The Underdogs (17 page)

Ben came right back to Kendrick again, surprising Will with a first-down pass. Will was lucky to knock him out-of-bounds on the ten. Ben scored two plays later on a quarterback draw but hooked the extra point kick badly to the left.

26–20, Castle Rock. Sixty-five seconds left in the game. If the Bulldogs could score, if Hannah could kick the point . . . But there was a lot of work to do before that.

Less work after Will broke up the middle on the kickoff, cut to the right sideline, returned the ball all the way to the Bears' forty-five-yard line.

Under a minute now.

Hannah spoke in a huddle for the first time, right before Chris called their first-down play.

“Let's rock the Rock,” she said.

On first down, Castle Rock expecting a pass, Joe Tyler had Chris pitch it to Will, who got to the edge for ten yards. Chris had called two plays in the huddle, so they lined up quickly and Will went off tackle for ten more, cutting to the outside. He tried to get out-of-bounds this time to stop the clock but couldn't, so the Bulldogs were forced to burn their last time-out.

Thirty-five seconds left.

They were on the twenty-five now. Even the way Will was eating up yards, he knew they couldn't keep running the ball, not without time-outs. Chris, who'd never played quarterback before this season, who'd never been in this position before, was going to have to take some shots at the end zone soon.

On first down, Chris scrambled out of the pocket to his right, then back to his left, finally overthrew Johnny on the left sideline. On second down, though, Chris floated a ball perfectly over one of their linebackers, hit Tim right in stride.

But at the last second Tim took his eyes off the ball, wanting to see what was up ahead of him. The ball went right through his hands.

Third-and-ten. Ball still on the Bears twenty-five. Fifteen seconds on the clock. Chris pump-faked beautifully as if he really was going to take a shot at the end zone, then turned and dumped the ball to Will in the flat. Will caught it, spun away from their outside linebacker. There was daylight in the middle of the field, but he couldn't risk going there; if he didn't make the end zone, he was afraid the game would be over before Chris could get them lined up and spike the ball.

Will managed to get out-of-bounds at the seven.

Five seconds left.

Chris looked over to Will's dad for the play. One play to tie, to give Hannah a chance to win it with an extra point. “Draw play,” Chris said.

“Love it,” Will said.

Will shot a quick look at his dad. It was as if Joe Tyler was waiting for his son to look over. He nodded. Behind him, Will could see everybody in the stands, whether they were rooting for Forbes or Castle Rock, on their feet.

Will thought:
This is why I wrote the letter.

Chris pulled away from center as if he was going to drop back to pass again. But then he spun and put the ball on Will's belly.

The middle linebacker ran right past Will, going for the quarterback all the way. The hole was there now. The end zone right in front of Will.

He never saw Kendrick Morris coming from the side.

Just felt his legs go out from underneath him as Kendrick came into him with the rolling block that was as sure as a tackle.

Will kept his feet as long as he could, made sure to hold on to the ball, still felt as if he could make it even as he felt himself falling.

He came down at the one-yard line.

Hit the ground and heard the ref 's whistle as soon as he did, telling everybody at Shea that the game was over, that the Bull-dogs had come up one touchdown short of Castle Rock.

One yard short.

T
he ball was still sitting there in front of Will, at least until Kendrick Morris booted it away.

Somehow Will wasn't even surprised. The guy didn't even know how to act after making a simple first down; why would anything be different now? Helping his team win a great game like this didn't make him any less of a loser.

“Choked it down again, didn't you?” Kendrick said.

“Thanks for sharing, Kendrick,” Will said.

“All I ever hear about is how fast you are, how to beat Forbes we got to beat the great Will Tyler, how lucky we were to beat you last year,” Kendrick said, loud enough to be heard all over the field.

Ben Clark walked up now, tried to pull Kendrick away, telling him to chill.

“I don't have to chill,” Kendrick said. “We won.”

Ben Clark said, “We don't want to win like this.”

“You didn't have to tell me how to win the game,” Kendrick said to his own teammate. “Don't tell me what to do now.”

Kendrick looked at Will and said, “Who was the one could fly with the game on the line?” He banged his chest hard and said, “Special K was.”

Now one of the refs came walking over. “Son,” he said to Kendrick, “if I give you an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty after the game is over, you miss your next game. So I want you to zip it and walk away.”

Kendrick walked away but had one more thing to say, just loud enough for Will to hear.

“Who's the one can really fly?” Kendrick said.

Then he was off and running, making the flying motion that Braylon Edwards of the Jets made when his team won a big game.

“Don't listen to that jerk,” Tim said when Will was sitting with his teammates in front of their bench.

“Hard not to,” Will said. “I think they could hear him on the other side of the river.”

Joe Tyler came over then, pulled his son to his feet, pressed his forehead against Will's helmet. “You were great today,” his dad said.

“We still lost.”

“People will still remember how you played. That's what they remember. What you do, not what you say.”

The coach of the Bulldogs told them to all gather around him then, told them how proud he was of them, told them they became a real team today.

Then the Bulldogs, as much as the loss had hurt, were ripping into the snacks that Johnny Callahan's mother had brought, chips and cookies and even homemade brownies. But Will didn't want anything to eat or drink. He wanted to go home, go up to his room, close the door, deal with coming up one yard short against Castle Rock.

