The Late Hit Read online

  When we leave the locker room, Anton hands me the keys to his truck. At first I laugh, thinking he’s joking. Anton has never let me drive his truck; he doesn’t even let me eat or drink in it—not a sip of soda, not one chip. He worked overtime on a road construction crew over the last two summers to save up enough money to buy the truck from his neighbor. But when I look over I can tell Anton is serious.

  “That bad?” I ask.

  “Just drive,” he says. “My head is killing me.”

  We climb in and I look over at him. I didn’t think the hit was that bad. He seemed to be fine. I’ve taken my fair share of hits. You’ve just got to shake it off and push through—everybody on the team does. Usually Anton doesn’t put on such a show about it, but I guess he’s probably nervous about the big game.

  As I pull out of the parking spot, I see Ciara heading to her car after soccer practice. I drive slowly past her and wave. She smiles and waves back.

  “Two hands on the wheel,” Anton says, smirking at me, then grimacing. “Do not crash this truck.”

  As I turn out of the school parking lot, the rain starts to fall. It is hard and fast and sounds like someone is tapping their knuckles against the roof.

  Chapter 7

  Two days later, on Friday, when Anton picks me up for school, I’m surprised that he isn’t pumped up for the game. He was sluggish at practice the day before, but he told me he was just tired. I thought he’d be fine today. He has fought hard to play through every game since his first day on the team.

  I turn up the radio to blast some music like we normally do, but he reaches over and turns it off. I look over at him annoyed.

  “What’s up with you?” I ask.

  “I just . . . I can’t get rid of this headache,” he says.

  “Still?” I say, surprised. When I’ve taken my bad hits I’ve always bounced back after a day or two. So has Anton. “Did you take some aspirin?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “It doesn’t do a thing.”

  “You’ll be fine once you get out on the field tonight,” I say, sure he just needs to start the game to get back in shape. That is how it is for me. Once the clock on the scoreboard starts ticking backward and the adrenaline takes over, whatever is bothering me fades away completely. All my focus is on the game.

  Anton nods his head at this and doesn’t say anything the rest of the drive to school. Usually he’s reciting all the stats on the players from the opposing team, but not today.

  ***

  Since it’s game day, there’s a pep rally in the gym before classes start. The band is playing, the cheerleaders are bouncing around, but the students in the stands are all somber. Word has spread that our school might be closing.

  I’m hoping Anton will make some kind of big speech to get everyone in the gym riled up, but he doesn’t. He acts just like he did in the truck this morning.

  Instead of his normal pep talk, all he manages to get out is a halfhearted “Go Wolves!” before handing the microphone back to Coach. Everyone else seems taken aback too. He usually likes to talk and get the crowd pumped up. Maybe, I think, he’s taking this game more seriously because the school is on the line.

  “Come on,” I say to him as Coach gives a short speech. “We need to get some good energy going.”

  “I can’t yell right now,” Anton says. “I can’t even think.”

  I look around the gym. The students in the stands seem defeated. It’s as if a decision for our school has already been made. As much as I hate public speaking, I don’t want our pep rally to end like this. So when Coach is done, I ask for the microphone.

  I look around at all the students. “This is our school!” I shout. “Warren High!”

  The students start to perk up.

  “This is our team! The Warren Wolves!” The guys behind me all let out a howl. “And we aren’t going down without a fight! Stand up if you love this school!”

  Students begin to clap and then stand. They begin to stomp. They begin to howl.

  Chapter 8

  At lunch Anton isn’t sitting at our table. Someone tells me they saw him head out to his truck. I figure he just wants to be somewhere quiet for a while, but when I don’t see him in Ms. Jenkins’s science class, I get worried. Anton isn’t the type of kid to skip class or miss a test. Even on game days, he’s focused in the classroom. He’s pushed me to get better grades and helped edit my papers since we became friends. He always reminds me that I can’t play if I let my grades drop.

