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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Teens
- Theme: Survival / Success
- Subject: Character Based
- Published: 05/12/2012
Football Hero
F, from Idaho, United States![Football Hero](/storage/story/1336948828FB Columbia-image(416x276-crop).jpg)
My heart started pounding as I looked around, hoping to see him down on the field. Ever since the accident, he had told the entire school that even though he was out for the season, he was still going to be on the sideline, supporting his team. I could feel my pom-poms start to slip out of my grasp as my hands started to sweat when I didn’t see him on the sideline.
“Beth, you okay? You seem kind of…nervous,” Alee said, walking over from where she was standing to give me a squeeze on the shoulders. She finally saw where I was looking and said, “He’ll be here. The game doesn’t start for another two hours.”
“But what if he isn’t okay—” She immediately put her hand to my mouth and I stopped talking.
“When Daniel makes a promise, he keeps it,” Alee said, taking her hand away from my mouth. I sighed and pulled up the skirt of my uniform a little bit. She smiled at me, knowing it was hard for me to see Daniel all mangled from the motorcycle accident. She knew how much I loved him. Literally. I was in love with him. He didn’t know and I wasn’t planning on telling him anytime soon. I sighed and looked over at Alee. She just smiled and grabbed my pom-poms that had finally slipped out of my hands and to the ground. She handed them to me and walked off toward the other girls that were stretching for tonight’s game.
“I just want to see him,” I wished quietly to myself as I started stretching. My blue colored nails stretched all the way down to the grass as I bent over. I heard some of the football players whistle as I did that, but I just rolled my eyes and stood back up, ignoring their boos and shouts to bend over again.
I quickly tossed my red hair over my shoulder and started to practice my back handsprings. I heard the girls cheering my on as I got halfway across the field. I was about to finish off when I heard a voice that made my heart stop completely.
“Now, if only I could do that,” Daniel’s voice came from behind me. I forgot what I was doing and landed on my butt, right in front of him. My tangle of red hair flipped in front of my face and the entire cheering squad besides Alee and the entire football team started cracking up. I felt my face flush and I quickly stood up and flipped my hair out of my face.
Daniel was on crutches, one of his legs heavily bandaged. It was swinging uselessly under him, but it didn’t seem to affect his mood. His bright blue eyes were as cheerful as ever. His blond hair fell in front of his eyes and he quickly flipped his head to move it out of the way. He had his school hoodie on that read, “Go Wildcats!” but underneath that I saw he was wearing his jersey still.
“H-hi Daniel,” I muttered, before stalking off toward the cheering squad. The squad and team were still cracking up and Alee put her arm around my shoulder, leading me away from them.
“You wanna practice your flips?” she asked. I sighed, blinking back tears of embarrassment, and nodded quickly. She linked her fingers together and I placed my left foot on them. She raised her hands quickly and I jumped off, flipping twice in the air before landing on the soft grass on my feet. I raised my arms quickly and then dropped them. The cheer squad yelled encouragement and the football team just grumbled about how my skirt didn’t go down a little bit. I smirked and winked at the quarterback, Xavier Gellan, flirtatiously. He stared at me, a smile touching his lips for a minute.
Out of the corner of my eye, for some reason, I saw Daniel glower toward Alee for a minute before composing himself. He crutched over to the guys and started talking and laughing with them. I half smiled before Alee asked, “You wanna do that again? But this time add a few handsprings.” I nodded and she linked her fingers together again. This time we did it a little bit faster. As soon as I step on her fingers, she threw me up. I flipped twice before landing and going immediately into four back handsprings. At the end, I did a 360 degree twist and landed on my feet.
The entire field went quiet for a single moment. The cheer coach and football coach were staring at me, along with the cheer squad and the entire football team. Then, Xavier shouted, “Alright Beth!” I laughed as the entire field started clapping for me. At that moment, I knew that this was going to be an awesome game.
“That’s alright, that’s okay. We can beat you anyway,” we cheered as the other team scored a point. I growled under my breath, but turned to face the student section of my school. It was jam packed like it normally was.
I smiled as cheerfully as I could and raised my arms as we started, “Check out the score.”
The audience yelled back, “Yeah!”
“We want some more!”
“Yeah!”
“We ain’t needy, needy! We’re just greedy, greedy!” The student section laughed and started clapping and whistling for their team as they started down the field.
The cheerleaders turned around to watch the game and we stood in our cheer stances, like we were taught. Our hands formed triangles on our backs as the game went on in front of us. We all waited as the play finished.
Just as we turned back around, I saw one of the players on the opposing team kick Xavier, who was on the ground from a hard hit, right in the head as he walked back to the huddle. The ref was watching the entire time and he didn’t call it. Anger boiled up inside of me and I yelled, “Hey, ya blind ref! Didn’t you see number sixty-three kick the quarterback in the head?”
The referee turned around shocked and Alee shushed me. But I kept going. “I could do a better job than you could! What game are you watching?!”
“You’d better knock it off, gal, or I’ll throw you out of the game,” the ref threatened. I rolled my eyes and turned my attention back to the crowd. The ref must’ve looked shocked because he said, “Did you hear me? I’ll throw you out of the game if you make one more comment.”
I smiled tightly and turned back around. I smiled at him as nice as I could and then turned back to the crowd. The entire student section was cracking up at us. The ref was fuming, I could tell. The anger was coming off him in waves that if they were real, they would knock me off my feet.
“I’ll do it, ya hear?”
I nodded without saying anything before turning back around. Now both football teams were cracking up on the field. One of the coaches yelled, “Can we get back to the game, ref?”
The ref nodded and I heard one of the students yell, “You told him, Beth!”
