It is physiologically impossible to run at maximum speed for more than seven seconds.
No help. If Seymour ran the wrong way, all that didn’t matter.
Olympic weight lifters can lift four times their own weight.
Olympic long jumpers can jump five times the length of their own body.
It wasn’t going to help Seymour, but at least it was something to talk to him about… except… oh no! The next couple of facts ruined things completely.
Ants can lift fifty times their own weight.
Fleas can jump two hundred times the length of their own bodies.
Seymour should have been a bug.
Chapter 13
If someone ever invents a machine to go back in time or even just slow time down a bit, they’d make a billion dollars.
They’d make it at football games, where players who mess up on an important play would give anything to be able to do it over again.
They’d make it in the regular world, where dates and deadlines come closer and closer even when someone wishes as hard as he can that they wouldn’t.
I didn’t want Thursday to come, but I couldn’t stop it. I excused myself from football practice for family reasons. It was the day Dad and Mom had to sign off on the lease. The store would still be ours for another month so we could run a closeout sale, but Thursday was the point of no return.
Dad went to the landlord’s office alone this time. I stayed with Mom. A few customers came in to buy things. A sponge. Two door hinges. Nothing that was going to save the business. Mom and I hopped up on the counter and perched side by side.
The door opened and Gran came in.
“I thought I’d pop by for a quick hello,” she said.
Mom brought her a stool to sit on.
“Perhaps I will stay for a while,” said Gran. “Thank you.”
The door opened and Mr. G. walked in.
“Coach Billings has everything under control. I left early,” he said. He shifted the lawn display in the front window and sat on the ledge next to a plastic duck.
The door opened and Seymour walked in. I hadn’t seen him for almost a week.
“Why aren’t you at practice?” he asked me. “I may have quit the team, but I still ride by on my bike every day to check things out.”
Seymour had been spying and I hadn’t even noticed! I would have been mad, but I was pretty glad to see him. He took in our quiet little gathering.
“Why is everyone sitting around?” he asked.
“Long story,” said Mom. “Grab a seat.”
Seymour sat on our stock ladder.
The door opened and Dad walked in. He looked at Gran, Mr. G., the duck, Mom, me and Seymour.
And then he laughed.
“You look like a bunch of vultures waiting for something to die,” he said.
My dad had gone crazy. This wasn’t funny.
We didn’t mean to look like vultures. We were trying to make him feel better. We were trying to make us all feel better.
“Okay,” he said. “This is good. Supportive. But it’s not over yet. I need to talk to Rita. TJ, you can come too.”
I was being included in a business meeting! Dad, Mom and I went to the back. Mr. G., Gran and Seymour watched the front of the store.
It wasn’t a long meeting. Dad wanted to explain a new last-minute possibility he’d discussed with the landlord. The landlord had liked Dad’s plan and had agreed to an extension of time. Now it was Mom who needed to think about things. Mom didn’t say yes, but she didn’t say no either.
When we returned to the front, everyone was still sitting in the same spot, even the plastic duck. I left the adults to talk about it endlessly, the way I knew they would, and walked home with Seymour.
I had things to hash out with Seymour, but first I updated him about the new possibility for the store.
“Do you think your mom will agree?” he asked.
“She needs to talk to the accountant and the suppliers and some people around town…” I began.
“But do you think she’ll go for it?” he asked.
“If she doesn’t, Dad says he’ll think up something else,” I told Seymour. “He says he’s going to keep thinking up new business ideas until he comes up with one they both feel is worth trying. He’s the kind of dad that doesn’t give up.”
And the kind of dad that doesn’t like working for other people, I thought. I’d accidentally reminded him of that the day I’d said he could work at the box store. That’s when he’d decided to stop looking at the downside and start looking for possibilities—at least that’s what he’d told me.
“My dad would have been that kind of dad,” said Seymour.
And as soon as he said it, I began to understand. Well, understand isn’t quite the right word. I get to see my dad every day. Who knows what it’s like for Seymour? But in all the time I’d known him, Seymour had never come right out and mentioned his dad before. Things had to be linked together.
I just kept walking. I didn’t look at Seymour.
“Do you know very much about him? Do you know if he liked animals or cars or sports or anything? Did he like football?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Seymour nod.
“He played it. I’ve got a picture of him in his uniform.” Seymour wasn’t looking at me either, but he kept talking. “Why should it matter? I hardly remember my dad. I just remember little bits like fooling around with a ball in a park somewhere. I don’t even know if he’s the main reason why I want to play or just one of the reasons. Do you always know why you do things?”
Let’s see… I’d fooled myself into believing things were fine at the store until Gran began to drop hints. I’d fooled myself into thinking I hated team sports when I’d actually hated a single T-ball coach.
“I don’t know why I do things most of the time,” I said.
“Me neither,” said Seymour. “Let’s go to my house.”
