by Tim Green
He had to look away. “No, I’m fine. Maybe you’ll sign that paper and get me out of her class.”
Now it was her turn to look away. “Let’s see what she does. If she’s gonna play hardball with me, she’s gonna lose, but she may come around. She’s one of those people who’re very proud of themselves. If she helps you, she’ll be a star teacher. If she doesn’t, she’ll be a grouch with a big mouth. I think she knows that.”
“I’ve got class with her third period.” Danny was thrilled to be beyond the subject of his being out all night. “What should I do?”
“Let me make you some eggs,” she said. “You’ll just act like nothing happened. See what she says. I’m betting she asks you over to work on your reading after football practice.”
“Can you make scrambled?”
“Of course.”
“What if she doesn’t say anything?” he asked.
“Call me. If she gives you the silent treatment, I’ll talk to her. Now, get yourself ready and I’ll make those eggs.”
“With cheese?”
“Yes. Whatever you want, Danny.” His mom flashed a smile and got to work.
After breakfast, he boarded the bus.
“Great game, Danny.” Stephanie Stevens, a pretty eighth grader, held up a hand, which Danny high-fived.
“Yeah, Danny, awesome.”
“Way to go, Danny!”
Then the whole bus erupted. “Dan-eee, Dan-eee, Dan-eee . . .”
Danny bit back a grin and grabbed a seat, saving one for Janey.
They picked her up and he whispered to her about how everyone chanted his name before telling her about sleeping in the tree fort.
“Weren’t you scared?” Janey’s eyes got big.
“I didn’t think about it. I was . . . I don’t know, going crazy.”
She looked him over and dusted a crumb off his shirt. “Well, you look pretty normal to me.”
“I feel better now,” Danny said. “But sometimes, I just lose it. I have no idea why. I just snap. I threw a Pepsi can against the wall in the bath. It blew up and I yelled at my mom.”
He studied Janey’s face. She looked like she was going to say something, then stopped.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Aw, come on, Janey. It’s me.”
She looked him in the eyes. “You can talk to me, you know.”
He let out a short laugh. “What do you think I’m doing right now?”
“About anything,” she said.
The word “anything” hung between them.
“I know,” Danny muttered as he dug into his backpack to get the Playaway. “I better listen to chapter four again. Maybe I can answer a question in Rait’s class and get her off my back.”
Janey looked again like she was going to say something, but this time he didn’t want to hear it, so he quickly plugged the buds into his ears.
He liked the Playaway and the story. He paused it only for a moment as they entered school to say “see ya” to Janey. He decided to see just how serious Mr. Crenshaw was about him doing whatever he wanted, so he walked into the counselor’s office with the earbuds in, said, “Hi,” and sat down on the couch to listen.
Mr. C sat looking at him for only a few minutes before booting up his laptop and getting to work at his desk.
Later, Mr. C tapped his arm and Danny realized the bell had rung.
“Time, Danny. See you Monday. Have a good weekend.”
Danny packed away his device. He couldn’t help liking Mr. Crenshaw, an adult who actually did what he promised to do without trying any sneaky tricks to get Danny talking. “Are you going to the varsity game tonight?”
“You know, I hadn’t thought about it. Maybe.”
Danny laughed as he opened the door because who didn’t think about going to the varsity game? Who didn’t go to the varsity game? “Okay, maybe I’ll see you there, Mr. C.”
Math made Danny feel like a star football player again, so he was riding high when he walked into Ms. Rait’s class. He stole a glance at her, but she was talking with Janey at her desk. Danny wondered if he was the subject of their talk, but neither of them looked his way, even when a couple kids who hadn’t seen him yet called out their congratulations for putting five into the end zone against Froston.
He sat down and Janey came over and gave him a friendly fist bump before taking the desk in front of him like all was well.
Danny leaned forward to whisper. “Did she say anything about me?”
Janey turned around, surprised. “No, we were talking about our next reading assignment for class, and she said instead of getting too far ahead I should read The Watsons Go to Birmingham. It’s another book by Christopher Paul Curtis.”
