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//Student, teacher, muscles... Enjoy draft two preview of the new novel. Naughty stuff doesn't happen yet in this preview, but you get an idea of where it's going.\

"Don't Call Me Coach"

by Tagenar

copyright 2014 - 2015

www.tagenar.com

This is a preview of an unpublished novel, and does not represent the final text. Feel free to link other people to it, but do not alter or redistribute.

1

"Mr. Hood, your qualifications are stellar."

Garth sat on the opposite side of the desk, hands in his lap, biceps puckering his chest muscles. He was dressed in business casual, sans tie, and he had deliberately worn a shirt one size too small for him. He had done this for the last five places he interviewed, and he couldn't believe he was trying to use his body to get an edge. He figured if females could show a little chest to get ahead in the world, it would work for him, too.

The poodle behind the desk had barely looked at him, which Garth thought was a good sign, as it meant she had noticed and was trying to focus on business and not his cleavage.

"Thank you," Gath said.

"The school year starts in two weeks. We don't like to hire this close to the first day, but we have a vacancy in the gym department."

Garth didn't blink.

"I recognize it may not be what you're after but..."

Gym, Garth thought.

"...there could be many opportunities to grow from here."

Gym.

"We do require our gym coaches to come to the classroom for a few periods a day and teach academic courses, but that won't be a problem for you I'm sure."

Gym?

"You'd be perfect, Mr. Hood. You're somebody who can jump into it, and I think the pups would respect you. Are you interested?"

Fuck no! Garth thought.

"I could do that," Garth said.

"Great," said the poodle. Garth couldn't remember her name, only that she was the gatekeeper to his entire future and she probably didn't know it.

She lowered the papers she was holding to the desk and let them drop. She picked up a folder on the side of the desk, pulled a thin stack of papers from it and slid them over to Garth, right-side up from his point of view.

"All the information is here, including salary. You will have students ranging from ninth to twelfth grade. Be ready to start next week. That will only give you a week to prepare for the first day of school. Short notice, I know, but the other coaches will help you out. Have you held a teaching position before, Mr. Hood?"

The mastiff leaned forward, plastic chair twisting under his weight. The motion also pushed his biceps and pectorals even further out, and all of a sudden he resented his choice of wardrobe.

These were employment papers. After all the interviews, and the countless applications he had filed but had not interviewed for, he was finally staring at a job. Written right there on the form was the position: Gym Coach. Garth exhaled.

"No," he said. "This will be my first."

The canine in charge of personnel leaned forward on the desk and began talking. Garth didn't hear a word she said. He merely picked up the pen, skimmed over the terms of employment, and signed the papers.

Gym... He thought the word over and over.

When the last paper had ink on it, Garth stood, but the poodle did not. She shook paws with him, and Garth walked out of the office, wishing he had not worn this shirt.

Garth walked to the car, climbed in the seat and held a death grip on the steering wheel. Every muscle north of the waist was tense and flexed. He turned the key, pulled out of the spot and merged into the city traffic. He stopped at a red light at the intersection.

Gym!

Green light. Garth punched the gas three times harder than he needed to and slammed on the brakes as he approached the red light at the next block.

GYM!

Light after light the word kept spinning around in his mind. He bared his teeth and clenched the steering wheel harder. The shirt stretched and strained more and more until finally something popped.

Garth heard it and looked down at his arm. Sure enough his bicep had split the shirt sleeve lengthwise about four inches. The mastiff growled at it. He hated this shirt anyway, but the poodle did say she thought the pups would respect him, so in that sense, this shirt had gotten him the job.

A few lights later, Garth pulled into a strip mall and sped into a parking space. He opened the glove box, removed a pair of shorts from it, and slammed the car door. He walked into his gym, showed his membership card and walked straight to the locker room.

It was empty, and Garth sat on the bench, arms on his thighs. He stared at the floor for a few minutes as he thought the word over and over. He had no steering wheel to crush, so he clenched his fists, twisted his face in a building growl. Finally he snarled and grabbed the shirt and ripped it off, the buttons popped free and rolled everywhere on the floor, and he threw it across the room into the trash can. Garth rested his forearms on his thighs and stared between his pecs at the floor again.

After a few deep breaths, he stood up, undid his pants and carefully took them off. The shirt was no loss, but these pants actually fit him and he didn't want to shop around for another pair. Since he was the only one in the room, he removed them entirely and sat naked in the locker room.

"The pups will respect you," he said.

Garth stood up, flexed his arms, his legs, his chest, raised his arms and stretched his lats. Then he slipped the shorts on and walked away from the lockers, carrying his pants with him.