The ref suddenly came up on me. “That’s it you’re out of the game!”
“What did I do?” I asked. “That wasn’t me!”
“You need to control your fans though,” he said.
My thoughts were racing and without even thinking, I said, “I’ll cut you a deal. If I can help the football team win the game by going into the game myself, every time you ref here, you can’t talk to anyone and you can’t argue with anyone. If we lose the game, I’ll be off the cheerleading squad and away from the field until next season.”
The ref looked at me, shocked. “And what makes you think that you can do that?”
“What makes you think that I can’t?” I asked. Right then, I noticed that the entire field had gone silent. Everyone was staring at me and I shifted uncomfortably.
“And whose spot will you take?” he asked, crossing his arms across his chest and staring me down.
“Daniel Witman’s,” I said, not even thinking first. The entire stadium gasped and I saw that Daniel was looking at the ground rather than at me along with the rest of the crowd. “And I’ll stay in the entire game.”
“Alright fine, but the coach has to agree.” Knowing what the coach was going to say, I held out my hand.
“Let’s shake first,” I said, smiling sweetly. He looked at me suspiciously before grabbing my hand and shaking it hard.
“Coach, do you agree?” the ref asked. The coach nodded enthusiastically.
“Her brother was one of the best wide receivers there was on this team. Since Daniel’s a receiver, I’m guessing that she’ll be good.”
“Hang on—” the ref started, but I had already sprinted towards the locker, with the football coach right behind me. The football players were trailing him because the argument had taken up the rest of the second quarter and now it was half time.
The coach caught up with me as we entered the boys’ locker room. I knew it wasn’t right for me to be in there, but we only had ten minutes and I needed to look over the playbook and change into pads and a jersey.
“You’re sure you want to do this, Beth,” the coach said. “You need to look over the playbook, get pads, a jersey…”
“She can have mine,” Daniel said, pulling off his sweatshirt and jersey to where he was shirtless. I stared at his abs for a moment before he tossed me the jersey. I caught it and pulled a pair of pads and a pair of cleats and pants out of a locker.
“Give me the playbook,” I said, heading towards a stall so I could change.
“You won’t be able to—” the coach argued, but I held up my hand.
“I have a knack for memorizing and remembering things quickly,” I said. He handed the playbook over as I walked into the bathroom. I could sense all of the football players staring at me as I locked the stall. I sighed and said, “Shouldn’t you be giving an inspirational speech, Coach?” I heard a few of the guys laugh and then a bunch of clunking as they sat down and the coach started his speech.
I quickly changed out of my cheerleading outfit and into the pants. They had already been tucked with pads, so I didn’t have to waste time doing it myself. I then remembered one thing. Pulling one hand across my chest, I peeked my head out of the stall. All of the guys turned to look at me. I grinned quickly before asking, “Can I have a belt?” One of the guys reached into a locker and tossed me a belt. I grabbed it swiftly before ducking back into the stall. I pulled the belt through the loops and pulled a sports bra on. I jerked the pads over my head and dragged the jersey on over that. I tugged the helmet onto my head and sat down on the toilet, opening the playbook up. I scanned through it quickly, memorizing and remembering every detail about each play that I could.
After I was done, I stood up and walked out of the bathroom. The boys looked at me and were shocked at my transformation. “Ya’ll ready to win a game?” I asked. They all jumped up and started shouting.
“Yeah!”
“Woo-hoo!”
“Let’s kick some butt!” They all turned and sprinted out of the locker room, leaving me, the coach, and Daniel behind. We all looked at each other and laughed. I started out after them, racing onto the field a few seconds after they had slowed to a stop at the sideline.
A big cheer arose from the crowd when I walked onto the field. Everyone knew Daniel’s number and since I was taking his spot, they knew that I would be wearing his number. The other team just watched me carefully as I jogged onto the field. Their kicking group was already out on the field, waiting for the receiving team. As I jogged passed the kicker, I shot him a wink and he just stared at me. I half smiled and jogged over to my team. I was greeted like one of the guys. The players were slapping me on the pads and on the back.
“You ready, Harper?” Zach Verna asked me. I nodded and he said, “Alright. Daniel’s on the receiving team so you’re on.” He pushed me out onto the field with the rest of the team. I closed my eyes and remembered the formation for this. I remembered that Daniel was the third farthest person down. I jogged down to right before Jack Sierra, who was the guy who normally caught the kick.
“You remember that you have to block me, Harper,” Jack said, getting down into his stance. I nodded and put my mouth guard in my mouth. The ref blew the whistle and the kicker raised his hand. He nodded to the guys on his sides and he ran to the ball. He kicked it hard and it flew short of where it was supposed to go. It flew right to me!
“Catch it, Harper!” Jack growled.
“We gotcha back,” Quinn Jones said, shielding me from the oncoming football players. My eyes widened as the ball came towards me. I held out my arms and I caught it. I tucked it into the crook of my arm like my brother had taught me before he went to college. I started to sprint behind Quinn and Jack, who both knocked football players out of my way toward the end zone.
“I believe that ball went to the new player, Beth Harper,” the announcer said through the speakers. I growled under my breath but kept on running. I just had Jack know because Quinn had gotten knocked down by one of the players.
“Stay with me, Harper,” Jack said. He knocked down another player and I jumped over the body. The player growled at me as I avoided his hands. We were at the fifty yard line.
“She might get to the end zone, folks, if Jack stays with her! Did you see that block?” the announcer said through the speakers. I kept running avoiding the grabbing hands of the players. I still had most of my blockers around me.
