“Peggy, you remember Rachel. You got her interested in cross-country,” I said.
“We talked at the middle school,” Peggy said.
Rachel just nodded. I picked up my Bo staff and began to run. Peggy had been running on her own, so I was surprised she wanted to run with me. She’d stopped doing that when she was in high school because my pace was too fast. Rachel usually peeled off and jogged home when we reached the mile mark, but this time she didn’t. I raised my eyebrows because I typically picked it up at this point. She looked determined, so I followed my usual routine. I’ll give her credit: she lasted another mile. At that point, I stopped, because I wasn’t sure who was going to keel over first, Rachel or Buster. I took them back to my house and brought them inside. Buster and Duke both stuck their heads into his water bowl. I grabbed a Gatorade out of the refrigerator and handed it to Rachel.
“I’m going to finish my run. Be sure to stretch, or you’ll tighten up,” I said.
Mom came down as I was going out the back door. Peggy and Little David had waited for me.
“She okay?”
“Yeah, she just wanted to show off for her heroine,” I said.
“I’ll talk to her and straighten her out,” Peggy said as we picked up the pace.
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I’d just gotten dressed for PE when Coach Rector passed me a note that told me to meet Moose in the coaches’ conference room. When I got there, I found him with a handful of reporters.
“Sorry, I didn’t get a chance to warn you,” Moose said.
“What’s this about?”
“They want to know about our plans for the rest of the season and to ask you some questions.”
Jeff Delahey, the local newspaper sports reporter who covered our games, came in. Moose had everyone sit down. Mr. Hicks, our athletic director, took a seat next to Moose.
“That was quite the crowd at Washington on Saturday. I hear you’re planning a similar event for this weekend,” Jeff said.
“We’ve been in touch with State, and they’ve agreed to let us play there this weekend. Their stadium holds 2,500 in bleacher seating behind the dugouts, and an additional 1,500 standing room down the baselines. They plan to bring in temporary bleachers for the outfields to hold another 6,000 fans,” Mr. Hicks said.
“You had over twenty thousand show up at Washington. How will you handle a crowd like that?” Jeff asked.
“It was decided this morning that we’ll have a doubleheader. We’re moving our Wednesday game against Lang Academy to 11 o’clock, and then we’ll play Wesleyan at 2 p.m.,” Mr. Hicks said. “Besides, State can accommodate much larger crowds. They’ll be assisting us with logistics, so we shouldn’t have the problems that Washington experienced.”
Things continued along that vein with either Moose or Mr. Hicks answering questions. Then Jeff brought me out of my daze.
“What do you think about all this attention, David?” Jeff asked.
I gave him a look, and he responded with an innocent smile.
“I think I was just as surprised as you all were when everyone came out to see our team play. That is, I knew we were going to be good, but I figured they’d start to show up once we won a few. I guess it’s a good thing that people get on the bandwagon now. That way they can all say they were there when our run began,” I said with a straight face.
I heard Moose mumble something I probably shouldn’t repeat. That would teach him to take me out of gym class.
“You don’t believe it had anything to do with you?” Jeff asked.
I gave the press my best confused expression. Acting came in handy sometimes.
“I’m part of the team, so I guess some of it’s on me,” I conceded.
“Come on, David. We all know it was mostly on you that everyone showed up,” Jeff pressed.
“I have to disagree. Washington was playing their home opener, they had a huge fundraiser planned, and they even managed to get the governor and had Eve ‘Country Girl’ Holliday there to sing. I can’t imagine why you’d think I had much to do with it,” I said and then batted my eyes.
Jeff chuckled. Moose had seen enough.
“I need to get David back to PE.”
I stuck my tongue out at Jeff to let him know I’d won that round. At some point, I would learn why there was that old saying that you should never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel. I think it was some sort of warning not to piss them off.
◊◊◊
At lunch, we had our weekly Junior Class Projects meeting. They were excited about how the fundraiser had gone. Alan reminded us they would test the lunch-buddy app tomorrow. Wolf told me he had a table for me to paint. Halle and Stacy had both already gotten theirs. Stacy was doing a mural and had chosen the bridge in the park as her subject. Halle was doing mini-scenes to illustrate different groups of people at school. Once they were painted, Wolf planned to put a clear coat of epoxy on to protect the finished art.
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