Being so early in the morning, the weight room was almost empty. Only three other canines were in here, and they were busy with their own things, so Garth had his free choice of where to do his routine. He picked the bench furthest away from the other patrons and loaded the barbell with a pyramid of plates that was his maximum bench.

He lay under the barbell and benched. It felt too light. He pumped it again and again, faster and harder than he ever had before. He panted severely, letting it disturb his rhythm.

"I'm a fucking gym coach!"

He exhausted his pectorals, sat up and immediately walked to the dumbbells, leaving his pants by the bench. He picked up one of the heaviest the gym had, sat down on the nearest perch and hoisted it over his head with one arm. He worked his triceps next, glancing at the other patrons. They were far enough away not to hear him, so he bared his teeth and growled under his breath.

"Ten years in university." One rep.

"Graduate... twelfth in my class." Two reps.

"I'm a goddamned... scientist!" Two reps.

"I know... how to send people... to Mars and back!"

He worked the next three reps silently, then switched arms.

"Two years... Looking... for a job... For two years... I have a physics... doctorate! Now... I'm a fucking gym coach!"

Triceps were exhausted. He rose from this bench, set the weight back on the rack and walked to the preacher curl bench. He loaded the barbell with a large pyramid, sat down and began curling, growling.

"I can look... at a goddamned star... and tell you what it's made of... and how far away it is! I can figure out... how much a beam of light bends... as it goes around it! Now I'm teaching... gym!"

He had squeezed twelve repetitions out of that, and now his arms were thoroughly exhausted. He stood up, walked around. Two of the other canines in the room were staring at him. Garth just realized he hadn't done a good job keeping his disgust to himself. It was also a slight breath of etiquette to work out without a shirt like this, but he was twice as big as all of them, and if any of them had a problem with it, they didn't say so.

Garth growled less and less as he moved through his upper body routine. By the time he concluded with shoulders, he felt like he was ready to accept what had happened. Back in the locker room, Garth changed into pants and walked to the door.

He paused at the trash can. His buttonless shirt was the only piece of garbage in it. He sighed, felt his chest across and down to the forearm. He had never worked out in anger like that before, and his pump was enormous. He was a little self conscious about flashing it now. He reached in, pulled the shirt out and draped it over his shoulders. His arms did not fit in the sleeves and they strained the fabric even more. It would never fit now after this workout, but at least it attempted to cover him. He left the locker room, walked by the front desk and out the door.

2

The mastiff turned the handle and pushed the door inward. Conversation did not stop when he poked his head through the door, which was a good sign. It was a generic meeting room with a couple long tables down the middle and chairs arranged around them. He had been told to be here today at nine in the morning for an important meeting between the teachers in his department.

Papers were strewn about, coffee cups were everywhere, and a couple boxes of donuts lay open around the table. There were eight other people in the room. All but one of them were canines. All but one was overweight.

Garth stepped inside and sat down in a chair next to one of the canines. Garth's scent disturbed the air in the room, and finally everyone noticed him and the chitchat stopped.

"Oh, you must be Garth," said the largest dog in the room, also a mastiff, but with much darker fur. He stood up and offered his paw. Garth rose halfway out of his seat, reached over a box of donuts and shook it. "I'm Terrance."

"Garth Hood," he said. "Just hired last week."

"I heard they finally decided to fill the position last minute," Terrance said.

He let go of Garth's paw and took his seat again. Garth took a seat as well. He was wearing appropriate-fitting clothes this time, going out of his way to avoid showing his time in the gym.

"I'm kind of the informal head of the department," Terrance continued. "No title. Principal wants minor issues to come to my attention first so he isn't overwhelmed."

"Sure," Garth said. "So what are we doing?"

"Meeting don't start for another ten minutes," said one of the other canines three seats down. He was a collie, probably weighed as much as Garth, but in fat and water. "We've just been chillin' in here for now."

"Right."

"You new to this area?" said a female voice.

Gath's eyes were instantly drawn to the smallest person in the room, a shepherd mixed with collie. Her face was all black but her paws were golden brown. She actually looked like she could be teaching gym.

"Actually yeah, I moved here as part of the job hunt, Ms. ..."

Terrance interrupted. "Oh, if you're new here we should introduce ourselves." He gestured to the female.

"Sasha Grace," said the fit canine. "I'm one of the swim team coaches. I also teach algebra and pre-calc."

The fat feline was Jeremy, one of the soccer coaches. He also taught chemistry.

The fat collie was Vern. When he wasn't coaching tennis, he also taught trigonometry.

The fat husky was Joey, who managed the wrestling team and also taught physics and earth science.