“Oh.” Danny couldn’t help feeling disappointed, but he shook it off and followed Ms. Rait’s diagram about plotlines and then the discussion about Bud, Not Buddy.
It was near the end of class when the teacher said, “So, everyone seems to relate to Bud, even though as I look around I’m guessing many of you don’t share a lot of common experiences with the character. So what’s the connection?”
Danny’s hand went up at the same time he blurted out his answer without waiting to be called upon. “Grown-ups who say one thing and do another.”
The class broke out in nervous laughter.
Ms. Rait held up her hands. “All right. All right. That’s good, Danny. I’m sure many of you have had your parents say one thing and do another.”
“And teachers,” Danny said.
Only a few scattered bits of broken laughter were heard before a hush settled over the class. Danny stared at Ms. Rait, and she stared right back.
Danny reminded himself that he was a football star. He’d won a big game almost single-handedly, and everyone knew it. He tried to re-create the cheers from the game and the chants from the bus in his mind, but even that wasn’t enough to keep him from dropping his eyes under Ms. Rait’s iron look.
After class, Janey nudged him in the hall. “What was that about?”
“What?”
“Teachers?” She carried her books against her chest and narrowed her eyes at him.
He shrugged. “Just what I said. Teachers are grown-ups too. Sometimes they don’t do what they say they’ll do. She was gonna help me. Now she’s not.”
Janey took hold of his arm and stopped. People flowed past them like they were boulders in a stream. “You didn’t do what she said. You didn’t go to her house to work.”
Danny rolled his eyes. “You should’ve heard everyone on the bus. Everyone knows what happened yesterday but her. She acts like it’s no big deal, like football is nothing. Well, maybe it’s nothing where she’s from, but she’s in Jericho County now. Even my mom is ready to stop playing around with her if she doesn’t get into line.”
“What’s that mean?”
Danny tugged free and continued walking. “My mom said if Rait didn’t talk to me about meeting today after practice, she was gonna call, but she told me to give her one last chance.”
“Danny,” Janey said, catching up, “I’m your best friend, but I think you’ve got this backward.”
The first bell rang and they’d reached the point where they had to part ways.
“Gotta go, but I’ll see you at lunch.” Danny marched away, secretly taking out his phone in the crowd to call his mom like she’d asked. Just before he walked into his next class, he ducked into the bathroom and dialed.
When his mom answered, he said, “She gave me the silent treatment.”
“Don’t you worry,” his mom said. “I got this.”
Danny’s smile lasted until lunch. Cupcake was already working on a meatloaf sandwich when Danny sat across from him, his tray loaded down by four tacos, two apples, and three milks.
Cupcake peered at the tacos. “Bro, just looking at those makes me need to go to the bathroom, and you got four? Can’t see you makin’ it through practice, but I guess you pop it into
the zone five times your life is pretty much all beef, huh?”
Danny took a big crunchy bite of a taco. “I’m a running back, so I’ve got a much stronger constitution than a lineman.”
Cupcake wrinkled his brow. “What does a boat have to do with your stomach?”
“Cupcake, the constitution I’m talking about is the stuff you’re made of, your toughness. You’re thinking of the USS Constitution—one of the first ships built for the US Navy. If anything could make me switch from model war planes to model boats, it would be her.”
“Sounds like the same thing, kinda.” Cupcake filled his mouth with meatloaf and bread, nodding to himself at his own wisdom.
Janey arrived and sat down next to Cupcake and opposite Danny.
“What’s the same?” she asked.
“Model airplanes and model boats.” Cupcake spoke through his food.
Janey looked up briefly as if thinking. “Yeah, I see that.”
“Ha!” Cupcake pointed at Danny, grinning, until some chewed meatloaf appeared between his teeth.
“Aww, yuck.” Danny waved his hand and turned his head away.
“Tough to be wrong when you’re the star of the team, but that’s life on the farm.”
When Janey and Danny didn’t say anything, Cupcake looked back and forth between them and formed an opinion. “Wait, what’s going on with you two? Something’s wrong.”
