“Yeah,” Brian said in a lower voice. “But I don’t know anything about wrestling…I’ll still try out, but I wish I was more prepared.”
Celia heard. “Don’t worry, Brian,” she said. “Seriously. George wouldn’t even let you come along if he didn’t think you could cut it. Right, George?”
“Right,” George said, glad Celia was there.
“You know,” Celia continued earnestly. “George was the best wrestler on St. Lucy’s last year, and he was just a freshman. I heard the coach talking to my dad about him. He said he was a natural, the best freshman he had ever coached.”
George rolled his eyes. “Don’t listen to her, Brian. She’s totally making it up.”
“I am not!” Celia said indignantly. “Anyway, if he says that you can wrestle, Brian, you can trust him. Honest.”
Brian didn’t say anything, but he looked a little less nervous. He just walked thoughtfully next to George, glancing up to him every now and then.
George had noticed the police cars in the school parking lot, and there was a policeman at the gym door who asked them their business and searched their bags before letting them inside.
“What’s going on?” Celia asked a tall, gray-haired state trooper with a bored look on his face.
“There was a gun scare here last week,” he said. “Everyone going into the building has to be searched.”
Allie Weaver’s nervous expression flitted through George’s mind again, and he wondered. But the next moment he smelled the smell of rubber mats and polyurethane—gym smells. Coming home—to a newer and bigger home—George stepped up his pace.
They found a seat on the massive bleachers around a truly magnificent wrestling gym. George took it all in—the spots for the competition-quality mats, the bleachers, the hue closet at one end to store equipment—and knew he had come to a school that was serious about its wrestling.
A whistle blew, and he quickly snapped back into focus. A tall, burly man in a black and red shirt was saying something. That must be Mr. Lamar, the coach. The boys grouped around him must be the current squad members. The boys were looking over the crowd of new kids with somewhat superior expressions. This is a tough bunch of guys, George thought. That was okay by him—the St. Lucy team hadn’t been a bunch of wimps either—but George wasn’t sure if these guys were the sort that Mrs. Burke would want her son hanging with.
The squad members all looked like they were in pretty good condition, and he recognized Tyler Getz, senior member and team captain. Last night, George had checked Tyler’s stats on the Sparrow Hills website. Getz had put in an excellent performance in last year’s state championships. And they’d be in the same weight class: 160 pounds.
After the coach was finished, George, Brian, and the rest of the new kids filed into the locker rooms. Tthe first thing that George noticed was how neat and brand-new everything looked. Fresh-painted red lockers, gleaming wooden benches, clean tile floors, and a scale whose chrome was so shiny that it made his eyes hurt to look at it. It was a public school, so of course they had lots of money. For a moment, he thought of the grubby little locker room at St. Lucy’s with a slight twinge of homesickness—but then he thought of how nice it would be to actually use this locker room, and he became more determined than ever to make the squad.
“Come on,” he said to Brian, and led him over to a corner of the room.
“Okay,” he said, pulling off his shirt. “Listen up. You have to get weighed to find out what class you’re in.”
“What?” Brian looked up with a panicked look, one foot still in his black school pants. “We have to take a class?”
“Not a class like in school,” George said impatiently. “A weight class. All wrestlers have to get weighed before they wrestle. You only wrestle someone in your own weight class. So it’s fair. You wouldn’t want to wrestle some 400-pound guy, would you?”
“Oh.” Looking somewhat relieved, Brian pulled on the pair of ratty old sweat shorts, and George groaned inwardly. No wonder he was so nervous.
“After you get weighed, wait until they call your name, and then you’ll wrestle,” he continued, pulling his St. Lucy’s singlet out of his gym bag. “Just do the best you can.”
“But what are the rules?” Brian pulled on a yellow t-shirt that had a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the front. George shuddered, thinking of the likely reaction of the Sparrow Hills wrestlers.
“Well,” he said, “you can win a match on points, or by pinning the other guy’s shoulders to the ground. You get points if you take down the other guy—if you knock him off his feet. There are a lot of other ways to get points, too—it gets kind of complicated.”