The fat fox was Bob, the other wrestling coach who also taught a health class.

The fat rottweiler was Paul. He coached football and also taught health and nutrition.

The fat retriever was Gary, who coached one of the gymnastics teams as well as taught social studies.

That brought the introductions back to Terrance. "And I coach the basketball teams, plus I teach economics."

Garth couldn't stop looking at Terrance, a fellow mastiff, ancestors from Italy, his body type. The resemblance was eerie. It was like looking at himself if he had decided to take orders from the donut shop instead of the gym. The fur pattern was different, but to think that this could have been him. He wondered how Terrance could ever be content with himself. Garth scanned the room again, wondering that about everyone else, too.

With the introductions out of the way, the gym coaches shuffled and traded papers back and forth. A few of these papers came Garth's way. Basketball unit, football unit, soccer unit, badminton unit, and so forth. It looked like they were trying to decide which units to do first.

Garth sighed, thinking he would rather use a basketball to illustrate a distant star and how to calculate its mass by how much background light was bent around it. But he swallowed the depression and was about to recommend the option of basketball or tennis first, to give students a variety in choice, but nobody was even looking at the papers.

Garth stayed quiet, listened to the others. Conversation degenerated into complaining about the pups on their various teams and how poorly they performed last year on the soccer team, or the tennis team, or the gymnastics team. Jeremy's soccer team made it to state level in the competition, but that was it.

Some of the pups were part of both sports, and when two coaches could compare notes, they lamented they would have to work with these pups again. School policy meant they couldn't be cut from a team, so they were stuck with whoever they were stuck with.

After twenty minutes listening to three parallel conversations complaining about this pup and that one, Garth picked up some papers and spoke up.

"So are we here to figure out which units to do first?"

Sasha heard him and turned her muzzle his way. The gossip did not stop, the multiple conversations between the different coaches were impenetrable. She too, rested her head in her paw and pretended to be part of the gossip in the room.

Garth leaned back in his chair and tried to listen, but it had all blended into white noise punctuated by laughter. He occupied his time by sorting them into the order he cared about. Basketball and football at the end of the school year, soccer towards the middle, and weight training towards the front. He looked up from the papers, and the coaches were still rambling on about the pups over the previous years.

After an hour, Terrance called a break, and the group dispersed out the door, except for Garth and Sasha. She sat opposite the mastiff, and when everyone was out of the room, she smiled.

"Welcome to Rhyne High."

"Is this how we usually do things?"

Sasha nodded. "I've been here for three years. I gave up trying to get them to do anything."

"Is that both here and in class?"

"Vern is coaching tennis, and he teaches trig. You know what his major is? Music. Joey teaches physics and earth science, and he majored in electrical engineering. Terrance teaches economics, and he majored in anthropology. So what about you?"

"Physics."

She smiled again, nodded. "You're in good company here. I was lucky. I am a math major and I actually get to teach it, as much as you can call it teaching."

"So how do the rest of them survive?"

"We have class outlines, and we just follow them. Teach from the book. Every day we basically read the book to the students, make them take notes, give them tests every once in a while, and that's the course."

"Damn."

"They're probably going to stick you with social studies."

"I don't know social studies."

"They'll give you an outline, too, and a book. Just teach the textbook. It's what we have to do. It's actually required."

"Wait. Is this a coach's meeting, or--"

"Nope," Sasha said, smiling. "It's a teacher's meeting. There are two teams of four teachers per grade, and we basically do everything. Almost everyone has to coach something on the side. Sometimes we do the electives, too."

"So this is it? This is who is teaching our pups?"

Sasha nodded.

"This is extortion," Garth said. "They're making us do the work of two and three teachers but only paying us for one. How did the union approve this?"

"Budget cuts forced the teacher's union to agree. It all happened years ago, long before I got here."

"Oh my God."

"We all feel your pain, Garth. I should be out there looking for consumer trends, tracking waste and extrapolating weather patterns. Instead, I'm reading a textbook to a bunch of high-schoolers and pretending to teach pool. All the school cares about is the team you coach and how well you do in the regional and state competitions. That's what I have to do after school. By the time I get home, I might have time to eat and get five hours of sleep."

"Will I have to coach?"

"Maybe the school is looking to compete in the powerlifting circuits or something. I'm sure they hired you for just that reason. You look qualified for it."

Garth smiled, leaned back in his chair and sighed. "I'd rather be calculating trajectories to send people to Mars. I've been looking for a job for two years. Started with all the engineering posts. Nobody was hiring. Not even the military. Then I went for teaching positions at universities. Then I went down to high schools. This is the best job I could get."

