During the meal, Mom gave Bob the news, who, very excited, congratulated me, "It's in the blood, Duncan, being athletes. Your dad was a great basketball player, and now you, the quarterback. I'm so proud," Bob said, putting his hand on my shoulder. "Well, actually, there were very few of us at the tryout, so Mr. Cooper immediately assigned each of us a position on the team," I clarified.
"So, they had no choice but to put you on the team," Gabe said mockingly, receiving a reprimand from Mom in the form of a tap on the back of his head. "It doesn't matter how you got on the team; the important thing is that you're in it," Mom said, scolding Gabe.
"Anyway, it's a great opportunity for you, PJ. If you manage to stand out, maybe you'll get a sports scholarship for college. You have to put a lot of effort into it, and then you'll have a chance to go to university," Bob said, now a bit less enthusiastic.
"Well, changing the subject, Teddy, how's the new school?" Mom asked trying to change the mood.
Teddy, who hadn't spoken during the ride home, lifted her face from the plate of food and said, "Fine," before continuing to eat.
"Well... How about you, Gabe?" Mom asked, puzzled by Teddy's behavior.
"It was the same as Colorado. I'm in the same class as Missy, but she hangs out with other girls, so I hung out with Lucas," Gabe commented casually, then he seemed to remember something and raised his head, saying, "Oh, PJ, remember the chubby kid from the other day? Matilda Sparks," he laughed at a joke only he and I understood.
"Yes, didn't he bother you?" I asked.
"No, in fact, he was afraid of me, so Lucas and I had fun chasing him in the schoolyard," Gabe said proudly.
"Who's Matilda Sparks?" Mom asked, confused. "He's just a kid who used to bother Sheldon, the smallest Cooper kid," I responded to Mom. "Oh, I see. Gabe, don't bother him from now on," she scolded the boy.
"Well, my day was quite productive. I took care of a bug infestation in the kitchen of a hotel a few kilometers away. It was as easy as putting poison in the most infested areas and waiting for the job to be done on its own. They offered to take me out to eat as a reward, so I was thinking we could go next weekend. I saw they had..." Bob began before being interrupted by Mom rushing to the bathroom.
"Wow, is it that disgusting to imagine?" he asked, surprised by Mom's sudden departure.
"Well, it's a bit gross, Dad, and I don't think she'd want to eat there," I replied, trying to cover up the reason for Mom's sudden nausea.
Mom returned a few minutes later, and the meal continued without any special incidents. When I finished, I thanked for the meal and left my utensils in the dishwasher.
On my way to my room, I noticed Teddy had her door open. She had eaten very little, excusing herself long before anyone else. She seemed to be doing homework.
Touching the door frame to get her attention, I asked for permission to enter.
"What are you doing, Teddy?" I asked, approaching her desk.
"Math," she responded without enthusiasm, returning to her task.
"Do you need help?" As I asked, Teddy snorted mockingly, but upon realizing I was serious from my silence, she turned with intrigue and said, "You're serious about helping me? You?"
"Yes, why not?" I replied.
"Well, basically, you're PJ. You're not the... brightest, in the family. Do you even think you can understand it?" she said, arranging her notebook and pencil aside for me to see.
I wasn't surprised that Teddy thought PJ was dumb. His past grades and his way of being, from what Mom told me, only showed someone not very smart. Maybe this approach isn't well planned.
"Well, I forgot a lot, but suddenly, school stuff seemed very easy to me. You can ask Georgie or Sheldon. They can tell you that I answered many questions correctly in class. Let me see," I lied as I crouched down next to her to look at her notes.
They were simple first-grade equations.
"Well, Teddy, to solve these types of equations, you need to find the value of the unknown represented by the letter 'x.' By using the equal sign, you can rearrange the equation by moving terms to the other side. Do you know how to move terms to the other side of the equation?" I said.
Without receiving a response, I turned to see Teddy looking at me with an expression of disbelief on her face.
"What the heck? It's true, now you're much smarter," she said surprised. "Yes, I know how to move terms to the other side. You use the inverse operation, right?" she continued, taking the pencil and starting with the first equation.
"Well, thank you for noticing my intelligence, and yes, you use the inverse operation. Although what you're really doing is adding, subtracting, dividing, or multiplying the entire equation so that the result remains unchanged. If you subtract on one side of the equation, you subtract on the other side too, that's why it appears as the opposite operation on the other side," I explained as I watched her work on her assignment.
