TJ and the Sports Fanatic

by Hazel Hutchins

  TJ and the Sports Fanatic

  Hazel Hutchins

  Copyright © 2006 Hazel Hutchins

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted

  in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

  recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be

  invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Hutchins, H. J. (Hazel J.)

  TJ and the sports fanatic / Hazel Hutchins.

  (Orca young readers)

  ISBN 1-55143-461-X

  I. Title. II. Series.

  PS8565.U826T34 2006 jC813’.54 C2006-901018-8

  First published in the United States: 2006

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2006922290

  Summary: TJ Barnes doesn’t usually play team sports,

  but he learns a lot about football and even more about

  his friend Seymour when they both join a football team.

  Free teachers’ guide available at www.orcabook.com

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its

  publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of

  Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP),

  the Canada Council for the Arts, and the British Columbia Arts Council.

  Cover design by Lynn O’Rourke

  Cover & interior illustrations by Kyrsten Brooker

  In Canada:

  Orca Book Publishers

  www.orcabook.com

  Box 5626 Stn.B

  Victoria, BC Canada

  V8R 6S4

  In the United States:

  Orca Book Publishers

  www.orcabook.com

  PO Box 468

  Custer, WA USA

  98240-0468

  09 08 07 06 • 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Printed and bound in Canada

  Printed on 100% recycled paper.

  Processed chlorine-free using vegetable based inks.

  Special thanks to my son Ben, who does all

  things in life with enthusiasm and determination,

  and to coach David Owen, who encouraged me

  to write this book, provided invaluable technical

  assistance, supplied an endless variety of football

  stories and always offered support and friendship.

  Thank you also to Lawrence Grassi Middle School,

  Reed Barrett’s grade five class and the Haney

  family. And to local football teams and players,

  thank you for many exciting hours of great football.

  Those above get credit for

  the accurate parts of the story.

  Any errors are entirely my own.

  Chapter 1

  My name is TJ Barnes and I don’t play team sports. I gave up on that kind of stuff back when I was a little kid and discovered how lousy I was at T-ball. That’s why I was surprised when Gabe phoned me. Gabe plays every sport in the world.

  “I’m helping Coach organize things,” he said. “First practice is Saturday, 1:00 PM. Don’t be late.” And then he hung up.

  “What coach?” I asked T-Rex and Alaska. “What practice?”

  T-Rex and Alaska are my cats. They’re one year old—lean, lanky and with super spring-power in their back legs. We’d just invented a new game called chase-the-crazy-light-spot.

  Alaska liked to chase the light-spot across the carpet. T-Rex liked to chase it up the wall. He’d take a huge leap, climb the wall right to the ceiling and come flying down again. T-Rex is great at sports!

  He’d just done a ceiling flip with a single twist when the doorbell rang, the door opened and my best friend, Seymour, walked in. Seymour doesn’t wait for the doorbell to be answered at our house. My family is used to it.

  “Saturday, 1:00 PM,” he said. “Don’t be late.”

  Now I knew where Gabe had gotten my name—Seymour had signed us up for something. Weird. Seymour doesn’t play a lot of sports either.

  “I don’t play hockey,” I said. Hockey is big around here.

  “It’s August,” said Seymour. “Not too many people play hockey in August.”

  “I don’t play baseball either,” I said. “I flunked T-ball way back when I was six and a half.”

  “Can you flunk T-ball?” asked Seymour in amazement.

  “I couldn’t catch, hit, throw or run bases,” I explained. “The coach yelled at me a lot.”

  Seymour nodded.

  “It’s not baseball,” he said. “What’s with the cats?”

  T-Rex was staring at the carpet with an intensity that could burn holes. Alaska was peering around the corner.

  “Watch this,” I said.

  I held my wristwatch to the window to reflect the morning sun. A spot of light shimmered on the carpet. T-Rex crouched. His bottom quivered with anticipation.

  Zoom. I sent the light-spot flashing up the wall. Up sprang T-Rex. He did a three-pawed landing way up near the ceiling and a spectacular dismount—a huge double-twister this time.

  “Wow!” laughed Seymour.

  Seymour was so impressed I decided to forget about being peeved at him.

  “Okay, I give up. What did you sign us up for?” I asked.

  “Football,” said Seymour. He said it as if it were the best idea in the world.

  “Football!” This was ten times worse than I’d expected. “Football players are huge and mean and they have to be able to tackle, catch, throw, run and kick the ball from one end of the stadium to the other!”

  Seymour looked worried. One eyebrow went up and one eyebrow went down, which is what happens when Seymour is thinking. The next moment, however, he settled his ideas—and his eyebrows—back into place.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “No one else around here knows that stuff either. This is the first year they’ve had a team for kids our age. It’s the perfect time to join.”

  “But does it have to be football?” I asked. “Couldn’t we find some other sport that’s just starting?”

  Seymour looked at the ceiling. He looked at the floor. He did something very odd, even for Seymour. He shrugged.