"Two years. I believe it. I've been putting in applications for six. Nothing. So here I stay, coaching pups on the swim team. I'm one of six coaches on that alone. There are eight teachers managing the football teams. Four for the tennis teams. Four for volleyball. It's gotten ridiculous, but it's not so bad once you accept that you're here to coach a sport, not teach a class. That's all this school cares about."

"Thanks for the warning." Garth looked down at the papers. "So when are we going to decide what to do this semester?"

"Maybe never. Terrance is supposed to be our team lead, but we're all coaches here. Nobody takes any of this seriously. Doesn't really matter in the end."

She turned her muzzle away, stared off into space. Garth flipped through the papers, made sure they were sorted in his order of preference. Five minutes later, the group began trickling back in, and the gossip resumed. Garth endured another twenty minutes of it.

He stared at the paper for the weightlifting unit. It seemed straightforward enough: demonstrate proper leg technique and various exercises designed to work the legs, demonstrate arm technique and five exercises. Very basic stuff, but pups needed to learn it sometime.

The mastiff looked up at Terrance. He growled, hating the smell of these "teachers," hating that the last decade of his life had led him to this. He looked down at the papers, figuring since he was here, he may as well do something he enjoyed.

Garth waited for a quiet spot in the student gossip and shouted. "Well, if there are no objections, I think these should be our first options."

He slid three papers to the center of the table. The weightlifting unit, the tennis unit, and the soccer unit. Everyone glared at him, as if the sentence he spoke had been made entirely of curse words. Garth did not care at all.

"Any thoughts?"

The other coaches looked at one another. Nobody spoke.

"Great," Garth said, and took the papers back.

"That reminds me," Terrance said. "Lilith wanted me to tell you to report to her after this meeting. I think she wants to assign you a class."

"Lilith?"

"Personnel Director. She hired you."

Garth glanced at Sasha. She smiled and nodded. Garth sighed. "Oh, that's her name. Sure, I'll see her."

Gossip resumed. Garth waited ten minutes, until the time slot for the meeting had elapsed, rose from his chair and walked out of the room. He breathed easier when he was out of there. He passed several more offices on the way to the office and stopped at the door labeled Personnel Department. He just now noticed the name on the door: Lilith Dover.

Garth turned the corner, tapped on the door. The poodle looked up from her desk. Her eyes brightened when she saw Garth.

"Mr. Hood, I'm glad you're here." She picked up a folder on her desk. "As part of your employment here, I'm asked to inform you that you will be teaching our government course. It's for seniors only."

Garth walked in, took the folder from her, flipped though the papers inside. It was a course outline for Government Studies.

"Are you sure?" Garth said. "My major is in physics. Aren't there any openings in the science department?"

"Not at this time, Mr. Hood. Also, if you keep going through the packet, you'll discover a proposal."

Garth flipped to the last page and skimmed it. He didn't need to read the whole thing. This one piece of paper was the whole reason he was hired, just as Sasha said. He caught several keywords. Competition. Coaching. Wrestling team. Weightlifting.

He lowered the paper and met Ms. Dover's eyes. "They want me to get the wrestling team into weightlifting?"

"And the football team, too. You are definitely qualified, Mr. Hood."

"I'm qualified to send people to the moon."

"If K through twelve schools had space programs, I would have hired you for that in a heartbeat. But as it is, the school is looking to compete with the other teams in the state. All of the successful schools have integrated weight training into their student's routines. We are one of the last to do so."

Garth sighed, skimmed the paper again, caught more keywords. Collaborate. Coaches. Wrestling team. Football.

"Aren't there rules against this?" said the mastiff. "These are pups."

"Performance of the athletic department is a huge source of funding. We need to compete."

"Funding? This is high school."

"College teams recruit from our ranks, Mr. Hood. We receive compensation from the sponsors when our numbers are good, and we need it, since the state decreased our operating budget eight years ago."

"And what about education? Science, reading, music? Does any of that matter these days?"

"Maybe when you and I went to school, but these days we have to follow the funding. Another chunk of our funding is also tied to test scores, and you would do well to make sure all of your students pass the tests. They're included in the course book. I am sure you can handle government studies, Mr. Hood."

She smiled at him. It was not a professional smile.

Garth backed away from the desk. "All right. I'll work something out. Where do I get my supplies for the course?"

"Room two-oh-six. Educator's edition is in the desk."

"Thanks."

Garth backed all the way out.

"Oh, and by the way, Mr. Hood. Everything I just told you is confidential."

Garth paused, head peeking around the door. "What was?"

