The League

by Thatcher Heldring

  “Hey! We had a deal.”

  Aaron pushed me and Kate out of his room and shut the door. “Deal’s off,” he said from the other side of the wall.

  “I’m not giving up!” I yelled back. “I will learn the truth!”

  “The truth about what?” Kate asked.

  “The truth about nothing,” I said.

  “If it’s nothing, why can’t you tell me?”

  “Because I don’t even know it,” I shot back, leaving her alone in the hallway.

  The next day at school, Francis caught up with me at my locker. “What are you doing Saturday?” he asked.

  “Not sure,” I said with my back turned. “Why?”

  “The amateur golf championship is about an hour north of here. I know they’re not pros, but some of them will be soon. We can say we saw them before they were famous.”

  After zipping up my backpack, I faced Francis. He looked like a dog that wanted me to throw a ball. I wished he would go with his dad without asking me. “You want to just go to the golf course and watch other people play?”

  “Yeah,” said Francis. “We’ll follow the players along the course. Sometimes they sign autographs. There’s food too. It’s a lot of fun.”

  Why couldn’t I just tell Francis the whole truth right then? That I didn’t think the golf tournament sounded fun. That I didn’t want to go to golf camp or play in the father-son tournament. That I didn’t even like golf. It would have been the right thing to do, but I was too afraid of hurting his feelings, so I lied.

  “Sure,” I said. “That sounds like fun.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  On Saturday morning I got on my bike to ride to Boardman Park. McKlusky had invited me on Friday night to play football with him and some of the other guys from school. I told him yes right away, and I was glad I did. It was the first Saturday in June, the sun was out, and I was going to do what I wanted to do.

  Mom found me in the driveway. She was just coming home from an overnight shift at the hospital. Aaron was lifting weights in the garage.

  “Where are you going?” she asked me.

  “To meet some friends.”

  “How nice,” Mom said. “I’m going shopping, but I’ll be home by two. Call if you need anything.”

  Aaron sat up on the bench. “That’s it?” he asked. “You’re not even going to ask him what he’s doing? You don’t let me go anywhere without asking me what I’m doing.”

  “We trust Wyatt,” said Mom.

  “Real nice,” Aaron grumbled, lying back down.

  Sometimes it’s easier being the good one, I thought as I rode away from the house.

  As the sun burned through the late-morning clouds, I coasted down the windy road that twisted and turned under the shade of giant elm trees. I pedaled past the grandstand where the Pilchuck All-Stars were warming up for a baseball game, rode over the footbridge that crossed the stream, and followed the path toward the back of the park. That was when I saw McKlusky and Caleb.

  They were standing with two small groups on a grassy field. Caleb was holding a football.

  “Hey, Wyatt!” McKlusky called with a wave as he came running over. “You made it! So, you want in?”

  I slid off my bike seat and straddled the crossbar with my feet on the ground. “Is there room?” I asked, watching Raj and Khalil placing cones at either end of the field.

  McKlusky nodded. “We’ve got nine. If you play with us, we’ll have even teams. We were going to play with a permanent quarterback, but it’s more fun the real way.” McKlusky held up two hands. “I mean, two-hand-touch real. Not tackle real.

  “I know it’s kind of lame,” McKlusky said as we hustled over to the other guys. “But if we play tackle, then the team that has Khalil just hands it off to him every time because nobody can bring him down.”

  I ended up on a team with Caleb, Khalil, Roy, and Kenny. Kenny explained the rules while Roy and Fish argued over who was going to get the ball first. “It’s pretty simple,” said Kenny, brushing back the mop of hair hanging over his eyes. He was wearing cargo shorts and sneakers with no socks. “We play two-hand touch, two completions, ten Mississippi, no tackling.”

  I wasn’t sure what all that meant, but I pretended I did by nodding. “What position should I play?” I asked Caleb when we huddled up for the first time.

  “We kind of rotate,” Caleb explained. “I’m going to start at quarterback. You’re fast, so why don’t you go deep? Morelli, you run a fifteen-step post route with a buttonhook.”

