The Big Game

by Tim Green

  “Guys,” he said, his voice raspy from yelling in the damp, “I want you all to enjoy this win.”

  Cheers erupted.

  Coach held up his hands for silence and got it. “It wasn’t what we thought it was gonna be, but I told you all week that you were takin’ this team too light, and what happened?”

  “Danny happened!” someone shouted.

  Everyone laughed.

  Coach Kinen smiled and held up his hands. He nodded. “Yeah, Danny happened. Yes, he did. And that’s a lesson, too. Because you never know, in football or in life, when your turn is gonna come. And when it does? Well, I’m bettin’ Danny’ll tell you, you gotta be ready for it. And if you are? Well, that’s how you win championships, and that’s what we all . . . are about to do in the big game!”

  More cheers, and Coach sat down. The driver put the bus in gear and they sang all the way home.

  Danny felt the difference on the bus ride to school on Friday. People were doing that thing again where he’d glance their way and they’d pretend they hadn’t been looking at him. It made him smile, and he put an arm around Janey’s shoulders as they walked into the building, hugging her close.

  “Wow. Is it my birthday?” Janey’s laughter bubbled up into the cool morning air left behind by the rain.

  “Just happy is all.” He gave her one more squeeze and then let go. “Back to the land of the living.”

  “I’m so happy for you.”

  “You keep saying that.”

  She shrugged. “I keep feeling it. Now you’ve got all the motivation you need to study this weekend. I’ve got it all scheduled out. I’ve got soccer practice Saturday early in the afternoon, and you have football practice in the morning, but we can work after that. And Sunday, other than church, I’m all yours. I think you should get in one last session with Ms. Rait. Maybe she could meet with you early Saturday afternoon, or Sunday morning. She doesn’t seem the church type.”

  They reached his locker first and he spun the dial. “No, she doesn’t. She’s the devil.”

  “Stop it.” She lightly slapped his arm. “That’s not what I meant and I think you know it.”

  “The guys on the team think she is, I can tell you that.” Danny shoved his backpack into the locker and removed some books and folders with his Playaway. “They’re talking about running her out of town this weekend so she can’t even give her test on Monday.”

  “What’s that mean, Danny?” Janey looked concerned.

  “I don’t know.” Danny slammed his locker shut, unconcerned. “Scare her or something. Probably some crank phone calls. Heavy breathing. Soap her windows. Stupid stuff, I bet. I’m planning to take the test, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  Janey headed toward her locker now. “I’m worried about her.”

  “Trust me, she can take care of herself,” Danny said.

  Janey stopped and looked up at him. “You’re not going to do anything to her, though. Right?”

  “No,” Danny scoffed.

  As much as he hated Ms. Rait’s rigid rules, he could never bring himself to do something that would scare her. As she spun the dial on her locker, he said, “The guys want to win this championship, though. It’s a big deal, and they know they need me. Dillon’s defense has six shutouts and they’ve only given up twenty-six points all season.”

  “Maybe you should tell Mr. Crenshaw,” Janey said, clanking open the locker. “Just so she’s ready.”

  Danny took her by the arm. “Janey, you can’t say anything about this to anyone. The guys would kill me. Most of the team doesn’t even know. It’s just some eighth graders who told me in the locker room last night not to worry, that they’d take care of it.”

  Janey frowned. “That doesn’t sound good to me. And you know about it, so if something bad happens, you’re gonna be part of it.”

  “Shh!” Danny looked around and put his mouth near her ear, whispering. “I am not part of anything. I don’t even know what ‘it’ is. You gotta promise me, Janey, promise me you won’t say a word to anyone.”

  He stepped back and looked into her face. Her eyes swam with worry and doubt.

  Finally, she gave a short nod. “Okay.”

  “Okay. Good.” The first bell rang and he turned to go. “See you in Rait’s.”

  “See you.”

  “I heard my dad talking to me.” Danny hadn’t intended to tell anyone, but the words spilled from his mouth after just five minutes of chess. Mr. Crenshaw was teaching him to play.