Suddenly, Jack got hit hard and he went down right in front of me. “Run, Harper!” he yelled as he pulled the guy down with him. I nodded and sprinted as hard as I could toward the end zone, rolling and ducking away from players as my brother had taught me. I was at the thirty yard line. All of my team was behind me now. I had nobody but myself. I could see the team on the sideline running with me, with Daniel at the front, crutching as fast as he could.
Panting hard, I avoided the multiple hands that grabbed at my back. I saw that there was one person still in front of me and that was the kicker. He smiled and winked at me like I had with him. He lunged at me and without even thinking about it, I back flipped over his head and landed on my feet. I turned around and kept running. I heard the refs discussing if that was even legal.
“You aren’t getting away that easily,” I heard the kicker say. Suddenly, my legs disappeared from under me right before the end zone. I felt something pop in my ankle. Quickly reaching out with the ball, I touched it across the line. The refs blew the whistle and raised their arms.
“Yes!” I yelled, jumping up from the ground. My teammates ran at me and patted me on the back. Some even gave me a hug.
When I took my first step, I immediately knew there was something wrong with my ankle because of the tremendous pain that shot through it. I crumpled to the ground and straight away all of my teammates were surrounding me. Jack helped me up.
“You okay, Harper?” he asked.
I nodded, shaking my leg. “Yeah, I’m fine.” I took another step and went to the ground again. This time the pain was worse. I gasped in pain. I felt my ankle and felt the separation of the bones.
“Get the trainer!” Quinn yelled, but I quickly shoot my head.
“No, no. My ankle’s dislocated. Pop it back in.” Quinn’s eyes widened under his helmet.
“You sure you don’t want—”
“Just pop it back in, Quinn! Or I’m out of the game!” I snapped. He bent down next to me quickly and grasped my ankle. He pushed it up and I heard and felt a pop. I yelped, but after getting up on it as fast as I could, it felt better.
I walked to the sideline. I had to wait through the field goal, the kicking, and the defense until I could go back in. I noticed that the coach on the sideline was looking at me and talking to a few of his defensive players and his defense coach. I glared back at him before turning my attention to the stands, where everyone was watching the game with intensity. Alee was still over with the cheerleaders, cheering the team on. She saw me looking at her and she smiled, just shaking her head at me.
I heard the whistle blow and Zach pushed me onto the field. “You’re on, Harper. Just like last time.”
I looked up at the score. It was the start of the fourth quarter and we were down by fourteen points. I had only twelve minutes to make up those points or I couldn’t come back to the football field for the rest of the season. I growled to myself as I jogged onto the field and took up my position.
“Let’s do this,” Jack yelled, looking towards me and Quinn. As soon as the whistle blew, the kicker kicked the ball and this time it went to Jack. I immediately went in front of him and prepared myself against the upcoming guys that were rushing at us. I heard Jack panting as we got to the twenty yard line at our end of the field.
Out of nowhere, I was laid out, flat on the back and I was staring up at number twenty-eight. He smiled down at me and winked, whispering, “Girls don’t play football.” He kneeled on my chest and I gasped in pain. “They aren’t tough enough to handle it.” I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to push him off of me, but he was too heavy.
“Hey ref, isn’t that a foul?” Coach shouted. I knew he was pointing toward me. Finally, I heard the whistle blow and my eyes sprung open.
“Foul, number twenty-eight on the kicking team. Unnecessary roughness, twenty yard penalty, still first down.”
“What?!” the opposing coach screamed at the ref as the blocker got off of me. “You call that a penalty?!” I stopped listening as my breath came back. Jack and Quinn walked over to help me up.
“You alright, Harper?” Quinn asked, dusting the grass off my back.
“I’m fine.” My voice came out harsh and Quinn looked at me. “Sorry.”
Coach switched the teams on the field, sending out Xavier and Zach along with a few others to start to offense. The penalty got us to the fifty-two yard line, so we only had forty-eight to go. Xavier looked back at Coach, who showed him some sort of sign that only he would understand. Xavier nodded and we all huddled up.
“Okay, sixty two flip-switch, on three, on three,” he said.
“Break.” We clapped our hands and I tried to remember where I was supposed to go. I did finally and I also remembered what I was supposed to do. I lined up behind the line of blockers that were in front of me, which included Zach, Quinn, and a few other guys.
“Red twenty-two! Red twenty-two!” Xavier shouted. I saw him signal Jack with his foot. Jack then started jogging toward me. Xavier shouted, “Hut, hut, hut!” He flipped it to Jack, who caught it.
I took off running toward the end zone. Remembering the play, I cut left right as Jack tossed it back to Xavier. Xavier started scrambling to make sure that none of the defense hit him. I forgot all about the defense, but they weren’t paying any attention to me. They were too focused on Xavier and Jack. I cut back to the right just as Xavier saw me and threw it my way. I quickly started running forward, knowing that he had overthrown me. I sprinted as hard as I could just as the football came down. I reached out my arms and… I missed it. By a few inches at least. It touched the tips of my fingers and fell to the ground.
“Crap!” I yelled, sliding to a stop and picking up the ball. Xavier was crouching down on the ground, his head drooped. I let out a breath of air and tossed the ball to the ref.
As soon as I got into the huddle, Jack said, “How’d you miss that ball? Extend your—”
“It wasn’t her fault,” Xavier said, looking toward the coach. He nodded to the coach and we all huddled together. “I overthrew the ball. It was my fault.” I dropped my head, knowing it was true but he didn’t need to admit it. I looked up at the scoreboard. We only had eight minutes until the end of the game and we were still down by fourteen points. “New play. Double kill QB sneak flip. On two. Got it?” We all nodded.
