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Chapter Fifteen
"Am I the picture of manliness?" Kroz asked Rob one day while posing in front of a full-length mirror. "Do you think Caroline is impressed by my BIG MUSCLES? Or do you think that maybe she doesn’t know they exist?"
"I didn’t even know they existed. Have you been working out?" Rob asked, staring intently at Kroz’s now-flexed arms.
"No. The weights weigh too much. But soon enough, I’ll be able to pump iron. So I can impress Caroline. She might one day dump me because I’m not hot enough, you know. And I worry about this day."
Rob looked up again. "I don’t see that on the horizon. Just keep on pretending to go to the gym as you always do and she’ll just keep on thinking that you work out."
"But I don’t want to LIE," Kroz whispered, quivering. "I want to be the Truthful Kroz and I’m getting sick of her thinking I go to the gym when really I’m just headed to the mall to buy her something nice. Then the stuff I buy is so nice that I keep it for myself! Geez! There’s another problem with me! All of the flower stationery that I own is getting to me!"
"I never knew. Kroz, why don’t you join a sports team?"
A gleam shone in Kroz’s eyes. FOOTBALL.
"This is so cool, Kroz! You’re trying out for the team! I can’t wait to see you in action! Do you think you’ll get to be a quarterback?"
"Sure. Um, maybe. I don’t know yet. I’ll have to... see the competition. That’ll be a bit hard, but you never know. I, your wonderful boyfriend, will definitely make the team, either way. Tryouts are, as you must already know, tomorrow."
Caroline bounced up and down. Finally, her boyfriend could be a jock at the same time! She’d always secretly envied the girls with boys who had football letter jackets. She wondered whether she could wear his jacket when he got a letter for it.
Tryouts were really hard. Kroz wandered around afterwards, wondering how he did. He’d tackled a lot of guys -- and that turned out to be fun! But getting tackled was another matter. He’d been in a lot of pain afterwards. He wondered what kind of painkillers would be best for him. No matter how badly he did, he still desperately wanted to make the team, to make Caroline proud of him.
He wandered up the stairs into his room. He was wondering quite what to say to Caroline about the tryouts, since he had no idea about the whole tackling matter. As he settled down onto his bed, the telephone rang.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Kroz, it’s Caroline. How’re you doing? How was practice? I mean tryouts? Did you make the team?"
"The coaches have to think about it for a few days, Care."
Care rolled over onto her other side on the sofa. She was flicking through the TV stations and the only good thing she could find to watch was "The Mystery Of Frozen Chicken: What’s Up With the Bird?" and that wasn’t all that great. Who cared about below-freezing-point meat anyway?
"Uh. Well, if you make the team, I think I might try out to be a cheerleader. So I can cheer for you. Since you are, after all, so athletic. All of the jocks have a cheerleader girl."
Kroz paled. He didn’t want her to come to the games! She’d think he was such a non-athletic jerk! She would find out about how he just wanted to impress her and was really just a pansy! That wasn’t possible! She couldn’t do that!
"Care. Care. Please. I don’t think cheerleading is your type of thing. You know, hopping around in a short little skirt and yelling at the top of your lungs... Well, you do that anyway, but you know what I mean. I don’t think it’s your type of thing, Care."
"But, Kroz, I’ve ALWAYS wanted to be a cheerleader. Ever since I was a little girl and I got pompoms, I wanted to be a cheerleader and hop around and wiggle the pompoms and... It’d be fun, that’s all. Why? Don’t you want me to be a cheerleader?"
"Of course," he whispered, about to pull some of his hair out.
"Luvvies!" Caroline yelled. She hung up the phone and began to channel surf again.
"Why aren’t you getting this, Sheck? I told you, butt-wiggling isn’t hard!"
"Aims, we’ve been doing this for 3 weeks and I still can’t get the butt-wiggle. Why can’t we just give up?" Sheck cried in exasperation. They were in her matted basement, trying to polka dance again. Sheck was getting so sick of polka dancing, but Aims never gave up on a student.
"It’s not that hard. Why don’t you give it another try? I’m sure it won’t be that hard this time around," she said encouragingly while bouncing up and down, trying to perk him up.
Sheck sighed and got back to work. If he wanted to get it right, he’d just have to practice, practice, practice.