  “No big deal,” he said. “I’ll go on my own. Can’t hurt to try.”

  Actually, it could hurt a lot to try. Football players are gigantic and they flatten each other at every opportunity.

  I should have said No. I should have said Not in a million years. That shrug, however, had me worried. Seymour is my best friend and something strange was going on.

  “I’ll come just to see what it’s like,” I told him.

  “Hurrah!” said Seymour, right back at full enthusiasm level again. The cats caught his energy and danced sideways across the carpet. They wanted to play but the sun had gone behind a cloud—no more crazy-light-spot.

  I tossed a cat toy across the room. T-Rex and Alaska raced after it in a mad rush of furry legs and armpits. They bowled each other over, tumbled into the dining room and slid across the hardwood floor. Alaska came out on top with the toy in her mouth. T-Rex was hot on her heels. Seymour began to call the play-by-play, football style.

  “She’s at the fifty, she’s at the thirty, she’s at the twenty…”

  Alaska jumped to the sofa and took a giant leap through the two big railing posts on the stairs.

  “Touchdown!” cried Seymour, raising both hands in the air.

  After Seymour had gone home, I heard Mom come in the back door with Gran.

  “Seymour just left,” I said. “He signed me up to play football.”

  Part of me
was hoping Mom would shut down the whole idea—no time, no money. I’d heard a lot of that lately. Instead she was nodding.

  “Seymour’s mother came to the store to talk about it,” she said. “We didn’t have to go far to look into things. It’s well organized. There are proper age and weight categories. We have to buy the shoes, but they supply the rest of the equipment. It’s a good chance for you to get outside. You can run around and get rid of some stress.”

  What stress? It was summer holidays. I liked sleeping late and not going to school. I even liked helping out at our family hardware store—I stock the pet supplies and fill in wherever Mom and Dad need me. I’m too young for an official job, so it’s just for a few hours at a time. My summer stress level was about minus three. Perfect.

  “But I have to warn you, TJ,” Mom continued, “I’m not good with contact sports. I may have to watch your games with my eyes closed.”

  Adults are crazy. How could she watch with her eyes closed? I might have to play with my eyes closed, but I decided not to think about it. I looked at Gran.

  “Will you have to watch with your eyes closed?” I asked.

  Gran, however, raised both hands in the air, just the way Seymour had done.

  “Touchdown!”

  Chapter 2

  At the store the next day there were boxes stacked by the back door. Inside were shoes with knobby points on the bottom—football cleats.

  “How did you know Seymour was going to sign us up?” I asked my dad. “Why did you get us so many shoes?”

  Dad was sitting at the desk in the storeroom, surrounded by stacks of paper and staring at numbers on the computer screen.

  “I didn’t,” he said without looking up. “Mr. G. ordered them for the team. He’s loading them into his car for delivery. He’s one of the coaches.”

  Now I knew why Mom didn’t have to go far to find out about things. Mr. G. is retired but he works part-time at our store to keep busy. He came through the back door.

  “Hi, TJ,” he said. “Grab a pair and try them on for size. I didn’t know you were keen on football.”

  “I’m not. Seymour signed me up,” I said.

  “I didn’t know Seymour was keen on football,” corrected Mr. G.

  “I don’t know if he really is or not. Something pretty weird is going on,” I explained.

  “Let me get this straight,” said Mr. G. “You’re playing because Seymour’s playing. Seymour’s playing because something weird is going on.”

  I nodded.

  Mr. G. looked serious. He doesn’t usually look serious. I remembered my old T-Ball coach. He looked serious all the time. Oh no. Maybe coaching was some sort of disease that mutated normal, happy people into intensely serious people who yelled a lot.

  “Let me tell you something, TJ,” said Mr. G., raising a finger in the air. “There is one, and only one, reason to play football. And that reason is…”

  “Money,” said a voice behind us.

  Mr. G. and I turned. Dad’s nose was close to the computer screen and he was scowling.

  “Football players make lots of money. They don’t have to worry about damaged stock and interest rates.”

  The next moment he swiveled around in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Even I know that only a small percentage of players ever makes money at sports.”

  “A tiny percentage, a minuscule percentage,” said Mr. G. “Money is definitely not a good reason to play. The only good reason to play is…”

  He looked at me seriously again. Up went his finger. I could feel myself cringing. I hate it when coaches think sports are the center of the universe and talk as if all the words begin with capital letters. Responsibility. Leadership. Team Spirit. Self-Confidence. Physical Fitness. How To Win. How To Lose. How To Listen To Endless Lectures. That’s another reason I’d flunked T-ball. I hate lectures. They drive me nuts.

  All of a sudden, however, the finger dropped and Mr. G. grinned.

  “The only reason to play is to have fun.”

  He scooped up the last boxes and trotted out the back door.

  “Have fun!” said Seymour. “How can I be the world’s greatest football player with a coach who wants to have fun?”