“Break!” I swiftly remembered what I was supposed to do and jogged over to stand next to Xavier, which was where I was supposed to be. This was going to be hard. When they saw that Xavier had the ball, he was supposed to flip it to me and I was supposed to run into the end zone.
“Green forty-two! Green forty-two!” Xavier yelled. He looked over at me and nodded slightly. I dropped down into my position next to him just as he yelled, “Hut, hut!” He pretended to toss it to Jack, who gripped like he had it. The entire defense rushed at him and Xavier and I started to jog toward the end zone.
“You know, this is probably a bad time to say this, but you might be out for the rest of the season,” Xavier said. He nodded toward the scoreboard. I looked as we kept jogging. There were two minutes and forty-two seconds left. My mind raced quickly and I knew what play that we had to do. I looked back toward the group. They still thought that Jack had the ball. He was running like a madman back and forth at the fifty-two yard line while Xavier and I were already at the thirty.
“You idiots! The quarterback still has the ball!” the opposing coach yelled. Xavier and I laughed as the defenses’ heads all popped up like dogs. They saw us and sprinted toward us.
“Ready?” Xavier asked. I nodded, laughing and we started sprinting toward the end zone. The defense ganged up on him and he quickly flipped me the ball. I caught and scampered easily into the end zone.
“Yeah!”Xavier yelled, pushing guys off the top of him and jumping up.
“Woo-hoo!” I yelled and tossed the ball to the nearest ref as I jogged off the field.
“Good job, Harper,” Daniel said, patting me on the back. I nodded to him and turned to watch the game, but he pulled on my arm. “Can I talk to you for a sec?” I looked at him, confused, but nodded anyways. We walked away from the players and to the refreshment table because I was parched.
As I got a glass of water, he started, “Beth, there’s something that I’ve wanted to ask you for a while. Something that I want you to do for me, if it’s alright.”
My heart started pounding and my stomach felt like it had butterflies in it. This was it. I knew it. “Sure,” I said as steadily as I could. “What?” I held my breath as he opened his mouth.
“I was wondering… if you could ask Alee if she likes me. I’ve wanted to ask her out for the past six months.” My head dropped and I stared at him shocked. He looked at me hopefully and I sighed, letting out the breath that I had been holding.
“Yeah, fine,” I said. All of my anger crashed out on him. It should be me he wants. Not Alee. “Now leave me alone. I have a game to finish.” He stared after me as I walked back to the sideline.
“Put me in, Coach, and call a side kick,” I said, pulling my helmet on.
“Why?” he asked. I looked at him and looked up at the scoreboard. We had a minute left and we were down by six points now. Six points to win was all we needed. We would beat them by one point.
“Trust me, I know what I’m doing,” I growled. He sighed and nodded. “Devin, you’re out. Harper’s taking your place.” Jacob Devin smiled and jogged out of the game. I quickly ran to the line where Gavin Tressel was about to kick the ball. I saw Coach make the sign for a side kick and I grabbed Quinn by his mask.
“Whoever on that team gets the ball, hit him hard enough to knock the ball out of his hands. But make sure that he has enough control of it first or else this won’t count.” He nodded, looking a little bit scared by my intensity. I nodded as well just as Gavin kicked the ball. It flew a few feet off the ground to second row of players. The guy on the far left caught it and got control.
Immediately, Quinn hit him and he hit him hard. The ball flew out of his hands and up into the air. I ran as fast as I could and jumped, grabbing the ball out of the air. I hit the ground running, dodging the blockers that rushed at me or grabbed at me with gloved hands. I saw a guy dive for my knees but I jumped above him, stepping on his back for extra support and speed. I made it passed the last guy and sprinted as hard as I could into the end zone.
“Yes!” Quinn shouted. Xavier called praise from the sideline and every one of the fans on our side was cheering.
“Yeah!” I yelled, jumping up and down just as Gavin, Quinn and my team slammed into me with hugs.
“We won! We won! The game’s over!” Xavier and Daniel yelled at the same time. I laughed as the cheerleading team and the entire fan section swarmed out onto the field. Xavier hoisted me up onto his shoulders and the entire section started cheering my name.
“B-eth B-eth!” they shouted and I laughed. This felt completely and utterly amazing.
“Beth, I have a question,” Xavier asked, gently setting me down on the grass. I pulled off my helmet and looked at him.
“Yeah?”
“Will you go out with me?” he asked quietly, so no one else could hear. I smiled and laughed. He was one of my closest friends but when he said that, my heart fluttered a little bit and I knew to trust my heart.
“Yes! I will!” I said. He smiled and hugged my tight and I knew that that had just been the best game ever.
SIX MONTHS LATER (Graduation)
“Everyone deserves a chance to pull off something as wonderful as Bethany Harper did in the last game of the football season,” Xavier said through the microphone. He was doing the speech for the seniors. I wouldn’t be up there until next year, but I couldn’t wait. “But everyone does things just as wonderful as she did for us. People who are ordinary pull something that good off every day, sometimes things even better than that. It can happen to everyone. People like Daniel Witman, who did many wonderful and helpful things before he passed. He helped so many people in his short time, but you know what happened. He didn’t get a single thank you. He did it all for nothing. And that’s what you should do as you go out into the world today. You should do things just as great and just as good as he did for nothing. Thank you.” Xavier dipped his head and walked off the stage. My eyes started watering at the sound of Daniel’s name. He had died of a broken back from another motorcycle incident, a few weeks after he had healed from his first one. I dipped my head and then looked up toward the sky. I was grateful that I still had Xavier. I don’t know what I would do without him. I then decided to do something really quickly.
I pulled out a pocketknife that Dad had given me for my twelfth birthday. In the side of the wooden chair I was sitting on I carved, DANIEL WITMAN 1993-2012 EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD. R.I.P
I smiled and looked down at the R.I.P. May he rest in peace. Most definitely.
