The Underdogs

by Mike Lupica

  “Fine with me,” she said. “Your ball or mine?”

  “Your call.”

  “Yours.”

  Will handed her his ball, which looked a lot older, a lot more worn than hers. Hers had that shiny feel you got with one just out of the box.

  “You want me to be your holder?”

  She said, “No, thank you.”

  He noticed she was wearing khaki-colored shorts with big pockets on them that came to her knees, old Converse sneakers with no laces, and a black Manchester United T-shirt. A pretty cool shirt, Will thought.

  She placed the ball gently in a patch of grass that was a little higher than what was around it, getting it to stand up on its own. Placing the ball like she knew what she was doing.

  When it was just right, she said, “There.” Not to Will. Merely pleased with herself that the ball was the way she liked it, tilted just slightly toward her. Already Will had the feeling that this girl was pleased with herself a lot.

  Then she turned and measured off her paces, stopped and took two steps to her left, the way placekickers did in real games.

  Ready now.

  Well, almost.

  First, she smiled again at Will, her biggest one yet, like she was giving him the full force of her. “Sure you don’t want to call your last time-out and freeze me?” she said.

  “Sure you don’t want to put off throwing up a brick a little longer?”

  “I’m good.”

  She took a deep breath, blew it out hard, made her move at the ball on her long legs, planted her left foot, and swung her right leg through, soccer style, like a champ.

  In the quiet of Shea field, the sound of her foot hitting the ball was like a door slamming.

  They both watched the ball sail through the air, end over end, until it cleared the hedges with ease and disappeared onto Arch Street.

  She had buried it.

  She closed her fist and pumped her arm.

  “Yes!”

  Then she came over to Will and extended a hand to him.

  “Hannah Grayson,” she said. “Now you know somebody in town who can kick it that far.”

  CHAPTER 05

  Until now, Will thought he knew every seventh grader in Forbes, especially since the only private school in town, St. Cecilia’s, had been forced to close—not enough money to keep it open, either—and all kids his age went to Forbes Middle School.

  Not only had he never met this girl, he wasn’t sure he’d ever met a girl like her.

  She had been talking smack to him from the moment he’d shown up, chirping him, as Tim liked to say, and now she was trying to convince him to retrieve a ball she’d kicked into the street.

  “You have to get it,” she said.

  “Why is that? You kicked it.”

  “Kicked it farther than you thought I could. Right there is the reason why you should go get it.”

  She had a point, but Will wasn’t about to give ground. Mostly because he felt as if he’d been doing that since her first kick had caught him upside the head. He said, “Nope. You kicked it, you fetch it.”

  Hannah said, “Look at it another way. If we’d been shooting hoops, and I’d made a shot from the outside, who rebounds?”

  Will sighed. “I do.”

  Hannah didn’t say anything, just put her hands out like she was resting her case.

  “Okay, I give up,” Will said. He ran and got the ball where it was sitting in the middle of Arch Street and brought it back.

  “Where’d you come from?” he said.

  “Today?” she said. “Or in general?”

  “If you lived here, I’d know you. So you either just moved here or you’re just visiting.”

  “Just moved here.”

  “I didn’t think anybody moved to Forbes anymore,” he said. “Just away.”

  “That’s what my mom keeps saying to my dad. But he works for the company that owns a bunch of small newspapers in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio. So they sent him here to find out if the Dispatch is worth saving or if they should put it out of its misery.”

  “Like Forbes?”

  Hannah said, “You said it, not me.”

  The Forbes Dispatch, which still landed on Will’s front porch every morning, was the only paper in town, and even with that, it seemed to be getting thinner and thinner all the time. Will’s dad had been predicting for the last year or so that before long, it would be just one more business in Forbes to go under, and everybody in town would get their news from the Internet.

  “Does your dad think he can save it?”

  Hannah said, “You don’t know my dad, but he thinks if somebody put him in charge of the Pirates, he could get them turned around. He’s a little cocky that way.”

  “There’s a stunner.”

  She looked at him, hands on hips, trying to look offended, not selling it very well as far as Will could tell. “You’re saying I’m cocky?”

  “Only if I could dial you down a little.”

  She frowned, like she was trying to do a math problem in her head, Will figuring she was trying to think up a good comeback. But finally she surprised him and just said, “Good one.”

  “So you’re going into seventh?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “You play sports?”

  “I played soccer in Toledo. Center middie. Our team went unbeaten and won the states. But my dad says there might not even be a girls team this year in Forbes.”

  “Or boys. And not just in soccer.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “That must be a chafe for you.”

  “More than a chafe. One thing you could always say about growing up here is that you were growing up in football country. All of a sudden it’s like some kind of foreign country, at least on this side of the river.”

  “What are you going to do if there’s no season? Go play in Castle Rock? That’s what I might do in soccer.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a long story,” he said.

  Like the Hail Mary pass was. But he wasn’t going to share that with her. It would be just another way for her to make fun of him.

  “Why didn’t you guys move to Castle Rock?” Will asked.

