by Tim Green
Justin smiled and slapped his back. “Right, and don’t worry about starting. There’s no way Coach won’t start you over Varnett. He’s all right, but not even close to you. Hey, I keep meaning to tell you, after the game Saturday there’s a big dance. They call it the Fall Ball. Did you hear about it?”
“How would I hear about it?”
Justin tilted his head. “I thought maybe Becky might have said something.”
“Why would she?”
“I don’t know. Man, she looks like a TV star and she likes you, right?”
“She’s nice to me.” Harrison’s insides tightened.
“So, if she didn’t ask you, you gotta ask her,” Justin said. “I’m just trying to help. I already asked Charlene Gambol. She’s that tall girl with the long, dark hair. We could all hang out.”
“I’m thinking about football, not a dance.”
“I know,” Justin said, “but after we stomp Clayborn Park, you’ll want to be at the dance. Everyone will be there celebrating. Come on, that’s my job. I’m your wingman.”
“Wingman?” Harrison squinted at him.
“Watching out for you so you can focus on the important stuff.”
“Stomping Clayborn Park,” Harrison said.
“And asking Becky to the Fall Ball.” Justin looked past Harrison, smiled, and waved. “Speaking of which, there she is.”
Harrison turned around. Becky and two other girls were coming off the soccer field, sweaty with grass-stained knees, giggling together. Becky had a red bandanna tied around her head and it only made her green eyes greener. Fear choked Harrison’s throat as the girls approached.
Justin leaned close. “Go ahead, ask her.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
HARRISON COULDN’T SPEAK.
“Hey, Justin. Hey, Harrison,” Becky said. “This is Delilah and Rachel. Guys, this is Harrison Johnson, the big football player everyone’s talking about.”
“Nice going on Leo Howard.” Delilah was a redhead herself and she spoke without letting up on the gum she chewed.
“Yeah,” Rachel said, “I haven’t heard him so quiet since kindergarten when he got his tonsils out.”
Their words only made Harrison less comfortable. He couldn’t speak, but he did manage to nod his head.
“Hey, Becky,” Justin said. “Harrison was just going to ask you something. . . .”
All eyes turned to Harrison.
“We were talking about the Fall Ball,” Justin said.
Becky suddenly went pale and looked almost as upset as Harrison felt.
“Oh,” she said after an uncomfortable silence. “Well, he’s probably thinking more about the game than some dance. Well, gotta go. See you guys.”
Becky and her friends disappeared before Harrison could blink.
Justin backhanded him in the gut. “You big dummy. What were you waiting for? I set you up perfect.”
Harrison swallowed the knot in his throat. “I don’t know. I didn’t get the chance, really.”
“You can’t be scared to ask her,” Justin said. “She’s crazy about you. Did you hear that, ‘the big football player’? That’s what she called you, bro. She loves you.”
“She kind of took off.”
Justin waved a hand through the air. “Girls are flighty. Come on, you’ll get another chance.”
Harrison followed him into the locker room, where they changed into street clothes. Many of the other players had already changed. Harrison felt their eyes on him, but when he did catch someone glancing at him, it was a different look than before. Before, the looks were mocking and mean. Now Harrison could see the uncertainty, even the caution, in their eyes, and he had to admit that it felt good. It made him breathe easier to know that he had a place in this new world where, even if people wouldn’t be his friends, at least they would let him be.
“Don’t forget we’re meeting after dinner,” Justin said as they walked out. “I’ve got two lawns. Meet me at Mrs. Peabody’s at twenty-seven Oakwood and I’ll get you started. I’ll do the other one just down the street. Neither is as big as Doc’s, but we only get ten bucks each.”
“Ten is great,” Harrison said.
“So, I’m not going to Subway. I got homework. See you then, right?”
Harrison bumped fists with his friend and headed for home. He had schoolwork too. Harrison was just finishing up his last math problem at the kitchen table when Coach came in.
