by Tim Green
He took the snap and dropped back. The defensive back came free, this time from the right instead of the left, Brock’s blind side, but because of Taylor’s warning, he saw it. Brock flipped his hips to the right and snapped his arm back to throw. The defender was nearly at him, head down, a blazing bullet, but the receiver didn’t stop and turn for the ball. He forgot to peel!
If Brock was sacked, the game was over.
Taylor’s words flashed in his mind: “You can’t hold the ball.”
He couldn’t hold it, but he couldn’t throw it. It was like everything else in Calhoun since the day he arrived. Nothing fit quite right. Nothing worked the way it was supposed to.
He froze.
And the defender smashed into him.
91
Brock didn’t exactly fly through the air, but he was propelled backward so fast his feet lost contact with the ground. If Mak wasn’t there, wrestling with the defensive end like a dancing bear, he would have crashed to the turf.
But Mak was there, and Brock rebounded off him and pumped his legs. The defender hit him so hard and so fast that he hadn’t been able to wrap his arms around Brock’s body. Brock sprang loose from his tackler and took off to his right before he saw the defensive end break free in front of him. Brock spun back, running to his left, and around Mak, who now had his man planted in the turf. The open space let him dash nearly ten yards ahead before he stopped short of the line of scrimmage to keep his pass legal.
Brock knew precious seconds had ticked off the clock and he heard Taylor’s words again, but something else told him not to throw it. Something told him this was his last chance, and he had to make it good. He knew Xaviar was in the left slot, and he saw him way down the field just left of the middle, nearing the end zone. The free safety had positioned himself halfway between Xaviar and the slot receiver on the right, both of them running full speed and straight.
In that moment, Brock thought about baseball again. When you wanted to move a leading runner back on the base, you faked like you were going to throw. That’s how you moved people in sports, with a fake. Brock faked a throw to the receiver on the right. The free safety fell for it, darting that way and separating himself from Xaviar.
Brock reset his feet and fired the ball with all his might. Xaviar saw it, and kept running. The ball flew up and away, arcing down toward the end zone, spinning in a blur, and dropping fast. Xaviar stretched out his arms.
Brock clenched his teeth.
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The ball stuck.
Xaviar pulled it in, cradling it, hugging it, loving it, before he held it over his head and spun around, jumping up and down. Whistles blew. The crowd went wild. The Calhoun players went wild.
Brock fell to his knees and looked up at the sky just as Mak and some teammates bowled him over, slapping his helmet while others reached through the pile of bodies to touch him. As they laughed and hooted and cheered, Brock struggled to his feet. Mak hugged him, laughing and crying at the same time and spun him around, yelling something Brock couldn’t understand through the mouthpiece Mak had forgotten to remove. Mak kept spinning until Brock was dizzy, but he couldn’t miss the people closest to him against the fence.
Laurel and her mom, and next to them Brock’s own mom and dad. Taylor stood with them now, inside the fence. Brock grinned and waved at them all before struggling to free himself from Mak.
“Put me down, Mak. Mak! What are you saying? I can’t even understand you.”
Mak put him down and pulled the mouthpiece free from his lips, yanking it like a bath drain, spit flying everywhere. He huffed and grinned and his eyes twinkled in the red dough of his face. “First team! That’s what I was saying, bro. You and me. Forever. First team!”
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About the Author
TIM GREEN, for many years a star defensive end with the Atlanta Falcons, is a man of many talents. He’s the author of such gripping books for adults as the New York Times bestselling The Dark Side of the Game and American Outrage. Tim graduated covaledictorian from Syracuse University and was a first-round draft pick. He later earned his law degree with honors, and he has also worked as an NFL commentator for FOX Sports and NPR.
His first book for young readers, Football Genius, inspired in part by his players and his own kids, became a New York Times bestseller and was followed by Football Hero, Football Champ, The Big Time, and Deep Zone. He drew on his experiences playing and coaching Little League for Rivals and Pinch Hit and two more New York Times bestsellers: Baseball Great and Best of the Best.
Bestselling author Jon Scieszka called Tim Green’s Unstoppable, a book about a boy’s struggle with cancer that debuted at #2 on the New York Times bestseller list, “Absolutely heroic. And something every guy should read.”
Tim Green lives with his wife, Illyssa, and their five children in upstate New York. You can visit him online at www.timgreenbooks.com.
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Credits
Cover art © 2014 by Cliff Nielsen
Cover design by Megan Stitt
Copyright
First Team
Copyright © 2014 by Tim Green
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
* * *
Green, Tim, date.
First team : a New kid novel / by Tim Green. — First edition.
pages cm
Summary: “The companion novel to New Kid, where Brock is in another new town after being on the run with his dad again, and this time, he joins the football team”— Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-06-220875-0 (hardback)
EPUB Edition JULY 2014 ISBN 9780062208774
[1. Moving, Household—Fiction. 2. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 3. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 4. Football—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.G826357Fir 2014
2014001886
[Fic]—dc23
CIP
AC
* * *
14 15 16 17 18 LP/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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