Chapter 10

DAPHNE WASN’T IN SCHOOL Wednesday. Neither was Coach Fisher.

“I hope she’s okay,” Lana whispered at the lunch table. “She’s a really sweet girl and has high hopes for the future.”

“She’s only fourteen. She has time to fully recover and make a place for herself,” Natalie said. “How bad do you think it is, Dennis?”

“I don’t know if I should even comment on that. I just want you all to be healthy. That means eating well and feeding your bodies with enough calories to fuel your athletics. It means not over exercising. I know I drive you pretty hard during conditioning, but I don’t want you to overdo it,” he said. “Sorry for the lecture. I just ... Maybe we should get the coaches to do a full fitness evaluation on everyone who goes out for a sport. We didn’t do that before fall sports started. We did it before basketball and before track.”

“Do you think we might be in danger of injury?” Tori asked.

“Well, just from a national average standpoint, yes,” Dennis answered. “Nearly a third of female high school cross country runners are injured every year. Many of them are injured multiple times, so the total is close to sixty-five injuries per hundred athletes. Granted, most of those injuries aren’t too serious if they are taken care of properly. Like shin splints. Remember Darrel’s asthma attack the first week of practice? That kind of thing can be considered a running injury. Shin splints are another. Then you get into serious ones like twisted ankles, sprains, and broken bones. We’re doing everything we can to strengthen those muscles, tape when necessary, and make sure we treat anything immediately,” Dennis said. “End of Physical Fitness 101 lecture,” he laughed.

“Knowing how much you care about us makes us trust you even more,” Amy said. “Injuries are serious stuff.”

“Um ... You should write that up for your first blog post,” Diane suggested. “Explain why you believe proper conditioning and balanced diet are important to the high school athlete. Or anyone for that matter.”

“Good idea. I’ll talk to Olivia to see when I can start putting stuff up on the blog.”

Early Thursday morning, Dennis wheeled the big mower out of Mr. Abernathy’s barn and started on the cross country course. He’d talked to Bart Matthews, the kid who’d been hired to do mowing, but Bart intended to mow the cross country course only on Saturday mornings. The team’s first home cross country meet was to be Thursday evening. Dennis had no morning classes on Thursday, so he took his time to make sure the course was neatly manicured for the evening meet.

Dennis was in front of the locker rooms as soon as school was out, taping ankles of several runners. Shelby, Thoms, and Lana from the volleyball team were all there to observe and assist. Word that Daphne had been injured had all the girls worried. Neither she nor her mom were in school again.

They all ate their packed dinners and headed to the track at five-thirty to get warmed up, and to greet the other teams as they arrived.

The girls were excited to get running and bounced on their toes as everyone got their timing bibs on. AgCentral had really come through again as sponsors for the school’s athletics. A banner was stretched out at the top of the bleachers thanking the company for their sponsorship.

Surprisingly, quite a number of fans showed up for the first of only two home meets this season. Cross country is not normally a cheerleader sport, but all ten Bartley cheerleaders showed up in their uniforms to yell and cheer for the team.

At six-thirty, the girls lined up at the starting line and the buzzer started them off. The Angelines let no grass grow beneath their feet as they took off at a blistering pace. They had stiff competition from the Eagles team, though. At the point where the race entered the trees, most of the first ten runners were either Eagles or Angelines.

When the runners came back into view near the cemetery, fans could see Janice’s burgundy jersey well in the lead of one of the Eagles. She maintained that lead into the stadium on around the final lap to the finish line. It seemed that the race was entirely between the Eagles and the Angelines. There was a seven-and-a-half-minute spread between Janice’s 20:18 finish and the seventh Angeline across the line. But in that time, the Angelines had captured places 1, 3, 5, 12, 14, 18, and 22. Adding the first five scores gave the team an almost unbeatable 35 points. Almost. The Eagles came in at 2, 4, 8, 9, 10, 27, and 29. Those last two places were significantly behind all the Angeline runners, but only the first five counted toward the team score. They totaled 33 points. The girls from both teams gathered together with hugs. Tori had come in third, Diane fifth, Judith twelfth, and Liz fourteenth in the counted places.

The last runner came in just over twenty minutes after Janice. At seven-thirty, Dennis led the boys out onto the track. They were ready to run and determined to show the girls they could run just as well. When the buzzer sounded, Dennis jumped out as quickly as possible and was annoyed to see an Eagle jersey right on his shoulder. And that was where they ran all the way to the woods. It was in the shelter of the trees, though, that the Eagle moved a step and then three steps ahead of him. He was determined to keep pace with his rival, but as they entered the stadium, the Eagle was seventeen seconds ahead of him. Dennis settled for second place at 17:17.

