For boys football is a ticket to respect and popularity. It's lucky that Snavely is big for his age, because his lack of ball-handling skills assigns him to the line. But the other guys are beginning to pass him in size.

Jane wears an Alum Falls High freshman cheerleader's outfit.

Don't be misled by Snavely's apparently confident smile. Inside he is dying. The leather football helmet he has to wear as a fourth-string freshman tackle is, he is sure, vintage about 1920. Didn't Red Grange wear one like that? It is unbelievably dorky. The varsity hemets are snazzy, gleaming white plastic, big and generous, not clinging to the sides of the head like a dried-up melon.

His ancient gold pants are also sadly out of date - the Alum Falls Alligators' colors are now maroon and white, not gold.