“Look at you! How is it you play football? I’ve got three girls on the varsity squad bigger than you.”

“I think Debbie…uh, Coach Debbie is in her office now, Pete,” said Coach Wilson. “You can go through mine, and hers is just across the hall.”

“Okay,” I agreed. Everyone else was leaving the locker room through various doors, depending on where they had homeroom, but I eased past Coach and into the inner hallway of the gymnasium.

I had a feeling I knew what this would be about: Mrs. Frick’s intentions for Friday. I shivered a bit. I didn’t like her plans much and regretted agreeing to them already. The woman was persuasive, even though I couldn’t point to just what she had said that had convinced me to go along with the program.

Lee’s mom aside, the cheerleaders—including Megan and Joanna—were in on it, and I kind of felt obligated to participate. It was almost traditional.

In the inner hallway, I knocked on the door marked Stockmeyer, and a voice told me to come on in. I’d never been in the offices on this side of the gym—or had I? They weren’t much different, and Coach Debbie’s desk even had the same sort of clutter of clipboards and papers as the coaches’ on the boys’ side.

Coach Stockmeyer was a woman not much more than ten years older than her students, or me. She had a trim figure, and the shoulders and forearms of a professional tennis player_which she had been before a recurring injury forced her to miss a whole season and find another career.

“Pete!” she said, looking up and putting aside something she had in her hand. “Come in! Frank sent you over, yeah, right?”

Frank? Oh, yeah, Coach Franklin Wilson. “Uh — yeah?”

“My gosh,” she said, grinning. “Look at you! How is it you play football? I’ve got three girls on the varsity squad bigger than you.”

“I guess they didn’t want to play as much as I did,” I countered.

She laughed and pointed at me, then tapped her nose. “You’re right, of course! That’s why I quit the tennis tour—I didn’t want it enough anymore.” She sighed, still smiling, then stood and came around the desk. We were about the same height. “And now you’re finally going to join the cheerleader squad,” she said, widening her smile into a grin.

“Well, just for one day,” I replied. “It’s traditional that two football players dress as cheerleaders on Halloween.”

She waved a finger, “But Mrs. Frick’s plan is more than that.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m still wondering how I got talked into this.”

Coach Debbie shrugged. “Did Lee twist your arm?”

I don’t know why I blushed, but I did. “Uh, no. He told his mom that he thought it was a bad idea. Actually, he said a stupid idea.”

She snorted. “As if that would stop a politician. I think it’s going to be a brilliant piece of marketing. You’ll probably be on the sports page of every major newspaper in the country. Maybe a spot on national TV sports.”

“Oh, jeez!”

“You didn’t think of that?”

I covered my face. “No….” I scrubbed my cheeks and forehead, careful to avoid my eye makeup. “I was thinking, you know, local paper. There was a reporter from the Friendly News at the meeting….”

She laughed again. “The only girl in America playing halfback on a boy’s football team? And with Mrs. Frick pushing the publicity? You’re going to be famous, Petey!”

I don’t know what my expression might have been, but she laughed at me again.

“We just don’t want you making a fool of yourself with your boyfriend taking movies of you that may end up on the evening news.”

Boyfriend…she meant Lee. Well, I guess he was my boyfriend. I kissed him, didn’t I?

“So? I’ll need a uniform that fits…”

“We’ll have that for you later today, but you’re going to have to learn enough of our routines to perform some cheers. I want you at cheer practice this afternoon.”

“What? Hey! Was that part of the deal?”

“You want this to work, don’t you?”

I grumbled a maybe. “But I’ve got football practice this afternoon!”

She shook her head. “This week, I’ve got you Monday and Wednesday. Coach Wilson will be in charge of trying to give you another shiner Tuesday and Thursday. And of course the Friday night game.”

I blinked.

She smiled. “I think you need to redo your eye makeup, hon. You smeared it a bit. You do have eye makeup?”

“Some,” I admitted. Mom had put a few tubes of stuff, including a couple of tampons, in my purse before letting me out of the house. Of course, I’d left the purse in the car. “I’m not really good at the makeup thing,” I told Coach Debbie.

“I’d never have guessed,” she said with a straight face.

*

By the time I’d gone back out to the car to retrieve my purse, I had missed homeroom completely, so I just headed to my first class, wondering if I could hook up with someone to help me repair my face.

Megan. Megan and I had Algebra and Trig together first period. But would she be willing? Did I want to ask her? Well, hell, no, I didn’t want to wear makeup at all…but it would give me a chance to talk with Megan.

When she said goodbye early Sunday morning, I had all kinds of things I wanted to say to her. And now…now, I could only think of one. Besides asking her for help, I wanted to know why. And did she still love me? She had said she would, and I thought she meant it.

Among the many things I wanted to ask her…I guess the first had to be for help covering up my shiner.

She was standing at the door of math class when I arrived. She smiled at me then frowned. “Let’s go to the bathroom and fix your eye,” she said, grabbing my hand.

“Megan….” I murmured.

“I know, Petey,” she said. She squeezed my hand, and I squeezed back. I knew we still loved each other, and I smiled.