He had plenty of time to chat to the runner and congratulate him before Donnie came in. The other Wolverine boys trailed far behind. The Eagles boys’ team matched the girls’ results with 33 total points. The Wolverines amassed 218 points for eighth place in the meet. Darrel was the last runner across the finish line at 36:10. He’d had another asthma attack just after the woods and had to walk the rest of the way in as he sucked down his inhaler. Dennis grabbed him to congratulate him for finishing despite the problem.

The Bartley fans and cheerleaders were loud as they cheered their two teams in second and eighth place. There was a chance they would have fans at the next meet.

There was no school on Friday because it was County Fair Day and started the long Labor Day weekend. The football team, of course, had a game that night and had to travel two hours to reach the Cardinals, a hundred miles from Bartley. A few fans and family members went to see the game, but most took advantage of the day to go to the County Fair.

Of course, Dennis and Brenda had to attend Friday morning classes at DMACC. After they got home, showered, and dressed again—allowing for a little playtime in the middle of the day—they joined the other girls and headed to the fair. Tori’s parents had reserved a couple of tent campsites near where they parked their trailer. They’d set up the tents early in the week to make sure their sites were saved, but the group took their sleeping bags to the tents as soon as they arrived.

There might have been a little fooling around in the tents before they pulled themselves together to head for the exhibits. And fair food. Tori and Lana both had friends exhibiting livestock or garden produce. The mothers of both girls had cooking and canning entries. A couple of the guys from the cross country team had cattle or pigs to show. They ran into Janice who was exhibiting sheep. She had a purple championship ribbon displayed on their stall but everyone noticed that there was a blue ribbon from the Bartley Invitational she’d run just the previous night.

“Food!” Dennis said as they headed toward the tractor exhibit. Lined up on one side of the fairgrounds were booths for every kind of fair food you didn’t know you wanted until you saw it. “I’ll have a tenderloin sandwich and an order of fries,” he said to the vendor when he got to the window. The breaded pork tenderloin overhung the edges of the hamburger bun nearly an inch on all sides. Amy reached him with two pops and took a bite of his sandwich.

“Mmm. It’s so good!” she said. “It’s too bad they have to farm pigs to get this meat. It’s so disgusting.”

“Don’t forget the crowning of the Pork Queen tomorrow morning,” Dennis laughed.

“Even knowing it’s an honor and pays well, I don’t think I could stand to be voted Pork Queen,” Natalie laughed. “How do you put that on your resume?”

“College application—extra-curricular activities: Reigning Pork Queen,” Brenda joined her.

“Look at my BLT,” Rosie said, holding up what looked like a bacon sandwich.

“A BLT?” Leanne asked.

“Bacon, a Little more bacon, and Topped with bacon,” Rosie said, taking a crunchy bite.

“Anyone want a bite of my Polish sausage?” Daniella asked. “Not you, Brenda. I understand you could swallow it whole!”

“No fair. I ... Well, maybe I could.”

They got to the Antique Tractor Show in time to watch small corn shellers being demonstrated as well as small gasoline engines. There were at least thirty antique tractors on display, each of which had been meticulously restored and painted in its original colors. They posed together and individually on the equipment while cellphone cameras clicked and then everyone’s phone chimed receipt of the picture.

“Are we going to do the midway?” Judith asked. “The food here was okay, but the midway is where they have cotton candy and elephant ears.”

“We can walk through on our way to the grandstand,” Natalie said. “But no rides tonight. Not after a pork tenderloin, a Bacon sandwich, and Polish sausage. The rodeo is going to start in twenty minutes.”

They got cotton candy, popcorn, elephant ears, and soft drinks on the way to the grandstand and arrived in time to see the horse and flag drill team riding its precision course before the playing of the National Anthem. Then the fun began.

“Cowboys and Cowgirls! We are ready to begin the main events, but while they’re getting that first bronco into the chute, let me remind you that this year’s rodeo is sponsored in part by AgCentral, Iowa’s locally sourced all-natural pork producer. Now let’s get ready to let ‘er rip!”

“What’s all-natural pork?” Dennis laughed. “Do you mean someone is out there producing artificial pork?”

“It makes it sound like it’s humane, organic, and free-range without actually being any of those things,” Rosie said.

“I’d quit eating pork if it didn’t taste so good,” Brenda agreed. “But bacon.”