"Oh!" Aims suddenly yelled, making a funny sound. "Our new students come today. You’ll like them, Sheck. One, Twizzle, is really nice. You might have seen her around school. She’s the one with the red hair and freckles. The other is a new girl, Samantha. She just arrived here and she moved in next door to me. I figured she could meet you guys before she went off to school next week for the first time. Samantha’s really nice."
"Twizzle?!?" Sheck yelled. "What do I do, what do I wear, and AIMS, HOW DO I LOOK?"
Aims took a step back and looked at him closely. He was wearing green jeans and a white T-shirt which said "My T-shirt Says THIS," on it in pink lettering. His shoes were black, but one sock was green and the other white. His hair was a mess from all of the cartwheels that he had to do. His few freckles looked like there were thrown on there with some kind of a wicked paintbrush.
"You look OK," she concluded.
The door opened and two girls appeared. Samantha and Twizzle walked down the stairs.
Radu sat down on his inflatable sofa. He and Sheck were having male bonding time -- a pity party.
"Do you want to go first, or should I?" Radu asked. Sheck was lying on the floor in a semi-tangled mess. He looked like the first Andromedan pretzel.
"You can go ahead. Mine might take longer and I think I’m more interested in yours than you are in mine."
Radu settled back in his chair. Sheck watched him expectantly.
"It all started with Kroz. He tried out for that really stupid football team. He wanted to be a stupid jock with a letter jacket to impress Caroline. Now it turns out that I think Elmira wants me to be on the Andromedan football team. I want to impress her, but I, by no means, want to be on the football team. I’m sort of a small, skinny Andromedan and I am not nearly as strong as most of the other guys. I’d be killed! What do you think I should do?"
"Tell Elmira that she should just appreciate you for the person that you are, sappy as that sounds."
"I guess I should go for sappy. Girls love sappy. So why do I feel like a jerk? Maybe I should try out. But if I get hurt, I won’t be able to spend any more quality time with Elmira and then it won’t even matter either way and she’ll feel guilty and I don’t want her to feel guilty -- especially not over me. I’m just the boyfriend in the story. What do you think, Sheck?"
"Don’t join the football team. DO NOT BE A SHEEP."
"I wasn’t a sheep to begin with."
"It’s a saying. Believe me, I’m sure Elmira is cool with your ‘masculinity’ just the way it is. Otherwise, she’d just dump you."
Radu paled. "She could seriously dump me?"
"I was saying that she COULD HAVE but she didn’t. Don’t become a jock, man. Then who would I talk to? Rob? Rob’s such a creep. He keeps on hitting on Leena. She’s my best friend and I hate him! He’s just gotta back off!"
"Is that what we were going to talk about when it came to you?"
"No. My problem has to do with my crush," Sheck whispered, looking at his mismatched socks.
"You have a crush, Sheck?" Radu whispered incredulously.
"What did you think? I was allergic to women? Of course I have a crush!"
"Who?" Radu had no idea who it was. He really didn’t.
"Twizzle," Sheck confessed, blushing really hard. He hoped that Radu could keep such a secret.
"Ah," Radu said, leaning back and thinking about this. In his possession was quite a nice morsel of information. "Twizzle. She’s cute. I personally like Elmira better of course, but Twizzle’s a nice choice." He was thinking about this when he came to a realization. "YOU want to try out for the football team!"
Caught off guard, Sheck jumped. "What? Why would I ever do that? Only nut cases like you ever want to do things like that!"
"But, deep down, you are considering the possibility because she usually dates jocks! And if you made the team, she’d think you were a jock and maybe she’d go out with you!" Radu theorized, pointing rudely at Sheck.
"I’m not about to break a bone, or lose a limb, for Twizzle! That’s crazy! If she doesn’t like me for Sheck, then... You’re right! Maybe I should try out for the team!" Sheck leaped to his feet, but then fell down again. It’s hard for Andromedan pretzels to get to their feet again. And stay that way.
"Forget it, Sheck. Anyway, was that your problem?"
