Chapter 34
Ain't No Rule in the Rule Book Says a Mutant Can't Play Football
-RHONDA-
"I figured it out! The perfect way to take the high road and get back at Brandy and Ludwig!"
"And what would that be?" Helga asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I am going to join the football team," I replied proudly.
The other girls looked back at me as if I had suddenly started speaking Dothraki while standing on my head and farting the national anthem of Kyrgyzstan.
"I don't think any of us expected to hear her say that," Rani remarked.
"What?" I asked. "We all used to play back in fourth grade, well, most of us anyway. And I seem to remember being pretty good at it."
"That was touch football, though," Sheena reminded me.
"Not always, it wasn't." I recalled.
"I believe what Sheena is attempting to convey is that High School Football is significantly more… intense than a fourth-grade pickup game." Phoebe clarified. "Need I remind you of the ongoing controversy regarding head injuries?"
"Don't worry, I looked into it and SHH only uses the most up-to-date safety equipment, not to mention I've got super-healing. Injuries won't be a problem."
"There's also the fact that, even in our human forms, we have access to certain… gifts that could prove an unfair advantage on the gridiron."
"Well, Phoebe," I responded, "that certainly is a concern, but on the other hand, I… what's the phrase? Don't care. Yes, that's it. I don't care." Phoebe looked as though she wanted to retort, but could not think of a counter that was worth bringing up.
"I'm confused," Lila asked. "How, exactly, is this supposed to constitute getting revenge on Brandy and Ludwig?"
"Well, think about it. With me on the team, Ludwig would be forced to play alongside me, and Brandy would be obligated to cheer for me. They'd be simply eating themselves up inside," I gloated with a rueful smirk.
"Ahhh… I get what you're layin' down," Helga responded gleefully. "Psychological revenge. Just as brutal, and it doesn't leave a mark."
"Yeah, you get me."
"I do. I get you."
"Plus she's gonna look cute in the uniform," Nadine added, glomping me.
"There's that, yes," I agreed.
"I'm still not entirely sold on this," Sheena commented. "You're essentially going into the lion's den here."
"Not really. Don't two of you have boyfriends on the team?"
"Wolfgang isn't really my boyfriend… per se…" Lila said, blushing. "We've only gone out a couple of times so far, and it hasn't gone further than that."
"Do you want it to?" I asked.
"…maybe? I kind of like the idea of taking things slowly."
"I'm still kind of floored that it's Wolfgang of all people," Sheena remarked.
"I know, right?" Rani added. "I don't really have all that much history with the guy, but you guys used to tell horror stories about him. I mean… Trash Can Day? How is something like that even allowed?"
"He's changed. A lot," I replied. "Enough that I'm okay with one of my best friends dating him. Anyway, we're getting away from the point… that I will be fine."
And that is how I wound up here, on the school's football field, for tryouts.
Gerald took me aside once the coach left to watch other aspirants trying out. "Okay," he said, "level with me, Rhonda… this is all some kind of stunt to get more followers than Brandy, right?"
"No stunt, Gerald. I'm really here to try out for the team. Getting more followers will be a nice bonus, I will grant you that, but if I make the team, I fully intend to stick with it."
"Okay, so, what you're sayin' here is, ya crazy."
"*sigh* I just got through explaining this to your girlfriend, Gerald. I am absolutely physically capable of playing this game. You know that."
"It's not that. I know you can handle it. I just think you're doing it for all the wrong reasons."
"Oh… so Phoebe told you about that, huh." I rubbed my forearm sheepishly.
"You should be joining this team because you love the game… not out of spite," he chastised.
"I do love the game… well, I like the game…"
"Mmm-hmm," Gerald replied skeptically. "Look, I'm just sayin' if you're gonna join the team, you better be committed to the team, not to stickin' it to the Queen Bee and her meathead drone."
"Nice metaphor."
"Pop's been takin' a beekeeping course at the rec center. He got tired of paying for honey. Anyway… think about it."
"Okay, Crazy Legs, you're up," Coach Wittenberg said as Gerald rejoined his teammates. Most of the team was snickering and elbowing each other as I took my position. "We're gonna start off with three laps around the perambulator of the field." He readied his stopwatch. "And… go."
So they were laughing at me. Big whoop. I wasn't going to let it get me down. In fact, it just made me even more determined to push onward. I let their jeers fuel me as I ran the required laps. I even threw in a smug little wave as I finished.
"Mama Leone," the coach marveled incrementa- incredulously… great, now he's got me doing it… as he clicked his stopwatch. "Fastest time I've ever seen. How are you not on the track team?"
"Because we don't have one?" I supplied.
"That's bestride the point. I don't think we've ever had anyone as fast as you before. Hmm… Caudell!"
"Yes, coach?"
"I want you to throw Lloyd one of your best long bombs. Put everything you've got into it."
