Game Changers

by Mike Lupica

  The Rams forced the Patriots to punt on their next series after just three plays. Three and out. But the Rams couldn’t move the ball, either, had to punt it right back after just one first down.

  Suddenly it was if all the scoring in this game had worn down both teams at once, both defenses starting to dominate now the way the offenses had all afternoon.

  With 3:30 showing on the clock, Patriots starting out on their own forty, Ben said to Sam, “You knew all day that the team with the ball last was gonna win.”

  “Means we need to get the ball back,” Sam Brown said. “And then start running out the clock with it when we do.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Ben said.

  Ben and Sam were back at safety, Coop at middle linebacker. The last few series Coach was even using Shawn as a rover back, lining him up with Coop sometimes, dropping him back into coverage, wanting all the size and speed in the game he could get, clearly.

  In the defensive huddle, Ben looked around at his teammates and said, “You guys all know what the coach in Friday Night Lights said he meant by ‘perfect,’ right?”

  Sam said, “Perfect isn’t always about the score.”

  Coop said, “He said it was knowing you did all you could.”

  Ben said, “Let’s be perfect now.”

  They all tried. Hard. Twice on the Patriots’ drive they had Robbie Burnett looking at third and ten. Both times he completed the pass he needed to. Under a minute left, they had him at fourth and ten at the Rams’ seventeen-yard line, and Coop seemed to have him down in the backfield. Somehow Robbie broke loose from Coop, kept his balance, broke what announcers always called the “contain” in football, ran two yards past the first-down chains and got out of bounds to stop the clock.

  The last best chance they had to stop him was second and goal from the five. Robbie threw for Max Mahoney, his favorite receiver. But Sam cut in front of Max at the exact right moment, Ben was sure Sam was about to make one more hero play on defense. And if it had been a good throw, he would have had it. But it wasn’t a good throw, or even close. Robbie threw high, way high, and that saved him, because even Sam couldn’t jump high enough to get both hands on the ball.

  Got one hand on it. That was all. Ball fell incomplete behind him. Sam dropped to his knees and pounding the ground like he wanted to break it when it did.

  On the next play Robbie stepped back like he was going to throw again, but then pulled the ball down on a quarterback draw, ran up the middle and into the end zone untouched.

  Twenty-five seconds left. Sam came all the way across the end zone to knock down Robbie’s conversion pass to Max. In that moment, it still felt like too little, too late, even to Ben.

  Patriots 33, Rams 29.

  Just like that, everything changing that fast the way it always seemed to in sports, they had gone from winning to losing.

  The Patriots didn’t risk Ben breaking a long kickoff return on them, just squib-kicked the ball over midfield, where Coop was the one who fell on it, the clock stopping when he did.

  Coach O’Brien gathered the guys on offense around him and said, “Listen, there’s still time.”

  Nobody said anything, Ben wondering how many of the Rams actually believed him.

  Ben just knowing that in that moment, even after what had just happened, he believed.

  Looking at Ben, Coach O’Brien said, “What do you think?”

  Ben said, “Coach, I figure we’ve got three plays left. To get to where I can throw it all the way into the end zone, we’ve got to be at their thirty.”

  “Okay,” Coach said, “then here’s what we’re gonna do. What you’re gonna do. We go to Shawn on the left sideline. If he catches it …” He waved his hands in front of him, like waving away his own words. “Sorry, I mean when he catches it, he gets right out of bounds. Then throw the same ball to Sam on the other side of the field, as far up the sideline as he can get. Then Sam gets out of bounds. We’ll probably be inside ten seconds by then, so even with the clock stopped, I’ll call a time-out.” He grinned. “It will give me a little extra time to come up with something brilliant.”

  The linebacker on Shawn jammed him up coming off the line, but Shawn was big enough and strong enough to get past him, get on the kid’s outside shoulder, get ten yards up the field and break to the sideline. As soon as he turned, the ball was there, Ben trusting it all the way. This time Shawn covered the ball with both arms like he was trying to hide it from everybody else on the field.

  First down, Patriots’ forty-two.

  Twelve seconds left.

  They didn’t even huddle, everybody knew the next play they were going to run. Sam took off up the right sideline, like the Rams were going for it all right now, stopped and came back for the ball. Knowing it would be there, just because it always had been on McBain Field. It was now. Sam made the catch, took a quick look at the defense, knew that even with a time-out in Coach’s pocket, he didn’t want to run valuable seconds off the clock getting a few more yards.