Football Hero(Katie)
My heart started pounding as I looked around, hoping to see him down on the field. Ever since the accident, he had told the entire school that even though he was out for the season, he was still going to be on the sideline, supporting his team. I could feel my pom-poms start to slip out of my grasp as my hands started to sweat when I didn’t see him on the sideline.
“Beth, you okay? You seem kind of…nervous,” Alee said, walking over from where she was standing to give me a squeeze on the shoulders. She finally saw where I was looking and said, “He’ll be here. The game doesn’t start for another two hours.”
“But what if he isn’t okay—” She immediately put her hand to my mouth and I stopped talking.
“When Daniel makes a promise, he keeps it,” Alee said, taking her hand away from my mouth. I sighed and pulled up the skirt of my uniform a little bit. She smiled at me, knowing it was hard for me to see Daniel all mangled from the motorcycle accident. She knew how much I loved him. Literally. I was in love with him. He didn’t know and I wasn’t planning on telling him anytime soon. I sighed and looked over at Alee. She just smiled and grabbed my pom-poms that had finally slipped out of my hands and to the ground. She handed them to me and walked off toward the other girls that were stretching for tonight’s game.
“I just want to see him,” I wished quietly to myself as I started stretching. My blue colored nails stretched all the way down to the grass as I bent over. I heard some of the football players whistle as I did that, but I just rolled my eyes and stood back up, ignoring their boos and shouts to bend over again.
I quickly tossed my red hair over my shoulder and started to practice my back handsprings. I heard the girls cheering my on as I got halfway across the field. I was about to finish off when I heard a voice that made my heart stop completely.
“Now, if only I could do that,” Daniel’s voice came from behind me. I forgot what I was doing and landed on my butt, right in front of him. My tangle of red hair flipped in front of my face and the entire cheering squad besides Alee and the entire football team started cracking up. I felt my face flush and I quickly stood up and flipped my hair out of my face.
Daniel was on crutches, one of his legs heavily bandaged. It was swinging uselessly under him, but it didn’t seem to affect his mood. His bright blue eyes were as cheerful as ever. His blond hair fell in front of his eyes and he quickly flipped his head to move it out of the way. He had his school hoodie on that read, “Go Wildcats!” but underneath that I saw he was wearing his jersey still.
“H-hi Daniel,” I muttered, before stalking off toward the cheering squad. The squad and team were still cracking up and Alee put her arm around my shoulder, leading me away from them.
“You wanna practice your flips?” she asked. I sighed, blinking back tears of embarrassment, and nodded quickly. She linked her fingers together and I placed my left foot on them. She raised her hands quickly and I jumped off, flipping twice in the air before landing on the soft grass on my feet. I raised my arms quickly and then dropped them. The cheer squad yelled encouragement and the football team just grumbled about how my skirt didn’t go down a little bit. I smirked and winked at the quarterback, Xavier Gellan, flirtatiously. He stared at me, a smile touching his lips for a minute.
Out of the corner of my eye, for some reason, I saw Daniel glower toward Alee for a minute before composing himself. He crutched over to the guys and started talking and laughing with them. I half smiled before Alee asked, “You wanna do that again? But this time add a few handsprings.” I nodded and she linked her fingers together again. This time we did it a little bit faster. As soon as I step on her fingers, she threw me up. I flipped twice before landing and going immediately into four back handsprings. At the end, I did a 360 degree twist and landed on my feet.
The entire field went quiet for a single moment. The cheer coach and football coach were staring at me, along with the cheer squad and the entire football team. Then, Xavier shouted, “Alright Beth!” I laughed as the entire field started clapping for me. At that moment, I knew that this was going to be an awesome game.
“That’s alright, that’s okay. We can beat you anyway,” we cheered as the other team scored a point. I growled under my breath, but turned to face the student section of my school. It was jam packed like it normally was.
I smiled as cheerfully as I could and raised my arms as we started, “Check out the score.”
The audience yelled back, “Yeah!”
“We want some more!”
“Yeah!”
“We ain’t needy, needy! We’re just greedy, greedy!” The student section laughed and started clapping and whistling for their team as they started down the field.
The cheerleaders turned around to watch the game and we stood in our cheer stances, like we were taught. Our hands formed triangles on our backs as the game went on in front of us. We all waited as the play finished.
Just as we turned back around, I saw one of the players on the opposing team kick Xavier, who was on the ground from a hard hit, right in the head as he walked back to the huddle. The ref was watching the entire time and he didn’t call it. Anger boiled up inside of me and I yelled, “Hey, ya blind ref! Didn’t you see number sixty-three kick the quarterback in the head?”
The referee turned around shocked and Alee shushed me. But I kept going. “I could do a better job than you could! What game are you watching?!”
“You’d better knock it off, gal, or I’ll throw you out of the game,” the ref threatened. I rolled my eyes and turned my attention back to the crowd. The ref must’ve looked shocked because he said, “Did you hear me? I’ll throw you out of the game if you make one more comment.”
I smiled tightly and turned back around. I smiled at him as nice as I could and then turned back to the crowd. The entire student section was cracking up at us. The ref was fuming, I could tell. The anger was coming off him in waves that if they were real, they would knock me off my feet.
“I’ll do it, ya hear?”
I nodded without saying anything before turning back around. Now both football teams were cracking up on the field. One of the coaches yelled, “Can we get back to the game, ref?”
The ref nodded and I heard one of the students yell, “You told him, Beth!”
The ref suddenly came up on me. “That’s it you’re out of the game!”
“What did I do?” I asked. “That wasn’t me!”