"It was in your employment agreement. Issues relating to school budget and funding and operations are not to be discussed with the students, their families, or openly among other members of the faculty. Please treat it as protected information, Mr. Hood."

Garth's muzzle was half open, trying to speak. He blinked twice. "Since when is stuff like that confidential?"

"Since the board decided it was best to keep it so."

"And when was that?"

"Eight years ago."

"Right. Sure."

He slinked away and walked down the hall, passing all the different offices. Vice Principal. The counselor offices. Garth paused by the door. There was only one counselor's office. Garth remembered there was one for each grade when he was in high school, and he was certain his father told him there used to be two for each grade before that.

Garth shook his head, walked past the rest of the offices. He stopped at the door of the teacher's meeting he had left. The coaches were still in there, now laughing at one student on the baseball team who couldn't catch or bat, but still joined the team year after year.

He continued walking. In the adjacent room was another group of teachers. Past them, in another meeting room, was another. Each room was full of coffee cups, donut boxes, vending machine wrappers, soda cans and Golden Halo packages.

He left the offices and walked down the empty halls. He growled to himself, clenched his fist, making his forearms stretch the sleeves of his shirt. A decade of school, and now his job was to get pups into weightlifting while pretending to teach government. He wondered how a dog who hadn't voted in years was supposed to educate the pups on the value of voting. Now he had less than a week to prepare two courses plus figure out how he was going to get the football and wrestling teams on weights, without betraying how the school system was playing puppetmaster with the students so it could secure more funding.

He growled louder when he realized his years of education had nothing to do with this job. Only his dedication to the gym. He had no official qualifications for the task. He merely looked qualified to get the pups started on lifting weights. Garth bared his teeth and the fur on his back stood up as he thought about it. If he had known that was all he had to do to get a job, he wouldn't have bothered with university, and avoided the crippling debt that hung from his ballsack like a superhero's greatest weakness.

He wandered the lonely halls for a good ten minutes, passing janitors cleaning the floors and restrooms. Contractors were everywhere inspecting the sprinkler systems, fire extinguishers, pull stations, electrical systems and various other things prior to the beginning of the school year. Some glanced at the large, growling mastiff passing by. Everyone stayed out of his way.

Finally, Garth arrived at the school's gymnasium. The bleachers were retracted, so the gymnasium looked huge. It had a drop ceiling, with the pipes and other fixtures hidden. He'd never seen that before; most schools were too cheap to put a drop ceiling above the gym so the balls wouldn't get stuck up there. At four basketball courts wide and three stories high, it was definitely where the school had spent the most money, and this didn't even include the pool.

Through one door off to the side, Garth saw dumbbell racks and exercise equipment. He walked across the shellacked floor painted with basketball court lines and stood in the single doorway. His face lifted and his tail wagged a little.

His new job was to beef up the school's athletes to be more competitive, and he couldn't have asked for a better place to do it.

3

The first bell rang. Garth stood stiff as a surfboard as the students began to arrive. This would be a freshman group, and all of a sudden Garth felt like an adult. Though he was in the small crowd of gym coaches, he felt alone and out of his element.

Garth wore a loose shirt, and gym shorts that hung down to mid-thigh. He would rather have covered up entirely, but this was gym and there was no other way. He also held a clipboard under one arm, and a whistle hung from his neck and rested between his pecs. He hoped he would never have to use it.

In five minutes, the second bell rang, and the students began filing in from the locker room, wearing shorts and loose shirts and ready to be physical this early in the morning.

The students gathered where the gym coaches were and Garth pretended to be occupied by something on his clipboard. He glanced up at the students from time to time. All of them were canine, and they were staring at him. Most looked intimidated, but a few seemed amazed. He caught whispers like "what's he doing here?" and "damn, who is that?" From any other crowd, Garth would have enjoyed the attention, but these were pups, so it felt awkward.

Terrance, the fat mastiff coach of basketball and economics, stepped out of the crowd of teachers and blew his whistle.

"Welcome to Rhyne High everyone! I'm coach Terrance and we're going to start off with a couple unit choices. Everyone gets a choice of what to take, and this month we have either tennis, soccer or weight room. Coach Hood--" he gestured to Garth--"is gonna be doing the weight room unit. He's new this year so go easy on him."

Garth huffed. Great, tell them I'm new and don't know what I'm doing.

The students stared at him. Adults were discreet about it, but these pups were not.

With the brief introductions out of the way, Terrance lined the students up on the sideline. Garth stood in one spot in front of them. Four coaches stood in another spot a few feet away, then the other four stood in the other spot.

"Everyone who wants to do weights, line up in front of Garth," Terrance announced. He walked in a straight line to the next group. "Tennis is here." He stopped just after the last group and turned around. "Soccer is here."

