The Great Quarterback Switch

by Matt Christopher

  Then, suddenly, he was on the field! He was in Tom’s shoes, in Tom’s uniform! He was in the game!

  He looked toward the sideline. There sat Tom in the chair, except that Tom was dressed in Michael’s clothes.

  They got in a huddle. Michael put his hands on his knees as he glanced quickly at the faces around him. The fear still lurked that one of the players might sense something was different, but he had to risk it. He would cope with that problem when, and if, it came.

  “Wild dog! On two!” said Michael, hoping that a pass play would surprise the Moths.

  The Eagles broke out of the huddle, assembled at the line of scrimmage.

  “Four! Seven! Hip! Hip! Hip!” Michael barked.

  He took the snap, faded back, glanced first toward the right, then the left. The ends were doing a good job of blocking their men. And Vince looked free as he ran down toward the sideline, moving into Moth territory. He looked back and Michael whipped the pass to him, throwing the ball ahead of Vince so that he would catch it on the run.

  The play worked for eight yards.

  Another quick pass over the line of scrimmage netted four yards and a first down.

  This time, as a change of pace, Michael called for a running play. But Angie fumbled the ball as Michael handed it off to him. The ball bounced back to the Eagles’ forty-nine-yard line, where Michael pounced on it like a cat.

  Second and eighteen.

  “That was a lousy handoff, Tom,” said Vince disgustedly.

  Michael blushed. “Sorry, Vince.”

  “Why don’t we try a long pass, Tom?” said Bob in the huddle.

  “Yeah,” agreed Stan. “Way out in the left flat. I can run the pants off that Steiner guy.”

  “Good idea,” said Jim. “Give me the hand-off and I’ll heave it out to him.”

  “Hold it,” said Michael. “We’re wasting time. They’ll expect a pass. We have to try something different. A surprise. Seventeen sprint-out pass. If I can’t work it, I’ll run it.”

  Nobody contradicted him. They broke out of the huddle.

  He called signals. The ball was snapped. Michael started to fade back, then ran to the right, parallel with the line of scrimmage, while he looked for his receiver, Stan Bates. Stan seemed to be free, so Michael started to lift the ball to his shoulders to attempt the pass.

  Suddenly he saw a Moth sprinting hard toward Stan, and Michael knew that an attempted pass might be disastrous.

  He pulled the ball against his side and ran. He ran as hard as he could, bolting around right end as Jim Berry threw a fine block on the Moth end.

  Up the field, Stan blocked the Moth safety man, clearing the field for Michael, who went all the way.

  A kick between the uprights put the Eagles in the lead, 14-7.

  Vince slapped Michael happily on the back, then looked at him squarely in the eyes.

  “Can you believe it?” he said, grinning. “For a minute there, watching you run, I had a flash that it was Michael out here. Remember how fast he used to be? No one could catch him.” Vince cocked his head to one side. “Guess you guys are more alike than I thought, huh?”

  8

  Michael’s heart flip-flopped. His face turned red, and he grinned back to hide his embarrassment— and his fear that Vince might get more nosy.

  “Nice kick, Vince,” was all he said, and he trotted back across the field, with the rest of the guys, for the next kickoff.

  The Moths were able to carry off only three plays, netting them enough yardage to get them to the Eagles’ thirty-eight, when the first half ended.

  As the team came walking tiredly off the field, Michael concentrated on his thought-energies again. He sensed that his thoughts and Tom’s were in direct communication. In seconds he and Tom were back to their normal selves again.

  Michael was very tired, almost to the point of exhaustion, but the experience had been fantastic. Imagine, he thought, he had gotten a touchdown. It was his second. He had scored the first one in the game against the Scorpions when he had intercepted a pass.

  But this one he had done on his own. He had decided on the option play, and had made it work.

  “Wasn’t that run just fantastic?” a voice cried behind him.

  He turned just as Carol burst around the left side of his wheelchair. He saw that she didn’t have a Popsicle this time, and decided she was more normal than he had expected. No person could afford— let alone eat— Popsicles all day long, he told himself.

  “I’ve got to agree,” he said. “It was.”

