Friday: 6 P.M. Football Game

Friday night, football night, feels more like June than October. You expect to see some leftover fireflies, the air is so warm. The kids are still in shorts, the scoreboard is twinkling, the week is finally over. Everyone is coming to the game.

The varsity cheerleaders, 14 strong tonight, do their pregame psych-up at Natalie Rodriguez's house in North Webster. Destiny's Child blares on the CD player, and between trips to the bulging buffet table, two black girls teach the others how to get down to the music. Junior Sarah Budzinski gets a plate of cake smashed in her face in early celebration of her 17th birthday tomorrow. After dinner, Natalie's mom braids their hair, brown and blond alike, into cornrows. "Whenever my mom used to braid my hair," says senior Ann Barnes, "she'd say the more it hurts, the prettier it is." A minute later, her light, silky hair in Ms. Rodriguez's firm hands, Ann turns beet red, clenches her teeth and yells out, "OOOUUUCHHH!!!"

Just after 6, more than an hour before kickoff, the team is in the locker room, and the mood stinks. The players seem distracted, off balance. Behind closed doors, Bobby Granderson and wide receiver Chuck Walker are brutal to their teammates. "You better get your minds straight," Chuck says, his voice growing louder. "We won last week. We're doing good. But you're walking around like you're f______ lost." By the time Coach Ice comes in, the players are quiet. He didn't like all the stupid mistakes in last week's game. "It's nice to be home," he says. "Just remember, we don't give away anything at our own house."

By now the stands are filling, as the teams line up to sing the National Anthem. Emmanuel Simmons, a lineman, takes one last shot from his asthma inhaler. Quarterback Karl Odenwald makes passing motions with his arm. As the announcer names the starters in tonight's game, the fans in the stadium scream for Bobby.

Clap your hands, everybody, the cheerleaders chant, and fluff their pom-poms.

Everybody clap your hands.

We're W.G. going all the way.

The best in the land.

Ten seconds into the game, Webster scores. Senior Patrick Hunt is up in the stands, giving science teacher Marty Walter a hard time. She could pass for a student herself, but to him she's still Mrs. Walter, and it's weird to see her here, out of the box, not talking in that biology voice. "It'll be easier after you graduate," she tells him. "What," he says, "like, we're going to be friends with you guys?" and she laughs and says, "Nah, we don't want you as friends either," and you realize these are the teachers who are your friends for life.

Math teacher Eric Dunn has been wearing a Webster football jersey all day, No. 13, a walking ad for his student Karl Odenwald. Peter and Sally, her hair in pigtails, arrive together and sit in the very front. Mr. Winingham strolls by with his 11/2-year-old, who looks like an escapee from a Caravaggio painting. Sally starts playing with the child, getting in touch with her inner mom. Mr. Yates is with his two children and wife, Webster class of '85, and his in-laws, who were homecoming king and queen back in 1960.