The Extra Yard (6 page)

David Madden jogged over to him.

“Grip it like you're going to throw, fingers on the seams,” he said. “There's no glue on the ball, it won't just stick to your leg if you press it there.”

The second time, Teddy watching over his shoulder as he imagined himself slow-jamming his way into the end zone, he couldn't tell that Jack had the ball even though Teddy knew he had it.

The third time they ran it, Teddy's dad—Coach Dad, all of a sudden—ran at Jack from where he'd been standing in the end zone and told him to stop and throw to Teddy, which he did, a soft, accurate spiral.

“Love it,” Coach Gilbert said. “It goes into everybody's playbook tomorrow.”

“Peyton Manning shocked the world running that last season,” Cassie called out from the sideline. “Shocked the world.”

She always stayed out of the way when real practice was going on. But she must have figured it was all right to get closer to the action with just her boys on the field.

Teddy's dad turned around. “Smart girl,” he said.

“Just ask her,” Teddy said.

“Is she a friend?”

“Her name is Cassie Bennett,” Gus said. “Coolest girl in the eighth grade.”

“She thinks on the planet,” Teddy said.

David Madden gave her a wave and called back to Cassie, “I better tell ESPN to start keeping an eye on you now.”

Cassie said, “I know these guys think they invented sports. But I watch more ESPN than they do.”

“Hey,” David Madden said, “maybe one of these days I can give you all a tour of the campus at ESPN.”

“Like a college campus?” Cassie said.

“Just with satellite dishes,” Teddy's dad said.

“I'm in if they are,” Cassie said.

“Who knows,” David Madden said, “maybe I'm talking to the next Hannah Storm.”

If Teddy didn't know better, he would have sworn that not only was Cassie smiling, she might actually have been blushing.

“Hey, let's run it one more time,” David Madden said. “There's one more wrinkle you can throw in, if they've shadowed both Jack and Teddy. Gus, or whoever the running back is, can run straight through the line if nobody tackles him, thinking he doesn't really have the ball. Trust me, if he gets into the secondary and everything else has broken down, he'll be standing all by himself under the goalposts.” He turned to Coach. “Remember how we beat St. Luke's that time with the same play?”

“Do I ever,” Coach said. “Chuck Cotter was scared that he might drop the ball, that's how open he was. He acted like you'd tossed him a baby.”

Teddy's dad said, “Walton fourteen, St. Luke's thirteen.”

They high-fived each other, as if the play had just happened. Then Teddy's dad grabbed the ball and told Coach Gilbert to go deep, the way Jack was always telling Teddy to do the same thing.

The pass he threw Coach looked great in the air, but then Coach had to come back, because the ball just seemed to drop all of a sudden. Teddy looked over and saw his dad wince and grab his shoulder.

But when his dad saw Teddy staring at him, he grinned and said, “Timing's a little off after all these years.”

“Yeah,” Teddy said before looking away. “Timing's everything, right?”

When Coach got back to them, he nodded at Teddy's dad and said, “Guy needs work.”

“Tell me about it,” Teddy said.

His dad and Coach walked off, arms around each other's shoulders. Teddy and Jack and Gus watched them go. Cassie had come out to join them.

“That was kind of fun,” Jack said.

“Was it?” Teddy said.

“C'mon,” Gus said, “you can see he's still got the moves.”

“Yeah,” Teddy said, “that's my dad. The guy with all the moves.”

“He seemed nice,” Cassie said.

“Why, because he thinks you're going to be a television star someday?” Teddy said.

Then he turned to look at all of them at once.

“You liked him, right?”

They hesitated, as if they weren't sure what the right answer was. Then they all nodded.

“You can't like him,” Teddy said.

He took off his helmet and walked away, trying to calm down. He knew his friends hadn't done anything wrong. He knew he wasn't really mad at them. He was mad at his dad, out here trying as hard with them as he was with him, another time when he looked and acted like a salesman trying to make a sale. Of himself.

It had taken him only one practice, and it was as if his dad were already in midseason form.

A
fter their last class on Friday, all of them having made it through the first-week grind of starting school, Cassie came over to Teddy when they were at their lockers and said, “Walk home from school with me.”

She didn't even try to make it sound like a request, just like a play she had called.

“You are aware,” Teddy said, “that I live right here and you live in the other direction, right?”

“Don't look at it as you going out of your way,” she said. “Look at it as an opportunity to spend quality time with me alone.”

Teddy slapped his forehead. “Why didn't I see that right away?”

“You're a guy?” she said.

“I knew it must be something like that,” Teddy said. “Again.”

Jack and Gus were spending some time after school at the assisted-living facility, as part of the community service hours for eighth graders. You had to have a certain amount of community service hours when you got to eighth grade, and Jack and Gus were getting the jump on that today. Then they were all meeting later for pizza and a movie.

Teddy would never admit it to Cassie, but he was actually looking forward to getting quality time alone with her. It was something he hardly ever got to do.

When he met back up with her in front of school, he noticed she had put on her FC Barcelona cap. She was the best girl soccer player her age in town, the way she was the best softball pitcher. And Lionel Messi was her favorite player. Cassie talked about Messi the way Teddy talked about Odell Beckham Jr.

“I've been thinking about something,” Teddy said to her now. “Do you think you might already be taller than Messi?”

“Making fun of my guy,” she said, “is not the way to go.”

“Am I allowed to ask where we're going?”

“I thought we'd go sit up above the water at Small Falls,” she said.

“And do what?”

“Talk about how you have to stop acting like an idiot about your father,” she said.

“And what if I don't want to talk about my dad?” he said.

It made Cassie laugh. “Oh,” she said, “you were being serious.”