"Ah, now I understand. So, if I need to remove a number that's multiplying 'x' on the left side of the equation, I divide it by itself on both sides. Since it's divided by itself on the left, it becomes 1, and on the right, it appears as a division," she said happily as she picked up the pace.
"Correct" I said happy for her, but remembering her behavior i said "You know, you can talk to me if something bothers you,", noticing her happy expression fading.
"Why do you say that?" she asked, furrowing her brow.
"Well, I noticed you didn't talk much during the ride home and didn't say anything about your new school when Mom asked. Did something happen, Teddy?" I inquired.
"No, nothing happened. Literally" said suddenly exploding "I don't know anyone there, and everyone already knew each other from before, so no one talked to me. What if no one ever talks to me again? In Colorado, Ivy was all I needed—my best friend. Here, I don't have a single normal friend," Teddy said, with tears welling up.
Not quite sure what to say, I gave her a half-hug so she could cry on my shoulder. "Teddy, it might seem like you won't have friends here, but give them time. They're silly; they don't know what they're missing by not wanting to be your friend," I said. "And besides, if you don't make friends, just wait one more year, and you'll be in a school where your brother is the quarterback, and everyone will want to be your friend," I continued, making Teddy laugh a little.
"Yeah, a quarterback who got selected because there was no one else," she said playfully.
"Give me some time, and I'll be the best quarterback this town has ever seen," I said as I let go of her and stood up. "Now, finish your homework, and I'll go do mine," I continued, making way to leave her room.
"PJ," she said suddenly, making me stop and turn around. "Thanks. I like the new you better. Maybe we should throw Gabe down the stairs," touched by what she said, I replied, "You're welcome, Teddy."
Outside her room, I heard footsteps running, and at the end of the hallway, I saw strands of blond hair, clearly Mom's, disappearing around the corner.
With a little laugh, I headed to my room, where I could hear the notes of a guitar.
Gabe was playing one of his guitars again, going through them one by one in a circle. This time, when he saw me, he didn't get embarrassed and continued playing as I prepared to do my homework.
"You doing homework? After the first day of school?" Gabe said, surprised. "Who would've thought, losing your memory can change people," he added with a teasing snort.
I ignored his joke and continued doing my homework. As I worked on the problems, my memory was becoming clearer, and they became easier to solve as I progressed.
When I finished my homework, not even 30 minutes had passed since I started. Since I was done early, I figured I could practice a little.
I went to the guest bathroom, where I knew Mom kept a first-aid kit, and took the tweezers and suturing thread. From the kitchen, I grabbed an orange and a knife and returned to my room.
At my desk, with the desk lamp pointing at my hands, I let my muscle memory do its work. Continuous sutures*, interrupted sutures*, buried sutures*—I performed one after another in a trance. This brought memories of my countless hours of practice in the university dormitories, working until late at night, reading books, and practicing with whatever I could find while my roommate watched different sports on his small TV, occasionally shouting over losing some kind of bet.
Suddenly, snapping me out of my memories and making me realize there wasn't much space left on the orange for cuts, a voice said, "What the heck are you doing with that orange? It looks like Frankenstein with so many cuts. Are you cooking it?" Gabe said, leaning over my shoulder. "It's called suturing, dummy. Doctors do it to close the ends of a wound," I replied as I put the orange and the remaining tools in the top drawer of my desk.
Seeing the intrigue on his face, I sighed and said, "Forget about that. Are you done practicing?" I quickly asked, changing the subject.
"Yeah, I'm starting to get a blister on my thumb," he said, proudly showing me his thumb.
"I see, that means you're putting in effort, although I don't want you to overexert yourself, little buddy. Mom would blame me," I said, standing up and tousling his hair. "Take the playbook and follow me. Let's practice," I told him as I picked up the football from my desk.
Outside, it was a beautiful day, and although it wasn't very late, most people were inside their houses. Some were walking their dogs, and there were a few children riding their bikes.
As I heard the door from the Cooper's house, I turned to find Gabe with Bob. "Let's practice those plays," Bob said, clapping his hands with the playbook in them.
With the plays explained in the book, it was my job to be the quarterback, while Gabe played as the receiver, and Bob pretended to rush me, so I had to dodge him to throw the ball to Gabe. Overall, it was a lot of fun, although many of the passes didn't connect because Gabe couldn't turn in time or the ball slipped from his hands. Bob was quite slow, so it didn't take much effort to evade his "quick" approaches.
At some point during our "practice," a voice from the Cooper's house said, "So, you finally decided on the best sport, huh, Bob?" Mr. Cooper, holding a beer in his hand, shouted from his backyard, greeting Bob.