“A minor disagreement,” Danny said.
“Major.” Janey fired a dirty look at Danny before taking a container of peaches and cottage cheese out of her lunch bag and digging in with a plastic spoon.
Cupcake listened to Danny’s side of the story, then said, “Rait better watch her step. If she knows what’s good for her, she’ll do what your mom wants.”
“I doubt she will,” Danny said. “In fact, I know she won’t.”
“Why should Ms. Rait watch her step?” Janey asked Cupcake.
“Because my bro here owns this town after yesterday. The guys on the team already said they’d run her out of town if she messes with their franchise.”
Janey’s mouth fell open. “It was a junior high football game, Cupcake.”
“Tell that to the people.” Cupcake spread his arms and raised his hands, looking all around them like a satisfied king.
That made Danny laugh. Janey dismissed them both by returning to her lunch.
Danny took another bite of his taco, thinking it needed something. “When she says she’s done helping me, my mom’s gonna do what she shoulda done from the start: switch me out of Rait’s class.”
Janey kept her head down but shook it from side to side to signal how she felt.
“Oh, come on, Janey.” The taco was a bit bland, so Danny drizzled some hot sauce on it. “You’re being way too serious.”
The flecks of gold in Janey’s brown eyes seemed to glow as she looked up at him. “I hope I am being too serious. I hope you never need Ms. Rait, Danny. I hope you never look back and regret not working with her . . . but I’m afraid you will.”
Danny’s phone buzzed during sports study hall. He was in the library playing penny hockey with Cupcake across a table. He disappeared into the back corner of the reference section and called his mom back.
“So, what’d she say?” Danny whispered.
“Don’t even get me started.” His mom spoke so loud he glanced around.
“Shh. I’m in the library.”
“Oh. We can talk when you get home.” His mom crunched something in her mouth. “But you’ll be in a new class by tomorrow morning. I can tell you that.”
“Okay, thanks, Mom. Gotta go.”
Danny hung up and pumped his fist in the air. He went back to the table where Cupcake sat twisting a paper clip into a rabbit’s head. Danny reached into his backpack and fished out the sheet of sight words he was supposed to be learning. Carefully, he folded it into a paper airplane. He aimed and let it fly.
Clunk.
It was a direct hit into the metal wastepaper can.
“Nice shot,” Cupcake said. “What was it?”
“I guess you could say it was Ms. Rait getting put in her place.” Danny laughed and Cupcake followed along like the good friend he was.
Later, when he and Cupcake walked into the locker room together, his teammates began the “Dan-eee” chant as they banged their palms against the lockers. Cupcake raised Danny’s hand like a fight champion and everyone cheered.
Danny bit the inside of his mouth, trying hard to keep his smile from becoming too proud. He changed like the rest of his teammates into shorts and a jersey. He put on his football cleats and grabbed his helmet. When he turned from his locker, Bug was blocking his path.
“Dude. Bonfire. Tomorrow.” Bug spoke in grunts. “You in?”
“Uh, yeah. Can Cupcake come too?”
Bug narrowed his eyes. “Cupcake’s a hog.”
“And that’s a good thing?” Danny knew “hog” was a football term that meant lineman, but in Crooked Creek it might mean an actual hog, as in a pig.
“Hogs are automatically invited.” Bug turned and marched away.
“Ooo-kay,” Danny said under his breath, thinking that he’d have to go but that he’d ask Cupcake first.
The older players said the day after a game was always a very light practice that would end with some running to flush the soreness out of their legs. The air was festive out on the practice field during stretching, even though the sky was dark and hinting at rain. Laughter rang out amid wisecracks and tomfoolery. Even the coaches’ eyes weren’t as squinty as normal. When Coach Kinen blew his whistle, though, the team gathered around a stern face.
“Danny Owens? Where are you, Danny?” Coach Kinen searched around.
Danny hesitated because this wasn’t the tone he’d expected from his head coach. Ms. Rait flashed through his mind. He couldn’t help thinking that she had something to do with the scowl on his coach’s face.
