The Extra Yard (7 page)

This time she chased him.

I
t was the morning of the first game of the season, and the first official game of Teddy's life, against the Hollis Hills Bears, eleven o'clock, Holzman Field.

Teddy had to stop himself from putting on his uniform before he went down to breakfast.

He had laid out everything neatly before he went to bed, everything except his number 13 jersey, which was hanging in his closet. His mother had washed his pants after practice on Thursday night, and they were draped over the reading chair next to his desk. His socks were on the chair too, and the gray “Wildcats” T-shirt he would wear under his jersey. His shoulder pads were on his desk.

Everything still looked brand-new. He hoped that none of the guys noticed he had even polished his black spikes.

His helmet was on the nightstand.

Teddy had been awake since six thirty but waited until eight to go downstairs, messing around on his laptop until then, trying to calm himself down, knowing how long it was until kickoff. There was always a lot of nervous excitement before big baseball games, especially once they'd made it to Williamsport and ESPN began televising them.

He knew those games, played in front of the whole country, should have made him more nervous. They hadn't. He liked baseball. But he had always wanted to be a football player, and today he finally was.

When he got to the kitchen, his mom was at the table, glasses at the end of her nose, reading the morning paper. She looked at him over the glasses and smiled.

“Any big plans today?” she said.

“I thought I'd start by cleaning out the garage,” he said. “Then move on to those boxes of my stuff in the basement you've been wanting me to sort through, before I do all my homework for the weekend.”

“What about mowing the lawn?”

“Well,” he said, “I thought I should save
something
for after lunch.”

She asked him what he wanted to eat. He said just cereal; his stomach felt too jumpy to try anything heavier.

“I actually read that cereal and some yogurt is good for a football player before an early game,” his mom said.

“You
heard
, Mom? Where?”

“I might have read something on the Internet.”

“You always have been so curious about the dietary habits of football players.”

She got out the milk and cereal, some yogurt, and a banana to go with the cereal. As she laid everything out she said, “So how are we looking?”

“I wasn't this scared on my first day of school,” he said. “But Jack's always telling me this is a good kind of scared.”

“You're going to do great.”

“I would settle for not stinking up the place,” he said. “Or not dropping a pass that would've won the game, or not fumbling. Or committing a dumb penalty.”

She grinned. “Well, it's always good to think positively.”

“Did I mention that I'm hoping not to run out on the field without my helmet?”

“You know, I heard some players call helmets ‘hats,' ” she said.

“Another thing you heard!” Teddy said. “Where this time, the gym?”

“You can find out a lot of interesting things about football on the Internet,” she said. “I'm just putting that out there.”

He ate in silence for a couple of minutes. She went back to reading the paper. When he finished eating, she said, “I haven't even asked—how are you planning to get to the game?”

“Jack said he could pick me up, if I wanted.”

“Nope,” she said. “I'll take you.”

There was another silence at the table, before Teddy said, “Is he planning to come?”

They both knew who he was talking about.

“He said he was,” Teddy's mom said.

“Figured,” Teddy said. “You two going to sit together?”

“It doesn't matter whether we do or not,” she said. “This isn't his day. It's not my day. It's yours. Just remember that.”

Then she pointed at him, her face serious, and said, “And to wear your helmet.”

She said she'd clean up. He went back upstairs, killed more time on his computer, texted Jack and Gus and Cassie. Finally it was a quarter to ten, and time for him and his mom to leave for the field. He put on his uniform and walked down the stairs, helmet in hand.

On his way through the front hall, he caught a glimpse of himself in the full-length mirror. Not knowing his mom was watching, he turned and took a better look.

“Looks like a football player to me,” she said.

“Remember that time I dressed up like a player for Halloween?” Teddy said. “I almost just said ‘trick or treat.' ”

“Not today, number thirteen,” she said. “Definitely not today.”

E
verything was in fast-forward from the time he got to the field.

He stretched with the rest of the Wildcats. He warmed up with Jack, along with the rest of the receivers. When he looked over to the stands, even they seemed to be filling up quickly, as if everybody at Holzman Field couldn't wait for the season to officially start.

Teddy noticed that his mom and dad were standing next to each other, right in front of Mr. and Mrs. Callahan and Gus's parents.

I've finally got a dad in the stands,
Teddy thought.
I just don't know how I really feel about that
.

Cassie was down near the field with some of her soccer teammates, standing in the narrow area between the fence behind the Wildcats' bench and the first row of the bleachers.

She waved Teddy and Jack and Gus over to her, maybe ten minutes before the kickoff.

“Well,” she said to them, “this is what we've been waiting for.”

“We?”
Teddy said. He looked at Jack and Gus, who both shrugged.

“Behind every good man is a good woman,” Cassie said. “Haven't you ever heard that one?”

“What if it's three men?” Gus said.

“Well, that would probably require a
great
woman, wouldn't it?”

Teddy looked past her, up into the stands. “If you spot a great woman at the game, let us know.”

“I'd
definitely
like to meet somebody like that,” Jack said.

“Okay, enough chitchat,” she said. “Go make yourselves useful and win the game.”

She knuckle-bumped them, one after another. Teddy was last. Before he turned to leave, he couldn't help himself, as nervous as he was. He tipped back his helmet and smiled at her.

“You're ready,” she said.

“You know what?” Teddy said. “I am.”

•  •  •

For as long as Teddy had been a football fan, he'd heard announcers on NFL games talk about how much the game sped up when you went from college to the pros. Well, maybe the same thing happened when you went from never having played a real game of football to
here
.

The Wildcats won the coin toss and decided to take the ball. And once they were into their offense, Teddy was glad that Coach wanted them to start with all running plays, because that meant all he had to do to start was some basic blocking. Even with that, he felt like his heart was in a race with his brain as he tried to remember exactly where he was supposed to be.

