“Ok so we’ve got Shane at corner, is anyone else here good at catching?”

“I guess I am, I never drop my pom poms during routines.” Tina volunteered cheerily and Bette grinned. They looked at each for a minute until Tasha spoke up again and I felt the same weird twinge I’d gotten yesterday when Lara had come up to our table at lunch.

“Right, you can be our wide receiver. I’ll play running back. Alice you’ve got good aim, why don’t you throw?”

“Okay!” At Alice’s agreement Tasha scratched a bunch of O’s and X’s into the field, marking each one by name before continuing.

“Bette and Dana you guys are gonna be tight ends, which pretty much means you stay closer to Alice so she can throw to you guys easier. As for D here’s how its gonna go, I’m gonna go after Candance, Shane will go after who ever their wide receiver is, and the rest of you just pick one person and stick with them no matter what alright?” There were grim nods all around from our ragtag little team. Tasha ordered us to suit up as she made a few more diagrams, adding in some arrows and squiggly lines, before getting her own gear on. The Leche’s were done as soon as we were, sending one of their girls to the sidelines as a substitute since we didn’t have Jenny, then lining up in the middle of the field.

“Call it.” Candace said as she held up a huge silver coin with the Spartans logo on it.

“Tails.” Alice replied confidently and I watched it flip up into the air, spinning sunshine in all directions before landing on the grass with a thud. We all peered in at once, more than a few people bumping helmets as Candace smugly pointed out that it was Heads.

“Don’t worry about it.” Tasha said instantly to Alice, who looked crestfallen, and squeezed her shoulder. That seemed to perk her right back up as we took our positions, lining up in front of the person we’d marked. Carmen didn’t look at me once as Jessica started cutely calling out nonsensical numbers.

“27! 42! 100! HUT HUT!!” As soon as the ball was snapped (and by snapped I mean clumsily handed off to their miniscule quarterback) Carmen turned her back to me and started running. I took off in pursuit.