Left Out (8 page)

After practice he climbed into the Prius without speaking. And even though the drive wasn't more than a few blocks, Landon left a puddle of sweat in the front seat when he got out.

“Landon.” His father pointed to the puddle. “Get a towel, please.”

“Sorry. We ran super hard.” Landon grabbed a rag from the bucket in the garage that his father used when he washed the car, and he mopped up the sweat.

“I know.” His father watched him closely and gave a nod of approval before they headed into the house. “I saw you. You worked really hard, and you'll get there someday.”

His father's words somehow made Landon feel worse.

Inside, Landon headed upstairs to take a shower. Minutes later, from his bedroom window, dripping and wrapped in a towel, he saw his sister and her two new best friends splashing
about in the pool in the evening shadows. Already there was a star in the sky, but he could still make out Megan's skinny figure as she bounced high and did a flip off the diving board. Katy and Genevieve shrieked and clapped from the shallow end. Landon turned away from the window. It felt wrong to spy on them.

When he came back down in clean shorts and a T-shirt, his father was busy in the dusky shadows of the living room, writing feverishly at his desk. Landon wandered over and stood until his father looked up.

“Where's Mom?” Landon asked.

“Oh.” His father scratched his neck. “This is a big job she's got now, Landon. Really big. So it's hard for her not to work, even on a Saturday. I think it'll be a while before she gets settled into more regular hours.”

“Like days?” Landon asked.

“Maybe weeks. Maybe months.” His father glanced at the glowing computer screen, the bluish light spilling over his face. “I'm not sure, really, but my book is coming along well. I'm calling it
Dragon Hunt.
Um . . . my main character is kind of modeled after you.”

“Me?” Landon looked suspiciously at the screen. “Why?”

“Well, a good main character has to overcome obstacles, and you want him to be a nice person, and that sounds like you to me.” Landon's father smiled and pointed at him before glancing toward the screen. “I thought I'd maybe name him ‘Landon' too.”

Landon felt a chill. If his father
did
ever get his book published, the last thing Landon needed was another thing people
could make fun of—Landon, the oversized guard of Dorchester. “No, that's okay. I don't think so.”

“What do you mean?” Landon's dad laughed and offered a puzzled smile. “Why wouldn't you want a character named after you?”

“I just . . . I don't know, Dad. Do I have to have a reason?” Landon backed away toward the kitchen. “Can I get something to eat?”

“Sure, there's plenty of casserole left.” His father looked at him but remained seated in front of the computer. “Or you could make yourself a cheese sandwich. There are tomatoes in the crisper.”

The thought of the casserole he'd spilled onto the football field the day before turned his empty stomach. “I'll make a sandwich.”

Landon had everything out and had just finished construction of his sandwich, with thick wedges of cheddar and juicy, ripe tomato slices on fresh-cut Italian bread, when his father wandered into the kitchen. “What about the name Nodnal?”

“Nodnal?” Landon stopped with the sandwich halfway to his mouth. “Is that even a name?”

“Well, we're talking about the Middle Ages, so . . .” His father's face went from thoughtful to happy. “It's ‘Landon' spelled backward.”

Landon set the cheese sandwich down in front of him on the kitchen table. “Dad, no. Please.”

“Oh, okay. I'm just trying to be creative here.”

Landon rolled his eyes and felt a tap on his shoulder. Genevieve and her friends had come in behind him.

“Creative about what?” Genevieve asked.

Landon glanced at Megan and blushed, horrified. “Nothing. Dad's just writing his new book.”

“Hi, Landon.” Megan stood wrapped in a towel, her long hair dark and damp, her pale blue eyes aglow.

Landon looked down at his sandwich before looking back at them with a wave. “Hi.”

“Yeah, hi,” said Katy, also waving, but all business.

“Do you guys want a sandwich?” he asked, unable to think of anything else. He pointed at the supplies on the table.

Katy laughed, but Megan shook her head and said, “No, thanks.”

“C'mon guys.” Genevieve headed for her room.

“How was football, Landon?” Megan hung back and looked at him like she really cared. “What position are you gonna play?”

Landon thought of Mike Furster's words, “Left out.”

He cleared his throat. “I won a race yesterday.”

“Really? Wow,” Megan said. “That's great.”

“Yeah, then I, like, collapsed and Skip helped me up.”