  It was evening and Seymour had shown up at my house with his backpack stuffed to overflowing. When Seymour doesn’t know something, he doesn’t forget about it the way most people do. He doesn’t go around pretending he knows, either. Instead, he checks out books from the library and he searches on the Internet. I was going to ask him what he had found, but first I had to clear up the reason for his latest rant.

  “Seymour,” I said, “you don’t really expect to be the world’s greatest, do you? The chances of being the world’s greatest anything are really, really small—even Mr. G. said so.”

  “I’m not sure Mr. G. should be coaching,” said Seymour. “He’s a million years old.”

  “He’s not a million years old. And what’s that got to do with anything? He’s smart. He’s the one who helped us figure out the shoplifting scam,” I said.

  That was a couple of months ago. Seymour had spotted a lady stealing from our store using a knitting bag with a tricky trapdoor. Mr. G. had connected her with a man trying to sell security systems. Talk about a couple of con artists.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” said Seymour. “He’s like your gran. He’s smart and sneaky, even if he is a million years old.”

  Seymour opened his backpack.

  “Hmmm… he still might need to update himself. Maybe I should lend him a couple of the books I found.”

  He dumped a mess of printouts and at least twelve books on the sofa. His backpack must have weighed a ton.

  “You’re this worried about our coach?” I asked.

  “I’m worried about us,” said Seymour. “You scared me when you talked about having to be big and fast and able to catch everything and leap tall buildings and all that other stuff to play football. I had to find out for sure.”

  He handed me a book. It was an encyclopedia of sports. It fell open at a nice peaceful page showing people rolling balls along the grass.

  “No lawn bowling,” said Seymour. “Turn to football.”

  I turned to football. Players were arranged on a football field. Even in miniature they looked like monster men. According to the weights and heights written on the side under Player Profiles, however, some were bigger than others.

  “Look,” said Seymour, pointing to the middle of the page where some mini-monsters were lined up across from each other. “Big quick guys in the middle of the line. Big fast guys on the ends of the line.”

  “Fast and quick are the same thing,” I said.

  “Not in football,” said Seymour. “I’ve been reading.”

  He pointed to the players around the edge of the page.

  “The guys here are smaller. They’re the ones who have to be able to run like crazy. Most of them can catch too. But they don’t have to be able to throw.”

  He pointed again.

  “The only one that really has to be able to throw is the quarterback. He also has to be fast, tricky, run the game and be cool under pressure.”

  I could tell right away that Seymour wanted to be a quarterback.

  “Seymour…” I began.

  “Who knows what we can do until we try,” he said. “Somebody has to be really good—otherwise there wouldn’t be star players! I’ve got another book with ways to test sports stuff.”

  We tested something called explosive style.

  We stood beside the wall, tucked our right hands behind our backs and reached up with our left hands to touch the wall as high as we could. We marked the spots. Next we crouched and jumped up. Hey! Just like T-Rex. Then we measured the distance between the standing mark and the jumping mark and multiplied it by our weight. Seymour could jump higher but I’m heavier, so we ended up about the same on the explosive test.

  Then we tested our reaction times.
We took turns holding a ruler upright, with the bottom tip between the other person’s thumb and first finger, and then dropping it without warning. Seymour could catch the ruler almost as soon as it was dropped. His reaction time was way better than mine.

  We took turns looking at a page that had a single line with a dot two-thirds of the way down it. At least that’s what it looked like when you were reading the book the regular way. If you tilted the book until it was flat and then raised it to eye level—in other words, held it straight out from your nose—the single line appeared to morph into two lines.

  Seymour saw an X. That meant he had good binocular vision, which is great for sports where balls get caught or kicked or hit.

  I saw a V—lousy binocular vision. No wonder I was terrible at T-ball. I was sure I’d be lousy at catching a football too.

  Cats are supposed to have pretty good binocular vision, so Seymour showed them the book. They weren’t interested. Alaska rubbed her chin against it, marking it with her scent glands. T-Rex wanted to play. He gave three explosive hops across the carpet and leapt high up the wall to tackle the curtain cord.

  “See how he lands?” asked Seymour. “One foot at a time to reduce momentum. That’s in the book too. Maybe they’ll teach us how to do that at practice—how to roll and fall and stuff.”

  I was still trying to figure out how the tiny players in the book could look so large.

  Seymour was tired of lugging books, so he left half of them for me to look at but I didn’t get a chance. The cats like to sleep on hard shiny surfaces almost as much as they like to sleep on soft ones. They flopped across the books, gave each other a good grooming and fell asleep.

  Cat hair, saliva and scent gland stuff. I was glad Seymour would be the one taking the books back to the library.

  Chapter 3

  On Saturday, before practice, I worked at the store. Usually there are a lot of customers on Saturday and Dad helps in the front. This Saturday was slow, however, and he didn’t come out of the back office until it was time for Mr. G. and me to leave for the playing field. We saw Seymour walking, and Mr. G. stopped the car to pick him up. There were still a few shoe boxes in the back-seat. Seymour’s brain fastened on them right away.