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  Timmy didn’t seem to think so, though.

  “Down!” Coach Furster barked. Timmy just stood.

  “Get down.” Landon tried to infuse his voice with urgency. “Your side is on offense.”

  Timmy shook his head while everyone else on his side of the line got into a three-point stance.

  “One . . .” Everyone on Timmy’s side took a power step on Coach Furster’s cue.

  “Come on, Timmy!” Landon patted his chest where Timmy should be getting ready to deliver a blow with both hands.

  Timmy shook his head.

  “Two . . .” Everyone took his second step.

  “Fit!” Pads popped in unison. Landon patted his chest, desperately wanting to blend in smoothly.

  “Get that fit lower, Torin. Come on, hands inside. Miller, that’s it!” Coach Furster was working his way down the line, adjusting players who needed it, praising those who had the correct position.

  Landon saw Brett in a perfect fit position, his eye cranked over to one side, watching Landon through his face mask.

  “Perfect, Bell!” Coach Furster was so intent on his work that he came upon an upright Timmy in complete surprise. “Nichols! This isn’t a candy—”

  Nichols just shook his head and pointed at Landon, who stood shifting from foot to foot and tugging at the shoulder pad strap beneath his arm.

  “I got it, Coach.” Brett grabbed Nichols by the collar and slung him aside before shoving him into the exact place he himself had vacated. “I’ll pair up with Landon.”

  “You’ll . . .” Coach Furster’s tongue jammed up behind his lower lip, giving him a crazy look. “Okay, Bell. Good. Nichols, you happy now? Would you like a written invitation next time?”

  Timmy wasn’t fazed by Coach Furster’s gruff treatment, and he seemed perfectly content to be yelled at so long as he wasn’t paired up with Landon in the drill.

  “Okay, switch sides!” Coach Furster barked.

  “Come on, Landon.” Brett chucked him on the shoulder. “You can do this. Just stay low.”

  “DOWN!” Coach Furster hollered, and Landon dropped down into a three-point stance, palm flat.

  “Set . . . ,” the coach screamed, “one . . . two . . . fit!”

  Landon took two awkward steps, stood up, grabbed the jersey beneath Brett’s armpits, and banged face masks. Landon knew it wasn’t right, but Coach Furster said nothing. He stepped past Landon and Brett. “Nichols! Get your arms inside, Nichols. Inside! I can’t do it for you, son.”

  And on the coach went down the line.

  Landon felt a tap and he looked at Brett.

  “I said, look, would you?” Brett said irritably.

  “Sorry,” Landon said. “I didn’t see you.”

  “Yeah, well, listen, will you? Here’s how you get into a stance.” Brett got down and extended his fingers like the legs of a table, before putting them into the grass. While he was down there, Landon heard him saying something, but the words weren’t clear.

  Landon shook his head and tapped Brett’s helmet. When Brett looked up, Landon said, “I can understand better if I see what you say. I hear and see together.”

  Brett gave him a strange look, but shook his head and said, “You don’t want to have your hand flat down in the grass. Use your fingers. Make them stiff or you’ll be too low and you can’t fire out. That’s why you popped up like toast.”

  The face mask made lipreading harder, but Landon could do it.

  “Okay. Okay.” Landon nodded furiously, eager to please and flooded with gratefulness. He got down in his stance, using his fingertips to support his weight, even though it felt extremely awkward. He heard Bell speaking again and popped up to see what he was saying.

  “What?”

  Bell shook his head, frustrated. “Just stay low. Keep your helmet below mine. Here, it’s my turn. Watch what I do and do that.”

  Landon nodded, and Brett got down and executed the fit drill on Coach Furster’s orders. The coach came down the line. “Good. Good. Head up. Good. Better. Head up, Nichols! Bell, perfect. Okay, last time, then we go live!”

  Landon would have one chance only to get it right. He got down in his stance, but he couldn’t see Brett in front of him, so he sank his butt, angling his torso more upright. His fingers were in the right position, but on the count he stepped forward, got too high, tripped, and belly-bumped into Brett, grabbing for his jersey. Landon ended up in a position that wouldn’t be good for much of anything besides dancing.