"No. See, for the last three weeks I’ve been taking polka dance lessons from Aims. Which is a lot of fun, except that I can’t get the butt-wiggling down... Stop laughing. So I’m taking these lessons and then Aims drops this bomb on poor me -- we’re going to have two more people added to our little ‘class,’ which is fine by me, but one of the two people is Twizzle! What am I supposed to even do about this? She keeps on giggling whenever I try to butt wiggle! And the other girl, Samantha Styles, oh, she’s annoying. She keeps on trying to be like Twizzle -- like that’s possible!"
Radu sighed. "So stop butt-wiggling. Are you feeling insuperior? Can Twizzle butt-wiggle?"
"Butt-wiggling," Sheck said in exasperation, "is a fine art. One cannot get it in the course of one day."
"I see," Radu said, trying unsuccessfully to raise one eyebrow but not the other. "And what of Samantha? Is she cute?"
"She’s not important! We’re worrying about my problems, Radu! We’re thinking about Twizzle and how she giggles whenever I try to butt-wiggle!"
"But I’m interested in this Samantha. New people fascinate me. I have certain low expectations for new people -- It’s funny how they never become even close to fulfilled. Beside the point, once again."
"Samantha has greasy dark brown but sort of red hair and she has these freckles that sort of blotch into each other and I don’t think she brushes her teeth," Sheck said in one really long run-on sentence.
"No dental hygiene? Dr. Frosty, my dentist, would not approve! I brush my teeth twice a day!"
"Whatever. Anyway, now you know about her and what do you think I should do about Twizzle?"
"Write her a letter or call her or something and tell her that you like her."
"WHAT?!? I could never do that! She thinks I’m dopey!"
"Dopey? Oh, come on. You know dopey first-hand. By means of me, dressed in that horrible McYums outfit. And Elmira still goes out with me."
"You’re Radu and she’s Elmira, though!"
"Yes, I’m aware. What’s your point?"
"YOU ARE SOUL MATES! DESTINY AND OTHER STUFF!!! Twizzle and I are not destined! Why don’t you get it? Are you dense or something? She probably doesn’t even know I exist!"
They continued on with their pointless arguing for the next few hours.
"And the people who MADE THE TEAM," the coach yelled, turning to the group of expectant and cocky boys, "are to report to practice tomorrow afternoon for fitting of outfits. Dismissed."
The cloud of Spung males wandered outside, onto the streets and towards their homes or hangouts. Kroz sort of dragged behind them. He had made the team, but now he was wondering about his health. What would he do? What if he fell or someone stepped on his tail? Would it rip out his tail? And what about the uniforms? How much was he going to have to pay for those, anyway?
He walked into the Stardust Café, where Elmira worked as a waitress. She was running around, trying to please everyone who as dissatisfied with orders. (There were plenty of disagreeable customers out there. Any ex-waitress will tell you all about this.)
He seated himself and turned to look at the other waitress. She was a short Andromedan girl with red hair and freckles. //I wonder if this is the Twizzle I hear about every so often in reference to Sheck// he thought to himself.
The redhead walked calmly over to him and asked him if there was anything he wanted. "Actually, no, I am sort of waiting to meet my girlfriend here. She’s Elmira’s twin, Caroline."
The carrot-top turned and looked at Elmira. "She has a twin? I just thought she changed her clothes a lot. Wow. This explains plenty." She turned to Kroz. "Sorry, but I’m not all that intelligent."
Kroz glanced around the café. It was pretty ill-lit, but he could see all around himself and the other customers. He smelled a horrible odor and he wanted to know what it was. It smelled sort of like burning garbage. "Okay. What’s your name, for the sake of my knowing?"
"My name is Twizzle," the girl replied perkily, still wondering whether he wanted anything. Maybe he’d been kidding before.
"Seriously? Do you know a kid named Sheck?"
"Yeah. He’s in one or two of my classes. I’m just trying to pay attention to the teacher, really. My parents don’t like the idea of me flunking out. I’m sure yours don’t, either."
"Can you smell that?"
Twizzle turned and looked all around her. "There’s smoke coming from the kitchen area. Nothing to worry about, though."
"Do you mean that smoke always comes from the kitchen?"
"Well, only when there’s a fire."
They stared at each other for a moment. There was a fire in the kitchen. Someone should really do something about this. Twizzle ran out of the dining area and into the kitchen.
