another freezing almost naked girl

        Mr. Simonetti introduced Roddington McNeil, and an incredibly old man hobbled onto the field with a cane.  He had on a business suit, a fedora on his head, and rubbers over his shoes.  He gave a labored wave to the crowd as Mr. Simonetti introduced him.  The cheers seemed to be from the older parents.  Nobody in the band had seen this guy before, though they’d seen his name on a plaque in the lobby, near the glass case that had the old band pictures and trophies.  Mr. Simonetti motioned to the new scoreboard and asked Mr. McNeil to say a few words.

        The old guy grabbed onto the microphone, his hand over Mr. Simonetti’s, and began to speak in a quavering, old-man voice.  He began speaking about when he first came to this school, in 1962 . . .

        Rod realized this might be awhile so he glanced over to Brigid.  What a fine view he had.  In profile she displayed to him the slopes of her breasts, her flat tummy, one knee in front of the other.  He was in love again.

        He looked at her tummy.  It was more like a hollow.  She was on the soccer team, she was in good shape.  He remembered again that time he had walked through her gym class, her doing exercises with the other girls in her T-shirt and gym shorts, sneakers and socks.  So covered up compared to now.  What a fine-looking tummy, flat and just slightly muscular.  Flushed red with the cold like the rest of her, though her toes and fingers were a little purplish by now too.  White girls’ skin was so interesting.

        He noted the smoothness of the tummy, down to her navel, then the long expanse down, down, down past her delicate hip bones, down, down, down some more, finally to the top of the tiny V-shaped uniform bottom.  He knew what her pussy looked like now, and where her clitoris was, and estimated that they began just millimeters below the top of the little triangle of fabric.  The skin above was flawless.  How did she shave her pubic hair there?  What did she use?  A razor?  Or some kind of cream like girls use to get the hair on their legs?

        He thought of last year’s majorette, Grenicia.  During one of the halftimes last year, during a moment like this, he noticed she had bumps down there, some kind of irritation.  Fortunately for Grenicia her skin was real dark and you couldn’t notice unless you were up close.  Maybe she shaved too close, or had some kind of allergic reaction to the cream she used.  Brigid, with her white skin, could afford no such mishap.  To have a red rash visible above her uniform bottom would look pretty bad.

        Of course, Grenicia had been lucky.  That whole last year, the band was blessed with beautiful weather.  Every Saturday was warm and sunny, even into December.  St.  Patrick’s Day was a nice day too.  Brigid, at the time marching with the clarinets in a full-cover band uniform, must have looked at the majorette and decided to try out for the job when Grenicia graduated.  There were about ten candidates, the way he understood it.  And she got picked, the first white majorette in years.

        And look at how it turned out!  To begin with, the uniform got more skimpy.  Grenicia’s circlets were four inches across and, her breasts being a little small, covered almost the entire slopes.  The uniform bottom had been bigger, the straps going around the waist, and around Grenicia’s quite bigger butt, had been thicker too.  The sandals had had a strap around the heel which was now gone.  But the worst of it was the weather.  Grenicia had strutted in the warm sunshine.  But except for those first two Saturdays in September, poor Brigid had had to endure the coldest and wettest autumn on record.  It was always raining, or windy, or just plain cold, and sometimes all at the same time.  Yet she strutted and marched and twirled as if it was sunny and 70 degrees out and as if being the majorette was a great honor that she was thankful for.  Which it was, of course.  Yet no one who saw this girl, this unassuming, really quite ordinary though pretty girl, walking through the halls in her jean jacket, talking with her friends -- no one could suspect the steely strength within.

        The old guy kept rambling.  And now drizzle turned into real rain.  Umbrellas went up in the stands, and Mr. Simonetti opened up his big golf-style umbrella so that it covered him and the elderly honoree.  Still the old guy kept talking, Mr. Simonetti nodding with just the slightest indication of impatience.

        Rod was glad for his poncho.  In his full uniform with the thermal underwear underneath, he was not at all cold.  In fact the poncho acted like a greenhouse and made him a bit warm.  Not a feeling being experienced by the poncho-less majorette.  Brigid stood there, in “presentation” pose, smiling, as the rain began to coat her flushed body.  Her toes flexed every now and then but otherwise she stayed motionless to the extent she could.  He watched as a thin sheet of water developed which ran down her bare back, turned at her sacral dimples, then dripped off the string surrounding her waist.  Courses of water ran down further, around the Y-shaped dimple over the beginning of her crack, then washed over the two cheeks of her butt.  Jamal was right.  Brigid did have a freckle on her butt, on the right cheek right near her butthole, about halfway down.  Then the water ran down the backs of her legs.  On the rear leg, it went down to her flexed reddened heel, then dripped off her heel down to the sole of her sandal, from which it ran down and collected under her toes.  Through the corner of his eye he could see the TV camera guy, fifty feet away, the camera maybe trained on the speech but could he be actually trained on Brigid?