Brian was nodding firmly with a frown, clearly trying to remember it all. George looked at Brian, in his sweat shorts and yellow t-shirt, for a long moment. He was awfully thin and frail compared to all those gorillas on the team. He couldn’t be much more than a hundred pounds, though, and that was an advantage…
“You know what, Brian?” he finally said. “Don’t worry about all the details, not yet anyway. The most important thing is not to get pinned. Just fight as hard as you can to keep your shoulders off of the mat. That’s what he’s going to be trying to do to you. See if you can stay in the whole match.” He looked at Brian again. “How much do you weigh, anyway?”
Brian shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “102 pounds, I think.”
Well, at least he’ll get into a really small class, George thought.
Come on! Everyone will want to see you!” Nikki linked arms with Allie and they walked to the school entrance.
“Hi Ginger! Hi Madison!” Allie said, feeling a rush of homesickness as she saw her friends gathered on the concrete bench by the door that was ‘their’ hangout place after school.
“Hey Allie,” Ginger said, drawing in on her ultra-light menthol cigarette. “How’s it going? You haven’t been around.”
Allie was secretly relieved that Ginger was still talking to her like a friend. “What have I missed?”
For a few minutes they talked about the latest school news: Ginger had broken up with her summer boyfriend, Madison had gotten caught using her cell phone to cheat on a quiz… nothing much.
“Tyler said you go to school in the old grade school down the road,” Ginger said. “That place is a dump!”
“Yeah,” Madison said, taking another drag. Allie grimaced at Nikki, who giggled. Both of them hated the smell of cigarettes, but it was the price to pay for hanging out with Madison and Ginger, the two prettiest girls at Sparrow Hills, both upperclassmen and pretty high on the popularity scale. It was so nice to be with normal people who wore normal clothes and talked about normal things.
“My dad knows about that school,” Madison told Ginger. “He works at the town planning office. He said they leased the building to a bunch of crazy Catholics who were kicked out of St. Lucy’s Catholic school. A bunch of whack jobs, he said.”
Nikki gave Allie an anxious look. “Oh, come on,” she said, laughing. “Wack jobs? That’s a little harsh, Maddie.”
Ginger smirked. “I don’t think so. Why would anyone start a new religious school anyway? I mean, come on, didn’t they ever hear of evolution? Scientific progress? Women’s rights? Hello!”
“Hey, I’m Catholic,” Allie said before she could help herself.
Madison and Ginger looked at her, and she hesitated. “I mean,” she said quickly and lightly, “If I’m Catholic, it can’t be all that bad, right?”
“Really?” Ginger said with a cold smile. “Do you go to church?”
“Oh, no,” Allie said. “My mom stopped taking me after she got divorced.”
“So, what’s it like? Are they brainwashing you?” Madison said. “Teaching you to become nuns?”
“Yeah, right,” Allie laughed, and the others joined in. She felt a little guilty. Why? For a moment, she thought of the Truth following her around, trying to fit into her life. It wasn’t a nice feeling.
“Do
you know her?” Madison pointed behind Allie with one vermilion nail. Allie glanced back and saw Celia outside the gym doors, peering in their direction.
“Yeah, some guys from the school are trying out for the wrestling team and some of the girls came up,” Allie felt awkward ignoring Celia, who was obviously looking for her. “I promised Tyler I’d meet him there. Nikki, IM me tonight, okay?”
“Sure will,” Nikki said, grinning. “Good to see you Allie! Miss you!”
Irritated with Celia for showing up, Allie walked towards her. “Hey Celia,” she called. “Have they started the tryouts yet?”
“Yes,” Celia said. “I saved a seat for you in case you wanted to watch.”
“Thanks,” Allie said, watching the football players coming in from the field. I wish Tyler was a football player. The team jogged around them on their way into the school, all of them fresh from practice and sweaty in their grass-stained practice uniforms. The quarterback Brad, a major hottie, was with them, and to Allie’s pleasure, he smiled and waved at her.
