Brandy was sweating when she walked over to the gym door, and not just from the heat. There were a lot of messages for a lot of people in what she had said. Her speech was not off the cuff; she’d thought about it long and hard.

“Jeez-o-pete,” Anissa Hodges said as Brandy leaned up against the wall, sweat mixed with tears. “You really pulled out all the stops on that one, even invoking the Magnificent Seven.”

“Had to do it,” Brandy said, feeling some exhaustion. Anissa was another long-time friend – she and Brandy had been the school’s first two female twelve-letter athletes almost thirty years before. But she was also the long-time sports reporter for the Record-Herald, and was Brandy’s best hope at getting her message out beyond the parents and kids into the community. “They’re going to be facing a tough one, but they might be able to pull it off.”

“I’m really glad you said that about ‘restoring the honor,’” Anissa said. “The football teams the last few years haven’t had much of it.”

“Has to be,” Brandy puffed. “I really meant it. I wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble without it. The crap that has gone on the last few years is totally unjustifiable, so the only way it can be restored is to break the cycle. This is the best chance to do it, maybe the only chance.”

“Did you really have to boot all those kids off the team?” Anissa shook her head. “That’s going to raise a stink in this town.”

“Yeah, I pretty much did,” Brandy said. “Those kids Saturday night may not have realized it, but they were dishonoring the Marlin name and the Marlin tradition. I didn’t go beyond the rules, but it had to be demonstrated that the rules mean something, or else all the work gets wasted and nothing would change. It’s going to be tough on the kids left behind, but it really was needed.”

“I had no idea that was coming,” Anissa sighed. “That took a lot of people by surprise.”

“Until a few hours ago, only Phil knew,” Brandy said. “But when I heard about the stuff that went down Saturday night, I knew it had to happen, and I knew I couldn’t go halfway. It had to be a clean sweep, or else I would be playing favorites. God, I hated to have to do that, but it had to be done.”

“Rick Kulwicki as head coach,” Anissa smiled, changing the subject, but still obviously wearing her reporter hat. “That was something of a surprise.”

“Phil’s suggestion again,” Brandy shrugged. “Rick was the one who came up with Mitch. The two of them darn sure know how it’s supposed to be done, and I’m hoping they’ll be able to pass some of it on. I think they can; in fact, I’m betting they can. We may not get a lot of winning done this year, but we might be able to surprise some people and scare a few of them.”

“And there’s always the hope the Magnificent Seven miracle will rise again.” Anissa grinned.

“No promises, but stranger things have happened,” Brandy smiled. “It’s going to be up to the kids and the coaches.”

“Well, all right,” Anissa said, obviously closing her mental reporter’s notebook, “I better call Mike and tell him it’s going to be a while before he’s able to ship the paper. This is going to put a whole new spin on both the front page and the sports page.”

“Sorry I couldn’t give you a better heads-up,” Brandy sighed, “but I had to keep it pretty close to my chest or the rumor mill would have bent it all out of shape before it could happen.”

“That was probably a smart move,” Anissa smiled. “I’ll bet the school board meeting next Monday night is going to be a zoo. Since I’m on the board at least I won’t have to cover the damn thing. But look, beyond that, is there anything I can do to help? I probably know the JV kids – I mean the former JV kids – as well as anyone not on the team.”

“I’m sure Rick will be glad for all the information he can get,” Brandy told her friend. “Look, I know you’ve got a story to write, but I’m going to get together with the coaches after practice to help them sort things out, and I’m sure Rick will be happy to pick your brain.”

“Sure, I’ll be glad to help with that,” Anissa replied. “What time, and where?”

“Not sure yet, just not at my place,” Brandy said. “I don’t need to have the phone ringing or people pounding on the front door all the time we’re trying to do business. It’ll probably be around eight, maybe later depending on how practice goes.”

“I’ll have my story done by then, and I’ll probably stop back to see how practice is going.”