He shook his head. One of the great things about Cassie Bennett, one of the many great things, was that she could somehow be funny and cool and obnoxious all at the same time. And it was your job to keep up with her.

“Can't we just start talking about him now and get it out of the way?” Teddy said.

“No,” she said.

They spent the rest of the walk talking about her soccer team and his football team and about the first week of school, and talking again about how they had to find a way to save Mrs. Brandon's job and the music department. The thought of the town closing down the department had upset Cassie the way it had Teddy's mom. Cassie didn't love music as much as she loved sports. But not only had she become a terrific piano player, despite all the complaining she did about having to
go
to piano lessons, she loved Mrs. Brandon.

“If they close the department, this will be her last year with us.”

“And you're not going to let that happen,” Teddy said.

“Not if I can help it.”

“You know my mom feels the same way,” Teddy said. “She's been trying to come up with a plan.”

“Maybe we can all come up with a plan together,” Cassie said. “We've got to find a way to raise enough money to save the department and save her job.”

“Saving Mrs. B!” Teddy said.

“You better not think this is funny.”

“I think it's great,” Teddy said. “And whenever you do come up with something, I'm in.”

“Let's be honest,” Cassie said, grinning. “It's not like you really had a choice.”

They finally got to Journey's End Road and made their way toward the water. When they got close, Cassie took off ahead of him, yelling, “Catch me if you can!”

Teddy ran hard after her, knowing there was no chance of ever really catching this girl, now or ever.

•  •  •

They sat halfway up the hill on this side of the water. The only noise up here, Teddy thought,
was
the water. It was like they had found their own private corner of the world.

“You have to stop acting like this,” Cassie said. “Jack and Gus won't tell you that. Not saying stuff out loud is part of the boy code. But I will.”

“Stop acting like what?” Teddy said. “Like I haven't figured out something I haven't figured out?”

“No, it's not that,” she said. “You have to stop acting like your dad coming back is some kind of great tragedy. It's not. Jack's brother dying the way he did,
that's
a tragedy. Not this.”

“You think I don't know the difference?” Teddy said.

“If you do, you're not acting like it,” she said. “You haven't been acting anything like yourself lately.”

“And how do I act like myself?” he said. “Do I have to get a Teddy app?”

“By being funny. The guy I wanted to be friends with was funny.”

“You want me to tell more jokes?”

“This is no joke.”

“I was trying to be funny Teddy.”

“Well, it's not working,” she said.

She stood up, picked up a rock, and tried to throw it as far as she could across the water. She nodded like she was satisfied with the throw, and sat back down. “You know what you're starting to do? You're starting to act as dumb as Jack did when he quit baseball to punish himself for his brother dying.”

“Wait a minute!” Teddy said. “You were the one who told him not to play if he didn't want to play.”

“Until I found out why he wasn't playing.”

“You're right,” Teddy said, because she was.

“I was right about him, and I'm right about you. You're still mad at him leaving, but you can't see that the worst part for you, the time you missed with him, is already over.”

“And you figured this out all by yourself? Maybe when you become a TV star, it should be doing one of those shows like Dr. Phil.”

It got a smile out of her. “My mom might have helped me with some of it,” Cassie said. “My grandma and grandpa divorced when she was six. And guess what? She survived!”

“Did I ever say I'm not going to survive? You're acting as if I'm not just walking around underneath a dark cloud, I
am
the dark cloud.”

“Whatever,” she said. “You want to know my biggest problem with this whole thing? You've already made up your mind that you don't like the guy, forget about ever loving him.”

“Not gonna happen.”

“But you don't have any idea what he's like! You're the one who says the two of you have never talked. How about talking to him before you decide he's a jerk?”

“Not a jerk. An idiot.”

“You know this . . .
how
?”

Teddy looked at her. “Because only an idiot would leave my mom.”

He was the one who got up now, walked around until he found a good throwing stone, and cut loose.

“Good arm,” she said.

“Thanks.”

“You might have the best arm in our grade after Jack,” she said, before adding, “Out of the guys.”

“I'd rather catch.”

“Even when you're catching heat from me?”

“I could've said no when you told me what you wanted to talk about,” he said. “But I have found out, the hard way, that it's best for me to keep an open mind with you.”

“So keep one with your dad!” she yelled.

He sat back down and looked down at the water. It was weird, he thought. It was like different water now that he wasn't afraid of it anymore.

“You're like that woman Mrs. Henson was quoting to us in English the other day,” he said. “Often wrong, never uncertain.”

“Well,” she said, “the second part is right.”

In her mind, she hardly ever
was
wrong. But he still liked being with her. He knew she was trying to be a good friend today. She was just doing it in her own way: by being a know-it-all. But the way she did it, with a smile, made it hard for Teddy to ever get really mad at her.

“You just like him because he told you how smart you were the other night, and that you were going to be on ESPN someday. I think I might have even seen some blushing after he did.”

“Don't make me mad.”

“You know what makes me really mad about him?” Teddy said. “That he acts like all he has to do is show up now and he gets all his dad privileges back. Like practically taking over the end of practice.”

“Maybe it's just his way of trying.”

“Or maybe he just thinks he's so cool he can win everybody over, including me.”

“Maybe,” Cassie said. “But you don't know that yet.”

“I still think he's an idiot for leaving my mom and hurting her.”

“Is that what this is about? Or that he left you? And hurt you?”

“And now I'm just supposed to let it all go, is that what you're saying?”

“Yup,” she said. “Let . . . it . . . go.”

“Are you ready to go?”

She jumped to her feet. “I am!”

“Before we go, can I ask you one serious question?” he said, trying to make his face serious.

“Sure,” she said.

“If you do get on television, which Simpsons character do you think you'll be?”