  He looked for Vickie, and saw her coming toward them unhurriedly, her eyes across the field, probably looking at Tom.

  “Hi, Vickie,” he said.

  “Hi, Michael,” she greeted him, flashing her warm smile. “How are you?”

  “Fine. What do you think of that touchdown run Tom just made?”

  “It was great.”

  “Yeah,” he said, cracking a wry grin. “I thought so, too.”

  His grin broadened. If these girls only knew who had really made that touchdown, they’d die!

  “Michael,” said Carol, looking at him with her large eyes, “did you ever wish that you— ” She hesitated, looked away, then looked at him again. “You wouldn’t mind if I asked you a personal question, would you?”

  He shrugged. “No. Go ahead, ask.”

  “Well— ” She glanced down and started to burrow a toe into the hard surface of the earth near the front left wheel of his wheelchair. “Do you ever wish that you were able to play football? I mean— I know it’s a stupid question because you… you can’t… but I just wondered.”

  No one had ever asked him a question like that before. But he didn’t mind. “I know what you mean,” he said. “The answer is yes. I might as well be honest about it. I have wished that I could play. But it doesn’t bother me very much that I can’t.” Oh, how he would like to tell her more!

  She nodded, and shrugged. “Gee,” she said.

  “Gee, what?”

  “Oh, nothing. Just gee.” And she laughed.

  The second half went well for the Moths. Jinx Roberts, their tall, scrambling quarterback, lapped up thirty yards on two runs, then heaved a touchdown pass to Hans Steiner that put the Moths one point behind the Eagles. Nick’s kick for the extra point was off the mark by two yards, leaving the score: Eagles 14, Moths 13.

  Then, just thirteen seconds before the third quarter was over, Tom fumbled a snap from center.

  Michael almost pushed himself out of the chair as he tried to see who had recovered the ball. The action had stopped only a few yards away from the Eagles’ goal line. If the Moths had recovered it, the game would be close to a loss for the Eagles.

  Suddenly, the ref, standing over a player who was smothering the ball, jabbed a finger in the direction of the Eagles’ goal line! And Moth players started to jump up and down jubilantly! It was the Moths’ ball! They had recovered it!

  Michael was sick. “Oh, no!” he groaned. “Oh, no! Tom, why did you have to fumble there?”

  Nick Podopolis tried a line plunge and gained two yards.

  “Hold ’em!” Michael shouted along with the hundreds of other Eagles fans. “Hold ’em, you guys!”

  With four seconds to go before the quarter ended, Nick bucked the line again. This time he went over. His kick for the extra point was good, and the Moths went into the lead, 20-14.

  The horn blew and the teams exchanged goals.

  Tom caught Nick’s long, spiraling kick, and brought it back to his own thirty-four. He looked bushed, Michael thought. Or perhaps he was depressed over the fumble he had made.

  Michael began to concentrate on his thought-energies again, hoping that Tom would do likewise. This might be an excellent time for him and his brother to change places again.

  But Michael failed to tune in on Tom’s thought waves. Was Tom stubbornly refusing to concentrate on TEC because he wanted to make up for that fumble? Or was something else going on?

  Af
ter a while, Michael, disgusted, gave up trying to make contact with Tom. The heck with him, he thought. I’m not going to sit here and beg him to exchange places with me all the time. Anyway, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m asking for too much. It’s enough that Tom lets me play in his place once in a while.

  He sat there quietly and watched the Eagles take a battering from the Moths.

  Suddenly, with five minutes left to play, Michael began to feel the vibrations that told him that Tom was trying to communicate with him! He looked at Tom, and joy welled up in him. He apologized silently to Tom for thinking that Tom had reneged on him, and concentrated as hard as he could on TEC.

  The Eagles had the ball on their own forty-four-yard line. Michael thought he understood the problem. Tom had tried his best to get the ball moving toward the Moths’ goal, but he just couldn’t do it. And now he was asking for Michael’s help.

  In a moment the exchange was made. Michael was on the field, and Tom was in Michael’s wheelchair.

  Michael and the rest of the Eagles were in a huddle.