  I set my books down, tell Ms. Jenkins I need to use the bathroom, and run out to the parking lot, where I find Anton sound asleep in the cab of his truck.

  I knock on the window. He opens his eyes and looks at me like he has no idea where he is.

  “We have a test!” I yell. “Science. Ms. Jenkins. Now.”

  Anton unlocks and opens the door.

  I repeat what I just said because it doesn’t seem like he heard me the first time.

  Suddenly, he seems to get it. “I totally forgot,” he says, scrambling to gather up his stuff.

  We hurry back to class and enter the room just as Ms. Jenkins begins to hand out the test.

  “You’re late,” she tells Anton. He doesn’t say he’s sorry. Ms. Jenkins gives him a quizzical look. Anton is Mr. Manners most of the time. The teachers love him at our school, but I can tell that Ms. Jenkins isn’t loving him so much right now. She hands him a test and he slides into his desk.

  For the first time in my life, I finish a test before Anton does. When I go to turn it in, I see him put his head down on his desk and close his eyes. Ms. Jenkins walks by, leans over him, and asks him if he’s sick.

  He shakes his head and sits back up. I can tell that Ms. Jenkins is concerned. She holds him after class, and when I ask Anton about it, he tells me that he told her that he was just worried about the game, that he hadn’t slept the night before, but she didn’t believe him and wanted him to see the nurse.

  “There is no way I’m going down there,” he says to me as we walk down the hall. “The nurse will call home, and my mom will get all worked up. I can’t handle that. Not right now.”

  I nod at this as Anton stops at the drinking fountain and takes another aspirin.

  “You’ll be fine,” I say, hoping that a pep talk is what Anton needs to get back in the zone. “You made it through practice yesterday, you can make it through this game. Remember when Byron Leftwich played with a cracked tibia? Brett Favre with a broken thumb? You don’t have broken bones. A headache is nothing compared to that.”

  Anton takes another drink of water, looks at me and says, “Don’t worry, I’m playing tonight. Playing to win.”

  Chapter 9

  Before our game, Anton and I stand on a small hill just outside our locker room and look down at the football field below—at the bright lights, the green grass, the freshly painted white lines.

  “This is it,” Anton says. “This is everything.”

  He reaches in his jacket pocket and takes out a bottle of aspirin. He takes two pills and washes them down with a swig of an energy drink.

  “Is your headache any better?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” he says, but I see his forehead scrunch up. “I’ll be fine.”

  “You always pull this team through,” I say. “You’re our ticket to a win.”

  Behind us a car door slams in the parking lot. I hear laughter and turn around and see Ciara Johnson and some of her soccer teammates pile out of an old minivan. She’s wearing a white knit hat and her soccer warm ups. Her dark, curly hair is tied into two braids with silver ribbons at the end.

  “Malcolm Busby,” she yells and waves at me. I love the way she says my full name. Even the teachers have started calling me just Busby, but not Ciara Johnson. “You ready to win tonight?”

  “Yeah,” I say, smiling at her.

  She waves and heads down the hill toward the stands. It kills me watching her go. I want to say something more. I want to stand with her on top of this hill and t
alk to her for more than two seconds, but I can’t ever seem to get out more than three words when she’s around.

  Anton is watching me watch Ciara.

  “Ask her out!” he says. “Text her. Call her. Just stop staring at her. It’s creepy.”

  I give him a soft punch on the shoulder.

  “Let’s just get going,” I say, heading to the locker room. “You’ve got more important things to worry about than my love life. We’ve got to win this game.”

  Chapter 10

  In the locker room, I’m already dressed before Anton even gets his locker open. He looks tired, and I want to shake him and wake him up. Just like at the pep rally, he’s not fully himself. He’s the guy who usually gets us all pumped up. We need him right now. We need him to get some good energy going in the room. We need him to snap out of this funk. But he’s just putting on his gear—slowly, methodically.

  “Is he sick?” Corbin Jensen asks, a little too hopeful. He’s a sophomore and our second-string quarterback.