“Paperwork for all of us, huh?” Coach said, looking over Harrison’s shoulder. “You got number seven wrong. It should be three x over fifty-six. Seven times eight is fifty-six, not fifty-four.”
Harrison looked at the last calculation on the sheet and began to erase. “I always mix that up.”
“I always used to forget that too,” Coach said. “I don’t know why. Then someone told me this: five, six, seven, eight, five-six is seven times eight. It’s backward, but it works. I don’t know. Math is like Chinese to me. That’s why I teach English.”
“That works. I like it. Thanks Coach.”
Coach began taking things out of the refrigerator. “I got a text from Jennifer. She’s in a meeting running late, so she asked us to get this started.”
Harrison helped prepare dinner by making a salad under Coach’s precise instructions. As he cut up a cucumber, he asked, “Do you think I’ll start on Saturday, Coach?”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
COACH HAD A HANDFUL of ground beef he was molding into a meatloaf. “Do you think you deserve to start?”
“I’m better than Varnett, right?”
Coach nodded. “Is that all there is to being a starter, just being the best?”
“It should be.” Harrison set down the knife and carried the salad bowl to the table.
“What if Varnett started, but you got most of the carries? What would you think of that?”
“I’d like to get all the carries.”
“Do you think you’ll need the line to block for you?”
“Sure, a little, anyway. I can’t run through eleven guys.”
“Right.” Coach slid his meatloaf into the oven. “Football is a team game. You need everyone working toward the same goal. That’s my job, to get everyone working. So don’t worry about starting. Leave that to me. Trust me. I want to win, and that’s what you want too. You just be ready every time I put that ball in your hands to take it to the end zone. If I can ease you into this and keep the team happy, it’ll be good for everyone.”
Harrison didn’t fully understand why all the players—even people like Leo Howard—needed to be happy, or why they wouldn’t be happy as long as they won, but he kept his comments to himself, trusting in Coach.
It was dusk by the time he finished cutting the lawn, but he was proud of the job he’d done. The old lady, Mrs. Peabody, tottered out onto her porch after he’d put the mower away in her garage and slipped a ten-dollar bill into his hand. Almost better than the money was the gleam in her eye when she thanked him.
“You’re welcome, ma’am,” Harrison said.
“You’re the new boy, aren’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And so polite. Well, I’m not one for judging people by their past. You just keep doing a good job and people here will like you just fine.”
Harrison felt a knot in his stomach and only wanted to get away. “Yes. Thank you.”
He backed down the steps, but the woman followed him. “My daughter works at the school. She said you’re some kind of violent criminal and not to let you in my yard. I said, ‘Pish, he’s a boy, and I’m not afraid of anyone, not at my age.’ So you don’t mind folks, you just keep being a nice, polite boy and it’ll all pass. It’s just a small town.”
“Thank you.” Harrison hurried down the sidewalk.
The old woman called after him. “It’ll pass.”
Harrison was out of breath by the time he got home. He let himself into the kitchen through the garage and heard Coach talking on the phone in the other room. Quietly,
he closed the door and stopped halfway across the dark kitchen when he heard his name.
“I hear what you’re saying, Doc.” Coach chuckled. “But they’re kids. . . . What? You really want me to tell him not to ask her? Maybe he isn’t going to ask her anyway. . . .”
Harrison staggered back and grabbed the handle of the refrigerator to keep his balance. He felt like a yo-yo, or a Ping-Pong ball, up and down, back and forth, good and bad, bad and good.
“Doc, Doc, all right. Easy. I understand. Yes, I know she’s a nice girl and trust me, we all appreciate how nice she’s been to Harrison. . . . Okay, Doc. I got it, Doc. Thanks. Yes, good night.”
Harrison heard Coach snap his phone shut before he let out a heavy sigh.
“What was that about?” Jennifer’s voice came from the front room, where she sometimes liked to do her work at home.
