“Oh, no, Justin. I’d just sit in the back like a little mouse, not saying a thing. I wouldn’t be a nuisance, promise!”
“Yeah, right, and you’d be cheesin’ it all the time back there. Well, we’ll talk about it later. Grab your bag and let’s get something to eat; I have to be back pretty quick.”
* * *
The two slices of pizza felt like lead in Justin’s stomach as he strapped on his pads. He bent over to pull on his cleats and immediately had to straighten up and take a deep breath. Next time he’d go easy on the grub before a game. Maybe he’d get lucky and wouldn’t have a chance to go in before the pizza was digested, so he wouldn’t have to embarrass himself and the ol’ home team by yakkin’ in front of a thousand fans and players. Well, a hundred. The jayvees’ first game wasn’t until next Thursday, so he knew that Coach Greene might substitute liberally later in the game to give the varsity players a chance for a breather during the game.
On the field, the squads ran easy drills designed just to loosen them up, more for show than for practice. Then they were back in the locker room, the coach mumbling something to them. Finally, as the sun started to disappear behind the stand of trees to the west of the field, the roar of the crowd wrapped around them as they ran back onto the field and through the hoop the senior cheerleaders held. Eric crashed through a banner that seemed to read, “selgaE oG” and a shadow of something else, maybe a blotchy eagle, that disappeared as the rest of the front line smashed through it. Justin tried to find his mother and Sharice in the crowd behind him, but they were lost in the sea of yelling faces.
Green Branch quickly scored two touchdowns in the first quarter, one on a fumble, before the Eagles’ defense came together and started slowing the green and white tide. The other players ranged up and down the sideline, an assistant coach occasionally yelling at them to stay behind the white line. Justin stayed towards the back of the pack, not moving except to stay with the group as it moved, mostly towards the Green Branch goal line. Green Branch fumbled three times in the second quarter to nullify any scoring attempts, and the buzzer sounded just before a Green Branch pass bounced out of bounds, the scoreboard showing 13-0.
Halftime and the third quarter were jumbled together, too, for Justin, although his stomach seemed to be returning to normal, but when Coach Greene roared at him to go in, his head was clear. When Karl barked his number in the signals, his feint to the right and short run downfield put him into perfect position for the flea-flick screen pass that nestled into his arms, and he barely felt the blows as he was tackled and knocked from his feet. He held onto the ball, and he refrained from cracking a smile as the announcer called, “Eagles gain six yards. Second down.” He knew that it was the longest gain for Niotaka so far in the game.
“That’s the way to hold onto the pass, Justin.” Karl smacked his helmet as he joined the huddle. “Now, they won’t expect the same play twice in a row, but this time we’ll sweep right and I’ll throw left. Don’t run too far out, Justin; keep them on your tail. Ready? Break!”
As soon as Justin broke through the line three players surrounded him. He dutifully trotted towards the right side of the field, and as Karl rolled to his left and cocked his arm, Justin broke suddenly to his left, the three so close that he could smell them. As the ball left Karl’s fingers, Justin jumped and reached for an imaginary football, but as he came down the three peeled away towards the Niotaka receiver, who tucked in the pass but was snowed under by Green Branch players. “Three-yard gain, Eagles. Third and inches,” floated across the field.
“Okay, Justin. Think you can run a little?” Karl asked when they returned to the huddle.
“No problem. I’m ready.”
“Okay, guys, draw play, Justin up the middle, Joe, you play receiver to the left. Just get the first down, Justin; don’t try to get long yardage unless they fall down and play dead on us. Ready? Break!”
Justin balanced on the balls of his feet. Karl called the signals so crisply that Justin could hear his words echo. The crowd had fallen silent, sensing that the Eagles were finally starting to come back.
