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“But that’s not fair!” Marc shouted.
Across the pristine plastic desk of the President of Citadel University’s Ultimate Frisbee Club, Mira sighed. “I understand,” she said, with all the patience she could muster. “I really do. I agree that the rule is discriminatory, and I’m happy to support you when you bring it up to the Extracurricular Activities board when they convene in May.”
“But the season will be over by then,” Marc protested. “Look, I’ve been trying to get on this team for four years, okay? And every year, they give me the same crap about ‘official rules’ and ‘nothing they can do,’ and you know it’s crap. Can’t you just let me on the field?”
Mira pinched her nose between her fingers. “I would love to let you on the field, Marc,” she said. “I agree that disallowing your wheelchair on the grounds that it constitutes an unfair advantage is ridiculous, and it also violates several disability rights laws, both at the local and federal level. I agree that the clause that disallows any powered mobility aids is both weirdly specific and makes it practically impossible for wheelchair users to play. I agree that it’s a bullshit rule, and I agree that it should have been overturned thirty damn years ago.” She glanced back up at Marc to see that he was still fuming and sighed again. “Look, I brought it up with the board last year, and they barely listened to me. At least this year, I’ve got some victories under my belt. Maybe they’ll be willing to hear me out. Until then, though, I can’t make any promises. Allowing you to use your wheelchair would be grounds for immediate disqualification for the entire team, which would mean no one got to play. Is that what you want?”
“That’s so unfair, though!” Marc shouted. “Like, yeah, I get it, you guys want to play, but why should the team come before one of the teammates?”
“I’m sorry,” said Mira. “I really am. I just don’t see a solution, Marc. So, as President, and as coach of the Knights, I am denying your request to play on Saturday.”
“What?”
“My hands are tied, Marc!”
Marc rolled his eyes, fuming. “That’s bullshit and you know it, Mira. I thought we were friends.”
“I do know it, Marc. Look, unless you can find some way to use a non-electric wheelchair by Saturday –” Marc snorted – “I don’t know what else to tell you. I’m sorry.”
“Fine,” said Marc. “Fine. But I’m suing this whole damn university when I graduate.”
“Honestly, Marc,” said Mira, “I wouldn’t blame you.”
“That’s completely unfair!” said Talfryn.
“I know!” said Marc, playing with one of Talfryn’s pens until he noticed that the end was covered in bite marks. He dropped it, and Talfryn looked up long enough from one of his giant ecology textbooks to scowl at him.
“Isn’t there anything you can do?” Talfryn asked.
“Not unless I can get a hold of a manual wheelchair that won’t get so stuck in the mud that I’m frozen in the middle of the field,” said Marc. “I mean, I guess I did manage to come up with those mud tires for my normal chair. Maybe I could steal one of those weird temporary ones from student health and modify it.”
“Mm-hmm?” said Talfryn, highlighting a passage in his book.
“Of course, I’d still have the added resistance to deal with, plus the fact that it wouldn’t be the right size,” said Marc. “But maybe I could — no, I can’t, not without damaging the frame — but maybe if I adjusted…”
He grabbed his phone from his hoodie pocket and started googling frantically. Talfryn went to jot something down in his notes, but his pen exploded. With a sigh, he stood and brushed his now-blue hands off on his pants.
“I’m going to the vending machine,” he said. “I can’t look at this for another second. Want anything?”
“It just can’t be motorized,” said Marc, mostly to himself. “What do I have that’s not motorized?”
Talfryn snorted. “I mean, you could always use — nah, never mind.”
Marc glanced up at him. “What?”
“No, it’s nothing. Look, do you want anything from downstairs? I’m not making a second trip later, even if you say please.”
“What could I use, Tal?”
“It was a joke, Marc. Come on, I’m hungry.”
“Tal. Buddy. What can I use?”
Talfryn shot him a look. “You know,” he said.
And suddenly, Marc did.
Rilla was in the middle of braiding Damien’s hair for the big game when she saw Marc emerge from the parking lot.
“Oh, no fucking way,” she said. She started to laugh.
“My flower?” Damien asked, trying to turn to look at her without disrupting her work on his hair. It was a useless gesture; Rilla had already let go of his hair to clutch at her sides. She was laughing so hard she could barely breathe. Damien’s hands fluttered nervously at her sides. “Rilla, my darling, are you all right?”