“Hard to say how that will go, Rick is probably going to have to start pretty much from scratch.”

“Well, I’ll see you later, then. I’ve got some writing to do.”

There were a number of people standing around who wanted to talk to Brandy, some congratulatory, others raising hell about Weilfahrt being canned or their kid being kicked off the team. Some of those conversations weren’t exactly friendly, although Brandy felt she had said about all she had to say in front of the kids. At least the people there had heard her speech to the kids, which limited the hassles at least a little bit.

Slowly she became aware of the fact that Darrell Stersec was standing by waiting to talk to her. “Darrell,” she said finally, “shouldn’t you be in the locker room?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Mrs. Wine, can I talk to you, like maybe alone?”

Seeing that something was bothering him, Brandy said a bit more loudly to those standing around, “Hey, I need to have a private word with Darrell. Can you give us some space?”

She led him away into a quiet corner of the gym and asked. “All right, Darrell, what is it?”

“Mrs. Wine, I have to be honest. I was at that party Saturday night. I just got lucky and didn’t get arrested. I hate to let people down, but if those other people got suspended, I should be, too.”

“Darrell, I knew you were there,” Brandy said, “just not officially, so I really couldn’t include you with the others. I really appreciate you being honest about it.”

“Yeah, well,” he said, “the fact remains that I was there, and I wouldn’t want to lie about it to stay on the team.”

“All right,” she sighed. “I’ll tell you what. Being honest about it deserves some reward. You can attend practices, but you have to sit out the first two games. Does that sound fair?”

“I guess,” he sighed. “Mrs. Wine, I hope this all works out and the team can go somewhere. I’d really like to be a part of it.”

“I hope you can be,” she told him. “Restoring the honor of Spearfish Lake Football deserves honesty, among other things. But take this as a warning, too: screw up again and you’re out on your ass.”

“I don’t plan on screwing up,” he said. “I knew damn well I shouldn’t be going to that party, but, well, the guys sort of expected me to.”

“Stuff like that happens when you run with the gang. I hope you’ve learned your lesson. Now, go get your gear.”

Mike McMahon was a long, tall drink of water who had been around the Record-Herald for decades, clear back into the seventies. Anissa had a lot of respect for him, and counted him as a friend and mentor, as well as being a boss. Years before, he’d noticed that she went to every Spearfish Lake Marlin game she could get to – and that meant every sport – usually dragging a small kid or two with her. Somehow he’d gotten the idea that since she was going to the games anyway, maybe she could write about them.

Anissa hadn’t been much of a writer back then, but under his patient guidance she’d become a better than average small-town sportswriter, one who knew the games intimately, along with the players and their parents. She really was a little partisan, always being a big Marlin fan, but on the Record-Herald that was just fine. Somehow, it had turned into a career, one that she had never expected but was happy with.

Though she could have probably written up the story of the opening of practice at home, with all the stuff that went along with it, she realized that since the paper was pretty well together she’d better plan on doing it at the office. As soon as she was out of the gym into the relatively cool air – still hotter than somewhat but a relief after the steam bath that place had been – she pulled out her cell phone and called Mike, who she knew was at home after a long day.

“So,” Mike asked as soon as he heard her voice, “did they come up with some coaches?”

“Oh, boy, did they come up with some coaches,” Anissa said, “starting with Rick Kulwicki as head coach, and going on from there.”

“Rick the Rock? Owns the Pike?”

“Yep,” Anissa grinned. “I don’t know what he’s going to be like as a coach, but there’s no doubt that he knows football – and on top of that Mitch Reardon, formerly of the Rams, as assistant.”

“As long as I’ve known Brandy, and I’ve known her since she was in grade school,” Mike said reflectively, “I’ve always been amazed at her ability to reach under the nearest rock and pull out the damnedest things.”

“I know what you mean, and I’ve seen her do it, too,” Anissa grinned. “But that’s not the big story. She canned most of the varsity.”