        Rod looked at her frozen smile, as the rain dripped off her nose, off her chin.  What was she thinking? Warm thoughts? He saw her start to shiver.  That was not unusual.  A scantily-clad majorette on a cold day was expected to shiver.  It was part of the majorette’s life.  But still he felt pity as the freezing rain washed over her in its icy caress.  He wished he could throw his poncho over her, no more than that, wrap her near-nakedness in his jacket, give her his long pants, his nice warm boots over her frozen feet.  He had a fantasy of the end of the halftime show, Brigid jumping into a hot tub set up on the 50-yard line, splashing around in it gratefully, a special chemical in it making her circlets and bottom dissolve, her warm wet body finally jumping up in triumph in her warm wet nakedness to the cheers of the crowd . . .

        He shook himself away from this bizarre fantasy and thought of Brigid in easier times.  Those first two Saturdays in September were hot and sunny.  The rest of the band was actually sweating in their wool uniforms and Brigid was having a great time.  Maybe too great!  There was the Bubble Gum Game, the second Saturday.  Debra and Virginia had made the ill-advised decision to chew gum on the way to the field.  What to do with it? Up in the stands, having to play “Fanfare”, they had to put it somewhere fast.  There not being any place to put it on their own uniforms, Brigid, who had no playing to do, offered her circlets.  And so for the rest of the time up there one could see little pink nubs on her circlets.  It looked for all the world like her actual nipples were sticking out through holes.  It sure gave him a rise.  Neither Brigid nor her girlfriends seemed to be aware of this, as they chatted during fanfare breaks and cheered the team on during runs and touchdowns.  But to see Brigid jump up when Jaysee caught that long one in the end zone, the pink nubs bouncing up and down -- he considered himself lucky to have taken in that sight once in his lifetime.

        The old guy rambled on.  Mr. Simonette was trying, gently, to wrest the microphone away but McNeil had it in a death grip in his gnarled hand.  Maybe he was trying to show how hardy he was despite his age, standing up and talking for a long time in this cold rain.

        The rain got more torrential now, and now a gust of wind that almost knocked him over.  Maybe others in the band too.  Their ponchos flapped ferociously around them.  Mr. McNeil, perhaps aware of this, spoke louder and closer to the mic.

        Brigid adjusted her toes very slightly to the wind but kept in place, smiling, hands obediently on hips, baton wrapped in the fingers of her left hand.  Currents of cold rain ran down the slopes of her breasts into the circlets, no doubt chilling her nipples before re-emerging below.  Now there were drips coming from the undersides of her breasts, water accumulating, then dripping, accumulating, then dripping . . .  Cold rain likewise ran down her tummy into her uniform bottom, no doubt running in between her pussy lips, maybe going inside . . .  Cold rain washed down her butt, down her crack, no doubt running against her hidden butthole . . .

        Now with the increased flow the rain began going on top of her circlets and spouting off them.  Like skiing, or one of those fountains in Italy you saw pictures of, where water squirts out of a statue’s nipples.  Two little streams, coming off Brigid’s breasts.  Now her shivering increased and the streams scattered.

        How long was this old guy going to go on?  Mr. Simonetti leaned forward to the mic, trying to say something, but the guy just kept talking.

        He pictured Brigid shivering so much, that her breasts scattered the water like a lawn sprinkler.  A comical sight.  On sale now -- the Majorette Lawn Sprinkler.  Then he scolded himself for being so cruel.  Still, he was beginning to get concerned about her.  Sarge, under his umbrella in front of the stands, seemed to look concerned too.  Hopefully the old guy was almost done.  Unfortunately he had only gotten up to 1985 or so.

