The Freshman Child

Chapter 4: P.E. class aka Painful and Excruciating, Pathetic and Embarrassing

Chapter 4: P.E. class aka Painful and Excruciating, Pathetic and Embarrassing

Jill was already dressed in her gym suit when Sam arrived.

“What are you doing here so early?” Sam demanded, quickly pulling off her uniform.

“I figured, since I’m going to flunk this thing, anyway, I’d better try to earn points for promptness.”  Jill turned to face Sam, “How do I look?” she asked, striking a pose.

“How does anybody look in these things?” Sam said, holding her own gym suit at arm’s length and grimacing. “Like a toad.” She reluctantly put it on with sigh.

“I bet we’re the only school in America that has to wear gym suits,” Jill moaned. “It’s so degrading.”

“Well, at least everyone looks awful in them,” Sam said with a laugh.

At that moment, Caitlin flounced by, her auburn hair shining and bouncing off her shoulders. Sam looked over at Jill, swallowed hard and whispered enviously, “Well, almost everyone.”

“How does she do it, anyway?” Jill asked. “She can take some shapeless, ugly, polyester and make it look like a prom dress.”

With a shake of her head, Sam sighed and said, “Well, let’s get this thing over with.”

xxxxxx----------xxxxxx

Coach Ulyanov and Coach Winters have already laid out the tumbling mats. Half of the huge gym looked like an obstacle course. At the other end of the gym, the boys were going through the same procedure.

“Oh, no!” Jill moaned, clutching Sam’s arm. “I forgot we’d be joining the guys today. This is terrible!”

Sam didn’t react. She was too busy thinking the same thing. Their class had spent the first part of the week separated—the boys from the girls—filling out forms and sorting through the athletic equipment.

Coach Winters, a stocky woman in white shorts and a rugby shirt, stepped out of her office and strode towards them. She blew her whistle and instructed the girls to gather around the tumbling mats.

“Now, today’s test will measure your agility and strength.”

“Oh, goodie!” Jill whispered under her breath.

“You will begin the test on the mats.” Coach Winters looked down at her clipboard and continued. “It’s really very simple—a forward dive roll, a cartwheel, a turn, and a backward roll.” She pointed to a beautiful redhead, “Caitlin Williams will demonstrate.”

“Naturally,” someone said quietly from the back, rolling her eyes.

All the girls watched glumly as Caitlin performed the tumbling moves perfectly, then ended with a cute leap in the air and a slap of her thighs.

“What was that?” Jill whispered in panic. “That last thing she did?’

“That’s known as the ‘cheerleader bounce’ ” Sam joked.

The rest of the class applauded, including the boys at the other end of the gym. Caitlin giggled and covered her face with her hands, acting embarrassed. Her apparent modesty didn’t fool the other girls for a second.

“Thank you, Caitlin,” Coach Winters said, smiling at her prize pupil. “The next section is for strength.”

Sam groaned. She could handle the tumbling by faking it, but “strength” was her weakness.

“I want you to climb as far as you can up this rope.” Coach Winters grabbed a thick rope hanging from a large metal hook in the ceiling.

“No way!” Sam said quietly. From where they were sitting, the ceiling looked awfully far away. A ripple of concerned murmuring came from the rest of the class, and Coach Winters raised one hand for silence.