  “My dad,” she said. “He said that if he was going to publish the Forbes newspaper, he was going to live in Forbes. Game, set, match.”

  Without either one of them saying anything, they sat down in the grass at the same time. Will offered her some Gatorade, but she’d brought her own. He asked where she lived and she said on Arch Street, not giving him the address.

  Will said, “I gotta admit: you do kick better than any guy I know.”

  “I can do most things better than most guys you know,” she said. “Like throw and catch. And hit a baseball. I’d say run faster, too, except after watching you play your little fantasy ball the other day, I’m not sure I could beat you in a running race.”

  “Wow,” Will said. “A compliment directed at somebody besides yourself?”

  “My dad says if you can do something, it’s not bragging.”

  Will said, “My dad says that when you get to the end zone, you’re supposed to act as if you’ve been there before.”

  She laughed. “Well,” she said, “at least that wasn’t an issue when I was watching you do your belly flop yesterday.”

  “It may have been a flop, but if you were watching, you noticed I landed on another part of my body.”

  “I’m surprised you couldn’t hear me laughing.”

  “I fell in a hole!”

  “Keep telling yourself that.”

  “Have you met any other kids since you moved?” Will said. “Or am I the first friend you’re not making?”

  “Ooh,” she said, “Willie gets off another good one.”

  “None of my friends calls me Willie. Ever.”

  “Who said we were going to be friends?”

  “Are you always this tough?”

  “How come when girls give it b
ack, they’re tough? And guys are just being guys?”

  “I give up,” he said.

  He looked over her shoulder then, toward the hedges, and saw Tim and Jeremiah Keating, who would have been their team’s best wideout this season, coming around from Arch Street.

  “Hey,” Will said, “we’re gonna have a game of touch in a few. You can hang around and play if you want.”

  Then he added: “Show my friends how much better you are than them.”

  “Maybe another time,” she said. “I’ve got somewhere I need to be.”

  Will couldn’t help it. “You’re not scared, are you?” he said.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Scared of the competition here in Nowhere, Pennsylvania.”

  She grabbed her ball and her Gatorade bottle. Stood up and over Will for a second. Then she started jogging down the field, toward the end zone where Will had fallen.

  There was a part of Will, a big part, hoping she would do the same.

  She didn’t. She had the ball in her right hand and when she got to the fading chalk line of the thirty-yard line, she stopped suddenly, planted like a quarterback who’d just avoided a rush, squared her shoulders, and fired a perfect spiral high in the air, as high as her kick had been.

  Splitting the uprights with the pass.

  This time Hannah Grayson chased down her own ball, picked it up and disappeared down the winding path that took you back to Arch Street. Gone, without looking back.

  By then Tim and Jeremiah were standing with Will.

  “Who was that?” Jeremiah said.

  Will exhaled. Loudly. Not quite sure where to start.

  “Boys,” he said finally, “that was a girl.”

  CHAPTER 06

  They played all afternoon.

  They’d finish a game and switch the teams around and then start another game. Five-on-five. Bobby Carrington, the team’s quarterback last season, hadn’t shown up, so everyone took turns playing quarterback.

  Now it was the last game of the day, since it was getting close to dinnertime. Only, the game wouldn’t end, so they finally came up with a variation of the overtime format used in college football.

  One team got the ball at midfield and if they scored, the other team had to score for them to keep playing. If the first team didn’t score, the other team could win with a touchdown.

  After two rounds of overtime—no more first downs. Score in four plays or turn over the ball.

  Both teams kept scoring anyway.

  And even though it was just a touch football game with a bunch of buds, even though most guys were dragging at the end, even though they all had dinner waiting for them, here was the thing: nobody would settle for a tie.

  Chris Aiello, the biggest guy on the field, said, “I’d rather lose than tie.”

  “Same,” Tim said.

  They were in their huddle. Will shook his head, grinning at them. “You know today’s result doesn’t count in the standings, right? It’s not going to affect our playoff position?”

  Chris said, “Are we keeping score today?”

  “Well, obviously,” Will said.

  “Then it counts. Now call a play so we can end this. I’m hungry.”

  Tim said, “When aren’t you?”

  They’d finally stopped Jeremiah’s team in what felt like the ninth overtime, but only because Jeremiah had dropped a wide-open pass in the end zone, not because anybody on defense had any legs left. So if Will’s team scored, the game would be over.

  Will said he’d play QB. He gave them all their pass patterns, then took the snap from Chris. Jeremiah, totally gassed now, was left to rush the passer. He loudly counted out until he got to five-Mississippi and then came after Will.

  Will gave one last look down the field and smiled to himself.

  Then he took off past Jeremiah. As soon as he did, he heard somebody from the defense yell out, “He’s running!”

  Will ran, taking it up the middle of the field at first. He’d sent Chris and Tim deep and now saw the guys who’d been covering them, Wes Blabey and Brandon Spikes, running toward him from both sidelines.

