The Rookie Bookie

by L. Jon Wertheim

  I was happy Jamie had made the right call. And I was happy that the system was working already. But I also felt a tiny bit jealous. Especially when she gave me a smug look that said Top that, pal!

  So I tried to. I slid right next to Coach Williams. “Throw a pass on first down,” I said, remembering how Neil was most successful when he threw the ball right away. Nodding, Coach Williams called for a passing play. Neil took the ball, scooted a few steps to his right, and threw it to Nathan Isaac.

  Ever since his embarrassment earlier in the season, people had been calling Nathan “the Wrong Way Kid,” and his YouTube views had grown to over 2.5 million at this point—but this time he made sure he was headed in the right direction, gaining nine yards. On the Jonasburg side of the stands, the fans shrieked and cheered. On the sidelines, I shot Jamie a look. Not bad, huh? Your turn.

  As the teams went back and forth, Jamie and I had our own little game, trying to come up with the better idea to give Coach Williams. At the end of the first quarter, neither team had scored. But then Jonasburg struck at the beginning of the second quarter. Throwing the ball again on first down, Neil took a few steps back, looking for a receiver. Just as the Clarksville tacklers were getting ready to grab him, he flung the ball downfield as far as he could.

  Three Clarksville players were waiting in the end zone, ready to make the interception. But, fortunately, Kevin was there, too. As if climbing some invisible ladder, he jumped up higher than the players on the other team. At the height of his leap, he caught the ball and held on to it when he landed. Touchdown!

  The band started playing; the cheerleaders started jumping. I turned to the Jonasburg section of the crowd, just in time to see my parents kiss. Ick. On the field, players smacked Kevin on the back of his helmet. He calmly flipped the ball to the official, like he hadn’t done anything special. I could hear his voice in my head. When you score a touchdown, act like you’ve been there before, Mitch.

  When the halftime horn sounded, Jonasburg was leading 7–0. As the team trotted off to the locker room, Jamie and I walked to the concession stand. Of course, Ben Barnes was already there, picking up his order of nachos with a corn dog lying on top in the middle. “Hey, guys,” he said. “Have a bite, and I promise you won’t make that face.”

  “No, really, it’s okay,” Jamie said. “Some of us want to live to be adults.”

  Just then a woman poked Jamie on the shoulder.

  “Oh, hey, Mom,” she said.

  I almost didn’t recognize Mrs. Spielberger. She wasn’t wearing her usual fancy clothes and sunglasses that even I could tell were expensive. Instead, she was dressed up in maroon and gold and even had a whale painted on the side of her face.

  “Hey, guys!” she said. “I don’t know what you’re doing, but it seems to be working. Dad is explaining football to me and I think I’m starting to get it!”

  Right about then, I saw my parents.

  “Your dad and I are so proud,” Mom said. “We’re sitting up there and can’t believe that both our kids are on the field at the same time!”

  “And you’re both following your bliss,” Dad said.

  I wasn’t sure what he meant, but his hippie talk was starting to grow on me a little. It might actually be kind of cool that he used words that no other parents used.

  “I’m glad we found you right now, Mitch,” said Dad. “They’re about to make our announcement.”

  Before I could ask what he meant, the band finished up the halftime performance, the baton girl caught the stick she had thrown a mile in the air, and then the announcer’s voice boomed: “Another round of applause for the Whales marching band. And a reminder, this halftime show was brought to you by Sloans’ Creations on Seventh Street, Jonasburg’s oldest art studio. That’s Sloans’ Creations, for the grooviest paintings, sculptures, and fine art in Indiana.”

  Dad had wrapped his arm around Mom’s shoulders. “You always told us to advertise,” he said. “We had some extra money after all the sales we made in the last few days. So we figured why not do it at the biggest football game of the year?”

  I didn’t know what to say. So I quickly looked around to make sure no one was watching, then I hugged Mom and Dad.

  “Let’s go, Mitch!” Jamie called. She was already halfway back to the sidelines.

