Football Genius (2007) Read online

  Football Genius

  Tim Green

  For my five kids: Thane, Tessa, and Ty,

  who inspired me with their love for reading, and to

  the real Troy and Tate, who made writing this book a

  pure joy, breathing life into the story with

  their ideas and assistance

  “It is time for us all to stand and cheer for the doer, the achiever—the one who recognizes the challenges and does something about it.”

  —Vince Lombardi

  Contents

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  TROY KNEW IT WAS wrong. It was wrong to sneak…

  Chapter Two

  ONE OF THE RICH people who lived inside the wall…

  Chapter Three

  TROY’S MOM HAD A saying she used all the time:…

  Chapter Four

  BUT THE SECURITY GUARD kept going down the hedge. He…

  Chapter Five

  BECAUSE HE DIDN’T FEEL so good about tricking his mom,…

  Chapter Six

  ON TUESDAY MORNING, THE day after Labor Day, when Troy…

  Chapter Seven

  HIS MOM HAD A parking pass for the garage where…

  Chapter Eight

  “MR. LANGAN GAVE ME these passes personally,” Troy’s mom said.

  Chapter Nine

  “COACH, I KNOW WHAT they’re going to do!” Troy yelled,…

  Chapter Ten

  TROY WAS ALREADY IN trouble. It couldn’t get worse. But,…

  Chapter Eleven

  TROY’S MOM GLUED HER eyes to the road. Her hands…

  Chapter Twelve

  IT WAS DARK AND cloudy under the water, and Troy…

  Chapter Thirteen

  EXCEPT FOR THE PART about Nathan and Tate going with…

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I’M VERY SORRY,” HIS mother said in a quiet voice.

  Chapter Fifteen

  THE SUN WAS ALREADY below the trees and the grass…

  Chapter Sixteen

  TROY HAD NEVER REALLY been grounded before. Maybe his mom…

  Chapter Seventeen

  TROY DROPPED THE HOSE and stood up, barely noticing the…

  Chapter Eighteen

  NEITHER OF THEM HEARD his mom’s car, but the screen…

  Chapter Nineteen

  KROCK HEAVED HIMSELF AROUND in his chair to face them,…

  Chapter Twenty

  “YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED to his leg?” Nathan asked, looking…

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “SWEETHEART,” GRAMP SAID TO Troy’s mom, “I know you don’t…

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  CRICKETS AND CICADAS BUZZED in Troy’s ears. He pushed aside…

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “TATE,” TROY SAID, FROWNING at her. “You will,” she said.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  SETH DROPPED TATE OFF in front of her apartment building,…

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  IF HAVING SETH WALK out on him wasn’t unpleasant enough,…

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  EXCEPT FOR THE GLOW of the big screen, Coach McFadden’s…

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “CAN’T YOU JUST FIRE him?” Seth asked.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  NATHAN STARED AT THE door to Troy’s bedroom with the…

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  THE SUN HAD ALREADY dropped below the trees and it…

  Chapter Thirty

  “LOOK AT FIRST PLACE,” Tate said, holding it closer so…

  Chapter Thirty-One

  THEY WORKED THE SAME way on Friday, and Tate threw…

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “SIXTEEN YARDS, TWO FEET, three inches,” the judge said.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  THE NEXT DAY, THE Falcons lost to the Saints in…

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  TROY’S MOM LOOKED UP, trying not to smile. When she…

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  SHE LOOKED PUZZLED, BUT Troy couldn’t worry about that. He…

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  THE CROWD IN THE Georgia Dome rumbled to life as…

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  TROY WAS RIGHT.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  KROCK HELD UP HIS mom’s phone and snapped it in…

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “WHAT DID SHE SAY?” Tate asked when Troy ended the…

  Chapter Forty

  TATE GRIPPED TROY’S ARM and yanked him away from the…

  Chapter Forty-One

  “WHAT’S GOING ON?” BOB McDonough asked.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  NO ONE ASKED TO see their passes now. Bob McDonough…

  Chapter Forty-Three

  MR. LANGAN WALKED OVER and said, “Don’t worry, you’ll get…

  Chapter Forty-Four

  THE THREE OF THEM followed the owner out onto the…

  Chapter Forty-Five

  THE FALCONS’ OFFENSE TOOK the field.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  TROY’S MOM MADE HIM put on a shirt and tie…

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  TROY DID HIS THING, and the Falcons won their next…

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  TROY WANTED TO SHOUT, but he bit into his cheek…

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  TROY WAS RIDING HIGH up in the passenger seat of…

  Chapter Fifty

  BACK BY THE TRUCK, Troy could see his mom, shading…

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER ONE

  TROY KNEW IT WAS wrong. It was wrong to sneak out of the house after midnight. It was wrong to take something that wasn’t yours. And, even though he wasn’t that kind of kid, that night, he was doing both.