  Knowing they were on the thirty-one now, knowing they were close enough for Ben to get the ball in the end zone even if he was well back of the line of scrimmage.

  Six seconds left.

  Coach called his last time-out, waved Ben over to the sideline, a huge smile on his face.

  “Maybe this is the way this crazy season is supposed to end,” he said. “You know they’re gonna double Sam. Probably triple him. And they’ll most likely have everybody and their brothers strung out near the goal line. I figure that leaves Shawn with single coverage on the short side of the field, that same linebacker they’ve had on him. Shawn can beat him. And that’s how we’ll beat them.”

  “Okay,” Ben McBain said, and then ran back to the huddle to run the last play of the football season.

  “Hold your blocks,” Ben said in the huddle after he gave the guys the play Coach had called. “That’ll give me some time to run around and buy Shawn and the other receivers time to go deep.”

  Coop said, “Don’t worry, nobody’s sacking you.”

  Now Ben looked at Shawn. “You hug that sideline and run as fast and as far as you can.”

  “You sure you know what you’re doing?” Shawn said.

  “Dude,” Ben said. “Like, totally.”

  But as they broke the huddle, Ben ran over to Shawn, grabbed him by the shoulder, made sure he knew exactly how they were going to win the game.

  How the story really was supposed to end.

  Ben dropped back into the shotgun one more time. Before he called out the signals, he looked to his right, at Sam. His best bud in the world. Who didn’t need to be told anything.

  Sam nodded.

  As soon as the ball was in Ben’s hands, he ran to his right. Buying time, just like he said he would. Running to his right, dropping away from the line of scrimmage as he did. Giving the receivers enough time.

  Now, he told himself.

  Now he was running toward the line, coming forward, looking to his left. Looking for Shawn. Seeing that he had a step on the kid covering him.

  Maybe two.

  Bringing the ball up now, like he was going to throw it on the run, slowing just a little, his blockers having given him the room he needed to launch the ball.

  The ball Ben McBain pulled back down now.

  Faking it.

  Then turning and looking straight down the field, to where he always knew he was going to throw it, to where he’d told Shawn he was going to throw it coming out of the huddle.

  Throwing it to Sam Brown.

  Ben saw that the fake had given Sam just enough of a chance to get behind everybody. Saw Sam run to the place in the middle of the end zone where he was always supposed to be. Where Phelan was that day against Miami when Flutie was doing what Ben was doing now, throwing it as far as he could to his best friend to win the big game.

  Ben making the throw he’d always dreamed about making, being the quarterback he’d always dreamed about being.

  J
ust as the ball was coming down out of the sky, he had to sidestep Coop, who was blocking his view. Like Ben had to avoid one of his own blockers so he could see the ball tracking on Sam like a missile tracking on a target in a video game.

  Sam had turned and was facing him like a center fielder, facing the ball the way he always did when they’d practiced this play at McBain Field. Sam had always caught it there and caught it at The Rock now, caught it and just sat down in the end zone, holding the ball in his arms like he was already holding the championship trophy.

  Ben ran and jumped his way down the field, pumping his arms above him as he did, like he was signaling touchdown over and over again, racing with the rest of his teammates trying to get to Sam Brown.

  Sam was still in the end zone, somewhere underneath a pile of Rams that included Shawn and Justin and Darrelle. Ben ran for where they all were, just giving one quick look to the scoreboard, which showed there was no time left on the clock, or in this game, or in this season. All zeroes.

  The only other numbers that mattered were these:

  Home 35, Visitors 33.

  When Sam finally managed to get up, he saw Ben standing in front of him.

  “You knew I was coming to you,” Ben said.

  “We both knew.”

  Then he gave Ben a quick, smooth high five.

  Ben grinned at him and said, “It’s not like we haven’t run that play a few times.”

  “Only our whole lives,” Sam said.

  Then Coop was there, helmet in hand already, looking about as happy as Ben had ever seen him. And Cooper Manley of the Core Four was always pretty happy to begin with, there really were no bad days for him.

  “Well,” he said, “that certainly didn’t stink.”

  Shawn came walking over and said, “How did you ever make that throw?”

  “Best reason in the world,” Ben said. “I had to.”

  Shawn took his helmet off, wiped the sweat off his face as best as he could with the back of his hand. Just not the smile that stayed where it was.