Wolfgang immediately seemed to pick up on Wittenburg's plan. "All right," he said, snapping a tight spiral deep into the end zone. I ran for it and just barely managed to catch it.
"Hmmm… Throw it back, Lloyd!"
I complied, but the throw was a bit wide. The team laughed. "You throw like a girl!" hooted Ludwig.
"I am a girl, you moron," I reminded him.
"Oh, right… well, you still suck!" he replied, smirking.
"Here's hoping," one of his buddies crudely added, winking. Uggh, gross. How badly do I want this?
"Hmm… well, we'll need to work on that…" the coach mused. "Let's see a few more catches, Crazy Legs."
Wolfgang threw several more balls, some bombs, some laterals. I grew more proficient at catching them with each one, with only one near-fumble on the second-to-last one.
"All, right, I've seen enough," the coach announced, making the time-out motion.
"I haven't. She's still wearing her shirt," one of the players commented salaciously.
"PENNER!" snapped Wittenburg. "That's gonna be fifty pushups! And it's gonna be double to the next one of you that treats our new wide receiver with misrespect!"
"New wide receiver?" I repeated.
"Welcome to the Narwhals, Crazy Legs," the coach said, smiling. Most of the team grumbled in response. "And the rest of you better get used to it. I could always go up to 150 pushups."
The tryouts continued for another hour. Some freshmen made the team, most didn't. It didn't really matter, my own place on the team was secure now, though I didn't seem to be the most popular recruit. Every time I approached my new teammates, they would snub me. Well, most of them snubbed me. Ludwig was a different story.
"I'm going to make your life a living hell, Lloyd," he whispered to me as I passed, once he was sure the coach was out of earshot.
"Glad to be on the same team too, Van Dyke," I replied innocently. I had no intention of giving him the satisfaction of flustering me.
"You'll be gone soon enough. I'm gonna make sure of it," he said, walking away.
"Hey," Wolfgang said. "Don't let him get to you."
"I'm not so much worried about him as I am about almost everyone else on the team following his lead."
"Don't worry about that, either. I'm starting quarterback, not him. I'll get everyone to fall in line, don't worry about it. All you should have to worry about is being the best wide receiver you can be."
"You really have changed a lot over the summer, haven't you?"
"What can I say, I have better influences in my life now. Now, how about we work on your passing?"
"Sounds like a plan. I do need work on that…"
The next two weeks were a blur of classes and practice. Despite Wolfgang's assurance that the rest of the team would eventually accept me, I found myself getting "accidentally" tripped and bumped a lot. Always conveniently when the coach wasn't looking, too. Despite this, my throwing was steadily improving, to the point where I hit the mark more often than not. The likelihood was that I wouldn't have to do much throwing – as wide receiver, my job was to run like hell, catch the ball, and run like hell more – but it would be nice to be able to toss the ball back to the QB without embarrassing myself.
In any case, the date of our first game of the year, against the Valleywood Ocelots (natural enemies of narwhals in the wild), drew near. Thanks to my gender, I had a locker room and shower all to myself (a fact that I'm sure only further endeared me to my teammates). Suiting up, I was thankful for my modest figure; while I'd never really envied my more amply-endowed friends (it's not how much you have, but how you use it), I could only imagine how constricted, say, Lila would be in this getup.
Exiting the locker room, I paused to take a look at myself.
Well, damn. I can pull off green and gold. Good, I need the confidence booster.
I left my locker room just as the rest of the team was exiting theirs. Of course, they were still snubbing me, most of them anyway. Ludwig brushed against me harshly as he passed by, whispering "You're gonna choke like a giraffe on a watermelon, Lloyd," with a withering glare. His cohorts laughed in approval.
"Oh, yeah?" I said. "Well, that simile is labored at best!" Smooth comeback, Rhonda. Well, at least I had two allies on the team. "So, Gerald…" I said holding out my hand for a hi-five, "ready to kick some ass? …'cause it's football? Feet? Come on, don't leave me hanging!"
For a moment, Gerald hesitated before returning the slap, earning a disapproving glare from his teammates. I had been a little worried; while Wolfgang had taken me under his wing, Gerad had been more standoffish; I wasn't sure if it was because I'd ignored his advice or if he was just scared of going against the rest of the team.
"Sorry, Rhonda." He said apologetically.
"I was beginning to worry. It's kinda weird that Wolfgang's been more supportive than you have. We've known each other practically forever."
"Yeah, well…" He rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment, "I just thought you joining the team was a bad idea and I didn't wanna encourage it. To tell the truth… I'm still not a hundred percent on board, but… I've been watching you. You stuck with it, even with everyone hatin' on you. That shows dedication. And for that… you have my support."
"Thank you, Gerald. That means a lot to me."
