Football Fugitive (2 page)

In three more plays they hit pay dirt, J. J. going over for the touchdown. Then Pete swung around right end for the extra
point. Whips 7, Digits 0.

Coach Ellis sent in his offensive team, keeping in Larry, Manny Anderson, and Billy James, all of whom played defense and
offense. Larry played center on offense; Coach Ellis had told him he had the size for both a center and a middle linebacker.
Larry didn’t know whether to be proud of that or not. Were he, Manny, and Billy expected to play every minute of the game?
With twelve minutes in a quarter that added up to forty-eight minutes. A guy could absorb a lot of beating in that time if
he were lucky enough to live through it.

Omar Ross, the Whips’ hefty middle linebacker, kicked off. The boot was a beauty, flying end over end deep into Digits territory.
Doug Shaffer, the Digits’ wing-footed fullback, caught it and ran it up to his thirty-three, where two Whips downed him.

“Eighteen,” quarterback George Daley said in the huddle.

“Eighteen?” Doug echoed. “Man, you want to pass right off the bat?”

“They won’t expect it,” said George.

“But nobody ever starts off with a pass. Okay, you called it. Let’s go.”

“No. Wait a minute. Let’s change it to twenty-eight.”

Larry glanced from George to Doug.
Who’s quarterbacking this team, anyway?
he wanted to ask.

“Right,” said Doug. “Let’s get ‘em, guys.”

They broke out of the huddle and hustled to the line of scrimmage. Larry felt an elbow nudge him on the arm. It was Greg.
A questioning look was in his eyes. He hadn’t heard what that exchange was about, but he could tell that it was not something
pleasant.

Larry got over the ball, put his hands around it.

“Hut one! Hut two! Hut three!”

Larry snapped the ball, then threw a block on Omar as the linebacker tried to
plunge through the line. Omar fell over him, regained his balance, and started after George. George backpedaled a few steps,
turned, and handed off to Billy James, the right halfback. Billy grabbed the ball and sprinted toward the right side of the
line. The Whips’ defense went after him, caught him, and threw him for a three-yard loss.

“Maybe we should’ve tried the pass after all,” Billy said in the huddle.

“You didn’t get the blocking or you would’ve made it,” said Doug defensively. “I don’t care. Try a pass now if you want to.”

George did. It was a long one, wobbling just slightly as it arched through the air, intended for wide receiver Curt Robinson.
In every respect it was a beautiful pass, but George apparently had not accounted for J. J. Jackson. The spindle-legged backfield
man seemed to come out of nowhere,
plucking the ball out of Curt’s hands and running with it down the field as if he were taking off with a pot of gold.

There was no stopping him as he sprinted down the sideline for a touchdown. It was a surprise blow. A sock in the gut.

“That guy’s everywhere!” George said unbelievingly.

“You have to have your eyes peeled,” said Doug, his own eyes glazed with fury at the sudden turnaround. “You just can’t look
at the receiver. Anyhow, Manny was wide open. You should’ve thrown to
him.”

Larry’s stomach twinged. “Don’t blame George, Doug,” he said. “He threw a good pass. J. J.’s so fast that I never saw him
myself till he caught the ball.”

“Why were you watching?” Doug shot back. “You were supposed to be blocking.”

“I blocked my man,” Larry answered, his
anger mounting. “But I still had time to see if that pass was completed.’

“Larry — no.’

He felt a hand grab his arm. It was Greg’s.

“Don’t argue, Larry,” Greg said. “It won’t get us anywhere.”

“Right,” Larry thought. That Greg. He could not have heard a word of the exchange, yet he must have felt that Larry and Doug
were having an argument.

Pete Monroe kicked for the point after. It was good. Whips 14, Digits 0.

Three minutes into the second quarter the Digits made their first big gain, a thirty-six-yard run by Manny Anderson.

The ball was spotted on the Whips’ twenty-six. First and ten.

“Forty-eight,” said George in the huddle.

Forty-eight. Doug’s carry around right
end. George called signals, took the snap, handed it off to Doug. The fullback sped toward the right, eluded two would-be
tacklers, and was knocked out of bounds by the Whips’ defensive backs. A three-yard gain.

“Forty-three,” said George.

Doug carried it again, this time plunging through a hole in the line wide enough to let a trailer van through. Greg, left
guard Jim Collins, Larry — they did their jobs skillfully and well. Larry went as far as throwing a block on another man besides
his own, providing Doug the opportunity to gain an extra eight yards on top of the eleven he already had.