  “No,” I say. “He’s fine.”

  “He didn’t look fine the other day.”

  “He’s good,” I say. “Just focusing on the game.”

  Corbin looks disappointed by this, and I look at him and say, “You better hope he’s all right. You better hope he can play. He’s the only one who can make a pass on this team.”

  I fill up my water bottle and look back at Corbin. The kid isn’t ready to play against a team like the Titans. He doesn’t have the strength. He doesn’t have the arm. But mostly, he doesn’t have the same passion as Anton.

  Coach Quimbley steps into the locker room, and we all take a knee. He waits for every one of us to look up at him.

  “I’m not going to lie to you,” Coach says. He takes off his baseball hat and runs his fingers through his hair. “The Titans are tough, and we’re going to have to dig deep tonight to pull out a win. But I’ve watched you this season—I’ve watched each and every one of you play with grit and heart. And tonight, I know you are going to play to win not only for this team, but for this school. For this town.”

  We all nod somberly at this. If we don’t win, we may never play together again.

  Coach motions to Anton to take us out. We huddle up and put one hand in the middle of the circle. Anton puts his hand on top of ours and counts off: “One. Two. Three.”

  “Protect the pack!” We all yell at once.

  As I put my helmet on, I see Coach pull Anton aside. I know Coach must have noticed that Anton’s been off since Wednesday, and I hope Anton can pull himself together. We need him to play.

  Chapter 11

  Out on the field, our small cheer squad does their best to rile up the crowd. They cup their hands around their mouths, fling their heads back, and howl up at a sky.

  I don’t remember ever seeing so many fans or hearing so much noise, but I think everyone has the same thought I have—a year from now this field could be silent, the white lines faded, the grass overgrown.

  Anton nods at number 46 of the Titans. The guy is huge. At least six foot four and close to three hundred pounds.

  “Ellison Green,” Anton says. “He’s gotten nineteen sacks this season alone.”

  “Then don’t let him get you,” I say with a smile, but when I look over at our bench, I know our team is in trouble. We don’t have guys that size. To make the team look bigger than it really is, Coach Quimbley has suited up half a dozen freshmen, but we all know he’ll never send them out. Piled up together on a scale, those freshmen probably wouldn’t weigh as much as Ellison Green.

  We head to our bench. Behind us are our fans. Ciara Johnson is in the front row—she’s laughing and clapping along with some cheer. I wave to her, but she doesn’t see me. I wish she did. I want her to yell out my name. Malcolm Busby! I feel like it would bring me some luck.

  A few rows to the left, I see my mom sitting by herself. She waves to me. I wave back and wish my dad were in the stands too, but he couldn’t make it home this weekend. His supervisor needed him to work overtime.

  Anton doesn’t even glance at the stands. He knows his parents aren’t there. His mom can’t watch, and his dad has taken a trucking job, so he’s gone most of the time just like mine.

  “Let’s warm up your arm,” I suggest to Anton who is just sitting on the bench. He needs to get his energy up. Usually by this point he’s pumped up, moving up and down the bench talking to everyone.

  We head to the sideline and throw the ball, but his throws are weak and off target.

  “I feel like I’m walking through a swamp,” he says shaking his head.

  “Remember when you played the day after you had the stomach flu? You started off slow but then threw three touchdowns. You had a great game,” I remind him.

  “Yeah,” Anton says. “That’s right. I did.”

  “You can do this!” I say. “Push through!”

  He throws the ball again, this time it has some speed, but it goes wide. A few more passes and he’s getting closer to target. The referee blows his whistle. Three minutes to kickoff. I guess that will have to do.

  Coach sends Anton and I out on the field for the coin toss. Two huge players from the other team, one of them is number 46, meet us out on the field. It’s as if their coach has sent them out to intimidate us.

  “Heads,” Green calls with a confident smile. I watch the silver dollar flicker through the air and land on the grass—heads up.

