"When you don't talk, there's a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said."D.J. Schwenk has a story to tell. At fifteen, she has failed sophomore English and quit the basketball and track teams to run the family dairy farm. Her dad is recovering from surgery amd someone has to milk the cows and take care of all the farm chores. Her mom is working two jobs, teaching sixth grade and is the acting principal of her school. Her two older brothers are off at college playing football and younger brother Curtis doesn't talk and is busying with his little league baseball team. In fact, the one problem with the Schwenk family is that they don't talk with one another. Life is busy for D.J. in Red Bend, Wisconsin.
Enter Brian Nelson, quarterback for the Hawley football team and Red Bend's rival. Hawley's coach, Jimmy Ott, is a family friend of the Schwenk family and thinks that D.J. has a few things to teach his starting quarterback. Or does Brian have a few things to teach D.J.? Brian helps out around the Schwenk farm and D.J. secretly trains Brian so that her family doesn't find out what she is doing. And in talking with Brian, D.J. learns a few things about herself, one of which is her desire to join the Red Bend football team. The other, is to talk and what gets said is surprising.
After five months of sheer absolute craziness I was going back to being plain old background D.J. In photographs of course I’m always in the background . . .
In this conclusion to the trilogy, the Schwenk family rallies around D.J. as she has to make some tough decisions about her future. I will admit I got a little teary at the end.
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