November Blues

As the team runs out onto the field, Jericho is overwhelmed by the number of people who have come to the game, mainly to cheer for the Excelsior team. The appearance of the home team is accompanied by their band, which is comprised of almost a hundred member. Then the players hear a cannon explode from the top stands, and the announcer declares that it’s a tradition that “every time Excelsior scores a touchdown, our Wildcat cannon will be set off in jubilation!” (243). 

The game unfolds fast and Roscoe and Jericho, surprising everyone and even themselves, score the first touchdown of the game. When shortly after Roscoe scores the two extra points, the Excelsior players look very angry. It is almost halftime, and the Excelsior team still hasn’t scored against Douglass. It begins to rain, and soon a pleasant shower turns into a storm, but no one seems to leave the stands. On the field, the two teams move into position, with three seconds remaining on the clock. But before either side has a chance to score, the buzzer sounds, and the first half is complete.

As the Douglass team runs off the field, they cannot contain their joy. The coach lets the team celebrate for a little bit and then calms them down. At the thought of what they have just accomplished, Jericho’s heart is beating fast. As he wipes the mud off his uniform so his number shows, he notices that his number, as well as the name and the decorative stripes on his uniform, are dripping with bright red dye. Players look at the coach in dismay, noticing that their uniforms are turning “a messy, wet, bubble-gum pink” (250). Coach Barnes explains that this is probably the result of buying the uniforms so cheap, and reminds them that they have to focus on what is inside, not outside. 

Disheartened, the team seems to lose its feeling of power. Although Coach Barnes and Luis try to cheer up the team, the players have lost their enthusiasm.Once they are out on the field for the second half, the rain has stopped, and everybody notices the team’s ruined uniforms. The crowd starts to yell that the Douglass team should not call themselves the Mighty Panthers because they look more like the Pink Panther. The Excelsior band picks up the insult immediately and starts playing the theme from the movie The Pink Panther.The Excelsior team comes back in the second half. Just in the first ten minutes, Excelsior scores twice, and the smell of gunpowder from the cannon fills the air. The Douglass team, “pink, muddy, and defeated” (254), finishes the game on the losing end of a 28-8 score.

As November, Dana, and Kofi are heading home from the game, November tries to make herself comfortable in the back of the small Ford. Kofi is driving, and Dana is putting on a new CD every fifteen minutes. November tries to distract herself by talking about the game, but she feels sick, and her back is aching even more than usual. Her body seems to tense up and tighten now and then, and this has been going on all day. 

Grimacing in pain, November regrets her decision to go to the game and admits that she should have listened to her mother, who told her not to go. She asks Dana to put on some blues music, but Dana doesn’t have any. The friends continue to discuss the game, how humiliated the Douglas team was, and how “those pink uniforms just broke their concentration” (257). During halftime, Dana also noticed how Arielle was flirting with Brandon Merriweather, “the dude on the track team who got the BMW for his eighteenth birthday” (257). The two friends debate whether they should say anything about this to Jericho on Monday, but November comments that “[h]e should have known [Arielle] was a snake from the last time she bit him” (258).

As November watches Dana and Kofi in the car, she envies their closeness, and how they seem to be “weaving in and out of each other so seamlessly that they didn’t even notice the pattern” (259). For a few minutes, the music lulls them into silence, but November feels increasingly sick. She feels that something is not right and promises herself to call Dr. Holland on Monday. Kofi pulls into the rest area, and Dana notices that November looks unwell. November tells her friends that she might be in labor.

Dana immediately grabs her cell phone to call the state and local police, while taking Kofi’s cell phone and handing it to him with a command to call everybody from the Douglass Fan Van and then the band bus. She also tells him to reach Jericho on the football bus, hoping that all three vehicles are still behind them. 

November hears Dana giving orders and smiles, despite the pain: she is so lucky to have Dana by her side. November grimaces from the pain that feels like “a volcano exploding in her guts” (261). As another contraction hits her, she keeps thinking that she is not ready for the baby to arrive yet, and that the baby is not ready, either. She asks Dana to call her mother, but Mrs. Nelson is not answering. November tells Dana that Josh should be here so that she can “kick him in the nuts for doing this to [her]” (263). 

Glad that November hasn’t lost her sense of humor, Dana tells her friend that the ambulance is here. Alma, the paramedic, asks November when she is due and begins to inspect her abdomen. Another paramedic, Ralph, asks November about her contractions. Alma checks how far November’s dilated and the baby’s heart rate, while Ralph tells November that Air Care is coming to pick her up and transport her to an intensive care unit at Good Samaritan Hospital. 

As November hears the helicopter approaching, Jericho runs up to her. He jokes that all November shouldn’t feel embarrassed because all she’s done is “go into labor on the side of the road, tie up about ten police cars, two ambulances, and three busloads of kids, stop all traffic on both sides of I-71, and have a helicopter land in the middle of the highway” (266). When Olivia comes up to November, she assures her that at twenty-nine weeks, her baby could still be okay. Dana tells November that she has finally reached her mom and that she will meet her at the hospital. Jericho wants to go on the helicopter with November, but November tells him to meet her at the hospital instead. The last thing November hears as they lift her into the helicopter is Olivia’s voice saying, “Don’t be afraid, November—you’ve got Sunshine!” (268).