Kroz settled back to wait for Caroline.
A moment later, Elmira dashed out and yelled to the customers, "Listen, you all are going to have to get out of the building right now! One of the food platters that we’ve been cooking has gone up in flames. The kitchen is now burning up. One of the stoves are of the really old-fashioned gas type, and there may be an explosion which could take the whole building. We’ve called the firemen and other savior - type people, and it’ll be all right. Please, though, don’t panic. Just calmly exit the building."
The people got up, picked up their platters, and left to eat on the front lawn.
Kroz figured he’d just go to Caroline’s house. She clearly was not planning to be on time.
"That’s so great! Kroz, this is so cool! I’ve got a jock boyfriend! I have never been so proud of anyone in my life! Let’s go out! Let’s go to the Stardust Café!"
"It’s gone down in flames a little while ago. Sorry."
"Is my sister all right?"
"She was the last time I saw her. She was calmly talking to the customers, telling them to evacuate the building."
"Okay. I just hope she wasn’t trying to put out the fire." (She wasn’t.)
"So, have you gotten over the cheerleading thing yet?"
"No way, Kroz!" Care yelled, bouncing off of her bed. Kroz, who was lying on Elmira’s, had to actually MOVE HIS HEAD so he could watch her. "I am going to cheer, cheer, cheer! I can’t wait until tryouts, which are next week!"
Kroz sighed. "I’ve gotta go home and do my homework. See you around."
Samantha slid up near Sheck after practice. "Hey, aren’t you going to show me around school tomorrow?"
Sheck stared stupidly at Samantha. "Huh?"
"I start school tomorrow. I’ll be lost. Why don’t you show me around so I can find my way around and won’t feel like a new girl? Please, pretty please?" Samantha tried to look really pretty, which was hard for a girl as ugly as her. The gunk on her two front teeth didn’t do anything great for her image.
"Uh. Well. I don’t know. If I see you, and you look sort of lost, I’ll point to the general direction in which you should be going. Did I use ‘in which’ properly, Sam?" Sheck asked, densely not noticing the fact that Samantha was trying to subtly hit on him.
"It’s not important," the sad Samantha Styles whispered, and left.
"What did I say?" Sheck yelled after her. She was already gone. "Girls. They hear the words ‘in which’ and they get all funny. Hmm, maybe I could use this to my advantage." He walked up the stairs, said good-bye to Aims, who was standing at the front door, and left.
It was the first day of practice and Kroz was feeling a bit nervous. He’d never been a jock or on the football team, and he hoped he was doing all right. A couple of guys had understood the feeling -- trying to keep a girlfriend by being on the football team.
As he walked out of the locker room, he heard the yells of the girls trying out for cheerleading. He stared out there. Caroline was out there, laughing and shaking pompoms. He felt like such a jerk, but he couldn’t imagine why.
"Go team! Go TIGERS! T-I-G-E-R-S! You’ve got the spirit, you’ve got the stuff, power to you, you are so tough! Keep up the work, you got us to smirk! Run, team, run, but remember to have fun!" the girls yelled, leaping up and down and wiggling the pompoms JUST SO.
"Very good," a creepy little old lady whispered, taking notes on each of the girls. She was the coach of the cheerleading squad. One day, maybe a couple of hundred years ago at best, she’d been a cheerleader. But that was something from ancient, prehistoric times. She was now taking notes in her ancient calligraphic handwriting and scowling at all of the girls. "Perky. That’s always good in a cheerleading squad." She muttered under her breath, "And annoying as Hell."
One by one, they did cartwheels so the creepy little old coach could watch them and see who did it perfectly. None did, but that was beside the point. Whoever was closest to perfection, although none were all that close, got little checks.
"Mrs. Lobotomy," one girl (the leader of the team from the previous year) yelled. "Mindy" (her best friend) "isn’t here today. She got really ill from the flu. Just keep her in mind, okay? She really wants to be part of the team again, just like last year."
"Yes, whatever-your-name-is. Shut up and continue already."
Caroline turned and stared into the field. Kroz was out there, staring right back at her. She felt sort of warm and fuzzy inside. She was jerked back to the hard, cold world when Mrs. Lobotomy yelled at her, "Are you going to do a backwards flip or not, lady? I’m not getting any younger!"
