out some encouragements.

"Okay, you useless lumps of dough, get into the football frying pan and bake yourselves into something worthwhile!"

Bryce walked up to me and frowned. "Let's do this."

All the players file off the field while the selected teams took up positions on the field with me behind one and Bryce behind the other. Then it began. The game lasted about twenty minutes and by the time it ended, I was almost out of breath. I looked to the score board to see our team's score was 32 and Bryce's teams was 28. I won. As everyone mingled, Bryce took off his helmet and walked over.

"You played the better game today, Jason. Good luck this season..." He smiled and walked off.

"That.. That does it!,"The coach grinned. "It looks like the Fighting Lizards just found a new backup quarterback!"

"Go Jason!"Jacob grinned.

"You can count on me, Coach!" I state proudly.

Adam, of course, wasn't at all pleased with the results. "Are you kidding me?This rookie?What about Bryce?"

"Bryce is still a solid player," Coach said. "I'll find a place for him... But like it or not, Adam, Jason just earned his spot. He's your teammate now... And you're going to have to help train him."

"Oh, I'll train him all right.."With that, Adam stormed off towards the locker room. As he left, Howard came running up with a big smile on his face.

"Nice work, bro!Backup QB!Woo!Woo!And I'm a backup wide receiver!It's officially time to celebrate!Let's go to Chuck's party!"

As he spoke, Kay and Kel appeared out of nowhere. "We're going to a party?"

Howard sighed. "Uh... I guess I've got to drop the twins off at home first..."

I grinned. "Heh. Right. I'll see you at Chuck's place."

Half an hour later, I was at the party, hanging out with the guys. Zach patted me on the back and grinned.

"Good to have you on the team, rookie."

"Yeah,"Jacob smiled. "Congratulations on making it."

I noticed Adam was glaring at me and I frowned back at him. "Great. You're here. Who invited you, anyway?"He scoffed.

"I did,"Chuck said, frowning as well. "If you look around, you'll see we're in my house and you'll realize that this is my party."

"Whatever, man. I'm taking off. See ya." With that, Adam storms out of the house.

"I hate to say it," Jacob began. "But I think the party's going to be more fun without him."

"Easy, Jacob... Adam's still a Lizard." Chuck replied and then grinned. "Anyway, this is supposed to be a party... So let's have some fun!"

We grab some pool cues and before long, we're all having an awesome time playing pool and watching TV. Me and Chuck were duking it out with the eight ball, but I put him out his misery.

"Eight ball in the corner pocket!"I announce right before I follow through with my words, nailing the shot.

"Nice one, Jason!"Jacob clapped.

A couple of hours later, I was on my way home after the party ended when I spotted someone walking on the side of the road. The closer I got, the sooner I realized it was Adam. A few drops on my wind shield indicated foul weather coming in, so I pulled up beside him despite not wanting to. It was the right thing to do, I figured.

"Hey," I said as I rolled the window down. "It's starting to rain. You want a ride?"

Adam frowned. "I don't need your charity."

"Come on. You're going to get sick. We can go back to hating each other tomorrow."I offered.

He was silent for a few seconds. "Fine." He climbed in and I drove on. It was awkward for the first few minutes, as neither of us spoke, so I decided to venture into neutral territory by speaking first.

"Uh... So... Where are we going?"

"Take a left over there... And now a right here...,"As he gave me directions, I noticed we entered the poorest side of the city. "Yeah. That's my place right there."He pointed to a house with a car in the driveway with a tarp over it.

"Is that your car parked in the driveway?"I asked.

"Yeah. But I don't drive anymore."

"Oh. Huh."

"Anyway...,"Adam rubbed his neck. "Thanks for the ride."

"No problem."

I smiled as he got out and shut the door. As I drove home, I couldn't help but think something enormous had just happened between us. Maybe it was just my imagination. Just maybe...

End of Chapter Three