  Before the second half started, Coach Williams met up with Jamie and me, asking if we had any last-minute advice. Again, she was right on top of it. “You might want to give the officials a friendly reminder that Clarksville hasn’t been called for pass interference once this entire season!”

  I could tell he liked that one. With Jamie and me trailing behind like a rudder on a boat, Coach Williams found two officials and put his arms around their shoulders. “Great game so far, gentlemen,” he said cheerily. “Just a gentle reminder: Watch for the pass interference when we throw the ball. Crazy as this sounds, Clarksville hasn’t been called for that penalty once all year. Can you believe it?”

  The officials didn’t answer. In fact, their faces were as still as statues. They just kept staring straight ahead. But, in the nicest way possible, Coach Williams had planted a little seed in their brains. He’d just gently suggested that maybe, just maybe, the refs at all of Clarksville’s other games hadn’t really been doing their jobs.

  So now these refs would want to look better. If pass interference was going on, they’d be the ones to catch it.

  The third quarter played out a lot like the first two. Clarksville would march the ball downfield, but the Jonasburg defense would eventually stop them. Then Jonasburg would head the other way, but the Clarksville defense would prevent any scoring.

  With a few minutes left in the quarter, Jonasburg had the ball near midfield. It was third down, and Neil threw a pass to Kevin. The defender and Kevin both jumped for it, and it looked to me like the defender hit Kevin’s hands before the ball did. But the whistle didn’t blow, so it was just an incomplete pass. With fourth down coming up, Coach Williams looked over at me. “I’m taking your advice, Sloan,” he said. “We’re going to go for it. We’re not going to punt.” He took a deep breath and added, “If we’re going down, we’re going down swinging!”

  But it turned out that Coach Williams didn’t even have to make the choice. It came a few seconds later than normal, but a yellow penalty flag flew through the air and landed softly on the ground. The ref signaled pass interference on Clarksville. The fifteen-yard penalty made it first down, Jonasburg.

  Who knows? Maybe the refs would have seen that pass interference even if Coach Williams had said nothing. But Jamie and I like to think we had something to do with that penalty. The power of suggestion.

  Even after they got the benefit of the very first pass interference call made against Clarksville all season, Jonasburg failed to score. And then Clarksville failed to score. Then Jonasburg. Then Clarksville. In the week heading up to the game, I heard a radio announcer predict that it would be “a high-scoring affair.” I kept wondering how he felt about that prediction as I looked at the scoreboard and saw the numbers frozen—Home 7, Away 0. All the while, the time on the clock kept dwindling down.

  And then it happened. A play that made me feel sick to my stomach. With barely four minutes to go in the game, Jonasburg had the ball at the ten-yard line. The Whales were ninety yards away from scoring another touchdown, but if they played it right, they could run out the clock.

  On first down, Neil passed again. This time, he tossed a quick pass to Kevin, who caught the ball cleanly. He danced away from a Clarksville player but then headed backward—never a good idea—and slipped on a wet patch of grass. As he tried to catch his balance, the ball squirted right out of his hands.

  Kevin lunged, but a Clarksville player beat him to it, pouncing on the ball like a cat on a mouse. Suddenly, Clarksville had the ball at the one-yard line, thirty-six inches away from tying the game. Or maybe even winning.

  The Clarksville crowd shrieked. The Jonasburg crowd groaned. Coach Williams l
ooked like he had just seen a ghost. Kevin lay on the field, both hands on his helmet.

  This was awful to watch. It wasn’t fair, but I knew how sports worked: If Jonasburg lost the game, he would be blamed for it.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the expression on Jamie’s face. “It’ll be okay, Mitch,” she said, sounding more like she was trying to convince herself than like she actually believed it.

  As usual, Coach Williams was upbeat. “It’s okay,” he said, clapping his hands together. “We’re just gonna have to stop ’em.”