I’d already seen the picture of Seymour’s dad on their bookcase, but that wasn’t the one he showed me. The picture he showed me was a newspaper clipping— a light-haired man with big ears and a bigger grin. The caption beneath it read Local Football Captain Honored.
“I mean, he wasn’t a star or anything on a big-league team,” said Seymour.
“But he must have been pretty good to be captain,” I said.
“That’s what I figure,” said Seymour.
I tried to think of something else to say. “Is that the team uniform? I guess they didn’t have all the padding and stuff back in the old days.”
“I guess not,” said Seymour.
“Who did he play for?” I asked. “Was it around here?”
Seymour shook his head. “It was in England. That’s where my dad grew up. He met Mom when he came over here to work and he never went back. Mom’s not very interested in England, but I’m going to go there some day.”
Football. England. Something began buzzing around in my head, something I’d noticed in one of the books; something I’d noticed on TV too. Didn’t Seymour know? Hadn’t his mother told him? When she’d driven us home she’d said sports were a complete mystery to her, and she’d been confused about passing and kicking the ball around the field. Good grief—perhaps she honestly didn’t know enough to realize the difference herself!
“I’ve got some cousins in England,” Seymour was saying. “I’d like to meet them. I could talk football with them if I ever learn to play properly.”
He definitely didn’t know!
“Maybe they would take me to a football game where my dad played,” said Seymour.
There wasn’t any way around it. I had to tell him.
“Seymour,” I said, “it would be neat, really neat, to meet your cousins and see where your dad played. But just so you know… it wouldn’t be our kind of football.”
“Different rules I guess.” Seymour nodded. “There’d be a few different rules just like there are in American and Canadian football.”
He looked at me.
“Why would there be a soccer ball?” he asked.
“Because in England and most other places, that’s what football is.”
“No it’s not,” said Seymour.
“Yes it is,” I said. I thought again about the newspaper photo. I knew I was right. No shoulder pads. It was a soccer jersey. I’d even seen the explanation in the sports books. One of the names in England was Association Football, and the “soc” part of Association became soccer, which is the name we use over here. “I’m telling the truth. Honest.”
“Football is soccer?” asked Seymour.
“Or soccer is football. Depending how you think about it,” I said.
His eyes grew very, very wide. All of a sudden the full implication was sinking in.
“You mean I’ve been trying to play the wrong sport?” he asked.
But my brain had leapt over the downside of things and moved on to the possibilities.
“Maybe not the wrong sport,” I said. “Maybe just the wrong position. We need to talk to Mr. G.”
Chapter 14
On a crisp fall afternoon, Dad climbed a ladder at the front of our store and removed the sign that read Barnes Hardware. A lot had happened with the business during the past six weeks. A lot had also happened with Seymour and with the football team.
At the top of the ladder Dad paused, just for a moment, then handed the sign down to Mom. She took it gently. She nodded at me. I handed a new sign up to Dad.
Rooms by Rita
Walls had gone up to divide the old store into several small stores. Our new space was one-third the original size. One-third the rent. One-third the cost of electricity, heating and taxes.
Inside, things had also changed. The latest painting techniques, wallpaper and window coverings were displayed in decorated nooks. Two beautiful oak tables were scattered with sample books and color swatches. Mom would help clients plan from start to finish and order what was needed. Dad and Mr. G. would do basic installations. More complicated jobs would be contracted out to workers Dad knew and trusted from running the hardware store.
“I think I’m going to like getting out and about more,” said my dad, climbing down the ladder. “Maybe I should start loading the latest order.”
“Dad!” I said.
I pointed to a third sign. It was on our front door, and at the moment it read Closed.
“Okay, football time,” said Dad.
A new team can learn a lot of football in six weeks. We’d practiced hard. We’d had five more games and we’d played every game better than the last.
“Are you ready, TJ?” asked Mom as she and Dad gathered tools and loaded the ladder onto our work van.
Hmmm. Let’s see. Clammy palms. The urge to barf. Yup, I was ready.
No matter how many games a person plays, there are always pre-game jitters. That doesn’t mean you should pretend it’s just a practice. It doesn’t mean you should think about physics either. The way you use pre-game jitters is to get yourself to that perfect point where you’re ready to spring into action from the opening whistle. This was a whistle that our whole team cared about. It was the last game of the season. We were out of the playoffs, but we wanted to end the season with hope. We wanted to go out with a win.
There were two little problems. We weren’t exactly sure we could win because we’d never done it in any of the other six games to date. And the team we were playing was the team from the start of the season—the team that had beaten us forty-two to zero.
“It’s an advantage,” said Coach G. “They won’t be allowing for the fact that you’ve improved way more than they have over these past weeks. Believe me, the element of surprise is on our side.”
Meg believed him. On the first play of the game she went straight into high gear and ran a kick return the length of the field. Touchdown!
The first play of the game and we were ahead! We’d only been ahead once before in our entire career. We were all congratulating Meg like crazy. Amanda was cheering wildly from the trainers’ area on the sidelines. And we were about to make things even better by bringing in our secret weapon.
