1984; that scene has stuck with me since high school and was always a "big deal" when I was teaching that novel to my own students many years later!@carolkean, the rats and eyeballs was
Hooray for Boxer too! Imagining him being driven away, each time I read that novel, left such a sad hole in my heart!
"It's only fiction," my husband says, but it isn't, because the truth is best told in the guise of fiction. Torture scenes and exploited, overworked animals (and people!) as loyal and eager to please as Boxer.... gaaahhhh!!!
Back to the football game. Now THAT is fiction, as far as I'm concerned. :)