The League

by Thatcher Heldring

  “That’s no excuse.”

  “What did you want me to do?” I asked. “He was going to crush me. When you think about it, I was actually doing the best thing for the team. I mean, if I get hurt, what are we going to do? There’s nobody left on the sideline. Derek and Luther are both hurt.”

  “The way you played, we’d be better off with four guys instead of five,” Aaron said, grabbing his backpack and heading for the trail that led away from the field.

  “Wait,” I said. “Where are you going?”

  “To the corner of It’s None of Your Business and Don’t Follow Me. Have you heard of it?”

  “Where am I supposed to go?”

  “Don’t know, don’t care,” Aaron replied. “But you might want to get those shorts cleaned.”

  I looked down and saw right away what Aaron meant. I had forgotten to change out of my nice shorts for golf!

  It was only a few minutes after twelve, which meant I had four hours to kill before I could show up at home without Mom or Dad asking questions. At least that left me with plenty of time to find some clean shorts. Taking the side streets in case Mom was doing errands in town, I rode my bike to the Laundromat on Verlot Street, where I changed into my football shorts and tossed the dirty ones into a washing machine, which cost all the money I had with me. I didn’t want to sit around in the Laundromat for an hour, so I went down the street to the library, where I checked out a book called Golf for Everyone. I spent the rest of the afternoon doing what I did best, studying. Only instead of equations, it was how to swing a golf club.

  Dad was in the garage when I coasted down the driveway. “There he is!” he said. “How was the first day of golf camp?”

  “Great,” I said, reciting what I had read in Golf for Everyone. “We worked on our grips. They also taught us how to shift our weight when we swing. We didn’t really get to do any putting, though.”

  “You will,” Dad said. “I promise.”

  I knew I wasn’t telling Dad the truth, but it didn’t feel like lying. It felt like telling him what he wanted to hear so he’d be happy. That made it easier for me.

  At the start of dinner, Aaron reached over me and grabbed a burger off the serving plate in the middle of the table.

  “What happened to your hand?” Mom asked him. “Did you hurt it volunteering?”

  “Um, yep,” Aaron said, looking at his hand.

  “How did that happen?” Mom looked concerned.

  “Well, this other volunteer was trying to lift the lid on the storage shed where all the tools are kept. I went over to help him and just as I stuck my hand in there, the lid slipped and landed on it. I can move it fine, so I know it’s not broken.” Aaron forced a smile. “You don’t have to sue or anything.”

  “El,” Dad said to Mom. “Did you sign any paperwork for this? There must have been an insurance waiver.”

  Mom shook her head. “Aaron, is there anything we need to sign?”

  “I’ll ask tomorrow,” Aaron said.

  “Does anyone want to know about my day?” Kate asked, waving her fork in the air.

  “Of course, sweetie,” said Mom. “How was your first day of golf camp?”

  “Really, really great,” said Kate. “My coach, her name is Terri, is so nice and she told me I was a natural, which I guess is true.”

  “Did you see Wyatt?” Mom asked.

  I held my breath, but Kate didn’t miss a beat. “Only once,” she said. “His group was walking from the putting green to the driving range, but he was too far away.”

  “Sounds like everyone’s summer is off to a great start,” said Dad, smiling. “I can’t wait to hear what happens tomorrow.”

  After one day split between the League of Pain and the Pilchuck Laundromat, I had to agree with Dad. This was going to be a summer to remember.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The next day I was back in the game. “Derek’s mom found his bloody clothes and signed him up for art camp,” José explained. “And Luther twisted his ankle. You ready to step up?”

  “Um, I guess so.”

  José put his face right into mine. “Man, there’s no ‘I guess so’ in this league. It’s either yes or no. So which is it? Are you ready to step up?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  José nodded. “That’s better.”

  On our first drive, we had the ball and were on the move, going no-huddle, which meant José was calling the plays from the line of scrimmage.

