by Mike Lupica
Anna said, “Yeah, he’s totally cool with the whole thing, just like he always is. It’s my mom whose head nearly exploded.”
Anna explained that after she’d called her grandfather she’d told her mom what had happened. And that her mom had lit into her, saying that if Anna hadn’t been talking about family business with Kevin, none of this would have happened.
“My mom’s big on family,” Anna said. “Even bigger on the family business.”
Putting air quotes around family business.
“She said that it didn’t matter what I thought of the job my uncle Matt was doing, he’s the general manager of the team, and not me. And for me to stay out of his business.”
“But you just said it’s a family business.”
“Everybody in the family except me today.” She turned and looked at him. “What about your mom?”
“Still not happy about a reporter calling and interrupting the episode of Scandal she missed last week.”
Anna said, “That’s probably why my mom said she wanted to talk to your mom after we were at school.”
“That’s never good.”
“Sounds like they might want to be unhappy with the two of us together.”
Charlie checked his phone. Five minutes to the opening bell.
“This is going to go away, right?” he said.
“Yeah,” Anna said. “But maybe not as soon as we want it to.”
“Let’s just try to get through the day, and get me to football practice, without making any more trouble.”
Anna said that sounded like a plan to her.
It worked for the rest of the school day, even when Kevin joined them for lunch, asking Charlie about ten different ways how he could make up for this before Charlie told him that if he didn’t stop apologizing, then he was really going to get mad.
“I didn’t know what I didn’t know,” Kevin said.
“Happens to the best of us,” Charlie said.
“You’re a better friend than I am.”
Charlie said, “Not keeping score, dude.”
The rest of the day Charlie handled the jokes and teasing going from class to class, actually started to feel like maybe this really wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened to anybody, everybody looking at him differently, Charlie really not hating being treated like some kind of star.
Then he and Anna came walking out of school after the closing bell and saw the television trucks in front of Culver City Middle.
A first.
Both of them knowing who the trucks—and the reporters standing in front of them—were here for, a hundred percent.
“Really?” Anna said.
“Really,” Charlie said.
Then they turned right around and walked back into school and did the only thing they could do in an emergency like this:
Whipped out their cell phones and called their moms.
“This isn’t going to improve their mood,” Anna said.
“Not even a little bit.”
• • •
The highlight in front of the school, Charlie decided on the ride home, his mom driving and Mrs. Bretton sitting next to her, was when Mrs. Bretton first got out of the car.
She walked up to the reporters standing on the street, didn’t bother to introduce herself, and said, “I hope you all understand that if either of our children get so much as a camera pointed in their direction, your satellite trucks might end up parking in Encino for Bulldogs games. You do get that, right?”
Not raising her voice, or acting mad. Even smiling as she said it.
One of the reporters was a blond woman who Anna said looked like she could have been a Bulldogs’ cheerleader once.
She said to Anna’s mom, “And who are you exactly, ma’am?”
The mean look, all big eyes, that Anna would put on Charlie sometimes—he now knew who she got it from.
“Don’t ma’am me,” Mrs. Bretton said. “My married name is Bretton. That probably won’t mean much to you. But my maiden name is Warren. As in Joe Warren. As in my dad. As in the owner of the team.”
“We didn’t mean to upset anybody,” the blond reporter said. “We just all think this is kind of a cute story.”
“You want a cute story? I think a panda is about to be born at the San Diego Zoo. If you catch a break on the 405, maybe you can all make it down there before they close.”
Charlie’s mom took it from there.
“I am Charlie Gaines’s mom,” she said. “He’s twelve and when he left for school today, he wasn’t looking to get into show business beyond his very entertaining new podcast. And he’s certainly not looking to get into show business now. So back off, okay?”
She stood there with her hands on her hips, looking at all the reporters at once and said, “We done here?”
“Yes, m . . . Mrs. Gaines,” one of the male reporters said, barely stopping himself from ma’am-ing Charlie’s mom, probably afraid that one of the moms would take his microphone away and hit him over the head with it.
Charlie’s mom took his hand, Anna’s mom took hers, they got into the car and Charlie’s mom drove away.
“That,” Anna said, “was pretty cool.”
“Zip it, missy,” her mom said, whipping her head around from the front seat.
“Mom,” she said, “I was just trying to give you some props.”
“Thanks,” her mom said. “But what part of ‘zip it’ didn’t you get, daughter of mine?”
“The two mothers in this car have already had a long talk about this,” Karla Gaines said. “And we are in perfect agreement that the two of you have to make sure that you don’t do anything to keep driving this story, or draw any more attention to yourselves.”
“Mom,” Charlie said, “we didn’t go looking for attention. It wasn’t like I called a press conference or anything.”
“My father and brother are the ones who are going to do that,” Anna’s mom said.
“They’re calling a press conference?” Charlie said. “Because of this?”
