Friend or Foe

by Jody Feldman

  “I don’t know exactly what you’re saying, little man, but you’re cool, anyway.”

  Zane smiled at two of his worlds coming together until that jerk of a jealous seventh grader in the stands ruined the moment. “Hey, Braycott, you wimp. You won’t even dress out to help us win this game. And second in the Gollywhopper Games? You loser.”

  “Shut your trap,” said Daryl, whose garage band had performed at halftime.

  “Yeah! Shut your trap!” Kelly, who still giggled at Zane, wasn’t echoing only Daryl. “Shut your trap,” the line Elijah used to tell off Berk, had gone viral.

  Kelly, in fact, had been first, even before the JZs, to congratulate him on his second-place finish. He gave her a smile, but didn’t bother to give the jerk the satisfaction of a dirty stare. If he only knew that the million dollars didn’t really matter, that Zane was happier here on the middle school field than he’d been the whole time in Orchard Heights—

  Who was he kidding? That guy would still be a jerk.

  Instead, Zane focused on his parents’ voices. For the fourth straight game, they sat side by side. They were cheering on Zoe, who’d become the first girl in school history to make the team. And she’d won the starting kicker position by a mile. Maybe she’d be the first Braycott to have a full career in the NFL.

  She teed up the ball, took seven steps back and three steps sideways, and did what she’d been doing all season. She booted it high and long. The receiver fielded it on the fifteen-yard line but only advanced it to the twenty-two. Eighteen seconds left.

  Zane grabbed Jamaal’s arm before he went onto the field. “Remember. Two inches. And his eyes.” He gave him a push toward the huddle. No question, they’d throw to 87 this time. “C’mon, Jamaal!”

  Jamaal moved two inches to the outside. He brought his head up and looked, it appeared, into number 87’s eyes. Eighty-seven discovered he couldn’t beat Jamaal to the outside, curled in a little. Jamaal kept his head up. Watched 87 watch the ball. Adjusted. Soared sideways, in slow motion, Zane swore, and intercepted the pass.

  Zane jumped so high. “He did it! You did it!” Zane ran to Jamaal and leaped on his back.

  Jerome rushed to them. “Man! That was a thing of beauty!”

  It was. It was. Just let the clock run out, and they’d win. Zane could breathe. He’d done it. His idea. He sensed a pair of eyes staring at him. He turned. Looked down.

  Elijah looked him straight on. “That felt almost as good as doing it yourself, didn’t it?”

  “Yeah, buddy. Almost.”

  And for that moment, almost was enough.

  About the Author

  JODY FELDMAN has always loved riddles and brainteasers and word games, and she lives in a city on a river whose name contains four s’s, two p’s, and four i’s. Jody has written as many books for young readers as there are players in a doubles tennis match. To find out how many brothers she has, take the number of bases on a baseball diamond and divide it by the number of times Grover Cleveland was president of the United States. To find out more, visit www.jodyfeldman.com.

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  Credits

  Cover art © 2015 by Max Kostenko

  Cover hand lettering © 2015 by Jim Labbad

  Cover design by Paul Zakris

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  THE GOLLYWHOPPER GAMES: FRIEND OR FOE. Text copyright © 2015 by Jody Feldman. Illustrations copyright © 2015 by Victoria Jamieson. 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, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage 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

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Feldman, Jody.

  The Gollywhopper Games : friend or foe / by Jody Feldman ;

  illustrations by Victoria Jamieson.

  pages cm.

  “Greenwillow Books.”

  Summary: Zane thinks about little but football until after his second concussion, when his parents say he must take a year off, so when he gets a chance to compete in the Gollywhopper Games he is excited about applying many of the skills that help him excel on the football field to a different kind of competition.

  EPub Edition © March 2015 ISBN 9780062211309

  ISBN 978-0-06-221128-6 (hardback)

  [1. Contests—Fiction. 2. Games—Fiction. 3. Puzzles—Fiction. 4. Coaching (Athletics)—Fiction. 5. Conduct of life—Fiction.]

  I. Title. II. Title: Friend or foe.

  PZ7.F3357752Gom 2014 [Fic]—dc23 2014035850

  FIRST EDITION

  15 16 17 18 19 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Greenwillow Books

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