//No kidding// Caroline thought viciously, performing a nearly-perfect back flip.
Kroz arrived home. He was hot and sweaty and smelled funny.
Yet he did not choose to take a shower. He decided to watch a little bit of TV first. None of his favorite shows were on. All there was to watch was, "The Mystery of Frozen Chicken: What’s up with the Bird?" So he watched that, although the narrator had the most annoying voice he could possibly imagine. It was like someone who’d spent his day with a bucket full of cheese. Or worse: pickles. Either way, the guy looked like he smelled funny and his voice conveyed some sort of an "I’ve-been-raised-by-bunnies" atmosphere.
His mother walked into the room, smiling and holding a frozen chicken. Kroz leaped up and yelled something in another language - Andromedan probably. He then ran like heck out of the room. He walked back in a few seconds later. His mother, looking truly bewildered, stood in the center of the room.
She wasn’t holding a frozen chicken at all.
"I’m sorry, Mom. I guess I was just imagining something. I thought you’d walked into the room with a frozen chicken. I guess I’m dehydrated and hallucinating. Sorry," Kroz said, staring back at the floor.
"You have to stop watching these television programs, honey. Go upstairs, take a shower, and when you come down again, we can have some dinner. Okay?"
"Sure."
Samantha’s first day arrived. She was hanging out in her homeroom, dully hoping that Sheck was going to come and show her around. She doubted it, but one could always hope...
Aims ran into the room. She stopped dead in her tracks. Samantha was leaning against the blackboard, looking forlorn. "What’s wrong, Sammy?"
"I was sort of hoping Sheck would show me around," Samantha replied. "But I guess he has a life."
Aims walked over to the blackboard which Samantha was leaning against and privately whispered into Samantha’s ear: "You like him, don’t you? Otherwise you’d never ask him to show you around."
Samantha looked like she was about to cry. "Well, I couldn’t help it. He’s cute and he’s funny. What am I supposed to do? I like him!"
Aims nodded and left the room in search of Sheck.
When she found him, a few moments later, she saw him sitting on a bench outside of a classroom (meant for kids who were kicked out of class) talking to Twizzle. Sheck was settled down underneath a poster that was some kind of an advertisement for Fried Potatoes. The bright green bench made Sheck look sort of stupid, but he was grinning fully, making him look all right. She made a violent motion with her hand for Sheck to come, giving him the Look.
Sheck looked like he was about to cry, but he got up and walked over to Aims anyway. Twizzle energetically waved good bye and skipped off.
"What’d you do that for?" Sheck whined.
"You LIKE her, don’t you?" Aims whispered excitedly, bouncing up and down on one foot. "You like Twizzle! That’s why you don’t like to practice your butt-wiggling, because it’d make you look a bit foolish in front of you! You’re letting your crushes get in the way of dancing!" Aims yelled, pointing foolishly at Sheck’s nose.
Sheck let out a quiet whimper. "I’m sorry. But I really want to go out with her. And it’s hard sometimes. Because she doesn’t like me."
"It’s time for a hug," Aims declared. Sheck was about to hug her when she jumped away. "Not from me! Go hug Leena!"
Sheck sighed and started walking away. Little did he know that Twizzle was watching him from one end of the hall and Samantha was watching him from the other. Sheck, for reasons unknown to him, wiggled his butt at Aims, who gasped.
"What now?" the exasperated Sheck whined.
"You did it just right, Sheck! You did the butt-wiggle!" Aims yelled.
They started hugging and leaping up and down and spinning each other around in circles, causing quite a stir in the hallway. People were staring. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the mastered butt-wiggle.
The first football game came around. Kroz was completely ready. He had all of the moves (ducking, swerving, etc.) down. He looked buff with the padding. His teammates knew how to help him out because he’d most definitely need some help yet couldn’t dare not go out because of his girl. He was hanging out in the sweaty locker room before the game.
The coach, some fat slob with a huge beer belly and strange eyes that didn’t always blink at the same time, called the team together for a pep talk.
"All right, men, let’s get out there and kick the other guy’s butt! Let’s show them that we’re really cool... and stuff. Yeah! And we’ll kill ’em all, just like we did last year! We will show them that the Inter-Center City Spung School is one heck of a kick-ass team! We’ve got the spirit! What are we going to do, men?"
