by Tim Green
Inside, Troy raided the fridge for sodas and Nathan made what he'd begun calling his "famous" dip. Together they completed the changes to the playbook by the time Troy's mom returned home from work. She looked tired, but she smiled and talked to Nathan and Tate, offering them more sodas as if she hadn't a care in the world. After a few minutes, Troy's friends left, circling around back where a path led down through the pines to the tracks that allowed them to walk a straight shot to the Pine Grove Apartments, where they both lived.
When they'd gone, Troy's mom slumped down at the kitchen table and let go a sigh.
"What's going on?" Troy asked.
"I hate to lie, that's all," his mom said, dropping her face into one hand and rubbing her eyes. "In the morning, I set up interviews about the potential playoff run and how Coach McFadden's job might be saved. I didn't even see Peele. Then, about an hour after lunch, he showed up, limping around and talking about a kid who he knows is with the team who stomped on his foot. I told him I had nothing more to say."
Troy studied his mom, her long hair pulled back into a ponytail, her thin fingers curled around the edges of her pretty face. He knew her well, just as she knew him well, so instead of asking, he just waited. Finally, she spoke.
"So, of course," she said, "Peele went to my boss, Cecilia Fetters."
"And she doesn't know about me, right?"
"No," his mom said, "she thinks you're a ball boy like everyone else outside the players and coaches, and that's why I feel so bad, because I hate to lie."
"But if you told Mr. Langan you wouldn't say anything about me to anyone, then you couldn't break your promise to him," Troy said.
"So, I lied," his mom said, "which I hate to do."
"I guess sometimes you kind of have to," Troy said.
His mom shook her head.
"Just when everything was going great for you, me, and Seth," Troy said, slumping down in a chair beside her. "The Falcons on a playoff run? The Tigers in the semifinals of the state championship? Now this mess, and we've got to meet with Mr. Langan when we should be practicing. Why does some reporter have to ruin it all?"
His mom just kept slowly shaking her head, then perked up suddenly and said, "Oh, I forgot. Here."
From her purse, she removed a long white envelope and handed it to Troy.
"What is it?"
"Look inside," she said. "I know this will cheer you up."
CHAPTER EIGHT
TROY WORMED HIS FINGER into the opening and split open the envelope. He fished out the check and sucked in his breath.
The numbers jumped out at him.
Ten thousand dollars.
"Wow," he said, glancing up at his mom and sharing her smile. "It's real."
"Of course it's real," his mom said. "That's why I wanted you to see it instead of doing that direct deposit thing."
Troy had already earned twenty thousand dollars for the first two games he worked, but the money had gone straight into his bank account.
"I like seeing it like this!" he said. "That's a lot of zeros and a lot of money."
"And not a bad deal for the team, either," his mom said. "Ten thousand dollars per win? People would pay a lot more."
"You think we should ask for more?" Troy asked.
"No, I'm just saying," she said. "A deal's a deal. The whole thing is pretty unusual. I'm just glad Mr. Langan agreed to try it out."
"But this will be gone, too," Troy said. "If Peele messes everything up."
"That won't be gone," she said. "That's yours, and we're putting it in the bank with the rest of it. You earned it, and no one can take it away. That can pay for two or three years of college at a nice state school if we invest it right. After a couple more weeks, your education will be taken care of, Troy. It's a big thing. It's worth a little trouble along the way, believe me."
Troy studied the number, thinking of everything his mom had done for him without the help of a husband, then looked up at her and said, "I thought maybe you could do something with the money, Mom. I'm gonna get a football scholarship. I won't need this. I thought maybe you could buy yourself a new car, or even get a bigger house."
Troy's mom reached out and gripped his hand. Her eyes got shiny and a small smile bloomed on her face.
"You are so sweet," she said quietly, "but I don't need anything. This house, it's small, but I like it."
"I like it, too," Troy said. "I didn't mean that, but you deserve it. I see other moms with expensive cars and diamonds and all that. Jamie Renfro's mom drives around in a Jaguar and she doesn't even have a job. You're the best. I should get you things."