  Usually, on a night like that night, the crickets’ end-of-summer song and the moths bumping against the window screen would put him to sleep. Usually, he didn’t hear his mom turn off the TV in the living room. And usually, if he was up that late, the water groaning through the pipes while his mom ran her bath would finish him off. But that night, worry kept him awake. Because he really wasn’t the kind of kid to sneak out, and especially to take something that wasn’t his.

  But if he did have to quietly slide open the screen, straddle the window, and drop to the ground with a thud, this was a good night to do it. Stars swirled around the big yellow moon, casting shadows perfect for hiding. Shorts and a T-shirt were all he needed to stay warm.

  He didn’t plan on having to run, but he laced his sneakers tight in case he did. His feet fell without a sound over the path through the pine trees. He could smell the trees’ sticky sap, still warm from the hot September day. An owl hooted somewhere close. A rabbit screamed, then went quiet. The crickets stopped, and only the buzz of mosquitoes filled the air.

  Troy looked back at his house. It was nestled into the pines, with no side or backyard. In front, there was nothing more than a gritty patch of red clay. A tire hung from a limb at the edge of the patch. A target for footballs. The house was more like a cabin, a single-story box with a roof covered by fallen pine needles.

  Still, the weak orange glow from the night-light in the bathroom window was like a friend, calling him back. Away from the owl and the mosquitoes.

  But Troy had other friends, and he dodged through the pine trees into the darkness, finding his way to the railroad tracks almost without looking. He stood on the steel rail, balancing his sneakers and looking down the long line toward the Pine Grove apartment complex, where his friends lived. He tried to whistle, but it came out wrong. He tried again, and again, before giving up.

  “Tate?” he called, f
irst soft, then louder. “Tate.”

  A whistle came back at him from the woods, high and clear, the way you’d call a dog. In the light of the moon, he watched two figures climb up the stony railway bed and start walking his way on the tracks. One of the figures was as thin as the rail she balanced on. Tate McGreer, a pretty girl with dark eyes, olive skin, and silky brown hair tied into a ponytail.

  The other was big and burly. A twelve-year-old in the body of a high school kid. Nathan had a buzz cut like his dad and he liked to laugh, big belly laughs. He wasn’t laughing now. His eyes were wide and shifting nervously, and he was puffing. Tate was the only one who stayed calm when they heard the low, sad sound of the coming train.

  “The Midnight Express,” Tate said, peering down the tracks. “It wakes me up almost every night. Atlanta to Chicago.

  “Like clockwork.”

  They all scrambled back down the bank into the rocky ditch, and Tate chewed her gum and nudged them both and asked, “You got a penny?”

  “A penny?” Troy said.

  Nathan dug into his pocket and came up with a nickel.

  “That’ll work,” she said, taking it from him and scrambling back up the side of the railroad bed.

  The ground underneath them was rumbling now. The train’s light glimmered and shook. Troy yelled at her to come back. She set the money down on the rail, glared at the train for a moment with her hands on her skinny hips, then hopped back down into the ditch with them.

  When the train went by in a rush of hot air, it roared so loud, Troy had no idea what Tate was saying, even though he could see that she was shouting at the top of her lungs. As the last car clacked away down the tracks, he asked her what.

  “You see how big that thing was? It’s like a warning, right? Like ‘go back,’” she said.

  Her dark eyes sparkled in the moonlight. Nathan had his hands deep in the pockets of his cutoff shorts, and he nodded at her words. Troy thought about the rabbit he heard screaming in the dark.

  “Don’t go,” he said, shrugging. “I’m not making you.”

  “We’re not going in,” Tate said, snapping her gum. “I said that. But we’ll wait for you on the outside. That’s what friends do. Moral support.”

  “You shouldn’t stand on the tracks when the train’s coming like that,” Nathan said.

  “Aw,” she said, swatting air, “if they see a person, they slow right down. Jam their brakes on. Sparks everywhere.”

  She skipped up the bank again and lifted the flattened nickel up for them to see. It shone in the moonlight.

  “Cool,” Nathan said, taking it from her.

  Troy went up and over the rail bed, leaving them behind.

  “Don’t you want to see it?” Tate asked, calling after him.

  But his eyes were on the wall. Already through the trees he could see it. Ten feet high. Cool gray concrete. It surrounded the Cotton Wood Country Club. Tennis, golf, and five hundred of the most expensive homes in Atlanta. He had driven down Old River Road once, past the massive front gates and guardhouses on the other side. When he asked his mom if she’d ever been inside, she glanced at him and said it wasn’t a place for people like them. She said he shouldn’t spend his time wondering or worrying about it.