"Kick serious ass!" the team barked in unison.
"And why?"
"Because we’re the football team!" they replied faithfully.
"Exactly. Get out there, men, and impress the audience."
"Especially the ladies out there... Sir!" The boys saluted their coach and got out there to (hopefully) impress the ladies (or, in some cases, the men) (which is okay, too).
Cheerleading was going through a similar process. Mrs. Lobotomy was settled on the chair in the gym, getting the girls ready to get onto the football team. They were jumping all over and doing flips and discussing their excitement. A few were having a dance contest without dance music to get themselves ready.
//Why, oh WHY ME?// Mrs. Lobotomy thought angrily to herself. //If only I could just go on social security and get it over with.//
"All right, girls, please come over here. It’s time for your..." - she sighed - "...pep talk." She crossly watched the young girls bounce off of the floor and prance over to her, where she was settled as she had been for the last 40 years.
"Give it to us, Mrs. Lobotomy! The guys are great, you know! They’ll kick ass, won’t they?" the head cheerleader yelled perkily.
"Stop using foul language, brat," the coach hissed. "Mind your tongue. Back in my day, we’d yank a girl’s tail if she cursed. A group would hold ’ER, and another would just pull with all strength. Good thing you were born when you did." //Or maybe not// Mrs. Lobotomy snapped mentally.
The girl sat back and was about to cry. A couple of others gave her a hug.
"Now. You know your pathetic little jobs. You go out there in your miniskirts, cheer, laugh, whatever it is you have to do. Make the males in the audience... happy. Now get out there and do it before I hurt one of you."
"Thanks, Mrs. Lobotomy!" the girls yelled, fully excited for the game.
Caroline wondered to herself, //Was that supposed to make us happy about ourselves? How is that building our cheerleader self-esteem? She makes it seem like we’re somehow being unethical.// Care dismissed that thought, like she did with pretty much all of her thoughts.
Radu, Sheck, and Elmira went to go and see the game. Leena was going out with Rob. Vena was working on a school project. (This was typical of Vena: to do something on a Friday night and then feel really lonely when she had no one to talk to on Sunday night because everyone ELSE was doing their homework.)
Radu picked out a spot near the front of the audience part of the field. They were a couple of rows back from the cheerleaders. Elmira could see her twin perfectly from where they were sitting. Sheck was kicking back and talking to Radu when the football players marched onto the field.
"Don’t you love this sport?" Sheck asked happily.
"No!" Elmira hissed. "It’s these people chasing after a stupid ball. I guess it’s a male thing."
"Because the males see the great part of it," Radu replied. "They smile because it’s guys beating each other up and clearing each other out so there are less options for the ladies."
"You already have a lady," Elmira retorted.
"Oh, yeah," Radu whispered. "You’re right. Stupid sport."
Sheck grinned. "It’s the beating each other that I like. See, jocks are jerks. See, ‘jock’ even sounds like ‘jerk’! They are brainless - well, most of them - and are a general pain in the ass to those of us that aren’t what they are. And they’re out there beating the crud out of each other -- and we get to watch! Great entertainment! Nothing better! Maybe I should time how long each cheer is. What do you think?"
He turned to look at Radu and Elmira, who were necking. "Maybe I should just time this kiss," he snapped, pulling out his stop watch. He flicked it on, added about 10 seconds to the time, and calmly watched them like it happened every day. (Well, actually, it does.)
"Hey, Sheck!" three voices chimed out behind him. He turned around to see Twizzle, Aims, and Samantha Styles. In that order. Of importance.
"Yeah?" he asked cautiously. He was aware that they wanted to sit with him, although he couldn’t imagine why Twizzle would want to. But he was under the impression that Twizzle thought of him as more of a little brother. And he was also under the impression that Samantha Styles was sort of hitting on him, but only because Twizzle had hinted at it. And Aims was his friend. So who would be sitting next to him, anyway?
Aims answered the question by sitting next to him. Oh.
"So, why are you here? We figured it was the only thing to do. We didn’t feel like dancing tonight. It’s not a polka night," Aims chattered happily. "And since we heard that you were coming to the Spung School’s game, we figured we’d come, too. Who are you coming to watch?"
