Free The Zucchini Warriors by Gordon Korman

the big game. Earlier, she had retrieved the cassette from where Bruno and Boots had hidden it in the Macdonald Hall bushes by the roadside.
    “Well, do you know it yet?” asked Diane sarcastically. “You’ve only listened to it three times.”
    “We’re as ready as we’re ever going to be,” said the quarterback of the Macdonald Hall Warriors. “My first game! I’ve never been this excited in my life!”
    “What was all that growling on the tape? Or was someone watching
Valley of the Dinosaurs
in the next room?”
    “Oh,” said Cathy airily, “that was The Beast, one of our players. Cute little guy. Calvin Somebody.”
    Diane swallowed hard. “Cathy, I know how much you love football, and I know you’re fantastic, but are you sure you want to go through with this?”
    “Of course I’m sure! You think I’ve done all this work so I can
not
play?”
    “But Cathy, this isn’t practice where they know you’re a girl! This is a whole other team just itching to knock somebody’s brains out! And as the quarterback, you’re target number one!”
    Cathy made a face. “Look, Diane, you’ve been listening to Miss Scrimmage for so long that you’ve started believing all that stuff about how young ladies are delicate flowers that fall apart at the slightest touch. Sure, I might not be as strong as some of those guys, but the big ones are the slow ones, and with any luck, I can stay out of their way. Okay, the team isn’t great, but we’ve been working like crazy. And linemen protect the quarterback, whether she’s a girl or not.”
    Diane sat down on her bed, frowning. “I don’t know. You’ve done some crazy things before, but tomorrow — I think about it, and I still can’t believe it.”
    “Believe it,” said Cathy. “Because tomorrow ‘Elmer Drimsdale’ is going out there to show them how it’s done!”

Chapter 6
Welcome to Macdonald Hill
    Saturday was a perfect day for football, brisk but sunny. The game was scheduled for two, but many of the players were in the locker room by noon. Hank the Tank Carson was already there, pacing the length and breadth of the room, a bundle of nerves.
    The bus carrying the St. Vincent Junior High Voles arrived an hour and a half before game time, and Calvin Fihzgart was on hand to evaluate their opponents as they filed into the visitors’ locker room.
    “Those poor guys,” he said to Pete Anderson, genuine pity in his ferocious eyes. “They’re totally doomed. They have to get on the field against the roughest, toughest, meanest guy in the whole league!”
    “Who’s that?” asked Pete absently. He was noting that the other players looked extremely large, and pretty confident for a last-place team.
    “Who’s that?!” Calvin growled in disbelief. “Me! The Beast! The one-man wrecking crew! The tower of evil! The baddest guy alive! The roughest, toughest —”
    “Oh, right,” said Pete. “I forgot.”
    Bruno, Boots and Elmer entered the locker room carrying the Manchurian bush hamsters in their cage.
    Mr. Carson was appalled. “Almost an hour to game time, and you’re playing with kittens!”
    “Elmer’s under a lot of pressure to get these bush hamsters out of his room,” Bruno explained.
    “Pressure? What kind of an idiot leans on the star quarterback right before the big game?”
    “Mr. Sturgeon,” Bruno admitted.
    Carson looked disgusted. “It figures.”
    “Do you think maybe they could live somewhere in the clubhouse?” Boots suggested. “There’s a spare equipment room.”
    “Yeah, sure, anywhere!” said Carson impatiently. “I’ll put them up at the Hilton if it’ll take the heat off my quarterback! But hurry up! You should be dressing!”
    Around one o’clock, the stands started to fill up with the staff and students of Macdonald Hall. Soon, though, Miss Scrimmage led her entire school over for “a delightful afternoon of sport,” and there was a battle royal for the best seats. A number of local farm families, and a