We got up at 5:45 the next morning and ran four miles before breakfast. We do that most mornings. Why? Wheat says that’s what wrestlers do. It does help us keep our weight down for one thing and it improves our endurance. It can interrupt some pretty good dreams, though.
A lot of the other guys on the team will run at lunchtime if they need to shed some pounds to get down to their weight requirement before a meet. I like to get it over with in the morning. And I don’t want to smell in English class right after lunch because I sit beside Laurie Middlebrook, our mayor’s daughter and one of the cutest girls in our sophomore class. Have I mentioned her before?
If Ric hasn’t worked his part-time security job the previous night, he usually will join us on my bicycle. He’s way too big for it but it’s too early in the morning to find any humor in how he looks. Even so, his knees sometimes hit the handlebars when he pedals. It sounds like it should hurt a lot but he never says anything, at least about that.
He does keep the conversation going. Wheat and I don’t say too much and we act like we aren’t interested in what he’s saying as we jog through the darkness. But Ric does know a lot of stuff. I guess that’s one good thing about being an adult.
I do hate it when he starts singing some of his Airborne Ranger songs, though. What a racket. Wheat yells at him but I save my breath. I do know that nobody is going to mess with us when Ric is around. He is 6-foot-3 and 225 pounds of muscle. And I think he usually carries his pistol in his fanny pack — or whatever macho guys call those things that wrap around your waist.
For breakfast — and most other meals — we put what we eat on a little scale that Mom got for us. We don’t count calories. We count ounces. Occasionally, I have to lose a pound or two before my junior varsity meets and Wheat wants to make sure she is staying a little under 112 pounds.
Coach Mathews wondered if I wanted to try to lose enough weight to wrestle varsity at 103 pounds — our lowest class. No, I didn’t, I told him. I’m usually pretty accommodating, but not for that. I already look skinny enough.
Billy Thurston is our only 103-pounder and I can tie him up like a pretzel. He and Tommy the Torso are made for each other as wrestling partners during practice. But if I weighed what Billy weighs, I don’t think I would be much better than he is. We usually call him Thirsty Thurston because he can drink more water than a camel after practice.
He weighs only 97 pounds so he doesn’t have to worry about losing weight. Sometimes, I think he drinks too much water, just because he wants to live up to his nickname. He always seems to have to run off to the bathroom halfway through practice. Coach Mathews just shakes his head and sometimes calls Thirsty “a No. 1 pain.” Get it.
Actually, there had been some talk before the season about Wheat wrestling at 103 pounds. Coach Mathews thought she would have a good shot at a state title. But Ric stepped in and said he didn’t want her doing that. He pointed out that Wheat had very little body fat as it was and he thought that kind of weight loss — even if was just for the days of the meets — would not be healthy.
Wheat’s 5-foot-4 frame is pretty much all muscle anyway. And as Ric once said, “There isn’t too much ‘sugar and spice and everything nice’ in that girl.” That’s from an old nursery rhyme, I think.
So both Wheat and I usually don’t have to cut a lot of weight like some of the guys. We have a meet tonight against Adams High School, a crosstown rival. Wheat may have a tough match. She beat her guy at the holiday tourney, just 4-2, and you could tell he didn’t like losing to her. He kicked over a few folding chairs on his way to the locker room after the match.
I should have an easier time with my opponent in the junior varsity. I pinned him in the second period at the county JV invitational. Like I said, I’m not terrible.
I was more nervous about a book report I have to give in my advanced English class. There are 19 girls and only four guys in that class and that sort of gives me the woolies. You would think that with me doing so much with Wheat that I would be OK with a bunch of girls. It obviously doesn’t work that way, though.
I usually get a frog in my throat — the only kind of frog I don’t like to collect — and it’s hard to clear it when I have to talk in English class. Besides, Laurie Middlebrook is in there and sits right beside me. Blonde, blue-eyed and I’m guessing in the 119-pound category if she were a wrestler.
“You’ll do fine,” Wheat said as we walked to the corner so Big Jim Guffie could pick us up. Big Jim is a senior and the heavyweight on the wrestling team. We both pay him a couple dollars a week to drive us to school. He also is an offensive lineman on the football team and weighs a lot more than Wheat and I put together.