  And Jonasburg did on the first play, tackling a Clarksville running back almost as soon as he got the ball. And they did on the second play, too, when A.J. Kumar tackled the Clarksville quarterback right at the line of scrimmage. On third down, Jonasburg stopped Clarksville again, this time batting away a pass.

  Just like that, it was fourth down. One yard to go. Three minutes left in the game. Jonasburg 7, Clarksville 0. Fans on both sides of the field were going positively nuts.

  Clarksville called a time-out. They had a big choice to make. Would they go for it or kick a field goal? The field goal was almost a sure thing. But if they made it, the score would be 7–3 and they would have to score again. And since their defense had been solid all second half—Jonasburg hadn’t scored a point since the touchdown—they were likely to get the ball back. Going for a touchdown, on the other hand, would be riskier. But it would have more reward, too. If they scored, they’d probably tie the game.

  After the time-out, the Clarksville players ran onto the field, including their kicker, who began practicing, whipping his foot through the air.

  Something didn’t feel right to me. Without even thinking about it, I tapped Coach Williams’s elbow. “Call time-out,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “Call time-out,” I said. “It’s a fake.”

  He made a T with his hands, and the referees called time-out. Coach Williams turned to me and walked us a few feet away from everyone else.

  “What’s this about, Mitch?”

  “They’re going to fake the field goal.”

  “How do you know?”

  That was a good question. And I didn’t have time to explain it. But when Jamie and I were running the gambling pool, we noticed that our customers hated losing ten dollars a lot more than they liked winning eight dollars. When they won, they were happy, but it was like they had expected it. When they lost, it really stung.

  And they would do anything to prevent feeling that way.

  Clarksville had probably come into this game expecting to win. Looking at our record all season, they had every reason to think they’d beat us, just like so many other teams had. And now they had the ball on the one-yard line. In their minds, that was practically a touchdown.

  But they hadn’t gotten it yet. They’d gained zero yards in their last three plays, and they were looking at losing the six points they’d thought they’d already won. They would do anything not to let that happen.

  The Clarksville players seemed to indicate a fake field goal, too. They were pretty hyper, even anxious. Like they couldn’t wait to hike the ball. Also, I noticed that they had three players on the field who they normally didn’t use for kicks. Because I had watched all that film with Jamie on Clarksville’s games, I now noticed that numbers 50, 77, and 66 were replaced by numbers 12, 34, and 80. That said to me that something different was going on.

  They weren’t going to settle for three points. They weren’t going to try for a field goal.

  “Just trust me,” I said firmly.

  “Okay, guys!” Coach Williams said, walking back to the team. “Prepare for the fake field goal. My secret weapon thinks they’re going for the touchdown.”

  The teams charged back onto the field. Clarksville again lined up for the field goal. The ref blew the whistle to start play. When the Clarksville center snapped the ball to the holder, he immediately stood up and began to run. A fake! Just as I suspected!

  And just as every Jonasburg player expected. They chased the runner down before he’d gone five steps. It was hard to say who actually tackled him, because any of a dozen arms grabbed the poor kid and pushed him back several yards to the ground. He didn’t come close to scoring.

  Coach Williams looked at me and winked. The Jonasburg players on the sidelines and their fans in the stands went crazy.

  Secret weapon? I kind of liked that.

  Jonasburg got the ball back. Now, if this were one of those sports movies, we would go on to score the winning touchdown in the last second. But that didn’t exactly happen.

  It didn’t need to.

  Without turning to us for advice, Coach Williams looked calm as could be and addressed the team on the sidelines. “We want to run out the clock, guys,” he said. “Three things stop the clock. Who knows what they are?”

  Even in the last moments of the Big Game, Coach Williams was teaching. No wonder all the players like him, I thought to myself.

  Neil spoke first. “Running out of bounds, throwing an incomplete pass, and getting called for a penalty.”

  “Right! So no running out of bounds. No passing. No penalties. And no fumbling, Kevin Sloan,” Coach Williams said, smiling and winking. Kevin smiled back, relieved that his disaster hadn’t turned out to be so disastrous. “And we win this game!”