“You need to control your fans though,” he said.
My thoughts were racing and without even thinking, I said, “I’ll cut you a deal. If I can help the football team win the game by going into the game myself, every time you ref here, you can’t talk to anyone and you can’t argue with anyone. If we lose the game, I’ll be off the cheerleading squad and away from the field until next season.”
The ref looked at me, shocked. “And what makes you think that you can do that?”
“What makes you think that I can’t?” I asked. Right then, I noticed that the entire field had gone silent. Everyone was staring at me and I shifted uncomfortably.
“And whose spot will you take?” he asked, crossing his arms across his chest and staring me down.
“Daniel Witman’s,” I said, not even thinking first. The entire stadium gasped and I saw that Daniel was looking at the ground rather than at me along with the rest of the crowd. “And I’ll stay in the entire game.”
“Alright fine, but the coach has to agree.” Knowing what the coach was going to say, I held out my hand.
“Let’s shake first,” I said, smiling sweetly. He looked at me suspiciously before grabbing my hand and shaking it hard.
“Coach, do you agree?” the ref asked. The coach nodded enthusiastically.
“Her brother was one of the best wide receivers there was on this team. Since Daniel’s a receiver, I’m guessing that she’ll be good.”
“Hang on—” the ref started, but I had already sprinted towards the locker, with the football coach right behind me. The football players were trailing him because the argument had taken up the rest of the second quarter and now it was half time.
The coach caught up with me as we entered the boys’ locker room. I knew it wasn’t right for me to be in there, but we only had ten minutes and I needed to look over the playbook and change into pads and a jersey.
“You’re sure you want to do this, Beth,” the coach said. “You need to look over the playbook, get pads, a jersey…”
“She can have mine,” Daniel said, pulling off his sweatshirt and jersey to where he was shirtless. I stared at his abs for a moment before he tossed me the jersey. I caught it and pulled a pair of pads and a pair of cleats and pants out of a locker.
“Give me the playbook,” I said, heading towards a stall so I could change.
“You won’t be able to—” the coach argued, but I held up my hand.
“I have a knack for memorizing and remembering things quickly,” I said. He handed the playbook over as I walked into the bathroom. I could sense all of the football players staring at me as I locked the stall. I sighed and said, “Shouldn’t you be giving an inspirational speech, Coach?” I heard a few of the guys laugh and then a bunch of clunking as they sat down and the coach started his speech.
I quickly changed out of my cheerleading outfit and into the pants. They had already been tucked with pads, so I didn’t have to waste time doing it myself. I then remembered one thing. Pulling one hand across my chest, I peeked my head out of the stall. All of the guys turned to look at me. I grinned quickly before asking, “Can I have a belt?” One of the guys reached into a locker and tossed me a belt. I grabbed it swiftly before ducking back into the stall. I pulled the belt through the loops and pulled a sports bra on. I jerked the pads over my head and dragged the jersey on over that. I tugged the helmet onto my head and sat down on the toilet, opening the playbook up. I scanned through it quickly, memorizing and remembering every detail about each play that I could.
After I was done, I stood up and walked out of the bathroom. The boys looked at me and were shocked at my transformation. “Ya’ll ready to win a game?” I asked. They all jumped up and started shouting.
“Yeah!”
“Woo-hoo!”
“Let’s kick some butt!” They all turned and sprinted out of the locker room, leaving me, the coach, and Daniel behind. We all looked at each other and laughed. I started out after them, racing onto the field a few seconds after they had slowed to a stop at the sideline.
A big cheer arose from the crowd when I walked onto the field. Everyone knew Daniel’s number and since I was taking his spot, they knew that I would be wearing his number. The other team just watched me carefully as I jogged onto the field. Their kicking group was already out on the field, waiting for the receiving team. As I jogged passed the kicker, I shot him a wink and he just stared at me. I half smiled and jogged over to my team. I was greeted like one of the guys. The players were slapping me on the pads and on the back.
“You ready, Harper?” Zach Verna asked me. I nodded and he said, “Alright. Daniel’s on the receiving team so you’re on.” He pushed me out onto the field with the rest of the team. I closed my eyes and remembered the formation for this. I remembered that Daniel was the third farthest person down. I jogged down to right before Jack Sierra, who was the guy who normally caught the kick.
“You remember that you have to block me, Harper,” Jack said, getting down into his stance. I nodded and put my mouth guard in my mouth. The ref blew the whistle and the kicker raised his hand. He nodded to the guys on his sides and he ran to the ball. He kicked it hard and it flew short of where it was supposed to go. It flew right to me!
“Catch it, Harper!” Jack growled.
“We gotcha back,” Quinn Jones said, shielding me from the oncoming football players. My eyes widened as the ball came towards me. I held out my arms and I caught it. I tucked it into the crook of my arm like my brother had taught me before he went to college. I started to sprint behind Quinn and Jack, who both knocked football players out of my way toward the end zone.
“I believe that ball went to the new player, Beth Harper,” the announcer said through the speakers. I growled under my breath but kept on running. I just had Jack know because Quinn had gotten knocked down by one of the players.
“Stay with me, Harper,” Jack said. He knocked down another player and I jumped over the body. The player growled at me as I avoided his hands. We were at the fifty yard line.
“She might get to the end zone, folks, if Jack stays with her! Did you see that block?” the announcer said through the speakers. I kept running avoiding the grabbing hands of the players. I still had most of my blockers around me.
Suddenly, Jack got hit hard and he went down right in front of me. “Run, Harper!” he yelled as he pulled the guy down with him. I nodded and sprinted as hard as I could toward the end zone, rolling and ducking away from players as my brother had taught me. I was at the thirty yard line. All of my team was behind me now. I had nobody but myself. I could see the team on the sideline running with me, with Daniel at the front, crutching as fast as he could.