“They figure they need to put a stop to this now,” Anna’s mom said. “And they think the best way to do it is to tackle it head-on. And then hope it goes away.”
“But you do understand that Charlie had nothing to do with any of this, right, Mom?” Anna said.
“Doesn’t matter,” Charlie’s mom said. “Charlie’s the one who’s out there. And it doesn’t just involve him, it involves your family, too.”
“And that,” Mrs. Bretton said, “is why the two of you are going to help by not saying another word about this that could end up in the media. Which to the two of you means social media. Got it?”
“Got it,” Charlie and Anna said, like they were using the same voice.
It happened a lot, good times and bad. Like they were thinking the same thoughts.
“All I’m going to try to do is have a good practice with the Cardinals,” Charlie said. “They’re the only team I’m going to worry about for the rest of the day.”
He meant it, too. Meant it when they dropped Anna and her mom off, meant it all the way into his pads and to Memorial Field.
It just wasn’t the way things worked out.
Seventeen
ALWAYS, FROM THE TIME CHARLIE had become the kind of sports fan that he was, he had read and heard the same thing from athletes: No matter what was happening to them off the field, they could find shelter—or refuge, or peace—on the field.
It was what he had been looking forward to at the end of this day, after all the craziness of the last twenty-four hours. Even if it hadn’t been twenty-four hours since Mr. Fallon, whether he’d meant to or not, had turned Charlie into the most famous seventh grader in Los Angeles.
It was Sean Barkley, the guy on the team who did even more talking than Kevin Fallon, who
started in on Charlie as soon as they were on the field stretching.
“Hey,” Sean said in a loud voice to his teammates, “you think our QB has to worry about his job now that Gaines gets to decide who plays QB for the Bulldogs? What’s up with that, Jarrod, you feel like you got to be watchin’ your back?”
Jarrod Benedict said, “I think I’ll be fine.”
Usually Sean Barkley was funny, not trying to sound mean, had even been giving Charlie props ever since he’d spotted that formation against Redondo Beach and set Sean up for the interception that had saved the game. But today it was Charlie’s turn to be on the receiving end of Sean’s chirp, Charlie telling himself to make sure he laughed along with everybody else, whether he thought it was funny or not. Not wanting to be the guy who thought everything was funny until it was about him.
“You hearing this, Coach?” Sean said.
“I think people in Tijuana are hearing you, Sean, as a matter of fact,” Coach said. “Maybe people in outer space.”
“Coach,” Sean said, “I’m just worried Gaines here might branch out, tell you to put somebody else besides me at wide-out when you give me a chance to play offense. Or have somebody else covering the other team’s best wide-out, like I usually do so brilliantly.”
“I think you’ll be fine, Sean, really I do,” Coach said, grinning.
Charlie’d always thought it was as if Sean Barkley was trying to model himself after Charles Barkley on television. Or maybe thought the two of them were distant relatives.
“Why don’t we just get ready to play now, Sean,” Jarrod Benedict said, but couldn’t resist adding, “I am still playing, right, Charlie?”
That got a laugh out of most of the Cardinals, making Charlie think it was all right to join in.
“Long as you keep winning, JB,” Charlie said.
Thinking—hoping—that might get everybody to move on to something else.
Like maybe football.
As the players were strapping on their helmets, Coach came over and put an arm around Charlie.
“You okay with Sean busting your chops a little?” Coach said.
Charlie said, “I didn’t think I had much of a choice.”
Coach Dayley walked him away from the other players and said, “Lot of football coaches think they’re deep thinkers, Charlie. From Pop Warner right up through the NFL. But I’m not one of them.”
Charlie not sure where he was going with this.
“I’ll never know as much about the game as you do, Coach,” he said.
“I’m not talking about football right now,” Coach Dayley said. “I’m talking about how we’re all supposed to live our lives when there’s no game going on.”
Charlie waited.
“What I’m trying to tell you,” Coach said, “is that it doesn’t matter who you are or how young or old you are, eventually it’s going to be your turn to stand alone onstage.”
“Onstage?”
“Just an expression, Charlie. A way of telling you that when it’s your turn, you may have to take a different kind of hit than you do on the football field, and there’s not a darn thing you can do about it.”
Coach Dayley blew his whistle then, yelled at the rest of the team to gather at midfield. They’d had their fun with Charlie today, now it was time to have bigger fun, which to him always meant hitting somebody.
“Can I ask you something?” Charlie said to Coach Dayley as the two of them walked to midfield.
“Shoot.”
“How do I get off the stage?”
Coach smiled, banged a fist on Charlie’s right shoulder pad.
“You just have to wait until it’s somebody else’s turn.”
• • •
It turned out to be a really good practice, lots of good plays on both sides of the ball, Charlie even making a couple of solid tackles.
One of them came with just a few minutes left, Coach Dayley having announced that the offense would get three more downs to try to score. Sean Barkley moved back to offense by then, Coach using him as a third wide receiver the way he did sometimes in games.
