Chapter 14

"You will try this with one rock," Coop decides. Even though it is clear he is losing what little patienances he has as well as control of the "Games". I can only guess what will happened to his position as Leader once we are done with him. I spend a moment in a happy place at that thought before he has us line up ... again.

This time he hands Gwen one big rock, so big that she can barely hold it in one hand.

"Throw," he instructs.

She does, but this time not at Coop but at the far end of our line.

Coop throws his hands up. "Well, come on, one of you throw it back."

Anastasia runs out and grabs the rock and throws it back to Gwen. It falls a little short. Gwen runs to it and picks it back up and tosses it back to Stasia. They go back and forth for a little bit. The men in the crowd are laughing again, but this time they seem to be enjoying watching two beautiful women running around and tossing the rock back and forth. There is even some cheering.

I glance over at Coop to see how he is reacting to this new development. He is looking a little red in the face. Like he is holding in his anger. But because the men are taking our antics well, he can't stop us.

Gwen and Stasia can't keep this up all day. Soon they are tiring and are slowing down. Gwen knows this. So she changes the game. She tosses the rock into the crowd of women.

It drops.

We all look at it on the ground. I know what she wants but I dare not be the first person.

I whisper, "pick it up." Thankfully someone does.

It is the mother of the little girl Godiva is watching. Isolde they called her. She picks up the rock and gives it a grim nod. Then tosses it right back out to Stasia. Suddenly we are all out there trying to be the one to catch the rock and toss it back. At first it is kind of a free for all. Every one running everywhere. We get some cheering when there are a couple of mid-field crashes. We solidify into two teams after a while.

These women, having grown up together, must have played these kinds of games. You could see it. Some were better at throwing, some better at catching, and some good runners. I don't do a lot of receiving as I am trying to keep an eye on Coop. He will be the best indicator that we had gone too far.

He has stopped looking angry and is now just plain bemused. I don't think they have ever seen people just have fun before. Much less women, having silly fun without beating the crap out of each other.

With more women on the field the 'game' stayed in motion for almost a half an hour. This was the best I could hope for. They were farmers and not sports figures. We could just hope that Coop was stubborn enough to keep on with his testing, even though most of the morning was gone.

And yes, yes he was. When we finally tire out and are panting, he has us line up, again. This time we are to run to see who is the fastest.

We could truthfully say we were too tired and did poorly. We got a lot of booing and hissing at this event. I guess it was not as entertaining as the last. Not enough bouncing. I made sure that I came in last with Margaret. The poor girl really was not up to these physical challenges.