  Coach Furster blinked and then moved on without a word.

  Landon watched him go and then felt a tap on his shoulder.

  “It’s okay, Landon.” Brett reached into his face mask and wiped some sweat from his eyes. “You’ll get it. It takes time, is all.”

  Landon wanted to hug the kid.

  Coach Furster got to the other end of the two lines and gave his whistle a sharp little blast. “Okay, ladies, like I said . . . now it is live! So you better be ready!”

  31

  “Offense on my side!” Coach Furster was marching up and down behind the boys facing Landon’s way like they were troops he was sending into war. “Defense on that side. Offense, you drive block their butts into tomorrow. Defensive guys, you hold your ground and shed them like a disease. Get them off you! Okay, everyone together now, and I want to see some vicious, violent hitting! Down! Set!”

  Landon got in a three-point stance. Brett was hunkered down in front of him, legs quivering, face twisted with a rage Landon just didn’t get.

  Coach Furster gave his whistle a blast.

  Landon came out of his stance in a slow rise and got a mouthful of helmet. Brett’s two hands gripped the flesh in the crease of his armpits like giant crab pincers. Landon yelped. He was being lifted and driven back at the same time. His feet tangled together, and he crashed flat on his back with Brett coming down full force, pounding out whatever air remained in his lungs.

  Landon choked, gagging for air. His hands and feet waddled in space, as if they could somehow suck oxygen back into his body. This was not fun. No way. No how. “Vicious and violent hitting” took on a whole new meaning when you were on the receiving end of things, and Landon was beginning to have serious doubts about his love affair with football.

  The big lineman was climbing up off him, and he wasn’t being gentle. Brett put a hand in the middle of Landon’s soft stomach to steady himself, and he barked Landon’s shin with one of his cleats as he got to his feet. Landon looked up in astonishment, expecting a sympathetic expression from the boy who’d just been so kind to him.

  Instead, he saw teeth buried deep into a rubber mouthpiece and cold, cruel eyes.

  Landon waited for a hand to help him up or a friendly smile, but Brett only turned and walked away.

  32

  That was enough for Landon.

  Despite what mean kids sometimes said about him, despite what he may have sounded like because of what people called “slightly garbled” speech, Landon was no dummy. He kept his helmet on, and sweat trickled down his forehead as he did his job as manager. He kept the water bottles handy for anyone who needed one, and he tried to avoid Brett Bell. No one said anything, but he sensed that everyone approved. Midway through practice, Coach West gave him a pat on the back and showed him how he could refill the bottles on a hot night from a cold tap jutting out of the bricks in the school’s wall near the rear entrance.

  Coach West screwed on the top of a bottle he had filled and then handed Landon an empty one and spoke slowly and loudly. “Okay, Landon. Do you want to try that?”

  Landon gave him a funny look, but he nodded and refilled one of the other bottles before replacing it in the carrier.

  “Good!” Coach West clapped his hands. “Good job.”

  “Coach, it’s not that hard.” Landon bent down and continued to fill the bottles.

  Coach West stood watching. When Landon finished, Coach West waved both hands at Landon to get his attention, and he kept speaking in a s
low and loud voice. “Landon, if you’re going to be helping out like this, like kind of a manager—”

  “Not the water boy,” Landon interrupted.

  “No, not at all. A manager for sure.” Coach West seemed amused. “But if you’re manager, you do not have to wear your helmet, Landon.”

  Landon shook his head. “Coach Furster said helmets stay on all practice.”

  Coach West looked even more amused. “Yes, but . . .”

  Landon huffed and scooped up the water carriers. “Let’s get back, Coach.”

  Coach West laughed. “Sure, Landon. That’s great.” Coach West put a hand on Landon’s shoulder pad like some kind of guardian as they trudged back toward practice.

  Landon wanted to shrug him off, but he also didn’t want to be impolite.

  When they got back into the thick of things, teammates came at Landon from all directions. As he worked like the peanut man in the Indians’ stadium, his mind kept busy too. The bad thing was that he guessed he’d have to admit to Genevieve that he’d quit. The good news was that everyone seemed to like him as the manager.

