The Late Hit Read online

  Copyright © 2017 by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

  Darby Creek

  A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  241 First Avenue North

  Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

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  The images in this book are used with the permission of: © pattern line/Shutterstock.com (scratch texture); © Eky Studio/Shutterstock.com (metal bolts); © Kriangsak Osvapoositkul/Shutterstock.com (rust texture); © Volodymyr Melnyk/Dreamstime.com (players in stadium).

  Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std 12/17.5. Typeface provided by Adobe Systems.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Coleman, K. R., author.

  Title: The late hit / Karlyn Coleman.

  Description: Minneapolis : Darby Creek, [2017] | Series: Gridiron | Summary: “In small-town football players push through injuries. But when a concussion rattles the starting quarterback, should he risk his own safety for the good of the team?”— Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016043424 (print) | LCCN 2017006408 (ebook) | ISBN 9781512439823 (lb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781512453522 (pb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781512448719 (eb pdf)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Football—Fiction. | Brain—Concussion—Fiction | Best friends—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | High schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.C644 Lat 2017 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.C644 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016043424

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1-42231-25780-1/4/2017

  9780778723134 ePub

  9780778723158 mobi

  9780778723219 ePub

  This book is dedicated to number 50

  on the Solomon Gorillas football team.

  Chapter 1

  Anton and I are the first ones out on the field for practice. It’s one of those perfect October days. The air is cool. The maple trees are lit up—orange and red and yellow against a bright blue sky. I’ve waited all day to get out on this field. I’m not good at sitting still in a classroom. I’m at my best when I’m moving around and forced to think on the fly.

  Anton and I throw a football back and forth while we wait for the others to come out. I can tell his mind is somewhere else, but even though he’s only half concentrating, he still throws a perfect spiral. It lands right in my hands.

  I throw the ball back, but I don’t have an arm like his. No one on our team does. He’s the best QB the Warren High Wolves have had in years, and the kid didn’t even know a thing about football until we became friends in the fifth grade.

  Anton was new to our school that year. His family moved to Warren because back then the mines were still open and paying well. I remember at recess how he used to just stand against a chain-link fence and watch the rest of us play touch football on the asphalt parking lot.

  One day I threw him the football and told him to join the game, but he just tossed the ball back, shook his head, and walked off.

  “You should play,” I told him later as we were heading up the stairs to our classroom. I felt bad for him, standing there alone.

  “I don’t know how,” he mumbled looking down at his feet as we headed down a hallway. “I’ve never played before.”

  “What?” I was stunned. “You have to learn!” Even back then, I loved everything about football. Watching it. Playing it. Reading about it in the paper.

  I invited Anton over to my house that Sunday to watch the Packers game. Afterward we went out back and my dad and I taught Anton how to throw and run the ball. He has come over to my house every Sunday since. We’ll watch football on TV or play our own game in my backyard. It didn’t take long for Anton to develop the best arm at our school. Soon he was the player everyone wanted on their team at recess.

  “The Titans have some big defenders,” I say, trying to pull Anton out of his own thoughts. Usually he’s talkative and upbeat—excited about the upcoming game.

  “Busby,” Anton says, throwing the ball hard and fast. “We can’t lose this game.”

  “I know,” I say, catching it against my chest, surprised by the intensity of the throw. “It’s a big game. We win, we go onto playoffs. We lose, our season is done. But we can beat the Titans. We have a better passing game.”

  “You don’t understand. We have to win this,” Anton says moving across the white lines toward me. When he is a few feet away, he looks back at the doors to the school to see if Coach has come out, then says: “The school board is thinking about closing down Warren High.”

  I think he’s joking, but then I see his face. He’s not making this up.

  Chapter 2

  “What?!” I feel like I’ve just taken a hit by a linebacker twice my size. I don’t understand.

  “I heard Ms. Jenkins and Mr. Leonard talking about it after school. They didn’t know Ciara and I were standing outside the door.”

  “Why were you with Ciara?” I ask, distracted by the thought of her, but trying to sound casual. Anton knows I’ve had a crush on Ciara Johnson for years—I’ve never been good at hiding anything from him.

  “Dude!” Anton looks at me, shaking his head. “Ciara and I both had to make up a quiz, but that’s not the important part of this story. Didn’t you just hear me? They want to close down our school!”

  “Right,” I say, getting back on topic. “Why? Why do they want to do that?” I look past the goal posts and up at our school. The red brick building sits on top of a hill. It isn’t a great school, but it isn’t bad. My parents went here and my grandfather too. It has withstood a fire and a century of harsh winters. It’s an anchor in this town. I may not love school, but I can’t imagine going anywhere else.

  “The school needs too many repairs,” Anton says. “And there isn’t any money in this town to fix it up—not since everybody lost their jobs at the mine.”

