Team Manager COACH!
Chapter 16
DENNIS AND AMY slept late Saturday morning. He’d intended to go to the school early and make sure the course was freshly mowed, but she simply told him it wasn’t his job. His job was to run. They showered together and he dressed for the race.
At one o’clock, the girls lined up for their District Championship race. Thirteen schools fielded full teams, though three barely had five runners. Two schools didn’t get complete teams, but the runners would be eligible for individual places. Timing devices were set and the buzzer sounded the start of the race.
Janice and Tori took off strong and ran step-for-step leading the pack until they were out of sight from the stadium. When they came into view in the clearing across the meadow, a pack of four runners in the lead were separating from the rest of the runners. Everyone was screaming when they entered the stadium at 19:40. The final partial lap saw them stretch out slightly. The Tigers runner crossed the finish line first in 20:15. A runner from one of the schools that didn’t have a full team got second in 20:19. Janice gave it all she had and finished in third at 20:41. Tori managed to stay ahead of Diane and Judith, placing thirteenth. Judith beat her sister out for fifteenth with Diane in nineteenth. Liz crossed the finish line in twenty-first position. It was close. The Bulldogs had a final score of 64. The Angelines came in with 70 for a second place finish in the district. That spelled a team berth at the State Finals in a week.
At two o’clock, the field of 95 varsity runners lined up and headed out. Dennis didn’t hesitate to take the lead and stave off all challenges over the full 5,000 meters. He finished the race in first place in 17:09. It wasn’t where he wanted to be, but it was four seconds faster than the second place runner. All five of the runners from the Lions, however, placed in the top ten in the race. And their sixth runner was in eleventh. It was a fantastic team score of 30 for first place in the meet. The Bartley boys, of course, were never in the running. They managed to stay out of last place, ranking twelfth of fourteen. The boys’ team would not be competing in the State finals the next week. Dennis, however, would be.
The girls all congratulated Dennis, Tori, Diane, and Judith as they walked out to the parking lot.
“That was a great race,” Natalie said. “I thought you and Janice were going to stay in step the whole way.”
“When the other girls started to pick up the pace, I couldn’t match it,” Tori sighed. “It sure felt good to run all out like that, though. Don’t you agree, Dennis?”
“Pigs,” was his only response. Everyone there understood and laughed. Dennis imagined his opponents as feral hogs he was trying to outrun. “Hey, let’s walk over and check the field. When I was running past, I thought I saw green shoots.”
“You’d notice that,” Brenda laughed. They all walked over to the Abernathys’ field that Dennis had sowed the week before with red clover. Indeed, a fine cast of green covered the field with shoots just a half-inch long poking through the dirt. They walked all along the edge of the field around behind Abernathy’s barn.
“I didn’t realize it would sprout so fast,” Dennis said. “This is cool.”
“Um… Red clover?” Tori asked. “Dad says two to three days if soil conditions are right. Getting the lime in the ground two weeks before you planted must have hit optimum conditions.”
“What are you kids doing out here?” Mr. Abernathy said as he came around the corner of the barn. “You can’t come onto my property and do drugs. No trespassing.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Abernathy,” Dennis said, breaking free of a kiss with Judith. “I should have stopped and talked to you first. We just wanted to see the new growth in the field.”
“Oh! Dennis? Sorry about that. Of course you’re welcome to inspect the fruit of your labor. And all you girls helped. I saw you rassling those bags of lime,” Abernathy said. “Seems like every year I’ve had to chase kids away from here. They come out during school or right after and figure they can get away with anything because they’re hidden from the house, school, and road. It wasn’t so bad thirty years ago. A couple of kids sneaking away for a smoke. As long as they didn’t litter with their cigarette butts, I didn’t say anything. But then I started finding syringes, papers, condoms, and plastic baggies discarded out here and I had to put my foot down. You kids are welcome out here any time. You know and respect the land.”
“Thank you, Mr. Abernathy,” Natalie said. “What’s all that construction equipment that’s over on the other side of the river there? I don’t remember seeing that when we were out fertilizing.”
“Oh, it’s that pig company. They finally managed to get clearance to build an expansion to their operation for organic pork. They even talked Art Johnson into selling his place to them with the rider that says it will only be used for organic pork production,” Abe said. “I admit, I was ready to sell out to them, too, but then they discovered the rider on my property was more restrictive. I signed an agreement with the town council years ago, when the school was first built, that the land here would remain non-livestock agricultural land. That puts at least some buffer between town and any future pig operation. It will be bad enough if they start running a couple hundred thousand hogs through their new factory.”
“That sounds awful. Getting a whiff of Mr. Johnson’s place during the race today was bad enough. At least it gets mostly filtered by the trees before it gets to town,” Dennis said.
“Say, we’re just hanging out this afternoon. Could you and Mrs. Abernathy use some help around the house?” Lana asked. “We’re all pretty good and fast at cleaning and cooking.”
“It looks like the yard could stand another mowing before snow flies,” Dennis added. “I’ll take care of that if you’d like.”