“Look,” she gasped once she had caught her breath, and then burst out laughing again. She shook her head. “Oh my god,” she said. “Marc.”
She pointed toward the entrance to the field. Striding through the gate was Marc, decked out in Citadel green, perched on top of a horse.
“That’s… certainly innovative,” said Damien. Rilla’s laugh devolved into near-inaudible wheezing.
From beside Damien, Angelo stood. “Good god,” he said. “Since when was Marc transformed into a centaur?”
“I cannot believe him,” Rilla gasped. Damien patted her back distractedly.
Marc rode up to the warmup bench smiling from ear to ear. He held out a hand to Rilla, who grabbed it and kissed it like a knight greeting his lady.
“So what’s all this, then?” she asked.
Marc shrugged. “They wouldn’t let me use my chair,” he said, “so Tal and I spent all week combing through the official rules. Technically, you’re forbidden from using motorized mobility aids and from having other players help you. Dampierre here isn’t playing, since, ya know, he’s a horse, and horses can’t catch frisbees, so technically this is all within the rules. Fun, right?”
“You’re… playing on a horse?” Damien asked.
“Might as well,” said Marc. “Maybe they’ll finally start letting me use my chair. It’s not even that fast. Well, okay, it is, but I can take off the mods that let me get it up to forty miles an hour, since that seems a little unfair, and also the spikes. Did I show you the spikes?”
“You are the most incredible idiot,” said Rilla. “Oh my god.”
Marc grinned. “I thought it was pretty clever.”
“It was,” said Rilla. Behind her, Caroline, their team captain, dropped from the back of the bench, where she had been doing her daily set of pull-ups.
“It took me a year to get them to let a girl on the team,” she said, “and now we have a horse?”
“Technically, he’s not playing,” said Marc.
Caroline rolled her eyes and laid down for her daily set of sit-ups. “Tell that to the refs when they kick us off the field.”
As she disappeared behind the bench, Mira’s beat up Honda civic rolled into the parking lot. She clambered out of the car with snacks and scorebooks in tow and stormed towards the warmup bench.
“What the hell is that, Marc?” she asked, out of breath and covered in a fine sheen of sweat. (The air conditioning in her car had been broken for over a year.)
“Mira, say hello to Dampierre,” said Marc. “Dampierre, Mira. I think you two will get along swimmingly.”
Mira let out a long, slow breath. “Okay. Yeah. You know what? Fuck it. That works. If the refs get mad, you’re the one arguing the rules, okay?”
Marc gave her a thumbs-up. “Sounds perfect. I look forward to a nice, clean game.”
Mira spared a skeptical look for Dampierre’s backside. “Sure. Clean game.”
The opposing team, nicknamed the Monsters, rolled into the parking lot within the next twenty minutes. After that, it was all vying for warmup space and calling the various late members of each team to report. Damien and Rilla greeted their boyfriend, Arum, with warm smiles and promises to kick his ass into next week. Rilla settled on the warmup bench beside Mira and watched as the team – including Marc and Dampierre – lined up by the end zone lines. At the referee’s whistle, all hell broke loose.
Marc kept tight control over Dampierre, preventing him from trampling the various players. The Monsters kept the frisbee as far away from Marc as they could, though he was able to make a couple of quick interceptions. When Marc sailed into the end zone atop a trotting Dampierre, three of the opposing players quit in outrage, and their coach had a twenty minute screaming match with the referee, an older man named Helicoid who couldn’t quite seem to understand why it was so unfair that Marc should have a horse.
“After all,” he said, “it isn’t against the rules.”
The Knights won 10-2 and converged in the center of the field, trying awkwardly to get Dampierre in the center of a group hug, which was a failed endeavor from the start. Rilla just stood back and laughed, arm-in-arm with Arum, who was grumbling something about the game being rigged from the start. Atop Dampierre, Marc beamed as bright as the sun.
“So, Mira,” he said, when they had all assembled in the parking lot, “I’ll see you next Saturday for the big game?”
“Whatever,” said Mira. “Next week, you’re bringing snacks.”