  Three years ago the iron ore mines just outside of town shut down. The company keeps saying they’ll reopen, but they haven’t. There are a lot of families struggling to make ends meet. My dad left to work in the oil fields until the mines reopen. It’s a twelve-hour drive from here, and he lives in camper attached to the back of his truck. We only see him one weekend a month. He says it’s just temporary—that it’s just a matter of time before the mines reopen—but it’s been over a year now.

  I hold the football tightly between my two hands.

  “They’re just going to close it down? What are we going to do next year? Our senior year? Where are we supposed to go?”

  Anton kneels down to tie his cleat.

  “I heard Ms. Jenkins say half of us will be sent to Caulfield High and the other half to Pine Falls.”

  “Send us to different schools? Split us all up?” The words tumble hard and fast out of my mouth. Thoughts of having to spend my senior year at either one of those schools make me feel sick. I can’t imagine walking down a hallway and not seeing half the faces I know—faces like Anton’s and Ciara’s.

  The rest of our team comes out on the field.

  “What about the Wolves? What about Coach Quimbley?” I ask.

  Anton shakes his head. “This could be it for the Wolves.”

  Chapter 3

  Out of frustration and anger, I throw the ball at the stands and hear it hit the wooden stairs. There’s
a strange hollow echo. I stand there for a moment realizing that there might not even be a place for me on another team. I’m not huge. I’m only five foot ten and lanky for a fullback, but Coach likes how I play. He’s put a lot of faith in me this year, and I’m only as good as I am because of his coaching.

  “What if we’re at different schools? On different teams?” I ask Anton.

  His face becomes hard. The two of us have played on the same line since our freshman year, and before that we were always on the same team—even during our elementary school recess games. I’ve made it my main focus to protect Anton out on the field. It was the only way that we could get Anton’s mom to sign the forms to let him play football in the first place. I promised his mom that I’d watch out for him. And so far I’ve kept my word.

  Coach comes out on the field. He’s wearing a blue and silver baseball hat and matching shirt. He walks to the center of the field where the rest of the team starts to gather around.

  “We can’t let them break up this team. We can’t let them just close our school,” I whisper to Anton.

  “Nothing has been decided yet. The board still needs to vote,” Anton says as he walks with me to the stands to retrieve the ball I’ve thrown up there. “If we win and keep winning—if the whole town is cheering us on, it’ll be hard for them to close our school.”

  “What if winning isn’t enough?” I ask.

  “There’s been too much loss in this town. We need to win,” Anton says with finality. “We will win.”

  I climb over the small metal fence and into the stands. I want to believe like Anton does—believe that a win will save our school. But I know the roof leaks, and last winter the boiler broke down three times. It was so cold inside, we all wore our coats and hats to class, but it was also fun. It was one of those experiences that could only happen at Warren High, and we look back on it with pride.

  My cleats clunk up the white, wooden staircase. I find the football in the third row, and when I reach down to pick it up, I see all the names carved into the bleachers. The names have been painted over, but they’re still clearly visible. Letters etched so deeply in the wood that no amount of paint could cover them up fully. My dad’s name is on one of these benches. He showed it to me once. My grandfather’s name is here too. It’s something all the seniors do when they graduate from Warren High—find a bench and carve their name in it, letting the world know they were a part of Warren history.

  I trace over some letters and wonder if I’ll ever get a chance to carve my name alongside the rest. What will happen to these stands? To this field? To these names? We can’t let this be the end.

  “Busby! What are you doing up there? Get over here,” Coach yells at me.

  I hold up the ball for him to see. It feels heavier than it did before. It feels for a moment as if it’s filled with sand. I head down the stairs and over the fence. Anton and I walk towards the fifty yard line where everyone else is gathered.

  Chapter 4

  Coach motions for the team to take a knee, and we all look up at him. I can see in his face that he’s heard about the possibility of Warren High closing too. His jaw is tight as he chomps down on a piece of cinnamon gum, and there’s a deep crease across his forehead.

  He holds up two fingers.

  “Two days to get ready,” Coach says. “Two days to prepare. Two days to work on efficiency and focus and speed. The Titans might be a bigger team, with a deeper bench, but we have played this season like a well-oiled machine. And that’s how we’ll win. We are going to be flawless out there. No mistakes.”

  “No mistakes!” we all shout back.

  Then Anton stands up and looks at Coach. At six foot two, he’s nearly as tall as Coach, but he’s not as wide.

  Anton takes off his helmet and holds it in his hands. “Coach, are they thinking of closing Warren High down?”

  The rest of the team starts talking all at once. A bunch of us stand up. Coach chews on his gum for a few seconds too long. Then holds up his hands and doesn’t say a thing until we are quiet again and down on one knee.

  “That’s all just talk,” he says and then looks at each of us. “And we can’t let this talk break our focus. We need to concentrate on beating the Titans. We can’t focus on something that isn’t clear. Focus on now. Focus on here. Focus on how to win Friday night.”