        He had been getting concerned and the fact that Sarge was concerned made him more so.  Sarge had led a band in the Army for years.  And this was his tenth year leading the Tunemasters.  Marching bands were his life.  He could handle any type of situation -- like that time last year when Chelsea, one of the flute players, vomited during the Fourth of July parade.  Sarge quickly snatched her to the side and got her some medical help, and moved the marchers around so that the march continued with hardly a blip.  Fortunately Chelsea was O.K.  But it was the kind of eventuality that he knew how to deal with from his years and years of experience.

        But now Sarge looked uncomfortable and uncertain.  This was a situation he had never had to deal with before.  Majorettes had to get used to marching in the cold in skimpy uniforms, it came with the territory.  But the marching kept them warm.  Standing still in freezing rain was different.

        Rod stood there miserably in his sweaty warmth, feeling the rain pelt his poncho, and underneath the poncho was his jacket, then his shirt, then his thermal underwear.  The rain was a remote feeling, like being inside a house and hearing it hit the roof.  But Brigid had none of these protections.  The rain entombed her bare skin, the cold no doubt piercing her to the bone.

        She shivered and the rain cascaded over her, into her circlets and her uniform bottom and deep into her most private crevices, then down finally over her bare purple toes.  It was not just her toes.  Her entire nearly naked body now had a purplish tinge to it.  She had no place to hide from the cold.

        And now it got worse.

        The rain started feeling hard, like little stones.  He looked down at the muddy field and saw to his horror that the rain had changed to sleet!

        Yet Roddington McNeil, the old fool, kept babbling on.  Mr. Simonetti was getting more insistent in trying to interrupt but Mr. McNeil kept on hogging the microphone.  The people in the crowd, huddled under their umbrellas or under raincoats, were losing interest, rolling their eyes, no doubt joking to each other as to when this geezer was going to finish.

        This was ridiculous.  Everyone in the crowd is all bundled up, wearing gloves, under umbrellas, and Brigid was standing out in front of them wearing practically nothing.  She stood as still as she could.  Her smile was as frozen as the rest of her.  And then, finally, a sign of weakness -- one knee buckled and she had to switch feet.  Now it was the right set of toes that was planted firmly downward, spread a little bit, purple from the cold, millimeters from the muddy ground, and the left heel that was arched up, the last few drops of rain dripping from it onto the sole of her miserably inadequate flip-flop.  His feet were warm in their socks and boots.  How he wished he could give her his socks!

        At least with the ending of the rain she was no longer covered with the coursing of freezing water.  The temperature might be even lower now but, with the cruel caress of the wintry wind like the world’s roughest towel, her skin was drying quickly.  Brigid’s Rule.

        He and the other trombonists decided to check out her goose bumps.  A favorite pastime of theirs, on cold days, that is, almost every day of this football season -- taking note of the many varieties of Brigid’s goose bumps, where they appeared, how high and how many.  Today was a record breaker.  She had goose bumps all over -- those on her her shoulders, her arms, and her legs were always visible , but the inner recesses of her butt cheeks were always where they were highest.  Today they were monumental, sharp little mountains, going right into her crack, someone inside where the tiny hidden black string bifurcated her cheeks and pressed snugly and intimately against her butthole.

        As the old man went on, Rod saw Sarge waving from under the little awning in front of the stands.  He had gotten an extra coat from somewhere and was motioning as if to open it up.  In other words, he was waving for Brigid to come off the field and put some damn covering on.

        A drastic measure, perhaps unprecedented in Sarge’s experience, but this was a drastic situation.  Rod looked over at Brigid.  The freezing majorette evidently saw Sarge -- in fact, from where she was, it was impossible to miss him -- and did not react.  C’mon, Brigid!  He sighed.  She was stubborn.

        His thoughts were distracted by the novel sight of the tiny grains of sleet bouncing off her bare shoulders.  And the top slopes of her breasts.  And her knees.  With so many aspects to this new spectacle, each trombonist decided to pay attention to one.  Rod looked at the shoulders.  The sleet came down in one direction but bounced off at angles depending upon which angle of her beautiful curves they hit.  The ones that hit the tops of her shoulders bounced straight up, then came down again, bouncing either in front or behind on the second bounce.  The ones hitting the sides of the shoulders bounced off to each side.  Some bounced up and fastened onto the lovely wisps of red hair under her cap.