“Oh, Doc and that Fall Ball at school. Seems his daughter is afraid Harrison’s going to ask her to that dance on Saturday after the game.”
“So?”
Harrison heard Jennifer snap her briefcase shut and then the sound of her entering the living room.
“They’re being nice, really.” Coach’s voice sounded tired.
“Nice? That didn’t sound nice to me.”
“Well, she doesn’t want to have to say no. She’s all in tears over it, and you know Doc when it comes to his daughter.”
“Then let her say yes.”
“I’m afraid that’s not going to happen. She already said yes to someone else.”
Tears burned the corners of Harrison’s eyes as he slipped back out the door and into the dark of night.
Chapter Forty
THE NEXT DAY IN school, Harrison hurried out of his classes so he didn’t even have to see Becky. He didn’t care that she looked pretty in a turquoise shirt that somehow matched her eyes. The color turquoise made him want to gag. When he walked into lunch and spotted her sitting in the corner where they’d sat together all last week, he went the opposite way and found an empty seat at the end of a table on the far side of the cafeteria.
From where he sat, he could just see her through the crowd. She looked up at everyone who passed by but never scanned the crowd to search him out. His afternoon classes were free from Becky, so he thought he’d dodged her for the day. When the final bell rang, he made his way to the locker room. In the crowded hall he felt a tap on his back. He turned and it was her.
“What gives?”
“With what?”
“I thought you were avoiding me after class, and then you didn’t show up in the lunchroom. Is everything okay?”
“Fine.” Harrison turned to go.
She took hold of his arm. “Harrison, you’re acting like you’re mad about something.”
“I’m fine.” He shrugged her off and kept going.
“Harrison? Tell me. What’s wrong? Harrison?”
Harrison spun and clenched his fists so hard his forearms ached. “Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to any stupid dance. Dances are for pansies, so you can tell your dad not to worry. And stop sitting with me at lunch. I don’t want you and I don’t need you.”
Becky looked like he’d hit her with a board. Her mouth hung open and her face was all red. Everyone around them stopped and stared.
Harrison growled, then turned and didn’t stop until he reached the locker room door, even though she followed him the whole way there. He slammed open his locker and the kids around him got quiet. He yanked his gear out and tugged it on, then laced his cleats and stamped out toward the practice field. When he got there, he kept his back to the school and silently tossed a ball back and forth with Justin until he noticed a couple of the ninth-grade boys looking up the hill toward the parking lot.
“There’s your girl for the dance, Varny,” Bulkowski said. “And man, she is some girl.”
Adam Varnett said, “She’s nice, that’s what I like.”
“I like that blond hair,” Leo Howard said.
“You don’t get to look, you punk,” Varnett said, shoving Leo, who shoved him right back because they were friends.
Harrison turned to see who they were talking about and nearly threw up.
Staring down at the practice field, dressed in her soccer uniform with her arms crossed, was Becky Smart.
Chapter Forty-One
THE RED MIST CLOUDED Harrison’s eyes throughout practice. On offense, he blasted his teammates with lowered shoulder pads and pumping knees. On defense, he slammed people down to the turf. By the time the team got to its scrimmage period, when Harrison got the ball, his teammates just shied away.
Coach blew the whistle and screamed, “Are you kidding me? Stop him!”
They lined up and Harrison got the ball again on a dive play up the middle. Bulkowski dove at his feet and caught a knee in the head that knocked him away like a fly. The linemen reached out for Harrison’s jersey, but he ran right through them. When he hit the secondary, the free safety saw him coming and flinched without even an attempt at a tackle.
Harrison ran all the way to the end zone, turned, and jogged back.
Coach blew his whistle so hard it pierced Harrison’s ear. “Everybody, and I mean everybody, start running and don’t stop running until I say.”
The whole team—even Harrison—fell in behind Varnett and started to run laps around the field. Halfway through the first lap, Harrison turned on his speed and passed them all. As he did, Bulkowski said, “Ease up, will you?”