And on the second-to-last play of the day, the offense went with one of Coach’s versions of the end around, Jarrod pitching the ball to Sean.
Who thought he was as good and fast with the ball in his hands as Kevin Fallon was, even though everybody on the Cardinals knew better. Sean was good. And he was fast. Just not as good and fast as Kevin.
Most of the guys on D had taken the bait when Jarrod faked a handoff to Kevin, getting ready to chase him the way they usually did. So somehow Charlie ended up alone in the right flat with Sean Barkley—who was a lot faster and better than Charlie Gaines—coming right at him.
Charlie figured Sean wouldn’t try to run him over, that wasn’t his style, he thought he had more moves in the open field than LeBron James had in the open court.
So there was only one question for Charlie to answer, in the moment:
Inside or outside?
Sean was the one who made the first move, a little lean to his right, to the outside, dropping his shoulder.
But in that moment Charlie outthought one of the best players on their team. He knew this wasn’t just a little bit of a head-and-shoulder fake, that Sean really was planning to go that way, take it to the outside and then all the way to the house, that he planned to end practice right now, by running right past Charlie Gaines.
Who read the move and read the play the way real linebackers did in moments like this, when they were the ones out there alone.
Moving to his left as Sean took a big step to his right, doing what the coaches always told him to do, making himself as wide as possible while staying as low to the ground as possible. Keeping himself in front of Sean and giving him no room to get to the sideline.
Then dropping his own shoulder and wrapping his arms around Sean’s legs, doing that as he drove him back.
Before he just buried him.
The next thing he heard, still on top of Sean Barkley, was Coach blowing his whistle again and saying, “You know what, boys? I think we’ll just go ahead and end today with a lick like that.”
Charlie rolled off Sean, got to his feet first. And even after the way practice had ended, extended a hand to help him up.
Not sure how Sean would handle it.
But Sean just reached up, smiling, took Charlie’s hand, and let out a low whistle and said, “Look at Brain. Taking me down.”
And this time it was Charlie who couldn’t resist talking.
“Wasn’t my brain that put you down, Sean,” he said. “That was just me.”
A little chirp from the kid onstage.
Eighteen
FOR ONCE AT DINNER CHARLIE got to talk about his own football, not somebody else’s, telling his mom all about his tackle on Sean, telling her what he said after Sean called him Brain.
When she asked Charlie how his teammates were reacting to what she called his sudden fame, he told her that there’d been some jokes and chop-busting, but that mostly they were cool with him. And that he was cool with them.
Which he really was, thinking that it hadn’t been all that bad and could have been much worse if the Cardinals weren’t as close as they were.
“So what could have been a rough day wasn’t,” his mom said.
“Not gonna lie, Mom,” he said. “I felt like The Man making that tackle.”
“I still can’t believe that the Warrens feel as if they need to hold a press conference,” she said.
“Anna says it was mostly her uncle’s idea, because he thinks he’s the one taking the most heat. But he sincerely does think it’s the best way for everybody to move on and get past this. Her uncle Matt told her mom that it doesn’t take much for little things to become big things in sports. Especially in L.A.”
“Not just sport
s,” she said. “But even understanding what everybody on the outside sees in the entertainment value of all this, I’m with good old Uncle Matt: Let’s move on.”
“But you still think it’s all right for me to think there’s a fun factor to all this?” Charlie said.
“Honey, it’s perfectly all right. You’re twelve and an instant celebrity and you have a right to feel like this is an adventure. But I also don’t want the TV trucks showing up in front of our house now that they came to your school.”
“You were great at school.”
“Not gonna lie to you,” she said. “That did feel pretty good.”
“Like me taking down Sean?”
They both laughed. Then his mom held up a finger and said, “Just remember the rules about not becoming Mr. Social Network.”
“I know them better than my homework.”
He went upstairs then, did what little homework he had on this night. When he was finished he took a deep breath, opened up Google, typed in Charlie Gaines, felt his eyes getting big as he saw how many hits there were.
Tried to decide if he wanted to keep going.
A writer he liked a lot had spoken at Culver City Middle School when he was on a book tour last year and said he never Googled his name to see what people were saying about him. When Anna—of course, Anna—raised a hand and wanted to know why, the writer said, “If I don’t know them, why should I care about what they only think they know about me?”
But the writer wasn’t twelve and feeling like his life was like some ride at Disneyland all of a sudden.
So he read some of the stories written by people who didn’t know him, discovered that nobody was picking on him, they were mostly having fun with Mr. Warren and Matt. Some of it was pretty mean, he had to admit, Charlie figuring it would be even worse if the Bulldogs hadn’t played as well as they had in their opening two games.
And—much more important—if Tom Pinkett hadn’t been playing as well as he had.
One NFC West blogger at ESPN.com said that if the Bulldogs were going to let a boy wizard call the shots, wouldn’t they have been better off just going with Harry Potter?