The snap was sudden, and Justin was almost caught off guard, but the handoff from Karl was smooth. Justin veered slightly to the right and charged through the line. He felt a tug on his jersey, a hand slap his knee, and suddenly he could see goal posts in front of him and to his far left green jerseys just now turning away from Joe. He didn’t remember running thirty-odd yards, only that he seemed to float the distance, and when the goal line flashed past him he stopped, knelt for a moment, and then flipped the ball to the official who was still running toward him with both arms in the air. Then the roar from the crowd washed over him, and he realized that the entire team was pounding his helmet, his back, his rear, and he remembered to grin. Still, he caught a glimpse of T. J. hanging back at the edge of the crowd. T. J. was not smiling.
“That’s the way to get a first down, Stretch,” Karl grinned at him through his helmet as they headed for the 20-yard line.
“Sorry I didn’t slow down. Won’t happen next time!” Justin grinned back.
“Don’t even try it. All right, gentlemen, we need to get the conversion to stay in contention. Shouldn’t be a problem on the kick as long as the line holds.”
The line was solid, and although Hank’s kick was close to the right goalpost it was still rising as it sailed over it and the heads of the group of middle-schoolers gathered outside of the end zone to haul it in. “The score is now thirteen to seven,” the announcer intoned with just a hint of excitement in his voice.
Justin searched the sideline, but there were no defensive substitutes lined up, and he settled into the backfield as Hank nestled the ball carefully into the plastic holder. Again the kick was to the right, but it settled into the arms of a Green Branch player on the fifteen-yard-line. He attempted a cross-field run but was brought down on the thirty to the cheers of the crowd.
The first-down attempt was stopped at the line, and again the crowd roared and kept it up so that the Green Branch quarterback had to hold up his arms to plead for silence. The snap seemed to Justin to be uncoordinated, and the handoff worse. Justin saw the ball rise into the air. Fumble! He and T. J. were closest to the ball and both dove for it at the same time that three Green Branch defenders tried to fall on it. Justin had both hands on it and was starting to tuck it to his chest when he felt an arm snake under his wrist and snap the ball into the waiting fingers of a startled Green Branch player.
“Don’t be a hot dog, Sport,” hissed into his ear.
He jerked his head. T. J. glared at him.
“You heard me. Back off. Or else.” T. J. pushed off from Justin’s back, and Justin could only watch the referee indicate Green Branch possession.
“Homie there must have gotten the payoff,” he heard from his left. He stood up and stared at the Green Branch player’s back.
“C’mon, Justin, get into formation,” Eric called to him. “Shake it off!”
He shook his head and trotted back to his position. Was he the only person on the Niotaka side of the field that knew what was going on?
T. J.’s eyes were on him as he settled into place, and he shook his head slowly, very slowly. Justin knew exactly what he was communicating to him.
Chapter Eleven
Sour notes from the band room floated through the open windows in the American History classroom. The band stopped and started three times before the march music continued, only to stop again. Justin half-listened to the yelling of what must have been a very frustrated band director. Just think … in 20 years, he might be listening to the very same players during a Tuesday evening municipal band concert on the courthouse square, the highlight of the entire week in Niotaka. He shuddered as he tried to concentrate on filling in the blanks of the worksheet in front of him. It was due at the end of the hour, a mean Monday morning trick by Brady, but at least Justin didn’t have to listen to a one-hour droning lecture about pre-Revolutionary War politics in the
colonies. Or, worse yet, a rambling discourse about the teacher’s various pets, all of which the students along the back row agreed should be put to sleep immediately.
Paper rustled under Justin’s right elbow. He slipped his hand under his arm, grasped a folded square, and, with the one hand, unfolded it on his lap under the desktop.
“I have to talk to you. Lunch? -Kerry”. Who was -Kerry?
He folded the note and slipped it into his notebook. Then he yawned and stretched, turning his head and scanning the faces to his right. Only one set of eyes met his, a girl whom he vaguely remembered seeing in a cheerleader uniform at the pep rally Friday. Her eyebrows were raised. Justin nodded, and she nodded back and bent over her desk.
Next hour’s English class was filled with note taking and group evaluations, and Justin almost forgot about the note until his stomach rumbled softly and he wondered what fare awaited him in the cafeteria.
