That ferret-faced principal had recently informed Sunny that she could add one more little chore to her growing list of extra duties: She was to become the chaperone for the girls’ basketball team, and she would also do the scoring for all nightly weekend boys’ and girls’ games played at home as well as in the small towns up and down the highline along the Montana-Canadian border, some as far away as almost 100 miles from the village.  Girls and boys would board separate buses at about 2:30 that afternoon along with their chaperones, Sunny was informed, and she was to travel with the girls’ in their bus.

Sunny giggled aloud at the irony of acquiring this new job.  She’d just about failed PE all the way through high school, not because she couldn’t figure out how to play the various games offered, but because she’d refused to take showers with the other girls, and the teachers, after many warnings, barely passed her.  Sunny didn’t care; she was damned if she’d run around exposed and naked in the steamy dampness of nubile bodies and wet cement.  She had spent her youth in a private boarding school in the mountains of Virginia, where privacy of any kind was simply impossible.  She’d vowed after her final successful attempt to get kicked out of that school that she’d never, ever put herself in a situation where bigger and more powerful girls than she could intimidate, shove, ridicule or hurt her again.  So it was easy to quietly put her clothes on over her PE shorts and shirt and go on with her day in the larger public schools of her adolescence.  A counselor at the high school she’d attended in her senior year found a way to have her do PE activities on her own so that she could graduate.  The issue was easier to solve in college; she lived right across the street from the gym, and teachers didn’t care how or where she erased the sweat of her exertions in their classes.  But it was the idea of having any connection to physical education, basketball especially, which she’d never played, that made Sunny smile.  How Ginger would laugh when she heard Sunny’s news!

Gathering her sweater, the new down jacket that Bugoo had picked out for her during their first shopping trip together, papers to grade, and extra tissues for her runny nose, Sunny had to race back to the school building as the kids, already in the bus, shouted encouragement.  More irony.  Sunny made it a practice to never run anywhere.  She liked to think of herself as a large ship with a strong, protruding prow that sailed forth, but never rushed.  Yet here she was, sprinting with all her might; she wanted the girls to like her with every fiber of her being, and a little run for the bus might make them laugh.  Sunny had learned that laughter was a good thing in this part of her universe; she was determined to become the best fool possible.  No one laughed, but the girls smiled big as she entered the door of the bus. 

“Bout time!” Lou called out, ending with a shssss.  There were soft assets around the bus. 

“Had to get my beauty business done,” Sunny quipped.

“Looks like you left a lot UNdone, innit?” Lou retorted.

“Nah.  I was looking for something to share with you.  Help you out some.”  Sunny smiled to let Lou know she was only kidding.

“Yeah?  Needn’t have bothered.  Everybody knows I’m perfect just like I am.  Regular Miss Indian Princess!  Shsssss!”

Clyde started the bus and they moved out onto the dirt road leading out to Route 66.  The girls chatted quietly while Sunny graded papers she’d brought along until the light diminished so that she couldn’t see the work any longer.  She watched the starkness of the land they passed in the early dusk.  It had snowed a bit the night before; the fields looked like the hard face of a long-whiskered man, their dark stubble shooting up out of the whiteness. 

Sunny found a sweet note from Bugoo in the pocket of her new down jacket.  He’d drawn a hilarious comic strip with the two of them bumping noses as they tried to kiss with little hearts that said “Bugs Loves Sun” bobbing all around their heads and a note at the bottom that let her know he’d see her at the game that night.  She thought about him, about the story he’d told her last night of pieces of his childhood.  He’d sworn that he’d been a little shrimp, that kids had tormented him because he was little, and how scared he’d been a lot of the time.  It was hard to think about him as diminutive and vulnerable; the guy was big, towering over most others, standing out in any crowd.  Then, he explained, when she wondered at his story, he’d gone into the Marines, and he’d suddenly grown more than a foot and a half.  He’d filled out, too, gaining more than 60 pounds in less than two years.  His mom literally did not recognize him when he returned to the reservation.  Maybe it had been the good food, or at least plenty of food on a consistent basis.  Having fifteen siblings competing for scarce resources in their tiny house meant that you didn’t always get all you needed as a growing kid.  One of the best things about living here on the rez, though, was that no one could actually starve.  Everybody shared what they had.  If you entered anyone’s home, there was always sure to be something on the stove, and all were encouraged to take what they needed.  In fact, Bugoo instructed Sunny, it was rude to refuse an offering of food when they visited others.  Because his family’s house had been so small, only three rooms, and there were so many people in it all the time, Bugoo got a lot of his needs met in the homes of those he visited, a pastime that took place around the reservation, at all hours of the night and day.