"I’m going to watch my Radu’s girlfriend’s twin’s boyfriend. He’s a jock, I guess, although he doesn’t really act like a jock."
Aims leaned forward and looked over Sheck’s lap, at Radu and Elmira. They hadn’t changed position or anything. "Hi Radu."
Radu waved his hand at her with barely any movement on his part.
"He’s a nice friend," Aims said happily, and kicked back. (Which bothered the people in the seats behind her.)
Sheck halfheartedly nodded. The stopwatch revealed one minute and 48 seconds. Sheck was in the mood for a nap. He was getting mentally fuzzy. Even though Aims was, of course, a Cattyvakian, he had never noticed that she was starting to look more and more like his neighbor’s cat. Or what used to be his neighbor’s cat before it became roadkill.
Twizzle, who was sitting next to Aims, turned and looked at Sheck. "How’s it going?"
Sheck gasped. His crush was talking to him! "Okay. Fine. Things are great. Never better. I’m a bit tired. That’s all. Not like I need a bed... I mean... I didn’t mean..."
Twizzle nodded, looking perplexed. //I wonder what he’s talking about. I don’t think he’s fully awake.//
The game started and everyone turned to watch the big-muscled boys lunge at each other in pursuit of the ball.
Kroz was NOT a starter. He was being a bench-warmer for the beginning of the game. Later on, maybe in the 2nd or 3rd quarter, he’d go in. Or, at least, that’s what the coach said.
The 3rd quarter came around and it was halfway through when the coach yelled, "Kroz, get out there. Jimmy seems a bit... tired, I guess is that word you kids use today, although a football player should never be tired!"
Kroz nodded and ran out. He poked Jimmy and Jimmy happily left. He was exhausted.
Soon enough, the game started again. The groups of boys ran, blocked, turned, swerved, and tackled. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Kroz got passed the ball. He began to run (in the correct direction, I might add) towards the goal post. But the boys of the other team were too fast and were on his heels quickly. No one was within his passing reach. He was feeling a bit trapped. People were yelling his name incorrectly throughout the stands. He considered briefly whether he was a jerk, then deemed it irrelevant. Without warning, one of the guys from the other team tackled him and he heard a crunch.
As soon as he came to, he realized that he was in the guys’ locker room. One of his teammates had carried him back there after he’d gone unconscious. The guys were cheering, yelling and overall acting like jocks.
"We won!" one of the guys yelled at Kroz. "Awesome playing before you were knocked out, man!"
Kroz nodded in some sort of helpless state. He was experiencing some sort of pain in his lower arm. But that was just a bruise -- or so he thought. He didn’t even bother to look at it. Care could worry about it later.
"What did we do out there?" the coach yelled.
"We kicked some serious ass!" the "men" called back.
"And how did we did it?"
"We had team work, excellent training from our coach and the will to play ball!" they screamed.
"And who did we do it for?"
"The ladies!"
"And were they impressed?"
"As always, sir!"
Kroz leaned backwards and fell back to sleep.
"Kroz, great playing out there. We, the ‘ladies,’ are allowed in here now. Most of the guys are decently dressed. So, how’s it going? Wake up!" Care barked, tugging at her boyfriend.
"Strange ducks..." Kroz muttered. "I am Dewy. The main duck. Quack."
Care smacked him across the face. "Oh. Sorry, Kroz. Did that hurt?"
Acting childish, Kroz gave her the little boy face and nodded. He tried to pull himself up, but gasped in wrangled pain. "My arm!" he yelled.
Care glanced at it. "Only the usual two elbows," she snapped matter-of-factly. "Chill out. Let’s go! There’s an after-game party for those of us who stayed for the whole thing. After you went out, it was win, win, win!"
"Elbow Man," Kroz whispered, still in his dazed state. "I am Elbow Man."
Then Caroline glanced at his arm more thoroughly. "You know, you’re only supposed to have one elbow, aren’t you?"
"I think."
Care started getting hysterical. She screamed for help. Within 5 minutes, the paramedics were there and ready to take Kroz away. While the paramedics were carrying him away, Kroz kept on insisting that he’d be fine.