Panting hard, I avoided the multiple hands that grabbed at my back. I saw that there was one person still in front of me and that was the kicker. He smiled and winked at me like I had with him. He lunged at me and without even thinking about it, I back flipped over his head and landed on my feet. I turned around and kept running. I heard the refs discussing if that was even legal.
“You aren’t getting away that easily,” I heard the kicker say. Suddenly, my legs disappeared from under me right before the end zone. I felt something pop in my ankle. Quickly reaching out with the ball, I touched it across the line. The refs blew the whistle and raised their arms.
“Yes!” I yelled, jumping up from the ground. My teammates ran at me and patted me on the back. Some even gave me a hug.
When I took my first step, I immediately knew there was something wrong with my ankle because of the tremendous pain that shot through it. I crumpled to the ground and straight away all of my teammates were surrounding me. Jack helped me up.
“You okay, Harper?” he asked.
I nodded, shaking my leg. “Yeah, I’m fine.” I took another step and went to the ground again. This time the pain was worse. I gasped in pain. I felt my ankle and felt the separation of the bones.
“Get the trainer!” Quinn yelled, but I quickly shoot my head.
“No, no. My ankle’s dislocated. Pop it back in.” Quinn’s eyes widened under his helmet.
“You sure you don’t want—”
“Just pop it back in, Quinn! Or I’m out of the game!” I snapped. He bent down next to me quickly and grasped my ankle. He pushed it up and I heard and felt a pop. I yelped, but after getting up on it as fast as I could, it felt better.
I walked to the sideline. I had to wait through the field goal, the kicking, and the defense until I could go back in. I noticed that the coach on the sideline was looking at me and talking to a few of his defensive players and his defense coach. I glared back at him before turning my attention to the stands, where everyone was watching the game with intensity. Alee was still over with the cheerleaders, cheering the team on. She saw me looking at her and she smiled, just shaking her head at me.
I heard the whistle blow and Zach pushed me onto the field. “You’re on, Harper. Just like last time.”
I looked up at the score. It was the start of the fourth quarter and we were down by fourteen points. I had only twelve minutes to make up those points or I couldn’t come back to the football field for the rest of the season. I growled to myself as I jogged onto the field and took up my position.
“Let’s do this,” Jack yelled, looking towards me and Quinn. As soon as the whistle blew, the kicker kicked the ball and this time it went to Jack. I immediately went in front of him and prepared myself against the upcoming guys that were rushing at us. I heard Jack panting as we got to the twenty yard line at our end of the field.
Out of nowhere, I was laid out, flat on the back and I was staring up at number twenty-eight. He smiled down at me and winked, whispering, “Girls don’t play football.” He kneeled on my chest and I gasped in pain. “They aren’t tough enough to handle it.” I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to push him off of me, but he was too heavy.
“Hey ref, isn’t that a foul?” Coach shouted. I knew he was pointing toward me. Finally, I heard the whistle blow and my eyes sprung open.
“Foul, number twenty-eight on the kicking team. Unnecessary roughness, twenty yard penalty, still first down.”
“What?!” the opposing coach screamed at the ref as the blocker got off of me. “You call that a penalty?!” I stopped listening as my breath came back. Jack and Quinn walked over to help me up.
“You alright, Harper?” Quinn asked, dusting the grass off my back.
“I’m fine.” My voice came out harsh and Quinn looked at me. “Sorry.”
Coach switched the teams on the field, sending out Xavier and Zach along with a few others to start to offense. The penalty got us to the fifty-two yard line, so we only had forty-eight to go. Xavier looked back at Coach, who showed him some sort of sign that only he would understand. Xavier nodded and we all huddled up.
“Okay, sixty two flip-switch, on three, on three,” he said.
“Break.” We clapped our hands and I tried to remember where I was supposed to go. I did finally and I also remembered what I was supposed to do. I lined up behind the line of blockers that were in front of me, which included Zach, Quinn, and a few other guys.
“Red twenty-two! Red twenty-two!” Xavier shouted. I saw him signal Jack with his foot. Jack then started jogging toward me. Xavier shouted, “Hut, hut, hut!” He flipped it to Jack, who caught it.
I took off running toward the end zone. Remembering the play, I cut left right as Jack tossed it back to Xavier. Xavier started scrambling to make sure that none of the defense hit him. I forgot all about the defense, but they weren’t paying any attention to me. They were too focused on Xavier and Jack. I cut back to the right just as Xavier saw me and threw it my way. I quickly started running forward, knowing that he had overthrown me. I sprinted as hard as I could just as the football came down. I reached out my arms and… I missed it. By a few inches at least. It touched the tips of my fingers and fell to the ground.
“Crap!” I yelled, sliding to a stop and picking up the ball. Xavier was crouching down on the ground, his head drooped. I let out a breath of air and tossed the ball to the ref.
As soon as I got into the huddle, Jack said, “How’d you miss that ball? Extend your—”
“It wasn’t her fault,” Xavier said, looking toward the coach. He nodded to the coach and we all huddled together. “I overthrew the ball. It was my fault.” I dropped my head, knowing it was true but he didn’t need to admit it. I looked up at the scoreboard. We only had eight minutes until the end of the game and we were still down by fourteen points. “New play. Double kill QB sneak flip. On two. Got it?” We all nodded.
“Break!” I swiftly remembered what I was supposed to do and jogged over to stand next to Xavier, which was where I was supposed to be. This was going to be hard. When they saw that Xavier had the ball, he was supposed to flip it to me and I was supposed to run into the end zone.
