Re: Ctrl+V
The grass is green. The bleachers are packed. Parents make up a significant chunk of the crowd, but there are dozens of unaffiliated people, too. Or that's not right: they are affiliated. This is their town. This is their school. This is their team.
This is high school football, and to some people it's the most important thing in the world.
One of those people is Thomas Clayton. At the moment he's a component in the huddle, and a component as well in most of the plays being called by Rory McLellan, center and team captain. Tom is vice-captain, but he's been off all night. This isn't a good showing for him. Not much sleep last night. Rory still appears to have faith.
They're twelve points down in the final quarter. With some fantastic play, they could still pull it off. The problem is, Tom's stomach has a lurch in it and he can't quite focus. Rory wants him to scramble for a touchdown after the snap. Rory is insane, he suddenly feels certain.
Four seats in the stands are occupied by an unlikely group of spectators. Alex, Rebecca, Lisa and Vinny sit side by side between people cheering, booing, gasping, hissing, almost all of whom are much older than them. To be fair, it's been a pretty exciting game. It's even kind of pleasant to lose oneself in the mania for a moment, forty feet up on snow-white steps above a particoloured field of play. But, like Tom, they all have other things eating at their minds.
Figuratively. Thankfully.