Touchdown Kid Read online

  There were two more sixth-grade coaches in the gym, each standing before several piles of equipment. They looked like they were fresh out of college, with crew cuts and athletic builds. The players filed through cafeteria-style, selecting items that fit from the piles. Cory asked Gant about the coaches.

  “The shorter one is Coach Bean,” Gant said, “and the big guy is Coach Tackitt. They’re both pretty hard-core, but Tackitt is with the linemen. Bean’s not so bad. Hey, you okay? You look like you’re limping.”

  “I’m good. Just tweaked my ankle a little.” Cory lowered his voice so only Gant could hear him. “That Mike Chester is an idiot. I thought you were gonna pound him.”

  “I got two words for you.” Gant knit his dark eyebrows together and kept his voice down too. “Aidan Brown.”

  “Aidan Brown?”

  “Aidan Brown,” Gant repeated. “You know the scholarship we got? The one Liam was supposed to get? You know who got it in sixth grade last year?”

  “Aidan Brown? Who is he?” Cory asked.

  “Who was he, you mean,” Gant whispered. “Scholarship kid from some trailer park out in Elbridge. Fast as greased lightning, but he got caught shoplifting and . . .” Gant drew a thumb across his own throat.

  “Shoplifting?”

  “At Wegmans, the supermarket. Pack of gum. Then he got hurt and that was it. Gone, baby.”

  “They just kicked him to the curb for a pack of gum?” Cory looked around at all the HBS boys surrounding him with their fancy haircuts and polo shirts.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Gant said. “They got him a lawyer and everything. Then he got hurt, pulled a hamstring. Lost his confidence. Lost a step. Stopped scoring touchdowns.”

  “What’s that got to do with Mike?” Cory asked, still whispering.

  “You or me do something wrong and we get hurt or start playing bad? Bro, we are gonzo. No scholarships. No fancy homes. It’s just like Monopoly: do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars.” Gant shuffled forward in the line before turning his attention back to Cory. “I got my sights set on the Ohio State University. A short stop there before I line up for the Patriots, bro. This is my ticket, and if I gotta let some cheese brain like Mike Chester think he’s tough, I’m doing it, and you do the same, you hear me? Stay in line, and stay healthy.”

  It made Cory sullen. “Yeah. I hear you,” he said.

  There were over thirty boys on the team, and Cory and Gant were in the back part of the pack. He saw Jimbo at the very front, presumably getting the newest pieces of equipment. Mike wasn’t far behind. After Jimbo had filled his arms up with equipment, he came walking back toward the locker room under his pile of stuff. He stopped in front of Cory, scowling.

  “You shoulda blasted that jerk.” Jimbo angled his head back toward the front where Mike was trying on helmets.

  “Why didn’t you?” Cory asked. “I didn’t even know you were there.”

  “I saw. Everyone did.” Jimbo glanced at Chester. “He wouldn’t try something like that with me, that much I promise you.”

  “Yeah, well . . .” Cory stopped talking. He wanted to say if he had a rich dad who was a big booster, Mike wouldn’t have bothered him either, but that would only make Jimbo mad.

  “Anyway, you better get some paybacks when we get out on the field,” Jimbo said. “Everyone will be watching to see if you lay into him or wimp out.”

  “I’ll knock down whoever I have to.” Cory shifted some weight onto his ankle, testing it. A jolt of pain rocketed through the joint. Cory bit his lip.

  “Good. That’s what I like to hear.”

  Cory made his way through the line. He got some decent pants with thigh and knee pads that looked almost new. The rib pads looked a little run down, and by the time he got to the helmets, all that was left was junk. He looked at Gant, who had the only giant helmet in the bunch, and it looked like it was in pretty good shape.

  “They had to special order this bad boy last season.” Gant clunked the bucket-sized helmet down on his head. “It’s the latest and greatest, a Riddell Revolution.”

  Cory shrugged and found a scratched and battered silver helmet that at least fit him. Coach Phipps was helping another kid get his helmet adjusted, and when he turned and looked at Cory, he scowled. “How come you’re all the way at the end of the line?”

