Guardian Angel
15 Homecoming
“SO, THE STAFF and the troop leaders tell me you were a hero again,” Mom said as we left the ranch.
It had taken a few minutes to get out of there because each of the girls had stopped to give me a really nice full-front hug. Even the leaders. Phyllis hugged my face right into her boobs. I almost suffocated. Debbie was really nice and just said, “Hang in there brother. If you ever need a sister, let me know.” Even Courtney gave me a shy hug and thanked me for saving Jennifer. Jennifer went last and gave me a slip of paper with her name, address, and phone number on it.
“I’d like to be your friend,” she said. “If you, uh… ever need a girlfriend, I might be interested, too. Just saying.” I hugged her and sprouted an instant boner just feeling her boobs against my chest and thinking about last night. “Thanks again, Brian. You really are a great guy. My hero.”
She got into one of the vans and when they saw their charges were all on board, Becc and Phyllis quit talking to my mom and drove away. So, that was what they were telling Mom.
“I was just in the right place at the right time,” I said noncommittally. I just knew Mom wasn’t going to let this alone.
“It makes me very proud to know these things about my son,” she said. “It was more than accidentally being in the right place. It was fast action that saved that little girl.” Oh, Mom. She’s not that little.
“Really, Mom. Please don’t make a big deal out of it. I’d really appreciate it if none of my friends found out about this. I don’t need any more reputation. It’s hard enough as it is.” Mom was quiet for a few miles.
“Is it really that bad, Brian?”
“Yeah, Mom. It really is.”
“Well, I have to tell your Dad. He deserves to be proud of you, too. But we’ll honor your wish and we won’t tell anyone else.” I didn’t want to say anything else because every time I thought about Jennifer, I got a boner. I’d put the paper in my pocket. Girlfriend? Not likely. The troop was from Kokomo. Even when I could drive, I would never be allowed to date someone that far away. Besides, if I had any say in it, I’d still be dating Hannah. Hmm. I wonder how much of anything we’d done together counted as a date. Surely you couldn’t count riding on my collections as a date, could you?
“Hannah did a good job delivering your papers Saturday,” Mom said as if she was reading my mind.
“I knew she would. Did she tell you about the Saturday we got chased by a German shepherd?”
“No! I didn’t know there were any mean dogs on your route… anymore.” I grinned at Mom.
“It was when we were riding to her house after I was done last week,” I said. “She is really fast on her bike. She said she didn’t have to outrun the dog, she just had to outrun me.”
“That joke is older than I am,” Mom laughed. “She is such a nice girl. You are taking it slow, aren’t you, Brian?” Slow? What…? Oh crap!
“Mom, I like Hannah a whole lot. And I like the fact that she’s my girlfriend and we do lots of fun stuff together. But really, Mom. We just play. We don’t do anything wrong.” I hoped that would end the conversation. I really didn’t want to go into detail about what we didn’t do. Besides, that made me think of Jennifer and I was getting hard again. Thankfully, Mom let it drop.
“How was the ranch, Dude?” Carl asked at lunch. Everybody turned and looked at me. I just wasn’t going to say that much about it—and nothing at all about there being a Girl Scout troop there.
“It was neat. You know, being off and independent on my birthday was pretty awesome. Even though we had a family celebration at home on Sunday. I set a new arena record in Rescue Barrels.”
“You’re kidding! Who did you rescue?” Liz said. She always thought it was cool that we had horses and I got to ride at the county fair. It wasn’t that big a deal. I wished I had a good quarter horse like they had at the ranch in addition to Betts’ Arabians. I’d never turned barrels anywhere near as fast on Silk as on Jingo. Of course, Silk was old. Theresa’s little pinto was a demon with four hooves. That got us off the general subject of my birthday and the ranch and focused on who had horses and could ride.
“Oh, uh, just another one of the campers at the ranch. There were a few.”
“You should go riding with Brian someday,” Brenda said to Hannah. “That would be so romantic.”
“Could we go riding sometime?” Hannah asked enthusiastically.