  It wasn’t until the team was doing a drill called “Inside Run” that Landon felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see Brett standing there. He had somehow snuck up on Landon.

  “Hey,” Brett said, and he seemed to be happy that Landon knew his role. He didn’t look mad at all. He just accepted a bottle and squirted his mouth full of water, gulping it down without pause so that the stream sprayed his face when his mouth briefly closed. When he finished, the big lineman reached in through his face mask and wiped the water from his eyes.

  “Thanks, Landon,” Brett said, and then dove back into the drill, tapping out a boy who had temporarily replaced him, because that’s how it worked for Brett Bell. He went where he wanted, when he wanted. He was the best lineman they had by far. It was almost like Brett and Skip could run the team on their own, without any coaches at all.

  Landon ached to be like one of them. He assumed everyone did, but he wasn’t even close. He watched Brett line up and destroy the guy in front of him, blasting that kid the way he’d done to Landon and turning away with the same coldhearted look in his eyes. Landon wished more than anything that he could be a star player, but he couldn’t make up happy endings the way his father did. Landon was stuck with who he was, and now, what he was.

  He tried to take comfort in the fact that he’d be the best manager ever. He’d wear his equipment, just like the rest of the team. He’d never take his helmet off, no matter how hot things got, because he was still part of the team, and Coach Furster said being a Bronxville football player wasn’t for just anyone. He’d be there for the guys when they needed him and he’d be part of a team.

  He watched Timmy get flattened and felt giddy not to be in the drill. That made him sigh. If he was a powder puff because he didn’t like getting pummeled, then he guessed he should be okay with that. It didn’t make a lot of sense, really. Someone who enjoyed that—getting blasted around like a paper bag in a windstorm—that person would be the real dummy.

  When practice was almost over and Coach Furster blew his whistle and told them all to line up for sprints, Landon hustled over to the bench, dumped his water bottle carriers, and stepped up with everyone else. He could do the running. It wasn’t pleasant, but it didn’t scare him. No one was going to knock his block off running sprints.

  He felt a spark of pride as he took off on the first sprint. He’d be a part of the team in almost every way. It didn’t matter to him whether he beat Timmy anymore. All Landon had to do was finish, not win. There was no fire in his gut. Timmy outran him in the last half of the sprints, and the team chanted “Lan-don, Lan-don, Lan-don” as he slogged through the hot air and over the finish line on the final sprint of the night.

  Coach Furster was in a good mood and laughing to himself and he called them in. “All right guys, good work tonight. Good hitting. I saw some toughness from a lot of you.”

  Coach Furster’s face suddenly clouded over. “You other guys? And you know who you are. You need to get it going. I don’t want to embarrass anyone, but when you wonder what you should be doing and how you should be doing it, look at Bell and Dreyfus.”

  Coach pointed at his two top players. “You two guys are old-school, and I love it.”

  Landon looked from Coach Furster to the coach’s son, Mike, and thought that having your dad praise others above you had to hurt. Mike’s face went blank. Only his eyes seemed to boil, but Landon was pretty sure no one else noticed.

  “All right, in on me!” Coach Furster shouted, holding his hand out for everyone to reach for and cover. “Hit, Hustle, Win. On three! One, two, three . . .”

  Landon shouted with the rest of them, and the team broke apart and filtered toward the parking lot. Landon dragged his feet across the dry grass. He was exhausted from the running and in no hurry to get home and face Genevieve. He knew, despite the very good arguments he had perfected in his head over the last hour or so, that Genevieve was not going to be happy with him. That bothered him because he loved Genevieve with all his heart.

  She felt the same way, and he knew it. He thought about the medal she’d given him and nearly choked. Disappointing her would be hard. Behind most of the other players, he marched uphill toward the parking lot, head pounding, hot and exhausted, feeling like his insides were swamp water. He didn’t think he could feel any worse than he did at that moment, but unfortunately . . . he was wrong.

