The Big Game

by Tim Green

  “Ms. Rait wants you to pass. We all do. But she wants you to do it on your own. Reading is something you’ll need for the rest of your life.”

  “I can read.” Danny glared. “I’m just not great at it. No one else has a problem with how I am. I think that if you’re on my side, you work with me.”

  “Ms. Rait is saying she’ll work with you.” Mr. Crenshaw threw his hands in the air.

  “Not like that.” Danny thought that what Ms. Rait talked about would be impossible. Reading was a mystery he’d simply given up on. “Just get me through this. Not everyone’s going to be a great reader. People are different, that’s all.”

  “Imagine if you could read, though,” Mr. Crenshaw said. “Even if you’re a pro ballplayer, you’ll have playbooks and scouting reports . . . and contracts.”

  Danny waved the idea away with the back of his hand. “I’ll get people to do that for me.”

  Mr. Crenshaw stared at him for a moment, then rattled the dice. “How about another game?”

  “Sure.” Danny liked that Mr. Crenshaw wasn’t going to nag him. He wasn’t a bad guy, and Danny thought maybe first period with him wasn’t going to be such a terrible thing. He didn’t need study hall, really, and the tone he’d set by pummeling Markle had benefits as well. He could tell by the way his teammates looked at him in the halls and in the locker room that they were wary of him. They respected him, maybe even feared him, which, in the game of football, wasn’t bad.

  All in all, things would work out fine.

  In his mind, he saw his mom doing the right thing, just like Coach Kinen talked about. She’d go home and settle down and sign the release. With a new English teacher, he’d be right back where he should be.

  Danny kept his head high as he walked into English class and sat down behind Janey. He was somewhat sad that when he got the new teacher he wouldn’t be with her for English anymore, and not just because she helped him. But Danny knew the road to the NFL was a rough one, and he knew he’d have to make even bigger sacrifices in the future.

  Ms. Rait didn’t pay him any special attention, but she did hand out a test first thing after the bell. Danny took his and passed the rest back. He flipped through the two-page test, circling random answers and calculating the odds. He wondered how much higher, or lower, he’d get than the probable 25 percent.

  Finished before anyone else, he looked around. When he caught Ms. Rait’s eye, he smiled pleasantly. Not smug, just pleasant. He didn’t want to rub it in, but it was hard not to recall the color of Mr. Trufant’s face when he asked her if she’d like to keep her job.

  The tests were handed in and they spent the rest of class talking about the kid in the book, Bud, who didn’t like to be called Buddy. It was the opposite for Danny. When people called him Dan, he used to look around to see if they were talking to his dad.

  That made him think of the way Coach Kinen said “Daniel” in their meeting with the principal. Danny felt the icy grip of horror on his heart and immediately turned his mind back to reading . . . it was definitely overrated. Everything was in video on a screen now.

  When the bell rang, he ignored the teacher and bolted from the room.

  “Hey, Danny, wait up!” Janey called out in the hallway.

  “Last time I’ll have to see her,” he said to Janey when she caught up.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  He told her the story about the meeting, but when he looked to see her reaction, she kept her head angled down and continued walking.

  “Isn’t it great?” He stopped and tugged at her arm.

  “I like having you in English.” She smiled weakly. “And she said she’d teach you. Isn’t that an opportunity?”

  He let go of her arm. His mouth dropped. “An opportunity to fail. What’s wrong with you?”

  “I’m sorry, Danny. I think you should be able to read. I’ve told you that before.”

  “Yeah, but in a nice way, like you were on my side. Not this. This is risking my whole football career.” He couldn’t believe what she was saying. More than anyone, Janey knew how important the big game was. The chance to catch Coach Oglethorpe’s eye. She knew it was the path his father had taken, and she knew Danny was determined to follow that same path. It was his mission in life.

  “Calm down. I’m just saying . . .”

  “Well, don’t.” He forced a laugh, like it was simply poor humor on her part. “Don’t talk crazy. I need you.”