  “One more audible,” he said. “Glad you told me.”

  “Figured the fewer people who knew, the better. But you needed to be one of them.”

  “It had to be Sam, didn’t it?”

  Ben said, “Yeah, it did.”

  Right before the trophy presentation, Coach O’Brien came over, pulled Ben aside, so it was just the two of them.

  “I want you to know something,” he said, “straight up. This was the best season I ever had in my life.”

  Ben said, “Mine, too, Coach.” Then added, “Well, so far, anyway.”

  Coach pointed a finger at him now and said, “You changed my play.”

  “I guess I did.”

  In a quiet voice, Coach said, “You didn’t trust Shawn?”

  “Straight up, Coach? That had nothing to do with it. But it’s like I told Shawn the other day: I always try to be the best teammate I can be. And I knew Sam was our best chance to win the game.”

  “You were right,” Coach said.

  Ben McBain laughed. “Good thing!” he said.

  Coach walked away to get ready for the trophy presentation at midfield. That was when Ben saw Lily and his parents waving from behind the Rams’ bench. Ben jogged over there.

  His dad, as usual, hugged him first.

  “Flutie to Phelan,” he said.

  “Or McBain to Brown, that’s another way of looking at it now,” Ben said to his dad.

  “I thought I was only going to see that play once in my life,” he said.

  “Like you always tell me,” Ben said. “Guy’s open, you better get it to him.”

  “Even if you have to throw it as far as you can,” Jeff McBain said.

  “Are you kidding, Dad? I threw it much farther than that.”

  His mom hugged him then, held up her little recorder, said, “Now you can watch yourself make one of those Hail Mary passes you and your father are always going on and on about.”

  Ben’s parents walked away. Him and Lily now at The Rock.

  “Big Ben,” she said.

  “Not bad for a little guy, right?” he said.

  She smiled. “Not bad at all,” she said.

  After the trophy presentation, it was decided that once everybody went home to change, they should all meet at Coach O’Brien’s house for pizza and ice cream. But before they all left the field, there was one more presentation.

  Coach came over to where Ben was standing with Sam and Coop and Lily, handed him the game ball.

  “For making that throw,” he said.

  Ben immediately handed the ball to Sam, saying, “For making that catch.”

  Sam started to hand it back, saying, “No way.”

  So Coop grabbed the ball from both of them and said, “Why don’t I just hold on to this for now and we’ll work it out later.”

  “Genius,” Ben said. “Hundred percent.”

  “I knew it!” Coop said.

  Ben McBain took one last look out at the field, looked down to the end zone where Sam had made a catch he knew they would all remember forever, where he had made the kind of memory for all of them that Ben’s dad said sports were supposed to make.

  Then he turned back to his friends and, without saying a word, put his hand out in front of him, the way Coach did before every game.

  Sam put his on top of it.

  Coop and Lily did the same.

  “Hey, can I get some of that?”

  Shawn.

  Ben answered, without hesitation.

  “Get in here,” he said.

  Then Shawn’s hand was on top of theirs. Just like that, they were five.

  BASKETBALL SEASON IS HERE….

  Ben, Sam, Coop, Shawn, and Lily return in a second Game Changers novel!

  It’s another sport — basketball — and a new season for Ben McBain and his friends. That means a new set of challenges, both on and off the court, for Ben, Sam, Coop, Shawn, and even Lily. Before the cheering has stopped at the end of the football season, their friendships will be tested at the tip-off of basketball season. Ben faces off against a new set of opponents and must come to terms with his own abilities in order to prove once again that it’s not about getting knocked down in sports; it’s about how you get back up afterward.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To my wife, Taylor, and our four amazing children: Chris, Alex, Zach, and Hannah. They continue to make me want to be the best husband, the best father, the best writer of books like this one.

  Mike Lupica is the New York Times bestselling, highly acclaimed author of several books for young readers including Heat, Travel Team, The Big Field, Million-Dollar Throw, and The Underdogs. One of the most prominent sports writers in America, Mr. Lupica writes a column for the New York Daily News and can be seen weekly on ESPN’s The Sports Reporters. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and their four children.

  Copyright © 2012 by Mike Lupica

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  First edition, June 2012

  Cover art & design © 2012 by Phil Falco

  Cover photography by Michael Frost

  Author photo by Taylor McKelvy Lupica

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-44315-9

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication 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 the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

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