  Cory blinked at him and opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

  “It’s a good lesson.” Coach Phipps frowned. “You snooze, you lose. You’re here to be a leader, Marco, not a latecomer at the end of the line.”

  Cory could nearly taste his coach’s disgust in the air and it made his stomach turn.

  “Now I gotta do something I was hoping not to have to do, but you leave me no choice, son. Come with me.” Coach Phipps turned and stomped across the gym.

  Cory followed, preparing himself for the unknown punishment.

  33

  Coach Phipps marched straight into his office, where a tall brown box stood next to his desk. He glanced back at Cory. His round red face was now pinched and his nostrils widened. “What are you limping for?”

  “I’m not.” Cory stumbled on his own words. “I . . . I slipped. Something on the locker room floor. I’m fine.”

  “You better be,” Coach Phipps said. “You know how much one of these full rides is worth? Forty thousand a year, times seven years. Over a quarter-million dollars. You thought about that yet?”

  Cory shook his head. “No.” It was a scary number.

  “Which is why I can’t have you lagging behind everyone. You need to be first in everything, or darn close.” Coach Phipps reached into the box and took out a shiny silver helmet wrapped in plastic and handed it to Cory. “You can’t be our top running back and have some garbage helmet. Here, give me that. I try to save a couple new helmets in case one of the old ones gets busted during the season. Now there’s only one left. I’ve got to order more. Does it fit?”

  It was beautiful, a Riddell Revolution. Cory unwrapped it and put it on. It felt smooth and cool and comfortable. “Awesome.”

  “Yeah,” Coach Phipps said. “And you better play that way—awesome.”

  Forcing himself to walk straight, Cory returned to the gym for the rest of his gear and then headed for the locker room, where Gant was already half-dressed.

  “Look.” Cory showed him the Revolution.

  Gant gave him a fist bump. “Big time, bro. You and me.”

  Cory dressed quickly. Gant helped him and together they marched out of the locker room. They were crossing some blacktop next to the tennis courts on their way to the football fields when Cory heard a noise moving up fast behind him like no other. He spun around and saw two columns of full-grown football players crunching the pavement beneath their cleats like some grinding machine. As they crunched, they chanted in one low voice.

  “H-B-S . . . H-B-S . . . H-B-S . . .”

  Cory and Gant stepped aside and the engine of legs and feet crunched past them, twisting around the corner and continuing out onto the grass before disappearing down a hillside.

  “The varsity.” Gant stared in awe. “You see the size of them?”

  “We’ll be them someday,” Cory said, sounding confident. He just hoped his ankle would hold up.

  He and Gant jogged out onto the middle school field, where the seventh-grade team was already finishing up. The school staggered the end times for the high and middle schools and queued up the different football squads in the library for study hall. There were three football fields spread out below for six teams in all to share: sixth, seventh, eighth, freshman, JV, and the varsity that had just stomped past them. Like the cogs of a complex machine, the teams rotated around the fields, study hall, and locker rooms in complete synchronization. Everything was timed to the minute.

  The air was warm and moist, and Cory could smell the dirt beneath the grass. Thick clouds crowded the sky and seemed too heavy to move in the still air. Cory struggled not to limp, but his ankle was now
throbbing, and he wondered if it wasn’t something serious. He had to keep going, though. Coach Phipps’s words rang clearly in his mind.

  Mike Chester was off by himself with a football tucked under his arm, running along the goal line, bursting forth, then cutting right, left, then right again before lining up and going back the way he’d come. He was already showboating for the top spot.

  Cory swallowed and his mouth got dry. He didn’t think there was any way in the world he could cut like that.

  Coach Phipps blew the whistle and the team ran to the end zone, forming eight lines without being told. Cory followed the pack, then remembered Coach Phipps’s demand that he get to the front. He stepped ahead of Jimbo.

  “Hey!” Jimbo gave him a shove.

  “Help me out, Jimbo.” Cory tried not to sound too desperate. “Coach told me to get into the front of every line if I wanted to keep my scholarship.”

  Jimbo laughed, then said, “Okay, but tomorrow you cut someone else or get here first. I’m not your punk.”

