B00BSH8JUC EBOK by Celia Cohen Read Free Book Online Page B

half-humorously, “Why run up and down the field when you can stand in the goal cage and be a hero?”
    In the winter she played volleyball and was the heart of the squad; but it was in the spring she really excelled. That was the season she played softball.
    She was a catcher and an All-American, but she was known in local sports lore mostly as the only woman ever to hit a ball out of the Hillsboro College stadium. It was such an extraordinary feat that a plaque was mounted at the top of the center field bleachers to mark where the ball passed overhead, still rising as it did.
    Her teammates called her “Jaws,” and so did the grateful headline writers for the sports pages. It fit much better than “Jaworski.” When she arrived in gym class, she allowed that we could call her “Miss Jaws.”
    Jaws would have been welcomed by our class under any circumstances; but as it was, we regarded her with nothing short of relief. Gym class was otherwise the iron province of Mrs. Engler, a stern tyrant so ancient we swore she began teaching when bloomers were still risqué. Her first name was Diane, which the other teachers shortened to “Di” when they talked to her. Her students embraced the sound of it. There wasn’t one of us who hadn’t muttered, “Die, Engler.”
    Jaws endeared herself to us during her very first class. While Mrs. Engler was threatening to flunk anyone who didn’t begin the week with ironed gym clothes, Jaws gave us a wink.
    It was all I needed to develop a mad crush on her. I never could resist jocks, anyway.
    Jaws was fun. She freed us from Mrs. Engler’s regimen of calisthenics and let us play soccer and flag football and other reckless games. Anyone who didn’t try hard was ordered to run laps. Anyone who gave her a hard time had to run them, too.
    Gym class changed from drudgery to joy. Then came the day when matters got a little out of hand.
    A bunch of us were in the locker room early before class. Linda Franzione, who played on the field hockey team, was showing us a doll she bought at the school store. It was dressed in a miniature hockey uniform, including a kilt in the school colors just like Mrs. Engler always wore. Beth DeWitt got the bright idea to get some cotton out of the first aid kit on the wall and give the doll white hair, just like Mrs. Engler’s. Estelle Martinez, my pal from softball, had a pin cushion with some straight pins for her home economics class, and one thing led to another until I was stabbing pins into the Engler doll, voodoo style.
    “Die, Engler!” I said and stabbed. “Die, Engler! Die, Engler!”
    It was all very funny. My friends were laughing and squealing and encouraging me, and then suddenly they weren’t. In the deathlike silence I looked up to see Jaws standing there.
    There was no denying what we were doing. We were shark chum.
    Jaws was calm. “May I have that, please?” she said, holding out her hand for the doll. I gave it to her, pins and all. Already I regarded it as the evidence.
    “I think you girls better get out there and run some laps,” Jaws said, “and don’t stop until I come to get you.”
    Laps were not a very bad punishment. I was feeling grateful and relieved as I headed out. Then I heard Jaws say, “Not you, Kotter. You stay here.”
    I stopped dead. My friends rushed for the door in a shameless display of self-interest, desperate to get out before Jaws called anyone else back. I was going to walk this plank alone.
    “I take it you’re the ringleader here,” Jaws said.
    I shrugged. I wasn’t really, but I wasn’t going to rat out anyone else, either. It was the code we lived by.
    “There are a couple of things we can do with you,” Jaws said matter-of-factly. “The most logical would be to tell Mrs. Engler about this and let her handle it. How does that sound to you?”
    It sounded terrible. No doubt it meant Mrs. Engler would flunk me, and although my parents weren’t very big on gym, a failing mark in any subject