Chapter Text
“All the loves in this strip are unrequited; all the baseball games are lost; all the test scores are D-minuses; the Great Pumpkin never comes; and the football is always pulled away.” - Charles Schulz
“Schroeder! You’re out. Pigpen’s the catcher for now,” Lucy called, scrunching her nose as the putrid player ran to take his place. From the base, Schroeder only shrugged.
“You can’t do that!” Charlie Brown complained. “I’m the manager. I should have a say in these kinds of things.”
“And I’m the team captain,” Lucy said, crossing her arms. “What I say goes.”
“Oh, brother.”
When the game resumed, Peppermint Patty was on third base. She ran towards home, but stopped suddenly at the wall of stench in front of her. “Jeez, Pigpen, I can’t even breathe!” Thanks to her whining, Linus had the opportunity to tag her out.
When the game ended, Lucy was still grinning ear to ear. “We won!” she said. “And it was all because I, the glorious team captain, made the ingenious call of putting Pigpen in as catcher.”
The next week, in 6th grade math class, Lucy showed off her paper with pride. “An A-plus!” she exclaimed. “My flashcards worked!”
Frieda showed the same score to Lucy, thanking her for hosting the study session. Franklin did the same.
With great trepidation, Lucy turned around. “Charlie Brown?” she asked.
“I… I can’t believe it!” the boy exclaimed. “I got an A. Thanks, Lucy!”
One month later, Lucy was doing something she never thought she would. “I am the Great Pumpkin,” Lucy announced from behind the orange curtain, lowering her voice so that she sounded more like a pumpkin than a person. “And I am here to visit you, Linus. Your devotion has not been forgotten. I would like to bestow upon you the Halloween Spirit!”
“Great Pumpkin! I knew you’d come, I knew it!” Linus exclaimed, wrapping his blanket around his shoulders as he jumped in excitement.
“As a token of my gratitude, you will notice people being exceptionally kind to you this holiday. Your sister will even give you,” she paused, taking a moment to sigh, “half of her Halloween candy.”
“Thank you, Great Pumpkin. I take this gift very seriously.”
On the Thanksgiving of their junior year, Lucy held onto the old, beaten up football that they had used a hundred times before. The worn leather of it felt nice against her hands, and she smiled to think of all the times she had snatched it from Charlie Brown’s foot.
Linus and Schroeder stood next to her, both of them ready for her usual trick. Charlie Brown sighed. “I think I’m past being fooled by that, Lucy,” he told her as he brushed by.
“I won’t, I promise! The joke has gotten old by now, anyway.”
Charlie Brown sighed. “I don’t know, Luce.”
“You won’t regret it!”
“Alright, but this is the last time.”
Lucy knelt down and pressed the base of the old football into the grass. The blades of it scratched her shins, a vivid green that was bound to go brown soon. She prepared herself to yank the football away, but then she saw Charlie Brown’s ever-persistent frown, and something stopped her. Before she could reconsider, his foot hit the ball, sending it soaring through the air.
He looked at her with an odd sense of wonder. “Thanks, Luce. I’ll go get the ball.”
Linus and Charlie Brown chased after it, leaving Lucy alone with Schroeder. Ten years ago, Lucy would have been ecstatic for a chance like this. The thought made her giggle.
“Why’d you do that, Lucy?”
“Hm?” she asked, snapped out of her thoughts. Schroeder was looking at her through a quizzical expression, his arms folded across his chest.
“Why’d you let him kick the football?”
“Oh. I don’t know,” she said. “It just felt like I should this time, you know?”
Schroeder shook his head and mumbled something she couldn’t quite make out. Lucy shrugged it off, called for Linus, and headed home.