End Zone (3 page)

“Very good, Tiki!” Aunt Flora said. “My, doesn't he speak well.”

Then it was Ronde's turn. He was shyer than Tiki, and Aunt Flora's words made him not want to say anything at all. But he didn't want to be embarrassed, so he found his courage, and began.

“I'm thankful for Mom, and for Tiki, and that I finally got bigger.” Everyone laughed. For about six months, while Tiki shot up more than an inch a month, Ronde
hadn't grown at all. Finally, he'd caught up, and the twins were the same size again at last.

“I'm also thankful for the gift of being good at sports . . . at football in particular. I don't like to say it, because I don't want to jinx it, but, well, we're close to having an undefeated season, and—”

“SHHH!!” Tiki said. “Don't talk about that! It's bad luck.”

“Nonsense,” Mrs. Barber said. “It's how you play on the field, not what you say off of it, that makes you win or lose.”

“Oh, I don't know,” said Aunt Flora, with a worried look on her face. “A black cat crossed my path last month, and the next day, I broke my wrist!” She held up her left hand, which was still wrapped in a sling.

“Nonsense,” Mrs. Barber repeated under her breath. “Oh, well, I think it's time for dessert. Tiki and Ronde, would you like to do the honors?”

Both boys didn't wait to be asked twice. They sprang up and rushed toward the kitchen, colliding twice in the narrow hallway that connected the dining room to it.

“Get out of my way!” Tiki said, pawing his way ahead of Ronde.

“
I'm
getting it!” Ronde shot back, yanking on Tiki's shirt.

They both grabbed the tray at the same time, from either end.

“Okay, we've both got it,” Ronde said.

“Give it over,” said Tiki, tugging on it lightly.

“You!”

“No, you!”

“Boys?” came their mother's voice from the dining room.

Seeing that Tiki was momentarily distracted, Ronde grabbed the tray out of his hands and rushed for the dining room.

“Hey!” Tiki yelled, and leaped after Ronde. His toe caught Ronde's heel in the middle of the narrow hallway, and the tray went flying. First it hit the big mirror in the hallway, cracking it in two places. Then the Jell-O-mello pie fell right on Tiki and Ronde's heads.

Everyone laughed when they saw the boys with the Jell-O and marshmallows on them. Everyone except their mother, who had her hands to her face and was staring at the hallway.

“My good mirror!” she gasped.

Aunt Flora gasped too, and rose from her chair with a shocked look on her face. “Oh, no!” she cried.
“Seven years bad luck!”

•  •  •

“She's full of baloney,” Tiki said. “Seven years bad luck, my foot!”

He lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Ronde lay in his own bed, across the room. The company was just saying
good-bye downstairs, but the two boys had long since been banished to their room for the night.

“What if she's right?” Ronde said in a loud whisper. “What if—?”

“Just be quiet,” Tiki told him. “If you hadn't been so selfish—”

“Me? If you hadn't lunged at me—”

“If you hadn't—”

“Never mind!” Ronde said. “Forget it. You're probably right. It's just a silly superstition.”

“Exactly.”

The room fell silent, and soon, Ronde could hear Tiki snoring softly. He wished he could sleep too. Then he wouldn't have to keep thinking about all the disasters that might happen if Aunt Flora just happened to be right.

•  •  •

It was a long holiday weekend. Friday lazed by and faded into Saturday, with its college football games on TV, and Sunday, with the NFL broadcasts. Of course, it wasn't all sitting on the couch and staring at the screen. The cousins stayed right on into Saturday afternoon, so there were street football games too.

Tiki and Ronde had fun, but they didn't play full-out. Their cousins were younger, and not as athletic, and besides, neither twin wanted to take the slightest risk of injuring himself. They had broken that mirror, after all—and who knew
whether the old superstition had some truth in it?

But by Monday morning, they'd forgotten all about it. There had been no other mishaps. Ronde was starting to think he'd been a fool to give that broken mirror more than a moment's thought—other than he and Tiki having to pay for it out of their savings.

Morning classes went quickly, and a pop quiz in math kept him focused on his schoolwork all the way till lunch period.