“You kids! I can’t believe what I’m hearing. You’d spend your Saturday afternoon cleaning and cooking and mowing for us? Come up on the porch and let me get Lila out of the house for a few minutes. I’d gladly accept your help, but I don’t invite people in without her consent.”
They all went to the house and waited on the front porch while Abe went to get his wife. When he opened the door, to come back on the porch, Lila was with him. Lana repeated her offer and the old woman burst into tears.
“I know who you all are. We’ve known your parents and grandparents for years. We’ve watched you at the schools. We know you’re good kids, but I never imagined you’d come knocking on our door to help out. Thank you. We accept your help in the spirit it’s given. Please come in.” Most of the girls went inside. Dennis, Tori, and Natalie headed for the equipment shed and got out the lawn mower, clippers, and rakes. It was soon obvious that there were too many in the house, so Diane, Roberta, and Daniella joined the outside crew.
It really didn’t take long with thirteen kids cooking, cleaning, and doing yard work. By five-thirty, the teens were all hot, sweaty, and satisfied with their day’s labor. They laughed and joked as they bid goodbye to the Abernathys.
“My house,” Tori said. “We all stink and need a shower.”
“It’s going to be cold in the barn,” Brenda said.
“Not if we’re all huddled together!”
They headed out into the country and soon were all washing each other in the shower. Surprisingly, even though there was plenty of caressing and kissing, there was no attempt at sex, either in the shower or once they got out. They were even mostly dressed when Maria McDonald came to the barn and called them all to come in for dinner.
Lila Abernathy had called all the parents and passed on how appreciative they were to have the kids stop by for a fall cleanup. The McDonalds had volunteered to feed them all.
It was a low-key evening for the group. They sat and cuddled together in the McDonalds’ family room to watch TV, but it was a hold and comfort night, not a sex and roll night. They started heading out to their homes about nine-thirty. Dennis drove Lana home and they kissed and petted in the car for several minutes before he walked her to the door and kissed her goodnight.
On Sunday afternoon, instead of just Dennis and Brenda studying for mid-terms, all the high schoolers were studying for first term finals. The end of term break would be Friday.
“Hey, Dennis. Football season’s over. You want to meet to do some video before basketball season starts?” Olivia asked when she joined the group at their table for lunch Monday. Everyone was a little surprised when she just showed up and sat down, but they were welcoming.
“Um… I still have conditioning group every afternoon and cross country practice to get ready for,” he said. “I guess we can do some evening stuff, but where are we going to shoot it?”
“No problem,” Olivia said. “I talked to Coach Byers and he said we could shoot in the gym as long as we weren’t interfering with any other athletic events and as long as we didn’t video anything that identified where we are taping. I mean, like the school name or anything.”
“Okay. I want to see if some of the cheerleaders will help out. I’ll talk to them during conditioning today and see what they say.”
“Already checked. They’re ready to go as soon as you finish your run after conditioning. I even have releases from those who’ll participate,” the football team coordinator said proudly.
“You’re amazing, Olivia! When we get this stuff ready to post, be sure your name is on each video as producer,” Dennis said.
“Ooh! Big deal. How about you double my salary, too?”
“Um… Am I paying you?”
“No.” She grinned at Dennis and then at the girls who were all paying attention to what was going on. “You know what? You girls have a pretty cool boyfriend.”
“Are you auditioning?” Natalie asked.
“Oh, hell no. I kind of hooked up with Jayden Vogel. Looks like I’m going to stay on as coordinator for the department through basketball season. Jayden is the assistant team manager for the varsity,” Olivia said. “Thanks for the intro, Dennis. I’m not going into the locker rooms, but I might ride the team bus. This is fun!”
They all headed off to their afternoon classes, buzzing about Dennis’s video.
“Hi! This is Dennis Enders and One More Exercise Show. I hope you’ll find this one inspiring, because we aren’t going to start you with the killer exercises you need to excel at sports like basketball or volleyball. We want to get down to basics so you can jump right in. So, we’ll take it easy to start. On my right are Roz, Melanie, and Claudia. On my left are Fred, Rae, and Sara. Pick any of us to follow and join in first with simple head rolls to loosen the neck.”
They didn’t use any music for the routines and kept them simple. This was mostly about getting people used to having a workout. The real work would come later. When they finished, all the smiling cheerleaders in their skimpy workout clothes smiled and waved as they left. Since this wasn’t a cheerleading activity, they completely ignored the ICCA rules on what had to be covered, even in practice. Even Fred was in a cut-off muscle shirt that showed off his sixpack. The girls were in sports bras and short shorts that hugged every curve.
“Good workout, people. You could do this series of exercises every day, but three times a week will begin to change your outlook on life. After you’ve repeated this session at least five times in not less than a week and not more than two weeks, you can move on to session two. Subscribe to our channel by clicking the little bar down here.” He pointed at where Olivia had told him the link would be to their station. Of course, she would do a lot of editing. They’d stopped and started a couple of times and she was going to add both titles and subtitles.
“It’s kind of boring without the music,” Natalie said from where the girlfriends had been sitting to watch.
