by Tim Green
ON MONDAY MORNING TROY woke to a thump at the front door. The clock beside his bed said 5:57. It was still dark outside and he had another half hour before he had to get up for school. He rolled over but couldn’t get back to sleep. He kept hearing that thump over and over in his head.
The windows in the old house leaked heat like rusty buckets leak water. Troy shivered as he dressed, then tiptoed down the stairs and eased open the front door. There was no need to wake his mom or Tate. On the porch the morning paper lay wrapped in a plastic bag. The sky spit cold drops of rain at random and a breeze tossed handfuls of them onto the porch in little fits. Troy stepped out and looked down the street. Through the fog of his breath the paperboy was nowhere to be seen.
Troy wondered if it was someone new and decided to have his mom call the paper company and tell whoever the delivery person was not to throw it at the door from now on. Usually, it was delivered without any noise.
Troy bent down, picked it up, and extracted the sports page as he flicked the lights on in the kitchen. What he saw was a big picture of Seth in his Summit Football coaching cap.
What he read made him sick.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
“MOM!” TROY BOUNDED UP the stairs, threw open his mother’s bedroom door, and flipped on the light.
She blinked and pawed her eyes before peering at the clock beside her bed.
“Look!” Troy smacked the newspaper with the back of his fingers.
“What’s wrong?” She spoke in a scratchy voice as she studied the picture and the headline. “Why are you up?”
Troy said nothing.
He watched her lips move as she read then muttered to herself. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“It’s not even true!” Troy tugged his hair. “How can they put this in the paper?”
His mother twisted her lips. “It says they have a witness, Troy. Someone who works for UPS? A Falcons jersey for Chuku Moore? And an unnamed player on the team who heard Seth talk about a signing bonus?”
Troy clenched his jaw so hard he thought his teeth might break like candy. His voice was too low and guttural for his mom to understand. “Reed, that rat.”
She looked up. “I thought Chuku moved here on his own. Do you know anything about all this?”
Troy’s mind worked quick. He stabbed his finger at the paper. “Forget about the jersey, Mom. Look at this bull!”
Her lips moved as she continued to read. Her face rumpled and then she laughed. “A car? Seth offered some kid named Dennaro a car to play high school football? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of. Who is this kid? Do you know him?”
Troy huffed. “He’s a goof. Dennaro couldn’t play his way out of a wet paper bag. He showed up the first week we started over the summer. He said he played on the line at St. Stephen’s. He showed up for only a couple of nights for workouts before everyone knew he was a joke. He kept flapping his mouth about how he knew Seth would want him at Summit.”
“Do you think Seth . . .” His mom shook her head. “I don’t know . . . do you think he might have just asked this boy to play here? I know he didn’t offer him a car.”
Troy rolled his eyes. “Mom, come on. Seth didn’t get anything for anyone, especially not some sloppy kid like that. That kid’s a clown.”
Troy felt almost giddy knowing that he’d thrown his mom off the track about the jerseys, but his outrage was real. “How can they put that in the paper? Don’t they have rules about telling the truth?”
“It’s called defamation.” His mom frowned. “Slander is when you say something untrue, libel is when you print it in a newspaper. The problem is that, either way, Seth’s a public figure.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Troy asked.
She shrugged. “A politician. Movie star. An NFL player. You.”
“Me?”
“You’ve been in the news. You’ve done interviews on Larry King, GMA, all that. You’re an entertainer, at least for the stuff you did for the Falcons, and now . . .”
Troy’s voice dropped as he continued her thoughts. “For the stuff I’m supposed to be doing for the Jets.”
“Sort of.” His mom waved a hand in the air to dismiss it. “Anyway, newspapers and TV shows get a lot of slack when it comes to what they say about public figures. It’s slander only if you can show that they intentionally lied. So if they can get someone to say something crazy—like this Dennaro boy—they can repeat it and make it sound like news, even if it shouldn’t be.”