  “Seventeen sprint-out pass,” said Michael. “On two!”

  He was nervous as he got behind Jack Benson and barked signals. The play had to work. It just had to.

  “Eighteen! Twenty-one! Hip! Hip!”

  He caught the snap, faded back a few steps, and glided to the right. All at once he saw Moonie Jones, the Moths’ tank-sized linebacker, break through the line and come at him.

  Panic swept through Michael as he searched the flats for a receiver. Then he saw Bob Riley cutting in from the left sideline, evading his guard for a few seconds. Those few seconds could be enough.

  With Moonie only three steps away from him, Michael let go a pass. It barely missed Moonie’s outstretched hands as it sailed in a neat spiral down the field. The throw looked as if it might be too far away from Bob, but the swift-footed end put on more speed, caught the ball, and sprinted toward the goal line.

  Five yards away from it, he was caught by Eddie Myles, the Moths’ safety man, and brought down.

  “Beautiful pass, Mike!” shouted a voice from the sideline. “Beautiful!”

  Michael stared across the field at Tom, who was waving his clasped hands over his head.

  Someone poked him in the ribs. He looked around at Vince, who was grinning broadly at him.

  “Hear that? Your brother seems so shook up he doesn’t even know who he is! He called you Mike!”

  9

  Michael almost froze to the spot. He felt a shiver buzz through him. His mouth twitched as he tried to smile, hoping that he could say something that wouldn’t get Vince curious.

  “Oh, he… uh… he pretends he plays in my place sometimes,” Michael said, rather stiffly. “After all, he’s stuck in that wheelchair most of the time. He likes to get out of it once in a while— mentally, anyway. You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah. I guess I do. It must be pretty tough for him.”

  “Sometimes,” said Michael.

  “Hurry up, you guys,” Butch piped up, “before the ref slaps a penalty on us for delaying the game.”

  Thanks, Butch, Michael thought, grateful for the interruption. Relief swept over him as he took his time going to the huddle. He got to thinking about having helped the team, and Tom, by successfully throwing a pass that put the Eagles within scoring distance. Now he would like to have Tom himself be in the game and score a touchdown, by a run or a pass.

  He concentrated hard for the exchange, hoping that Tom was tuned in to his thoughts.

  Then suddenly it happened. He was in his wheelchair, and Tom was on the field.

  “Hey! You’re not listening to me!” a voice cried near his elbow. “I asked you a question!”

  Startled, Michael turned and saw Carol beside him, a half-eaten Popsicle clutched in her hand.

  “I— I’m sorry,” he said. “I had my mind on that play. Would you mind repeating the question, please?”

  “No, since I have to in order to get an answer,” she replied, and giggled. “Have you ever thought of what you’d like to do when you grow up? I mean, when you’re an adult?”

  Michael shrugged. “No. I haven’t thought about it. I think I’m still pretty young to think about what I want to do when I’m an adult.”

  She wiped a little blob of Popsicle off her chin. “I think you’re pretty smart, you know that?”

  Michael blushed. “I wouldn’t say so.”

  “I would. Want me to get you a Popsicle?”

  “No, thanks. I’m not hungry.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “Okay. See you later, Michael.”

  She left.

  What a girl, Michael thought. She isn’t the mousy type we had judged her to be at first.

  All at once he heard a shout on the field and saw Eagles players jumping up and down and hugging each other. He knew that he had missed seeing the touchdown. Darn Carol, anyway, for yakking to him during that crucial moment!

  Vince made the kick good for the point after. Eagles 21, Moths 20.

  That was the score when the game ended.

  Michael and Tom rode home with their mother and father. They discussed the game, and the brothers winked at each other when their father praised Tom for that long touchdown run in the second quarter, and for his perfectly thrown long pass in the last quarter that had put the Eagles in touchdown territory.

  “You had me worried for a while,” Mr. Curtis confessed. “You looked so tired I wasn’t sure that you’d be able to finish the game.”

  “But you did,” Mrs. Curtis chimed in enthusiastically. “You seemed to perk up just when you needed it!”

  “Just in the nick of time. Right, Mom?” Michael said, nudging Tom in the ribs.