  “Need me?”

  He looked into her eyes. “You’re my best friend.”

  “I know.” The bell rang and she looked up. “I can’t help what I feel though. I gotta go.”

  Danny watched her leave without trying to stop her.

  “Girls,” he said, sounding like he didn’t care what she thought, even though he did.

  He and Janey still sat together with Cupcake at lunch, but they didn’t talk about reading anymore.

  The rest of the day passed, and Danny had a strong practice after school, earning Coach Kinen’s praise. But when Cupcake’s brother pulled the pickup truck into his driveway, Danny had a sinking feeling in his chest.

  He threw open the back door and stopped just inside. His mother sat at the table with an unlit cigarette in her mouth, fists clenched. She was staring at the pen and paper in front of her. She looked up at him with fire in her eyes, removed the cigarette, and said, “Good, you’re home.”

  Then she picked up the pen and signed the classroom transfer.

  “Thank you, Mom.” Danny hugged his mom. “Thank you!”

  “Now you gotta make it, Danny.” She rubbed the back of his head. “I know you can. You’ve got everything your father had and more. You were born for this. Don’t you let me down.”

  “I won’t, Mom. I won’t.”

  They had dinner. She’d roasted a chicken and mashed some potatoes. Danny had a tall glass of milk and then she brought a peach pie from the kitchen. He was cutting into his second piece when his mom raised her head after a sip of coffee.

  “Is that someone in the driveway?”

  Danny listened.

  His mom got up and went to the window, pushing aside the curtain just as the front doorbell rang. It was a sound they rarely heard because everyone they knew came in through the kitchen.

  Danny’s mom wrinkled her nose and went to open the door. “Who could that be?”

  Danny stuffed a big bite of pie into his mouth. His mom swung open the front door and froze.

  “Oh!” There was a pause as his mom recovered her senses. “Ms. Rait, can I help you?”

  Danny dropped his fork.

  “Would you mind if I came in and sat down?” Ms. Rait’s voice was clear and strong.

  Danny quickly flipped the classroom transfer form facedown on the table. He realized his mouth was full, and as Ms. Rait came into sight, he chewed and tried to swallow, but the pie got stuck. He gulped some milk to wash it down and began to choke.

  “Danny?” His mom frowned.

  Danny raised his hand to hold her off, ashamed, and tried to keep the whole mess from flying out his nose.

  “Oh dear,” said Ms. Rait. She quickly closed the gap, braced herself on the crutch, and gave Danny’s back a careful thump with her free hand.

  A glob of pie popped out of his mouth and plunked down on the tabletop. He immediately covered the mess with his napkin and wiped it up, his face warm with embarrassment.

  “Happens to the best of us.” Ms. Rait pulled a chair out from the table with her free hand and sat down with a smile as pleasant as if she were an invited guest. “Now, we need to talk, and I’m glad it’s the three of us. I want you both to know that I am completely on your side. You never should have gotten to this point, Danny, but here you are, and it’s past time to fix the problem. Good news is: we can do it. Bad news is: it won’t be easy. You have to do the work. And you have to be able to read—no more copying from someone else.”

  She looked back and forth between Danny and his mom
. “So, should we start tomorrow?”

  Danny and his mom were silent for a few moments. Then Danny’s mom cleared her throat. “Thank you for your concern, and thank you for helping Danny just now, but we are going in a different direction.”

  “Different?” Ms. Rait blinked at them.

  “Football is in his blood. His father was a Super Bowl champion.” Danny’s mom pointed to the framed photo on the mantel above the fireplace.

  Ms. Rait squinted.

  “Let me show you something.”

  Danny’s mom walked into the living room and returned with the framed picture of his father with the Super Bowl trophy.

  “They call this the Lombardi Trophy. My Daniel scored two touchdowns.” She offered it to the teacher with two hands as if it were a religious relic passed down over thousands of years.

  “Oh,” said Ms. Rait. “How nice. The Steelers.”