This was what he'd been waiting for. The chance to hang out with the rest of the Eagles at their unofficial table, to talk football, and Pulaski, and maybe going undefeated for the regular season—something even last year's State Champion Eagles hadn't done.

The gang was there, all right—all the usual suspects. More than half the team took lunch this period, and most of them chose to eat together. Usually, it was a pretty raucous corner of the cafeteria—but not today. Everywhere Ronde looked, there were glum faces staring back at him, or down at the table, or just into space.

“What's up?” Ronde asked. “It looks like a funeral around here.”

“Manny's out,” Paco said. “Have a seat and join the pity party.”

“Huh?”

“He's out, Ronde,” Adam said. “As in, he's not playing this week.”

“Next week, either, probably,” Justin added.

“What the—?”

“Concussion, dude,” Paco explained. “He was having headaches after the game, so they took him to the doctor, and he's got to shut it down.”

“For how long?” Ronde asked, sinking down into a chair. Suddenly, he felt sick to his stomach. The smell of food in the cafeteria, which had been making him hungry up till that moment, now had the opposite effect.

“Whenever they give him the ‘all-clear' to play. Could be a week, could be a month.” Paco sighed. “What are we gonna do now?”

Ronde shook his head. He had no answers.

None of them did.

TIKI BOUNCED INTO THE CAFETERIA, FEELING ON
top of the world. In his hand was his latest English composition, with a big red A+ marked on top of it. “Yeah, baby, that's what I'm talkin' about!” he said, showing it off to some kids he knew at the nearest table.

He remembered way back in seventh grade, when he'd first arrived at Hidden Valley Junior High. He recalled how shy he'd been, afraid to raise his hand or speak up in class. That all seemed so long ago now. He'd given a speech in front of the whole school that had gotten a standing ovation. They'd even asked him to write an advice column in the school paper because they thought he was so together. And of course, everyone knew and loved him as the co-captain of the Eagles.

He was sorry this was his last year here. In September, he'd be a lowly freshman at Hidden Valley High School. No more being top man on the totem pole. Probably riding the bench on the football team too, like he had back in seventh grade.

Maybe not, though. Coach Spangler at the high school
knew Tiki and Ronde. He'd seen some of their games. Tiki hoped he'd put them right into the starting lineup, so they could team up with their friend Matt Clayton, who was the star quarterback there.

Still, it would mean starting from scratch. Here, he'd built up so much on the way to this moment. He was one of the most popular kids in school—and if the Eagles went undefeated and won the State Championship again, he'd go out a legend, never to be forgotten at Hidden Valley Junior High. . . .

Those were his thoughts as he approached the Eagles' unofficial tables. But when he saw them all, with their long faces and their hurt puppy-dog eyes, every happy thought went right out of Tiki's head.

“Okay . . . what?” he asked, sitting down in a hurry.

When they told him the bad news about Manny, Tiki had to fight back the sudden urge to hurl. He wanted to run away as fast as he could, to a place where none of this had happened, where the team's future still looked bright, shiny, and perfect.

“What are we going to do?” he asked, more to himself than to anyone else. No one answered him, anyway.

Tiki couldn't manage to eat his lunch that day. Neither, he noticed, could Ronde. Most of the other players hadn't done too well on their food either.

Manny Alvaro was only an eighth grader, of course. Not a star like Matt Clayton used to be at quarterback, or
even a standout passer like Cody Hansen last year.

Still, your quarterback was your quarterback. Manny was a great scrambler. That helped his receivers get free. Manny and Tiki had always had a great rhythm together too—rarely did a handoff or a quick pass get dropped.

Hayden, by contrast, was a big, tall kid who could throw the ball a mile—but he had zero game experience. And this one against Pulaski was the biggest game of the season—against the Eagles' most dangerous opponent! How could they expect Hayden to step into Manny's shoes and guide them to victory?

The Eagles all parted ways to go to their classes. Tiki felt alone, almost in a bubble, as he walked down the hall. He ignored all the hands raised in attempted high fives. The calls of “Yo, Tiki!” sounded like they were coming from miles away.
GO, EAGLES!
posters covered the walls in every hallway.