  Mr. C paused. He held a bishop above the board. He looked at Danny, then took his pawn. “Like, you remembered something he said?”

  Danny used a knight to take the bishop. “No. I heard him. His voice. He told me you have to run north and south in the mud.”

  Mr. Crenshaw nodded at the board. “Good move. What’s that mean? North? Mud?”

  Danny explained what it all meant and then told Mr. C about hearing his dad twice, and about the impact it had on him and his team.

  “You told your teammates?”

  “No, but I was so amped up, they listened to me.”

  Mr. C sat back in his chair. “Well, the human mind is a mystery. How did you feel? When you heard him?”

  Danny looked at the wall. “I don’t know. . . . Excited? Scared? It made me take over the huddle. I mean, I’d never have done what I did unless it was my actual dad telling me. You don’t just change the play your coach calls.”

  “How do you feel now? About your dad?” Mr. C asked.

  Danny paused. A wave of emotion began to rock his insides. He bit his cheek to hold back some tears. “Sad. I miss him. . . .”

  “I’m sorry,” Mr. Crenshaw whispered. “I really am.”

  “Yeah, well.” Danny sniffed and wiped his eyes with the palm of his hand.

  “You’re doing really well, Danny.”

  “I am?” He looked at the counselor through a kaleidoscope of tears.

  “Yeah. Really well.”

  “Cuz I’m crying?”

  “Cuz you’re healing.” Mr. C reached down and moved a pawn into position to take Danny’s knight.

  Danny moved the knight forward with his eyes on a castle. “And?”

  “And what?” Mr. C raised an eyebrow.

  “You sound like there’s an ‘and’ coming,” Danny said.

  Mr. C nodded. “And, you don’t need to be here every morning. As much as I’ve enjoyed our time together, there are other kids who need me more than you do.”

  Danny snorted. “Like Markle.”

  “Is he having problems?”

  “Nothing. Forget it.”

  “You’re upset?” Mr. C asked.

  “No. I’m fine.” Danny looked down.

  “How about Mondays and Fridays?” Mr. Crenshaw said. “We can start and end the week together.”

  Danny raised his head. “Really? So, we’re not just ending?”

  Mr. Crenshaw smiled and reached for his queen. He moved it across the entire board. “We can’t just end now. I’ve got to teach you to play chess.”

  He set the queen down and smiled. “Checkmate.”

  Practice Friday afternoon and Saturday morning were sweet dreams. Coach Kinen treated Danny like gold.

  “What do you think about that play, Danny? You like it?”

  “How’s your foot doing? Let’s not overdo things. We need you for the game.”

  The downside to all that positive attention was the glaring difference he felt when he walked into Ms. Rait’s house Saturday afternoon for what would be the last time. Turned out she was a church person, but she said she thought meeting Saturday afternoon was a good idea.

  “Danny.” She sat at the kitchen table looking like she’d tasted a lemon. She set her book down on the table and began shuffling papers out of her folder, snapping them down in front of him.

  “Ma’am.” Danny sat.

  She dove right in, teaching him some new things and drilling him on the old. She had him answer workshe
ets on the stopwatch and she brandished her red marker when he’d finished, clicking her tongue and fouling the paper with her red ink.

  After a particularly bad page, she pushed it away from her and huffed. “This just isn’t good enough. I need more from you. Give me more. The test is Monday.”

  Danny bit down on the inside of his lip. Obviously, no one from the team had done anything to frighten Ms. Rait or back her down in any way. He kept on, though, because now he really needed this. His dream of the big game had come and gone and come again. He was so close, and instead of moaning to himself, he hunkered down and poured every ounce of energy and concentration he had into learning as much as he possibly could.

  He knew the course of his entire life might be changed by a single answer. He needed a 65 percent, that was all.

  It wasn’t until the sun dipped into the back windows that Ms. Rait rested her red marker on the table between them.

  She sat back and sighed heavily.

  She looked almost sad.

  Danny swallowed, afraid to ask, but knowing he had to.

  “So do you think I can do this? You think I can pass?”