  Danny’s mom puffed up. “Danny’s father was a third-round draft pick.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what that means.” Danny could tell by the teacher’s face that she was serious.

  Danny’s mom took back the picture, almost as if Ms. Rait didn’t deserve to hold it. Walking fast, she replaced it on the mantel, next to a Steelers helmet. When she came back she said, “You have no idea what it means to be a football player.”

  “No, I don’t,” Ms. Rait said. “But then, even if you play, you still need something to do when it ends, and there aren’t many things you can do if you can’t read.”

  Danny’s mom braced her hands on the tabletop and leaned toward the teacher like a judge rendering a decision. “Danny’s father always said his son would be even better than he was. He was aiming for Danny to be a first-round pick.”

  Ms. Rait absorbed that before she said, “Danny could get hurt in high school and never even get a college scholarship.”

  His mom’s hands flew into the air. “He could get hit by a car and none of it matters, right? We’re not talking about what could happen, we’re talking about what should happen. My son is on track for something very special, and as well intentioned as you may be, you’re throwing up a roadblock in front of his destiny. Everyone seems to see that but you.”

  Ms. Rait turned to Danny. “You’re pretty good at math. There are one million high school football players. Someone told me only three hundred of them will get drafted into the NFL.”

  Danny opened his mouth to speak, but his mom beat him to it. “Danny’s not just another player. Danny Owens is special. Ask Coach Kinen. Ask anyone. He’s Dan Owens’s son.”

  “We’re talking about maybe missing one game,” the teacher said. “I don’t think he’ll miss even that, but if he did, and he is as good as you say he is, one game shouldn’t matter.”

  “It’s the big game,” Danny explained. “The championship. Coach Oglethorpe and his staff from the high school will see it, and sometimes they take a young player for their varsity team next season. They don’t care about the other games. They only want a young kid if he proves he can perform under championship pressure.”

  “Let me ask you a question.” Danny’s mom scowled at Ms. Rait. “You care so much about my son, why don’t you just help him learn to read and agree to pass him, too? What’s so hard about that?”

  Ms. Rait took a long time before she spoke. “That’s how we got to this point, Mrs. Owens. Everyone wants to help Danny. He’s nice and polite and good looking. He’s a star athlete whose dad won the Super Bowl. So when Danny struggled, they ‘helped’ him. They passed him on. Let him cheat. And now he’s twelve and he can’t read.

  “This isn’t your fault. It’s the school’s fault. This kind of thing happens when people are too afraid or too lazy to do their jobs. I am neither afraid nor lazy, and Danny needs to know that he has to do this. No faking. No cheating. No passing grades unless he really passes.”

  Danny’s mom pointed at the paper on the table in front of Danny. Danny glanced at the peach pie skid mark.

  “I already signed it,” his mom said.

  “Yes, I know,” said Ms. Rait. “I can see the imprint of two signatures. The idea of playing in the NFL is very exciting. But it ends, doesn’t it? Then what?”

  Danny’s mom didn’t say anything, and Danny thought Ms. Rait would leave. But the teacher pointed to the paper and said, “You signed it. The big question is, what will you do with it?”

  Danny stared at the second piece of pie, the one he’d never finish. He listened through a fog of disbelief as his mom promised he’d be at Ms. Rait’s house tomorrow after practice to begin work. He raised a stiff hand and mumbled goodbye as the teacher headed toward the front door. He heard his mom thanking her before closing it.

  Danny scowled at his mom. “Why?”

  “Because she’s right.” His mom picked up the transfer paper and tore it into shreds before sprinkling it into the trash bin. “This will only make you better, Danny, stronger. You’ll have options. There’s no reason you shouldn’t have options. The more I think about it, the more I realize that we’re lucky she came along.”

  Danny pushed back his chair and marched into his room, slamming the door. He had no idea what to do. He had no interest in the Xbox or his airplane model. He called Janey and told her what had happened.

  “Can you believe it?” he said with outrage. “My own mom?”