Megan pinched her lips together but couldn't hold back a smile. “Good. I'm glad he did. I told him we were friends. He already texted Genevieve that he was sorry for what happened at the diner.”

“He did?”

“She didn't tell you?” Megan frowned. “I wonder why.”

Landon just stared at Megan, unable to take his eyes off her face.

Finally, she shrugged and said, “Okay, well . . . gotta change.”

Then she was gone. Landon hadn't even realized that his father had returned to his writing desk, but he found himself alone in the kitchen with his big, thick cheese sandwich. He picked up the sandwich and looked down. He poked at his bulging stomach and then got up and dumped his snack in the trash. It was only one sandwich, but it was a start.

He'd seen Coach Furster tell the team that's how he'd built his half-billion-dollar equity fund—one investor at a time, one deal at a time. He told them one mile at a time was how he qualified for the Ironman in Hawaii. Coach Furster then said you built a champion the same way, one practice at a time. And that's what Landon intended to be.

A champion.

Sunday was a day off from football, but Landon's mom had plenty for them all to do around the house.

“Okay, guys. We've got to get settled in for real,” she said.

Evidently that meant a lot of cleaning and moving and straightening and throwing things away followed by a mess of yard work that continued for Landon into Monday afternoon. By the time football practice came around that evening, Landon was already exhausted, but he was determined to get more involved. This time, after stretching and agilities and bag work, he got in the back of the line for blocking drills. Watching carefully and visualizing himself doing exactly what Brett Bell did, Landon heard a whistle blast signaling his turn before he knew it. He stepped up, got in his three-point stance, faintly heard the cadence barked out by Coach Furster, and fired into the bag.

It felt more like shoving someone in the aisle of a crowded bus than the blocking he'd seen the others do, but Landon chugged his feet and the bag moved a bit before the blast of a whistle told him to stop. He dashed back to the end of the line, out of breath and beaming to himself. Everything went on as it had before. He hadn't impressed anyone, but he hadn't made a laughingstock of himself either. It was a victory.

Twice more he did the blocking drill on a bag held up by Coach West, and then it was time for the sled.

Landon fretted to himself and tried to get in one of the lines on the inside of the sled, but when he stepped up at the center position, Coach Furster stopped everything.

“Landon! Landon?”

“Yes, Coach?”

“You're a Double X player. You play right tackle on offense, left end on defense, son. You're not a center. Travis is a center. Jones is a center. Not you.”

Landon nodded and followed the direction of Coach Furster's finger. Timmy, wearing an impish grin, stepped back to allow Landon a turn.

Landon got in place and hunkered down into his stance, knowing all eyes were on him. On the count, he fired out into the sled. The rigid pad was on a spring-loaded arm, and it bounced him right back. The other linemen were already moving the sled. Landon panicked and hugged the dummy, leaning and pushing, determined not to let it spin on him. With a great roar, he got his end of the sled going. He knew he looked like a dancing bear and his technique wasn't close to the other guys, but the sled didn't spin, even though it wasn't exactly straight.

Finally the whistle blew, and he realized Coach Furster had paused to stare at him.

“Well, that's one way to do it.” Coach Furster shook his head and then got back to business. “Okay! Let's go! This isn't a puppet show! Get me that next group up here!”

The next two times on the sled, Landon took his turn and did his thing without comment or reaction from Coach Furster. When it came time to work on plays, Landon took a deep breath and jogged into the huddle with a handful of reserve players, who were a mixture of third- and fourth-stringers, when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

It was Coach Furster. “Let's get a little better at the individual stuff before you jump into running plays, okay, Landon? Just so you don't mess up the timing.”

Landon nodded. Happy to be talked to, happy to obey the orders of his coach, he stepped to the back to watch until it came time for sprints.

Sprints went a bit better for him. He beat Timmy for the first seven and then dropped behind before he got a second wind. Landon finished the final sprint second to last and joined the team that was already gathered around a glowering Coach Furster.

“Everything changes tomorrow night,” Coach Furster snarled at them, looking all around. “Tomorrow night, it's live. The pads go on and you better remember that football is not a contact sport. Football is a
collision
sport, so you better be ready to
hit
.”

The team roared its approval, and even Landon found himself growling, excited for tomorrow.

The next afternoon Landon attacked the bag of equipment the league had given to all the players. He pulled it out onto the living room floor and began stuffing his pants and the girdle with pads. It was like a puzzle, figuring out which pad went in which pocket and then getting into everything, since the uniform also included rib pads, shoulder pads, elbow pads, and hand pads for the hogs.