  Ms. Rait picked up her red marker and tapped it against the table. “When you’re about to play one of your football games, do you ask your coach if he thinks you can win?”

  Danny snorted. “No.”

  “But you’re asking me.” She puckered her lips and moved them sideways for a brief moment. “Why would you do that?”

  “This is a test,” Danny said. “Not a game.”

  Danny couldn’t help feeling annoyed. He knew he should hold his temper, but it burned him to have spent his afternoon slaving away only to be criticized for asking someone’s opinion. That’s all he was doing.

  “A test that’s more important than a game,” she continued. “A test that could make the game irrelevant.”

  “You’re not my coach,” he said.

  “You better believe I’m not.”

  Danny searched her face. Was that a smile lurking there beneath its surface? It made him choke with anger.

  He pounded a fist on the table and jumped to his feet. “Fine! You want to play games with me? Go for it! But watch your back, lady! We’re tight in this town!”

  Danny stormed out of the house, right out the back door. Mrs. McGillicuddy yowled and burst from beneath the steps, startling him so that he ran into her. The cat ran for cover, zipping into the chicken coop like a flash of light.

  “Danny! You get back here!” Ms. Rait shouted. Danny could hear her clearly through the open windows, but he kept walking. “You think I’m intimidated? By anyone? You’re wrong!”

  Danny covered his ears and took off running.

  Danny ate a silent dinner with his mom. He knew she’d grown used to his bouts of quiet. She’d told him so before. He wondered if she’d spoken to Mr. C about it, and if he’d told her it was normal.

  That set him to wondering how Mr. C could ever want to be around someone as rigid and grouchy as Rait.

  His mom cleared her throat. “Anything I can help you with?”

  He looked up, startled. “No. I’m good. I’ll help you clean up. Janey’s coming to study, and I think we’re going to a bonfire after.”

  “Bonfire?”

  “Just some guys on the team, behind the old concrete factory. It’s like a celebration.”

  She frowned at him. “There’s no beer, right?”

  “Mom, we’re football players. Everyone goes.”

  Her face softened. “I used to go to bonfires with your father—” She looked at Danny, stricken. “I didn’t mean to say that. . . .”

  “It’s okay, Mom. I miss him too.” Danny felt his eyes tear and he looked down and wiped them on his sleeve. “Dad would be so proud to see how you’ve quit drinking. And made a start on quitting smoking, too.”

  “Oh, Danny.” His mom circled the table, pulled up a chair, and hugged him to her. She was crying softly too, and Danny let his own tears go. The bones in her arms cut into his shoulders and back, but somehow it felt comforting.

  They sat that way for several minutes, just breathing, with the late-day sun slanting in through the window, before there was a knock at the back door.

  Danny jumped up, wiping frantically at his face. “It’s Janey.”

  He stopped with his hand on the knob and looked back at his mom, who was wiping her own eyes. “Okay?”

  She sniffed and nodded and he swung the door open. “Hi.”

  “Hey.” Janey peered past him. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah.” He motioned her in. “Just talking about my dad, so . . .”

  “I can come back,” Janey said.

  “You come right in.” Danny’s mom hopped up from her chair with a smile. “We’re just fine. Aren’t we, Danny?”

  “Yeah.” Danny smiled because it was true. He took a breath. “Nothing wrong with being sad. Come on. We can study in my room.”

  Danny tried, but whether it was his emotional day or just being burned out from all his mental exercise with Ms. Rait, he just couldn’t get his brain engaged. After an hour and a half, he stopped faking it.

  “C’mon,” he said, pushing back his chair from the desk. “I can’t do it anymore. I just can’t. Maybe tomorrow, but not now.”

  Janey looked at him doubtfully. “I’m okay, but are you sure?”

  “Yeah.” Danny looked at the time. “It’s dark out. That bonfire’s probably already going. Let’s eat something and go hang out, and then I can walk you home.”

  His mom fed them a pasta casserole. They said goodbye and set out for town, walking along Route 222 with only two vehicles passing by to disrupt their nighttime walk. In town, they took to the sidewalks until they ran out on the far side, and then they walked on the shoulder for the remaining quarter mile to the abandoned concrete factory.