  To Cory’s surprise, Jimbo moved to the next line and shoved Parker back so he could be first there. Warm-ups began, and Cory struggled just to jog through the high-knee drills and the sideways shuffle runs. No one seemed to notice, though. Spirits were high, and many of the players hooted and howled and slapped each other’s shoulder pads in the excitement of a new season. Football for Cory was already a month old. He would have been like a fish in a pond if it weren’t for his aching ankle.

  Warm-ups turned into agility drills. Cory was awful and quickly broke out in a sweat, more from pain than from exercise. When the team broke down into offensive individual work, Cory went with Coach Phipps and the rest of the running backs and quarterbacks. Coach Bean joined them with his bunch of wide receivers. The group of skill players followed Coach Phipps on an easy jog over to a spot on the field near the fifty-yard line. When they got there, Coach gave Cory a look, then blew his whistle, pointed to a spot next to an orange cone, and said, “Okay, go routes, give me one line right here!”

  Cory jumped forward, knowing the coach wanted him to be first in line. His ankle barked with pain. He saw a flash of movement, ignored the pain, and beat Mike Chester to the spot.

  He never expected what happened next.

  34

  Mike Chester started to walk away.

  Cory breathed a sigh of relief, but it had no sooner left his body than Mike spun around and blasted Cory with a forearm, knocking him back so that he could stand at the front of the line.

  Cory saw red.

  He didn’t think. He reacted.

  The Westside was a tough place, and Cory knew what it was like to be in a fight on the practice field. He didn’t have to plan to grab Mike’s face mask; he just did it. Yanking his new teammate forward and down, Cory clubbed the side of Mike’s helmet twice to ring his bell. Giving him a final yank, Cory sidestepped Chester’s flying form, tripping him as he went past.

  Cory stepped up to the cone and looked back at Mike, ready if he came at him again. Chester sprang up, and Cory saw a hate-filled face that reminded him of Dirty’s face after his mom had slapped the older boy down.

  Cory knew it wasn’t over, and he lowered his center to be ready. As Mike screamed and launched himself, Coach Phipps stepped in and shoved him sideways. Mike tipped and went down again.

  “Enough!” The coach was red faced and growling. “You wanna be first in line, Chester? You gotta hustle. You snooze, you lose. Now get back to the end!”

  Jimbo and Parker had positioned themselves off to the side. Coach Phipps tossed Jimbo a ball. “Let ’em fly, Jimbo.”

  Jimbo held the ball out in front of him with both hands as though he were taking a snap from the center. “Go route, Cory. Set, hike!”

  Cory took off down the sideline toward the end zone on a go route, forgetting all about the pain in his ankle. He was soaring with adrenaline and joy. It felt so good to have Coach Phipps put Mike Chester in his place—and Cory had seen the looks of admiration and wonder from his teammates after he’d tossed his rival to the ground. Thirty yards down the field, Jimbo’s pass arced above him, floating through the air like a wingless bird in the gray sky, then dropping quickly toward the grass.

  Cory raced under it, hands outstretched, pulled it in, and dashed across the goal line.

  “That’s the business!” Coach Phipps screamed. “That’s how it’s done, you cupcakes. Now, give me more!”

  Cory swelled with pride.

  But even as he jogged back up the sideline toward the back of the line, his ankle began pounding like a drum, and he realized he’d be standing directly behind Mike Chester.

  Mike didn’t look at Cory, though, and he didn’t say a word. They ran other routes before the receivers jogged off with Coach Bean.

  Cory stayed on edge, ready for the whistle and determined to get to the front of the line for the next drill, whatever that might be. Next was a handoff drill, quarterbacks taking make-believe snaps, pivoting, and practicing the exchange with the running backs. Cory got to the front of that, too, despite his ankle, but when that drill ended and Coach Phipps pointed to a new spot for a cut drill, Mike beat him.

  Cory looked at the coach as he slipped in behind Mike. Phipps was chuckling to himself, and it made Cory mad that he seemed to enjoy the bad blood between two of his players. The cut drill was a zigzagging run back and forth between cones spread out over thirty yards. Coach Phipps got at the end of the cones and took out his stopwatch.