Sunny marveled at Bugoo’s mom, Margaret, whom she’d just met a couple of weeks before.  Hard to think of this bright-eyed, sweet-faced, kind of flighty acting person bearing seventeen children.  Seventeen.  Think of that!  Sunny shook her head.  Good Catholics, Bugoo had explained.  A couple of the babies had died when very young, and one 10 year old had gotten killed in a bizarre truck accident, but everybody else was alive and kicking.  Emphasis on the kicking, he’d joked.   

Sunny looked back about her team as they sat in their seats on the bus, clumps of heads in twos and fours, talking softly, the occasional shsss and a giggle or two now and then punctuating their conversations. The Thunderbolts.  They’d became her first experience with a sports obsession.  She’d always ridiculed her Oregon friends who lived a fierce loyalty to teams like the Trailblazers. Although, she remembered with a smile, when that team had, with a lot of help from star player Bill Walton, won the NBA Championship, Sunny’d bundled her class onto a city bus, and they’d joined the thousands downtown who cheered wildly at the tickertape parade for their team’s big win. 

Once she’d figured out how to do the scoring for the games, Sunny was shocked at her passion for these competitions, the girls’ and their unique plays, and the ups and downs of winning and losing.  Her philosophy about the act of and support for competition with kids before she’d arrived at this place had been quite rigid, for her.  Competition was, in Sunny’s opinion, the cause of many of the world’s ills, and it was better to teach kids to cooperate.  She lived that belief in her classroom and, when she could, in her own life.   But Sunny had begun to love the competitive hearts of her T-bolts.  Always significantly smaller and shorter than their large, farm-fed opponents, Sunny’s girls nevertheless made up for their small statures with fast-moving, carefully paced action and often brilliant technique.  They were good listeners, and Coach Terry’s quiet instructions were instantly applied.  They were a team; each respected and supported every member, whether they were winning or losing.  And they were competitive to the max:  These girls always intended to beat their almost all white opponents.

Sunny admired the special qualities of each of her girls.  Many considered Gert the team’s star, the one to follow.  This girl scored.  And she ran like a strong whirlwind chasing sagebrush on the prairie.  She was tireless.  Hazel was an intelligent player, always thinking; she could always be counted on to be at the right place at the right time.  Her expressive face earnestly led the others to try harder.  Lou was the strong one.  She never wavered in her desire to win.  She worked hard at the game, and she labored with such passion, the girls on the opposing teams sometimes seemed to avoid playing close to her.  Judy liked to prove that she wasn’t just a pretty face, although it was hard not to notice what a beauty she was.  She played with the nimble abandon of a child, the love of the game and winning the goal at hand her only concern.  Fatso was the team’s earthy player; her square frame moved around the floor with commitment.  She played smart, and she could be counted on to contribute her share, to support the other players.  She was creative, too; she seemed to be able to predict what might be coming next.  The tiniest player, Nucky, was a bright light that darted in and around the other players, turning up in the most unexpected places.  She delighted in sending the ball through the basket, especially when it seemed clear to everyone that no score was humanly possible.  Berty was wiry, her moves a supple ballet as she unobtrusively wove her way into the best receiving positions.  Velma was the star dribbler of the team.  She had no fear of the big girls who sometimes pushed harder than should have been tolerated, and she almost always got the ball to those who needed it in an efficient and well-planned way.  The only big girl of the team was Target.  She was a strong, graceful giant who liked to apply strategy whenever she could. 

These girls didn’t just run; they soared.  They didn’t just bounce the ball; they played it like it connected to them, like it was a yoyo, a toy for showing off.   They rarely called to one another, but their bodies and their wily ways seemed to send silent messages to the others on their team.  They played with such joy in the game, it became contagious; there were moments when everyone, players and observers alike, including those from the opposing teams, roared with approval when one of the ThunderBolts scored an especially surprising win.

Sometimes Cybil, the team’s manager, would sit with Sunny.  The two were a match.  Neither were great athletes.  Cybil like to tease that they were the team’s plump fry breads, heavy but deliciously fragrant, especially compared to the players after a game.  Shsssssss.  Cybil found satisfaction by serving the team; the girls counted on her, and she was proud of her position.  Sunny followed this feisty student’s lead and quickly earned the respect of the girls as their loyal champion, chaperone and game scorer.