  The factory rose up, an inky fortress against the starlit sky. The chain-link gates sagged open. They passed through, and even before they rounded the corner they could see the orange glow and hear the thump and twang of country music from a boom box.

  Dark figures milled about around a huge fire with ten-foot tongues of flame licking the night. Danny saw Cupcake’s massive shape, and he tapped him on the back.

  “Hey!” Cupcake turned Danny’s way, then turned back toward the fire. “Hey, everybody! Danny’s here!”

  A cheer went up.

  Danny saw the smiling faces of his teammates as well as the faces of other boys and girls flickering in the orange light. Many of them he recognized from school. Cupcake reached into a cooler and took two cans of Coke from their icy bath, handing them to Danny and Janey.

  “Janey!” Cupcake bellowed and gave her a hug.

  Danny cracked his can open with a hiss. He swapped it with Janey’s and opened that one for himself. He liked the way she went along as if she expected him to open one for her.

  Jace appeared, wearing a Crooked Creek Football hoodie. “Dan-eee! This your girlfriend?”

  Danny laughed. “No. My friend. This is Janey. Janey, Jace. The quarterback.”

  “I know,” Janey said.

  “Well, if she’s not your girlfriend, maybe she’ll be mine. Kelly and I are on the rocks.” Jace laughed.

  Danny thought he was more serious than joking, but he relaxed when Janey said, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  She looked at Danny with a glowing smile that made his heart gallop.

  “Too late, I see,” Jace said. “Just like I was too late for the de-Rait.”

  “De-what?” Danny asked.

  Cupcake laughed. “De-Rait, as in Ms. Rait. Bug and some of the guys left about ten minutes ago to hint that she might want to make Crooked Creek part of her past.”

  Danny chuckled. “Ugh. She was pure evil to me today. What are they doing? Egging her windows?”

  Jace laughed. “Naw. You know Bug, Firebug. Evidently she’s got some old abandoned chicken coop in her backyard. Man, I guess Bug was like a dog in a butcher
shop when he saw that old, broken-down thing. . . . It’s the ultimate prank!”

  Jace grinned around at them all. The flicker of orange light and black shadows gave him the look of a madman.

  Danny’s mouth fell open. “What?”

  “Yeah,” Jace said, still grinning, “they’re gonna burn it down.”

  “No!” Danny screamed, and he took off running.

  “Hey!” Jace screamed after him. “There’s nothing in it!”

  But Danny knew there was.

  Danny ran right down the middle of the road. He hit the center of town and went left, cutting the corner on the sidewalk past the drugstore and out into the street again under the lights. A pickup truck screeched its brakes and blared its horn, just missing him. Danny never slowed down.

  His breath began to flag as he passed the last houses packed into the tight cluster of town. In the back of his mind he knew he had about a half mile to go. His lungs were blazing and he gasped for breath. His stomach heaved, and he left what remained of his dinner on the road without breaking stride.

  He thought the next thing would be a total collapse—that his body would just give out beneath him like a spent mule. But this was the kind of pain he could run through. His eyes spilled tears in the wind. He willed himself on, his pace slowing despite his determination. His legs had no feeling, and they began to wobble. He was almost there!

  But when he saw the flickering orange glow outlining the roofline of Ms. Rait’s house, he knew he was too late.

  He kept going anyway, and he was glad he did. Flames engulfed the back of the coop and danced across the slanted roof, leaping for the stars.

  “Mrs. McGillicuddy!” Danny screamed at the top of his lungs. “Mrs. McGillicuddy!”

  Smoke poured from the entrance like a factory stack until it spit out Mrs. McGillicuddy with a kitten in her mouth.

  “Oh, Mrs. McGillicuddy!” Danny sobbed at the sight of her, but the cat paid him no mind. She dropped the kitten beside another in the grass right up next to the house—Danny didn’t know if they were even alive—and then, in a streak of white, she raced right back into the burning coop.