Who Is Lucas Ryker O'Riley?

4. EVEN THE BEST LAID PLANS

Just when temperatures seemed like they were peaking at their hottest, summer became fall, on the calendar at least and with that, school began.

Being back in school (fifth grade) , and around friends I hadn't seen all summer didn't change anything between Mandy and I. Whether we were at school or at home, we were inseparable.

Over the year, our friendship only became stronger, we did just about everything together.

The following summer the whole Delacroix family accepted an invitation to join our family's annual camping trip.

We went up to Rancho Vista State Park up north in the Sierra foothills, taking our off road motorcycles and quads for our annual wilderness family adventure.

Mandy wasn't very interested in trying my 80cc Honda dirtbike, but once she was familiar with how to operate the zippy 200cc Yamaha Blaster quad, she had no trouble working up her enthusiasm to join me on the trails.

Although, my family went offroading infrequently, she knew this was one of my favorite activities and she was determined to enjoy this special treat with me. Before long, she discovered that she enjoyed racing around on the quad almost as much I did on my motorcycle.

And so our friendship progressed, doing pretty much everything together until the middle of summer vacation following the sixth grade.

That summer, my brother and I signed up for football for the first time. Fortunately, despite our age difference, our birth dates fell in just the right range allowing us both to play on the same team.

Joining a football team was the one thing my brother pestered my parents about for years. Since I had always idolized my brother and he was so gung-ho about playing organized football, I was too.

Fortunately we had kept our grades up, so our parents finally gave in to our pestering, allowing us to sign up for the local football team on the condition that we kept up our chores and used our allowance to pay for the sign up fees.

Done and done.

The first day of practice finally came and the coaches introduced themselves, walked us through the basics, gave us our play books and best of all, gave us our practice uniforms. Our team was called the North Valley Wildcats and our uniforms were dark red with gold trim. I couldn't wait to get home and show Mandy my uniform.

While showing her my new uniform, even though she was happy for me we both realized that this was one activity where she couldn't participate with me side by side.

However, A few weeks later some of our teammates' mothers brought their daughters to practice and began cheerleading practices next to the football field. When I saw this, I immediately thought of Mandy and had to ask her if she wanted to come out for the cheer squad.

She was happy when I asked her to come out and join our team's cheerleader squad and she immediately said yes.

Even though we weren't participating together totally side by side, we were still relatively teamed up enjoying complimentary activities. Mandy turned out to be a pretty good cheerleader and after a month of practicing, the coaches had enough confidence to start me at wide receiver and free safety.

When I first saw Mandy dressed in her cute little cheerleading uniform, it really brought out all of her cute girl features, along with her sun lightened blond hair that she kept in a fancy ponytail.

I unmistakably noticed just how pretty she really was. She had recently hit a growth spurt and was starting to look more like an older girl, rather than the young little kid girl who moved in behind us 3 years ago.

I made sure to do my best on the field so that whenever I had the chance, I'd give Mandy something to cheer about.  I was a great runner, so anytime I got my hands on the ball, she had a reason to cheer.

Every year in our class fitness test, I seemed to alternatively win or barely miss 1st place in the two class race tests. This speed translated well to the football field, playing free safety and wide receiver.

Even though we didn't pass the ball very much, whenever the coach called a pass play, they usually tried to get the ball to me since I'd always manage to find ways to get open behind the defense.

We weren't a superiorly prolific passing team, but we managed just fine because of the strength of our offensive and defensive lines, in addition to the running ability of our QB Jalen Richards, and the skills of my brother, Dave.

Dave was not only a little taller than me, he was also much bigger boned than me, meaning he was physically stronger than me, actually most guys were physically stronger than me.

Dave was physically stronger than most of the guys on the team, so coaches wisely put him on the defensive line at nosetackle and tight end on offense, letting him wreak havoc on anyone across the line of scrimmage from him.

In all honesty, Even though I might have gotten most of the aerial accolades, Dave was the heart and engine of our team. He scored few of our touchdowns, but he dominated in every game, even while being double teamed, which allowed others like myself to easily score.

I guess you could say Dave was watching over me on the football field as well. He made sure I was okay as he made sure the team was okay, too.

Every team we played knew they had to control Dave or he would wreck their plans to beat us. However, planning and knowing what you have to do doesn't necessarily mean that you can make your plans come to fruition.

Sometimes, there are forces in nature that even the best laid plans can't control.