“Green forty-two! Green forty-two!” Xavier yelled. He looked over at me and nodded slightly. I dropped down into my position next to him just as he yelled, “Hut, hut!” He pretended to toss it to Jack, who gripped like he had it. The entire defense rushed at him and Xavier and I started to jog toward the end zone.
“You know, this is probably a bad time to say this, but you might be out for the rest of the season,” Xavier said. He nodded toward the scoreboard. I looked as we kept jogging. There were two minutes and forty-two seconds left. My mind raced quickly and I knew what play that we had to do. I looked back toward the group. They still thought that Jack had the ball. He was running like a madman back and forth at the fifty-two yard line while Xavier and I were already at the thirty.
“You idiots! The quarterback still has the ball!” the opposing coach yelled. Xavier and I laughed as the defenses’ heads all popped up like dogs. They saw us and sprinted toward us.
“Ready?” Xavier asked. I nodded, laughing and we started sprinting toward the end zone. The defense ganged up on him and he quickly flipped me the ball. I caught and scampered easily into the end zone.
“Yeah!”Xavier yelled, pushing guys off the top of him and jumping up.
“Woo-hoo!” I yelled and tossed the ball to the nearest ref as I jogged off the field.
“Good job, Harper,” Daniel said, patting me on the back. I nodded to him and turned to watch the game, but he pulled on my arm. “Can I talk to you for a sec?” I looked at him, confused, but nodded anyways. We walked away from the players and to the refreshment table because I was parched.
As I got a glass of water, he started, “Beth, there’s something that I’ve wanted to ask you for a while. Something that I want you to do for me, if it’s alright.”
My heart started pounding and my stomach felt like it had butterflies in it. This was it. I knew it. “Sure,” I said as steadily as I could. “What?” I held my breath as he opened his mouth.
“I was wondering… if you could ask Alee if she likes me. I’ve wanted to ask her out for the past six months.” My head dropped and I stared at him shocked. He looked at me hopefully and I sighed, letting out the breath that I had been holding.
“Yeah, fine,” I said. All of my anger crashed out on him. It should be me he wants. Not Alee. “Now leave me alone. I have a game to finish.” He stared after me as I walked back to the sideline.
“Put me in, Coach, and call a side kick,” I said, pulling my helmet on.
“Why?” he asked. I looked at him and looked up at the scoreboard. We had a minute left and we were down by six points now. Six points to win was all we needed. We would beat them by one point.
“Trust me, I know what I’m doing,” I growled. He sighed and nodded. “Devin, you’re out. Harper’s taking your place.” Jacob Devin smiled and jogged out of the game. I quickly ran to the line where Gavin Tressel was about to kick the ball. I saw Coach make the sign for a side kick and I grabbed Quinn by his mask.
“Whoever on that team gets the ball, hit him hard enough to knock the ball out of his hands. But make sure that he has enough control of it first or else this won’t count.” He nodded, looking a little bit scared by my intensity. I nodded as well just as Gavin kicked the ball. It flew a few feet off the ground to second row of players. The guy on the far left caught it and got control.
Immediately, Quinn hit him and he hit him hard. The ball flew out of his hands and up into the air. I ran as fast as I could and jumped, grabbing the ball out of the air. I hit the ground running, dodging the blockers that rushed at me or grabbed at me with gloved hands. I saw a guy dive for my knees but I jumped above him, stepping on his back for extra support and speed. I made it passed the last guy and sprinted as hard as I could into the end zone.
“Yes!” Quinn shouted. Xavier called praise from the sideline and every one of the fans on our side was cheering.
“Yeah!” I yelled, jumping up and down just as Gavin, Quinn and my team slammed into me with hugs.
“We won! We won! The game’s over!” Xavier and Daniel yelled at the same time. I laughed as the cheerleading team and the entire fan section swarmed out onto the field. Xavier hoisted me up onto his shoulders and the entire section started cheering my name.
“B-eth B-eth!” they shouted and I laughed. This felt completely and utterly amazing.
“Beth, I have a question,” Xavier asked, gently setting me down on the grass. I pulled off my helmet and looked at him.
“Yeah?”
“Will you go out with me?” he asked quietly, so no one else could hear. I smiled and laughed. He was one of my closest friends but when he said that, my heart fluttered a little bit and I knew to trust my heart.
“Yes! I will!” I said. He smiled and hugged my tight and I knew that that had just been the best game ever.
SIX MONTHS LATER (Graduation)
“Everyone deserves a chance to pull off something as wonderful as Bethany Harper did in the last game of the football season,” Xavier said through the microphone. He was doing the speech for the seniors. I wouldn’t be up there until next year, but I couldn’t wait. “But everyone does things just as wonderful as she did for us. People who are ordinary pull something that good off every day, sometimes things even better than that. It can happen to everyone. People like Daniel Witman, who did many wonderful and helpful things before he passed. He helped so many people in his short time, but you know what happened. He didn’t get a single thank you. He did it all for nothing. And that’s what you should do as you go out into the world today. You should do things just as great and just as good as he did for nothing. Thank you.” Xavier dipped his head and walked off the stage. My eyes started watering at the sound of Daniel’s name. He had died of a broken back from another motorcycle incident, a few weeks after he had healed from his first one. I dipped my head and then looked up toward the sky. I was grateful that I still had Xavier. I don’t know what I would do without him. I then decided to do something really quickly.
I pulled out a pocketknife that Dad had given me for my twelfth birthday. In the side of the wooden chair I was sitting on I carved, DANIEL WITMAN 1993-2012 EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD. R.I.P
I smiled and looked down at the R.I.P. May he rest in peace. Most definitely.
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