Free Footloose by Paramount Pictures Corporation

gymnastics. Nothing new. He had loads of experience handling it himself, but Willard was already moving toward the guys threateningly. This was not going to go well for Willard.
    The third guy stepped in before things went too far. “Now, now, Willard. You don’t want to get suspended again. Your momma might have to take a switch to you.”
    The trio walked away while Willard remained in place, stewing.
    Ren whispered to Woody. “What’d he get suspended for?”
    â€œFightin’.”
    Willard turned back to them with a hint of a smile that indicated he wasn’t embarrassed by the suspension. “I’ve been known to open a can.” Willard didn’t look like he’d be much in a fight, but Ren knew plenty of guys much smaller than Willard who were good in a scrape.
    The near-fight went completely unnoticed by the coach, who was busy telling a group of students about the proper way to do cool-down exercises. He eventually gave up and dismissed everyone back to the locker room to change.
    Lunch was next. Ren got into the serving line with Willard. He was glad to avoid the awkward maneuver of figuring out where to sit on the first day. They went outside to the courtyard as Willard went on about his favorite subject: football.
    â€œLast year, the varsity team made it all the way to regionals. They bused us down for that one. The excitement never stops.” Willard held up his thumbs in mock enthusiasm, once he put down his tray.
    Ren sat across from him. “You ever been overseas?”
    â€œI been to Alabama. That count?”
    â€œNot really,” Ren replied. Although down here it probably did. “Two years ago, I went to Russia with my gymnastics team. Kind of this sister-city thing with Moscow.”
    â€œI don’t know if I’d dig that,” Willard said. “Seems like it’d be boring.”
    Ren smiled. Time for some fun. “Do you know anything about Russian girls?”
    â€œI hear they range from scary to drop-dead beautiful.”
    â€œWell, I can vouch for the latter.” Ren saw that he had Willard’s full attention. “Two girls from the Russian gymnastics team snuck me out of my dorm in the middle of the night. And they were smokin’.”
    â€œWhat were they smokin’?” Willard looked confused. “Oh, you mean like ‘smokin’ hot’? Please continue.”
    â€œWe go to this club and the music is pounding. They must have had like three smoke machines going, ’cause you couldn’t see a thing. We were all over each other, drenched in sweat. It was great. We danced all night.”
    Willard leaned forward in his seat. “And then what? What happened after that?”
    Ren shrugged and gave him a little smirk. That was pretty much the whole story, but Willard didn’t need to know that. The big guy didn’t seem at all content with that response. “Down here in the South we don’t start stories like that and not finish.”
    Well, okay, if it was a story he wanted, Ren was happy to provide. He leaned forward, too, as if he didn’t want anyone else to hear. This was all for Willard’s benefit. “Well, it goes without saying that they were both very flexible.” From there, Ren composed a tale that would make a football player blush—literally. Willard was rapt with attention through the whole racy story, until the point he realized it was all a joke.
    â€œAw, man,” Willard said. “No fair. You got me all excited and you didn’t even get nowhere with them.”
    â€œBut we did dance,” Ren added wistfully. “We danced our asses off.”

Chapter 8
    Andy Beamis seemed like a fair enough guy. He took one look at Ren when he pulled up to the Beamis Cotton Mill, tilted his head in a way that said, “I can work with this,” and started showing him around the place. Ren figured Andy must be really good friends with Wes,