“Man,” Eddie Awkerman said, “this is going to suck.”

The only real teen hangout in Spearfish Lake, at least in the summer months, is the Frostee Freeze, an old A&W that was now operating under a different name, but still as a drive-in, a real rarity that almost made it a tourist trap. It had opened that morning just after Eddie and his buddy Scotty Parsons left the courtroom having watched Frenchy LeDroit mouth off at the judge and get a ticket to the county jail as a result. It made a good place for the two to have a Coke and talk things over.

“Yeah, no shit,” Scotty agreed over his Coke. “First Payne, then Frenchy. This is going to hurt.”

The news that Bryson Payne had resigned as high school principal was old news among the teenage gossip circuits as they ran in Spearfish Lake; the word had come down late the day before. As far as Eddie and Scotty were concerned, it was very bad news. While Payne had never been a football player himself, he’d cut the football players an awful lot of slack, letting them understand they were the kings of the hill in Spearfish Lake High School and that everyone else was a lesser form of life. As a result, it had been very difficult for a football player to get in trouble with the school for anything, and Frenchy had gotten away with more than most.

“It’s going to be a pain to lose Payne,” Eddie said, “but I think I can say I have mixed feelings about Frenchy being in the can for a few months.”

“Well, yeah, you’re right on that,” Scotty agreed. “We’re going to miss him on the field, at least some of the time.”

“Some of the time,” Eddie nodded. “He could put a hurt on people, and that’s a fact. The only problem was that you were never sure who he was going to put a hurt on. Maybe the team hasn’t been very good, but at least Frenchy could get a few people limping off the field if he felt like it.”

“The problem was that sometimes the color of the uniforms didn’t matter to him, and that sometimes he lost more from penalties than he gained,” Scotty pointed out. “Yeah, he liked to hurt people, but he didn’t care too much who he hurt.”

“No shit,” Eddie shook his head. “If he was pissed at you, he’d let a blocker get past him so you’d get creamed.”

“If you were lucky,” Scotty agreed. “If he was really pissed at someone for some reason, even if he just imagined it, they could find themselves being held onto by Coopshaw and Effingham while Frenchy taught them a lesson with his fists, like what they did to that Jahnke wuss the other night.”

“Well, that bit him in the ass,” Eddie nodded. “I mean, everyone knows you don’t rat out Frenchy or you’re going to get it even worse. From what I hear, it wasn’t Jahnke that ratted him out, but Jahnke’s old man.”

“Still, there wasn’t no call to fuck with football players like that,” Scotty snorted. “Man, if Payne was still around Jahnke’s ass would be grass. But no, that fucking Jahnke walked out of there with a big ass smile on his face while they led Frenchy off in cuffs. Tell you what, I’ve never had Frenchy pissed at me like that, but if I’d been in Jahnke’s shoes I’d have had a big ass smile on my face about it, too.”

“That goddamn judge,” Eddie nodded. “He didn’t have any reason to be fucking with football players like that, either. I mean, hell, we’re important. Just who the hell is Jahnke, anyway? I mean, except for being a little shit that’s too goddamn smart for his own good?”

“Somebody ought to kick his ass just on general principles, just so he’d know that Frenchy still has friends,” Scotty sneered.

“Somebody ought to,” Eddie agreed, “and I might just be willing to help out some time. But you know what? Frenchy don’t matter no more, at least as far as we’re concerned.”

“How do you figure that? He’s going to be out of jail after a while and he’s going to be looking to even things up.”

“Yeah, he’ll get out of jail something like four months after football season is over with,” Eddie pointed out. “We’re seniors, so we won’t be playing football with him next year. Next year Frenchy is going to be somebody else’s problem. He won’t be ours, unless we totally fuck up and flunk out, and even then we wouldn’t be playing football.”

“We’re not going to flunk out,” Scotty said. “They wouldn’t dare flunk a football player.”

“I’m not so damn sure about that anymore,” Eddie shook his head. “Payne would never let a football player flunk out, that’s for sure. But what do you want to bet they pull in some hard ass that thinks a football number on the back is the same thing as a target?”

“They wouldn’t do that,” Scotty protested. “Football is too big a deal in this town.”

“I wouldn’t bet against it,” Eddie shook his head. “Payne pissed off a few too many people, and one of them was Cody Archer’s old man. It ain’t no secret he wanted Payne’s ass. I mean, who busted Payne for driving drunk anyway?”

“Cody Archer,” Scotty nodded. “I still can’t believe he’s a cop, but he must have been laying in wait for Payne to stick his foot in it.”