        Sidney, the trombonist next to him, watched the grains bounce off her cute little cap and the braided up hair below.  George, the next one, was mesmerized by the scattering of the little grains by her breasts and circlets.  The ones that hit the circlets shot out especially far out in front of her.  Well, he figured, that made sense.  The vinyl of the circlets was harder than the skin on the bare slopes of her breasts.  Herman watched the sleet bouncing off her hips and butt.  Deion liked the sight of her bare knee and how the white stones shot out in front as if she were kicking them.  At the other end of the trombone line, Lorenzo watched Brigid’s right foot and the specks of ice bouncing off her spread toes.

        The sleet got a little bigger and fell harder, and made a real racket against the ponchos.  It made it hard to hear McNeil and increased the sense of unreality, that this was some kind of dream.  Though of course for Brigid it was all too real.

        Sarge’s waving became more insistent and he could detect Brigid shaking her head, as slightly as possible so as not to be noticed by the crowd, an incongruous gesture to her frozen smile.  Then he realized that following Sarge’s instruction was not a simple matter.  The TV cameras were trained on the band as well as McNeil, in fact now that the speech turned out to be so boring they were probably more into the band.  And it was certain now that the guy at this corner of the field was focused on the majorette.  For Brigid to leave the field would be distracting and disruptive to the show, and possibly would be the one item to make the news.  “Frozen majorette can’t take it any more!”  The screaming headline on the Boston Globe.  The show, the show -- with a marching band, it was always about the show.

        Still, hardy as she had become from all those days marching in the cold, Brigid must think of her health.  And so the words came out of his barely moving lips, words that he couldn’t really believe he had said until they entered his mind through his ears.

        “Brigid, go!”

        His first thought was that he was in big trouble, talking out loud in formation like that, but no one could hear him through the white noise of the sleet hitting the ponchos, except Brigid and maybe Sidney and George.  He waited for a response.  Then he cleared his throat and said again, moving his lips as little as possible so no one in the stands could see, “Brigid, go and put that coat on!  We’ll be fine!”

        Shivering, she replied, “I c - can’t!”  He screwed up his courage and said, “Don’t be foolish!  You’re freezing!”

        “Ya think I don’t knnnnow that!”  In her Providence accent.

        He had confronted her and, in his nervousness, thought he had lost her friendship.  So he had nothing to lose.  “I care about you, Brigid!  Please go get that coat on!”

        “N - no.”  She closed her eyes -- maybe trying to transport herself into a place of warmth, a hot beach maybe.  Or under a hot shower.  Or maybe thinking of herself as being one of the rest of her band, all covered up under a poncho, as if she was once again marching with the clarinets.

        The sleet began to accumulate on her cap.  Little crescents of white crust began to form on top of the circlets.  Down below, the white grains were filling up the spaces between her toes.

        “Thank you, thank you, Roddington McNeil!” Mr. Simonetti said.  The old man had had to catch his breath, finally allowing a space to jump in.  McNeil looked around, as if awakened, then looked back at the band and at the majorette who was turning into a kind of frost-encrusted sculpture.  “Oh sorry -- what a fine band -- thanks for your time!”  And with that he hobbled with his cane off the field, followed by Mr. Simonetti.

        The sleet, as if on cue, ended.  Now it was just a gray sky and a chill breeze.

        The second the two men were off the field Brigid lurched into action.  More stiffly than usual, but it was oh so good to see her come to life.  She spun on the sleet-covered muddy field, shaking the white crust from her cap, her circlets, her toes, and thrust her baton into the air.  A loud roll-off woke the band up, as instruments went up to lips.  And now the intro to “Stars and Stripes Forever”.  A bit flubby, but by the time they were two bars into the first section they were back on their game.  Their final tune of the year, a big finish, the grandest and most famous of all marching band tunes.

        And one of the hardest, especially for the flutes.  Fortunately the trombone part was not that hard.  As he pumped away on his slide he smiled, watching Brigid twirl, at first slowly, but then her body went from purple to red, and her smile once again became the smile of a living person.

        But --

        Now she stumbled!  The heels of one of her flip-flops sank into the mud.

        Brigid stumbled, but only for a second.  She didn’t seem upset about it.  In fact she seemed to expect it.  Then, to his astonishment, hardly missing a beat she kicked the heeled flip-flop off to the side, where it landed on the 40-yard line, and on the next beat kicked off the other.  And she continued her routine like nothing had happened.

        Rod’s eyes widened as he pumped his trombone.  So did the other trombone guys.  Brigid was strutting and twirling barefoot!  Yuck!  The sleety mud was up almost to her ankles, oozing up between her toes, as she spun and kicked.  On her kicks to the side and front, little bits of mud flew out from her toes.  Within seconds the school colors on her toenails were totally obscured by brown muck.