On the Wildcats' fourth play from scrimmage, he forgot the snap count by the time he lined up next to Billy Curley, their huge offensive right tackle. But even though he had to wait a beat for Billy to come off the blocks, Teddy managed to put a solid block on the Bears' outside linebacker, cleaned him out so that Jake Mozdean could gain five extra yards.

Only when Jake ripped off another ten-yard run and the Wildcats were at the Bears' thirty-five yard line did Teddy feel as if he finally had a chance to catch his breath.

Just as Jack called for their first pass of the game.

To Teddy.

“Strong side curl,” Jack said in the huddle. It meant Teddy and Gus would line up on the right side, Gus behind him in the slot. But once Gus broke from his spot, Teddy was supposed to wait and run behind him for about ten yards, then stop and turn, hopefully in a nice, empty soft spot in the Bears' defensive back field.

“Be ready,” Jack said to Teddy as they came out of the huddle. “The ball might be headed your way before you turn.”

“You throw, I'll catch,” Teddy said.

Teddy told himself not to rush: the play was designed for him to look like a decoy, or at least a secondary receiver, until Gus made a hard cut to the outside. As soon as he did, Teddy took one more step and turned around.

Jack Callahan had
not
been lying. The pass—a bullet—was already on top of him, Jack having seen the safety closing from Teddy's right.

Teddy saw the kid coming but told himself to focus on the ball, even knowing he was going to get popped as soon as he caught it. He looked the ball all the way into his belly as it caught him right above his belt buckle, knocking the air out of him before the safety knocked him down.

But he held on and saw the ref closest to him signaling that it was a first down.

He was on the board.

On the way back to the huddle, he couldn't help himself. He looked up into the stands to where his mom and dad were. But he was only looking for his mom. It was as if she'd been waiting for him to look over there, because as soon as he did, she patted her heart twice, while Teddy saw his dad high-fiving Mr. Morales.

Teddy quickly patted his own heart, his hand there and gone, hoping she had noticed.

Three plays later the Wildcats scored their first touchdown of the season. Jack delivered another strike, this one to Gus Morales. Gus put a killer move on the cornerback covering him and broke free between the goal posts. It was 6–0.

The rules of their league were like a lot of Pop Warner leagues: You got two points on the conversion for a kick, just because there weren't a lot of good placekickers their age. You got one point if you ran it in or threw. Jack handed the ball to Jake, Teddy helped him by blasting the Bears' middle linebacker, and Jake went into the end zone untouched. It was 7–0, Wildcats.

“It's like you've been making catches like that your whole life,” Coach Gilbert said when Teddy got to the sideline.

“I have,” Teddy said. “Just in my dreams.”

The Bears came right back with a drive of their own. Their quarterback didn't have the arm that Jack did, but he could throw well enough, and run it even better. He finally called a quarterback draw for himself for his team's first score and ran an option play to perfection on the conversion. It was 7-all.

“Boys,” Gus said to the other guys on the offense, “I do believe a game just broke out here.”

But then both defenses, almost acting insulted about the way the game had begun, dominated the first half from there. Teddy thought they might get to halftime with the score still 7–7 until Jack completed a couple of passes, one to Gus and one to Mike O'Keeffe, in the last two minutes.

They finally ended up at the Bears' twelve yard line, fourth-and-one, ten seconds left, the Wildcats out of time-outs.

At this point, Jack made the kind of play that star players just made in sports, out of the shotgun, the kind of play that can change everything.

And did.

•  •  •

As Jack called out the signals, he clapped his hands right before Charlie Lyons, their center, was supposed to snap him the ball. Jack was trying to get Gus's attention, wanting him to go in motion.

But when he clapped his hands, Charlie thought Jack wanted the ball and snapped it, even though Jack's head was turned. The ball banged off Jack's shoulder pads, bouncing away from him, to his left.

At this point, the whole thing turned into the kind of play that Coach Gilbert liked to call a jailbreak.

Jack managed to get to the ball before the Bears' outside linebacker did, scooped it up, immediately reversed his field, and started running to his right. The play he'd called in the huddle was supposed to be a fade pass to Mike O'Keeffe in the right corner of the end zone, but
that
wasn't happening now.

Teddy was on the opposite side of the field from Jack, looking for open spaces while so much of the Bears' defense chased Jack.

Then he remembered something:

When in doubt, follow Jack Callahan.

He was still in the back field, trying to pick up blockers and get outside. Teddy was open by now, heading his way, waving his arm for the ball. But as he did, he saw that Jack was going to run for it.

He couldn't get to the sideline to stop the clock; the Bears had cut that off. And by now, even if he tried to throw the ball away, the half was probably going to be over by the time he did.

It meant Teddy was a blocker now, as soon as he could find somebody to block.

He saw the Bears' middle linebacker sprinting from Jack's left as Jack cut toward the orange pylon. But Teddy didn't move quickly enough to cut him off or even get in his way.

He stopped and watched what happened next as if it were happening in slow motion.

He saw Jack dive for the pylon, extending the ball as he did, at the same moment the middle linebacker launched himself at him.

Saw the midair collision that knocked Jack sideways, even as he was trying to jam the ball down on the pylon before his body hit the ground, like a basketball player jamming home a dunk.

Saw Jack land hard on his right shoulder.

The ref's arms went straight up in the air, meaning touchdown, Wildcats.

But the Wildcats' quarterback was still down.

J
ack's parents were there right away. So was Coach Gilbert, and Coach Williams, and Dr. McAuley, Brian's dad, who served as the Wildcats' team doctor.

Teddy's dad was standing behind them.

“Same thing happened to me once,” Teddy could hear him saying to Dr. McAuley. “It's like a fighter getting a free swing at a guy. You're defenseless.”