"Yep. So… that's me down…"
"…and seventeen to go. Lovely." The two of us walked onto the field.
"RHONDA! RHONDA!"
I looked up to see Nadine sitting in the front row, her face painted green and gold, wearing the official South Hillwood Narhwals Narwhal Horn, and waving one of those giant foam #1 fingers. "Look at me! I'm a football girlfriend!" God, I love that beautiful dork.
"Damn, girl," whispered Gerald. "The horn and everything."
"Yeah… I'm starting to think I can really do this now."
As the teams took the field, the announcer began to call out the team rosters. I took note that I was announced as "certainly the prettiest player on the field." Sigh. Well, I should have known that I'd be treated as a novelty at the beginning. I could see the news coverage now, lots of mention of how "groundbreaking" it was that I was the first girl to play for the team, very little mention of my actual skills. Well, this was the part where I gave them something else to write about.
"All right, team, this is it," Wittenburg intoned. "It all comes down to this. I want us giving our all. I want our defense to defend, I want our offense to offend, and if we stick to that, we will emerge with victoriousness and successfulity. Now, the Ocelots are a formidulous team, but we have something they don't."
"Heart?" asked one of the running backs; Hector, I think his name was.
"Don't be ridiculous. What we have is the single fastest wide receiver in the conference. I want her to be centermost to our offensive strategery. Now, on three, I want a shotgun formation. Your objection will be: Get the ball to Lloyd."
"This brings back memories," muttered Gerald.
"We can mix it up once our lead is insturmountably established, but for now, our said goal is to rack up as many points as humanely possible. Now, let's break!"
The huddle over, we took formation for the scrimmage. Several teammates cast baleful glances my way; suddenly being the center of our offense wasn't doing me any favors in the popularity department.
"17! 34! 29! Hike!" That was the code for the play we were about to run, long bomb to me, #17. My goal was to break around the edge of the defensive line and get as far downfield as possible.
The one thing I did not expect was for one of my own teammates to trip me up. I went down, hard, into the turf. No big deal, I heal like the dickens even when I'm not all purple and mutatey, but it was humiliating. And infuriating.
"Oops," Ludwig said with a smirk. "How clumsy of you."
Without me to throw to, Wolfgang attempted to run the ball himself and was tackled with no yards gained. The first down a failure, we huddled for the next down.
"All right," Coach Wittenburg stated, "that didn't go so good, but it's still a stolid strategy. I say we run a flea flicker this time, to Lloyd. They won't be expecting a second downfield play."
"I dunno, Coach," Ludwig replied innocently. "Seems Lloyd isn't very good on her feet."
The coach glared at him. "You don't think I'm very bright, do you, Van Dyke?" he scolded. "I saw the stunt you pulled. You're out for the rest of the game."
"WHAT?!" retorted Ludwig, shocked.
"Pull anything like that again, you're off the team for good. Interpersonable conflicts have no place here. I don't care if you have a beef with another player, this team needs to act as a single unit, and there's no 'I' in 'unit!'"
"Uh…" Gerald began before thinking the better of it. Ludwig gave me a look that declared "This isn't over" and stalked off the field.
For those of you unfamiliar with the game, the "flea flicker" play is a fake-out play involving multiple lateral passes between the quarterback – that would be Wolfgang – and one of the running backs – those would include Gerald, Hector, and a few others – in order to confuse the opposing line into thinking that one of them would run the ball when the real object is to ultimately pass to a receiver – that would be me. If pulled off successfully, it can be a very effective play. The problem is the risk. Multiple passes mean multiple possibilities of a sack or an interception. Then again, it was early in the game. Any losses now could easily be made up, while the chance to run up some early points was too tempting to pass up.
We took formation. Wolfgang snapped up the ball, and that was my cue to run like heck. This time, there was no one trying to trip me up, and the opposing team wasn't even attempting to cover me. Probably didn't think I was a serious threat. Whatever, I wasn't going to begrudge a lucky break. I got as far downfield as I could get while still being within a decent range (Wolfgang and I had been drilling for two weeks, so I had a good idea of his range by now. Hector was just lateralling the ball back to Wolfgang, setting up the final step of the play. Sure enough, Wolfgang began to move as if he was abut to attempt a run for the first down, but at the last second switched up and passed far downfield.
At this point it was up to me. If I fumbled, well, that was it for people taking me seriously. No pressure, though! At this point, the opposing squad was just starting to realize that, hey, nobody was covering the girl, maybe we should do something about that! But it was too late. None of them were in a position to intercept the ball. Only two outcomes were possible now. I catch the ball and run like heck, or I fumble and humiliate myself and my team for daring to have faith in me – no.
One outcome. Catch the ball. Run like heck. Run like you never have before. And before I even knew it, I was in the end zone and I could hear the cheers from the stands and the announcer's voice declaring "Touchdown! #17, Rhonda Lloyd!" I had done it. I'd scored the first touchdown of the season. Me.