The image of the broken mirror came into his head. All those pieces of shattered glass on the floor . . .

“Wait a minute!” he told himself, stopping dead.

“Oof!” Someone bumped into him from behind. “Hey, what are you—oh, Tiki! Sorry, man, didn't know it was you.” The kid clapped him on the back and kept going, while Tiki stared ahead, lost in his own thoughts.

“I can't let some stupid superstition beat me,” he told himself. “I'm
Tiki Barber
, and Barbers know how to
play proud
.”

He began walking again, this time with a sense of purpose, as if he was on a mission. “The team can't count on Hayden to lead us. So the offense is gonna have to lean on me.”

He knew he could handle the weight. He'd done it before, whenever the team was down for the count, and looking to him to come through. There was no reason he couldn't do it again—one more time, or two more times, or even three if he had to.

“Tiki?” his math teacher, Ms. Brownstein, wore a puzzled look as she watched Tiki walk right by her door. “Aren't you coming in?”

Tiki turned around and came back, feeling a little embarrassed. “Sorry,” he told her. “I was thinking about something else.”

“Well, think about it later,” Ms. Brownstein told him. “We've got work to do on our theorems.”

Tiki tried to concentrate, but it was hard. His thoughts kept coming back around to the gigantic task ahead of him. Sure, he always wanted to be THE MAN, but now he
had
to be. That was different.

Sure enough, when he got to practice that afternoon, Coach Wheeler took him into his office. “Sit down,” he told Tiki. “We have to talk.”

Tiki sat and waited for Coach to talk.

Wheeler flipped through his playbook, then closed it and looked straight at Tiki. “Against Pulaski's defense,
we've always featured a passing game, because of all those massive guys they've got on their D-line. But not this time, Barber. This time, we're gonna have to go to
you,
early and often. You know why?”

Tiki nodded. “Yes, Coach.”

“Right. Hayden's got a great arm, but he's all over the place. And his nerves are gonna be jumping from the get-go.” He paused, and looked right through Tiki. “You got beat up pretty bad last game yourself. How you holding up?”

Tiki shrugged. “I'm fine. Totally. No problem.” He'd been sore right through the weekend, but he didn't tell Coach that. No reason to. He felt okay now, that was the important thing—and his team needed him. Enough said.

“Okay, then, Barber. We're gonna run every play in this book that features you. We're gonna run you like we've never run you before—and after that, we're gonna run you some more. When you've got nothing left, we'll go to Luke.”

Luke Frazier was the fullback, and also served as Tiki's backup when he needed a breather.

Tiki grinned. “I got this one, Coach,” he said. “Count on it.”

“Good. Let's go out there and practice.” They shook hands as they got up. “This is history we're talking about here, remember.”

“Oh, I know that,” Tiki said. “Believe me, I never forget it.”

•  •  •

They went through their paces at half-speed. Coach didn't want to wear Tiki out—the game was only three days away, and nearly every play they practiced featured him.

Everyone knew (but didn't say) the obvious: If anything happened to Tiki—if he got hurt or sick—the team at this point, without Manny, had no plan B. Pulaski would not be forgiving. The Eagles had only one route to victory on Thursday, and Tiki was it.

They worked in a couple new plays too—new blocking schemes, and a reverse handoff from Tiki to Hayden off a direct snap. This was a variation on something they'd done with Tiki and Manny. But Hayden had never practiced it, and since he was a lefty, Tiki had to line up on his other side.

They gave Jonah James, the tight end, new responsibilities, having him be an extra blocker for Tiki on some of the outside runs. Five thirty came before they knew it, and it was time to call it a day and go home.

Tiki was leaving the locker room when he ran into Cootie Harris, the team mascot. “Hey, Cootie!” Tiki greeted him. “What are you doing here so late?”

Cootie looked both ways before whispering, “I'm in glee club.”

“Oh. That's cool.”

“You mean, you're not mad?”

“Mad? Why should I be mad?”