Read Online Footloose by Paramount Pictures Corporation - Free Book Online Page B

pumping again. He didn’t need the coach to tell him how fast he was. The eyes that followed him down the track finally had something interesting to watch. He easily won the sprint and a few smiles of approval from a group of nearby girls. Too bad Ariel wasn’t among them.
    He’d seen her a few times that morning. They had a couple classes together. Each time they passed, she was either deep in conversation with Rusty or off in her own world. The way she barely noticed him made Ren wonder if he completely imagined that awkward moment they shared at church. Maybe it didn’t mean anything at all. Maybe it was just … awkward.
    Ren lined up with bunch of other guys at the water hose that served as the makeshift fountain. He waited his turn as the coach shouted out needless orders on the proper way to take a cold drink when exercising. This had to be his thing, a way to exert control by explaining how the students should do everything.
    The kid finishing up at the hose handed it to Willard. “You look a little flushed, Willard.”
    â€œMy cheeks are naturally ruddy,” he said between panting breaths. The sprint had taken a bit out of him. He looked much paler now, especially when compared to the darker skin of the guy handing him the water hose. “Ren, this is Woody, our team captain. But you don’t gotta salute him.”
    Ren held out a hand. “Good to meet you.”
    Woody joined up with them as they made their way through the different stations the gym coach had set for the students. The class wasn’t much more than random exercises while Coach bellowed about nothing at all. It did leave plenty of time for talking, so Ren didn’t mind. Especially since the talk was mostly about him.
    â€œYou keep running that fast, Coach Guerntz is gonna be on you to sign up for football,” Woody said. They stood at the row of metal pull-up bars sticking out of the ground. Willard was halfway through a set.
    Ren had been afraid of something like that happening when he decided not to hold back in gym class. He fielded offers to join other sports teams all the time back at his old school, as if the coaches back there didn’t realize he was already involved in a sport. “That’s not really my thing.”
    Willard dropped down from the pull-up bar. “Not much else to do in this town as far as sports or extracurricular is concerned.”
    Ren took his place at the bar and ran through a series of fast pull-ups. He knew he should slow down, not show off. But he hadn’t had a real workout in weeks. It felt good to get the muscles moving again.
    â€œShit-howdy,” Willard said.
    Ren skipped a beat in his pull-ups and nearly slipped off the bar. “Shit-howdy” was a new one to him. He didn’t even want to know how Willard came up with it.
    â€œYou say you’re not into sports?” Woody asked.
    Ren held himself up on the bar, with his arms straight. “I didn’t say that. I’m just not into football.”
    Willard seemed confused. In his world, there probably wasn’t any sport other than football. “Then what are you—”
    Ren cut him off by lifting his legs and throwing himself into a loop that took him up and over the metal bar, giving them a quick glimpse of his high bar routine. He stopped to hang in midair, enjoying the gasps of surprise from Willard and Woody.
    â€œI was on the gymnastics team at my school,” Ren explained. “Won the regionals. Got a couple trophies. No big whoop.”
    Three guys over at the next pull-up station were watching him, too. They didn’t seem the least bit impressed. “If you want, they got a balance beam for the cheerleaders to practice on,” one of them said.
    Another added his two cents. “Yeah. They could give you a baton and you can twirl all day long.”
    Ren hopped down from the bar. He’d heard plenty of that kind of thing since he started