The pups broke off the line and migrated to one of the three spots. Now Garth had a use for the clipboard. He clicked the pen, walked down the line, got everyone's name. He had fourteen students in this period, which was probably all the weight room could handle.

He led the pups to the weight room, told them to take a seat anywhere. He gathered the papers from the unit outline that had been in the packet. Garth had looked it over and laughed. The outline was explicit in its instructions to use the included papers to illustrate proper technique. It outright warned instructors not to touch the weights themselves. Garth concluded the committee that wrote these guidelines possessed the collective intelligence of a neutrino, and decided to take the students through real demonstration, real hands-on training. The papers on the different muscle groups and all the exercises that worked them were useful though, and Garth passed those papers out.

"All right," Garth said. "My name is Mr. Hood. I'll be doing the weight unit for the next three weeks. Those papers I gave you are just for reference. I'm going to take everyone through a basic chest and arm workout routine today, show you the machines, the weights, how to use them properly and how to keep yourself from getting injured. Let's start with the bench press. Everyone gather here. make sure you can see."

He walked aside and stood by a bench. The students, a mix of breeds and fur types, floppy ears and pointy ears, males and females, stood up and filtered between the equipment to the bench against the wall with the window.

On the advice of his fellow coaches, he did not demonstrate himself, so he wouldn't be tired by the end of the day.

"I need a volunteer to demonstrate bench. Anyone want to show us how it's done?"

After half a beat of silence, a retriever raised his paw.

"Yes, what's your name?"

The retriever pushed past a couple dogs and now stood at the bench with Garth. "Tyler."

"Nice to meet you. You ever bench before?"

"A couple times."

"Well, I'll show you how to do it right."

Tyler seemed eager to be shown, and he stood opposite Garth as he explained how to start off with bench. Tyler lay down on it, Garth showed proper position of the bar, proper position of the hands. Tyler benched eighty pounds with some strain, which was good. As he benched, Garth guided his motions in the right direction, narrated why the hands had to be here, why the bar was positioned here, and most importantly, never, ever, ever arch the back.

With bench press out of the way, Garth moved the group to a couple different machines that did the same thing. Tyler demonstrated those, Garth narrated a bit, and then he moved on to arms. Tyler demonstrated for Garth as he narrated again. Garth made sure to tell him when he was doing it right, or in good form, or his pacing was good so he wouldn't be intimidated or feel like Garth thought less of him.

Preacher curls, dumbells, barbell curls. Posture, alignment of the back, position of the spine and shoulders. Garth hoped he was scaring the pups into keeping proper form and not taking chances.

Tyler set the dumbbells back on the rack.

"That's the basics," Garth said.

All through the period Garth had been reading the expression of the pups' faces, watching their body postures. They were intimidated, and that meant they were probably not paying attention.

Garth pulled out his cell phone (which he was not supposed to have with him) and showed Tyler a picture of himself when he was in the ninth grade, when he was as small as the littlest dog in the room.

Tyler's face brightened and he laughed. Garth held his phone up to the other students, and their reactions ranged from arms-folded indifference, to ear-perking disbelief.

"Don't think it can't pay off," Garth said to everyone as he slipped his phone back in his pocket. "And you don't even have to go as far as I have! Even doing it casually, you'll see a difference. Now, for the rest of the period, I want you all to work the arms and chest. Don't try to do too much weight, don't hurt yourself. Stick with the basics. If you have any questions, just ask."

The students dispersed around the weight room. It was easy to tell who came here because they wanted to work out, and who came here because they thought they could get away with standing around talking the whole time. A group of teenage females sat on a bench in the corner, talking, pulling out notebooks and doing homework that should have been done yesterday.

Garth was about to tell them this wasn't a study hall, but Tyler and two other dogs approached him.

"Coach Hood?" said a young pitbull standing next to Tyler. "We're on the football team. We were told to see you."

Garth blinked. It was the first time anyone had called him that. Thinking it was bizarre, but to hear it from someone else was uncomfortable.

"First, please don't call me coach. Mr. Hood will be fine."

The pups looked confused. Garth didn't give them a chance to think about it. He led them out of the weight room, through the gymnasium and into the locker rooms, where the coaches' offices were. His office was a tiny room with a desk pushed flush against the wall opposite the door, just barely large enough for himself and a couple other people to stand. He had a feeling it was originally for the janitor.

Garth really wanted to keep an eye on the other pups to make sure they didn't hurt themselves, but he remembered why he was hired, and spent the remainder of the period in his tiny office asking the pups questions, figuring out what a good routine would be for them, as well as assigning them a diet.