A loss like this?

Will didn't let go right away.

He took off his helmet, quietly slipped away from his teammates, walked around the bleachers, on his way to wait for his dad in the car.

But one last time today, there was Kendrick Morris. Like he thought he had to cover Will all the way to the parking lot.

“Know what the best part was?” Kendrick said, starting right in.

He had taken his shoulder pads and jersey off, was just wearing a gray T-shirt with his football pants. He'd taken off his cleats, but even in socks, he was bigger than Will. Smiling at him. One of the meanest smiles Will had ever seen.

Mean kid.

“What?” Will said in a tired voice.

“That you thought you had the game right before I snatched it back,” Kendrick said, pulling his arm back. “
That
was the best part.”

“Glad that rang your bell,” Will said.

“Oh yeah.”

And in that moment, Will couldn't help himself any longer.

“Can I ask
you
a question?” he said.

“Now you know I got answers for anything you throw my way, right? But go ahead, it pleases you.”

Will was the one smiling now. “Do you think we should stop talking before somebody starts to think
I'm
the jerk?”

It seemed to take a moment for it to register with Kendrick that he'd been insulted, maybe because of the pleasant tone of voice Will had used.

But when it did, Kendrick's smile disappeared and he was coming for Will, saying as he did, “You want some of me, little man?”

He came up a yard short.

Because Toby Keenan stepped out from the bleachers as if appearing out of nowhere, stepped right between Kendrick and Will.

“Beat it,” he said to Kendrick Morris.

Maybe it was the way Toby said it. Or the look on his face. Maybe it was just the size of him, towering over Kendrick the way he did.

The best Kendrick could do was, “Who are you?”

“The guy telling you to beat it. Unless you want a piece of me the way you wanted a piece of him.”

Kendrick opened his mouth, closed it, turned just like that and walked around the corner of the bleachers, moving so quickly it was like he was suddenly afraid he might miss the team bus.

Gone.

“He shouldn't have yelled at you,” Toby said. “I hate guys who yell like that.”

“Me too.”

It was still just the two of them behind the bleachers. Maybe the quiet between them seemed more pronounced because Kendrick was gone.

“What are you doing here?” Will said finally.

“I want to play,” Toby said.

It
turned out that Joe Tyler had done a good job guessing the sizes Toby would need for equipment if he ever did decide to play, including his head size for the helmet. The only place he guessed wrong was with the shoes. The ones he ordered were too small.

Even with that the shoes weren't big enough.

Joe Tyler told him, no worries, he'd contact New Balance in the morning and Toby would probably have his new shoes in time for Wednesday's practice.

“I'll tell them I need them ASAP for my game changer,” Will's dad said.

Toby looked down, the way he did a lot, Will had noticed. “I don't know about that, Mr. Tyler.”

“I tell Will all the time I can teach a lot of things on a football field,” Will's dad said. “But no coach in history, not one of the guys who coached the Steelers to the Super Bowl, has ever been able to teach big and fast.”

“You know how announcers are always talking about fans in a loud stadium being a team's twelfth man?” Will said. “You're gonna be a
way
different kind of twelfth man for us now.”

They were in the living room, shoe boxes open on the floor, Toby wearing his brand-new football pants, helmet and shoulder pads in front of him on the coffee table. When he'd been standing next to Joe Tyler, Will noticed that he was just as tall. And looked a whole lot broader.

Toby made their living room feel even smaller than normal just by being in it.

Will's dad said, “Can I ask you what changed your mind, if you don't mind telling me? I mean, other than that Kendrick kid running his mouth at Will the way he did?”

Now Toby looked up.

“I watched the game,” he said.

“I didn't see you,” Will said.

“Didn't want you to. I just wanted to see the team play for myself.”

Neither Will nor his dad said anything now, letting Toby tell it his own way. Will was wondering how much of an effort it took just for Toby to show up at the field, much less make the decision to get back in the game.

“I saw how hard you guys fought,” Toby said to Will. “When the game started, I thought you had no chance. Castle Rock, they just had more of . . .
everything.
But somehow you stayed with them. Then as the game went along, I can't explain it, but I started to see myself out there. Especially on their last drive, when one stop could have made the difference. And I'd always been taught—by my mom, anyway, before she left—that if you think you can make a difference in something, you have to try.”

Toby shrugged, tried to smile. “All I got,” he said.

“I'm glad,” Will said.

“We're all glad,” his dad said.

Then Toby said, “Mr. Tyler, you know about my dad.”

“I know your dad, son. My whole life.”

“So you know what he's like.”

“Yeah, I know what he's like when he gets around football.”

Will looked at the big guy, biggest in their grade by far, like he'd grown nine more sizes since he'd last played football in the fifth grade, somehow looking like a scared little kid talking about his own father.

Will thought:
And I think I've got problems in
my
life.

Toby said in a small voice, “I'm not gonna be able to keep him from coming to games.”

“Did you tell him you were going to play?”

“Last night, when I got home.”

“Was he happy to hear it?” Will's dad said.

Toby made a snorting sound. “Not too much makes my dad happy.”

“What did he say?” Will said.

“That it was about time I decided to man up; they already had one girl on the team.”