Then a flag dropped. A whistle shrilled. Larry stared at the ref as the man in the black-and-white striped shirt showed the
clipping sign.

“On who?” asked Larry bewilderedly.

“On
you,”
replied the referee grimly.

S
tunned, Larry watched the ref pace off fifteen yards against the Digits from the twenty-three, spotting the ball on the thirtyeight-yard
line.

Third and twenty-two.

Clipping! What a stupid, inexcusable goof! You can’t throw a block on an offensive guard from behind and not expect a penalty!

“Tough luck, Larry,” Greg said, coming up beside him.

Larry pressed his lips hard together and shook his head.

“Sorry, guys,” he said in the huddle. “I wasn’t on the ball.’

No one seemed to have heard him.

“Sixty-three flare pass,” George said.

It didn’t work. George’s pass was far over the head of the intended receiver, left end Curt Robinson.

Fourth down. Pat DeWitt came in, replacing Doug. The team went into a punt formation. Pat kicked, a high, spiraling boot into
the Whips’ end zone.

The ball was brought back to the twenty. Whips’ ball.

They moved it, J. J. Jackson doing most of the moving. His wide grin showed that he was enjoying it immensely.

“He’s like grease,” linebacker Chris Higgins said.

“Maybe he’ll tire out after a while,” said Tony Foxx, another linebacker.

“Sure,” answered Chris. “After he scores another touchdown.”

Yancey Foote came to Larry’s mind. What would Yancey do in a situation like this? he asked himself. Let the Whips roll on?
No. He’d go after the man with the ball, go after him with all the speed and power he had. He’d play above and beyond his
normal capacities.

“I can try it,” Larry thought. “That’s the best I can do.”

The signals. The snap from center. Mick Bartlett turned with the ball, waiting for J. J. to come and take it from him.

At the same time Larry, plunging past the center and the guard, exploded through the hole that his linemen had helped to create.
A determined force drove him on, putting power and muscle into his legs and body that seemed not to have been there before.
His rubber cleats chewed up the turf as he churned ahead, his head up, his eyes on his target.

He got to Mick a fraction of a second before J. J. did, throwing himself at the quarterback with outstretched hands, pinning
Mick’s arms in a viselike grip, knocking the ball loose, and then pouncing on it like a hungry cat on a field mouse.

Digits’ ball!

They grabbed him, hugged him, jumped up and down with him.

“Nice play, Larry!” Greg cried. “Nice, nice, nice!”

They moved the ball to the Whips’ eighteen when the four-minute warning sounded. Pat DeWitt’s fourth-down field goal from
the eleven cracked the ice, but that was all for the first half. Whips 14, Digits 3.

Both teams retired to the school, the
Whips to the gym, the Digits to the locker room.

“You guys really played your hearts out those last five minutes,” said Coach Tom Ellis, smiling as he planted a foot on top
of a bench. “Keep up that momentum in the second half and we should take ‘em.”

“That J. J. Jackson moves like a streak, Coach,” Tony Foxx said. “I don’t think he’s human.”

Coach Ellis laughed. “Was Larry Shope human when he busted through the line and forced Mick Bartlett to fumble the ball, then
recovered it? It’s that extra effort we have to use sometimes. Great play, Larry.”

“Thanks, Coach,” Larry answered, almost inaudibly. He liked the praise, but he couldn’t forget how his clipping penalty had
hurt the team.

Maybe it was a good thing after all that his father didn’t come to the game.

“Try some short passes, George,” suggested the coach. “Just over the line of scrimmage. See what happens.”

“Okay.”

“Jack and Tony, I want you to concentrate on J. J., whether he runs or goes out as a receiver. Maybe double-teaming him will
slow him down.”

“I doubt it,” said Tony pessimistically. “I think we ought to quadruple-team him, Coach. Bet he’s already tied Emmitt Smith
for rushing yards in one game.”

Again the coach laughed. “No, you do as I say,” he insisted, “and we’ll see what happens. They’re only eleven points ahead.”