  He looked down at Aaron, who stood at one end of the line. “Thirty-one eagle on three!” José shouted, scanning the defense. Spencer and Bunyon were creeping forward. Suddenly José raised his voice even louder. “Stampede! Stampede! Stampede!”

  I had no idea what thirty-one eagle or stampede meant, so I just ran straight ahead as fast as I could. One of the Morons blew past me going in the other direction.

  Behind me, I heard two thuds and suddenly everyone started running toward the line of scrimmage.

  “Ball’s out!” I heard Bunyon yell.

  I turned around to see José lying on his side with Spencer on top of him. Both teams were chasing after the football, which was bouncing away like a frightened rabbit. I watched as Julian scooped it up and ran for an easy touchdown.

  José picked himself up and marched over to me. “What did I say?” he barked.

  “About what?”

  “Did you hear me call the play?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Did you hear me say stampede?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “What does stampede mean?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Nobody told me.”

  José grabbed Aaron by the collar. “Did you teach him the calls?”

  “I was going to, but—”

  José glared at Aaron. “You brought him here. It’s your job to teach him the calls.” Then he looked at me again, a little calmer now. “Stampede means blitz. You know what a blitz is, right?”

  “When the defense rushes the quarterback,” I said, remembering what Roy Morelli had taught me in the two-hand-touch game.

  “Right. When the other team blitzes, you have to help block. If they send four guys, Planet and Ox can’t stop all of them. Got it?”

  “Yeah, I got it.”

  José had one more word for Aaron. “He better know everything by tomorrow.”

  Aaron and I stood in the middle of the field after the game ended and everyone else had left. “Listen up,” he said. “I’m going to tell you what you need to know and you better not forget it.”

  “I’ve been getting straight As since second grade,” I said. “I think I can remember a few plays.”

  “I hope so,” Aaron said angrily. “Because if I get on José’s bad side, I’m done.”

  “Hey, don’t yell at me,” I said. “It’s not my fault José’s mad at you. You were supposed to tell me this before we played.”

  “Look, it’s pretty simple,” Aaron went on. “You already know that stampede means blitz. When you hear that, stay near the quarterback and block anyone who’s trying to sack him.”

  “What does thirty-one eagle mean?”

  “The first number José calls is always for me. The second number is always for you. The three means I’m supposed to run a slant route. The one means you run a curl. If he calls a number with a two in it, that means a post route.”

  “One for curl, two for post, three for slant,” I said. “What does eagle mean?”

  “When you hear an animal that can fly, that’s a pass. Anything that can’t fly is a run. Like if you hear thirty-two bulldog, that’s a run play for you. Otherwise you’re always the check-down.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It means you stay close to the line of scrimmage in case José needs to dump the ball off to someone.”

  “So I’m like his emergency exit?”

  Aaron nodded. “Something like that. Anything hurt yet?” he asked, flipping a stick into the trees.

  “N
ot really,” I said, suddenly feeling disappointed for some weird reason. “I haven’t even been tackled.”

  “You will be,” Aaron replied. “But don’t worry,” he added. “The first hit is always the worst.”

  If that was Aaron’s way of comforting me, it didn’t work. The fear of pain was the reason Spencer Randle scared me so much. With his size and strength, he could do some serious damage to me, and I liked being able to walk and breathe. Still, deep down, I wondered if Aaron was on to something. What if getting hit was the key to not being afraid of Spencer? Maybe Brian Braun marched around town like he owned the place because the fear had been knocked out of him. I wanted to know the answer more than anything; I just didn’t want to pay the price.

  Since it was too early for me to go home, I went to the drugstore to buy note cards. I sat on a bench in Boardman Park and wrote down the plays so I could memorize them before the next game. I figured it would be easy. After all, I’d memorized all the presidents, the state capitals, and the periodic table of elements in elementary school. Compared to that, this should have been a piece of cake.

  Except when I went to the porch after dinner to study, I couldn’t concentrate. It was too much pressure. If I forgot that Helena was the capital of Montana, nobody got smeared on the football field. Today it was José. Tomorrow it could be me. Spencer was still waiting for his chance to blow me up.

