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Cal Stewart sat at the desk in his room looking over the playbook when there is a knock at his door and his dad stickes his head in, "Hey sport, I heard my favorite player was gonna be starting on Friday."  Dennis Stewart comes in and pats his sone on the shoulder, looking at the playbook.  "How do you feel, confident?  You're gonna knock'em dead out there Cal."

Cal's dad steps back and sits on the bed, "This thing with Moxon, the other quarterback, you're not gonna let it get to you, right?"

"Hey pops" Cals says smiling "Yeah i'm startin', i'm a little nervous, but in a good way, i'm gonna use the nervous to psyche me up, ya know?" At the mention of Moxon, Cal's face darkens with a scowl "Naw Pops, he ain't gonna get to me, no matter how hard he tries"

Cal's father smiles, "That's the spirit.  You stay focused and you can do anything you want.  This kid Maxon, if he's anykind of real sportsman, he'll get over this and see it as a good thing.  Maybe he'll even be man enough to help you out, mentoring and that sort of thing."

"You're gonna have a lot of distractions now, lots more classmates, and girls."  Cal's dad stops there for a moment.  "Your mom is worried that you might focus on football to the exclusion of everything else.  I told her not to worry about it, but you know here."

"Yeah" Cal says, knowing his mother all too well "Don't worry though, i'll study and all,  it's just that Football is much more important to me than all that three R's stuff." He says smirking slightly "When's dinner gonna be ready? I could eat a horse"

"That's the reason your mom sent me up.  Wash up and get downstairs."  with that Cal's father leaves, pausing briefly at the door, "Hey sport, try not to mention to your mom that football is more important then school work, huh.  she wouldn't like the sound of that."  Then he exits the room.

"Sure thing pops, see ya at dinner" Cal says, shutting the playbook and heading for the bathrrom

Cal makes it to the dinner table as mom is setting the last dish on the table.  Dad returnes from putting his baby sister Franceasca to bed and the three of them sit down to a meal.  Cal's mom liked to have the family eat at the dinner table together whenever possible.

After the three were seated and eating Mom asked about Cal's day, and her husband Dennis'.  She was a homemaker, and her day consisted of taking care of Francesca and the house.

"So, Cal," she began, "Your dad says you're playing this Friday, I'd have thought you'd have to wait with their already being another quarterback on the team."

"Yeah Mom, so did I, but apparently Coach want's to rotate Quarterbacks this season, and I really impressed him at practice, so I get to start on Friday, im so psyched!" He says wolfing down his food, inbetween pauses in his elated speech

"I'm glad for you honey."  She says, "I was afriad because you were the junior classman you'd have to spend a lot of time on the bench, which isn't what you're used to."

After a bit more time goes by dad pipes up, "I should be able to make the game, I already made sure that I'd be covered at work."

MOM: "Dennis, if you know what his game schedule is you should write it on the calendar.  I'll try to make some of them too."

Mom hasn't managed to make many games (junior high) since she was pregnant and then Fran was really little.  So this is good news for Cal.

Cal smiles, genuinely glad that both his parents could see him play "That'd be great Mom"