"Honey, I don't care what car I drive or jewelry I wear," his mom said, holding up her other hand. "I appreciate you thinking of me, but we'll save this for college, in case you get a knee injury or something and the football thing doesn't work out. Or even if it does, you can buy a car for yourself. Believe it or not, it won't be long before you'll want one."
"Will you let me get you all that stuff if I sign a big NFL contract?" Troy asked.
She smiled and messed his hair. "Okay, that's a deal."
Troy grinned and said, "Maybe I'll save up for a Mustang. How much is a Mustang, anyway?"
"More than thirty thousand," his mom said, standing. "Let's get going. We can stop on the way and have a burger or pizza or something."
"How about I buy?" Troy said, waggling his eyebrows and snapping the check.
Troy liked Whoppers with cheese, and that's what they had before heading out to the Falcons complex. Seth was still there; he'd spent the afternoon getting treatment on his bad knee and lifting weights, and he met them at the side entrance where the staff and players came and went. He wore street clothes, but two bags of ice had been wrapped with an Ace bandage around the outside of his jeans. Troy's mom handed Seth a bag of cheeseburgers, and he started eating one as they walked through the halls and upstairs to the executive offices.
Action photographs of the team's star players lined the walls. In one, Seth stared out at them, his eyes wide, his mouth twisted into a snarl behind the metal cage of his face mask.
"Doesn't even look like you," Troy said, pointing up at the picture. "Too mean."
Seth widened his green eyes and bared his teeth, growling.
"Better," Troy said, laughing.
"Live clean, play mean," Seth said, letting his face return to its normal mask of pleasant calm.
Angie, Mr. Langan's assistant, showed them into the owner's office, sitting them down on the leather couch and telling them she expected Mr. Langan any minute. Seth spread his food out on the coffee table and kept digging into the burgers, washing them down with a bottle of water.
"I almost forgot," Troy said, tugging a folded piece of notebook paper from his pocket and handing it to Seth. "Jamie Renfro has a cousin who plays for Dunwoody. We heard his dad is giving them our playbook."
"You're kidding," Seth said.
Troy shook his head. "Tate and Nathan and I renamed our plays and all the hot routes, even the stunts on the defensive line."
"So they won't know what we're doing," Seth said, studying the piece of paper. "This is great."
Troy grinned at his mom. Seth ate and nodded as he studied their work. He was just wiping his mouth on a napkin and stuffing the last of his garbage into the bag when Mr. Langan came through the door. He shook hands with them all, including Troy, before sitting down in a leather wingback chair and crossing his legs. The owner's hair was short, neatly cut, and sprinkled with gray. His tan, lean face had a pleasant, almost sleepy look, except for the green eyes, as churning and alive as whirlpools.
"Where are we?" he asked.
As Troy's mom explained what had happened, Mr. Langan's face remained impassive. The only expression that disturbed it was a small smile and a flicker of his eyes when he heard about Troy stomping Peele's foot.
When she finished, he made a steeple of his fingertips and rested them against his mouth. Finally, he broke the steeple and said, "I was a
fraid of this."
"None of us said anything," Seth said.
Mr. Langan shook his head and said, "No, I didn't think you would, and I'm sure coaches McFadden and Mora didn't say anything, either. They have more to gain from this than anyone. I just didn't know how long we could go before someone started asking questions. You know when the Bears ran that slant play at the end of the game? The ball's snapped and you just run right to the spot before the receiver even gets there and you pick it off? Well, that kind of jumps out at people."
"I've made plenty of plays just like that," Seth said.
Mr. Langan considered him a moment before he said, "Ten years ago, you made those plays. But that's neither here nor there. Peele suspects something, and we have to deal with it. What I want to do is keep this under wraps as long as we can. We need to figure out a way to get Troy's input during the game without him being on the sideline."
"That's easy," Seth said. "We did that before, when we played the Raiders."