  33

  A woman with bleach-blond hair stood at the top of the hill. Her lips were pink and thick, reminding Landon of chewed bubble gum. Her eyes hid behind big dark sunglasses, and she was dressed like one of Genevieve’s friends in a pale yellow dress dotted with little daisies, and sandals on her feet. When Xander reached her, she gave him a hug and pointed him to the car. Landon guessed she was his mom.

  In one hand she held a large striped bag, like something for the beach. She was taking big blue envelopes the color of a robin’s egg from the bag and handing them out to each player as he reached her. Landon slowed his pace even more to watch. Xander’s mom’s pink painted nails flashed along with a gleaming smile as she worked.

  Landon moved close and focused hard to read her thick lips as Brett accepted one of the festive envelopes from her.

  “We’re doing laser tag for Xander’s birthday, Saturday,” she said. “I hope you can make it, Brett. Everyone’s invited.”

  Landon gulped down his excitement. Laser tag was something he’d done with Scouts in Cleveland once. He was actually good at it because what you really had to do was see things well in the dark. The flit of a shadow here or there made all the difference, and it didn’t take Landon long to learn that if you just hunkered down in a corner, you could pick people off with deadly certainty and dominate the game.

  Landon picked up his pace a little because Timmy Nichols was getting his invitation and Landon didn’t want Xander’s mom to think Timmy was the last of the players. He took a quick glance over his shoulder and relaxed when he saw that Skip had stopped to help Mike and Coach Furster put the bags into the equipment shed. Landon was certain that Xander’s mom would wait for Skip. Everyone wanted a piece of Skip.

  Landon huffed and waddled and wished his padded pants weren’t suddenly sagging and slowing him down. He reached back and tugged at the droopy girdle. As he crested the top of the hill, he seemed to make eye contact with Xander’s mom. He couldn’t be exactly sure because of her dark glasses. He was out of breath, but he wrestled his face into an enormous smile as she reached into her bag and pulled out another big, beautiful blue invitation. It was a prize worth having.

  Landon was so close that Xander’s mom had to be looking right at him. He grinned and he held out his hand. Then her smile suddenly dropped. She stepped aside and then actually walked down the hill to meet Skip and Mike halfway up. Landon thought he could hear her chirping like a bird as she presented Skip his invitation.

  Before Landon saw Ski
p take it, he turned toward his father’s Prius. The heat squeezed him in its fist. Landon staggered a bit as he tried to hurry. When he reached the car he put his hand on the hot corner of the Prius’s hood to keep himself from falling over. The metal burned his hand, but he couldn’t think about that as he bent over and puked up the swamp water.

  His father was suddenly there, tapping his shoulder and bending over in concern until his face filled the space outside Landon’s puke-stained metal cage. “Hey, hey, big guy. You okay? I saw that running. Man, it’s not easy being a football player, is it? And I used to gripe when I had to carry the tuba.”

  Landon stood up and stared at his father. From the corner of his eye he saw that Brett had stopped to look at him with his blue envelope pinched between a thumb and forefinger, frowning like he knew Landon was a super powder puff.

  “Landon? Are you okay?” His father tilted his head.

  Landon only nodded and pulled away. “Yes. I’m fine. Let’s go.”

  34

  “Can we stop for ice cream?” Landon wasn’t hungry, but his father didn’t know that.

  “Hey, sure. Probably hungry after losing your dinner there, huh?” His father gave Landon a cheerful look and started the car. They rolled out of the parking lot. Landon kept his eyes straight ahead and bumped up the AC as high as it would go.

  His father found a place to park on the street in the center of town. Landon put his helmet and shoulder pads in the backseat and wore just his sopping wet T-shirt and football pants into the Häagen-Dazs store, where they sat at the corner table. Landon’s dad accepted two menus from a waitress and watched her walk away before he spoke. “Amazing, right? I mean, look at all this. When I was a kid a banana split was a big deal, but now you got, what?” His father began to read off the menu. “Paradise with Whipped Cream? Waffle Dream? The Eiffel Tower? Wow, Landon, you have no idea how lucky you are.”