“At least he ain’t going to be around when football season gets started, he’ll be back in that goddamn college he’s going to somewhere. But that still ain’t the point. The point is that I think we’d better get some good times while we can since I wouldn’t want to bet that they’re going to stay good much longer. We’d better have us a damn good party tomorrow night because it could be the last one for a while.”

“That’s another thing,” Scotty shook his head. “I’m not even sure it’s going to be much of a party. Frenchy was supposed to get the beer for the party. I don’t know if he did or what, but with him in jail there’s not going to be any getting to it if he did. No beer, no pre-practice beer party, no initiation for the newbies on the varsity.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’ve been thinking about. You know how it’s always gone. The guy that gets the beer for the party gets elected team captain. That made Frenchy a lock on it until the lock clicked on his cell door instead. I wouldn’t have wanted to go up against Frenchy for team captain, but with him out of the picture I’m thinking I might just take a run at it.”

“That’s a lot of damn beer,” Scotty pointed out. “You’d have to have, shit, at least thirty 12-packs at a minimum. More would be better. Even if you got the cheapest shit there is, it’s still going to be two, three hundred bucks, and that’s assuming you could get it at all.”

“I’ve got the money, that’s not a problem. But getting the beer, that is a problem,” Eddie agreed. “I know you can get your hands on it when you need to.”

“Yeah, mostly from Frenchy,” Scotty admitted. “He usually only had the cheapest shit there is, and he charged through the nose for it. Occasionally I can get a twelve or two somewhere else, but one or two ain’t the same as thirty or forty. Besides, you’ve got to have a place to hold the party.”

“Shit, that ain’t no problem, we’ll just have it out in the woods someplace like we always do. There’s a spot down by the river that would work just fine, but we’ve got to get the beer first. Any ideas?”

Out in Coach Wine’s driveway it was starting to get uncomfortably hot, and the kids were winding down. Brandy was smart enough to not push things too far under the circumstances, and although Lyle seemed to be doing all right he’d been busy playing big defender for long enough that Brandy was starting to get concerned. Enough was enough, she thought, and I’ve got other things on my mind than basketball for once. I need to sit down by myself, get something cold to drink and spend some serious time with a notepad.

“All right, ladies and gentlemen,” she called. “It’s getting hot out here, so let’s call it a morning. Lyle, you’re looking a little bushed. Why don’t you head into the house and get some iced tea or something? Amanda, I need a word with you. The rest of you, we’ll get started again after dinnertime.”

“Yeah, thanks Mrs. Wine,” Lyle said. “I’m getting to the point where I could stand to sit down and cool off for a bit.”

“As always, you’ve been a big help, Lyle,” she said. “If you’re up for it tonight, come on back over. If not I’ll find something else to work on.”

Lyle headed into the kitchen off the back porch, opened the refrigerator, and found a big pitcher of iced tea. That would work just fine, the big, sweaty teenager thought. He got a glass from the cupboard – this wasn’t the first time he’d done this in Mrs. Wine’s house – poured himself a glass, drank it down in a quick gulp, and as the coolness of the drink started to wash over him, poured himself another one. He noted that as usual there wasn’t much in the refrigerator but cold drinks and snack food. While Mrs. Wine was a neighbor and he’d known her for years, often helping with the basketball training, he also knew she had a reputation as a lousy cook and didn’t care much for cooking, so she and her husband Phil ordered in or ate out a lot. Can’t do everything well, he smiled as he put the pitcher back in the refrigerator and closed it. He took the glass and headed out onto the back porch to find a shady seat to wind down a bit before he headed to his home up the street.

Nobody in the driveway was in a real big hurry to rush off, and there was still some standing around and talking going on afterwards, some of it about basketball, some of it about plans for the day. It probably took close to ten minutes before everyone had drifted off but Brandy and Amanda. “So, Brandy,” Amanda asked, “what did Harold want with you?”

“He dropped a hell of a bomb on me, that’s for sure. He wants me to replace Payne as principal.”

Seated quietly on the chair out of sight outside the back door, Lyle heard her clearly – and his ears perked up. Mrs. Wine as principal? Boy, was that going to change things! He kept quiet and listened as Amanda replied, “So did you take him up on it?”

“Yeah, I did,” Brandy sighed. “I’ll tell you what, that came out of nowhere. I honestly thought that he came over to offer me the boys’ basketball team again, and I’d already made up my mind I wasn’t going to shove Ron out of the job.”

“That’s good to know,” Amanda replied. “Ron and I were talking it over last night and we thought that might happen.”