“She what?”

“She showed them the door and told them to use it.” She briefly summed up the details, and explained that the JVs had been raised to the varsity team en masse.

“Wow,” Mike whistled. “That’s going to set up an uproar. I’ll bet the answering machine down at the office is full already. This sounds like it’s going be the story of the year.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me any,” Anissa told him. “I’ve got a general idea of what I want to say from what came out of a mass meeting with the teams, plus some quotes from her, and a couple from Rick. We’re going to have to integrate it with everything else that has happened over the last few days.”

“That sort of puts Weilfahrt getting canned into the shade, but the story about him still has to be part of the whole. Do you need my help with anything?”

“Yeah. I know we’ve already got the Weilfahrt firing on the front, but this is going to eat up more space. We have to figure out what we want to rip up and what of the new story you want to include.”

“I’ll meet you down at the office in half an hour or so,” Mike said. “Write the story, and we’ll figure out what we’re going to do with it.”

About that time, Alan and Summer were in her car, heading toward Camden. What with one thing and another, it was the first chance they’d had to be alone together since Sunday, so there were things to talk about. They hadn’t heard the explosive news from the football team yet, not that either of them would have cared much.

Their conversation started out on the role playing game, of course. There had been some good observations out of the trial session the day before, but they hadn’t had much time to work on them, and wouldn’t do any more tonight – this was to be a date, a real dinner-and-a-movie date, something they hadn’t done before.

Eventually, about halfway to Camden, they mutually ran out of steam talking about the game, and their discussion turned to other things. “That was really fun to have Ashley and Lyle join the rest of us out at the pond yesterday,” Alan commented.

“Yeah, it was,” Summer agreed. “I really didn’t know either of them all that well before, but you know what? It looks like they’re going to become a couple.”

“Looked like it to me,” Alan laughed. “Especially considering all the lip locks we were seeing when they thought we weren’t watching.”

“They’re discovering it’s fun, just like we figured out,” she grinned. “But Alan, I’m afraid this is going to turn into a problem.”

“With Ashley and Lyle?”

“Well, yeah. Look, we’ve been talking about telling Jack and Vixen about us for days, but we never seem to come to a decision. I’m coming to the conclusion that I don’t mind if they know, and I think they’ll keep their cool and keep their mouths shut about it. But if we’re hanging around with Ashley and Lyle very much, then that’s going to change things.”

“I see what you mean,” Alan nodded thoughtfully. “Ashley is a gossip, always has been. If she finds out, it’ll be all over the school in the blink of an eye.”

“That’s just it,” Summer sighed. “I still think we need to tell Jack and Vixen before our plans to go to school together get very advanced, but if the four of us are hanging out with Ashley and Lyle, it’ll be hard to keep that a secret.”

“Yeah, that does put us in something of a bind. You’re more perceptive about this stuff than I am, Summer.”

“More paranoid, perhaps.” She let out a sigh and continued, “I mean that’s part of my family tradition so it goes with the territory. So what do we do?”

“I don’t know,” he shook his head. “About all I can say is to wait and see. This thing with us hanging out with Lyle and Ashley may not last, or we might only hang with them occasionally. We ought to have a better idea of how things are going to go in a few days. Then, sometime we’re just going to have to get together with Jack and Vixen, tell them, ask them to keep quiet about it, and live with what happens afterward.”

“As much as I hate to say it, you’re probably right. I wish we could hold it off, but it wouldn’t be fair to Jack and Vixen.”

“Tell you what. Let’s not worry about it tonight. Let’s just enjoy the movie and think about it. There’s no point in rushing.”

“Boy, what a sack of shit,” Eddie Awkerman said down at the Frostee Freeze, where several football players – well, former football players, most of them – had gathered. “OK, so they got some new coaches, and maybe pretty good ones, but how the hell do they expect to win any games with a bunch of JVs playing varsity?”