  And they did.

  Jonasburg ran three plays, got a first down, and then ran out the clock as time expired. The scoreboard froze.

  Jonasburg 7, Clarksville 0.

  The noise from the final horn was still hanging in the air when the Jonasburg fans stormed onto the field, jumping and dancing and shouting. A group of players ran over to Kevin. A few minutes earlier, he had almost cost his team the game. Now he was the hero, the only player to score. That’s sports.

  Suspended on his teammates’ shoulders, holding his helmet in his hand, sweat making his eye black streak down his cheeks, he looked into the crowd. When our eyes met, he just nodded. I nodded back. We practically had a whole conversation right there, without using a single word.

  I looked for Coach Williams, but he had thrown his ball cap up in the air and then sprinted to the fence, where his wife and children were waiting for him. I guess they weren’t going to have to change schools after all.

  Later, Coach Williams told me that Principal Pearlman had called him at home that night and said, “Let’s build on this next season.” It was his way of saying, You still have your job.

  As for Jamie and me, as soon as the game ended, we jumped into each other’s arms. Everyone else was hugging, so why shouldn’t we? Then we realized what we were doing and let go at the same time. Awkward. We bumped fists instead.

  “We did it!” she said. “How do you feel?”

  “Better than I ever did making lots of money,” I replied. “That’s for sure.”

  We walked off the field and were barely at the gate when we heard our names. It was Mr. Rafferty, whose smile was as big as a cantaloupe slice. He was standing with his wife. “Did you see these two on the field tonight?” he asked her. “Coach Williams told me that they’re his two star mathletes.” His wife rolled her eyes, but she was smiling, and Jamie and I were too happy to groan at his pun this time.

  While his wife was chatting with Jamie, Mr. R. turned to me, “You know,” he said, “I was really disappointed in you earlier this year. I had hoped you would see what you were doing was wrong and stop your little operation on your own. But when that notebook was discovered, I had to tell Assistant Principal Allegra what I’d seen.”

  “I know,” I said. “You’d tried to warn me. I didn’t want to listen.”

  “I believe in second chances, Mitch,” he continued. “You now have a second chance at this school. Use it wisely.” There were no puns, no jokes, and no usual goofiness in his voice. “Just remember, friends aren’t forged out of supply and demand, right?”

  Translation: Mitch, if people are nice just because you do things for them, then they’r
e not really your friends.

  I nodded and thanked Mr. R., who once again reminded me why he was my favorite teacher.

  As he and his wife walked off, Jamie and I started walking to meet up with our parents. But we were stopped again, this time by a tall, slender man wearing a hoodie. The words “Jonasburg Regional Hoops” were stitched on the front.

  “Hey, it’s Mitch and Jamie, right?”

  “Right,” we said.

  “I’m Coach Wahl!” he said excitedly. “Let me ask you guys something: What do you know about basketball?”

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  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Welcome

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1: The Winner’s Curse

  CHAPTER 2: Two for the Price of One

  CHAPTER 3: Liars Can Figure and Figures Can Lie

  CHAPTER 4: It Pays to Know the Score

  CHAPTER 5: Ka-ching!

  CHAPTER 6: Risky Business

  CHAPTER 7: Word of Mouth

  CHAPTER 8: Following the Herd

  CHAPTER 9: Underwater

  CHAPTER 10: Be Rich or Be Happy?

  CHAPTER 11: The Prisoner’s Dilemma

  CHAPTER 12: An Unfair Fight

  CHAPTER 13: What’s It Really Worth?

  CHAPTER 14: Risk and Reward

  CHAPTER 15: There’s No Rule Against Having Better Information

  CHAPTER 16: Part of the Team

  CHAPTER 17: Secret Weapon

  Copyright

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2014 by L. Jon Wertheim and Tobias Moskowitz

  Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Neil Swaab

  Cover art © 2014 by Neil Swaab

  Cover design by Michelle Gengaro