Touchdown for Tommy Read online

  Copyright

  Copyright © 1959 by Matt Christopher Royalties, Inc.

  Copyright © renewed 1987 by Matt Christopher Royalties, Inc.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976,

  no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in

  any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system,

  without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  www.twitter.com/littlebrown

  First eBook Edition: December 2009

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity

  to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Matt Christopher® is a registered trademark of

  Matt Christopher Royalties, Inc.

  ISBN: 978-0-316-09608-9

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  THE #1 SPORTS SERIES FOR KIDS: MATT CHRISTOPHER®

  Matt Christopher®

  1

  Tommy Fletcher zipped up his black-sleeved gray jacket. He tugged on his baseball hat and stepped out of the warm house. The late September wind was bending the tall oak tree in the backyard. The clothes on the line whipped like a string of white flags.

  A slip of green paper on the short-cut grass caught Tommy’s eye. A ten-dollar bill!

  Tommy picked it up. The money must belong either to Betty or Mrs. Powell. The three of them had been hanging the clothes out on the line earlier.

  The last time Tommy remembered having ten dollars was long ago. Back in January sometime, before the terrible accident. Back when his parents had still been alive, before their car hit that icy patch of road.

  But he was in a foster home now. Since he didn’t have any living relatives, he had been brought by the child welfare department to live with the Powells. The Powells were very nice, but they didn’t give him money the way his parents used to.

  Tommy thought for a while. He decided that the ten-dollar bill wouldn’t be missed by anybody. If it had been missed, Betty or her mother would have come looking for it.

  Tommy put the money into his pocket. He walked down the long cement pavement to the highway. The only nearby store was over by the school. On both sides of the highway were houses — old houses and new houses. They were painted white, blue, green, and other colors. They were pretty, much prettier than the house Tommy had lived in in the city.

  He passed two of the houses. Soon he heard the excited voices of boys. He knew at once what the cries meant.

  The kids were playing football!

  He started to run. I hope David is there, he said to himself. David Warren was the only boy in the whole bunch that he liked.

  He ran past the store. Maybe he’d spend the money when he came back. A cold soda would taste good after playing a game of touch football.

  Then his heart sank. He had forgotten to tell Mrs. Powell where he was going!

  But why do I always have to tell her? he asked himself. I never used to tell my mother.

  Well, it was too late to turn back now. He would tell Mrs. Powell when he got home. She wouldn’t mind that he had forgotten just this once.

  He turned to the right at the intersection. Up the road a little way was Barton Central School. Just this side of it was the large athletic field. The high school team had their own field, and the kids under thirteen had theirs.

  The football field for the younger boys was all laid out like the high school field except that it was smaller. Instead of being one hundred yards long, it was eighty yards long. The bleachers were only on one side.

  Tommy stopped running when he reached the field. Neither of the two teams had more than five or six players each. Maybe he would be given a chance to play.

  He spotted David immediately. David wore shoulder pads under his yellow jersey and a red-and-white helmet. He was playing quarterback. The ball was on the thirty-two-yard line, and David’s team had possession.

  David barked signals. “Ten! Fifteen! Twenty-one!”

  The ball spiraled up from the center. David caught it, tucked it under his arm, and sped around the left end. He made a gain of five yards before he was tackled.

  As he rose to his feet, he spied Tommy. A grin spread across his face.

  “Hi, Tommy! You want to play?”

  “Sure!”

  “Come on our side! They have one more player than we do!”

  Tommy took his hands out of his pockets and rubbed them together. “Can I play end?”

  “Okay. Play left end.”

  David motioned his team into a huddle. “Think you can catch a pass?” he asked Tommy.

  “I think so,” said Tommy.

  “Okay. We’ll pull a surprise on ’em,” David said. “I’ll throw Tommy a pass. The number is forty-two. Let’s go!”

  The team broke out of the huddle. The backfield and linemen moved into position. Tommy crouched at left end and looked directly into the eyes of the end playing opposite him.

  “Twenty-two! Fourteen! Thirty-six! Forty-two!”

  Tommy sped forward. He knocked his opponent down and raced down the field. He looked back and saw David throw the ball. The pigskin spiraled through the air, wobbling just a little.

  Tommy reached out. The ball hit his fingers then bounced to the ground!

  “Yes! Incomplete pass!” a player on the other team shouted.

  Another player picked up the ball and returned it to the scrimmage line.

  “I’m sorry, David,” said Tommy. “I should’ve caught that.”

  David waved his hand. “Forget it, Tommy. That was a tough one to catch.” When Tommy was closer, David said, “Mr. Powell may stop by later on, you know.”

  Tommy shrugged. “Oh, yeah?”

  “Mr. Powell’s our coach,” David continued. “He sure knows his stuff. We play in the Midget League. Be nice if you could play.”

  Tommy stared. “Do you think he’d let me on the team?”

  “Sure, he would,” replied David. “Ask him.”

  “I will. Maybe, if I can play real good —” Tommy paused. All the boys looked at him. Most of them had unfriendly looks on their faces.

  Tommy knew they didn’t like him much. He had scrimmaged against them before. They had said he was a dirty player. He played too rough.

  But that was the way he always played. He didn’t know any other way.

  2

  David’s team tried another pass. It was intercepted. The opponents gained eight yards on line plunges, then lost the ball on a fumble.