“Yeah, the whole damn thing is really gay,” Don Johansen added, using his favorite adjective. Somehow in the sober light of a few days later, his fist fight with Eddie had been forgotten about. “I mean, just so gay it’s pathetic.”

“I don’t know,” Lanny Mundhenk said. “Shit, throwing out the whole varsity is the last thing I expected her to do. I had hopes of having a pretty good year, but the last few days it’s all turned to shit. Now, I don’t plan on going to any of the games. I mean, why should I care?”

“Right,” Scotty Parsons agreed. “They don’t want anything to do with us, why should we have anything to do with them?”

“I’ll tell you what,” Lanny said. “Those kids are going to get their little asses pounded so bad it ain’t funny. I figure by about the second game someone’s going to come crying to us to help them out after all, and after this shit today I don’t think I’ll be interested in helping very much. I mean, fuck them. Fuck them all, and Wine most of all.”

“Got that right,” Eddie replied. “I mean, it’s not like we weren’t going to be hurting anyway. When we lost Frenchy, Matt, and Larry we lost a lot of the punch of the team, at least people that could throw a punch. What’s going to be left is going to be a sack of shit.”

“So what do we do now?” Scotty said. “Twiddle our thumbs and hang out? We’re going to look like shit around school; everybody’s going to be laughing at us. It sure as hell ain’t gonna be the fun it was last year.”

“If someone laughs too loud, we’ll just have to kick the shit out of their gay asses,” Don sneered. “There’s definitely going to be some that are going to need to be kicked, too.”

“I’m not too goddamn sure how bad I’d want to try that,” Eddie said. “I mean, fuck, I’m going to court after the way things got fucked up Saturday night, and if I’ve gotten involved in something like that it just increases the chances of me winding up with Frenchy for a cell mate. I’m not too sure I’d like that.”

“Boy, me either,” Scotty shook his head, “and there’s all too good a damn chance that I’m going to be right there with you. I don’t know where the fuck they’re getting off, fucking with the football team like that.”

“Well, they did,” Lanny said, “so I guess that means we all got fucked in the process. Shit, Eddie, I know you tried to do the right thing by having that party, but what the fuck I want to know is how the hell did the cops find out?”

“Fuck if I know,” Eddie shrugged. “All I can say is that we tried to spread the word to everyone, so someone must have run off at the mouth. If I had to guess, I’d guess that it was someone that wasn’t there, like Kovacs or Sarmeinto.”

“Wouldn’t put it past either one of them,” Don said. “Both of them are such gay suck-ups it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest.”

“The hell of it is,” Eddie said, “that it might not be them. It could have been one of the girls at the party, or even one of the girls that was pissed because they didn’t get invited or something. I just heard today that someone put the word on the party up on that goofy message board all the gossips seem to use. Again, no idea who it could be, but it wouldn’t have been any trick for the cops to pick up on it. Hell, even with jail hanging over me I’d kick someone’s ass if I knew whose ass to kick. But we might not ever find out.”

“What it comes down to,” Scotty said, “is that we’ve got to keep our heads down, get through this year, and get the fuck out of this town. Fuck football, anyway. We’re just going to have to find something else to do.”

“Jesus, I’d like to hit somebody’s gay ass over this,” Don said. “I don’t care who, but somebody’s. That was the good thing about football, you could hit someone and get away with it. I guess we don’t get to do that now, either.”

“Yeah, fuck,” Lanny agreed. “Shit, I’d say to go home and watch TV, except that if I did I’d still have people all over my ass. Maybe in a while people will forget about all this shit a little, and maybe if those little JVs get their asses pounded so bad that the people that pulled this shit will wind up paying for it. I mean, like Hekkinan and Wine and like that. But the hell of it is that even if it happened, it wouldn’t do us any damn good.”

