Chapter 14 - Charity or a Helping Hand

Chapter 14: Charity or a Helping Hand

That Friday was the first week of the Football season proper. The Hornets were in town to play our home team the Beaver’s.

Varsity played Friday night, it seemed the whole town was going to the game, personally I was more interested in the JV game on Saturday, but my parents thought that the Friday game would be another good chance to meet more people, so we sat in the bleachers to watch how the town hopes would fare for this year.

The parentale units chatted with many different people, helping them to integrate themselves in the new community, Mom arranged to meet some of the other moms for a coffee morning, while dad was talking about going to a pub for an evening with some of the other Dads.

I didn’t fare so well, as the aftermath of the fight was still in the students mind, I saw several students I knew from classes, some of them acknowledged my existence when I would say hello, but would move on as quickly as they could.

The varsity team was alright, but I thought the cheerleaders were more entertaining to watch. The team worked well when on offense, moving the ball down the field alright, but once near the end zone they would stall. Our defense started out ok, but as soon as the first team players became tired, and their backups took over, the Hornets offense was able to score easily.

The game ended 48-23. The crowd was disappointed in the loss, hoping for a better start to the season. From my view point, Andy Jenks was the only player I actually knew on the field, he did his job as well as he could, but his front line struggled to protect him well enough. His runners and receivers didn’t have the strength and skills needed to help the team to a good season.

The next day we were back at the field to watch the other two games.

The freshman game was frantic, both teams had a lot of learning still to do, it was a scoring bonanza.

Both teams scored a lot, it wasn’t pretty but it was entertaining, they did manage to scrape out the win after getting a touchdown in the last series to win the game. Chloe and the rest of the freshman cheerleaders, tried their best to show off their skills for the crowd, but they too needed time to improve, as there were several stumbles and people out of sync with the rest.

That win got the crowd in a good mood despite the previous night’s loss, now it was the JV teams turn.

This was a much more interesting game, Rory played well, showing off the skills I had helped him practice over the summer. It was also a tight game, each team matching scores on practically every drive. Our home team defense needed someone better to lead them, they got caught out a few times when the opposition performed a switch play, defenders going one way when the ball had gone the other.

I guessed it took time to build a team and get the right players to lead the team where they needed guidance.

It took a spectacular drive at the end of the game, with Rory pulling off several great throws to put the Beavers in field goal range, the conversion won the game by just three points with only seconds remaining.

I had seen Chloe during Rory’s game. She was with a group of her freshman cheerleaders. She glared at me when we came across each other, turned her back on me and led her group of friends away.

Well I guess that situation is still to be resolved.

On Sunday, Mr. Nash delivered me the completed dossier on Greg Pullin, it was sad reading, it did explain a few things though.

Greg was an orphan, he had been living in an orphanage or in foster homes for most of his young life. Most of his possessions came from good will stores, it had made him cynical and distrusted the system.

But from the dossier I could see that he still did alright at school despite that, his grades were not the best, but were good enough that he should graduate at the end of the year.

He had also been a good athlete when he was younger, but having had to move around so much, he had never been able to get himself settled in a team long enough for scouts to notice him. It was going to be impossible for him to get a scholarship to a college, especially since he hadn’t played football or baseball in over a year.

I wasn’t sure if there was anything I could do to help him, it was his own attitude that had to change before he could improve his life. Anyone trying to help him would be seen as giving him charity, which he would automatically reject on principal.

On Monday, I once again bought two subs when lunch came around, I could see Greg sat at a table by himself as usual, taking tentative bites from the day’s supposed lasagna offering.

I sat down opposite him and pushed a sub across.

“Look Kid, I ain’t no charity case alright, stop trying to get on my good side with the bribes, it ain’t gonna work alright.” he growled.

“Sure whatever. But a sub has to be better than what you’re eating right.” I stated.

He looked at his plate, and I even saw a bit of a smile on his face. “Alright you have me there, but don’t think you can buy me you little dweeb.”

“Wasn’t trying to, I just wanted to talk to you for a bit, seemed a fair exchange if you were willing to listen.” I tried.

“Get on with it then, you have two minutes before I leave.”

“I take it you were filching freshman kids’ money to buy dinners.” I stated.

“What if I was, you know nothing about me kid, so don’t try thinking you can psychobabble me or any stuff like that.”

“Well I have heard most of the rumors, I take it you have had it pretty hard, I can’t even imagine how hard being shifted about is.”