He looked for Kerry while he waited in line, but she must have been behind him, and it wasn’t until he was squirting mustard over a scorched-looking hot dog that he felt a bump on his elbow from a tray.
“Let’s sit at the south end. It’s quieter down there, okay?”
Justin turned slightly. “Sure. What’s the problem?”
“Not here. Wait.”
Oh, a mystery. He didn’t care much for mysteries; he’d much rather follow a planned route than wait for the twist at the end.
“Fine, whatever. But I don’t have much time.”
“This won’t take long.”
They jostled between tables and sat opposite of each other. Clashing silverware, banging trays, and shouting voices seemed much farther away at this end of the cafeteria.
Kerry seemed to take forever, fussing with her napkin and silverware and opening her milk. Justin was already halfway through the greasy hot dog when she finally stopped and faced him.
“We lost the game Friday, 13-7.” She looked at him inquiringly.
“Yep. We clutched. We should have nailed those clowns.”
“I don’t think so, Justin. You see these eyes?”
Justin looked into a pair of eyes opened wide.
“Okay. Brown eyes. What’s up?”
“What’s up is 20-20 vision. Listen, I saw what happened on that fumble, in the third quarter. You didn’t lose the ball. That other guy knocked it out of your hands, and that was the end of your scoring tries. We could have won if we’d retained possession.”
Justin dropped the remains of the hot dog onto his tray. “Since when did you become an expert on football and stuff?”
“Since when both my older brothers played in junior high and on into college. You may think cheerleaders don’t do much but scream and jump around, but I also keep these brown eyes on the field so we don’t start yelling ’Push ’em back’ when we have possession. Somebody has to know what’s going on out there, and on our squad, that someone is me. And I know what I saw, even if it was on the other side of the field. What I don’t know is who the other player is. I couldn’t see his number because after he pushed off you he managed to stay behind someone else. All I know is that he’s in the backfield.”
Justin shook his head and picked up his hot dog and stuffed the rest of it into his mouth.
“Listen, Justin, I know that a lot of the players think that Coach Greene is a loser and are trying to get him fired. Or lose enough games that he’ll quit. That’s common knowledge around the school.”
Justin took a swig of milk and cleared his throat. “I suppose that anyone who isn’t Mr. Personality is going to get the short end of the deal in this school, right? I mean, small town politics and all. What else do you have for fun around here on a Friday night? Counting dead bugs around streetlights, maybe?”
“You’re missing the point, Justin. No, you’re avoiding it.”
He took a bite of a carrot stick. “So what is it you want from me?”
“I don’t really know. It’s probably too late to do anything about the game now, although if it shows up on the game video, there’s liable to be a squawk, and you may be mixed up in it. After all, you didn’t seem to say anything about it, did you?”
“Wait a minute. I could say I don’t know what you’re talking about and get up and walk away. But, hey, I’m really a nice guy. So I’m just going to sit here and eat my gourmet cafeteria food and smile and listen like you’re trying to proposition the answers to the algebra test out of me. All right?”
Kerry nibbled on a sandwich and sipped her milk. Justin glanced to the north end of the cafeteria. No one seemed to be paying them any attention.
“I don’t know what I want, Justin.” She wiped her lips with her napkin and crumpled it. “See, Coach Greene is sort of family; he’s married to my cousin, and he’s really not a bad guy, although he eats too much at Thanksgiving dinners and leaves a mess around his plate. But that’s no reason for me or you or anyone else to treat him like scum. He really wants to win games. But he just doesn’t seem to be getting any help, from the team or even his coaches. And some people even go out of their way to nail him.”
“I don’t know about that. We’re taking some pretty good hits out there for him, but we just don’t seem to get anywhere. The only time I, er, we scored Friday, we got lucky, don’t you think?”
“You know that you make your own luck in football or any other sport, Justin. You took a chance, you saw a hole, and you ran right through them. Look, I guess all I really wanted to know was for sure whether or not you really did fumble or what I saw really happened: that someone from our side knocked the ball out of your hands on purpose. What about it?”
