Coach Hyatt Is a Riot! (2 page)

When my mom dropped me off for our next practice, she didn't even
try
to hug me. Some of the ragamuffins from the first practice didn't come back. I guess they couldn't take it.

Coach Hyatt wasn't there yet. But you'll never believe in a million hundred years who pulled up in a blue minivan.

A bunch of
girls
!

It was that annoying Andrea Young, her crybaby friend Emily, and some other girly girls. They piled out of the minivan and came over to us.

“Hi, Arlo!” said Andrea, who calls me by my real name because she knows I don't like it. Andrea was wearing earrings that were little footballs and a necklace shaped like a goalpost.

“What are YOU doing here?” I asked.

“We're cheerleaders!” said Emily.

I knew Andrea took ballet classes after school. She takes Irish step dancing, too. And modern dance. And clog dancing.
^*
That girl sure likes to dance. But I didn't know she did cheerleading, too.

“Since when do you do cheerleading?” I asked Andrea.

“I've been cheering since I was four years old,” Andrea said.

“Don't you get tired?” I asked.

“Very funny, Arlo.”

“How can you cheer for football?” Michael asked Andrea. “You probably don't even know what a touchdown is.”

“Yeah!” agreed Ryan.

“A touchdown is a scoring play in which any part of the ball, while legally in the possession of a player who is inbounds, crosses the plane of the opponent's goal
line,” Andrea said. “I read a book about football, so now I know all about it.”

I hate her. Why can't a goalpost fall on Andrea's head?

“Do you want to hear one of our cheers?” asked Emily. “We wrote them ourselves.”

“Oh yes,” I said, “I'd love to…in the next century.”

So of course Andrea and Emily did their
cheer anyway. They danced around while chanting:

“That cheer is lame,” I told them.

“You're mean, Arlo!” Andrea said.

Their cheer
was
lame. Football cheers should be cool. I made up a cheer on the spot that was way better than their dumb cheer.

“That doesn't even rhyme,” Emily said.

“And it's so violent!” said Andrea. “We only do positive cheers that don't hurt anyone's feelings.”

“Yes,” said Emily. “It's not whether you win or lose; it's how you play the game. Isn't the important thing to have fun?”

“No!” I said. “Where'd you get that crazy idea?”

The girls did one of their routines where they throw each other up in the air while they do a cheer.

What a lame cheer. But I had to admit that Andrea and her friends were pretty good at throwing each other up. In the air, that is. If you threw up a person, it would be disgusting.

I remembered that in fizz ed, Andrea is always the one who can balance feathers, juggle scarves, and do stuff better than anybody else. She's a good soccer player, too. But she's still annoying.

“Do you want to see us make a human pyramid?” asked Emily.

“Why don't you go to Egypt and make a
real
pyramid,” I suggested. “And don't come back.”

“Humphf!” said Andrea. She and the
other cheerleaders stormed away to practice at the other end of the field.

When girls get mad, they always say “Humphf.” Nobody knows why.

Coach Hyatt pulled up in her Mini Cooper with her weird son, Wyatt Hyatt. She blew her whistle.

“Line up!” she barked. “I hope you ragamuffins are ready to work today.”

“Are we gonna run more laps?” Michael asked.

“No!”

“Are we gonna do jumping jacks?” asked Ryan.

“No!”

“Are we gonna do push-ups?” asked Neil the nude kid.

“No!”

“Sit-ups?” I asked. “Touch our toes?”

“No!”

“Then what are we gonna do?” Michael asked.

“You're going to pick up my car,” said Coach Hyatt.

“WHAT?!”

“You heard me! Pick up my car!”

“I can't pick up a car,” I said.

“You can't pick up a car by
yourself
,” said Coach Hyatt. “But I bet that all of you can pick up my car
together
.”

She told half of the team to grab the front bumper of the Mini Cooper and the
other half of the team to grab the back bumper. Wyatt just picked his nose.

“Okay,” Coach Hyatt said, “when I blow my whistle, pick up the car.”

She blew her whistle, and we pulled up with all our might. And you'll never believe in a million hundred years what happened.

We picked up the Mini Cooper!

“WOW,” we all said, which is “MOM” upside down.

“Look at that!” Coach Hyatt barked. “You ragamuffins picked up a
car
! That's teamwork! My motto is, ‘If you can pick up a car, you'll go far.'”

It seemed to me that you could go a lot
farther if you got
in
the car and drove it somewhere. But still, it was cool to pick up a car, even if it was a Mini Cooper.

Coach Hyatt had us pair off and pass the football back and forth. She said she wanted to see who could throw the ball and catch it. Ryan got teamed up with Neil. I got teamed up with Michael. Wyatt just picked his nose.

I'm a good quarterback. Michael and I were passing and catching pretty good
when one of my throws got past him. The ball rolled all the way over near the cheerleaders. Andrea picked it up.

“Hey, throw it back!” Michael yelled.

