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Coyote got this look on his face and the et there first I took off running,Bunny! afterthe distance, racing to the sun I’ets it and so we haven’t done before and this time it’s mine

And I leapt onto the float without disturbing the paper sea and reached up, straining, and finally just going for it I’h I juhts and the after-hours HVAC The Thunderbird caspan and I looked down to see Coyote grinning up at me He’d let me take it, if I wanted it He’d letits weight, the deliciousness of its theft, I passed it down to him It was his year He’d earned it

We drove hoh the January stars with the sun in the bed ofit with one hand each, holding it down, holding it still, holding it together

On game day we stabbed it with the Devil’s pitchfork and paraded our float around the stadiuuely sad By then Coyote was cleaning off blood in the locker rooirls around hi up from his friendly palm like a bouquet of peonies

The first half of the cha from the sky The Thunderbirds didn’t play for flash, but for short, sharp gains and an inexorable progression toward the end-zone They didn’t cheer when they scored They nodded to their coach and regrouped They caught the flawless, seraphic passes Coyote fired off; they engulfed him when he tried to run as he’d always done Our stands started out raucous and screanant cheerleading squad despite horrified protests forfield side Don’t you listen, Sarah Jane baby! Yelled Mr Bollard You look perfect! And she did, fists in the air, ponytail swinging

Halftime stood 14-7 Thunderbirds

I slipped into the locker rooirls and boys and players and cheerleaders and second chair a pep talks which I did not listen to, so what always needs doing when Coyote’s around Rome never saw a party like a Devil locker room

I walked right over to my boy and the blood vanished from his face just as soon as he saw me

“Don’t you try to look pretty for me,” I said

“Aw, Bunny, but you always look so nice for me”

I sat in his lap He tucked his fingers betweenon out there?”

Coyote drank his water down “Don’t you worry, Bunny Rabbit It has to go like this, or they won’t feel like they really won Ain’t no good gaaoes Can’t hold a game without it The old fire just won’t come If I just let that old Bird lose like it has to, well, everyone would get happy after, but they’d think it was pre-destined all along, no ent into it You gotta aleaood”

Coyote kissedteeth Blood came up and in our mouths it turned to fire We drank it down and he ran out on that field, Devil red and Devil gold, and he ran like if he kept running he could escape the last thousand years He ran like the field was his country He ran like his bride was on the other end of all that grass and I guess she was I guess we all were Coyote gave the cherry to Justin Oster, who caught this pass that looked for all the world like the ball ht have made it all the way to the Pacific if nobody stood in its way But Justin did, and he caught it tight and perfect and the stadium shook with Devil pride

34-14 Rings all around, as if they’d all married the state herself

That night, we had a big bonfire down by the lake Neutral ground was barely 45 ot hoht and rise to a work ethic in the