“I think the rib pads are supposed to go on first.” Genevieve was paying more attention to her phone than him, but after struggling a bit, Landon knew she was right.

Landon figured it all out with Genevieve looking on while their dad flooded the house with the smell of roasting lamb chops and sautéed spinach. He was boiling potatoes that he'd mash to become delicious volcanoes filled with meat gravy.

Genevieve stuck out her tongue, tilted her head, and snapped a selfie with Landon in the background.

“Don't post that!” Landon scolded her.

“Why?” she said. “You look cute.”

“I'm not supposed to be
cute
, Genevieve. It's
football
.” Landon gritted his teeth.

Genevieve laughed and put her phone down. “Okay, already. Grumpy.”

In truth, Landon wasn't grumpy. He was excited because if what the coaches and players had been saying for the last few days was true, then today everything changed. When the pads went on, the real players were supposed to rise to the top like cream.

“Football is not a contact sport. Football is a
collision
sport, so you better be ready to
hit
.”

Landon heard the coach's words in his mind on a closed loop as he stood in front of the full-length hallway mirror, dressed in full uniform, with Genevieve beside him. He bent down in a sort of frog-like, upright three-point stance so she could reach him but he could still see her face. “Go ahead. Hit my shoulders.”

Genevieve slapped the pad on his right shoulder.

“Ha-ha. Harder than that,” he said.

She made a fist and bopped him.

“Harder!” Landon was feeling bold and unbreakable. “Seriously, hit me with everything you've got.”

Genevieve tightened her lips, reared back with a fist, and slammed his shoulder.

POP.

Landon smiled wide. “This is so cool. I can't even
feel
that.”

With the pads and helmet and his huge size, Landon felt certain that everything—not just with the football team, but his whole life—was about to change.

Sunshine had grilled the grass, trees, rooftops, and pavement all day long. Even fresh from its shaded harbor in the garage, the Prius felt like a sauna. Landon's palms and feet burst into sweat, and a bead of it scampered down his cheek like a roach. He swiped at it with a padded hand and glanced at his father, hunched over the wheel like a big kid on his little brother's tricycle.

As his father pulled into the school parking lot that overlooked the football field, he glanced Landon's way. “You'll be okay. Your whole team is nervous, I'm sure.”

They pulled up to the end of the lot, and Landon craned his neck to look down on the field. Only a handful of guys were there, including Coach Bell and Brett. Skip was rifling footballs to Xander and Mike.

“Skip Dreyfus isn't nervous,” Landon declared. “Neither is Brett Bell.”

“Well, they're the best two players on the team, and Brett's uncle plays for the
Giants
.” His dad stopped the car. “Everyone else is sweating bullets, I bet.”

Landon wasn't so sure, but he opened the door and said good-bye to his father. Heat from the parking lot swallowed him, and he wondered if there was a chance that practice might be canceled. He'd seen on his phone app that the heat index was up over ninety. People with asthma were being advised to stay indoors, but Landon didn't have asthma. He took several deep breaths, almost eager for a sudden attack of that ailment, but the air swept in and out of his lungs, filling his nose with the harsh scent of bubbling tar and plastic football pads.

The grass crackled beneath his feet and he could smell the cooked dirt as he slogged down the hillside. Timmy Nichols appeared and went straight for the sled. Landon was sweating from every available pore by the time he reached the sideline, but when he looked around he saw the rest of the team—which was arriving quickly now—frolicking like they were at a pool party. Could such a disregard of the elements be part of this football mania? From his living room couch, he'd never considered the Cleveland Browns baking like potatoes when they had to play down in Houston or Jacksonville early in the season.

Someone smacked his shoulder pad and he turned, smelling the cologne at the same time so that he wasn't surprised to see Coach Furster's black eyes and white smile. “Landon? You've got your pads on.”

“I'm supposed to have 'em on, right, Coach?” Panic flashed across Landon's brain like the shadow of a hawk.

“Oh, sure. You'll look good gettin' off the bus. Scare the heck out of Tuckahoe when they see you. Ha-ha. You'll be like our El Cid.” Coach chucked Landon's shoulder pad again.

“What do you mean?” Landon shifted the shoulder pads, which now felt too tight.