  “Okay, you wanna see playing time on this squad? You gotta be able to cut, and cut fast, quarterbacks too. Best time last year was a 9.7. If you can’t break 11.5, you’re probably gonna end up with Coach Tackitt and his hogs. Mike! You been chirping at me how good you are, son. Let’s see it. Ready . . .”

  Mike got down in his stance and Coach Phipps closed one eye and held up his stopwatch. “When you’re ready . . .”

  Mike sucked in a deep breath and bolted out of his stance. He reached the first cone, planted his foot, and exploded back the other way. Back and forth he went, air blasting from his mouth like some crazy piston. As he stretched through the finish line, he cried out with an angry growl.

  Coach Phipps studied his watch. “Not bad. Not bad at all, 10.3. Okay, Scholarship, let’s see what you got!”

  Cory’s insides melted. Whatever he really had, he sure didn’t have right now. He could barely jog without hobbling. Cutting like this—if he could even do it—would be painful and difficult and slow.

  “Let’s go! Get down! We ain’t got all day, Marco!”

  Cory looked back. Jimbo squinted with impatience. He looked in front of him. Chester jogged back toward the line with a smug grin. Cory gritted his teeth and got down in his stance.

  “When you’re ready!” the coach shouted.

  Cory took off.

  The first cut was on his left ankle and it was fine. He seemed to be moving okay straight ahead, despite the pain. When he hit the next cone and planted on his bad ankle, he cried out, but kept going, back and forth, back and forth, working his way toward his coach with uncontrollable tears filling his eyes.

  He burst past the coach and stopped, turning to look.

  Coach Phipps examined the time on his watch.

  Cory tried to read his face, but it was an empty page.

  35

  Coach Phipps looked up from his watch wearing an expression of disbelief and disgust. “You sure you’re the same kid Coach McMahan’s been bragging on? The Touchdown Kid? You just ran a 12.7. My grandmother could do better than that. I just gave you a new Revolution helmet, son. I may have to take that back. You couldn’t run through a kindergarten class moving like that.”

  Cory grabbed his leg. “My ankle, Coach.”

  “Your ankle?” Coach Phipps cussed under his breath and barked out a laugh. “When you slipped? In the locker room? On a bar of soap or something?”

  “Something on the floor.” Cory’s face burned with shame. It was a private conversati
on, but he knew his teammates were listening.

  Coach Phipps looked past Cory, ignoring him. “Who’s up? Muiller? Let’s go, son. Get in your stance.”

  Cory hobbled back to the line. After each player had gone, Coach Phipps blew his whistle and shouted for the entire team to take a water break. Cory followed the pack toward the water horse, a plastic pipe on legs that was attached to a hose and spouted a dozen streams of water. Cory sucked some down. Wiping his mouth, he turned to find Jimbo standing there with a frown.

  “Come on, Cory,” Jimbo said. “You gotta suck it up, man. Don’t start out behind the eight ball.”

  “This thing is killing me, Jimbo.” Cory hated the sound of his own voice.

  Jimbo only shook his head and harshly whispered, “Suck it up. It’s a tough game. You ran that go route just fine, then you start limping around?”

  Cory bit his lip. He wanted to smack Jimbo more than he wanted to explain that he suspected he had sprained his ankle. “Just forget it.”

  Cory pushed past him, looking for Gant, but by the time the big lineman disconnected himself from the water horse, Coach Phipps was blowing his whistle and shouting. “Okay! Give me a first-team offense in a pro set right here on the ball!”

  Cory took off for the spot on the field where his coach stood. As he got closer, he saw Coach Phipps watching him. The frown he wore slowed Cory’s pace. The closer he got, the less certain he was about his status. Linemen were getting in their spots on the line. Cory saw pushing and shoving between them from the corner of his eye. No one contested Gant’s spot at left tackle. Jimbo fell in behind the center, with Garrison Green falling immediately in behind him at the fullback spot. Coach Phipps’s look seemed to be warning Cory away. The words about him not being what Coach McMahan said made Cory think twice. Just as he reached the place where the tailback should be, Mike Chester jumped in front of him.