His name was Seymour.
In our kind of football—and this part is the exact opposite of the rules for teams with older players, including the pro teams—when a team scores a touchdown it can make an extra two points by having someone kick a convert through the goal posts. Most teams our age don’t manage to get those two points because they don’t have anyone who can kick accurately. A lot of the time, in fact, teams don’t even try. Instead, they try for the play that works far more often for them—running or passing the ball into the end zone—which only gives them one extra point.
But Seymour could kick. He had what was needed. Balance. Flexibility. And soccer experience.
“I was only four years old!” he kept telling Coach G.
Coach G. just laughed and shook his head. “I know these English football players. Your dad probably had you kicking the ball around from the time you could walk.”
Seymour’s mom said it was true, she’d just never figured out the whole soccer/football confusion. There are all sorts of places in North America where soccer is a big sport, but it hadn’t quite made it to our area yet—another reason why Seymour was unique. And Coach Winguard, who was in charge of special teams, had taken Seymour to a kicking clinic in the city to get him on the right track. Seymour had taken to kicking with a natural ability and a desire to learn that was even greater than anyone expected.
Our secret weapon walked on the field and kicked a beautiful two-point convert. Yes!
Right away the other team scored back on us. Six points. But they didn’t even try the two-point kick, and we stopped their single-point run cold. We were still two points ahead!
After that we settled down and played the game. We didn’t score on them but we held them right through the first quarter. And right through the second quarter. Almost.
Just before halftime, they scored a touchdown.
Going off the field at halftime when the other team has just scored against you is a huge, gigantic, way-too-miserable-for-words downer. They’d even managed to run the convert across. In no time at all we’d gone from being a glorious two points ahead to being a miserable five points behind. All around me I could feel players’ hopes deflating like air leaking out of about two dozen punctured bike tires.
This wasn’t time to lose hope—the game was only half over! I’d read enough of Seymour’s football books to know what we needed. We needed a top-notch, spirit-lifting, halftime pep talk. I had a feeling that Coach Billings would finally come up with a good one.
He gathered us at the far end of the field and launched into it—dedication, determination, responsibility, team spirit.
Oh no—it was the same speech he always gave. Coach Billings was the person who should have read Seymour’s library books! There were some great halftime football talks in the books. We were getting the same old thing, and the other team was probably hearing something amazing and inspirational!
I glanced down the field. They weren’t. Even a football field away I could read the body language. Their coach was ragging on them big-time. His hands were flailing. He was pointing at players and throwing his clipboard over his shoulder. I could tell a couple of kids felt like crawling off somewhere and never playing football ever again.
I decided I liked Coach Billings. He might not be Mr. Inspirational, but at least we weren’t being made to feel like a bunch of losers.
And anyway, we had Gabe. Don’t ask me how kids like that do it—I couldn’t make it happen in a million years—but he cracked a joke and slapped a couple of helmets and next thing I knew we were bouncing back onto the field.
When we lined up this time I took my position with the feeling that I was ready to take on the world
. I guess a bunch of other kids felt the same. Our offense and our defense both kept the pressure on, big-time. We didn’t score, but neither did the other team. And finally, late in the fourth quarter, our defense backed the other team right up to their goal line. Gibson broke through and tackled their running back in the end zone for a two-point safety. Yeah, Gibson!
We were still behind—but only by three points.
Time was running out. When Meg came up with the ball again on the kick return, everyone’s hearts jumped. This time, however, the other team was instantly after her and she barely had time to scramble a few yards.
“Offense—on the field!”
I snapped my chin strap in place for what would probably be the last possession of the game, our last few chances to score.
We began to move the ball down the field toward the opponents’ goal posts—good solid plays. We were getting there, but there was a huge problem. We were getting there too slowly. We didn’t have time to do this yard by yard. Time was passing way too fast.
I looked at the time clock. Fifteen seconds! That’s all the time we had left to score before the game would be over. We needed a big play. I looked at the sidelines. Yup, Coach was signaling in a play. Gabe was nodding.
We went into the huddle. I was expecting Gabe to call a long desperation pass called a “Hail Mary,” where the quarterback throws high and far and everyone prays the receiver catches it. It didn’t happen. Gabe called a screen pass.
A screen pass! That was the short little pass Gran had recognized on TV. It was okay for a few yards, but it wasn’t going to get us a touchdown!
You don’t question the quarterback, but I guess Gabe saw my look.
“Secret weapon,” he said.
I understood. Coach Billings was still calm and cool. I was panicking that this might be our last play before the clock ran out, but Coach knew there was time for at least two more plays. A few more yards were all we needed to be in field goal range. Seymour could come in to try a three-point kick. It would be a long kick, but we’d still have a way better chance of making it work than a long pass. And the game would be a tie.
TJ and the Sports Fanatic Page 6
