Two-Minute Drill (10 page)

Right behind Brett was Casey.

Like somehow even Casey knew what was going on, and even he didn’t want to hang around with a quitter today.

 

Scott thought Casey would come back right away.

He didn’t.

He kept waiting for his mom to come walking on the field, wanting to know what had happened.

She didn’t.

He’d left his watch up in his room when he and Chris had been studying, so he didn’t know what time it was, just knew the sky was starting to look the way it usually did when it was time to leave for practice.

Except there was no practice today.

Scott decided to practice kicking anyway, do something fun, have football be fun the way it used to be out here, before he kidded himself into thinking he could be a real player.

He walked over to the middle of the field, extra-point distance, trying to pretend he was Doug Flutie. Ready to try the Flutie dropkick.

Then he couldn’t help it, he could hear his dad’s voice inside his brain, telling him for what felt like the thousandth time that no matter how many people tried to tell Flutie he was too small to be a great football player, even when he was in high school, he never gave up.

The way Rudy never gave up.

He kicked the ball now.

Wide right.

No Casey to get the ball. He went and got it himself. Then he walked toward the woods alone, wondering if Doug Flutie or Rudy ever felt as low as he did right now.

He was in his room, door closed, when he heard the car in the driveway, looked out the window and saw it was his dad, coming home early like he’d said he would.

Scott heard the front door close.

Heard his dad calling out in his singsong way, “Honey, I’m home,” the way he always did. He had explained that’s the way dads did it on TV when he was growing up.

Finally, Scott heard his dad coming up the stairs, then knocking on his door.

“You in there?”

“Yeah.”

“All right if I come in?”

“Yeah.”

His dad opened the door and as soon as he saw Scott, he broke out into the biggest smile he had, like it was two or three for the price of one.

Scott wasn’t only dressed in his uniform, he even had his helmet on.

“I’m ready for practice,” he said.

In the end, Scott had worked it out for himself, decided it wasn’t about Mr. Dolan, or Jimmy, or Chris, or even his parents.

He was playing for himself.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t want to get out on the field in a real game. Scott still wanted that in the worst way, even if he
was
the worst player on the team.

But if it didn’t happen this season, well, he could live with that more than he could live with being a quitter. It wasn’t just Chris who didn’t want to hang around with a quitter.

Neither do I,
Scott thought.

When he got to practice, he thought Chris might at least act a little surprised to see him, but he didn’t.

“Hey,” was all he said.

“Hey,” Scott said back.

Then Chris nodded and put out his fist and Scott bumped him back, and they went out to stretch along with everybody else.

It turned out Jimmy had a “high ankle sprain.” Scott wasn’t sure how that was different from any other kind of ankle sprain, but Mr. Dolan said it was the worst kind and he wasn’t sure when Jimmy would play again. He was definitely out of Saturday’s game against the Lions.

Before they started scrimmaging, he said one other thing, making it sound as if he was addressing the whole team, even though Scott knew better.

“Let’s keep it clean tonight, okay?”

They spent most of tonight’s practice working on their “red zone” offense, which meant the offense tried to score from inside the other team’s twenty-yard line. Sometimes they’d start from the twenty, sometimes first-and-goal from the eight-yard line.

Scott watched every play from the sidelines, as usual.

Finally Mr. Dolan moved the ball back to midfield and told Chris, “Okay, it’s first down here, one minute left, no time-outs. Gotta score a touchdown to win the game.” If the offense did score, Mr. Dolan told them, the defense would have to to run laps afterward. If the defense held, the guys on offense would run.

As the offense went to huddle up, Mr. Dolan pointed at Scott and told him to get in at cornerback and cover Jeremy.

Scott didn’t think he could possibly have heard right.

“What did you say, Coach?”

“I said, I want you to take over at left corner.”

“But—” But, he wanted to say, I haven’t played one down at cornerback all season.

“Is there a problem, Parry?”

“No, sir.” Scott was fumbling around with his fingers, trying to get the strap on his helmet snapped.

“Then get out there.”

When Scott got to the defensive huddle, Bren Mahoney said to him, “We are
not
going to be the ones doing the running after practice. So here’s the deal, Parry: If Jeremy starts to blow past you, do what you do best and trip him.”

A couple of the other guys laughed.

Bren Mahoney said, “I get why Mr. D wants to pick on you for what you did to Jimmy. But why’s he have to pick on us at the same time?”

Mr. Dolan was in the huddle with the offense, calling every play. The first two were passes to Dave Kepp, who had replaced Jimmy at tight end. Dave ran out of bounds both times, the second pass gaining enough yards for a first down.

“Thirty-eight seconds left,” Mr. Dolan said, looking at his watch.

When the offense broke the huddle this time, Scott noticed Chris staring right at him, like he was trying to stare a hole right through him, holding the look as he walked up to the line, still looking at him as he bent down to take the snap.

Scott didn’t have to run over and ask him what was happening, because he knew.

Practice was about to come straight at him.

Scott immediately backed up five more yards and wished he could back all the way into the parking lot.

At least Bren Mahoney didn’t make it easy for Chris. Bren picked this play to blitz, and it must have surprised Chris’s blockers, because nobody picked him up. So as Jeremy Sharp made his cut to the right sideline, Scott could see Chris scrambling away from Bren to his right.

That was the last thing Scott saw as he turned and ran after Jeremy, who was ten yards past him already.

Scott had never rooted against Chris Conlan, but rooted against him now as hard as he could, hoping Bren would run him out of bounds or sack him, that the next thing he’d hear was Mr. Dolan’s whistle blowing.

He heard what felt like half the team yelling “Ball!” instead.

Scott knew he was beaten—badly—but also knew that you better turn around when you heard everybody yelling that the ball was in the air.