“Oh. Well, we can’t ride Rika because she’s Betts’ show horse. I suppose we could ride double on Silk, though. If you’d like. Saturday after collections?”
“Yes!” Now that one I knew was a date. And Brenda was right. Having Hannah with her arms wrapped around my waist as we rode out through the woods would be romantic. I hoped.
“Homecoming is going to be so cool,” Reggie said. “You should come to the game, Bri. Bring your girlfriend. The cheerleaders are going to hold a flaming hoop for us to run through onto the field.”
“Flaming? How are they going to do that?”
“Oh, they’re just soaking some rags in kerosene and wrapping them around the hoop then setting it on fire.”
“NO!” I was louder than I should have been and Mr. J looked up at us. We focused on the experiment we were running. I whispered. “You can’t do that. Kerosene burns really hot. You’d get set on fire and the cheerleaders couldn’t hold the hoop.”
“It should be just like a lion jumping through a fiery hoop, shouldn’t it?”
“How many of the team does it actually take to win the game?” I asked.
“All of us.”
“Then you don’t want to start the game with half the team and all the cheerleaders in the hospital with second- and third-degree burns.”
“Shit! What should we do?”
“Give me a day to go through my reference books. I’ll have a solution by the end of school tomorrow.”
I was desperate and spent most of the night studying my chemistry and physics books. It turned out the answer was in our barn.
“So, you’re the kid who says we can’t have a fiery hoop for homecoming,” the head cheerleader said. Her hands were on her hips and she was flanked by more of the most beautiful girls in school. She had her short little cheer skirt on with matching panties that I’d seen as they were practicing a few minutes ago. Reg made the introduction and then ran to practice.
“Uh… No, Miss Renee. I am just the kid that doesn’t want to see your beautiful blonde hair singed off your head and your pretty face scarred with burns.” Well, it stopped her. She thought I was going to be pissy, I guess. She looked at me warily.
“We can still have our hoop?”
“I think so. It will just be safer. Please understand I’m not saying safe. Fire is fire and it’s hot. But this will be more controlled.”
“Can you show us?” one of the other cheerleaders asked. Crap! Already I couldn’t remember her name.
“I brought a demonstration.” I handed her one of the wire hanger ends that I’d built after I got home from papers this morning. I only had half an hour, so it sure wasn’t pretty. I handed Renee the other handle. Between them was stretched a wire hanger with a braid of hemp baling twine dipped in paraffin. I got out a box of kitchen matches and lit the end. The fire traveled along the rope and burned.
“This is such a little flame, though! No one will see it,” Renee complained.
“Well this is just a quick sample. We can make it a little brighter and I might be able to enhance it safely with camp fuel—you know, white gas.” It was obvious they didn’t know. “The hemp burns pretty well and won’t fly away like a burning rag would, but the paraffin keeps it steady and won’t drip on the players like kerosene would. It’s good fuel and a little safer than kerosene just because it’s not toxic. And I thought of something else that will make the entrance more spectacular. If you stretch paper across the hoop, like that white tablecloth paper they use for picnics, you can paint a Trojan on it and then light it on fire before the team comes through. The paper will light the paraffin on fire all the way around the hoop and the team can run through. And maybe if we make it a horseshoe instead of a closed hoop, they won’t have to jump through the fire under them. They can just run out onto the field.”
Renee looked at the other cheerleaders and they nodded.
“We were just going to soak rags and tie them onto a hoop of hangar wire like this one,” she said. “What do we have to do to make this one?”
“Well, I just started thinking this through because Reggie only told me yesterday in chemistry class, but I think that if we could get some pipe, we could make the frame. Then if you can get access to the Home Ec kitchen, we could melt the paraffin there and dip the twine in it, then wrap it around the frame.”
“Where do we get the paraffin?”
“The grocery store,” I answered. “They sell it for canning.”
“It’s the same stuff? I didn’t know it burned!”