The sun was getting low in the sky by the time Howie headed for home on his bike. He wasn’t riding very quickly, mostly because every bone in his body ached. He was in shape – well, better shape than most everyone else on the team – but they’d run his ass ragged and just about everyone else was even more beat to shit. Kids had been lying all over the field, exhausted and puking from the unexpected effort. Weber had never worked them anything like that hard last year, he thought.

And then, to top it off, since everyone seemed so out of shape, Coach Kulwicki announced that there would be more conditioning tomorrow morning – no drills, they weren’t allowed for two-a-days yet, but conditioning was allowed. That was less than twelve hours off and Howie wasn’t sure how he was going to be able to drag his ass out of bed for that.

There’d been more than once in the seemingly endless practice that Howie thought that maybe Jack had something with his bird watching. It didn’t involve laps or wind sprints, just sitting around quietly with his girlfriend at his side. Howie figured that Misty would be glad to have him around more if he did quit, but then, that would just give her more chances to tell him what to do.

Besides, if he stayed with it, it seemed like there would be a damn good chance he’d be the starting quarterback. In fact, as far as he could see it was just about dead certain. Really, the only other choice would be Kevin Shotwell, who had been the quarterback for the eighth grade team the year before and hadn’t had all that good a year. There were a couple of other guys who might get picked for the spot, but they didn’t even have what Howie knew was his relatively limited experience, and they would be more useful elsewhere. Being quarterback was a pretty big deal. Howie had been thinking that he might have a shot at the spot when he was a senior – but as a sophomore? Shit, who ever thought that would happen? If Misty didn’t like it, well, fuck her.

While the thought of quitting was warm in him, he knew he wouldn’t do it. If he did, he’d be letting down some friends, some people who were sticking it out, and leaving would make things that much worse for them. So, no, he couldn’t quit.

The last not-very-steep uphill to the house just about killed him. With what seemed like the last of his energy, he rode the bike up the hill, thinking about hopping off and walking it just to save a little energy, but he made it anyway. He rode up into the driveway, put the bike in the garage, then walked toward the back porch, noticing Jack and Vixen sitting there with cold drinks and popcorn, studying the bird feeders with binoculars. Just then, he looked at them with undisguised envy.

“So,” Jack said, watching him approach, “how was practice?”

“They just about killed me,” Howie reported. “Did you hear what happened?”

“I figured that with Weilfahrt gone they’d have you running lots of laps,” Jack said. “But we’ve been watching birds and we haven’t heard anything about practice.”

“Well, crap,” Howie said. “The whole world fell in on the old varsity. All but five kids got kicked off the team after that stuff Saturday night, so the JV team is now the varsity team.”

“They kicked out most of the team?” Vixen asked, unable to believe her ears.

“Yeah, all but three seniors and two juniors who didn’t go to the party,” Howie said. “I mean, it was ‘don’t let the door hit you in the ass.’ I never figured I’d see that happen.”

“Well, I guess that means you made it,” Jack teased. “Now that you’re on the Spearfish Lake varsity, I guess you can be dumb and arrogant and push people around. That seems to be what the varsity has done best the last few years.”

“Christ, I wouldn’t even think about it,” Howie said, collapsing onto a lounge chair. It felt good. He needed something to drink but didn’t have the energy to go and get it. “The new coach is Rick Kulwicki. He used to play for the Packers, and he’s as big as a house. I sure don’t want him pissed at me. What’s more I know for damn sure I don’t want Mrs. Wine pissed at me. Who would have thought that she’d have the stones to fire the whole damn varsity?”

“Boy, I’ll bet there are some pissed off football parents,” Vixen smiled.

“Bet on it,” Howie said. “I half expected to see a lynch mob come storming onto the field, but it didn’t happen. Now I’ve got practice again in what? Eleven hours. My God, I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to hack it. I’m just too beat to get up, and I can’t imagine how I’m going to feel in the morning. Jack or Vixen, could I ask you to get me something to drink? Tea, water, pop, anything but beer.”

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