Chapter 2: How to Make Friends and Influence People

That fall, things were going great at school. I lost my virginity, I was on pace to set the county passing yardage record and if anybody remembered that a third-grade girl got the better of me one day during the summer, they kept it to themselves.

Fall was coming to an end, and one Saturday me and some of the guys were going down to a new park that just opened that had a football gridiron painted on the grass. It was pretty boss. We broke into a game of two hand touch, seven of us on each side, but we were all starters on the football team, so it turned into tackle pretty quickly. Jamal Waters tried to sack me on a corner cat blitz, but I slipped away and he tripped over my foot and twisted his ankle. We were circled around him as he winced, and we helped him to his feet. He was one of the best cornerbacks in the state, and we hoped that he was okay. “I’m just getting warmed up,” Cameron Heinz said. “We have to get someone else. Who lives around here? Tommy?”

“I want to pway,” a squeaky, high-pitched voice behind us called out.

I knew that voice. It was Becky Finklestein from karate class. We all turned to look her, all four feet of her, standing there in jeans and a blue long sleeved shirt with the Superman logo on the front. She was wearing glasses and pink LA Gear sneakers, and her frizzy orange hair was up in pigtails. And everyone laughed. Except for me. I was trying not to look at Becky’s green eyes as she took her glasses off and put them in a case she kept in her pocket. “Don’t laugh at me,” she scolded. “I’m fast and stwong. Probably faster and stwonger than any of you.” There were some more laughs, and her face started to redden. “It’s twue!” she said loudly, pointing her miniature finger at me. “Ask Rubber Chicken how stwong I am.”

A couple of guys rolled their eyes, and we circled up again, turning our backs on Becky. “Anyway, doesn’t Tommy live over here? He’s at least fast enough to-”

“Hey!” Becky screamed, and we turned again. “Don’t ignore me!” she yelled. “I’m really fast and really stwong and I want to prove it!”

“Then go find some more six year olds to play with, missy” Cameron said. “You’ll get hurt if you play with us.”

Becky stamped her foot. “My name isn’t Missy, it’s Becky. And I’m not six, I’m eight-and-a-half,” she insisted. “And I won’t get hurt. I’m really stwong because I do gymnastics and pushups and situps and pullups. Ask Rubber Chicken,” she said, pointing at me again.

“Dude, why does she keep calling you that?” Clarence Jefferson asked me.

I answered with a shrug. I was starting to get worried. I knew that Becky was fast and strong. And I didn’t really want to be around when she proved it. I had already been through that in karate class. “Maybe we should just pack it in guys,” I said. “Seeing Jamal get hurt-”

“No way,” Cameron said. “We’re just getting warmed up.

“Hey!” Becky screamed again, stomping up to me and pointing as she turned to face the rest of the guys. “If I can beat him in arm-wrestling you have to let me pway, okay?”

Everyone but me laughed. I felt a pang of fear in my gut. Could she beat me at arm-wrestling? I didn’t think so. I told myself that she only got the better of me in karate class because she has a low center of gravity, but in the back of my mind I kept seeing her rock-hard abs and bulging biceps.

“You got a deal!” Bill Gruber called, and everyone began walking over to the picnic tables except me and Becky.

I looked down at her. A bitchy little smirk spread across her face. “Don’t worry Rubber Chicken,” she taunted. “You can just tell them you let me win because you didn’t want to hurt my feewings.” She popped a bubble of pink bubblegum, giggled, and then skipped after the guys.

A second later Becky and I were sitting on opposite sides of a picnic bench. She was too short to reach across the table. Her tiny hand couldn’t reach all the way around mine, but she got enough of her fingers and thumb around to get a grip. And I could tell that her grip was strong. Really strong. I tried not to wince with pain as she squeezed. Then relaxed. Then squeezed. Then relaxed. “Hey Spencer,” Clarence called to our star reciever, “Go get Tommy while my boy Rubber Chicken takes care of business. Alright guys, go on three. One. Two. Three.”

I didn’t move. Neither did Becky. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Should I beat her? Could I beat her? Should I just give up and try to play it off like she suggested? I sat motionless until Becky spoke up. “You have to pull,” she whined.

So I did. Just a little bit. And her arm didn’t move. “Pull harder,” she whined, and some of the guys laughed.

So I did. Her arm still didn’t move.

“Come on Greg, get this over with,” Cameron sighed. “We’re burning daylight.”

I took a deep breath and started to bear down, and I forced Becky’s arm downward. For about an inch. For a few seconds our arms were motionless as I continued to strain, and Becky just smiled. There were some chortles from the guys as I tried to conceal my effort. Then Becky popped another pink bubble, and slammed my arm down on the picnic bench with a ‘thud’. My muscles screaming in agony from my forearm up to my shoulder, and my hand was burning from the strength of the grip in her slender pink-painted fingers. There were some exclamations and laughs, and Becky stood up beaming. “I want to tackle,” she said. “I want to be one of the people who tackles.”

“What the hell was that, Greg?” Cameron groaned.

“We can let her get in a few snaps,” I said. “It won’t hurt anything. We were supposed to be playing two hand touch anyway. You saw what happened to Jamal.”

“Tommy’s not home,” Spencer said, returning to the field out of breath.

“Well she’s on your team, mister nice guy,” Zack Charles said, Kevin can take Jamal’s place on our team, and Becky can take Kevin’s place on your team.

“Do I get to tackle people?” Becky asked me.

“Not yet,” Carlos Jones said as I wrung my hand behind my back. “We’re on offense. We want to get the ball across that line over there.”

We huddled up quickly, and I drew up a quick play. I had to play Becky at receiver. She was strong, that was for sure, but the other guys could just step over her if I played her on the line, and her tiny little legs could never cover enough ground to let her play running back. I snapped the ball and dropped back to pass. No one was open. Except for Becky.

“Thwow me the ball!” she screamed.

I decided to run for it instead, but then Jeff Gustavson broke through the line, and I had no choice but to throw a shovel pass to Becky. She wrapped the ball up in her short arms and hugged it to her chest as Zack reached out to touch her. But he never got the chance. Becky spun away from him like a top, and streaked down the field like a blue blur, crossing the goal line in a few seconds. She was fast. Really fast. Clarence might be faster, but he was one of the fastest guys in the state. And he was almost twice her age.

“Holy shit!” Cameron laughed. “Did you see her go? Tiny little legs all kicking like in the Flintstones or something.”

Becky was smiling and hopping as she came back down the field to meet us. “Now do I get to tackle people?” she asked me.

“No, we’re just playing two-hand touch,” I said. “If you touch somebody with both hands, then that counts as a tackle.”

“That doesn’t sound very fun.” Becky pouted.

“But first we’re going to kick it down there and they’ll try to run it back,” Clarence said. The guy in the red shirt is named Spencer, and he’s going to return the kick. We want to stop him as far down there as we can.”