“El Cid? Famous Spanish knight.” Coach Furster's eyes grew close enough to make Landon uncomfortable. “Just the sight of him terrified the enemy. Made them turn and run.”

Coach Furster grinned like he owned the memory. “When he died, they sewed open his eyes and let his horse carry him into battle. The enemy fled. He couldn't fight a lick—being dead and all—but he scared the heck out of people.”

“Oh.” Landon had no idea what else to say.

“Yup. El Cid.” Coach Furster shucked a piece of gum, gobbled it up, and marched away, trailing an invisible cloud of citrus cologne toward his son, Mike, and Skip. “Ready to hit, boys?”

The football equipment made Landon feel like he was wrapped in bubble paper. There was comfort in the protection it would provide, but it made him feel even more awkward than normal. He wished he'd had time to practice wearing it, like he'd done with the helmet. Most of the other players had been wearing football pads since they were eight or nine, so for them it was almost second nature. Twice he tripped and fell during agility drills, but no one stopped to laugh. Such was the intensity of the boys around him. Everyone seemed to be in a trance, moving with quick concentration. They alternated
between high-knee running, darting around cones placed a few feet apart, and jumping around the rungs of rope ladders stretched out on the practice field. It was organized chaos that almost everyone but Landon and Timmy seemed to ace.

When the last agility drill was complete, Coach Furster gave his whistle three blasts and they all crowded around him. Landon glanced at his teammates' faces, wondering if anyone else's stomach was twisting under the sour smell of their coach's cologne.

“All right.” Coach Furster crossed his arms. His Chinese calligraphy tattoo bulged. He stared all around. “You all know what comes now. Tackling drills. Live!”

Everyone let out a roar. Landon joined in.

“Two lines!” Coach Furster broke free and sprinted toward the end zone, where Coach Bell and Coach West had created a narrow column of grass bordered by tipped-over blocking dummies. The team split like geese in a November sky, some breaking to one end of the bags, some breaking the other way, without rhyme or reason. Landon found himself in the line of tacklers in back of Timmy, a loose string of players in the end zone. The runners were at the other end of the dummies, on the ten-yard line. The grass stretched between them was their battlefield.

The first tackler was Skip. The first runner was Brett Bell, looking like a rhinoceros with a football.

Coach Furster howled, “Here we go, boys!”

Then he blasted his whistle. Brett and Skip went at each other like locomotives racing toward a collision on the same track. The crack of pads was thrilling. When they collided, the
smaller player, Skip, was able to stop Brett in his tracks, standing him upright with the ball cradled in his arms. Nonetheless, Brett's churning legs carried Skip backward two yards before they went down in a heap.

Both players bounced up unscathed, screaming with excitement, and slapping each other's shoulder pads and helmets with respect.

“Good hit! Good hit!” Coach Furster bellowed as they swapped lines. “Next two!”

Miller, playing defense, and Rinehart, as the runner, fired off like mortal enemies, blasting each other with all the bone-crunching intensity of Brett and Skip. Miller dropped Rinehart like a bag of groceries before they popped up too, howling at the white-hot sun like it was a new moon before they swapped lines, Miller heading to the end of the runner's line while Rinehart fell in the tackler's line behind Landon and Brett.

Players cheered. The coaches laughed and yelled, “Next up!”

And so it went, with Landon's line melting away in front of him. Counting bodies in the opposite line, he saw that his line had an odd number, which would leave him matched up with Skip.

Landon's stomach flipped at the sight of their starting quarterback. His mouth got sticky and then went desert dry. He had no idea what to do, really. He'd seen NFL highlights of the Browns' middle linebacker, Karlos Dansby, on YouTube. He saw right in front of him how his teammates did it—the tacklers lowering their shoulders into the runners' midriffs, exploding, wrapping them up with their arms, and then driving
them back if possible. But he didn't see how he could even hope to complete the first step, let alone the last three.

Timmy Nichols was up, and he was blasted apart by the runner like a puff of smoke in a stiff breeze. Nichols rolled over and hopped up, though, jogging to join the runners. When Landon stepped to the goal line, Skip accepted the football from Coach Bell, snorting like a maniac. His feet pawed the earth like a bloodthirsty bull's.

He crouched into a stance and leveled his eyes at Landon, who stood stiff as a tree trunk.

Every fiber in Landon's body begged him to just run far away.

And then the whistle shrieked.