As he did, he saw the ball coming in his direction end over end, looking more like a punt falling to earth than one of Chris Conlan’s perfect spirals.

Whatever had happened, the pass was
way
underthrown.

“Aw, man,” he heard Jeremy Sharp say from behind him.

It wasn’t Scott fighting to catch up with Jeremy now, it was the other way around, Jeremy trying to come back and give himself a chance to make the catch.

Scott tried to do the same thing, putting the brakes on because he could see he’d nearly outrun the ball himself.

As he did, he got his feet tangled up.

As usual.

He didn’t need anybody’s help this time. He was just tripping himself up the way he always did, falling backward, unable to stop himself, not sure where Jeremy was in relation to the ball, not really caring.

Two things happened then, one amazing, one not so amazing.

The not-so-amazing thing:

Scott ended up on his butt.

The amazing thing:

The ball ended up in his lap.

He had intercepted the pass.

 

“You let me get it,” Scott said later in the car.

“Did not.”

“You threw it to me on purpose.”

Chris said, “You think I’d do that on the same day you tried to desert me? Nope. No way.”

It was Mrs. Conlan’s turn to drive them home after practice. From the front seat now she said, “Please tell me you two aren’t going to go on this way all the way to Scott’s house.”

Her face smiling at them in the rearview mirror.

“We’re done,” Chris said.

“No, we’re not,” Scott said, not letting go.

“You’ve never thrown a pass that wobbly in your life.”

“How many times do I have to tell you?” Chris said. “Bren hit me just as I released the ball.”

“I heard Bren say he hit you right after you released the ball,” Scott said.

“Who are you going to believe,” Chris said. “Your best friend or Jimmy Dolan’s?”

Scott didn’t say anything right away.

“I’m waiting,” Chris said.

“I believe you,” Scott said, adding, “I guess.”

They were pulling into his driveway by then. Scott thanked Mrs. Conlan for the ride and reminded Chris that they were studying together tomorrow even though there were teacher conferences, which meant no school.

Chris said, “So now I have school even when there’s no school.”

“Pretty much,” Scott said.

“Am I a lucky guy, or what?” Chris said.

Scott walked through the front door smiling, thinking it was funny how things worked out, how what had started out to be one of the worst days of his life had turned with him making that pick on Jeremy. How when the season started, he would have given anything to make a play like that, even in practice.

But that wasn’t what had him smiling.

He knew that one play wasn’t going to change things, not really.

No.

What had him smiling was that Chris Conlan had called him his best friend.

The Eagles beat the Lions the next Saturday even without scoring an offensive touchdown, even without Jimmy, their best blocker on offense and their best tackler on defense. Bren Mahoney ran back an interception all the way for one score, Jeremy Sharp returned the second half kickoff for a touchdown, and the final score was 12-6.

No extra points in the game. Nobody ever even tried to kick in their league, the teams always went for two points, but today nobody had been able to convert after any of the touchdowns.

Jimmy showed up for the game on crutches, though Scott noticed he was moving around pretty well without them a couple of times when he thought nobody was watching him.

Scott did a good job of avoiding him for most of the game, but with two minutes to go, Jimmy came over and stood next to him.

“Good game, brain,” he said. Then, “Oops, my bad. I guess you didn’t get in.”

Scott moved away from him.

Jimmy, hopping on his crutches, moved with him. “Ask you a question, brain?”

There was no way to avoid this guy, on the field or off. “Sure,” Scott said. “Why not?”

Jimmy said, “Why are you still here?”

“You mean why am I still here having a conversation with you?”

“You know what I mean. Why are you even on this team?”

Scott said, “None of your business.”

“You don’t do anything,” Jimmy continued. “The only guy on the team who likes you is Chris. So why don’t you just quit?”

Scott felt himself clenching his fists, trying to decide what hurt more, that Jimmy was saying these things or that he was saying all the things Scott had thought about himself all season, even after he made up his mind not to do what Jimmy wanted him to do.

He turned and looked at Jimmy.

“I’m sort of wasting my time here,” Scott said, “because I’m gonna tell you something you’re not going to understand.”

Jimmy frowned, not sure if he was being insulted or not.

“Watch it, brain. I only need one good leg to kick your butt.”

“Yeah, I know how tough you are. But even you have to know by now that if you knock me down, I’ll get back up.”

“Whatever. You still haven’t answered my question.”

“Sometimes,” Scott said, “guys love the game even if it doesn’t love them back.”

Now Scott walked away, walked down the sideline and cheered for Chris and the rest of the guys on offense as they tried to run out the clock.

For once, Jimmy didn’t follow.

Scott and Chris made a deal:

No matter what happened, in football or studying, neither one of them was going to talk about quitting the rest of the way.

Then they shook on it with a handshake Chris had invented, one so complicated Scott was sure he was changing it every time they shook on something, palms up, palms down, up high, down low, even a shoulder bump at the end.

Scott was going to work harder than ever on the practice field between now and the end of the season. Chris was going to work harder than ever in the study sessions they had left before his equivalency test, scheduled now for the Monday after the championship game.

With one game left in the regular season, they were 5-0 and had locked up the number-one seed. If the Lions, whose only loss had been to the Eagles, won their last game, they were going to finish number two and play the Eagles for the title.

“The football season feels like it just started,” Chris said, “but, dude, my
study
season feels like it’s gone on forever.”

“You’re doing better than you ever thought you would.”

“I don’t stink as much as I used to, put it that way.”

This was Friday afternoon, before practice. They’d finished studying, working only on English today, mixing up reading and writing. Scott didn’t let Chris get up now when something had him stumped—he explained that Chris wouldn’t be able to get up and walk around the room and even toss a ball to himself if he got stumped during the equivalency test. It didn’t work like that.