Danny swallowed, stepped forward, and raised his hand.
“Do you want to practice today, Owens?” Coach Kinen stared coldly at Danny.
“Yes, sir.” Danny couldn’t imagine why his coach was asking such a question.
“You sure about that? You sure you’re happy here?”
“Yes. Sir.”
No one said a word. Danny felt the sweat beading on his upper lip.
Coach Kinen broke into a grin. “Cuz your agent called me this morning looking for more money.”
Coach Kinen tilted his head back and howled at his own joke. Everyone joined in, even Danny, who felt a flood of relief.
“All right. All right.” Coach Kinen raised his hands for quiet. “That was a nice win and a nice way to start the season, but we travel to Westfall next week, and they’ve got a line that averages two hundred twenty pounds on both sides of the ball, so we’ve got our work cut out for us. Okay, let’s line it up for agilities.”
Coach let fly a short, sharp blast on his whistle and practice began. They mostly made adjustments based on things that hadn’t gone as planned in the opener and walked through some new plays. During the offensive team period, Coach Kinen surprised everyone when the second-string offense went in.
Danny’s backup was an eighth-grade speedster named Scott Port. Scott had done a nice job replacing Danny late in the game the day before, so no one expected him to be replaced.
“Port, stay with me.” Coach Kinen pointed to the ground in front of him. “Markle! You’ve been begging to go on offense long enough. Show me you can carry the ball—take halfback.”
If Danny hadn’t had such a fantastic game the day before, he would have been upset to see Markle put in a position where he’d now compete for Danny’s playing time.
“You’re fine, Port,” Coach said loudly enough for the whole team to hear. “A little light in the pants for a line this big, though. We’re going to be grinding it out, and if Danny needs a breather I want some bulk in there. That’s Markle.”
“Got it, Coach.” Markle
beamed with pride.
The second-string offense walked through the same set of plays as the starters, only Markle added sound effects to his performance. First, he’d make explosion sounds as he hit the line. Then, on the way back to the huddle, he’d imitate the roar of the crowd before and after announcing that he’d scored another touchdown.
“And Markle does it again! Another seventy-yard touchdown run for the kid from Crooked Creek!” Markle raised both hands high as he marched to the huddle.
Everyone got some laughs out of it, even Danny.
After the backup offense had gone through about twenty plays, it was time to run some 110-yard conditioning sprints simply called “110s” to end practice. Spirits were still high, and Danny’s teammates continued to rib him about his imaginary “agent” and a new contract.
“You gotta get your agent to cut out these 110s,” said Jace as they lined up.
“I know he wants to sign you up,” Danny said, “so you should just make that part of the deal.”
“Oh, no,” Jace said. “I’m not the one going varsity as an eighth grader.”
Danny couldn’t even reply, he was so flustered and flattered by the team captain’s compliment.
“Okay, you daisies, stop complaining and line up!” Coach Willard yelled at them while Coach Kinen stood at the other end of the field with his stopwatch to make sure they ran their sprints in under twenty seconds.
The whole team lined up across the back of the end zone.
Coach Willard cupped his hands around a thick gray walrus mustache. “Set, go!”
They took off running. Once they passed Coach Kinen, they peeled off to the closest of the two sidelines and jogged back to Coach Willard, where they lined up to do it all over again.
Ten times they had to sprint the length of the field. It was grueling. After the first five, all the linemen were given an extra five seconds to make it, but even that was brutal for guys like Cupcake. On the last sprint, it was a tradition for the players to race. It was something Danny always won, and even though he’d had the big game the day before, he wanted to prove to the coaches that he wasn’t done working hard to get better.
His legs ached and his lungs burned, but he coiled his muscles in a sprinter’s stance and shot forward on Coach Willard’s start. This last sprint was more about heart than speed because everyone was gassed. From the corner of his eye, Danny saw Port and Markle surge ahead. The two of them were racing for pride—Port to show he was faster than Markle and Markle to prove he was tougher than Port, and both to show they were better than Danny.