  “Make it twenty steps,” said Roy. “I’m feelin’ it.”

  I made a note to watch Roy run so I’d know what a post route with a buttonhook was.

  “What about me?” Kenny asked.

  “You line up on the right. But go in motion left after Khalil snaps the ball. I’ll fake the hand-off.”

  “I guess that means I’m fake running,” said Kenny, shaking his head.

  “And I’m fake blocking,” Khalil added.

  Caleb held out his hand. “On two,” he whispered to Khalil.

  We put our hands on Caleb’s and broke the huddle. He lined up behind Khalil, who bent over with the ball between his hands. Roy lined up to his right with Kenny a little farther over. I wasn’t sure where to go, so I stood on Caleb’s left.

  Raj lined up across from me. He was about my size, so it made sense that he was guarding me. “Don’t plan on getting open,” he said with a smile.

  I was glad Raj was defending me. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t make fun of me if I didn’t know what to do. “Hey,” I asked him as Khalil got ready to snap the ball. “How far is deep?”

  “What?”

  “Caleb told me to go deep. How far is deep?”

  “See that tree behind me with the bike leaning against it?”

  “Yeah,” I said, spotting a maple tree about a hundred feet away.

  “Run past that and you’ll be deep.” Raj looked over at Caleb. “But in the future, don’t tell the defense where the quarterback told you to run.”

  A second later, the play began. Caleb stood right behind Khalil. “Green thirty-six!” he barked. “Green thirty-six! On two. Hut-hut … hike!” He took the ball from Khalil, then dropped back five steps as Kenny ran behind him.

  “One Mississippi,” I heard McKlusky say.

  I didn’t see what happened next, though, because I was running downfield as fast as I could with Raj right beside me. I kept my head down for speed and didn’t look back until I’d passed the maple tree. When I was sure I was deep, I came to a stop and got ready to catch the ball if Caleb threw it to me. Except by then, Roy had the football and was running full speed on the other side of the field. Everyone, including Raj, was chasing him. Before I figured out what I was supposed to do, Roy was in the end zone, where he spiked the ball and held out his arms in triumph.

  “Seven–nothing, losers!” he shouted.

  Then it was our turn on defense. While the other team huddled, Roy came up to me. “You’re going to rush the QB,” he said.

  “Um, okay.”

  “You have no idea what that means, do you?” he asked.

  I didn’t answer.

  Roy pointed to Fish, who was playing quarterback for the other team. “As soon as Fish gets the football in his hands, count out loud to ten like this: one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi. When you get to ten Mississippi, blitz him.”

  “Blitz him?”

  “Yeah, blitz him,” Roy said again. “Run after him as fast as you can and try to tag him. Got it?”

  “Got it,” I said, excited to finally have something to do. I didn’t want to mess it up.

  “Oh, one more thing,” said Roy. “Fish can’t cross the line of scrimmage until you get to ten.”

  “That’s the imaginary line between us and them when the play starts,” Roy whispered.

  The play started. McKlusky snapped the ball to Fish and I started counting. “One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi.” At fi
rst Fish stood in one place with the ball in his right hand. He looked downfield for a receiver.

  “Seven Mississippi,” I called.

  “Someone get open!” Fish yelled, hopping up and down.

  “Eight Mississippi, nine Mississippi …”

  Then, before I got to ten Mississippi, Fish crossed the line of scrimmage and began running full speed downfield, and didn’t stop until he was in the end zone with Roy running behind him.

  “Eat it!” he shouted at Roy.

  “You eat it,” Roy shot back, his hands on his knees.

  “He crossed the line before I got to ten,” I told Roy.

  “He what?” Roy asked, glaring at Fish. “I knew it.” He ran back to the end zone. “Gimme the ball, cheater,” he said to Fish.

  “Who cheated?” Fish asked. “I didn’t cheat.”

  “You crossed the line of scrimmage early.”

  “Please, even if I did, you were fifty yards away.”

  “Wyatt saw it,” Roy said. “And he wouldn’t lie.”

