The Underdogs (20 page)

Joe Tyler had checked with the league, just making sure: they could play with ten if they ever had to. But with every game the rest of the way feeling like a playoff game, that would be a total disaster.

What if somebody went down next week against Becker Falls? Or against Castle Rock, if they made it that far?

Will thought of one of his dad's favorite expressions: You want to make God laugh? Tell Him about your plans. His dad knew better than anybody, because the plans he'd had for his life hadn't turned out anything like he'd expected them to, or wanted them to.

For now, Will stretched out in the end zone, put his ball underneath his head like a pillow. It wasn't dark yet, but Will could still see the first stars in the sky.

For tonight he wasn't going to worry about what might go wrong; he was going to think about what was going right, what a great season it had been so far. Oh, he wished they could have beaten Castle Rock, no doubt, wished he hadn't come up a yard short against those guys. But he knew he would have signed up for a record of 2–2 when the season started, signed up for the chance to go into second place next Saturday, knowing that a win would give the Bulldogs the tiebreaker on Becker Falls as long as they kept winning.

Today they'd even gotten lucky with Toby's obnoxious dad; he'd decided not to make the trip to Merrell.

Yeah, life was good.

And had he mentioned in the past few minutes that Hannah Grayson said she liked him?

“Hey.”

The voice startled him. But he recognized it right away.

Tim.

“Hey, Thrill.”

As soon as Will sat up, Will could see from Tim LeBlanc's face that something was wrong. Real wrong. Will thinking he looked the way he had the first time they'd watched
The Express
together, because Tim hadn't known that Ernie Davis was going to die in the end, either.

“Don't worry,” Tim had said that day. “You're never gonna see me cry.”

Until now.

“We're moving,” Tim said.

T
his wasn't about losing a player.

This was about losing the player who was his best friend, from the first day of first grade and every day since then.

Losing him to Scottsdale, Arizona. In eight days. All because his dad had gotten a better job, a much better job, at a software company there.

Tim explained it all to Will, how if his dad hadn't said yes right away, somebody else's family would be moving to Scottsdale. How the company had already found them a house to rent while they looked at one to buy. How it was already arranged that Tim and his sister could start at the best middle school in Scottsdale a week from Monday.

“You think you're fast, Thrill?” Tim said. “This all happened faster.”

Will knew Tim's dad was always sending out job applications, tired of having to commute to Pittsburgh, tired of living half his life in his car. And, according to Tim, never believing the job in Pittsburgh would last; that's why Mr. LeBlanc hadn't moved them there.

But now they were moving to Arizona. Done deal. Tim's dad had found out that morning, but wanted to wait until after the Merrell game to tell Tim and his sister. Tim said he'd called Will right away, but he'd already left for Shea.

Now here they were, just the two of them, the way it had been so many other times in their lives. Just never like this.

“We leave next Sunday,” Tim said. “My dad said I can still play in the Becker Falls game, on account of it being such a big game.”

“I don't care about the stupid game!” Will said, the force of his own words surprising him. “I care about you leaving!”

“The first thing I told my dad when he told us was that I couldn't leave the team,” Tim said. “And he said he understood how I felt, but we were a family, and from the first day, we were gonna start our new life together as a family.”

“I liked your old life just fine,” Will said.

“Same,” Tim said. “Trust me.”

They sat there at Shea, lit only by the lights from the parking lot, sometimes going a few minutes without either one of them saying anything, because there was nothing for them to say, nothing was going to change the fact that Tim was leaving.

Will had never known his mom, so he'd never thought of her having left him the way his dad did. So there was nothing in his life that had ever made him feel as if he were being left behind, or alone.

Until now.

“I even asked my dad if I could live with you guys just until the season was over,” Tim said.

“That's an
awesome
idea!” Will said. “I'm sure my dad would go for it in a heartbeat.”

“Yeah, but mine didn't. He gave me his speech about family all over again.”

“Dads will do that.”

Tim said, “I'm gonna miss you most of all, dude.”

“I never felt cheated about not having a brother because I had you,” Will said.

“And that won't ever change. We can talk every night on the computer. Or do that Skype deal. And talk on Facebook as much as we want. The only thing you won't have to do is carry me in school anymore.”

“Facebook friends instead of Forbes friends,” Will said.

“And you can visit Arizona and I can come back here for a couple of weeks in the summer,” Tim said.

Trying to find all these ways of telling Will that things weren't going to be different. Even though they both knew that things between them would never be the same.

After a while, they finally ran out of ways to lie to each other about how this wasn't such a calamity after all.

Will said, “You want to come back to my house and hang out?”

Tim said, “Maybe tomorrow; I'm pretty whipped tonight.”

They walked together until they got to the corner of Knollwood, Tim's block, bumped fists and then shoulders the way they always did. Will walked the rest of the way to Valley alone, ball still under his arm. Trying to remember what he felt like when he'd taken the walk
to
Shea tonight.

Back when life was good. Before he found out that the part of Forbes, Pennsylvania, that mattered the most to him was moving away now.

His father was watching the Auburn-LSU game when Will walked through the door. He took one look at Will's face and immediately muted the sound. “What's wrong?”

“Tim's moving. His dad found a job in Arizona.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“I don't even want to
think
about it,” Will said.

“I know you don't want to hear this,” his dad said. “But you'll get through this.”

“What if I don't want to?” Will said.