“You can make candles out of it. I’ve got lots of baling twine available. We just wrap it in a ball when we cut open a new bale of hay. Maybe we could get Mr. Lawton in shop to supply the pipe. He’s got tons of stuff like that down there.”
“I know we can get the paper from the art class. We use it all the time,” one of the cheerleaders spoke up. I was definitely going to need to learn their names. I couldn’t just refer to them as Renee, other blonde, brunette 1, brunette 2, and redhead. At the moment that was the only difference I could tell between them. Brunette 1 did a backflip and I saw her matching panties. I thought of something else.
“Uh… since it’s homecoming, maybe you could get the JV and Junior High cheerleaders to help hold the hoop so you guys could do your jumps and cheers for the guys as they come through it.” That got some nods and we set to work.
There was an away game on Friday night and the cheerleaders wanted to meet on Saturday afternoon to dip the twine. I begged off but brought the twine in on Thursday with instructions on how much needed to be dipped and how to strip the excess wax off of it.
“You’re going to pass up an opportunity to hang out with the varsity cheerleaders?” Avis asked. She was Brunette 2. “You a homo?”
“Uh, would it make a difference?” I asked. I was sick of people just tossing names at me. She had the good grace to blush and shake her head. “The truth is, I’m taking my girlfriend horseback riding. Any objections?”
“Ooh. Fun. I’d consider being your girlfriend if you took me riding,” said the redhead. Wow, she was cute.
“Um… position’s filled,” I said. “See you all on Monday. After school we’ll start wrapping the frame.”
I was really looking forward to Saturday afternoon. After we got home from turning in my collections, Hannah and I headed for the corral. Betts was out on Rika, but she promised to leave Silk in the stall. She didn’t, of course. Silk was out in the paddock and had rolled in mud. I called her in and gave her some hay while we brushed and curried her. Sometimes, I think horses purr like cats do. Silk was a happy girl.
Once she was cleaned up, I saddled her and mounted then told Hannah to climb up on the fence so she could get on behind me. She was a little nervous, but I got Silk right up close to the fence and Hannah got on behind me. Dummy that I am, I should have mounted outside the corral. I couldn’t reach the gate latch from on Silk’s back. I slid off and led her with Hannah hanging onto the cantle until I got the gate open and Silk through it. She stood calmly while I worked my way back into the saddle without throwing my leg over the back and knocking Hannah off. At last, we were ready.
We rode out along the road for a while and then back toward the barn.
“Want to go out through the woods?” I asked. I was feeling pretty good with Hannah holding me around the waist. She got pretty confident, though, and wasn’t leaning against me like Jennifer did. Crap! I gotta quit thinking about her. We headed out through the back and talked and laughed a little, just following one of the many trails.
“Want to try riding in front?” I asked.
“Can I?”
“Well, you don’t have boots and haven’t ridden before, but there’s room for you to ride in the saddle in front of me and I’ll help you hold the reins.” I knew there was a good stump coming up, so I helped Hannah slide down and told her to get on the stump. I rode up, figuring we’d just keep going when she was mounted. As I rode toward her, I saw some movement ahead of us. “Hang on, just a sec. I’m going to ride forward a little and turn around to pick you up on the way back.” I rode forward about ten yards and what I thought I saw was clear.
Cassie Clinton and Geoff Hopkins were under our tree, kissing. She had her hands behind his head. Fuck! I turned Silk around and rode back to Hannah. I could feel my eyes stinging and couldn’t figure out why. I’d barely seen Cassie in a year. But to see her with somebody else where I kissed her and she ran away…
I got Hannah in the saddle in front of me and she had fun holding the reins as I held her around the waist. In a few minutes, I was back to myself with Hannah, and enjoying holding her, even though it was no big deal. Hannah was excited to be riding and that I let her steer. Before we dismounted at the barn, I just hugged her and said how much fun I had. She giggled and wanted to know when we’d do it again.
Well, pretty soon, but maybe not riding in the woods.
