Seth Astill: Church without the pope

Sports tryout in full swing

"You all want to try out" the miss exclaimed not believing what she was seeing. Everyone nodded enthusiastically.

"Okay then go to the boy's common room below," she said a little doubtfully.

All the students started down the stairs to the ground floor. They reached the ground floor and continued down the stairs to the floor below, where both the girl's and the boy's common room were located.

"Where should we go, to the girl's common room or the boys?" one of the girls asked.

"Let's go to the boy's, after all ma'am said that sir asked us to gather in the boy's common room" another girl suggested and the group marched to the BCR.

They reached the room, which was a small room that held various sports equipments, two lockers at the back beside a table with a computer. There was a pool table in the middle of the room and two carom boards to one side. There was a couch on the other side with some space for students to stand.

A young girl was sitting on the computer when they all entered, she looked up when they all barged inside.

"Wait, what are you all doing here?" she asked all confused.

"ma'am told us that sir called for sports tryout," the short boy said who was with the group of the boys from this school on the first day.

Seth assumed that this boy was the head of the whole lot.

"Do you all want to try out?" she asked with the same look the physics ma'am had a while ago, "Okay then go to the ground, sir will do the selection there" she said.

They all turned and went to the back of the college where there was a small ground but, nobody could be seen there.

"The selection is in there" a boy shouted pointing to the space that led to the fenced side beside the small ground. They all walked in to see a big ground, with a volleyball net and a cricket pitch, there was even a goal post at the very back of the ground, separated from the pitch and the net by a white line.

The sir was standing there with some seniors. all of them made their way towards him. Sir looked up at the horde when they reached him.

"So you are all here for the tryouts," he said not at all surprised, they all nodded

"Fine then listen we need a team of kabbadi, volleyball, cricket, and football from boys. Also, I need two boys for badminton. Whereas, from girls I need a team of throw ball, two girls for badminton and..... is there any one of you who is interested in taekwondo or karate"

As usual, Tejas was the first one to raise his hands, the sir saw this.

"I am asking the girls, does any of the girls here know karate?" he said laughing a little, Tejas quickly pulled down his hands a little red, everyone started laughing.

A short girl with sandy black hair came forward, she had an athlete body and also some muscles on her.

"Sir can I join?" she asked and sir nodded taking her out on the side.

"Okay now, all of you divide into groups of people interested in joining the sport. Football trials will be for everyone but, other than that you can go into any group you want" the sir said.

Everyone scattered around trying to be in one of the groups. There was a small group trying out for cricket and it looked like the short boy gang had all made the volleyball group. Few had come together to make the kabaddi group and the major one comprised of badminton.

Just then the girl they had seen sitting in the boy's common room arrived there, sir saw her and beckoned her to come.

"Chaitanya ma'am, can you take the trials for the girls," the sir said.

"Sure, sir," she said with a smile and motioned for all the girls to follow her.

Now that the girls were gone the sir turned towards our groups and counted

"Umm...cricket, kabaddi, and the volleyball group, go and wait there for a minute," he said pointing them to the side, the group went away.

"Okay now, all of you. I want you to kick the ball into the post" he said to the remainder of us, one of the senior's whom the sir was talking with went and stood before the post as the keeper.

All of the boys tried the shot for the selection, nothing eventful happen this time other than the fact that Tejas fell down over the ball when he tried kicking it. At the end, eight of them were selected. Seth was one of them.

"It's good that you are selected too, isn't it," Smith said coming to stand beside him.

Wait Seth thought, Smith is selected too. It is a problem, he will immediately come to know if I bunk the practice. I would have to do something about it.

"You are all the selected student, all seven of you," he said.

"Sir we are eight," one of the boys said.

"What?" he asked confused, he counted us "Dheer, why did you select eight students?" he turned and asked the senior student.

"One for the substitute, sir," he said stopping near the group.

"We wouldn't need any substitute. Why select a player if he isn't going to play" the sir said "One of you will have to leave", Seth saw his chance there.

"Sir I would like to leave, I want to try for badminton," Seth said.

"Okay go and wait there," he told him where a single boy was standing. Seth went there and stood beside the guy.

The sir talked with the team for a while, the other students were dismissed to the class, after some time the team went with the senior guy and the sir finally turned and reached them.

"You two, I want a match between you," he said holding up two racquets and a shuttle.

Seth took a racquet while the other guy took the racquet and the shuttle.

We went to a little distance and then stood facing each other. He threw the shuttle up, the shuttle went to the top and started down, the boy made a hit and the match started.
It started slowly, both of them trying to gauge each other's moment attacks and weakness, soon the match was in full swing, both of them were hitting the shuttle with power into various directions away from each other.

But, they always managed to swing the shuttle back at the last second. Even the sir looked impressed by this intense show of skill.

The match reached the point where the shuttle was always smashed by the opponent, this was now a serious game.

Seth knew that the guy in front of him was good and he should end the match quickly.
Seth smashed the oncoming shuttle and it swished to the guy in front of him with blinding speed, the boy defended it with a strain, and the shuttle was launched a little back to the left.

This was a hard one as Seth was right-handed, still, Seth waited till the shuttle almost reached the ground. The other guy let down his guard at that moment thinking about his victory. Seth was just waiting for this.

He quickly took a shift turn and did a low backhand sweep, the shuttle soared high in the sky and landed on the other side. His opponent had no idea what had just happened.

"Wow, that was a masterstroke" the sir applauded cheering him, "Play like this and I am sure the district cup is ours this year, both of you are selected. Go to the small ground and do some practice," he said pointing to the ground that we had gone to earlier.