This choice: Day 3 of Practice. Let’s see what happens • Go Back...Chapter #9Day 3 of Practice. Let’s see what happens by: Kirafair   Friday at noon. Chris entered the Cafeteria and noticed something was amiss. Julia, Jessica, and Tammy weren’t sitting at their usual table waiting for him. It took a minute, as he scanned the room, to find that the three were sitting at a far table with three boys from the Junior class that he recognized as players on the Varsity Football squad. Chris tried to catch Julia’s attention as he walked by but she was ignoring him. She and her friends were in engaged in an animated discussion about football.
“Hey Chris, you can join us if you’d like” came a voice from behind. He turned to see it was Maria Ruiz sitting with two other girls from the Cheerleader team. Clearly annoyed, he took a seat opposite Maria.
“Julia was asking them the best way to play a Zone or a Man on Man coverage defense, whatever that means” said Maria as she rolled her eyes for effect.
Chris’ mood worsened when Jake and Simon arrived giving him a ‘What gives look?’ Chris could only shrug his shoulders as they sat down. Deciding that if Julia was going to ignore him, he would do the same to her.
Returning his attention to Maria, he wondered if he could make Julia jealous by paying attention to her. Maria Ruiz was of Hispanic heritage with a slightly darker skin tone and long dark hair that went past her shoulders. Perhaps a little shorter than Julia and not quite as trim, she was still one of the prettier girls in his class. He idly wondered why she didn’t have a boyfriend.
“You were great in practice yesterday” she commended them. The boys gave a half hearted thanks in reply. “There is one thing though. We were wondering if you all could try something a little different at today’s practice” she asked meekly.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“When we all chant a cheer, the sound of your voices is deeper than we are used to and its throwing us off a bit”
“What do you expect, we’re boys” Chris retorted.
“I know” Maria said in a hushed tone “But do you think you can raise the pitch of your voices just a bit to sound more like the rest of the squad”
“How?” he asked
“You know how their voices. Just try to sound like them.”
Still somewhat distracted by the conversation coming from Julia’s table, Chris muttered “Alright, we’ll see.”
Later that day Julia and the girls were on the field ready to go before much of the team. The they were becoming very adept at dressing in the bulky pads. Julia noticed one boy, Mike James, was smudging something dark on his face. She had seen many of the boys with these marks before and was curious. Feeling very confident in herself, she walked over and asked “What’s that black stuff?”
Mike looked at Julia and weighed whether he should give her a snarky reply or instead be helpful. Like many of his teammates, he didn’t think much of this experiment though he had to grudgingly admit that the 3 girls were putting in a maximum effort. He also considered that Coach had warned the team that he would take a “very dim view of anyone” harassing the girls. ‘Oh what the hell, having a pretty girl think I’m a cool guy can’t hurt’ he thought.
“It’s call Eye Black. You rub some on your cheeks directty under each eye. It cuts down on Sun glare coming off your face and into your eyes. Supposed to make it easier to see the football.” He handed her a tube the size of a lipstick case “It also looks kind of cool” he confided.
Julia applied some as Mike had instructed.
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By now Jessica and Tammy had wandered over to see what Julia was up to. “You look awesome! Let me try it” and they both followed her lead.
The boys, like the day before, were sitting on the bleachers before practice as several girls applied concealer and foundation to their faces. Maria sat next to Chris while he was checking out his image in a mirror.
“Can I see that when you’re done?” Chris handed the mirror over and watched closely as Maria stroked additional mascara onto her eyelashes. Her luscious lashes bloomed even further.
“How do my eyes look?” she asked.
“They look great!” he said truthfully. Maria was about to put the mascara tube away when she paused and turned back to Chris
“Would you like to see what the mascara can do for you” she said with a smile.
“Oh, no thanks” he put his hands up in protest.
“Come on. What’s the big deal? Guys in Metal Bands wear eye makeup all the time. Nobody thinks anything about that.” Further encouragement from the other girls eventually broke down his resistance. Not that he would admit it but he was kind of curious.
