It’s not that I’m jealous of Crash. I just can’t figure out girls and am sure I’m not alone in that confusion. It’s just that Tena doesn’t give me a second look. Sure, I’m no Brad Pitt, but I’m not a chunk of hamburger either. I’m 6-5, 240, with long sandy brown Kid Rock hair. Not fat, pretty muscular in fact. I’ve won the battle against acne, a two-year war with Clearasil and Proactive as my only allies. Still, nada attention from her. Only thing I can figure is that it’s my right index finger, or more precisely, the lack of one. I lost that in a hair-trigger raccoon trap. I subsequently lost my job as center on the football team, as it’s pretty much impossible to hike the ball accurately without one and was moved to tackle. I’m hoping to catch me one of those handicap parking stickers someday, since I didn’t catch the coon.
So since I know I don’t have a chance with Tena, given her apparent disdain for the disabled, I’ve given up trying to impress her, which makes a relationship with a high school girl a lot easier. That being said, I asked Crash: “Wanna see my catch from the morning?”
Before he could answer, because he probably would have answered “no,” I flipped back the tarp covering the corpses. The muskrats and mink stared at us wide eyed. Tena returned the favor and covered her mouth.
“Ewwww!” she screamed.
“Cool,” Crash said. “Thirty bucks worth?”
“About that.”
“Cool,” he reiterated and began walking to our first-period class - psychology. While I prefer easing into my school day with a slack class, Miss Hewitt makes it interesting. This week we’re studying death and dying issues. I hope it’s not an omen.
The class is all juniors and seniors, 14 of us. Crash gave a peace sign salute to all as we walked in. I did the same, but not as effectively given the missing finger. Tena sat in the front row. Crash and I sat in the back between the twins – Vernon and Virgil VandeVanVanderVeldeHuesenkamp. They’re seniors, but nice to at least two underclassmen, Crash and me, because they are wide receivers on the team and like to stay in good graces with Crash so he will keep chucking them the rock.
To make matters easier with the identical twins, we call them Dutch and Old Dutch. Virgil is Old Dutch because he was born two minutes before Vernon. I can’t tell them apart so I just call them “dude” every time I see them. They are built like scare crows, about 5-10, 145 pounds, but tougher than nails – easily the roughest, meanest, soul-less guys in school and even more so on the football field.
I pretty much steer clear of them. Not because I’m afraid of them. I’m pretty sure I could take them one on one, but they don’t work like that. They come at you in pairs, like coyotes. I’ve seen them in action and it’s freaky scary. Okay, so I’m a little afraid of them.
My dad hired them once to help us shell corn. We had a crib full of ear corn and we had the job of shoveling the corn into the auger that goes into the sheller that spits out the cobs on one side and the kernels of corn into the wagon. If you’ve ever shelled corn (and who hasn’t?), then you know that when you get to the bottom of the crib, there are usually a couple rats that scamper off. Since we have the laziest cats in Lincoln County, we tend to have more rats than usual. I usually try and club them with my shovel and usually miss because they are fast and I am slow, but Dutch and Old Dutch had a different method and it caught me off guard. It was quite awe-inspiring actually.
They would see a rat, drop their shovel and lightning fast grab the rat with their gloved hands, just quick as a whip, and then they would ring their neck and toss them to the cats sitting outside the crib. I’ve never seen anything like it, not before and not since. They must’ve offed a half dozen of them. I think it even concerned my dad because he never hired them back even though they were the hardest working kids we’ve ever had on the farm. My dad keeps reminding me of that fact.
**
The game day dragged on incredibly slowly, as most Friday’s do, and finally seventh period came, where instead of world history we had a pep rally. We held it outdoors at the football field. The football team sat on folding chairs facing the aluminum bleachers.
It was kind of an odd spectacle as you might expect, since all 17 boys in school are on the team. That left only 17 others to take part in the pep rally, and of those, nine of them were cheerleaders, who, as the name suggests, led the other eight in cheers. So eight girls sat in the bleachers. One of them was Tena, who although she is the prettiest girl in school, is not a cheerleader.
It’s not that she didn’t want to be a cheerleader, and it’s not that it takes much to be a Snapping Turtles cheerleader. Anybody who tries out makes the squad. It’s the school rule.
Seems she showed up to try out, but that’s where it got a little sensitive. Apparently many European girls don’t shave their armpits. That’s what the Internet says anyway. And it seems Tena was living proof that everything you read on the Internet is true. She showed up at tryouts in shorts and a tank top, and Miss Mortimer, the cheerleading advisor, had a bit of a conniption fit because it looked like Tena had a squirrel under each arm. Miss Mortimer didn’t think it seemed appropriate and kindly convinced Tena that she could be better utilized cheering with the other seven girls from the bleachers – in a sweatshirt.
The pep rally took the place of the evening bon fire, which was cancelled after last year’s incident that sparked a wild fire and burned about 20 acres of Gerald Swenson’s corn field. He was a good sport and didn’t sue the school, but did issue a stern warning to the administration that they probably wouldn’t want to do that again. And they didn’t.
Coach Fitzpatrick introduced all the cheerleaders and the players, as if everybody didn’t already know everybody else. Then he asked Crash to say a few words to fire up the crowd. This was unexpected, as usually a senior does the honors, but the Dutch boys couldn’t speak four words without three of them being swear words, so he turned to Crash.
Crash seldom swears, but he also doesn’t say much, so I didn’t know what to expect. But I didn’t expect him to take the microphone and say this:
“Snapping Turtle fans of the world unite! (Fist pump)
“It is time to repel the rabid horde of Rowena Rabbits from their attempted invasion on the Dome. (Fist pump)
“We all know the story of the turtle and the hare. If you don’t, allow me to ruin the ending for you. The turtle wins! (Fist pump)
“And that’s just a regular ol’ turtle. What they don’t tell you is that the snapping turtle doesn’t just defeat the hare. He kills it. He runs over it, squishes it, flattens it like rabbit road kill, guts and brains oozing on the pavement.
“We are Snapping Turtles. We are Killer Snapping Turtles. Let’s go kill some rabbits!” (Double fist pump)
The players rushed around Crash cheering. The cheerleaders shook their pom-poms. The crowd wandered off to find their rides to the game.
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