  I found the football on the porch and walked backward ten paces. Gripping the football like Aaron had shown me, I aimed for the tire swing and let it fly. The football fluttered over the tire. Hoping nobody had seen that throw, I grabbed the football and tried again, getting closer. Again and again, I aimed for the tire swing, each time pretending to snap the ball to myself and retreating four steps like José always did before firing. After my tenth or twelfth attempt, my throws got straighter and faster, then closer to the tire swing. I felt my arm memorizing the motion like my brain had memorized prime numbers. Finally, I hit the bull’s-eye, a beauty right through the tire.

  “Hole in one!”

  I turned around to see Evan standing at the gate. “How long have you been there?” I asked.

  “Long enough to see you get one through,” she said, sitting down on the grass.

  Taking a seat not far away, I saw a splint on Evan’s right ring finger. “What happened?”

  “Jammed it in lacrosse,” she said, examining her finger as she moved it slowly back and forth. “It’s not broken, but Mom made me put this on anyway. We had it from the time I did break my finger.”

  “Are you ever afraid of getting hurt?”

  “Oh, all the time,” she said. “But that’s just part of life. If I didn’t want to get hurt, I’d have to stay inside all day doing nothing. No thanks. Or I guess I could play golf,” she added, smiling.

  “Ha, ha,” I said.

  “Sorry, couldn’t resist.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’m not even …” I paused, unsure of whether to keep going. I wanted Evan to know that I was becoming a football player more than anything. So what was holding me back?

  “I’m not going to golf camp,” I told her.

  “You’re not?” Evan said. “What are you doing?”

  “Flag football,” I said. “At the rec center.”

  “I thought your parents wouldn’t let you.”

  “They had a change of heart,” I said, still wondering why I hadn’t told Evan the whole truth. “I can be very convincing.”

  Evan plucked a dandelion and sent the seeds flying with a single breath. “So, are you afraid of getting hurt?” she asked.

  The honest answer was yes, more than anything. But I had ditched golf camp to play in the League of Pain to prove I was tough enough for football. I couldn’t admit now that I was scared. I had to be fearless, like Brian Braun. “Nope,” I said. “No fear. That’s my motto.”

  Evan lay on her back in the grass and stared up at the black and blue evening sky. “What do you think Dr. Pirate’s motto is?”

  I tried to think of a motto for Dr. Pirate, but I was too busy asking myself why I hadn’t told Evan about the League of Pain. The League of Pain was the most secretive thing I had ever done, so why was it too secretive for Evan? I could only come up with one answer: I wasn’t ready to tell Evan about the League of Pain because I wasn’t really in it. Not yet, anyway. Not until I felt the pain.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The fourth game between the Morons and the Idiots was a lot like the first. Knowing Spencer was waiting to lay me out, I did everything I could to avoid touching the football. I hid behind other receivers on pass plays and got out of the way whenever José handed the ball off to Aaron.

  But the more I stayed out of trouble, the more scared I got about that first hit.

  “I’m getting sick and tired of waiting,” Spencer said to me as we passed each other before a kickoff. “If you don’t get in the game for real, I’m going to bring the game to you. Got it?”

  Part of me wanted to get in the game. Everyone else had caught, run, or thrown the ball, and they all seemed like they were having a lot more fun than I was. This was Dad’s fault, I told myself. If he had let me play flag football, I wouldn’t be risking my life in the League of Pain.

  Late in the second half, the Idiots were losing to the Morons by a touchdown. We were starting our last drive near midfield, which meant we didn’t have far to go to score.

  José yelled at us in the huddle. “We have to score on this drive. We will score on this drive!”

  “They’re doubling me on every play,” said Aaron. “It’s impossible to get open.”

  “Then beat the coverage,” José shot back, “because I want to win. The losing is getting old, you got me?”

  Planet nodded. “We got it, José.”

  “We’ll score,” Aaron promised.