"No, George, I'm just helping my son practice, the quarterback," Bob boasted, waving back at Mr. Cooper.
"You don't have to show off to me; I'm the one who put him there, remember? He's got good aim. Keep it up, PJ, don't hurt yourself," Mr. Cooper replied with a smile on his face.
"Why don't you bring your kids over so we can all practice together?" Bob said to Mr. Cooper.
With a nod, Mr. Cooper went back into his house and returned a moment later with Georgie and a somewhat annoyed Sheldon. "But Professor Proton is explaining how the potato generates electricity inside due to the acidity caused by *ascorbic acid," Sheldon said.
"I told you it's not possible. A potato is a vegetable and doesn't generate electricity," Mr. Cooper responded, smiling and not looking at his son.
"Tuber," Sheldon said. "What?" his father replied. "Potatoes are tubers, not vegetables," Sheldon replied, exasperated. "Whatever, the Duncans invited us to play, so that's what we'll do," Mr. Cooper said as he joined us.
"So, you're not satisfied with practicing at school, you also do it at home," Georgie said with mock annoyance as we high-fived. "Well, the championship won't win itself," I replied with a smile that he mirrored.
Mr. Cooper, without needing to look at the playbook, positioned us in convenient spots, with Georgie and me in our respective positions on the team. "I'm not going to touch the ball, and I don't want to get hurt," Sheldon said, not moving from his spot. With a sigh of defeat, Mr. Cooper didn't say anything and clapped, starting the game.
We continued running plays from the playbook, switching positions on some and doing random things on others. Overall, it was a lot of fun.
Once again, dodging Mr. Cooper, as Bob was "detained" by Georgie, I threw the ball to Gabe, who this time managed to catch it, thanks to Mr. Cooper's advice. "And he scores!" Mr. Cooper celebrated with his arms raised, joined by Bob and Gabe. "Good throw, PJ. It still lacks power, but with that accuracy, we could make it to the state championships," Mr. Cooper said, giving my shoulder a shake.
"The launch angle is incorrect; you lose power by releasing it at the midpoint of the total extension of your arm," Sheldon said suddenly.
"Sheldon, I've been teaching football my whole life. The throw is good; it just needs a little more muscle in those bones, and it'll be perfect," Mr. Cooper responded condescendingly to his son.
"See, dork, the throw is good. You don't know anything about football," Georgie said, annoyed.
"It's not football; it's physics," Sheldon retorted, being petulant again.
Deciding to ignore his son, Mr. Cooper repositioned us, this time swapping Gabe. "If Gabe touches you, it's the same as getting tackled, PJ, so throw before he reaches you. This time, I'll wait there, but let's pretend I ran to that spot," Mr. Cooper said as he adjusted his position. Bob teased him, saying, "What's the matter, George? Can't run a few steps?" With a fake laugh, Mr. Cooper settled into place and clapped again.
Dodging Gabe, I decided to follow Sheldon's advice and waited for my arm to fully extend before throwing the ball. The football quickly flew into Mr. Cooper's hands, and upon catching it, he let out a groan. "Phew, good arm. What was that? Were you hiding your strength, PJ?" he said, shaking his hands in pain.
Looking at Sheldon with a smile, I said, "No, I just waited for my arm to fully extend before throwing."
"As I said," Sheldon said with pride in his voice, "physics."
Before anyone else could say anything, Mrs. Cooper yelled from the window of their house, "Kids, it's dinner time!" and returned inside after giving us notice.
With handshakes, Mr. Cooper and Bob said their goodbyes, and Georgie gave a high-five to both Gabe and me, saying, "See you tomorrow at school," before heading back to their house.
Sheldon waved from afar to everyone and walked back to his house.
"Well, kids, we need to go inside too. I have to make dinner before your mom thinks about it," Bob said as he headed back to the house.
After quickly showering to wash off the dirt and sweat, I joined my family for dinner.
The next day, after returning from my daily run and taking a shower, Bob dropped me off at school since he didn't have any client meetings this time, giving Mom enough time to take Gabe and Teddy and avoiding me having to go with Georgie and Mr. Cooper.
Arriving at school, I met up with my friends in the hallway, taking things from their lockers, conveniently located next to each other. Approaching mine, the last of the five neighboring lockers, I greeted everyone.
"How's our quarterback today?" Alan said with mock reverence. "Georgie was telling us you can't go long without training, huh, superstar?" Broke chimed in teasingly while giving me some friendly pats on the back.
"Well, I have to train to be able to carry all the weight of this team", I said, pointing at his belly, which made my other friends laugh at the joke.