  Janey was silent.

  “Janey? You there?”

  “Yes,” she replied quickly.

  “I said, can you believe it?”

  “I know. I heard the first time.” Janey sighed. “I guess, yes, I can believe it.”

  “Why?”

  She huffed. “I’ve been telling you, Danny. You just never listened, but think about how many times I tried to get you to do the homework with me instead of just copying mine.”

  He couldn’t argue with that, but he’d come to think of it as a running joke, not something she was serious about. “I can’t even believe you’re selling me out.”

  “I’m not selling you out.” Her anger crackled over the phone. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself and just get this done. Think of it like training. Dig in. Get tough.”

  “This isn’t training. It’s school stuff, and it’s easy for you to say because you get it. Well, I don’t!”

  He hung up before Janey could respond and got onto his Xbox instead. Cupcake was more than willing to listen, and he was firmly on Danny’s side.

  “And listen to this,” Cupcake said, “I know you don’t do Facebook, but Jace posted on our team page that we all gotta stick together and that’s the only way to win a championship.”

  “Nice, but what’s that got to do with me and Rait?”

  “Bro, we stick together. When everyone hears about this—which is total barley—I can see us doing, like, some protests or something.”

  “Well, I can’t do that,” Danny said. “My mom would kill me.”

  “That’s the beauty of it. You don’t do anything,” Cupcake said, excited. “You just leave it to the team.”

  The next day, Danny was pleasantly surprised when Mr. Crenshaw didn’t ask him about the Rait thing. Danny didn’t bring it up because he was testing the counselor to see if he could mind his own business. They played Yahtzee all first period, and Mr. Crenshaw said he’d see Danny tomorrow.

  In English class, Ms. Rait carried on like Bud, Not Buddy was the Bible or something. Danny stifled his yawns, but he had nothing to say, and Ms. Rait didn’t give him so much as a sideways look. Janey was into the story and had her hand up for every question the teacher asked. At one point, it was almost like the two of them were having a private discussion.

  Danny was almost out the door after class when Ms. Rait called his name. He cringed and gave Janey a frustrated look before turning back.

  “I know you have to get to your next class, but this is for you.” Ms. Rait reached into her desk drawer and took out something like a square stopwatch on a lanyard. Then she took out some earbuds and plugged them i
nto it. “It’s a Playaway.”

  “What?”

  “A Playaway. It’s an audio book reader. It’s got Bud, Not Buddy on it.” She held it out to him and showed him how to turn it on and use the simple buttons. “Reading isn’t just about reading. It’s about stories of people and the obstacles they overcome.”

  Danny didn’t know what to say.

  “Take it, Danny. Try it. It’ll fit in your pocket.”

  He stuffed it in. “Okay. Thank you.”

  “See you after practice.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He left feeling something between annoyed and thankful. When he got lunch from his locker he stuffed the Playaway into his backpack and wondered if he’d even use it.

  At the end of the day there was a study period before sports practices began. Kids who had detention went to a silent classroom and the rest either sought extra help from teachers, went to the library, or sat in the cafeteria for what they called “sports study hall.” Danny typically sat with Cupcake and Janey, but today his two friends had to go to an extra lab for the science class they shared, so he opted for the library. He had one math sheet to do. It was all numbers, so he found a study carrel in the corner and knocked it off, feeling good.

  He looked around to see that no one was looking before taking the Playaway from his backpack and plugging the buds into his ears. After another check for people who might see him, he began the story.

  It got under his skin right away. This boy, this sad, lonely orphan with no parents and no home, was someone Danny could root for. It made his own problems seem smaller, and when the bell rang announcing the end of the study session, he was reluctant to turn the Playaway off.

  He certainly wasn’t going to let any of his teammates see him with it, though, so back into the pack it went before he left the library.

  Inside the locker room, there was an unusual hush, as if everyone was waiting for something. It only took Danny half a minute to look around and realize they’d been waiting for him.

  Jace walked to the open area in the middle of the locker room.