“No, it really is too much to try and do boys and girls at the same time,” Brandy said. “Right at the moment I’m not even sure that I want to try to be principal and coach the girls’ team. I just haven’t had time to think about it.”

“Well, if my opinion is worth anything, I think you’re going to do a damn good job as principal, not that it would be any trick to do a better job than Payne did.”

“That’s true, but it’s going to take a while to clean up the mess that Payne made,” Brandy told her. “The thing of it is, I’m going to have to knuckle down to it starting Monday. I’m just not going to be able to do the daytime sessions like this anymore, and I’ll probably have to give up some evenings as well. I think the skills training we’re doing is important, and that means that I’ll have to ask you to pretty much take it over. I may be able to poke my nose in once in a while, but I’m not going to be able to do it all the time like I’ve done in the past.”

“Well, sure, I can take up the slack, this summer anyway,” Amanda told her. “I don’t have the skills you have, but I think I can do a pretty good job of it.”

“I know you can, which is why I asked you to help out in the first place years ago,” Brandy told her. “Like I said, I don’t know what’s going to happen with my coaching this winter, but if I decide I don’t have the time to do it, well, speaking as the AD I’d like to have you take over the varsity girls. We still have a good program here and there’s no reason it can’t carry on.”

“If it happens, it won’t be the same without you,” Amanda said honestly. “I owe you an awful lot, and I know if you give it up it’s going to be a big step for you. Hell, I wouldn’t even be a teacher if you hadn’t gotten me that basketball scholarship years ago, and that’s just one of a big list of things I owe you.”

“You did it yourself,” Brandy told her. “Granted, I pushed you a little bit, but you’re the one responsible. Like I said, I don’t know whether I’ll be coaching next winter or not, so let’s keep that quiet for a while. I probably won’t make up my mind until basketball season gets close.”

Jeez-o-peet, Lyle thought. That would really change things! I probably shouldn’t be listening to this, and I especially shouldn’t let Mrs. Wine know I heard what she just said about giving up coaching! After a moment’s thought, he upended the tea glass, then quietly got up and took it inside, taking care to keep the screen door from slamming. However, when he headed back outside he let it slam.

He came around the corner of the house, noticing Mrs. Wine and Mrs. Mykelhoff – he still thought of her as Miss Musgrave – standing there, not saying anything. “Thanks for the tea, Mrs. Wine,” he said. “I guess I’ll go home and read a bit. I’ll be over again tonight, unless it gets way hot.”

“Sure, thanks Lyle,” Mrs. Wine said. “I know it gets dull being a training dummy like that, but it’s really appreciated.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” he said. “It gives me a chance to hang around with some kids every now and then. I don’t get to do that too much, so it makes the summer go quicker.”

“Like I said, it’s appreciated, and I’ll see you tonight,” she replied.

Lyle headed on up the street, carrying the conversation he’d just heard in the back of his mind, while reflecting that he got more fun out of Mrs. Wine’s training sessions than she realized. The best thing about it was that he got to hang around with some cute girls, and actually be treated with a degree of respect for doing it. Girls never seemed to want to have much to do with him otherwise; he was too big, too unathletic, and he knew it. A lot of people seemed to think that because he was big and didn’t do sports he was pretty dumb, but he wasn’t and he knew it. Not many people knew that he wanted to go to college to be a wood products engineer, maybe working out at Clark Plywood after he graduated, maybe not – who knew? But Mrs. Wine knew it, and she’d promised that when the time came for him to go to college in a year, she’d pull a few financial strings to keep college from being quite as big a reach as it would have been otherwise. Lyle’s father was a machine operator out at Clark, and that was something he wanted to avoid – in fact, had no choice but to avoid it; with his asthma, he couldn’t be on his feet doing physical labor all day like his father. A desk, though – he could hack that, he thought.

But Mrs. Wine as principal? Wow, what a change that would be, he thought as he slowly walked up the street. She ought to take those goddamn football players who had teased him and mocked him forever down a notch or two! That by itself made his last year in high school something to look forward to. This could be interesting . . .

Halfway across town there was a major refrigerator raid going on. Jack Erikson and his girlfriend Vixen Hvalchek had ridden over to the courthouse to watch the action with their friends, Alan Jahnke and his girlfriend Summer Trevetheck. Frenchy had been a pain in the butt for them to one degree or another for years, at least partly because none of them were athletes. But in the past week, he’d been a real pain in the butt indeed, and Frenchy’s beating up Alan a week ago had made things that much worse. Jack, Vixen, and Summer had been drawn into the aftermath, which had culminated with a wild chase through the woods Wednesday night, which had led to Frenchy’s arrest the day before, along with his two buddies, Coopshaw and Effingham. “I sure didn’t expect it to end that quickly,” Jack commented to Vixen, about the tenth time it had been said between the two of them.