"Whatever," Broke replied, pretending to be annoyed.
"Hey Georgie, isn't that your brother?" David said, pointing towards the hallway.
Dodging taller students, Sheldon hurried through the school hallway with a few books in one hand and his portfolio in the other.
Georgie looked irritated and continued organizing his locker, ignoring his brother.
Feeling sorry for the boy, I shouted, "Sheldon!" making him turn his head towards me. With a hand gesture, I motioned for him to come over, and he walked towards us. "Good morning, PJ," he greeted me. "Why aren't you on your way to class? Mrs. MacElroy could be there already," he said urgently. Checking my watch, I realized there were still a few minutes left before the first period bell, so I chuckled and replied, "We were on our way when I saw you. Join us." I guided him by the shoulders to stand in front of me.
Georgie whispered with annoyance in his voice, "What are you doing?"
"I'm just guiding him to his first class. Look, people might step on him if he's not careful," I whispered back, pointing at his brother. Probably feeling guilty for my remark, Georgie nodded, and we all headed towards the first-period class.
Once we reached the classroom, Sheldon immediately let go of my grip and sat in his seat. When the bell rang, he let out a sigh of relief and smiled gratefully, giving me a thumbs-up.
Mrs. MacElroy entered with her head held high and a wide smile on her face, showing her evident lack of mustache. Her attention focused on Sheldon, who didn't say anything about her appearance.
The class continued as usual after that, but for some reason, many of the teacher's questions were directed at me specifically. "Duncan, can you conjugate this verb for me, please?" or "Duncan, is this spelling correction correct?" The more questions she asked me, the more Sheldon frowned and turned his body towards me.
At the end of the class, Mrs. MacElroy asked me to stay behind. "Evelyn told me to ask you to avoid Sheldon correcting me," she said. "Evelyn?" I asked. "Yes, Mrs. Ingram," she replied. "I see she was right. Duncan, keep answering the questions correctly, and I'll give you some extra points at the end of the term, if you need them. Now, you may leave." She began to review some papers on her desk.
I hope this doesn't continue, or Sheldon will hate me.
Unfortunately, during the second-period science class, Mr. Givens, who smelled strongly of aftershave lotion, directed many questions at me, ignoring Sheldon's raised hand as much as he could.
At the end of the class, the same process repeated. Mr. Givens asked me to stay behind, and he promised me extra points at the end of the term and allowed me to leave.
In the cafeteria, at the table with my friends and teammates, I was eating my lunch peacefully until Broke, sitting next to me, tapped my shoulder and pointed beside me.
Sheldon, standing tall as he could, had an expression of arrogance as he handed me a piece of paper. "What is this, Sheldon?" I asked. "It's a declaration of duel. From now on, I'll answer more questions than you and get the best grades. Just wait and see, PJ Duncan. I will defeat you!" he exclaimed, turning around to leave when he finished.
With my friends laughing and teasing me about what happened, I continued eating my lunch, ignoring the ongoing taunts, until I was tapped on the shoulder again.
"Sheldon, I understand what a declaration of duel is. You don't have to..." I started saying until I turned completely and saw a very cheerful blonde girl next to another two girls behind her.
"You're PJ Duncan, right? Nice to meet you. I'm Regina, and these are Gretchen and Karen," she said, greeting the other two girls with a nod. "We had Mrs. Ingram's class during the second period, and she told us you could give us tutoring on the topics we didn't understand, if you have time," she said, shaking my hand with a flirtatious tone and playing with her hair in her other hand.
"Sure, I can help you with whatever you need. But rigth now I can't do it, how about next week? We're pretty busy with training this week," I replied kindly to the girl, pointing at my teammates. "Next week sounds amazing," Regina responded with a wide smile. "Nice to meet you, PJ," she said, still playing with her hair as she bid farewell, followed by her two friends who also said their goodbyes. My friends and teammates were completely infatuated and continued saying their goodbyes even after the girls were out of sight.
"Wow, that girl is totally hot, and she was totally hitting on you, buddy. You have to take me with you when you do those 'tutoring' sessions," Broke said, sitting next to me, the first to snap out of the trance.
During the last period of the day, in math class, Mrs. Ingram was teaching as usual. As she warned, her questions were related to the topics she had given me. So whenever only Sheldon raised his hand, which happened almost every time, I would also raise mine. The more questions I answered, the more I could see Sheldon's anger growing.