  “Why not?” Fish asked.

  “He barely knows the rules. How could he lie about them?”

  “I heard him say ten,” Fish insisted.

  “Liar.”

  “I wasn’t over the line,” Fish said. “I was like this.” He put himself into a running pose with his back foot up and his front foot planted. “I didn’t go forward until he said ten.”

  Caleb jumped in next. “Now I know you’re lying,” he told Fish. “Wyatt never said ten.”

  “That’s not our fault,” Raj added.

  Roy, Julian, Caleb, Fish, and Raj kept arguing for a long time. I was beginning to wonder if the game would ever start again. It didn’t seem like anyone was going to give in. Finally, Kenny said, “Just do it over.” They all agreed.

  This time I counted my Mississippis loudly enough that everyone could hear me. When I got to four, Fish threw a short pass to Raj, but Raj dropped the ball. It rolled toward me.

  I had seen this happen in the games I watched with Aaron and Dad. Whenever the ball fell on the ground like that, one of the players picked it up and ran the other way. Without wasting a second, I grabbed the ball, tucked it under my arm, and ran as fast as I could for the end zone. I was sure Raj would be hot on my heels to tag me. But he never caught me. I was in the end zone! Touchdown!

  I spun around. “Eat it!” I shouted, just like Roy had.

  They were all standing back at the spot where Raj had dropped the ball. Nobody had run after me.

  “Dude,” said Khalil. “What are you doing? That was an incomplete pass. You can’t score off an incomplete pass.”

  “Oh,” I said, joining my team in the huddle. “I didn’t know.”

  “Well, now you do,” Roy said. “Can we get ready for the next play? If we stop them here, we’ll get the ball back, and we’ll have a chance to win.” Roy lifted his head and looked over at the other team. “Hey, next score wins!”

  “Cool,” Fish shouted back.

  The play began when Raj snapped the ball. I followed him as he ran across the middle of the field. Fish fired a pass to Raj and he caught it without slowing down. Raj took two steps and turned to run downfield. That was when he lost his grip on the ball. It fell to the ground.

  Incomplete pass! We still had a chance to win.

  I jogged toward Roy and Caleb, who were running toward me.

  “Get the ball!” Roy shouted.

  I wasn’t sure what the big deal was. Why did he want me to pick up the ball so quickly? It was our turn no matter what.

  “Fumble!” Caleb yelled.

  I looked back at the ball in time to see Fish snatch it. He cruised to the end zone, high-stepping all the way.

  “Oh yeah, that’s right, that happened, oh yeah, that’s right, that happened,” he chanted, dancing around in a circle and holding the ball with his arms outstretched. Soon the whole team was doing it too. “Oh yeah, that’s right, that happened.”

  “I want to puke,” Roy grumbled. “Why didn’t you pick it up?” he asked me.

  “It was an incomplete pass,” I said.

  Caleb shook his head. “It’s not an incomplete pass if he catches the ball, runs with it, and then drops it. Then it’s a fumble.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I guess I didn’t know that.”

  “I guess not,” said Roy sarcastically. He shook his head slowly. “Maybe football isn’t your sport after all.”

  Walking back to my bike, I looked down at the grass and dirt stains on my hands, knees, and clothes. I hadn’t taken a beating, but I had played football, and nobody could take that away from me. And maybe I hadn’t played well, but I remembered how it felt to be the hero in my baseball game after failing so many times before that. If I could get better at baseball, I was sure I could get better at football too. I set out with plenty of time to get home, washed up, and changed before Mom saw me.

  When I got back to the house, Kate was in the backyard unrolling Dad’s putting green. It was a long, narrow rug with a hole at one end and a spot to putt from on the other end. A putter lay in the grass next to a bucket of golf balls.

  “Guess what?” she said. “I know the big secret. Aaron has a new girlfriend, just like I said. Her name is Olivia.”

  “That’s not the big secret,” I said, rushing to the back door.

  “Then what is?” Kate asked, following me into the house.

  I responded without turning around. “I don’t know, but I know that’s not it.”