“I'm here if you need me,” Joe Tyler said. “You know I'm not going anywhere.”

Will went upstairs, closed his door to close out the sound of the football game from downstairs. Turned on his laptop. They'd done all that talking about Facebook at Shea, so Will went to Tim's page now, even knowing exactly what it looked like, what pictures were on it, knowing how many were of the two of them, laughing their stupid heads off in just about every one of them.

They hadn't just talked about going to high school together, playing high school football together; they were already planning to go to the same college.

My best friend,
Will thought.

Where did he write a letter to change
that
?

Y
ou guys know I'm not big on speeches,” Will's dad said right before the Becker Falls game at Shea.

“You're joking, right, Coach?” Tim said. “You can't believe how many of your pre-game talks are on YouTube already.”

Tim being Tim, to the end.

Will knew it was an act, knew how much Tim was hurting, knew how it was eating him up to be playing his last game for the Bulldogs before his farewell pizza party at their favorite restaurant, Vicolo's, tonight.

But he wasn't going to let it show.

“Very funny,” Joe Tyler said.

“Keepin' it real, Mr. T.,” Tim said.

Will's dad went and stood next to Tim now, put his arm around his shoulders.

“I don't even want to think about playing the rest of the season without this knucklehead,” he said. “But for today, he's still a Bulldog. And we're all gonna do our best to put him on that plane with one more win.”

“This is your championship game today,” Will said to Tim. Then grinned and said, “So please don't you be the one who screws it up.”

“Win one for me!” Tim yelled.

And yet despite that rallying cry, it was 13–0 for Becker Falls before the first quarter was even over. They took the opening kickoff and went on a long drive, using only two short passes, the rest of the time just coming right at the Bulldogs with the first option offense they'd seen all season, mixing it up with their quarterback, tailback, fullback.

They were wearing the Steelers' modern-day colors, black and gold, and this was just old-fashioned, smashmouth football. And when the Bulldogs couldn't make a first down on their first series, the Panthers got the ball back and did the same thing again.

They weren't winning one for Tim now; they were losing one. Badly. It was why they started hearing it out of the stands the way they usually did when things started to go wrong.

And, as usual, it was just one, loud, constant, unhappy voice.

Dick Keenan's.

“They're doing everything except telling you the plays,”
he yelled.
“And you still can't stop them.”

After another play when the quarterback faked a pitch and kept the ball for a first down, they all heard this:

When Toby finally did fight off a couple of blockers, get into the backfield and bring the tailback down for a five-yard loss, this is what passed for positive reinforcement from his dad:

When the Bulldogs got the ball back at 13–0, Will's dad gave Toby a couple of plays off and sent in Hannah. In the huddle Tim said, “You know what I'm not gonna miss when I get to Arizona? Listening to that guy.”

Will said, “I have a feeling you'll still be able to hear him.”

“Well, let's go make some first downs,” Tim said, “that's the only way we can shut him up.”

And they did, going on a long drive of their own, Will carrying the ball most of the time. Chris hit Tim for a big play on third-and-twelve from the Panthers' thirty-two-yard line and Will followed up by blowing through a huge hole and scoring untouched from the Panthers' twenty for the Bulldogs' first score of the game. Hannah kicked the extra point and it was 13–7. After a Panthers fumble and a couple of traded punts, it was still 13–7 at halftime.

“Listen,” Joe Tyler said when he gathered them around him. “We're fine.”

Fine?
Will thought.

“We wouldn't be if their quarterback could throw even a lick,” Will's dad said. “But he can't. As big as he is, he's got a rag arm. So even though we're still gonna line up the same way as always on defense, I want our cornerbacks to think of themselves as just two more outside linebackers. As soon as they snap the ball, you're selling out on the run right away. If he wants to try to beat us throwing, I say, bring it on. We're not losing to these guys, I promise.”

Will said, “And we're not letting Tim go out with an
L.
”

One last time, with just one half left in his football season, Tim was Tim.

“I already have enough ways to be a loser,” he said.

But things didn't change at the start of the second half. The Bulldogs made a couple of first downs before getting stopped, Hannah punted, and the Panthers started in with their option running game all over again, pounding away.

So did Dick Keenan.

“You call that defense? 'Cause it's pretty
offensive
to anybody who knows anything about football.”

Both the quarterback and tailback from Becker Falls were almost as big as Toby. And it seemed that every time they lined up, they were sure to get four or five or six yards. Toby was trying to disrupt them, trying to move around right up until the ball was snapped sometimes.

Nothing worked for more than one play.

With three minutes left in the third quarter, the Panthers scored another touchdown. Only a great tackle by Toby kept them from making a two-point conversion.

“A stop!”
Dick Keenan yelled.
“Will wonders never cease?”

Joe Tyler was waving his players to the sideline, telling them to hustle over before the kick. On their way, Toby said to Will, “Sorry.”

“Don't you apologize,” Will said. “You're playing your butt off.”

“I'm talking about my dad,” Toby said. “If I could play better, maybe he'd yell less.”

“Don't start blaming yourself for the way he acts at games,” Will said. “You're not the problem. He is. So don't think about him.” He pointed to where the Panthers were getting ready to kick. “Think about the two scores we're gonna put on them between now and the end of this game.”

Will's dad knelt down in the middle of the circle, telling them they were going to go to a no-huddle offense on the next series, telling Chris the first three plays they were going to run.