Monday at lunch, Brenda and Rose were on about how the varsity cheerleaders had asked them to participate in homecoming and that we should all come to see them because they were doing something that was a big surprise. I didn’t say anything. Hannah told everyone about riding and how much fun it was and how she rode in front of me in the saddle and held the reins and how wonderful Silk was.
A couple of the girls at the table—well, exactly six of the girls at the table—looked at me and I had the distinct impression they were jealous!
Friday night, we all went to the game. Betts drove Ella, but Doreen’s date picked her up. Hannah came running to our house when her Dad and Sarah picked up Jessica. We rode in the back seat behind Betts and Ella. When we got to the game, I got Hannah together with our crowd. I wasn’t as worried about Kirby’s gang tonight because Hannah and I would be sitting with Lionel, Carl, Doug, Jackson, Derek, and most of the girls. Only Brenda and Rose were down with the other cheerleaders. The big frame the players would run through onto the field was in the end zone to our right. As soon as I knew Hannah was safe with our gang, I excused myself to use the restroom.
Of course, I didn’t go to the restroom. I headed straight for the team entrance.
“What are you doing here, Brian?” Brenda demanded. She and Rose were holding the long handles that supported the frame. Before I answered, Renee and Avis came running up to me.
“Are you ready, Brian?” Renee asked. “Coach says we are five minutes from show time. When the announcer says, ‘Please welcome the St. Joe Valley Trojans,’ you light it.”
“I’ll be ready. I need to spray it quickly.”
“Do it fast. Junior high, you’re on either side. JV, you line up on the left with varsity on the right so we’re facing the stands. We run out along the sides as the team comes through the hoop and cheer them as they come between us.”
The cheerleaders ran to line up and I got my spray bottle out and started spraying the back of the paper.
“What are you doing, Brian?” Brenda hissed at me. “It’s supposed to burn. Don’t wet it down!”
“Relax, Brenda. I invented this. It’s lighter fluid to act as an accelerant and speed the burning of the paper so it lights the hoop. I want the paper completely gone before they come running through.” I finished spraying and tossed the bottle away and got out my matches. As soon as I heard the announcer start saying “please,” I saw Reggie leading the team out of the locker room. I struck the match and pressed it against the very center of the paper. The lighter fluid started and spread out and the paper burst into flame starting in the middle. It went out to the edge and the paraffin and twine caught. Reggie led the team onto the field through the burning hoop and our fans went wild. As soon as the last player went through, I rushed back to the hoop where Brenda and Rose were still standing with wide eyes.
“Okay. Drag it back here to the track,” I said. “Hurry. We have to get off the field. Coach will kill us if we burn the grass.” We dragged the still-flaming hoop back to the cinder track and laid it down. I had a bucket of water waiting and walked around it dousing the flames. “Now drag it over here. I promised we’d take it to the cement so it was out of the way. Only touch the handles. The frame is still hot!” I caught Rose just in time as she was reaching for the frame. We got everything put away and I retrieved my bottle of lighter fluid and my matches. We heard the kick-off and I told the Junior High cheerleaders they could all go on to the stands. Brenda and Rose stayed with me. I wanted to make sure it was out and not hot before I left.
“You knew about this all along!” Brenda accused.
“Why didn’t you tell us? You let us believe that it was a big surprise!” Rose complained.
“It was, Rose. I didn’t want to spoil it for anyone. Including you.” Rose threw herself at me and planted a kiss on me like I hadn’t had in a long time. Sproing! Instant boner.
“Hannah better treat you right,” she said. “Because if she isn’t I’m going to step in and volunteer my virginity.”
“Rose!” I said.
“If it isn’t hers, it’s going to be mine,” Brenda declared pushing Rose out of the way and planting a kiss of her own on my lips. It was the first time I’d kissed Brenda that way. I felt guilty, but I sure was enjoying it. “Oh shit!” Brenda said when we broke apart. “It might be mine anyway. Damn it! I was never going to kiss you. My panties are wet now!”
Oh damn it!
We won the game. I finally made it back to the bleachers and grabbed hold of Hannah’s hand. She let me keep it until we scored our first touchdown. Then we were back to normal.
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