  Kate’s reply froze me in my tracks. “Francis called here like three times. Mom talked to his mom. I think you’re in trouble.”

  I had forgotten all about the golf tournament Francis had invited me to! I had a feeling things were about to get complicated.

  When I walked through the back door, Mom was waiting. “Wyatt, where were you? And why are you so dirty? What were you doing?”

  “I was with my friends,” I said.

  “What friends?” she asked, eyeing my dirt-caked legs and shorts.

  I stood behind a chair. “Just some guys from school. You don’t know them.”

  “What were you doing?”

  I hesitated before answering. I wasn’t sure if I should tell Mom the truth. Lately, telling the truth had not worked out so well for me. But how mad could Mom get about one football game? “We were playing football.”

  “Football?” Mom said. “I thought we already talked about this. No football.”

  “It was just two-hand—”

  “We’ll talk about that later,” Mom interrupted. “Why didn’t you go to the tournament with Francis today? He said you made plans.”

  “I know. I forgot.”

  “Wyatt, when someone invites you to do something and you accept the invitation, you cannot just forget. What you did was incredibly rude.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “I’m not the one you need to apologize to,” Mom answered. “Now go upstairs. You can call Francis after dinner.”

  “I’ll see him Monday.”

  Mom stood in the doorway. “Not Monday,” she said. “I want you to call Francis tonight.”

  I wished I could run right through Mom and keep going. I was so sick of doing whatever anybody told me to do when other people just did whatever they wanted. In fact, this made me want to play football even more. “Fine,” I said, gritting my teeth. “I’ll call him later and say I’m sorry.”

  “And say it like you mean it, Wyatt.”

  I wanted to kick a hole in the wall. It wasn’t enough to tell me what to say, Mom also had to tell me how to say it. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to tell her how I felt, so instead I took a deep breath. “Okay. I’ll say it like I mean it,” I promised, ducking under her arm on my way out of the kitchen.

  Upstairs, Aaron was studying himself in the mirror and whistling to music. “Come in here,” he said as I passed by the bathroom.

  “What?”

  “Did you play football after Mom specifically tol
d you not to?” Aaron asked without taking his eyes off himself.

  “Yes,” I admitted. “Why?”

  “Would you do it again? I’m asking you man to man, so tell the truth.”

  I got the feeling he was being serious. “Yeah, I would do it again,” I said. “It’s worth it, even if I get in trouble.”

  “In that case,” said Aaron, slapping aftershave on his face, “maybe you’re ready after all.”

  I winced as the odor hit me. “Ready for what?”

  Aaron kicked the bathroom door shut. “To learn about the League of Pain,” he said.

  CHAPTER TEN

  My mind was racing one hundred miles an hour. Did I hear Aaron right? Did he say the League of Pain? What kind of football league was that?

  Aaron lowered the lid over the toilet seat and directed me to sit down. “First, I’m going to give you a little advice,” he began. “Never, ever tell Mom you’re playing football. That was a mistake you cannot repeat.”

  “Okay, don’t tell Mom about football. Got it. What is the League of Pain?”

  “It’s our own league,” Aaron explained. “We play in the park and we make our own rules. And nobody knows about it except the people who play in it.”

  “Who plays in it?” I asked.

  “Some people you know and some people you don’t know,” Aaron answered.

  “Can I play?”

  “You can watch. That’s all I can promise.”

  “When?”

  “Our first game is at noon on the first Monday of summer vacation.”

  “That’s the first day of golf camp,” I said.

  Aaron shrugged. “That’s your problem.”

  That was a problem, but I had already made up my mind that I was not going to golf camp. I was going to choose what I did this summer, not Mom or Dad.

  “Remember,” Aaron added. “Never, ever tell Mom you were playing football.”

  “You really think I should lie?”

  “It’s your life, not hers,” Aaron said. “If you want to live it your way, sometimes you’re going to have to tell her what she wants to hear and keep the rest to yourself.”

  “Why did you change your mind?” I asked. “Why are you telling me all this now?”