Troy felt bile streaming up into the back of his throat as if he was going to be sick. “This says the league is planning a vote to suspend our whole team because of this stuff. It’d be over. No playoffs. Nothing. That is so not fair.”
“Yeah.” His mom frowned at the paper. “Who said life is fair?”
CHAPTER EIGHTY
“WHAT’S GOING ON?” TATE wandered into his mom’s bedroom rubbing her eyes.
“Look.” Troy handed her the paper.
“I gotta call Seth.” Troy’s mom snatched her phone from the nightstand. “They quoted him in this story, so he must have known this was coming.”
“Yeah, one quote,” Troy said. “‘I did nothing wrong.’ Big deal. They write a two-page article with a bunch of bull and he gets four words buried at the end.”
While his mom dialed, Troy read the story again along with Tate.
“They make it sound like Seth’s doing all this stuff to get kids to come to Summit when he’s not.” Tate put the paper down. “They’ve got one kid, this Dennaro, and then it’s all these unnamed sources and anonymous phone calls to the league, and ‘serious complaints’ from other school districts.”
“The league doesn’t think they’re so silly.” Troy pointed to the paper. “They’re talking about suspending our team.”
“Seth must be sleeping with his phone off.” Troy’s mom put the phone down. “The thing I don’t get is where this is all coming from. It can’t be just a fluke that people are all saying these things, but who would do all this? Who would care?”
Troy’s mom stared at him. “Troy, why are you looking at me like that?”
Troy sighed. “Tell her, Tate.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
THEY BOTH STARED AT Tate.
“Everything?” Tate tilted her head at him and he knew she was thinking about him blabbing to the UPS man about Chuku Moore.
Troy scowled, knowing that Tate always wanted to get the truth about things out on the table. He didn’t want her to bring the Falcons jerseys into the whole thing, and he bet she knew that. “What do you mean, ‘everything’? Just tell her about who you think is doing all this.”
Tate sighed. “Well, we think someone is behind all this. Someone wants the football program to go down.”
“Down?” Troy’s mom furrowed her brow.
“Finished. Ended.” Tate drew her fingers across her throat. “No more. Remember when Seth got hired? The team had a losing streak a mile long.”
Troy’s mom narrowed her eyes.
Tate kept going. “We think someone wants the football program to end so the district will demolish the stadium and the property can be used for a development. If they’d kept losing, no one would care when the football stadium got torn down.”
“What development?” Troy’s mom asked.
Tate winced. “That’s the part I can’t figure out . . . yet.”
Troy’s mom raised her eyebrows. “So, there’s a developer who wants the program to end, or there isn’t?”
Tate lowered her voice and looked at her feet. “I don’t know. I thought so. I think so. I just can’t find it.”
“Because if they were planning something, it would be public knowledge,” Troy’s mom said. “They’d have to show the town their plans.”
“That’s what I was telling Troy.” Tate looked at him. “I got the meeting notes from the planning board online and I read through them all, going back to August, but I didn’t find anything.”
“I
mean, three months you went through?” his mom said. “They’d have to have a bunch of meetings about something like this. There are woods behind that abandoned shopping center and I think a stream runs back through there.”
“Tate knows,” Troy said. “She said there were a bunch of old plastic flags all over the place.”
“Wait a minute!” Tate slapped her own forehead and did a little jig on the wooden floor next to Troy’s mom’s bed. “Oh, my gosh! I’m so stupid!”
“What, Tate?” Troy asked. “What are you talking about?”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
“THE FLAGS,” TATE SAID.
“That’s what I just said,” Troy replied.
“The old ones.” Tate was breathing fast. “That’s why I couldn’t find the meeting notes. They haven’t had a meeting, maybe in a couple of years. They surveyed everything a couple of years ago. I bet they tried to get the development approved but didn’t have enough land, then they went to work on figuring out how they could do it. They came up with the football field, but they didn’t put a new application in or have any meetings yet because . . .”
