Both Coach Randall's football team and Coach Wells's cheerleading team marched out to the school field to practice their craft. It was a bright cloudless day with the sun's rays beating down on all of them. Spring was in full bloom and was assiduously preparing the way for summer's arrival. Madeline noticed a butterfly briefly land on her nose before drifting off elsewhere. Each brigade practiced on the other side of the field directly in the line of sight of the other. While this occasionally caused some of the football players to ogle their cheerleader girlfriends as the girls learned to perform their various stunts, and the cheerleaders likewise to leer at their hunky boyfriends as they executed their various plays, overall, the coaches had done a remarkable job at keeping the normally apathetic students of Argendale High in line. Students who normally couldn't have cared less about school pride, like Dawn McCallister, were now exuberant and full of perky energy. Likewise, every student of Mr. Edgar's science class had conveniently forgotten to ask what had happened to him, and why his class was cut short for an extra gym class.
Whatever magic Coach Randall and Coach Wells had pulled, it was working wonders. Both teams were almost freakishly competent right out of the gate, blowing through their warm up routines straight into more advanced material. Randall and Wells themselves were impressed by their work, and later that day, Randall had bragged that perhaps by the following year, Argendale would have the best high school football team in the country. Some, like Bruno, might even play professionally.
Wells had plenty to brag about herself. Madeline and Nessa in particular were taking to cheerleading like fishes to water. Wells had worried that the magic that had changed all of the girls wouldn't be as potent on Neil and Matt. If anything, the two seemed be the ones leading the pack. When Wells had congratulated all of her students on a fantastic first day, she had made special note to distinguish Madeline and Nessa on their natural talent. The other cheerleaders politely clapped in their honor, seemingly without a hint of jealousy.
“Wow! This is so cool!” said Nessa as she and Madeline walked to the changing rooms, neither one remembering that they hadn't changed their clothes, their old boy clothes had been morphed into cheerleading uniforms. They each found lockers they had never used before, changed into tops and skinny jeans they had never worn before, and gossiped like two high school age girlfriends that up until just under an hour ago, they had not been.
**
Elsewhere, various high school football and cheerleadering teams all over the nation experienced a minuscule, almost imperceptible drop in their level of performance. Some hadn't even noticed it, but to those who had noticed it now felt like a piece of their soul was missing.
Two cheerleaders for the main high school of Polk, Ohio, Emily Parker and Jasmine Taril, had woken up as teenage boys.