Twizzle, Samantha, Aims, and Sheck were hanging out at the party. Samantha was sort of staying 2 feet away from Sheck, no matter where he went. Aims was chattering with Twizzle, but they were never far.
After a while, they were all sitting calmly and watching the paramedics drive away with some Spung football player. "I wonder what happened," Twizzle whispered softly, feeling sorry for the football player. She’d gone out with plenty and she knew about all the injuries. (Which, as a matter of fact, never stopped them from going right back out onto the playing field.)
"Some jock jerk was probably beating up another jock jerk and it ended up that one was knocked out or something. Not important," Sheck snapped. Twizzle looked at him in surprise. She’d never seen this side of him.
"Why don’t you like jocks?"
"Why do you like them?"
"I’m popular. I’ve gotta like them. If I didn’t, I’d be pretty bad at being popular, wouldn’t I?"
Sheck nodded quietly. He felt like a jerk.
Twizzle noticed something in his eyes when she’d said the thing about jocks and being popular. That something that she couldn’t quite place... Oh, yeah. THAT. Twizzle nodded to herself, then decided it was time. "Sheck, I think we have to talk, okay?" Twizzle whispered into Sheck’s ear, tugging at his sleeve.
Sheck shrugged and followed her to part of the abandoned bleachers.
Samantha, who hadn’t followed him away with Twizzle, watched them. "Does he like me?" Samantha asked softly.
"I don’t know," Aims replied, fully knowing that he didn’t. Hurting Samantha wasn’t part of her plans for the immediate future. Keeping friends was sort of on her agenda.
"Yeah?" Sheck muttered as soon as they got to the bleachers. He sat down and glared out on the field. It had been a lot of fun watching jocks tackle each other for the last 2 hours, but now the fun was ending. Quickly.
"You like me, don’t you?" Twizzle asked triumphantly.
Sheck turned and blinked at her. //Wow. She isn’t a dense popular person after all.// He wasn’t quite sure how to answer that one. So he figured he’d ask. "How do you want me to answer the question?"
Twizzle was caught off guard. "Truthfully?"
"Um, yeah."
"So, you’re agreeing to be truthful? Okay, spill."
"Um. I already did."
"What? When you said ‘um, yeah’?"
"Then. That was the time."
Twizzle sighed. This would take a while.
"So, do you think that he could like me?" Samantha asked happily.
"He could." //Eventually.//
"So, do you have an opinion? Do you like Sheck? Competition sucks, you know. And I don’t want your heart to be broken," Samantha stated rudely.
"Sheck’s my friend. I don’t want to go out with him. Ew," Aims said calmly, making a face at the thought of kissing one of her better friends. "Yes, ‘ew’ described it nicely." Although, if she really wanted to go out with Sheck, Samantha wouldn’t be all that much of a ‘competition.’
Two weeks later, Kroz’s arm was refusing to heal. It looked like Elbow Man LIVED! Kroz had to resign from the football team, although he’d helped the team win the first game.
After that, Kroz began to draw some cartoons. Elbow Man’s Adventures. More of Elbow Man’s Adventures. Power of Elbow Man. Elbow Man’s Chipper Little Companion: Chin Man.
Not like Caroline was going to quit the cheerleading team. No way. Her ‘reputation’ was at stake, but her ‘cheerleading friends’ understood her whole problem, with the in-pain boyfriend.
Twizzle didn’t like Sheck as anything more than a friend. (Oh, no. Sorry. Were you, the readers, expecting that to turn into a sweet, puppy-love romance? Sorry again. You’re not going to get it. I’m not that type of reader-pleasing writer. I like a thing. It’s called "being realistic." Sorry... for the 3rd time.)
Samantha hadn’t figured out what she was going to do about Sheck. She was still thinking about going out with him. (Wishfully.)
Oh, and Sheck was devastated about that whole Twizzle-thing. Aims didn’t care either way. She was just glad about the butt-wiggle. It had been getting pathetic how he couldn’t master it after almost a month!
That’s about it.
I just like making new paragraphs.
Radu and Elmira: Still dating.
Vena: Still working on homework on Friday nights.
Azzi, Sheck’s older sister: Still a cruel, nasty genius.