“We have to search out music that we can use legally. When we are working out here in the gym with all the teams, the music is considered private for practice. We hope. But if we used the music during a game or a cheerleading routine or on video, we’d have all kinds of fees to pay for public performance,” Olivia said. “But I agree that it just isn’t as good without the music.”
“Well, that’s something for the Angelines to work on,” Debbie said brightly. “We all have playlists and internet connections. We can find out what it takes to get music for video. We might have to pay some licensing fees, but I bet we can find some good stuff somewhere.”
“Good idea, Deb,” Diane said as she hugged her partner. “We need to get some people to do the exercises facing Dennis so Olivia sometimes shoots over their heads. It would make the person watching the video feel like she was really part of a group.”
“So that’s over. Can we play some basketball?” Daniella asked. “We don’t have to leave the gym for an hour yet.”
“What are the rules, Dennis?” Tori asked.
“Season starts on November 8, so we’ve got two weeks before official basketball practice can commence. Coaches can’t have any organized training of any kind with basketball players until then. That’s why all the coaches are suddenly absent from the conditioning exercises. But there are no rules about pickup games, even if they are on school grounds and facilities. I can work you as hard as I want and no one will say anything because I’m not a coach or on the school payroll,” Dennis said.
“Well, uncoach. Let’s play some ball!” Leanne said.
“Oh, look! Some of the basketballs were left out after gym class today,” Dennis said, pointing to a rack of balls at the side of the gym. The girls laughed and grabbed a few balls to start shooting around. By the time the gym closed, they were all ready for showers and evening studying.
Dennis went home to have dinner with his mother and sister and then read to Peg before bedtime. Leanne and Rosie jumped in his car with him.
“Can we be your guests for dinner and study tonight?” Leanne asked as she leaned across the console to kiss him.
“Sure! After all, I think we’re going to eat a meal you prepared. There’s always enough for a girlfriend or two.”
“We really do need to study for finals and we can’t stay over, but it’s okay to stay till nine,” Rosie said.
“That’s great!”
They got to Dennis’s house and the girls immediately started getting things ready for dinner as if they lived there. Dennis spent time with his sister, listening to how her day went and playing a game while Dot opened mail and sorted out the month’s bills. Then they all sat to dinner and went to the living room for reading.
Old Mother Nature heard him through. ‘Let me see you jump over that bush,’ she snapped crossly, pointing to a bush almost as high as Mr. Deer himself.
“‘Oh, I can’t jump nearly as high as that!’ he cried. Then tossing his head proudly, he added, ‘But I’ll try.’ So just as Peter Rabbit tried to jump the Laughing Brook when he felt sure that he couldn’t, Mr. Deer tried to jump the bush. Just imagine how surprised he was when he sailed over it without even touching the top of it with his hoofs! Old Mother Nature had given him the gift of jumping as a reward for his perseverance and because she saw that he really had need of it.
“So ever since that long-ago day, the Deer have lived where the brush is thickest and the Green Forest most tangled, because they are such great jumpers that they can travel faster there than their enemies, and they are no longer so swift of foot in the open meadows. Now, Peter, let’s see you jump over the Laughing Brook.”
What do you think Peter did? Why, he tried again, and laughed just as hard as the others when once more he landed in the water with a great splash.
Peg clapped her hands at the funny Mother West Wind story by Thornton Burgess, and was joined by Leanne and Rosie in clapping for the story of “How Lightfoot the Deer Learned to Jump.” Peg kissed her mother and brother and hugged her ‘sisters’ goodnight and scampered off to bed.
Dennis and his girlfriends turned to their books. Dennis and Leanne were studying calculus and Rosie was deep into geometry. They talked about problems and helped each other out.
“Could they possibly have made this language more arcane?” Leanne complained. “Maxima and Minima and Local Extremum. I just want to draw the curve.”
“Hey, did you know Isaac Newton invented calculus when he was in quarantine during the plague of 1665-66?” Dennis asked.
“God, how bored do you have to be to invent calculus?” Leanne sighed.
“How boring?” Dennis added. “So boring that he died a virgin.”
“Hey, you know, I don’t think you have to be boring to not be interested in sex,” Rosie said. “I had a lot of time to get to know Thoms during volleyball. They said they were aware of sex, but nothing about either males or females interested them. They don’t even masturbate!”
“God! You got down to a discussion about masturbation with an asexual?” Dennis asked.
“I see you’ve done some studying, too,” Rosie laughed. “They are the most androgynous person I’ve ever met and they were willing to share about their feelings and experience. I asked if they thought that would ever change and they said ‘if it does it does.’ Like, they know who they are now and don’t care what happens in the future.”
“Well, I did do some studying because I didn’t want to offend them. To look at them, you would have no concept of whether they’re a girl or a boy. It’s too bad about their leg, though,” Dennis said.
“Yeah. They were born that way. It’s just turned in and weak. They still manage to do almost all the conditioning exercises, though. I think working with you on the exercises gave them confidence.”
The conversation returned to calculus and geometry. Leanne and Rosie left to go to their homes at nine and Dennis opened his composition notes. Even though he had finals at BHS, classes had just resumed at DMACC. He needed to outline his next paper.
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