Troy felt the same thrill Tate obviously had. “Because they didn’t want anyone to know what they were doing!”
“Because probably something fishy is going on,” Troy’s mom said. “But wait a second, you two. Before we get too excited, we have to find out. Some old plastic flags don’t prove anything.”
“And some new plastic flags,” Tate said.
“Remember, Mom?” Troy said. “The first day we went to the school? Those guys out on the field with the survey stuff?”
“There are new flags all over the property next door, too,” Tate said. “They probably got started with their plans because everyone knew Summit football was going down the drain.”
“Until we showed up,” Troy’s mom said.
“Until Seth showed up.” Troy felt kind of proud about the whole thing, even though it was a mess.
“We can’t just think it,” Troy’s mom said. “We need to prove it.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
SETH ARRIVED AS THEY were all sitting down to breakfast.
Tate stared up at him from her seat, unsure what to say. Troy felt as if he were in a dream, everything was so quiet and weird. The toaster rang. Seth poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot on the table, ignoring the folded-up newspaper. Troy was busting to ask, but something on Seth’s face told him not to.
When Troy sat down, Seth said, “I’m thinking about putting in a double-reverse pass for Friday night. You like that?”
Troy’s mouth hung open for a minute before he could speak. “Yeah. Sure.”
It wasn’t until Troy’s mom served up four plates of eggs and sat down beside Seth with her own cup of coffee that she pointed to the paper. “Well?”
Seth sighed and sipped his coffee. “It’s worse online.”
“Online?” She wrinkled her brow.
“The comments. People are nuts.” He picked up his fork and started in. “A car? Really? It’s high school football. You should get a look at the kid who’s saying that. He’d have a hard time making our second string.”
Tate had her phone out and she began typing in a search.
Seth shook his head at her and talked through a mouthful of eggs. “Don’t. Seriously, you shouldn’t even read this stuff. It’s poison. The people writing it are like something you’d scrape off the bottom of your shoe. What they say with their anonymous posts doesn’t matter, so don’t even give it life by looking.”
“I heard about some Dennaro kid and a car.” Troy’s mom nodded at Troy, then cleared her throat. “What I didn’t hear about—and what’s really bothering me—is this fuss over these Falcons jerseys . . . Troy?”
Troy winced.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
“I . . .” EVEN THE FAST-SPINNING, well-worn wheels in Troy’s brain couldn’t spit out an answer.
“I got the jerseys for him.” Seth sipped his coffee and everyone stared at him.
“For Chuku?” Troy’s mom wrinkled her face like a dried prune.
Seth spoke before Troy could say anything. “Not Chuku. For Troy. I didn’t ask Troy who he wanted them for, or why—I just got them. You know Whitey Zimmerman loves me. That’s all I did, called Whitey and had them shipped up.”
“Just like that?” Troy’s mom stared.
Seth stared right back. “Yup. Just like that. There’s nothing wrong.”
“The whole thing is innocent, then.” Troy’s mom got excited. “Troy can just tell the paper and—”
“Ha!” Seth slapped the table. “You think the paper is going to print that? No way. They love this mess. Besides, the really juicy thing isn’t the jerseys.”
“But it’s the one where they’ve got this so-called witness,” Troy’s mom said. “And a player from your team heard you talking about a signing bonus?”
Troy and Seth glanced at each other.
“Reed,” Troy muttered. “I hate him.”
“You hate Reed because he’s a big, aggressive—and sometimes obnoxious—teammate,” Seth said. “But you don’t know who talked to him or what they asked him. He probably didn’t mean to add to the mess.”
“But he did.” Troy didn’t want Reed to be forgiven so easily.
“The jerseys, and the fact that they’ve got two people to support that part of the story, make the whole thing seem like you really are recruiting,” Troy’s mom said.
Seth scratched his chin. “I guess I ought to sue that Dennaro kid. A car . . .”