“Hi!” Allie said gaily, and Brad did a double take, glancing over his shoulder as he passed. Allie grinned. Still got it. Man, I wish I were back here.
Celia had waved too. Allie was starting to catch on that Celia considered it her personal mission to be friendly to the entire universe. “Um, has George tried out yet?”
“I don’t know—boy, this place is huge!” Celia said, looking in awe at the granite-paved halls that were so big that freshmen regularly got lost in the corridors.
“Yeah, it’s definitely bigger than your school,” Allie said, half-smiling.
“Our school,” Celia corrected her, and Allie felt her insides sink.
“Yeah, our school,” she said, miffed.
Coach Lamar was sitting on a card table in front of the mats, checking off the names of would-be wrestlers. George and Brian got into the line of hopefuls, George in his St. Lucy’s wrestling uniform, and Brian in his T-shirt and shorts.
When George came to the head of the line, Coach Lamar roared “Hey!” with a startled look on his face. Then he broke into a broad grin. “You’re George Peterson! From St. Lucy’s!”
George reddened, but he couldn’t help grinning in return. “Yep, that’s me,” he said.
“What are you doing here?” Coach Lamar said. “No, wait. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. Well, I’m certainly glad to see you here. I watched some of your matches last year.” He chuckled. “Not bad, for a freshman. Not bad at all. What’s your weight this year, Peterson?”
“One-fifty-nine,” George said triumphantly. That had been a pleasant surprise when he had gotten weighed in a few minutes ago. He was light for the 160-class—a disadvantage—but thanks to some last minute dieting, he had managed to get bumped down to a lower class and wouldn’t have to face Tyler Getz in the tryouts.
Coach Lamar looked duly impressed. “Down to the 152, eh? Pretty good, Peterson. We’ll let you try out against Flynt. Go over to Mat 2.”
He looked over George’s shoulder, where Brian was standing, looking nervous and very out of place. “What’s your name, son?” Coach Lamar said kindly.
George said quickly. “This is Brian Burke, coach. I go to school with him. It’s his first time wrestling.”
“Really? Good for you, Burke. Very brave. What’s your weight?”
Brian looked at the floor. “101 pounds, sir,” he said in an embarrassed voice.
But Coach Lamar only nodded. “That’s a good weight, Burke. A very good weight. Go on ahead to Mat 2 with George here, and we’ll find someone to match you up against.”
The two of them walked off to Mat 2, where a fierce match between two 189-pound kids was just winding down. George sat, and Brian slumped down next to him, a troubled expression on his face.
“Brian, don’t look so depressed,” George said in a low voice. “You’re going to be fine, seriously.”
“I only weigh 101 pounds,” Brian muttered. “I thought I would weigh more, but…”
“For the last time,” George said with good-natured exasperation. “It’s good not to weigh a lot when you’re wrestling.”
Brian looked down at his sneakers and said nothing.
George sighed and then got up as the match on Mat 2 came to an end. On the other side of the mat, there was a big, mean-looking kid with spiky short black hair in a Sparrow Hills uniform. He glared at George as Mat Two was cleared for action.
That must be Flynt, George thought, and smiled grimly. Good. I don’t like him already.
Allie sat down heavily in her place in the bleachers next to Celia, in a thoroughly bad mood. She had decided that after the tryouts, she was going to get Tyler to drive her to the mall.
“Hey, George is up!” Celia said. “He’s really good at this, you know.” George, in his blue-and-black singlet, was shaking hands with Neil Flynt, one of Tyler’s bigger, dumber friends. They positioned themselves in a circle on one of the mats. Suddenly George happened to look up, and saw her looking at him. He grinned back.
Allie felt her heart skip a beat. She had to admit George was cute.
Then the referee’s whistle blew, and the two wrestlers went at it. Flynt dove forward, trying to trip George up; but George was too quick for him. He grasped Flynt by both forearms. There was a flurry of movement, almost two quick for Allie to see, and suddenly Flynt was sprawled on the mat, and George was on top of him. Just as quickly, the referee was lying down, trying to see if George had forced Flynt’s shoulders to the mat. For a moment there was no sound but the grunts of the two wrestlers. Then the ref smacked the mat with an open palm, and blew the whistle. Pin!