“I don’t think Frenchy did, either,” Vixen smiled. Jack thought it was a nice smile, even though her face was badly scarred with acne. While they’d known each other since Kindergarten, they’d only started going out a week ago – but it had been one hell of a week of discovering each other in the fracas with Frenchy. While each of them agreed that it was still a little too soon to say that things were going to be permanent, it sure looked to be heading in that direction. Alan and Summer had been going together two days less, but they were just about as close.

It had been a hell of a week, no matter how you looked at it, and after they’d walked out of the courthouse the four of them had agreed that a celebration was needed. A picnic lunch, some swimming, a picnic supper and general hanging out at the nameless little pond they’d been at Wednesday night seemed to fill the bill. Jack and Vixen had agreed to do the lunch, while Alan and Summer offered to come up with the hot dogs and stuff for dinner. They’d agreed that they’d stop off at the convenience store on the highway on their way out to the pond in Jack’s Jeep to fill a cooler with ice and soft drinks.

“Well,” Jack grinned as he listened to the beep-beep-beep-CRASH from the Nintendo in the living room, where his younger brother Howie and his girlfriend Misty Frankovich were going hard at it, like they’d done virtually every day since they’d started going together. “I think it’s safe to say that we’re going to have more fun than Frenchy will this afternoon.”

“Yeah, and for the next several months,” Vixen grinned. Her acne-scarred face had been the reason for all too much teasing and cruelty from Frenchy – and admittedly, from others – over the years. What had gone around had come around, in a big way. “It’s sure going to be nice to go to school and know that he’s not going to be there.”

“I almost hate to say it,” Jack sighed, “but somehow I doubt that we’re all the way done with Frenchy. There’s going to be a period of about five months there when he’s out of jail and we’re still around before we go to college, wherever we decide to go to college.”

“That’s true,” Vixen conceded, “but I don’t think he’s going to be back in school again, at least while we’re there. He is over eighteen, so he doesn’t have to be in school, and we wouldn’t be the only ones laughing at him if he showed up. “

“That could be interesting,” Jack said. “He doesn’t like being laughed at, although you’ve got to figure that he’s going to have seven months to get his shit list in order, and you can bet money that Alan and I will be at the head of it.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she sighed, “but at least we have seven months to figure out how to handle it. Besides, even if he did show up he probably wouldn’t be able to graduate this year, so why should he bother?”

“We need to put some thought into it,” Jack protested lightly, “but maybe not today. Today is for celebrating being free of the bastard for the next seven months. I don’t suppose Mom will miss these baked beans if we took them.”

“There’s not enough there for the four of us,” Vixen replied practically. “Maybe we ought to hit the deli at the Super Market on our way over to Alan’s. I kind of like their macaroni salad, too.”

“Jeez, it’s going to take at least two coolers for all that stuff,” Jack observed. “That’s not going to leave a lot of room in the back for Alan and Summer.”

“And Stas,” Vixen pointed at the old gray dog lying on the floor. He wasn’t sleeping, as he seemed to do most of the time; he was aware that there was food being dealt with, and his tail was tapping the floor. “He needs to be in on the celebration, too.”

“Right,” Jack grinned at Vixen, who was wearing short shorts and a very snug, thin camouflage camisole top, which had the tie string of her bikini neck strap poking out of it. She looked awful good in her bikini, which showed a lot of her, and Jack expected to be checking it out a lot this afternoon. “We might not be together if he hadn’t poked his nose in where it didn’t belong.”

“And I’m damn glad he did,” Vixen grinned. “Jack, I still can’t believe how much things have turned around for me in just a week. A week ago I’d never have thought I’d have a really neat boyfriend, and be heading out to a picnic in the woods with other good friends.” She let out a sigh. “All right,” she said, “we’ve got sandwiches, chips, paper plates, and forks. Let’s just get the baked beans and macaroni salad, then get over to Alan’s.”

“We ought to have enough,” Jack decided. “I agree, we need to get out of here. So, Stas, are you coming with us?”

The tail tapping from the old gray dog increased as he got to his feet, and slowly stretched from end to end in that special dog way. In a moment, he was waiting by the door, and Vixen let him out to lead the way to the camouflage-painted Jeep parked in the driveway; Jack was right behind her, carrying the cooler.

In the living room most of Howie’s attention was on the Nintendo, but he did notice Jack and Vixen leaving. Good, they’re gone, he thought. Maybe now Misty and I can get down to some serious necking . . .

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