The Fox’s Tale

Ordinarily for home games Ellery wore jeans and a fitted Highland Hills polo shirt. Not tonight. We’d argued for a good fifteen minutes about what she’d chosen to wear.

“I still think it’s overkill,” I said as we walked into the school. “Why do you even have a skirt in the school plaid?”

“It’s Sinclair plaid. I have a number of articles of clothing in this plaid.”

I winced. “Can you at least leave your coat on until you go in at the start of the game?”

She kissed me. “I’ll hide in the trainer’s office and then make a grand entrance.”

I shook my head and Ellery tugged on my hand. “Hey. I’m doing it to make a point. I told you what type of man Coach Monroe is.”

“Yeah, you did. I still don’t like it.”

Ellery grimaced. “Then you are really not going to like that I told the student body what type of man he is.”

“Of course you did.” I left her to go get changed and hoped that she didn’t take her plan any further than what she’d told me. I had an ace up my sleeve to play tonight, thanks to a little help from Rhiannon. Unfortunately, my sense of what Ellery was capable of was spot on.

She emerged from the trainer’s office right after both teams began their warm ups and the effect was immediate and electric. About half of the Cumberland players smacked into each other, and basketballs went sailing into the crowd as the others were too distracted to catch them. Even my teammates skidded to a halt.

“Is she trying to start a riot?” asked Coach Murphy.

I sighed. “She said she wanted to make a point.”

I had to admit that she looked incredible, but at the same time what she was wearing made me profoundly uncomfortable. She had on a white short sleeved blouse with a Peter Pan collar, along with a green and blue plaid pleated skirt, white knee socks and high heeled Mary Janes.

I knew she was emphasizing her youth to make a point, but I felt weird being attracted to her when she was dressed that way, and I was only a year older than her. At least she hadn’t put her hair in pigtails.

Once she was confident that she’d grabbed everyone’s attention she pulled an oversized lollipop from behind her back and then skipped, literally skipped, to the scorer’s table.

The crowd went nuts. Ellery hadn’t been kidding when she’d said that every member of the student body in attendance knew what kind of man Coach Monroe was.

They also knew the lollipop story and about the bad blood between Highlands and Cumberland if the signs and banners they’d made were anything to go by.

They were primed for a wild game and we were aiming to deliver. I readied myself mentally for what I was going to have to put up with during the game.

Levi didn’t even wait for the game to start before he started running his mouth. As we readied for the opening jump ball he glared at Ellery.

“I see the queen of sluts is still hanging around. Tell me, can she even feel it anymore or is she so stretched out that she can be fucked with a tin can?”

I heard growls from my teammates, but I just smirked at Levi. “If she’s such a slut what does it say about you that she won’t let you touch her?”

The smug look on his face changed to a scowl. “Like I’d want anything to do with that disease riddled cunt.”

“That’s not what I heard, about you or your dad.”

His scowl turned into a snarl, but the refs blew the whistle and the game was underway. We didn’t get a chance to take any more jabs at each other, verbally anyway, until late into the second quarter. While we waited for the ball to be inbounded he tried needling me about Ellery again.

“I heard she gives you all blow jobs before the game.”

I snorted with laughter. “Have you never had an orgasm? Dude, we’d be asleep.”

As we ran into the locker room at half time I was feeling pretty full of myself. I hadn’t lost my temper once, and we were up by eighteen points. Ellery made a brief visit into the locker room to check that no one needed anything.

With Coach Hendrix’s permission she gave me a kiss for good luck. No one had been kissing Levi in the locker room at half time because his mood was even worse as the third quarter began.

“Does she service the whole team or just the starters?” he snarled.

I snorted in derision. “No matter what you do she’s never going to service you.”

“Like I said, I wouldn’t touch her with a ten foot pole.”

“Oh, but you want to touch her with your pencil dick,” I taunted him back.

Levi stopped guarding me and stood still. “Fuck you.”

“Nah, I’m straight, but you do you.” I ran around him and caught a pass for an easy layup.

He kept running his mouth and we kept running away with the game. Near the end of the fourth quarter I couldn’t resist taking a shot at him. “You know; if you stopped obsessing over her pussy maybe you could play better.”

The look he shot me was pure venom. “You son of a bitch.”

He shoved me and was hit with a technical foul that was the final nail in the coffin. After I made both of my free throws Matt simply dribbled out the clock.

As the crowd counted the seconds down Ellery made eye contact with Coach Monroe and with great deliberation, unwrapped her lollipop and licked it.

He snarled at her and took a step towards the table but the horn sounded ending the game. She bent over the book to finish the tallies, looking up to watch the handshakes, all while licking that lollipop.

Most of the Cumberland team froze in their tracks and I hate to admit it, but so did our team. We were all so busy gaping or grinning at her that no one was paying any attention to Levi, which was a mistake.

He sucker punched me in the left temple driving me to the ground and raised his right arm high in the air, where something glinted in his hand.

Ellery was on the table in one fluid motion and then, I was told, she jumped off it and drove her fist into Levi’s face. I clearly heard a crack of breaking bone.

Unfortunately, his arm came down at the same time and drove something into her left shoulder. I was told because I was too stunned to see that occur, but I heard what happened next. Ellery let loose a scream that caused at least three people to wet their pants and the lights in the gym exploded.

“Loscadh is dó ort tú píosa cac,” (the devil burn you, you piece of shit) she spat. One of the Cumberland players grabbed her to get her away from Levi who was screaming and chaos erupted.