Justin shook his head again. “I don’t think I want to get involved with this. If you think you saw what you saw, maybe you did. And maybe you didn’t. Like you said, it won’t make any difference unless someone sees something on the game video. And fat chance of that; they’re usually so blurry that you can’t really tell what’s going on half the time.”
Kerry’s face contorted. “You ARE involved, Justin. And unless you want to be a loser, too, you’ll admit what happened.”
“I don’t think so. Not now, anyway. We’re not going to change the outcome of the game. Look, the way we were playing, it’s a wonder they didn’t beat us by six touchdowns.”
“That’s not the point, and you know it.”
“So … what is the point?”
Kerry took a final sip from her milk carton and crumpled it. “Look, you don’t really have to say anything now. I suppose it’s too late to do much about last week’s game now. But let’s say something happens next week … “
“You’re assuming that this jayvee player is going to get to play? You got your cousin-the-coach on a short string?”
“You know what I mean. You’ll probably get in the game, maybe every game. You’re the only player who scored a touchdown, right?”
Justin grimaced. So far none of the varsity players had given him a hard time about outscoring them. Come to think of it, he really hadn’t seen much of them today. Including T. J.
“Okay, now, listen,” she hissed. “Those brothers of mine aren’t too far down the road. One’s in Pittsburg, and the other is in the next county, coaching football, of all things. They don’t want to see Coach get screwed, and they don’t want to see the team lose, either. All I have to do is make a phone call, and they’re here. And my dad is kind of a big guy, too. So I don’t think you have to worry about someone taking you out, as long as I know who’s … ah, let’s say, bugging you. And I don’t think you’re part of the problem, Justin. Now, the question is, are you going to be part of the solution?”
“You have a way with words, Silver Tongue.” Justin grinned and deposited his napkin in his milk carton and crumpled it. “Look, I’m sorry about what’s going on with Coach, but that’s really not my problem. I’m just another body on the field out there. I’m not going say ’yes’ or ’no’ or ’boo’. Let me think about it. I’ll let you know. I really don’t want to g
et too involved in any of this. When I was in Topeka … “
“I get the picture. I saw that greaser following you around last week. Then he tried to hit up people to deal weed. Do you know why he’s not been around lately, Justin?”
He stared at her.
“Word gets around in a small town. I also have a rather muscular boyfriend who played football last year. He works for the co-op now, and you don’t get flabby by throwing around hundred-pound sacks of feed. That loser tried to proposition me, and all I had to do was to say a word or two to my boyfriend. Next time you see Mr. Tony, you ask him if he got his new front teeth yet. If you see him again.”
He felt his mouth drop.
“He was saying stuff about your family, too, during study period. But no one paid any attention to him.” She fixed her eyes on his.
“Er … yeah. Tony never did have a good thing to say about anyone. He’s just another loser I happened to know in Topeka.”
“Well, you can probably add him to your used-to-know list. In this town, he’s history.”
“Uh - thanks, I think.”
“You’re welcome. Any time. And don’t forget about what I said. We need your help. Okay, Justin.” Her voice rose as she picked up her tray. “Nice chatting witcha. See ya around. Thanks for the help on the algebra problem.”
“Sure. No problem,” he managed to croak. He watched her disappearing back in the crowd and then felt a slap on his back. He looked up into the broad face of Eric.
“Hey, Justin. Didn’t know you were an algebra whiz. Maybe you can help me a little in study hall.”
“Sure. No problem, Eric.” And maybe you can help me some day, big guy, he thought.
Chapter Twelve
Fifth period was a blur, perhaps because Justin drowsed off twice during a lecture on metabolism. He’d never get used to biology right after lunch, he decided. After class, he spotted Eric in the hall, but he seemed to be occupied with a pair of cheerleaders. Justin took a step towards him but stopped, and someone bumped into his shoulder. Books and papers splattered the floor around his feet.
“Oh, my bad,” he muttered, and stooped to help pick them up.