  “But we need to know,” Anton pushes. “Is it true? Will there be a vote?”

  Coach takes off his baseball hat and runs his fingers through his short hair.

  “Enough,” he says. “We can practice and work hard or talk about rumors and gossip.”

  “If the board is thinking about closing down our school . . .” Anton starts. I can tell he’s about to give a speech about how a win could change the school board’s mind, but Coach cuts him off.

  “Run the stairs,” Coach points to the stands.

  I watch Anton turn around, but I have his back. I’ve always had his back. I stand up and say what he wanted to say: “That’s why we have to play like we’ve never played before. We have to make this town care about our school. If they have pride in us, in this school, they aren’t going to let the board shut us down.”

  Coach looks at me and is quiet for a moment. That was the most I’ve ever said in front of this team. I’m not one of the guys that gives pep talks; I usually keep my head down.

  “Busby,” he says slowly. “Nice speech. Now you can join Anton and run the stairs. Fifty times. Up and down. Now. Go.”

  Anton and I head to the bleachers.

  “He knows we’re right,” Anton says.

  I nod at this. The two of us make a good team—I have no idea what I’ll do if we’re split up.

  “We’re going to win,” Anton says. “We can’t just let the Wolves go down without a fight. We need to keep playing for as long as we can.”

  Chapter 5

  We run up and down the stairs. At the top, I touch a few names on a bench. I don’t know the faces these names belong to, but I know that we have to win on Friday for them too.

  My legs burn when we are done. We head back over to where the rest of the team is lined up to practice, but Coach won’t let us take the field. He calls the two of us over to the sideline where he’s standing.

  “No more interruptions!” He yells at us. “Focus! Focus on what is happening right here. Right now.” And then he lowers his voice, looks at both of us, and says, “I’m depending on both of you to lead this team to victory. Do you understand? Be leaders out there. Not distractions.”

  “Yes, sir,” we both say together.

  “Then get out there.”

  Anton and I jog out on the field and line up with the others, but as soon as we start to run through plays as a team, I can tell that everyone’s mind is distracted by the thought that the school might close down. We make mistake after mistake. Even the seniors are upset—it would be strange to say that you graduated from a school that no longer exists.

  “Again,” Coach yells when we mess up a play. “We will stay here until you get this right. I have all night, gentlemen.”

  Coach moves me to defense for a few plays and tells me to be prepared to play not only fullback but safety too. The kid who usually plays this position, Joe Warner, sprained his ankle during last Friday’s game. He tried to practice on it today but only made it worse. He’s sitting on the bench now, with his cleat off and a bag of ice on his foot.

  Coach heads over there to talk to him and puts Anton in charge.

  I make my way to the defensive line. Anton calls a play, but the center hikes the ball too short. It hits the ground, and just as Anton reaches down to pick it up, our biggest defenseman, Junior Jones, charges through the offensive line like a bull on fire. I can’t do anything to stop him. I can only watch as he flies into Anton, head down. There is a crack of helmets and Anton is knocked off his feet. He falls backward and hits the ground. Hard.

  Chapter 6

  The rest of us have enough sense to block Coach’s v
iew. He doesn’t need to see the mess we just made out of a simple play. Two players down. Head-on collision.

  “Sorry, man, sorry,” Junior says slowly as he stands up. He reaches down to help Anton up, but Anton is still out of it. He’s sitting, but he’s not ready to stand.

  “You really hit him, Junior,” someone says.

  “What were you thinking?” I growl at Junior.

  “I broke through the line. That’s what I was supposed to do. Break through fast and hard.”

  “You just smashed into our quarterback,” I say. “Our starting quarterback. The guy on our team who puts points on the board.”

  “It was an accident,” he says, turning around and looking back at Coach who is still talking to Joe over on the bench. “I wasn’t trying to crash into him. Don’t say anything to Coach. He’ll bench me.”

  I glare at Junior, but we both know I won’t say anything. We can’t afford to lose Junior at our game on Friday. I turn to Anton. “Are you okay?” I ask, helping him up.

  Anton gives me a nod, but I can tell he’s hurting.

  “What’s going on?” Coach bellows when he finally looks up and notices that we are at a standstill out on the field. We scramble to get back into position and start the play again.

  This time, when the ball is hiked to Anton, he fumbles it.

  Coach blows his whistle.

  We run the play five times before we get it right. Anton keeps making mistakes. It isn’t like him to play sloppy and miss his mark.

  “You aren’t focused! If you play like this on Friday night, this team is going to lose. What do you need to do to win?”

  “Play focused. Play fast. Play efficient!” we all shout.

  “Then start again. From the beginning. We run these plays until they’re flawless. No mistakes.”

  Anton’s face is pale, but he pushes through like always.

  After an extra hour of practice, Coach finally tells us to go home. The blue sky above us has turned dark and gray. Storm clouds have moved in, and there is now a damp October chill in the air.