  “Right!”

  Tom chuckled, and Michael joined in with him.

  “What’s so funny?” their mother asked, looking curiously at them.

  Tom shrugged. “Oh, nothing, Mom. We’re just pleased that you and Dad enjoyed the game, that’s all.”

  When their mother looked away, the boys smothered another laugh.

  “I’ve got an apology to make to you, Mike,” said Tom, his voice lowered so it would not carry to the front seat.

  “Apology? What for?”

  “I knew you wanted to make an exchange that one time when I called for the T-forty-three-drive play. But I wanted to do it. You know what I mean? I’m sorry.”

  Michael grinned. “Apology accepted,” he said softly.

  Later that day the twins visited Ollie Pruitt and told him of their successful thought-energy experience.

  “Heck, I knew it would work again,” said Ollie confidently, as he snipped dead stems off a hibiscus plant in his yard. “You two boys are perfect specimens. You’re both smart as a whip, and you’ve got faith. You’re unique for this thought-energy process. I’ve told you that before.” He straightened up, grunting a little. “Hear these old bones? They snarl at me every time I move. Well, tell me about it. Has anybody gotten curious after you exchanged places?”

  “I had a close shave,” Michael said. He glanced at Tom. “Remember when you yelled at me just after I completed a pass to Bob Riley? You said, ‘Beautiful pass, Mike! Beautiful!’ Well, Vince heard you.”

  “I remember it all right,” said Tom. “I could’ve crawled into a wormhole. Rick Howell was sitting on the bench next to me. Even he looked at me and wondered if I had gone off my rocker.”

  “What did you say to Vince?” Ollie asked, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “You got out of it okay, I hope?”

  “Oh, I think I did,” Michael replied. “I said that he— meaning me in the wheelchair— pretends he plays in my place sometimes— meaning Tom’s place. I said that he’s always stuck in that wheelchair and likes to get out of it once in a while.”

  Ollie’s eyes twinkled. “And he swallowed your explanation?”

  “The whole bit.”

  Ollie chuckled and scratched his nos
e. “Well, you didn’t lie to him. Every word you told him was true. You’ve just got to be careful, though, that you both remember who you are at all times. One big goof and you both might become so disturbed about it that you won’t be able to do it again.”

  “Boy, that’s right,” said Tom, shooting a glance at Michael. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

  Michael shook his head. “We’ll just have to keep our wits about us every minute, that’s all,” he said.

  “You have the toughest job,” Tom told him. “When you’re out there playing football, you’re taking a chance of getting bashed. Sitting in that wheelchair for me is easy. You know what?” he added quickly. “I’ve been realizing just what kind of life you really have been living, Mike. Being in that chair all the time ain’t no picnic. It takes a lot of guts, man.”

  Michael’s eyes flashed. “It takes guts to do what you do, too, Tom,” he said seriously. “The team looks to you to make the plays work. I heard what they had to say when one doesn’t! It’s rough, a lot of pressure. It must be hard to stay on top all the time.” Tom looked at him thoughtfully. “Sometimes,” was all he said.

  On October 4, the Eagles tangled with the Cheetahs. The day was sunny, and a light wind was blowing from the north, causing most of the fans to wear light jackets or sweaters.

  The Cheetahs had a record of two wins and one loss, the same as the Eagles, so winning this game would mean a lot.

  The Cheetahs won the toss and chose to receive. Vince’s kick made the football veer off to the right of the field at the twenty-yard line, and it bounced out of bounds. He had to kick again, this time from the thirty-five-yard line. The kick, a high spiral, dropped near the twenty-five-yard line, where the receiver called for a free catch.

  Kip Stanley, the Cheetahs’ quarterback, hustled his team into a huddle and hustled them out of it. His eyes kept shifting over the field like a pair of white marbles as he barked signals. The ball was snapped, and he faded back. One step… two…

  Abe Abrams, the Cheetahs’ chunky fullback, took the handoff and plowed like a miniature tank through right tackle. Hands grabbed at him, but slipped off as if he were greased. He went twenty-three yards before Tom, playing safety, tackled him around the knees and pulled him down.