He’s a good guy but he must have forgotten all he learned about personal hygiene somewhere down the line. Coach Mathews actually made him take his uniform home to wash a couple of weeks ago. That was kind of embarrassing. Maybe Wheat could introduce him to some Midnight Breeze — ha, ha.
Fortunately, we ride in the backseat because his sister Sally sits shotgun, usually with the window cracked. She’s a junior and thinks she’s hot stuff — which she pretty much is. She is a varsity cheerleader and usually ignores Wheat and me. But for some reason, she was in a talking mood. “One of my friends asked me if you’re the little girl who wrestles and who they call Wheat,” Sally said. “I knew you wrestled but I didn’t know they called you Wheat.”
“Some of my friends do,” Wheat answered.
“Boys, right?” Sally continued with a smile on her face. “With you wrestling, you probably don’t get a chance to do a lot of stuff with girls.”
“None like you,” Wheat answered and smiled back.
“I wouldn’t think so,” Sally said.
I was getting a little nervous. One thing that Wheat hates is somebody who thinks she’s better than others.
But before anything else was said, Big Jim leaned over and punched his sister in the shoulder. I guess he had to wait until he had turned the corner and got a hand free. She let out a yell. “I’m putting your toothbrush in the toilet for a few laps, if you even have one, you big jerk,” she squawked. “Then I’m telling dad.”
“Go ahead, Sis,” he said. “Just lay off Wheat. I might not be able to hold her back if she gets really mad at you. Maybe I wouldn’t even try that hard. And I bet more guys would rather take her to the prom than you.”
Those appeared to be fighting words to Sally. “Is that right, Mr. Prince of the Prom. I’ve already turned down a couple of guys. And I’ve heard that I have a couple others waiting to ask me. But I’m sure that little girl in the back seat could get somebody to take her. She’s pretty cute.”
“Not really into proms,” Wheat said while I watched her tighten her fists.
“How about we ask Little Mister Quiet back there,” Sally said while turning around and looking me over. “You got an opinion on all this?”
Well, of course, I did. I thought Sally was maybe the prettiest girl at school but meaner than a rattle snake. I figured that about an hour of her big brother sticking her head in his armpit would do her some good.
She’s about 5-foot-seven, has dark brown hair that twirls at the end and the neatest green eyes I’ve ever seen. Don’t most snakes have green eyes? I guess she would be a 134-pounder if she had a weight class and she is equipped with a lot more curves than straight lines. I would give her looks a very strong 9 on my 10-point scale but her personality would drop her to an overall rating of 4.
But I decided to be diplomatic. “I think you’re pretty enough to be the prom queen,” I said.
Big Jim started laughing. Wheat gave me a quick elbow in the gut. And Sally was speechless for a moment — but just a moment.
“Well, aren’t you the little charmer,” she said. “I might keep an eye on you in case you ever develop out of your Tiny Tim stage. So if you’re the magic mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”
“Laurie Middlebrook is Snow White as far as my brother is concerned,” Wheat answered before I could say anything. “You’re probably just one of the many also-rans on the runway in his dreams.”
“That’s not true,” I protested. “I don’t like girls. Any girls. Especially not this idiot sitting beside me.”
By that time, Big Jim had pulled into the school parking lot. I got out of the car fuming. But before I could slam the door, Sally grabbed me by my jacket collar and pulled me up against her. Then she planted a kiss right on my lips in front of the whole school — or at least 20 or so passers-by.
“You know, I could make you forget Laurie Middlebrook if I wanted to, little man,” she said before finally letting go of my jacket.
I felt like the frog in the fairytale and I guess I did change in looks — turning all red and sweaty. I figured if she gave me any more kisses like that, I might forget my own name. I wouldn’t care if one of her smackeroos turned me into Prince Charming — or a frog if she kept kissing me. But then she let out sort of a harpy laugh, waved at a couple of her friends and left me in her dust.
“Geez, Spank,” Big Jim said. “That’s what you get for saying something nice to my sister. She is terminally evil and a lot rougher than you might think. Back when we were kids, she could almost battle me to a draw with her dirty tactics. And now, she might have you in her sights. Good luck with that. She’s not normal.”
“I think I might be jogging to school from now on,” I said and then went running after a giggling Wheat.