After that, the other team got wise, and I would have at least one lineman covering me for the rest of the game. None fast enough to keep up with me, but big enough so there was at least a chance of passes being intercepted.
And to their credit, the opposing team's offense certainly wasn't slacking off. In fact, they kept almost an even pace with us for most of the game and even pulled ahead on a field goal towards the end.
There was time for one play left. We were close, and could probably tie it with a field goal, but that would send things into overtime, at which point it could go either way. A touchdown would end things decisively.
"All right, team, I have to say, we may be down, but we still have a chance to secure victoriousness. But we're gonna need to be sneaky. Now, at this point they expect us to pass to Lloyd, so we need to belay said expectation. What we're gonna do is, we start with the bootleg, leading them to make the assumption that we have switched out our preemptive strategery, thereby lullifying them into a false sense of security. It will be at said point that we will translate to the Razzle-Dazzle play and pass to Lloyd. You got all that? Good. On three, break!"
And so it played out, Wolfgang taking the snap and running around the left end of the formation before snapping it to me a few yards from the end zone. Right away I could tell that this was proving to be a mistake; I had picked up three linemen covering me, and could see no way around them to get into the end zone. That was it for the run, since there wasn't enough time to pull off another down. I could try to push my way through, but it was iffy.
But there was another option. Gerald was open. "Heads up!" I shouted, lateraling the ball directly at him. "Go, go, go!"
And run, he did. And the South Hillwood Narwhals took it, 27-24. As Gerald had scored the winning touchdown, it was he who was carried off on our teammates' shoulders, but that was fine. I had made my point. I indulged myself a glance over at the cheerleaders; if Brandy and her surrogates had any feelings about me, they weren't showing them. There was no sign of Ludwig anywhere, either. He'd apparently made a hasty exit after the coach tossed him out. Fine with me… as long as he wasn't planning something. No fair escalating after I already escalated.
"Pumpkin!" My father's voice sounded behind me. I turned to see him walking across the field with Mom and Rhia in tow.
"You came?" I asked. "I figured you wouldn't think it was proper."
"Precious, I gave up on the thought of having a conventional daughter a long time ago. It's clear to me now that you are going to do whatever you're going to do, and the best I can do is take comfort in the knowledge that whatever you do, you will be outstanding at it. You are a Lloyd, after all."
"And a Wellington," added Mom. "Granted, that line only goes back to me…"
"Still proud of it, Mom," I assured.
"Does this mean I can play hockey?" asked Rhia.
"We'll talk about it, darling," Dad replied placatingly. "In a few years."
"Awww…"
"Heeeey, champ!" Nadine called, glomping me from behind.
"Heeey, yourself, Butterfly. And watch out with that thing, you could put someone's eye out."
"Don't act like you're not into it, Sparks," she said nuzzling me. "Maybe I'll keep it. Marine mammals are my second favorite type of animal…"
"I thought that was reptiles."
"They moved up the list."
"Hey, Rhonda!" Wolfgang called, from where the rest of the team was celebrating their win. "You getting in on this? Everyone's asking for you."
"I don't know," I replied. "I kinda find that hard to believe. I'm not exactly the most popular member of the team."
"A member-less member," Nadine whispered with a chuckle.
I went red. "Nadine, that's my little sister back there!" Mom was already ushering Rhia away wile she tried to ask her what "member" meant.
"Sorry," she giggled. "Couldn't resist. Anyway, go on… they can have you for a bit… just as long as I get you the rest."
"Get in here, Crazy Legs!" Hector shouted. It looked like the coach's nickname had officially caught on.
I gave her a squeeze. "I won't be long." I jogged up to the crowd only for them to hoist me up onto their shoulders next to Gerald, who hi-fived me as we were carried off the field. I caught a glare from Brandy as we passed, but for some reason, it didn't arouse much of a feeling from me. Funny; the whole reason I'd even tried out was to stick it to her, but now? Who cared? I had something bigger now. A new squad.
The only question was, would Ludwig move on now that the coach had chastised him publicly and the rest of the team had accepted me? Or would he take things to the next level?
Time would only tell…
A.N.: And that's it for this plotline for now… up next, something creepy, spooky, and altogether ooky, just in time for Halloween, or possibly a few days after it depending if I finish it on time.
Jose: As I mentioned in my PM, those mistakes (well, most of them; some are just me being a crappy typist as always) were on purpose, since the Coaches Wittenburg are infamous for their malapropisms.
JayDogg: Thanks, I'm actually pretty proud of the way I built up the robbery scene.
VeganMama: Thanks a lot, I'm glad you caught that. And here, we actually see how Rhonda does on the team. How'd you like it?
Next: Take it Away, Gerald