"Yes, you did," Mr. Langan said, "but no one was looking for Troy then. This will be different. Peele's not dumb."
"But Peele thinks we're somehow stealing the plays from the other team," Troy's mom said. "He thinks Troy is just the way we get the message to Coach Mora, not how we get the message about what to do."
"So if we take Troy out of the equation," the owner said, "Peele will have to find evidence that we're stealing the other teams' plays. Since we're not doing that, he's out of luck. If we keep Troy out of Peele's way, he'll never figure out what we're doing."
"But Mr. Langan," Troy said, his voice bursting with frustration, "we're not doing anything wrong."
"But we're doing something different," Mr. Langan said, "something people are going to have a hard time explaining, and, believe it or not, doing something different scares people and gets them a lot more riled up than doing something wrong. People do the wrong thing every day.
"As long as we can keep Peele from finding out that you are our football genius, we can just keep marching toward the playoffs."
"What if he does find out?" Troy said, unable to keep from asking the question. He couldn't help thinking of Nathan's words about Peele doing a big spread on him in the newspaper--about fame and pop stars and the nice cars that famous people drive. Tate's voice came into his mind as well, talking about their lives being train wrecks, but that wasn't true about everyone famous. Some famous people had it all, and lots of famous people were loved by everyone, even people they didn't know.
Maybe even a father they didn't know.
Mr. Langan returned the steeple of fingers to his mouth for a minute before he looked at Troy and said, "If Peele can prove you're helping us call the plays, then we'll go to the NFL and see what they think."
"That's not so bad," Troy's mom said.
Mr. Langan gave a painful smile and said, "It's not good, either, though. First of all, we would have to stop using Troy while the league figures out how they want to handle it, and second, while they might not say we've done anything wrong, I know my fellow owners pretty well. If we've got something that helps us win, something that they don't have? Even if it's not against the rules? They might make up some new rules."
"So we're okay as long as Troy doesn't get caught?" Seth asked.
"That's right," Mr. Langan said. "Just don't get caught."
CHAPTER NINE
TROY'S SEMIFINAL GAME on Saturday came fast. Seth worked the Tigers extra hard the remaining nights that week. The rest of the team picked up on the new calls Troy would be making at the line so that if the Dragons really did have the team's playbook, the Tigers would be ready. And still, Troy wished he had even more time to prepare. This would be the biggest game he'd ever played in, and the need to win it crept through his bones like the ache from a fever.
"These guys can't be seventh graders," Nathan said, peering across the field at the Dunwoody Dragons in their all-red uniforms.
"They look like a high school team," Tate said, removing her helmet and shaking loose her long dark hair.
Troy didn't say anything. He just stared and blinked, thinking that maybe the bright sunshine gleaming off their bloodred helmets might somehow be creating an optical illusion, making the Dragons look twice the size they really were.
"Don't worry," Seth said, stepping into their midst and tapping the rolled-up paper that was their game plan against the palm of his free hand. "We've got a plan."
"Better plan on lots of ice and ibuprofen," Nathan said. "Sheesh."
"You can block them, Nathan," Seth said. "Just hit them low."
"I'd have to be seven feet tall to hit them high," Nathan said.
"Every pass play we run is going to be a roll-out," Seth said, "so you just trip them up. Troy's faster than any of those defensive linemen, and he can throw on the run."
"Are we going to use any running plays at all?" Troy asked.
Seth shaded his eyes from the sun, squinting across the field at the Dragons. He cringed and shook his head. "I don't think that would be a good idea. Go on, they're calling the captains for the coin toss. You three get out there and give us some luck."
Their cleats sunk into the fresh turf, kicking up the warm smell of dirt and cut grass to mix with the scent of popcorn, hot dogs, and burgers cooking in the concession stand. The Dragons' three captains stood nearly as tall as the referees, and the one Troy figured to be Jamie Renfro's cousin was actually taller than three of the five adults. When Troy shook their hands, the cousin clamped down on Troy's fingers and flashed him a wicked smile. Troy snatched his hand away and sneered right back.