        Yuck!  What a violation of the rule about what Sarge always called “neat and proper presentation”!  Yet Sarge, on the sidelines, was actually smiling.  And talking to people to his side, as if answering their comments.  Rod realized this was what Sarge had been mentioning to Brigid before halftime, when he had pulled her away from chatting with her uncle the cop.  “If it gets too muddy, dispense with the footwear.”

        Now the showy part, and the trombones swung to the left and then to the right, in perfect sync.  This was the beginning of the “trio” section, the main tune, and as they broke into it the crowd cheered.  Nothing like your folks and your family cheering you on.  It was a great feeling.  The TV cameras were eating it up, scanning the field, each line of the band kicking and high-stepping, all the way back to the percussion line at the rear.  But most of all the cameras trained on the barefoot majorette slopping around in the cold mud.

        Brigid was having a great time.  As she spun and twirled and threw the baton up, it looked like a different type of dancing.  Looser-limbed, more relaxed.  More African.  She was so stiff and formal sometimes, it seemed like she had a second baton up her butt.  But not now!  It stood to reason that without having to totter on those heels, having to grip her toes to keep those backless sandals on, she could move around more freely.  It also just was the sensible thing to kick off the sandals when twirling on a muddy surface.  He wondered when she had practiced majoretting barefoot.  Certainly each time he had seen her, doing twirls on that grassy patch during recess, she had worn shoes.

        Her face was flushed, not with cold now but with exertion.  Imagine!  Not two minutes ago she was shivering and miserable and battling hypothermia.  Now she was alive and hot.  He realized for the first time what twirling meant to her, what a thrill it was for her.  Nobody would suspect it, seeing her around school in her regular clothes, mostly a quiet normal girl, talking with her friends in the hall.  Now, dancing around barefoot and nearly naked in the mud in front of the crowd and the cameras.

        And now as she swung around, her jiggling breasts leading the way as she threw them just so, she looked back at him and smiled.  Just for him.  His heart leapt.  Yes!!  She wasn’t mad at him for confronting her about running off the field to put on that nice warm coat.  He could see now that she had made the right decision to tough it out.  How much would have been lost if at this moment the band’s majorette was huddled on the sidelines.

        But she was smiling at him -- remembering that he had said “I care about you Brigid”!  He didn’t know what the future would bring, but right now it looked promising.

        With the sleet no longer hitting their ponchos, the band really rang out.  Now on the final few bars they hit fortissimo.  The drum guard’s beats sounded like cannons.  The big climax to the tune, the show, the season!  Now Brigid threw an incredibly high throw, the baton going up what looked like a hundred feet, and she spun around and spun around like five times as it took seemingly half an hour to come down.

        Holy ---- !  She was really going to do it!  A split!  Brigid turned to the side and her left leg went forward and her right leg back -- and as her bare butt hit the mud, her muddy toes spread and extended in front, kicking out mud, she caught the baton on the final cymbal crash.  The trombone players thrust their instruments up to the sky in unison.

        A pregnant second, and then the crowd let loose with a big roar.  He thought he could detect a chanting undercurrent in there, some guys in the back rows maybe, “Frigid Brigid Frigid Brigid Frigid Brigid Frigid Brigid -- ”

        Sarge ran out and helped Brigid up.  The insides of her legs were coated with mud but she didn’t care.  On his prompting everyone took a bow.  Then Sarge playfully waved to the camera guy who was now within ten feet of them.  Brigid waved too, with a big smile and a wink, her other hand tucking the baton next to her bare hip.

        Rod smiled, looking at her flushed butt, her total nakedness from behind, interrupted only by the splatters of mud on her back, her buns, her legs, and the tiny horizontal string just above her crack, and he thought of her lovely hidden brown eye.  Maybe it was winking at him now.  It was corny but he decided to wink back.

        Halftime show over, the band broke formation and trotted off the field as the football players, now assembled at the sidelines, waited to charge onto it.  Brigid ran to retrieve her sandals; then zigzagged back to the fence, her toes kicking up bits of mud behind her.  He watched her go.

        She ran to the gate where her three little sisters and two little brothers were waiting along with her parents too, all cheering and laughing, and ready with warm washable boots, a big fluffy blanket to wrap herself in while they watched the second half, and a huge thermos full of hot chocolate!