  But sometimes, when the wind was right and he was outside throwing his football, he could hear things from inside the wall. Children laughing. The bark of a dog. Trash cans banging together. Sounds you could hear outside the wall too. So when Troy found the secret hole, he had to go in. No one knew about the hole except Tate and Nathan. Neither of them ever went in with him, and he never tried to take them, even though the reward for going in gave him goose bumps.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ONE OF THE RICH people who lived inside the wall was the Atlanta Falcons’ star linebacker, Seth Halloway. Troy knew because he’d been there. In fact, every time he snuck through the wall, that was where he went. To Seth’s house. To the big green backyard beyond Seth’s pool.

  It was a yard where players, real NFL players, would toss footballs to one another and goof around like Troy and his friends. Troy had watched them from the bushes. He’d seen them tossing footballs back and forth. Diving. Grabbing. Rolling on the ground and laughing. And he knew that Seth Halloway kept the balls in a mesh bag that hung from a nail underneath his deck. There were dozens of them. The first time Troy had seen Seth spill them out onto that big lawn, he felt his heart ache.

  Now his heart was pounding. When they came to the hole—really just a big crack—the three of them stood and stared.

  “Can’t you just tell them your mom couldn’t get the football?” Nathan asked.

  Tate and Nathan loved football too. They all played together on the Duluth Tigers, a junior league team coached by fathers. Tate was the kicker. Nathan played on the line. Troy was the second-string quarterback. Nathan and Tate agreed that he should be first string, but Jamie Renfro’s father was the coach, so Jamie got to be the Tigers’ quarterback. In fact, it was because of Jamie that the three of them were out at night when they shouldn’t have been.

  It was hard for Troy, being second string when he was a better player than Jamie. Troy was faster, he had a better arm, and he practiced throwing almost every night. Besides, he knew the game way better than Jamie. He could read a defense in the blink of an eye and sometimes even seem to know what the other team was going to do. Tate and Nathan said it was a gift.

  He couldn’t explain how he knew. No one taught him. He just knew. But Troy didn’t have a father of his own to be the coach, so he sat on the bench, calling the plays before they happened to his friends. And, while he really was a good kid, the situation with Jamie made him mad. Troy’s mom sometimes called him a hothead. Sometimes she was right.

  At Tuesday’s practice, after standing by with his helmet off for ten plays in a row and watching Jamie throw a bad pass to the wrong receiver every time, Troy couldn’t help himself. Jamie’s father was yelling again. Yelling at the receivers. Yelling at the linemen. Everyone but Jamie. Jamie’s father told them that yelling was what coaches did.

  “Maybe he can coach you to throw a pass,” Troy said as the kids on the first-string offense were getting into the huddle. He meant to say it low, but the hothead part of him made it too loud.

  Jamie’s freckled face went red behind his face mask. He walked out of the huddle and stood face-to-face with Troy, his dark, curly hair spilling out of the back of his helmet. Jamie was bigger than Troy. In fact, he was a whole year older even though he was still in seventh grade.

  “At least I have a father,” Jamie said.

  Troy felt his eyes fill with tears, his real weakness. Even though he was tough and a good athlete, he sometimes couldn’t stop the tears, no matter how hard he tried. His cheeks grew hot. He swallowed, stuck out his chin, and said, “My mom is worth ten fathers.”

  Jamie looked around with his mouth and eyes wide open, like he was in shock.

  “That’s funny,” he said, wagging his head around. “I don’t see her on the football field.”

  “She’s on a football field that’s a lot more important than this goat lot,” Troy said.

  “Right,” Jamie said.

  “She works for the Falcons,” Troy said, swallowing and looking around.

  “Since when?”

  “Since she just started.”

  “I bet not.”

  “I bet so,” Troy said, clenching his fists, ready in case Jamie said something bad about his mom.

  “So good,” Jamie said, grinning in a mean way. “She can get a Falcons football for the game Saturday. My dad’s got one signed by Billy ‘White Shoes’ Johnson. He says the way you know a real Falcons ball is ’cause the team name is stamped right on it. It’s cool. My dad’s ball has it. Now your mom’s a big shot working for the Falcons, man, she can get one for us to use, right?”

  “She can get whatever I want,” Troy said, and he looked past Jamie from Tate to Nathan. The pain in their faces made his stomach tight. The
y knew that he wasn’t quite telling the truth about his mom.

  There had been an ad in the newspaper for an assistant in the public relations department for the Falcons. Troy’s mom had just finished getting her master’s degree in public relations at night school that summer. One of her professors knew someone who got her an interview. She was one of ten. Troy got her to promise that if she got the job, she would somehow get him that ball.

  The Tigers practiced every night during the week, and every night Jamie asked Troy where the ball was. And every night Troy said he’d have it for the game on Saturday.

  When Troy got home from school on Friday, his mom was sitting at the kitchen table dunking a tea bag. She looked sad, but when she saw him, she smiled.