Chapter 3: Surpise

Sabrina watched the football team continue practice. She tried desperately to watch Michael run patterns on the field, but she just could not get her mind off Alex. Something was strange about him. It was not really the hair, or the way he looked, at least not physically. It was how he moved, it was the look in his eyes, it was something like a caged animal you would see at the zoo, yet he acted as if he was just a regular student. How can anyone look like he belonged in a cage?

She smiled at Michael, trying to look like she normally did but Michael was not buying it. Even from the middle of the football field, he could see something was heavy on her mind. She smiled at him and put on her dreamy face. Michael looked at her and shook off whatever feelings of what was wrong with Sabrina. She turned to watch as Alex and the rest of the runners stopped. Coach Matthews called them in.

I began following the rest of the guys towards the coach. Apparently, we had run enough laps to satisfy the coach's desire. The seniors I was running with looked all exhausted. I still felt barely winded. The coach walked up to each of them and looked them in the face. He dismissed the senior quickly. He looked me in the eye. "So you still got some fight left in you. That is good. Now comes the hard part. " He turned towards a quarterback. "I need you to stay after and see if we can teach this boy some patterns. Ok Ericson?"

Ericson looked at the coach and said "Yes Sir." Coach Matthews grabbed several of the other players and asked them to stay. By the time he was done, he had most of a defense and several offense players. Not enough players for a full team on offense, but a large contingent of Defensive tackles and backs that it would be a challenge to make a catch or scramble through them all.

Coach Matthews looked at me and said, "Now all you have to do is when the quarterback snaps the ball, run like someone's hunting you. When you get down to the 40-yard line turn in and prepare to catch the ball. You got that."

I looked him in the eye and realized that there was no arguing with him. I looked at the field and saw them setting up on the 50-yard line. Ten yards, this was going to be a very long ten yards.

The coach walked me to where he wanted me to start. I looked at everyone who was staring right back at me and realized they were not going to hold back in the least, at least not on the first run. I focused every bit of my strength in out maneuvering them when it came time.

The center snapped the ball quickly to Ericson; so my punishment would begin faster than I was ready, at least that is what I made it look like. I hesitated then made a mad dash right towards the linebacker barreling at me. He squared off to hit me head on. I deliberately let him nail me with his full force. I hit the ground hard, but I was used to taking nasty falls.

I wheezed out a grunt so that it sounded like I was hurt. I acted as if it was nothing too seriously, but enough so that I was slow to getting up. As the coach walked over to me I took a deep breath and prepared to ask him a question. "That hurt." I said.

"I bet you wish you could quit right now." Coach responded while he helped me to my feet.

"No sir, I just wish I had the ball to begin with so I wouldn't have to worry about catching it before they hit me." I commented.

"We'll see, first lets at least see if you can make it ten yards with this entire line gunning for you." Coach Matthews chuckled, as we all got set back into our places.