Kid Owner Page 22
“I wanted to win,” I pleaded to Izzy, then turned to Mr. Dietrich. “You think I didn’t want to be in there? To try? It made me sick, but I wanted to win.”
A shred of laughter escaped from Mr. Dietrich’s throat before he finished my thought for me. “You wanted to win, so you took yourself out.”
“It was supposed to be a Hail Mary play,” I said.
Mr. Dietrich frowned. “You fell on your sword—so to speak—to win.”
“And he lost anyway.”
Dillon’s smug smile burned like molten steel, soupy and orange, as he looked around.
My mom averted her eyes to the scoreboard. Jackson limped up behind me and laid a thick hand on my neck, saying nothing, just being there, like a true friend.
Izzy looked up from her feet and, to my surprise, glared at Dillon. “That’s not even nice.”
“Nice?” Dillon snorted. “I’m a football player.”
Izzy fumed. “Well, I can’t go to your stupid party, Dillon. I’m hanging out with Ryan. Even if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t go anywhere with you.”
Dillon shrugged. “Whatever. This whole thing is a joke. Can you imagine? Him running the Dallas Cowboys?”
Mr. Dietrich cleared his throat. “Yes, I can imagine it. I can actually see it: Ryan Zinna, kid owner.”
83
“What?” I don’t know if I said that, or Dillon, or both of us at the same time.
“It’s what this team needs. It’s needed it for a long time.” Mr. Dietrich looked at my mom and she nodded. “A team isn’t about a bunch of stars. A team is about an individual working for the others. You can’t have a coach and a general manager trying to get each other fired. You can’t have players being favored because they show up at someone’s birthday party. It’s football. It’s about winning. On the field.”
Dillon’s mom appeared suddenly, decked out in a snug black-and-orange shirt with expensive-looking sunglasses and tight jeans. Her voice was syrupy and sticky and sweet like a hot plate of pancakes. “Dillon, sweetie, you need to get to the buses. Your coach is asking for you.”
Only then did she act like she’d even seen the rest of us. “Oh, how are we? A nice little sending-off party?”
“It is a sending-off party.” Mr. Dietrich slipped the sunglasses back on his face. “For you . . . and Dillon.”
This confused her and she chuckled, but in a nervous way. “What are you talking about, Eric?”
“I’m voting my shares with Ryan, Jasmine. He’ll be running things for the Cowboys from now on.” Mr. Dietrich punctuated that with a nod.
Jasmine Peebles’s smile morphed into a scowl. Her twinkling eyes burned like two house fires. Deep fissures appeared in her smooth skin, heaving cracks in her makeup. “You’re joking.”
“No,” said Mr. Dietrich.
“You said this stupid game today was what mattered. You lied,” Jasmine hissed.
“No,” he said, “that was the truth. It was this game. I said I’d choose the kid owner based on who won. Those were your husband’s explicit instructions. He said, ‘Let the boys compete for it, then pick the winner.’”
“You don’t even make sense, you old fool.” Jasmine hooked her fingers into claws and I wondered if she might not pounce on Mr. Dietrich. “Dillon won!”
“I don’t expect you to understand it, Jasmine, but it’s done. It really is this time. My decision is final. Good luck to you and your son.” Mr. Dietrich gave a little salute with the brim of his straw hat. “Oh, there is one thing I think Dillon got right.”
Jasmine had gathered up her son, who seemed too stunned to even react, but she turned to snarl. “What’s that?”
“Minority owners won’t be welcome in the team areas, the sideline, locker room, practice fields . . . the complex, too.” Mr. Dietrich’s face turned serious as stone. “And we will alert security.”
Jasmine half dragged Dillon away. She had one red-nailed claw hooked to his shoulder pad. “I’ll sue you into the dirt, Dietrich. You’ll hear from my lawyer.”
Mr. Dietrich sighed and spoke in a low voice. “I suppose I will.” Then he perked up and looked at me. “Maybe we should get together after you’re cleaned up. Talk about the details?”
“Would you like to come over later?” my mom asked. “We can barbecue some ribs.”
“I like ribs.” Mr. Dietrich touched the brim of his hat one last time, then turned and disappeared into the fading crowd.
My mom reached over the fence and gave me a one-armed hug.
I looked at Izzy. “We didn’t win, so there’s no bonfire after all. You wanna come over, too?”
“I said I was,” she said.
“I know. I just didn’t know if you only said it to make Dillon mad.”
She grinned. “I said it because we’re good friends.”
“Really good,” I said.
“Nice,” said Jackson, patting me on the back.
“You two better get with your team,” my mom said. “We’ll wait for you outside the locker room.”
Coach Hubbard stood in the middle of us, destroyed. He could barely talk, and all I heard were scraps of words here and there under his breath, things like “never quit” and “true winners” and “not over.” Honestly, though, as much as I hated losing that game, I couldn’t help feeling like I’d also won.
I had, after all. I was a way bigger winner than Dillon Peebles. I had friends like Izzy and Jackson. I had a coach like Coach Hubbard and maybe a secret coach in Coach Cowan. I had a mom like my mom, and a trustee like Mr. Dietrich. Plus, I owned the Dallas Cowboys. For real.
I am the kid owner.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo by Laure Lillie
TIM GREEN, for many years a star defensive end with the Atlanta Falcons, is a man of many talents. He’s the author of such gripping books for adults as the New York Times bestselling The Dark Side of the Game and American Outrage. Tim graduated covaledictorian from Syracuse University and was a first-round draft pick. He later earned his law degree with honors, and he has also worked as an NFL commentator for FOX Sports and NPR.
His first book for young readers, Football Genius, inspired in part by his players and his own kids, became a New York Times bestseller and was followed by Football Hero, Football Champ, The Big Time, and Deep Zone. He drew on his experiences playing and coaching Little League for Rivals and Pinch Hit and two more New York Times bestsellers: Baseball Great and Best of the Best.
Bestselling author Jon Scieszka called Tim Green’s Unstoppable, a book about a boy’s struggle with cancer that debuted at #2 on the New York Times bestseller list, “Absolutely heroic. And something every guy should read.”
Tim Green lives with his wife, Illyssa, and their five children in upstate New York. You can visit him online at www.timgreenbooks.com.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
BOOKS BY TIM GREEN
FOOTBALL GENIUS NOVELS
Football Genius
Football Hero
Football Champ
The Big Time
Deep Zone
Perfect Season
BASEBALL GREAT NOVELS
Baseball Great
Rivals
Best of the Best
AND DON’T MISS
Pinch Hit
Force Out
Unstoppable
New Kid
First Team
Lost Boy
CREDITS
Cover art © 2015 by Cliff Nielsen
Cover design by Kate Engbring
COPYRIGHT
KID OWNER. Copyright © 2015 by Tim Green. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storag
e and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Green, Tim, date.
Kid owner / by Tim Green. — First edition.
pages cm
Summary: “When Ryan learns his estranged father left him the Dallas Cowboys in his will, it is all Ryan can do to keep his dad’s other son from snatching the team away”— Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-06-229379-4 (hardback)
EPub Edition © September 2015 ISBN 9780062293817
[1. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 2. Inheritance and succession—Fiction. 3. Stepbrothers—Fiction. 4. Football—Fiction. 5. Dallas Cowboys (Football team)—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.G826357Ki 2015 2015005620
[Fic]—dc23 CIP
AC
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15 16 17 18 19 PC/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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