At some point he lowered his head in sadness, and I started feeling bad. Sheldon was still a child, a very intelligent one, but still a child. I didn't raise my hand in some questions, letting Sheldon answer each time. Whenever this happened, Mrs. Ingram looked at me with desperation in her face, but for her tranquillity, seemingly motivated by the competition, Sheldon only answered the question correctly and remained silent to wait for the next one.
The class continued with this back-and-forth of questions and answers until the end of the period.
Already accustomed to teachers' requests, I stayed until the last person left the classroom. Sitting in front of Mrs. Ingram's desk, I waited for her to finish writing on a paper, which I assumed were more topics.
"You didn't study all the topics in-depth, or why didn't you raise your hand? You know the answers very well, so I don't think you didn't know the answer," the teacher said, somewhat annoyed.
"Sheldon is still a child, ma'am, and he challenged me to a duel of questions, which, although a bit childish, I accepted. So I don't want to have an advantage over him based on tricks," I said, handing back the paper. "I appreciate that you offered me extra points, but I'd like to earn them on my own merit. Sheldon will be focusing on our competition, so he won't bother you as much in class, and it'll push me to study more. Everyone wins," I explained as I stood up.
"Okay, Duncan, I understand. Anyway, I don't think you need the extra points. You and Cooper are the only ones who answer correctly," she said, a bit defeated.
"Thank you for understanding," I said as I walked towards the door, stopping in the doorway. "By the way, did you tell Regina, Gretchen, and Karen from the other group that I could help them with their studies?" I asked.
"No, I probably mentioned that you and Cooper are the only ones who answer my questions correctly, but nothing more," she replied.
"Oh, okay. See you, Mrs. Ingram," I bid farewell, leaving the classroom.
I joined my friends, who were waiting in the school locker room, already wearing their uniforms. "There he is, the superstar," Broke said with fake applause, "arriving late because nobody is worth your time," he continued joking.
"Yeah, yeah, shut up, Broke. We have to train," I replied.
Outside on the school field, the coaches were already waiting for the team, which was finally complete with the five of us. With some warm-up exercises, we began training before splitting into two teams. Coach Wilkins stayed with the defensive team, while Mr. Cooper remained with the offensive team.
While practicing one of the plays in the playbook, Alan, who was standing behind me, discreetly pointed to one end of the field, where the cheerleaders were practicing.
Among the cheerleaders was Regina, who happily greeted me when she noticed that I noticed her.
After finishing training and taking a quick shower in the locker rooms, everyone went home.
-------------------------------------
Glossary
*Continuous Suture: In the continuous suture, the stitches are connected along the wound.
Interrupted suture: A suture in which each stitch is separately tied.
*Buried sutures: The knot is buried by placing the suture using an inverted technique in which the suture loop begins in the dermis.
*Ascorbic acid or Vitamin C: It is a colorless, odorless, solid crystal, soluble in water, with an acidic taste.
*Ovoid: A closed symmetrical curve with respect to its concave axis, formed by four arcs of a circumference: one of them is a semicircle, and the other two are equal and symmetrical.
-------------------------------------
Author's Thoughts
Once again, I'm not American, nor a doctor, nor a mathematician (Sorry, I'm a creature of routine).
Boom! This chapter is relatively long and includes a small math class in it (you're welcome).
The first person to tell me where the three new supporting characters are from will receive an incredible prize (there's no prize, though). The first subplot of this arc is just around the corner, and I'm very excited.
I need to make some clarifications:
1. In the original movie (Boom, a hint!), it is not mentioned that the three girls are cheerleaders, but for the sake of the plot, I'm assuming they are.
2. I'm not sure if it's the same in the United States, but at least it's like this in Mexico: the same school grade can have several groups of students, like Group A, Group B, Group C. In the story, for the sake of the plot, there will only be two groups: A (where the MC is) and B (where the MC is not, duh).
3. The interaction with Teddy might seem tedious, but it served as a pretext to bring up the whole math topic and to have the MC approach and talk to his sister. As you know, one of the MC's desires and promises is that his family should be happy, so he'll be deeply concerned about her (unlike the MC in DAD...).
4. Someone mentioned that there are different football teams in High School depending on the year the players are in. I'll pretend it's not the case, so I apologize if it bothers anyone, but there will only be one team, the one where the MC plays.
I think that's all.
As always, if you find any errors, please let me know, and I'll correct them immediately.
(I believe that with 7 chapters, you can leave your review now. Please do it; I hope to read your reviews to know what I need to work on more, I beg you.)
PS: We've reached three digits of power stones (NEED MORE, MORE!!!) Thanks for that.
Thank you for reading