“Why don’t you sue him?” Relief washed over Troy at the turn the conversation had taken—away from the jerseys—and he wanted to keep it going that way.
“You don’t sue a kid for saying something stupid just so he can get some attention,” Troy’s mom said. “You just let it go.”
“He deserves to be sued, or something,” Troy said. “A pie in his face.”
“If everyone got what they deserved, your mom would be married to Prince William instead of dating a broken-down football player,” Seth said.
“I like broken-down football players.” She gave his arm a pat and started clearing the table. “Especially the strong, silent type.”
“Then I’ll stop talking.” Seth grinned and sipped his coffee. “You kids want a ride to school? I’m meeting Mr. Biondi about all this mess.”
“What does he think?” Troy’s mom asked.
Seth set his fork down and wiped his mouth. “Honestly? He thinks we’re in trouble.”
“We’ve got a plan.” Tate proceeded to tell Seth her theory on the football stadium being targeted as part of a development plan and how they were going to follow through on getting some proof so the league wouldn’t suspend the team.
“What did Troy say Helena called you?” Seth nodded at Tate. “A spitfire, right? I like that about you, Tate.”
“She’s super.” Troy’s mom went to the fridge and handed Troy and Tate the bag lunches she’d made. “Now you guys get going. School.”
They got their backpacks and climbed into Seth’s truck and drove to the school. Seth was quiet. He chewed a piece of gum as if he was trying to kill it.
“I’m meeting Mr. Biondi in the football team room, but do you want me to drop you guys in front?” Seth asked as the school came into view.
“No,” Troy said. “The back entrance is closer to our lockers anyway.”
Seth pulled right up next to the football clubhouse door. No sooner had they left the truck than Mr. Biondi burst out of the team room with a look of disaster.
“Seth, I’m sorry, I can’t talk right now. The league isn’t even waiting until tomorrow night anymore. They called an emergency meeting to vote.”
“Vote?” Seth’s tone was a blend of anger and disbelief. “Vote on what?”
Mr. Biondi looked away for a moment, then squinted at Seth. “This thing is getting too hot for some people, with everything in the paper.”
“It’s all
lies,” Seth said.
Mr. Biondi spoke quietly. “But it’s in the papers. Listen, I’m your biggest supporter, you know that, but I don’t like how this is shaping up. The people on this league committee are from the schools you’ve been beating up on every Friday night.”
“But vote on what?” Seth asked.
Mr. Biondi frowned. “A suspension for recruiting violations.”
“Suspend me?” Seth laughed out loud. “Let them try. I’ll sue their pants off. I recruited no one. That’s slander.”
“Not suspend you.” Mr. Biondi shook his head sadly. “They’re clever, the snakes. They want to suspend us, the school. The football program.”
Seth tilted his head. “So we’d be out of the playoffs?”
Mr. Biondi blinked at him. “Seth, before you came, this football program was on its last breath. We barely had enough kids come out to field a team, and no one cared about football. The board has to make a decision. If they keep football, they have to build a new stadium that would cost at least a couple of million dollars. If they let football die, they could not only save the money on the new stadium, they’d make money by selling the land. That’s what was going to happen. It was practically a done deal. Everyone knew it. Then you came and . . . it’s all different. But this?
“If they suspend us, it’s over, Seth. This isn’t about the playoffs. This is about Summit not even having a football team.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
SETH STARED FOR NEARLY a minute. Troy heard the first bell ring and he knew if he didn’t go, he’d be late for homeroom. He didn’t care.
“Tell me you’re kidding. You’re kidding, right?” Seth said.
Mr. Biondi shook his head, slow and sad, again.
“You’re acting as if this can really happen.” A note of alarm rang in Seth’s voice.
“I’m hoping it won’t. Look, I’ve got to get to that meeting. I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.” Mr. Biondi pushed past them, got into his car, and drove off.