Those pups left his office with a bounce to their step. Garth sat back in his chair and smiled. Would they have accepted a workout routine and diet plan from someone who obviously didn't have either? The workouts wouldn't begin until next week and Garth would be in the weight room the whole time. He considered actually working out with them. Perhaps seeing him go through his routine would give them a little taste of jealousy and inspire them to push themselves harder.

The bell rang, first period dismissed, and Garth gathered with the other coaches in the gymnasium. At the next bell, Garth took attendance, and the students were divided into the units.

Second period was a repeat of the first. Garth was afraid of what would happen if there was no volunteer to demonstrate the moves, but this period had a volunteer, too, and Garth used him so show everyone chest and arms.

After the demonstration, the football and wrestling pups cornered him and Garth took them aside and gave them a workout and diet program. Many of them, to his surprise, did not know the first thing about exercise or proper diet, and to these pups he promised more thorough instruction beginning next week after school.

The next two periods went just the same, and he showed the pictures of himself on his phone more than he expected. He always kept those old pictures of him on it because nobody believed he used to be "ordinary," and it helped break past the intimidation Garth had to deal with when meeting anybody for the first time. Bringing himself down to their level reassured him he was a person, just like they were. By the time class dismissed, he felt more like he was making new friends than taking his place as a teacher.

Fifth period hit, and it was time to change clothes and become a government teacher. He noticed most of the other coaches didn't bother to change clothes when they transitioned from coach to teacher, but Gath did so anyway. Long shorts and a shirt showed just enough to let the pups know he practiced what he preached, but in the classroom it would not help him at all.

So he walked into fifth period Government Studies well before the bell rang and sat behind his new desk. He had reviewed the class outline during his time leading up to the first day of school. He expected to be crushed under the weight of planning lessons and lectures and assignments, but to his surprise he found all of that was done for him.

The outline had everything, from quizzes to hand out, to questions to ask the students to keep them paying attention, to tests at the end of every section. Garth even skimmed the final exam. It was all here, premade, the entire course. Even the lectures he was supposed to give in class were the book itself. The textbook was written like a class lecture, and the outline instructed him to "lecture the text, using the additional notes in the margin to elaborate on certain points."

These "additional notes" were written in the margin of the educator's edition, and the students didn't see them. Some of the quiz questions asked specifically about the information in those notes, to make sure the students were paying attention.

Garth may have had a doctorate, but he was not trained to teach, so he was relieved he didn't have to go through all the work of making a brand new class in less than a week. He really could just jump right into this.

The students arrived. Garth passed out the books, opened to the first lesson and began paraphrasing the entire chapter. It began with a history of government, how it was believed government began, and the cruel, early forms of it that were not very fair, but kept the population orderly so civilization could survive. He made sure to include the "additional notes" in his lecture.

When he was done, Garth assigned the quiz at the end of the chapter, passed out the multiple choice forms, and let the pups work on the assignment for the remainder of class. Garth sat behind his desk and settled in. Several dogs and one feline rose from their desks and walked up to him.

"Coach Hood?"

"No coach. I'm Mr. Hood."

Again the pups were confused.

"Football team?" Garth said.

They nodded. Garth asked the usual questions and told them to meet up with him after school for more formal instruction. They looked him over, eager to hear what he had to say--eager to receive the workout program. Garth smiled as they took their seats. By the end of the period, all the students had turned in their papers, the bell rang, and the students rushed to their next class. Garth took a few deep breaths, rinsed his mind and prepared to do it all over for his second period of government studies.

The students took their seats. One doberman in the back caught his eye because he was staring at Garth harder than any of the others. Most of the pups looked and smelled intimidated when meeting Garth for the first time, but the doberman had a different look about him.

Garth rose from his desk. "Hello, everyone. I'm Mr. Hood, your Government Studies teacher."

He passed out the books and began his lecture with the opening chapter of government's early years. The doberman in the back was actually paying attention. He was thin, with an eagerness to his eyes that seemed too adult to be in high school.

Garth paused to ask one of the suggested questions. "Anyone know what the earliest record of government is?"

The dobie raised his hand.

"Yes, what's your name again?"

"Evan Silvers. Uh, they told me to talk to you. I'm on the wrestling team."

Garth couldn't help but laugh a little. "You're on the wrestling team?"

The class giggled with Garth, but he didn't get the feeling they were laughing at Evan. The dobie nodded, smiling.

"Do you have gym next period?"

He nodded.

"See me then. I'll get you hooked up."

The pup smiled, closed his muzzle and paid attention again as Garth resumed the lecture.