“What's the magic word?” Andrea asked.

“Please?” said Michael.

Andrea picked up the football. And you'll never believe in a million hundred years what happened next.

She threw it
way
over all our heads!
I mean, it must have gone fifty yards in the air. And it was a perfect spiral, too.

“WOW!” we all said, which is “MOM” upside down.

When we arrived for our next practice, Andrea and the girly cheerleaders were practicing their routines at the other end of the field.

What a lame cheer. Finally, Coach Hyatt showed up in her Mini Cooper with her nose-picking son, Wyatt Hyatt. There was a guy sitting in the car with them, but he didn't get out. Hmm, that was weird. Coach Hyatt blew her whistle.

“Line up!”

“Are we gonna pick up your car again today?” asked Neil.

“No!” the coach barked. “Today you ragamuffins are going to learn the most important part of football—how to do an end zone dance.”

“A what?” asked Ryan.

“After you score a touchdown, you have
to do a dance in the end zone,” Coach Hyatt said.

Then Coach Hyatt showed us her end zone dance. She shook her butt, lifted a leg over her head, hopped up and down for a while, and then put her hands in the air and waved them around like a crazy person.

Coach Hyatt is a riot!

“Now you try,” she told us.

We all shook our butts, lifted one of our legs over our heads, hopped up and down for a while, and put our hands in the air and waved them around like crazy people. Wyatt just picked his nose.

“Can we have some Gatorade now?” asked Ryan.

“No!” barked Coach Hyatt.

After we learned the end zone dance, the coach went to her car. Remember that guy who was sitting in it? Well, it turned out he wasn't a guy at all. He wasn't a girl, either.

He was a dummy.

“This is my friend Elvis,” Coach Hyatt said as she carried the dummy over to us.

Sure enough, the dummy looked just like the real Elvis. It sounded like him too. Coach Hyatt pushed a button on the back of the dummy and it started singing, “You ain't nothin' but a hound dog….”

Coach Hyatt said we were going to use Elvis to practice our tackling. Tackling is fun, because you get to knock the dummy on its butt.

We all lined up to tackle Elvis. I got to go first because my name begins with
A
.

“Okay, A.J.,” said Coach Hyatt. “I want
you to pretend this is somebody you really hate.”

That was easy.

“I'm gonna pretend it's Andrea!” I told the guys.

“You ain't nothin' but a hound dog!” sang Elvis.

I pretended that the Elvis dummy was Andrea and rammed it as hard as I could.

“Don't be cruel!” sang Elvis as I got off him. “Ooooooooh! I'm all shook up.”

“Good job, A.J.!” said Coach Hyatt.

Each of us got to tackle the Elvis dummy five times. It was cool. Coach Hyatt showed us how to go for the legs so the runner would fall down. Wyatt just
picked his nose. Doesn't that kid ever run out of boogers?

When we were finished, the coach blew her whistle and said we could take a drink from the Gatorade jug.

That's when Little Miss Perfect came over. She had on a cheerleading uniform and was holding pom-poms in her hands.

“That was a very violent exercise you were doing,” Andrea told us. “Is it really necessary to hit the dummy so hard? I think that leads to violent behavior in children.”

“Can you possibly be more boring?” I asked Andrea. “Why don't you go back to
your
side of the field and work on your lame cheers?”

“Humphf!” said Andrea. Then she stormed off to do more lame cheers with her friends.

After everybody had some Gatorade, Coach Hyatt taught us how to punt the ball. Punting is hard. I punted the ball really far, but I couldn't make it go straight. One of my punts landed over near the cheerleaders. Andrea picked it up.

I remembered the last time she got her
hands on the ball. She threw it over our heads.

“Don't throw it,” I told Andrea. “Just
bring
it back.”

“What's the magic word, Arlo?” asked Andrea.

“Now!”
I yelled.

“Well, okay,” Andrea said, “but you're going to have to tackle me for it.”

Me and the guys laughed.
A
cheerleader
thought she could run past a bunch of trained football players! Ha!

“I'd like to see you try!” I yelled.

Andrea started running toward us.

“Get her!” I yelled.

Andrea faked out Michael.

Then she faked out Ryan.

Then she faked out Neil.

Andrea was faking out
everybody
! She was running down the field, and nobody could stop her!

Nobody but
me
, that is. After she faked everybody else out, I was the only player between Andrea and the goal line.

“You're not getting past me,” I told her.

“Oh yes, I am, Arlo.”

“Oh no, you're not,” I told Andrea.

We went back and forth like that for a while. Then Andrea faked left.

Then she faked right.

Then she faked left again.

But I wasn't gonna fall for her lame fakes. I grabbed her legs and slammed her to the ground. All the guys cheered.

“Oooooh!” Ryan said. “A.J. tackled Andrea. They must be in
love
!”

“When are you gonna get married?” asked Michael.

If those guys weren't my best friends, I would hate them.