Benchwarmers

by John Feinstein

  The players were now standing about five yards apart, facing one another. Several of the cameramen from the various media outlets had come onto the field while things were being sorted out. Jeff figured they were getting an even better story than they’d hoped for when the day began.

  He saw his dad standing there, too, and gave him a thumbs-up to let him know he was okay. He knew he had a little bit of blood trickling from the side of his mouth where the KP–North kid had landed a punch, but at the moment he was feeling no pain at all.

  “I’m not ejecting him, Coach,” the ref was now saying. “Your kid went after a player after she scored for no reason other than the fact that she scored. That kid”—he pointed at Jeff—“is the hero in all this. You are lucky he tackled your guy, because he might have seriously hurt her and then you’d all be in a lot of trouble.”

  He turned to the kid Jeff had tackled, took out his red card, and pointed it at him. “You are gone,” he said.

  Then, before Nussbaum could say anything, he pointed a finger at the KP–North coach and said, “You’re also lucky I put sixty seconds on the clock. Your team has one last chance to tie this game up. And if I see any hint of a tackle that isn’t one hundred percent clean, I’ll just call it off. You want the minute or not?”

  Nussbaum stuck his hands in his pockets and turned to his players. “Come on, boys, let’s line up,” he said.

  The teams lined up for the kickoff. The ball was kicked backward to a KP–North defender who instantly launched a long pass in the direction of the KP–North striker who had scored so long ago. Three Merion players surrounded him. Danny Diskin came out with the ball and began running down the side of the field, dribbling it.

  The KP–North kids chased him half heartedly, but as they closed on him he turned and passed it backward to Roth, who quickly kicked it across the field to Jeff.

  Gleefully, Jeff charged across midfield and then booted it to Craig, who moved in on the goal before turning and kicking the ball all the way across the field to Andi. She knocked it down with her right foot, glanced at the clock, switched to her left foot and stood there with a huge smile on her face. The ball was on her foot when the final whistle blew.

  Game over. Season over. Merion had won 2–1 and had won the conference title. The entire team raced at Andi as soon as that last whistle sounded.

  Before she knew it, Jeff, Craig, and Arlow were picking her up on their shoulders for a victory ride. She saw the cameras surrounding them and felt slightly embarrassed. But only slightly.

  When they put her down, Coach J and Coach C were standing there, beaming. They both hugged Andi, and then Coach J said, “Handshake line, now—and no one starts a fight.”

  “Really, Coach?” Arlow said. “Maybe just one?” But he was smiling, clearly not serious. There was no need to fight. They’d won their battle.

  The vanquished KP–North players stood, heads down, waiting to shake hands. Coach J and Coach C, who were always at the back of the line, told Andi to go last among the players.

  “Just in case,” Coach J said.

  Andi understood.

  But the handshake line was without incident. Most of the KP–North boys couldn’t—or wouldn’t—look her in the eye. The goalie did.

  “That was a great shot,” he said. “You guys deserved to win.”

  That was it. The guys who had taken her down during the game looked straight at the ground. She thought of a quote her mother had framed on a wall in her office from President John F. Kennedy: “Victory has a thousand fathers,” it said. “Defeat is an orphan.”

  Apparently most of the KP–North players felt like orphans. Good, she thought.

  So, too, did Coach Nussbaum. Andi could hear him when he and Coach J shook hands.

  “I’ll always know,” he said, “that my boys were better than your boys.”

  Andi glanced back and saw Coach J smile. “And I’ll always know that my team was better than your team.”

  The two men glared at each other for a moment. Andi was tempted to turn around and say something. Then she stopped. There was no need to say anything. She had already had the last word.

  * * *

  Jeff knew there was now one more game to play, the next Friday, against the champions from South Philadelphia. He really didn’t care all that much about that game. They had won the conference and they’d done it by beating a team that played dirty.

  Normally in the handshake line he always said “Nice game” to the players on the other team. This time he said nothing, except to the guy who had gone toward Andi after the winning goal. He held on to his hand for an extra second, forcing him to look him in the eye.

  “If you have any pride at all,” he said, “you need to apologize to her.”

  “Heck with you.” The kid shook off Jeff’s grip and snarled at him—pretty much the reaction Jeff had been expecting.

  The KP–North players didn’t linger. Jeff noticed they went not to the locker room but straight to their bus. Good riddance, he thought.

  None of them stopped to talk to the media that was swarming the field. Steve Bucci from Channel Three wanted to talk to Jeff because Andi and Craig had told him that he was the key to making the decoy play work. He saw Ray Didinger and his dad talking to Coach J.