The other students had that body posture that said I'd rather be on the my phone texting. Garth was pretty sure they were writing text messages in their minds right now, anticipating responses and coming up with what they would say afterwards.

Not Evan. He was listening, and he never took his eyes off Garth. At first Garth was thrilled someone at least acted like they cared about the course, but after half an hour, that look became unnerving. Evan was too attentive. Too interested.

Garth was glad when the lecture was over and he let the class work alone. It meant he got to sit behind the desk and pretend to do things on the computer. Several times Garth looked up and caught Evan staring at him. The first few times, Evan turned his muzzle down and pretended to be absorbed in the quiz. The last time, the dobie did not look away. He held Garth's eyes.

The mastiff's first reaction was to wave at him, but he was a teacher now, so he tapped his finger on his desk, hoping he was gesturing to get back to work. The dobie pup smiled, his ears forward and alert, and resumed the assignment. As the pups finished, they got louder and louder until the bell rang.

Garth had one more gym class this day, so he had to change out of teacher clothes and back into his gym clothes. Garth could understand why so many coaches didn't bother to change, as this would become tiresome quickly, but Garth was determined to do his best even when it was inconvenient.

Last period gym class. The students lined up and separated the weight-room pups from the tennis and soccer pups. Evan was in class, and he was first in line for the weightlifting unit.

As usual, Garth asked for a volunteer for demonstrations. The dobie stepped forward, sat down on the bench and picked up a modest weight for the arm curls. He did a few sloppy curls, and Garth stopped him, held his own arm next to Evan's and showed proper technique. Wrist straight, elbow straight, back straight.

Evan imitated him, staring at Garth's arm. His form instantly improved. With that done, he led the group to the bench and Evan demonstrated. The dobie seemed to know how to bench press, but Garth spotted him and adjusted the bar to the correct position.

When the instruction was over, half the students sat around and did homework or talked and played on their phones. The other half hit the weights. Again, Garth wanted to whip them all into shape, but the eight wrestling and football players needed his attention. Garth took them to his office and figured out a good workout program to start with.

The dobie stood against the wall the whole time, letting everyone else go before him. Finally, the other dogs left the room, and it was just the two of them. Garth noticed the dobie's crotch. It was sticking out obscenely far. He pretended not to notice.

"Well, Evan, seems you're the only one in class today who actually wanted to get his paws on the weights."

Evan smiled, half looking away. "Well, I've kinda wanted to for a while. Always wanted to get big."

Garth smiled. "Don't think it can't happen." He reached for his phone, pulled up the usual picture of himself as a sophomore, not as thin as the dobie, but thin enough that nobody would ever have guessed his future.

Evan stared at it for a moment. "That's you?"

Garth smiled. "As a freshman. Anything is possible. So you're on the wrestling team? First year on it?"

"Actually no, I've been on it since my freshman year."

"How's it goin' for you?"

"Okay, I guess. I'm quick and flexible and can take a pounding."

"Well, now the school wants you to put some meat on those bones." Garth took out pencil and paper. Every time he did this he felt like he was writing a prescription. "Workout routine and diet plan. It's a good place to start. If you want to stay on the wrestling team, you'll need to log workouts twice a week, report to the nurse once of a month for a physical. I'm working with the other coaches on a schedule."

He paused, looked at the pup. The dobie was swiping through his pictures.

"Give me that," he said. Evan looked up from the phone, smiled and handed it back. Garth took it, turned the phone back around and glanced at the screen. Evan had stopped on a picture Garth took of himself at the beach over the summer from a low angle, making his pecs look like mountains. He kept his fur so finely trimmed every nook and cranny on his upper body was visible.

Evan was still smiling, and that look... The same look he had been giving Garth in class. Here it was again.

Garth set the phone down with one paw and handed the paper to him with the other. "Workouts start next week, Evan, as well as practice. I guess they started signups for all the sports before school even began. Never heard of that before, but seems everything is filled up and ready to go. Who's your coach?"

"Coach Bob."

"You mean Coach Campbell?"

"Nobody calls him that. He insists on Bob."

"All right, that's fine then. And I insist you don't call me coach at all. I am Mr. Hood."

Evan finally took the paper, turned halfway around and walked to the door. He turned back again, still giving Garth that look. Garth returned the stare. This time he didn't keep up the pretense of being a teacher. He held the pup's stare for as long as it took, hoping he was giving Evan the same look, whatever it was.

Evan raised his upstage arm, made a muscle, twitched his ears, nodded to his arm and then to Garth's, smiled and whistled. He turned around and trotted back to the gymnasium.

The physicist held the stare to the empty doorway.