  The Titans decide to receive the kick. We will defend.

  Anton and I head back to our team and gather around Coach. He nods at the Titans’ special teams as he unwraps a stick of cinnamon gum and shoves it in his mouth. Then he says to me, “Busby, if a tornado were about to touch down on the field, I do believe you’d find a way to take it down.”

  “Yes, sir,” I say.

  “Well, I got word that their tight end, number 23, is fast, so be ready. I’m sending you out there too. We can’t let the Titans get a touchdown on their first drive. Find a way to stop him.”

  His breath is all cinnamon and red hot, but his words are calm and cool.

  I head out onto the field, but when I see that Green is heading out there too, I realize that there may be more than one tornado I need to stop.

  Chapter 12

  We line up. Our kicker sets up and kicks the ball. It is a high, long kick.

  We rush down the field.

  Most of the time, my thoughts rush around in my brain like a swarm of mosquitoes, but out on the field everything slows down. Fortunately this game is no different—my thoughts are focused and clear.

  As the ball descends, I know that 23 will make the catch. I see him take a few steps forward, his arms out front, and before the ball is even in his hands, I know he’ll run straight up the middle. I see him plant his back leg and turn his shoulder.

  I’m ready to strike.

  Heart racing, legs pounding, I head straight for him. But Green cuts between us. I put my right shoulder out, and ram into his chest, but I just bounce off the giant number 46 on the front of his jersey and land on the ground, the breath knocked out of me. Number 23 leaps over me, but I manage to reach up and grab his left leg to bring him down. He falls hard.

  A whistle blows and the crowd roars. I can tell 23 is hurting.

  I reach down to help him up, but he doesn’t take my hand. Instead, number 46 gets in my face. His eyes are the color of mud, and he smells like sour milk.

  “Heard your team won’t even exist next year—that the Wolves are dead.”

  I move closer to him. Our facemasks are just a few inches apart.

  “You heard wrong,” I say. “We aren’t going anywhere.”

  “Yeah, right,” he says with a laugh. “Your whole town isn’t going anywhere. It’s all washed up.”

  I push him in the chest, and a referee comes over to separate us. When we line up again, I stare him down. The Titans’ center snaps the ball, Ellison Green goes left, and I go right. I tackle 23 as soon as he catches the
ball. I hit him hard midstride and knock the ball out of his arms. One of our players pounces on it, and now it’s ours.

  Chapter 13

  “Nice job,” Coach says when I come off the field. “You not only took down 23, but rattled his confidence. He knows he’s not unstoppable anymore.”

  Coach sends me back out on the field, this time, to play the position I know best—fullback. I see the Titans’ coach send Ellison Green back out too. It looks like the two of us will be going head-to-head this game, but he’s at least fifty pounds heavier than me and four inches taller. I have no idea how to stop the moving force of a guy like that. I glance at Anton and know that I have to find a way to protect him and keep the pocket open.

  Our team huddles up, but Anton struggles to call the first play. As I look over at him I’m actually starting to get really angry with him. He’s had every play in the book memorized since our first day of practice our freshman year. I don’t understand why he can’t just focus on this game rather than complaining about his stupid headache or worry about the school.

  “A post route,” I say to him looking back at Coach.

  Anton nods at this. I take over. “We need to get on the scoreboard,” I say, and then I look at our offensive lineman. “Whatever you do, don’t let 46 through. Block hard, block low.”

  We line up and Green is staring at me again.

  I don’t look away. I watch to see which way his body is positioned, trying to figure out where he’s going to go.

  “Hut!”

  Anton pulls back to throw. We buy him some time, but he’s slow, unsteady. He gets pressured and throws the ball out-of-bounds.

  “What was that?” I yell at him.

  He just shakes his head

  “Get it together,” I say. “We need to get a first down.”

  I’ve never yelled at him out on the field. He’s never one to make mistakes, but we need him to snap out of it and get his head in the game.