I just got informed,” Joanna said, waggling her clipboard, “that the football team is short two players!”

Pete's Vagina
73. Decoy
by Erin Halfelven

We performed our final cheer skit right before the game. The bleachers filled up fast, and people were still finding seats when we started our show.

First came a lot of jumping, screaming, singing, and dancing, and the crowd loved us. If I didn’t have football, this might actually be what I would want to be doing. Then the skit…I found myself cringing a bit. Joanna was such a ham.

Mr. Sumner, one of the assistant coaches, came up to her in front of our cheer formation and showed her a clipboard. She peered at it like Moe Howard examining a pair of pliers, turning it this way and that as if she had trouble figuring out what it was for.

I rolled my eyes, but she couldn’t see me doing that behind her. I glanced sideways at Dave Garcia in his dime store cheer costume—he was grinning as wide as a kid on Christmas morning, every bit as hammy as our head cheerleader. Who knew he had such a bug for performing?

The coach handed Joanna a microphone. Everybody in the stands was immediately attentive, but I winced at the instant feedback until she found the right angle to hold it where she could speak into it. “Way to show Friendly Pride!” she said, and the crowd roared, “Go Lions!” So did the cheer squad, me included.

“We’re going to have a great game tonight…,” she began, but got drowned out by more noise from the stands. “A great game!” she repeated. “But in order to have a great game, I just got informed,” she said, waggling the clipboard, “that the football team is short two players!”

The crowd made their own hammy response by groaning. Most of them had seen this bit in our rehearsals earlier at noon and after class.

“So, as a matter of Friendly Pride and Lion Spirit, they’ve asked to borrow two of our cheerleaders to help them spank the Werewolves!”

Werewolves? I glanced toward the visitor bleachers, where a much smaller crowd had gathered. Were they hearing this? The Wolfpack cheerleaders were looking our direction, but I couldn’t see their expressions.

I looked back, spotting Lee on the sidelines with his movie camera filming things while tiny Gwen Butler, with three cameras of her own, snapped still photos for the school newspaper, The Roar.

“So who do you think it should be, Friendly students, family and friends?!” Joanna asked. “Which of our cheerleaders should be possibly sacrificed to the jaws of our ravening opponents tonight!?”

Somebody in the crowd started yelling, “Pete! Pete! Pete!” and others began taking it up. I was mortified when I spotted the instigators: Mom and my sisters, with my Dad sitting beside them, grinning.

“Pete?” Joanna screamed. “Our own dainty, delicate Gayle Petersen?” she asked the crowd.

Oh, God! I thought, she’s gone off script!

“Are you sure you want to send helpless little Pete into the maws of those monsters?!!”

“Pete! Pete! Pete!” the crowd enthused, some of them making the two-arm gesture we called The Lion’s Roar with dagger-like fingers for teeth. Little Molly made her fake lion-jaw close on Dad’s head.

I tried not to laugh. Joanna was going over the top with this.

“I’m a bigger person than Pete!” she pointed out, standing tall. “Megan Dushane is bigger!” Megan gave Joanna the voodoo side-eye. “How about if we send our biggest cheerleader along with poor little Gayle?”

It took the crowd a moment to get that, but Joanna spelled it out for them. “Gayle Petersen and Davella Garcia are going to play football for the Lions and bring us back some Werewolf-hide!”

The crowd made more noise than before, a lot of it laughter. Joanna turned and pointed at me, saying something I couldn’t hear. That was my cue; I took off running for the home locker room immediately, but not before seeing “Davella” pause to curtsy to Joanna and the crowd. He looked like a gorilla in a tutu, but he seemed to be having a blast.

Me, I couldn’t wait to get back into a football uniform! Dave would have to catch up, if he could.

*

I had the whole girls’ side of the gym to myself since all the other cheerleaders were still on the field. I changed quickly, not even really thinking about the girl’s athletic chest protector I had to wear. It made my booobs sweat, but what are you going to do?

Pulling on my football pants had increasingly become a struggle over the last few weeks, but a little scented talcum powder Mom had given me made it possible. I settled my various pads in place, checked the lacing on my cleats, grabbed my helmet and started for the door, for some reason, eager to face the crowd noise outside.

But I heard something else, too. Voices I recognized as Coach Debbie and Coach Wilson. Where were that I could hear them? But figuring that out lost my interest when I realized they were talking about me.

“If you get that girl hurt, Spike, I will have to hurt you!” said the cheerleading coach with a bit of heat.

“Ah, Debbie,” Coach Wilson seemed amused but placating. “Don’t underestimate Pete. Gayle is not only one of the quickest and smartest players I’ve ever coached, She’s mentally tough and determined....”

Debbie interrupted. “I’m not worried about her mental well-being, you ass. You’re right, she’s incredibly well-grounded in doing what she wants and being her own woman…”

I am? I wondered about that. My own woman? I almost pulled on my helmet right then to hide from some sorts of thoughts. Did I know what I wanted?

“I’m talking about her body….”

“She’s a big girl, strong and with more muscle than she looks like,“ put in Wilson.

“Have you seen the Wolves? Those guys are monsters. Some of them are probably 19 or 20, even.”

“Can’t be 20, state rules. And 19 only if they had a recent birthday since the start of the season.”

“Mphh!” said Debbie.

Wilson laughed. “You didn’t see her tear into her teammates when she thought they were trying to protect her. Do not coddle that girl, she would probably bite you.”

They both laughed and moved away from wherever it was that had allowed me to hear them. I cautiously pushed open the gym door just as the rest of the Lions poured out of the door to the boys’ side.

“C’mon, Pete,” Dave shouted, “Get your big round butt over here, we’re making our entrance, this time in the right clothes.”

Jake shoved Dave, “Don’t talk about her butt!”

I ignored that byplay, looking around for Debbie and Wilson, finally spotting them near where the cheerleading squad was holding up a ten-foot diameter hoop covered in paper.

Oh yeah. They did this almost every home game. Normally, Jake leaped through the paper barrier to lead the way, but this time, Jake and Dave made room for me. “Ladies first!” Dave called out.

The tissue paper circle was decorated with a cartoon of Snagglepuss, the school’s semi-official mascot. A strawberry pink mountain lion. Oh well.

With Jake on one side and Dave on the other, I had no choice. If I didn’t run through the barrier, I didn’t doubt they would pick me up and throw me through it.

I burst through, fists first, then spread my arms wide…and the crowd went wild, screaming, “Pete! Pete! Pete!” Was the whole town there?

Lee wasn’t the only one with a movie camera, and Gwen from the school paper was flanked by guys using big professional still cameras. I saw Mrs. Frick and Brigitte Montclair, the TV weather girl, bouncing up and down like the former cheerleaders they probably were, now helping lead the chant.

“Pete! Pete! Pete!” Joanna and the squad must have spent the last five minutes working the crowd into a frenzy!

I almost fainted from the excitement!