  They did have the angle on him and probably thought they could keep him in the middle of the field, where they could converge on him.

  But when they had almost reached him, Will put one of his best moves on him. He wasn’t quite at full speed—not yet—so he was able to plant a foot and spin, turning his back on Wes and Brandon, giving them what he called his 180, and just like that he was on his way to the right sideline.

  Leaving them in his dust.

  Will heard one of them say, “Get out of here.”

  That’s exactly what I’m doing, Will thought, running down the sideline.

  He gave one last look behind him, over his left shoulder, legs pumping, hearing his own breath, and saw that Jeremiah was still chasing the play.

  He might as well have been chasing a car.

  Will switched into that extra gear, just for the fun of it. He ran straight through the end zone, not doing anything fancy with the ball, no dopey dance steps. No showboating. It wasn’t his style.

  Act like you’ve been there before.

  He put the ball down on the end zone grass. Game over. At last.

  Tim got to him first. “You were gonna run it even if we weren’t covered, weren’t you?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “You’re a dog.”

  Will laughed now.

  “Pretty much,” he said.

  “You need a real game, dog,” Tim said. “We all do.”

  Will went back, picked up his ball, staring at it for a second in his hands, like it might have some kind of answer for him.

  “Tell me about it,” he said.

  It was close to six by then and the other guys were rushing home to dinner.

  Will was in no rush.

  His dinner would be there for him, he knew. His dad always made sure of that. Will didn’t know what was on the menu, just that the food would be either in the refrigerator or on the counter, waiting for him to heat it up when he got home.

  His dad was already on his way to Newtown by now, where he was taking a class at the community college. Joe Tyler called it a way of getting away from Forbes, even if it was only through books.

  So there was no schedule for Will, no set time for him to have his second meal of the day by himself. He walked up Arch Street instead, walked the ten blocks to Forbes High School, wondering if he’d already passed Hannah Grayson’s house along the way.

  Wishing she had been spying on him today at the end of the game, wishing she’d seen him take it to the house instead of getting brought down by a hole in the ground.

  Wondering why he cared what the annoying girl he’d just met thought of him.

  He stood on the sidewalk in front of the high school when he got there, looking at the old brick buildings, almost feeling as if he were looking at a picture in some history book. The whole place looked as old and tired to Will as the rest of Forbes did.

  Then, ball under his arm, Will walked around back to the football field, the one field in town that was still in decent shape. The wooden scoreboard stared down from one end zone. Wooden bleachers rested empty on both sides of the field. A huge sign stood at the opposite end of the field from the scoreboard. “Home of the Forbes Falcons,” the sign read.

  Underneath, in fading paint, was a smaller sign, an advertisement that read, “Proudly sponsored by Forbes Flyers, the shoe for fleet feet.”

  Except that one of the F’s was gone, and so it now read “Forbes lyers.”

  “My dream house,” Will said aloud.

  No matter how much he fantasized about where his speed, his talent for football, might take him, he knew the path would go through this field.

  At this school, in this town, on this side of the river.

  He took one last look around, one last good look at his football future, and then began the long walk home.

  Cheeseburger tonight.

 
Cheeseburger and fries and corn on the cob. “A well-balanced meal for a growing boy,” his dad said in the note on the fridge. The note also told him there was apple pie for dessert, purchased this afternoon at the Country Cupboard.

  Will heated up the food and ate in front of the television set in the living room, watching the end of the six o’clock SportsCenter. He cleaned up when he was done, had two pieces of pie with vanilla ice cream, went upstairs and fired up his laptop so he could check his e-mails again.

  There was some junk mail that had gotten through and messages from Tim asking Will to call him later about their upcoming fantasy draft.

  That was it.

  Not what he was looking for, no miracles tonight.

  So he sat there for a while online, checking out some of the NFL stat pages, getting ready for the upcoming fantasy draft. The kids his age in the West River league had decided they might as well have a fantasy league, too, and Will had won it easily the year before. This year he had decided to partner up with Tim, mostly because Tim had begged him.

  “You do the work, I’ll share the glory,” Tim had said.

  “But what’s in it for me?”

  “That’s a very selfish attitude, if you ask me.”

  “I didn’t,” Will had said.

  Last year fantasy football had just been pure fun. It seemed more important now, though, if only because this year it might be the only way Will would get to compete with the other kids in the West River league.

  Fantasy football was just one more version of a game that had always come naturally to Will. He knew the stats he needed, for selecting a quarterback or running back or wide receiver, were already inside his own head, that he didn’t need to look them up online. He knew them by heart.

  Like football was his heart.

  Which was why, for the first time ever, despite how his dad and the rest of Forbes had been struggling for years, Will understood what it was like to be poor. He knew a lot of people were a lot worse off than he was, and Will had never been one to feel sorry for himself. He and his dad had it much better than some people—most people—who’d lost their jobs when the sneaker factory closed, people who even now were still looking for steady work. Will had lost his mom, and then a first home, which he barely remembered, but he’d always had football. As though the game was the one constant in his life.