They flipped the coin. Nathan chose tails. It came up heads.
"How about best two out of three?" Nathan asked the ref.
The ref curled his lip and said, "What are you talking about? No."
Nathan said, "You can't blame a guy for trying."
As they parted from the middle of the field, Troy felt someone tug his arm. He turned to see Jamie's enormous cousin glaring at him through the bars of his face mask.
"We'll see how bad you want to play quarterback after I mash your bones," he said in a nasty whisper that the refs couldn't hear.
Seth rallied the team together in a tight circle and said, "Look at you guys. All I see is a bunch of kids ready to lay down and get beat. Well, that's not going to happen. You guys got to realize where you are. We win this and we're playing under the lights for the Georgia state championship on TV! Do you realize how many great athletes work their entire lives and never win a championship? It's something no one can ever take away from you, but you got to go get it! I don't care how big they are. You got to take it from them!"
Seth's face turned red and his chiseled jaw rippled with intensity. He stabbed his finger at the other sideline with the thick muscles in his arm bulging.
"But you're bigger than everyone," Tate said quietly.
Seth's face softened.
"Not when I play I'm not," he said, shaking his head. "I'm as small on an NFL field as you are against these guys. It's not all about size. It's about here and here."
Seth pointed to the center of his own chest, then his head.
"Heart and brains," he said, pulling the game plan out of his back pocket and brandishing it at them like a kid showing off a straight-A report card. "Me and your team captains? We got the brains part handled, but you guys got to have the heart. You gotta believe we can beat them, and I promise you, we will.
"Now, bring it in here and let's hear it: 'Heart' on three. Ready? One, two, three--"
"Heart!"
The word echoed through Troy's skull. They broke the circle, and the kickoff team jogged out onto the field. Troy paced the sideline, willing the Tigers' kickoff team to hold. Behind them, hundreds of fans from Duluth cheered and waved the blue and gold pom-poms Troy's mom and the other moms had handed out to relatives, friends, and Duluth football fans. On the other side, a sea of red, twice the size of the Tigers fans, roared while performing a sweeping wave. Troy shudd
ered at the demonic sound the Dunwoody fans called their Dragon Roar.
Tate kicked the ball to start the game. End over end it sailed, high and far. The Dragons' runner had to retreat ten yards to field it, but when he did, he turned on a jet of speed that left the Tigers' defenders zigging in his zags. When the Dragons' runner crossed the fifty, Nathan threw himself at his feet. The runner hurdled Nathan easily. Only Tate now stood between the runner and the end zone. Instead of trying to avoid Tate the way he had the other Tigers' defenders, the runner lowered his shoulder and churned straight at her, looking to mangle her and plow her over on his way to a touchdown.
Tate, thin as a wisp of smoke but wiry and quick, darted forward with her arms spread wide, straight at the oncoming freight train.
Troy flinched and waited for the Dragon Roar.
CHAPTER TEN
TATE LAUNCHED HERSELF LIKE a javelin at the runner's knees, upending him so that he somersaulted through the air, landing on his back with a thud Troy could practically feel.
The cheers came from the Tigers fans.
Tate sprang up off the grass and left the Dragons' runner lying in a heap, twisting from side to side. As the Tigers' battered kickoff team jogged to the benches, the Dragons' coaches helped the runner to his feet and tugged him off the field.
The Tigers' defense took the field with a war cry, half of them stopping along the way to high five Tate.
"That was incredible, Tate!" Seth said, slapping her shoulder pad. "You just saved a touchdown."
"Hey," Tate said, grinning from ear to ear, "I'm not just a kicker. I'm a football player."
Troy slapped her five and told her she was awesome. Together they watched their defense take on the Dragons' offense. Nathan, who played both ways, battled it out with the Dragons' massive offensive line, sometimes even breaking into the backfield. But their size was too much for the rest of the defense, and it took the Dragons only six plays to march forty-four yards into the end zone and set off a Dragon Roar loud enough to make Troy cover his ears.