  “Let’s go do it,” José said. “Thirty-two eagle on two.” He clapped loudly as we broke the huddle and stood behind Planet to call for the ball.

  “Hut-hut!”

  When Planet snapped the ball to José, Aaron and Ox began their routes. I moved toward the sideline but didn’t go too far from José.

  Spencer was almost through his ten-Mississippi count and Aaron was covered. Julian had dropped back into double coverage with Shane. In a moment of fear, I realized that meant I was wide open. “Nine Mississippi … ten Mississippi!” Spencer yelled. He charged forward, looking for a sack, but José dodged the tackle. Spencer was on his heels when José spotted me waiting in the flat.

  I blinked. When I opened my eyes, José’s throwing arm was fully extended and his hand was empty. A split second later, my eyes picked up the football spinning toward me on a tight spiral.

  Images of catching the ball and running untouched into the end zone flashed through my mind as I lifted my hands. But then the image in my brain changed. Suddenly it wasn’t me celebrating the game-winning score, it was Spencer standing over my scattered body parts. The fear was too strong. I pulled my hands down and let the football sail over my head.

  Back near the line of scrimmage, José threw up his arms in disgust. I could see the other Idiots shaking their heads as they walked back to the huddle. “Terrible,” I heard Planet mutter to Ox. “Even the kid with the busted ankle would be better than this guy.”

  I wasn’t even sure I should join them. I wanted to be a football player so badly. But I was no Brian Braun. I was Quiet Wyatt, too afraid of getting tackled to even catch a ball.

  That was when Aaron hit me.

  He blindsided me, drilling me square in the ribs with his head and shoulders. The impact was so hard I could feel the air from my lungs slam into the back of my teeth as it rushed out of my chest. For a moment, I was hanging in midair as my feet left the ground and dangled over my head. One of my shoes left a grass stain on my nose as Aaron and I returned to earth simultaneously. I felt every rock and clump of dirt dig into my back while the weight of Aaron’s body crushed me from the top.

 
Then it was over.

  Aaron jumped up like nothing had happened.

  I rolled over slowly. “What’s the matter with you?” I yelled. “I’m on your team!”

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  I took a minute to check myself out. My lungs had filled with air again. I moved my extremities and limbs. Everything worked. “No,” I said.

  “Good. Then get up and get ready for the next play. It’s only second down.”

  “Why’d you do that?” I asked, dusting off my shorts.

  “You’re not really in the game until you get hit,” Aaron explained. “You got hit. Now you’re in the game. Get it?”

  “I think so,” I said, starting to follow Aaron back to the huddle.

  But Spencer stuck his palm on Aaron’s chest.

  “What’s your problem?” Aaron asked, knocking Spencer’s hand to the side.

  “I wanted the first hit, Parker. He got me in trouble, not you.”

  “You’re not gonna hit anyone,” Aaron replied. “Wyatt didn’t do anything to—”

  Maybe it was the hit Aaron had laid on me, or maybe it was hearing him stand up for me. But something inside me wanted to end it with Spencer once and for all.

  “You want to hit me?” I said, forcing my way in between Spencer and Aaron. “Here I am, Spencer. Hit me. Get your revenge.”

  There was no fear in me. I was one hundred percent ready for Spencer to slug me with every ounce of strength in his body. I knew I could handle it.

  Spencer looked me up and down with the same old mad-dog scowl, but no hit came. He waved his hand like he was swatting away a bug. “Forget it,” he said after a minute. “Let’s just play football.”

  “Hey, Spencer,” I said as he walked away.

  Spencer looked over his shoulder. “What?”

  “You owe me a dollar and twenty-five cents.”

  “I owe you what?”

  “The day you left school for a corn dog, you took my money. I want it back, you flabby Moron.”

  Spencer was facing the other direction, so I couldn’t see the expression on his face, but his shoulders were twitching like the Hulk about to bust out of his shirt. Only instead of rage, Spencer smirked and said, “I’ll pay you later, you skinny Idiot.”