My New Family

First Practice

I went home and told April how the meeting went. She laughed and asked if I had the equipment for tomorrow. I confessed that I didn't have any knee pads.

She told me to follow her and we walked to somebody's apartment. A girl from the meeting opened up. Her name was Kelly. April asked if she had any extra knee pads for me and luckily she did. She then asked if I had shoe, shorts, and socks. I told her yes and started to leave.

"You have the ones required for volleyball?" She asked again. I told her yes and went back home. I packed a pair of socks, shorts, and my new white gym shoes to go along with the knee pads and went to sleep.

I was nervous because I really didn't want to be a cheerleader so the next day at school, volleyball was the only thing I thought about. Eventually it was time to practice, so I went to the locker room and changed. All of the football players were in their so I changed in one of the stalls. I stripped down to my underwear. I was wearing briefs today so nothing was flopping all around. I slid on my shorts which came just above the knee and my socks which just covered my ankle. I then slid on the knee pads that Kelly gave me and put on my shoes and shirt. I packed everything else in my bag and headed to the gym.

The boys in the locker room laughed. They couldn't believe I was actually playing volleyball since it was for girls and brutally teased me but I did my best to ignore it and made it to the gym.

It was a color explosion out their. Neon colored shirts, shorts, and socks; balls flying everywhere. It was chaos.

Kelley approached me. We hit the volleyball around for a few minutes before a coach came over to us.

"Where is your uniform?" She said looking at me.

I pointed at my knee pads and outfit and told her that I was wearing it.

"Those aren't volleyball specific, notice what everyone else was wearing?" She asked.

I looked around and noticed tight spandex shorts and knee high socks. Clearly she couldn't mean for me to wear those. I asked about it.

"You don't get special treatment. Now because you aren't dressed properly, you have to sit out today. It's going to be hard to make the team if you can't play" she snickered.

Kelly spoke up and told coach she brought an extra pair. Coach told me I better thank Kelly as she ran to the girls locker room.

She returned with a plastic bag and told me to hurry and get changed.

I sprinted towards the locker room. All of the guys had cleared out, so I changed there.

I pulled out the shorts first, they were lime green, tie-dyed shorts. I pulled them up over my briefs. They felt like they constricted my blood flow.

Next were the socks, which were lime green with different colored hearts and peace signs. As I pulled them over my calf and looked in the mirror, was this better than becoming a cheerleader.

I only had a minute to ponder the question before I heard a whistle. I quickly put on my shoes and sprinted back in the gym. As I was running out the coach yelled at me to stop.

I froze as she told all of the girls to look at me. This was humiliating.

"Did everyone see what he was wearing before?" They all nodded yeah. "Well since it wasn't our uniform he wasn't allowed to practice, but Kelly offered him to wear an extra pair of hers. That's called being a good teammate, everyone give Kelly a hand"

Everyone, including myself clapped for Kelly. I was beat red.

"Alright girls, baseline" the coach yelled. The girls got up and ran to the baseline, I stayed put.

Coach looked at me and asked told me to go to the baseline. I told her that I thought she meant just the girls.

"From now on, when I say girls, I mean you too. It's an old habit, don't take any offense to it."

For the next 2 hours, I busted my butt trying to make the team. I felt like I was doing good, I wasn't the best but I definitely wasn't the worst.

I heard many positive comments but was unsure how to take them. Hearing "Thatta girl" or "good going girly" really irritated me, even though I knew they were popular volleyball phrases, I was not a girl.

During the last hour, I spiked a ball during a drill. From the stands, I heard a voice yell, "Good hit cousin." I looked back and April, Syd, and Syd's mom were there as well as many other parents. This flustered me so I made a few mistakes at the end.

At the end of the three hours, the coach huddled. "Good job today girl, see you tomorrow" and we broke the huddle.

Coach called me over and asked to talk to who was picking me up. I walked her over to Syd's mom.

After establishing that she was not my guardian, coach still had a talk with her.

She first informed her that I needed my own practice clothes. She then said that the guidance counselor told her that I couldn't be cut to avoid a lawsuit so it was a matter of which team I would be on. She continued saying that if I was going to play, some of the girls were upset that you could see my boy parts and suggested that I buy really tight undies to tuck it. I told her I was wearing briefs and she said that it still showed and suggested I buy girls underwear since they don't leave room for that.

Syd's mom thanked her and we headed home. I got teased about my outfit all the way there. Apparently the girls tryout are only 2 hours so I also got pointers from them watching my last hour.

Eventually we got home and I showered and changed. Aunt Becky still wasn't home but Syd's mom came over.

She said that since aunt Becky was working and I needed clothes, she offered to take us shopping and aunt Becky okayed it.

So after dinner, we all loaded back into Syd's mom's car and headed to the store.