It took very little prodding from the girls to let them put on some eyeliner first “Just at the edges to make your eyes look bigger” they said. The boys soon had the eye makeup to match the girls in the squad. On some small level, it made them happy that the girls seemed so pleased with the final results.
*****
Coach Forsythe watched the practice drills with a keen eye. He was so absorbed that he didn’t notice a visitor until a voice asked:
“How are the girls doing?”
He recognized the voice instantly and turned to see Principal Greene standing next to him. She seemed equally intent on watching the team go through their drills.
“Pretty good all things considered Ma’am.”
“Please call me Marjorie when its just us, John’ she said with a reassuring pat on his arm. “Do you think they might want to play in the first game next week?”
Coach Forsythe realized he hadn’t been thinking that far ahead. He was still coming to grips with the idea that Julia and her friends were totally serious about this. “I guess its possible. The girls certainly don’t seem interested in quitting.”
“Would you let them play”
He gave a noncommittal shrug. “The school philosophy for JV Football is to let anyone who wants to be on the team suit up for a game. Winning games at this level is less important than say actually learning the fundamentals of the game. Even our most experience players may have only been playing football for a few years.”
He waved his hand at the players “Its true that’s the girls are less skilled than many of the boys right now. They also lack some strength compared to the boys but in Football there are certain skill positions where that doesn’t matter as much”
“Interesting. Can you elaborate?”
“Take Jessica Garret for example. She is about as tall as Jake Houghlin and almost as fast. I’ve had her practice with the Wide Receivers. She has good hand eye coordination and is learning to run routes quickly. She can’t block as well as some other boys due to her lesser upper body strength but frankly Jake isn’t that good at it either. I could see using her in certain passing situations where we substitute in additional Receivers.”
“What about Tammy and Julia?”
“I am most concerned about Tammy getting hurt, being the smallest kid out there. Truthfully I am still unsure where Simon will fit on the team due to his small size. But the funny thing is Tammy has some real ability to kick the ball. After just a few days of practice she is already the best Punter on the team. I wouldn’t hesitate to use her in a game”
He pointed out to the field “See the player with the number 32 jersey? That is Julia. She is practicing with the Defensive Backs. Her speed is decent, the only issue I wonder about is can she tackle someone bigger than her. But she has two abilities that I can’t teach”
“Indeed, what are those?”
“She has a quick mind. Its amazing to me that after only a few days she is reacting faster to a developing play than some boys with more experience”.
He continued “She also has that intangible ability to motivate, to be a vocal leader. It’s not just with Jessica and Tammy, she is already encouraging the rest of the team. Even when she gets run over by one of the boys in a drill, she jumps right up and praises them.”
Turning to look at his boss he said “If these three girls want to play in games this year, I’d be glad to have them on the team”
Principal Greene continued to watch Julia closely as she playfully slapped a teammate on the helmet for a good play “I better start looking into the State Rules about female participation in official games then”
*****
Cheerleading practice had ended and Chris and the boys were heading to their own locker room when they heard “Hey chicas, wait up a second”. Chris didn’t know what chica meant but since Maria had yelled it, he suspected it was a Spanish word. (Kira: it means female friend)
Chris paused as Maria ran up to them “First I wanted to thank you for changing your voices today. It was almost like Julia and the girls were back on the team”
Chris’ face flushed with embarrassment “Yeah, sure thing”
Maria then pulled a small package out of her bag “Take one of these makeup remover towelettes. Not sure if you knew but the mascara and eyeliner are waterproof. You’d never have wiped it off with soap and water.”
The boys in fact were totally unaware and were very grateful to Maria for saving them from a potentially embarrassing situation. The rest of the cheerleaders surrounded Maria as she watched the boys enter their locker room.
One girl whispered “They looked so cute today. I bet with a little more makeup, longer hair and some stuffing in their sports bras, they would look just like Julia, Jessica, and Tammy”
“What an interesting idea” Maria said feigning innocence as the group started giggling.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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