  “I figured it was worth a try,” Jeff said. “We had to score, and Ron Arlow was out of the game. Andi was our best chance.”

  Much to his surprise, Ron Arlow walked over and, without saying a word, gave him a hug. “I’m glad we won,” he said. “I’m gladder Andi scored the winning goal.”

  “Maybe she’s even better than you?” Jeff said with a grin.

  “Maybe,” Arlow said, returning the smile. “Definitely better-looking, though, that’s for sure.” He paused. “You turned into a pretty good player yourself, Michaels. Learned a lot from you this fall.”

  Danny Diskin walked up as the two of them were talking. “Guess we’ve got a hectic day next Friday,” he said. “Game in the afternoon, dance that night.”

  “Speaking of which,” Arlow said. “I need to find a date.”

  “Don’t you dare ask Andi,” Jeff said.

  Arlow smiled. “Already did,” he said. Jeff’s heart sank for an instant. “She turned me down. You won’t believe who she is going with.”

  Diskin shoved Jeff. “You didn’t ask her?” he said. “What are you, nuts?”

  Jeff was stunned. He looked around for Andi. She was still surrounded by the media. Cameras were everywhere. Stevie Thomas, who he recognized after having googled him, was there quietly listening. So was Mike Vaccaro. She was clearly going to be a bit of an eleven-year-old celebrity after this.

  “I need to talk to her,” he said. “Soon as she’s done.”

  “Not holding my breath,” Diskin said. He and Arlow laughed and went to find their parents.

  Jeff knew his mom was stuck at work and his dad was still interviewing people. There was nothing for him to do but wait.

  Finally Andi finished her last interview and saw Jeff standing there. She came over. “I guess we did it, benchwarmer,” she said.

  He was stumped for an answer.

  Finally, he found his voice.

  “You know, Andi, next Friday…”

  “I know,” she said. “We have the game in the afternoon and then the dance. It’s gonna be nuts!” She giggled. “Do you know that Ron asked me to go?” she said.

  “I know,” he said. “He said you were already going with someone.”

  “Yeah, Mike Craig asked me, too.”

  Jeff’s heart sank.

  “So you’re going with Mike?” he said.

  She put her hands on her hips and looked at him as if he were too stupid to live.

  Then she gave him her dazzling smile.

  “I said no to him, too,” she said. “I told Arlow I was going with you. Right?”

  For a split second Jeff didn’t understand. Then he did. “Wait, what? You mean…” He paused, trying to find the wo
rds. “I mean, heck yes.”

  She was still smiling. “But first we have one more game to win,” she said, and gave him a huge hug and a kiss on the cheek.

  At that moment, the league championship game Friday meant nothing to Jeff. He had never felt so tall—or so happy—in his entire life.

  ALSO BY JOHN FEINSTEIN

  THE SPORTS BEAT SERIES

  Last Shot: Mystery at the Final Four

  Vanishing Act: Mystery at the U.S. Open

  Cover-Up: Mystery at the Super Bowl

  Change-Up: Mystery at the World Series

  The Rivalry: Mystery at the Army-Navy Game

  Rush for the Gold: Mystery at the Olympics

  THE TRIPLE THREAT SERIES

  The Walk On

  The Sixth Man

  The DH

  Foul Trouble

  Backfield Boys

  The Prodigy

  About the Author

  John Feinstein is the author of more than thirty books, including the #1 New York Times bestsellers: A Season on the Brink and A Good Walk Spoiled. He is also the author of numerous kids mysteries. His first young adult mystery, Last Shot, won the Edgar Allen Poe Award. John also works for the Washington Post, The Golf Channel, Sirius XM Radio and Comcast Sportsnet. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

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  Also by John Feinstein

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers

  120 Broadway, New York 10271

  Text copyright © 2019 John Feinstein

  All rights reserved

  First hardcover edition, 2019

  eBook edition, August 2019

  mackids.com

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Names: Feinstein, John, author.

  Title: Benchwarmers / John Feinstein.

  Description: First edition. | New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2019. | Series: Benchwarmers; [1] | Summary: Told in two voices, Jeff stands by his teammate, Andi, who fights to get on the sixth-grade soccer team and then must face opponents who target her for being a girl.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018056247 | ISBN 9780374312039 (hardcover)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Soccer—Fiction. | Sex role—Fiction. | Sportsmanship—Fiction. | Middle schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.F3343 Ben 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018056247

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  eISBN 9780374312046