By the end of the third quarter the Whips were another touchdown ahead, the third one resulting from a long pass to J. J.
Jackson in the end zone. Jack and Tony had been double-teaming him, but on that pass J. J.
had outrun Jack, and might have — or might not have — outrun Tony. No one would ever know because Tony, running side by side
with J. J., had slipped, lost his balance, and fallen. J. J. had caught the ball, then raised it high over his head while
he did his touchdown dance, pumping his legs up and down as if he were beating a drum with his feet.

This time the try for the extra point failed. Whips 20, Digits 3.

“I still think we ought to quadruple-team him,” insisted Tony.

“Will you cut out that quadruple stuff?” Jack snorted. “Whoever heard of quadruple-teaming a guy, anyway?”

“That’s putting four men on him, in case you didn’t know,” said Tony, glaring at Jack.

“Man, listen to the walking dictionary,” replied Jack. “You know what? I think you should’ve intercepted that pass.”

“I would have, but I slipped,” said Tony, seriously. “I suppose you don’t believe me.”

“Yes, I believe you,” Jack grunted, stamping off toward the line of scrimmage in a huff. “Anything to end this stupid argument.”

“Hooray!” thought Larry, happy that the angry exchange ended, too. This was no time for intrateam squabbles.

With one minute gone of the fourth quarter, and the ball in the Digits’ possession on their own forty-two, Coach Ellis sent
in a play via Joe Racino, who took Bobby Kolen’s place at left tackle.

“Forty-eight right pass,” said Joe.

The play code started flashing in Larry’s mind. Doug Shaffer and Ray Bridges were the pass receivers, Ray the main target.
If he were too well covered, the pass was to go to Doug. If Doug was also covered, well — it
was George’s option what to do then. “The headaches of a quarterback,” thought Larry. “I don’t envy him one bit.”

They broke out of the huddle and went to the line of scrimmage. It was first and ten.

“Hut one! Hut two! Hut three!”

Larry snapped the ball, then barged forward, throwing a block on the middle linebacker’s right side. But Omar Ross, after
falling down from Larry’s charge, got up again and exploded forward. He was nowhere near Ray, though, as the speedy right
end bolted up the field some five yards ahead of two Whips defensemen.

For a moment Ray slowed down and waited for George’s long, spiraling pass, which reached him before the defensemen did. He
caught it, but the change of pace was just enough for one of the Whips to nail him before he advanced any farther.

First and ten, on the Whips’ twelve.

Bobby came back in, as messenger for another play from the coach, and Joe ran out.

“Forty-two run,” said Bobby.

Again the play code, calling for Doug to plunge through the two hole, flashed through Larry’s mind.

“We’re twelve yards from home,” said George in the huddle. “Let’s make it, man!”

They broke out of the huddle and trotted to the line of scrimmage. George barked signals. Larry snapped the ball, charged
forward, threw a weak block on Omar. At the same time Greg rammed against his man, and for a moment there was plenty of daylight
for Doug to run through.

But Omar pulled him down on the right side.

“He got away from Larry,” panted Doug in the huddle. “I could’ve gone another three or four yards.”

Larry fumed. Why was Doug picking on him? Everyone makes mistakes.

“Okay, let’s try it again,” said George. He made fists of his hands as he glanced at Greg, the sign that the same play was
on. Greg acknowledged with a nod.

“Here we go again,” thought Larry. “What am I supposed to do? Put a scissor hold on Omar so he can’t break loose? He’s as
tough to block as J. J. is to tackle.”

But he did block Omar, while Greg blocked his man, just long enough for Doug to plow through for five more yards and a first
down.

First and goal.

“Want to try it again, Doug?” George asked, apparently assured of Doug’s ability.

Doug, breathing hard, smiled. “Why not?” he said.

The signals. The snap. The plunge.

But the daylight wasn’t there now. The
Whips had formed an impenetrable wall at the scrimmage line, and Doug, striking it, had bounced back. It was a shattering
blow to the Digits.

“How about a pass, George?” suggested Curt.

“Okay. In the corner,” said George.

It worked. Doug kicked for the point after and it was good. Whips 20, Digits 10.

“Only a miracle,” thought Larry, “could pull the Digits out of this one.”

The miracle didn’t happen. Neither team scored again, and the Digits walked off the field the loser.

“Somebody wins, somebody loses,” said Omar, walking next to Larry and Greg.

“It’s only a ball game,” replied Larry, not looking at him.

As they reached the side of the bleachers, Greg nudged Larry on the arm.

“Larry, look!” he exclaimed. “You ever see a guy bigger than him in your life?”