Harrison only ran faster.
Coach let the team keep on running and Harrison lapped them. Finally, seven laps into it, and after three of the big linemen had fallen to the ground, exhausted and panting, Coach called them in and they knelt around him in a tight cluster.
“I have never seen such a disgraceful display as that.” Coach glared at them all. “You guys want to beat Clayborn and you’re afraid of your own teammate?”
Another time Harrison might have felt embarrassed, but not now. Now all he saw was red.
“He’s a freak, Coach.” The voice came from the back of the group.
“Who said that?” Coach’s eyes darted around. “I said who.”
The other players scooted away from Justin to give themselves some distance from the one about to catch the heat.
“Me, Coach.” Justin’s words could barely be heard. “It’s true.”
“What does that mean?” Coach asked.
“There’s no one like him, Coach,” Justin said. “Harrison is my friend, but he doesn’t care about that or anything. We never had to play a guy like that. He’s unstoppable, Coach.”
Coach seemed to chew on it. Finally, he nodded his head and his voice came out softer than before. “We still need a better effort. All right, you guys take it in and come back tomorrow with your chinstraps buckled. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
The team stood and shuffled toward the locker room.
“Harrison,” Coach said. “I want to see you.”
Harrison returned and stood face-to-face with Coach. Coach put a hand on his shoulder pad. “Don’t you worry about any of this. You just keep doing what you’re doing. If you were this angry walking around, I’d be worried, but here, on the football field? The players who can bottle that intensity, that meanness, and turn it loose out here? They’re the guys who get to one day play in the NFL.”
Harrison just stared at him.
Coach tilted his head to one side and let a smile creep onto his face. “You’d like that, right?”
Chapter Forty-Two
HARRISON DIDN’T SMILE. FOOTBALL was serious business for him, and also for Coach. He spoke in a flat voice and said, “That’s what I’m going to do. Football’s my ticket, Coach.”
Coach nodded and slapped his shoulder pad. “All right, go get changed. I’m going to grade some poster projects in my classroom and I’ll meet you home later. Don’t worry. The rest of the team will be just fine with you when we beat the pants off of Clayborn.”
“I�
�m not worried.”
“Good.”
Harrison got changed and left the locker room without speaking or being spoken to. Justin caught up with him when he was halfway across the parking lot. “Hey, wait up. Don’t be mad. I didn’t mean anything bad, Harrison.”
“I know.” Harrison kept walking.
“You’re not mad?”
“I’m fine.”
“Something’s up your nose. You’ve been weird all day. Then you come out here and you’re, like, hurting people.”
“Football’s all about hurting people.”
“No, Harrison, it’s not. Football’s about scoring touchdowns.”
“People get hurt.”
“Right, but that’s not the point of the game.”
Harrison stopped and clenched his jaw in frustration. “Maybe it is for me.”
They walked in silence for a few minutes, burning up the sidewalk, the afternoon sun filtering down through the broad trees that lined the street.
“How come you never talk about your parents, or where you live?” Harrison asked suddenly.
“How come you don’t?”
They had reached the downtown area, a main street lined with old brick shops and clapboard houses turned into hair salons, insurance offices, and restaurants. Every so often, there were benches people could sit on. Harrison sat down on one and folded his arms across his chest.
“I live with Coach. He and Jennifer, that’s his wife, they’re my . . . foster parents.”
“Coach?” Justin sat down like he’d been hit in the head. “Our coach? You live with him?”
“I just told you. He’s my foster dad.”
“Holy moly, that explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“Well, Coach is pretty tough on you. I mean, he’s tough on everyone, but the way some of those jerks have been acting toward you? Coach goes crazy when teammates don’t treat each other with respect. I mean, really crazy. But you? I guess he doesn’t want people to think he favors you when they find out he’s your . . . foster dad. Is that like being adopted?”