Allie was impressed, despite herself. She didn’t know a lot about wrestling, but even she knew that it was unusual to get a pin so quickly. He is good, she thought. I wonder if Tyler saw that? She glanced around, and saw that Tyler had indeed been watching from the sideline. He had a frown on his face, and Allie saw that he was impressed, too.
George got up, chest heaving, and offered his hand to Flynt—but the other wrestler got up with a scowl, ignoring him, and stalked away. Allie felt a flush of annoyance. That is so typical, she thought.
Brian was up next. He was standing in the center of the mat with a totally clueless look on his face. The coach, meanwhile, was looking around; apparently there was no one light enough to wrestle him.
Finally, one of the smaller Sparrow Hills wrestlers came forward; but he didn’t look as small as Brian. Allie watched as they shook hands. Then the whistle blew… and the match was over about three seconds later. Allie winced as the larger, more experienced wrestler unbalanced Brian, threw him on the mat, and pinned him. It was over even quicker than George’s match.
For the next ten minutes, Allie watched as Brian got beaten again…and again, and again. Every wrestler that he faced was bigger than him, and he never had a chance in any of the matches. Even though she hadn’t really noticed Brian until this afternoon, Allie was starting to feel sorry for him.
The matches went on for a half an hour. George wrestled two more times, and won each match. Brian was finally given a break after getting clobbered five times when Coach Lamar announced that the tryouts were over.
The last few matches broke up, and the crowd of kids milled around, waiting for the results to come in. The coach and the wrestlers had already gone into the locker rooms. Allie sighed; looked at her watch, and wondered how much longer the mall would be open.
“Hey George! Hey Brian!” Celia said as the two boys sat down on the bleachers. “Good job!”
“What do you think? You think you made the squad?” George asked Brian.
Brian looked as though he thought George was making fun of him. “Did I make the squad?” he said in a bitter voice. “Are you kidding? Did you see how I did?”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. Everyone gets creamed their first time out. The important thing is that you…that you show some potential.”
“I don’t think I showed anybody any
thing,” Brian muttered. “Unless it was how to get your butt kicked.”
“Everyone gets their butt kicked sometimes, Brian.”
“Well, all I can say is that if I get in, everybody’s going to get in,” Brian said despondently. “I mean, I lost every single time.”
“Yeah, but don’t forget, everyone was heavier than you,” George replied.
“I think you did fine,” Celia said. “We could tell you were really trying hard. That’s got to count for something.”
As Celia encouraged Brian, George looked over at Allie. “How are you doing?”
He looked very happy. “Okay,” she said hesitantly. “How ‘bout you?”
“Good,” he said with a grin. “I feel…normal. It’s really cool.”
Suddenly, Allie realized that she knew exactly what he meant. This was where he belonged—here, in the public school. Neither of us really fits in at John Paul 2.
“Yeah,” she said. “It is really cool.”
George hadn't felt so good since—well, since the last time he had wrestled. He hadn’t expected Brian to do as well, although now he wished he had thought to teach him a couple moves beforehand. He knew he’d done well himself, but maybe the team had too many wrestlers in his weight class. Still, it had been great to be in the zone again. He just loved being out there on the mat.
Coach Lamar blew his whistle. He had come out of the locker room, followed by the members of the wrestling team, now back in their street clothes.
“I’d like to thank everyone for coming out today,” Mr. Lamar said. “As you know, we have a limited number of spaces on the squad…but I do have some names here to read.” He looked down at his clipboard and cleared his throat.
“Burke, Brian…”
Brian looked absolutely stunned. George clapped him on the back, hard. “All right!”
“Geraghty, Jim… Hanus, Patrick… Mahony, Frank… Olmstead, Dennis… Peterson, George…”
Catholic, Reluctantly (The John Paul 2 High Series) Page 5
