Chapter 16

DENNIS AND AMY slept late Saturday morning. He’d intended to go to the school early and make sure the course was freshly mowed, but she simply told him it wasn’t his job. His job was to run. They showered together and he dressed for the race.

At one o’clock, the girls lined up for their District Championship race. Thirteen schools fielded full teams, though three barely had five runners. Two schools didn’t get complete teams, but the runners would be eligible for individual places. Timing devices were set and the buzzer sounded the start of the race.

Janice and Tori took off strong and ran step-for-step leading the pack until they were out of sight from the stadium. When they came into view in the clearing across the meadow, a pack of four runners in the lead were separating from the rest of the runners. Everyone was screaming when they entered the stadium at 19:40. The final partial lap saw them stretch out slightly. The Tigers runner crossed the finish line first in 20:15. A runner from one of the schools that didn’t have a full team got second in 20:19. Janice gave it all she had and finished in third at 20:41. Tori managed to stay ahead of Diane and Judith, placing thirteenth. Judith beat her sister out for fifteenth with Diane in nineteenth. Liz crossed the finish line in twenty-first position. It was close. The Bulldogs had a final score of 64. The Angelines came in with 70 for a second place finish in the district. That spelled a team berth at the State Finals in a week.

At two o’clock, the field of 95 varsity runners lined up and headed out. Dennis didn’t hesitate to take the lead and stave off all challenges over the full 5,000 meters. He finished the race in first place in 17:09. It wasn’t where he wanted to be, but it was four seconds faster than the second place runner. All five of the runners from the Lions, however, placed in the top ten in the race. And their sixth runner was in eleventh. It was a fantastic team score of 30 for first place in the meet. The Bartley boys, of course, were never in the running. They managed to stay out of last place, ranking twelfth of fourteen. The boys’ team would not be competing in the State finals the next week. Dennis, however, would be.

The girls all congratulated Dennis, Tori, Diane, and Judith as they walked out to the parking lot.

“That was a great race,” Natalie said. “I thought you and Janice were going to stay in step the whole way.”

“When the other girls started to pick up the pace, I couldn’t match it,” Tori sighed. “It sure felt good to run all out like that, though. Don’t you agree, Dennis?”

“Pigs,” was his only response. Everyone there understood and laughed. Dennis imagined his opponents as feral hogs he was trying to outrun. “Hey, let’s walk over and check the field. When I was running past, I thought I saw green shoots.”

“You’d notice that,” Brenda laughed. They all walked over to the Abernathys’ field that Dennis had sowed the week before with red clover. Indeed, a fine cast of green covered the field with shoots just a half-inch long poking through the dirt. They walked all along the edge of the field around behind Abernathy’s barn.

“I didn’t realize it would sprout so fast,” Dennis said. “This is cool.”

“Um ... Red clover?” Tori asked. “Dad says two to three days if soil conditions are right. Getting the lime in the ground two weeks before you planted must have hit optimum conditions.”

“What are you kids doing out here?” Mr. Abernathy said as he came around the corner of the barn. “You can’t come onto my property and do drugs. No trespassing.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Abernathy,” Dennis said, breaking free of a kiss with Judith. “I should have stopped and talked to you first. We just wanted to see the new growth in the field.”

“Oh! Dennis? Sorry about that. Of course you’re welcome to inspect the fruit of your labor. And all you girls helped. I saw you rassling those bags of lime,” Abernathy said. “Seems like every year I’ve had to chase kids away from here. They come out during school or right after and figure they can get away with anything because they’re hidden from the house, school, and road. It wasn’t so bad thirty years ago. A couple of kids sneaking away for a smoke. As long as they didn’t litter with their cigarette butts, I didn’t say anything. But then I started finding syringes, papers, condoms, and plastic baggies discarded out here and I had to put my foot down. You kids are welcome out here any time. You know and respect the land.”

“Thank you, Mr. Abernathy,” Natalie said. “What’s all that construction equipment that’s over on the other side of the river there? I don’t remember seeing that when we were out fertilizing.”

“Oh, it’s that pig company. They finally managed to get clearance to build an expansion to their operation for organic pork. They finally even talked Art Johnson into selling his place to them with the rider that says it will only be used for organic pork production,” Abe said. “I admit, I was ready to sell out to them, too, but then they discovered the rider on my property was more restrictive. I signed an agreement with the town council years ago, when the school was first built, that the land here would remain non-livestock agricultural land. That puts at least some buffer between town and any future pig operation. It will be bad enough if they start running a couple hundred thousand hogs through their new factory.”

“That sounds awful. Getting a whiff of Mr. Johnson’s place during the race today was bad enough. At least it gets mostly filtered by the trees before it gets to town,” Dennis said.

“Say, we’re just hanging out this afternoon. Could you and Mrs. Abernathy use some help around the house?” Lana asked. “We’re all pretty good and fast at cleaning and cooking.”

“It looks like the yard could stand another mowing before snow flies,” Dennis added. “I’ll take care of that if you’d like.”

“You kids! I can’t believe what I’m hearing. You’d spend your Saturday afternoon cleaning and cooking and mowing for us? Come up on the porch and let me get Lila out of the house for a few minutes. I’d gladly accept your help, but I don’t invite people in without her consent.”

They all went to the house and waited on the front porch while Abe went to get his wife. When he opened the door, to come back on the porch, Lila was with him. Lana repeated her offer and the old woman burst into tears.

“I know who you all are. We’ve known your parents and grandparents for years. We’ve watched you at the schools. We know you’re good kids, but I never imagined you’d come knocking on our door to help out. Thank you. We accept your help in the spirit it’s given. Please come in.” Most of the girls went inside. Dennis, Tori, and Natalie headed for the equipment shed and got out the lawn mower, clippers, and rakes. It was soon obvious that there were too many in the house, so Diane, Roberta, and Daniella joined the outside crew.

It really didn’t take long with thirteen kids cooking, cleaning, and doing yard work. By five-thirty, the teens were all hot, sweaty, and satisfied with their day’s labor. They laughed and joked as they bid goodbye to the Abernathys.

“My house,” Tori said. “We all stink and need a shower.”

“It’s going to be cold in the barn,” Brenda said.

“Not if we’re all huddled together!”

They headed out into the country and soon were all washing each other in the shower. Surprisingly, even though there was plenty of caressing and kissing, there was no attempt at sex, either in the shower or once they got out. They were even mostly dressed when Maria McDonald came to the barn and called them all to come in for dinner.

Lila Abernathy had called all the parents and passed on how appreciative they were to have the kids stop by for a fall cleanup. The McDonalds had volunteered to feed them all.

It was a low-key evening for the group. They sat and cuddled together in the McDonalds’ family room to watch TV, but it was a hold and comfort night, not a sex and roll night. They started heading out to their homes about nine-thirty. Dennis drove Lana home and they kissed and petted in the car for several minutes before he walked her to the door and kissed her goodnight.

On Sunday afternoon, instead of just Dennis and Brenda studying for mid-terms, all the high schoolers were studying for first term finals. The end of term break would be Friday.

“Hey, Dennis. Season’s over. You want to meet to do some video before basketball season starts?” Olivia asked when she joined the group at their table for lunch Monday. Everyone was a little surprised when she just showed up and sat down, but they were welcoming.

“Um ... I still have conditioning group every afternoon and cross country practice to get ready for,” he said. “I guess we can do some evening stuff, but where are we going to shoot it?”

“No problem,” Olivia said. “I talked to Coach Byers and he said we could shoot in the gym as long as we weren’t interfering with any other athletic events and as long as we didn’t video anything that identified where we are taping. I mean, like the school name or anything.”