  First down, ten to go. David tried a run through right tackle, but failed to gain.

  Again the teams crouched ready at the line of scrimmage. David called signals.

  “Six! Thirteen! Twenty-two!”

  The ball shot up from the center. David caught it and dashed toward the right end. A tackle broke through the line, reaching for David. David twisted and kept running.

  He swept around the right end, crossed the scrimmage line, and gained six ya
rds before he was brought down.

  “Third down and four to go,” David said in the huddle. “Dick, you carry the ball this time. Swing behind me and run around the left end. Tommy, make sure you take out your man.”

  “Okay,” said Tommy.

  David called signals. The ball came from the center to David. He ran toward the right side of the line, then suddenly handed the ball to Dick Mizner. Dick tucked it under his arm and raced toward the left end.

  Tommy blocked out his man. But a halfback broke through and tackled Dick for a one-yard loss.

  “Last down,” David said. “I’ll punt.”

  The team lined up in punt formation. David stood far back as he called signals. Then the ball sailed into David’s hands. He kicked. The pigskin wobbled through the air toward the out-of-bounds line. The whole team ran hard down the field in the direction of the ball.

  A player on the other team caught the ball. He ran forward with it. Tommy rushed up like the wind beside him. The player tried to stiff-arm him, but Tommy ducked his head and rammed his shoulder into the boy’s body. At the same time, he wrapped his arms around the boy’s legs. The boy went down. He hit the grass hard. Tommy hung on like a snapping turtle and rolled over with the boy.

  “Okay! Let him go!” a voice shouted. “You gonna hang on to him forever?”

  Tommy lifted himself off the boy. He saw the ball roll a short distance away. A player picked it up and brought it to the spot where Tommy had made the tackle. The boy Tommy had tackled rose to his feet. He limped around a little, and David asked worriedly, “You hurt, Jim?”

  “No. I’ll be all right.”

  Jim walked around a little more, and the limp disappeared.

  “Tommy, you play too dirty,” Jerry Main said gruffly. “Listen, David, I’m not going to play if he plays.”

  “Neither am I,” said Ted Norton. “You’d think he was playing with some pro team.”

  Tommy’s chin dropped. He looked aside at David Warren, met David’s eyes. Dirty? What was dirty about tackling a guy? You had to tackle him so that he went down, didn’t you?

  “Don’t be so rough next time, Tommy,” cautioned David. “The minute a guy’s down, he’s tackled. Didn’t you know that?”

  “Sure, but—” Tommy didn’t finish. He had always tackled that way before. Nobody had ever told him that was the wrong way. Maybe these guys just didn’t know how to play real football.

  A car drove up to the side of the road and stopped.

  “There’s Mr. Powell!” cried David. “Maybe he’ll stay with us for a while.”

  Mr. Powell stepped out of the car and walked onto the field. His gray topcoat made him look huge.

  “Hi, Mr. Powell!” the boys greeted him.

  Mr. Powell’s grin was broad and friendly. “Hi, boys. Brushing up on some new plays?”

  “Well, not exactly,” said David, smiling. “We’re just playing pickup. When is our first real practice, Mr. Powell?”

  Mr. Powell chuckled. “Getting anxious?”

  “Yes!”

  “Well, the league starts a week from Saturday. How about tomorrow after school? Four-thirty sharp.”

  “Okay!”

  “I’ll stay to watch you run through a few more plays,” said Mr. Powell. “Then Tommy, I think you and I will have to leave.”

  Tommy shot him a look, then nodded.

  The teams lined up on the thirty-five-yard line. The team opposing Tommy’s had the ball. They made a two-yard gain, then tried a forward pass. The pass was completed. The receiver was tackled on the forty for a first down.

  Tommy played hard. He pushed his man aside and plunged after the ballcarrier with his chin set square as a box and his eyes flashing. He wanted to show Mr. Powell how well he could run and how well he could tackle. If Mr. Powell had played football in high school or college, he’d know what a good tackle was.

  But Tommy didn’t have a chance to show Mr. Powell anything except how hard he shoved aside his man and how fast he could run. Mr. Powell said it was getting late and he and Tommy had better leave for home.

  In the car, Tommy remembered the ten-dollar bill. He felt in his pockets for it. A chill went through him. He couldn’t find it!

  Mr. Powell backed the car out of the school driveway and headed for home. “Have you lost something, Tommy?” he asked.

  “No. Guess not,” said Tommy. But his face got red. He hoped that Mr. Powell didn’t see it.

  “You’re quite a runner,” said Mr. Powell. He grinned at Tommy. “Like football?”

  Tommy was worried about the ten dollars. But he forced a smile. “I sure do. We used to play a lot where I came from.”

  “Did you play in a league?”

  “No. We just chose up teams and played, that’s all.”

  “You didn’t have a coach?”

  “No. We didn’t need any.”

  The thought of the lost money drifted farther and farther away from Tommy’s mind. He became excited talking about football. He tried to remember all the things about football he could. He remembered the time he had tried to tackle a boy and ripped off the boy’s sweater. He remembered another time when he had purposely tripped a quarterback and the quarterback fell and hurt his knee. Those were things he didn’t want to tell Mr. Powell, though. All he could tell Mr. Powell about were the times when he had caught long passes and had made long runs. But then that made him sound as if he were bragging, and he didn’t like to brag.

  They drove into the Powells’ driveway, and Tommy asked, “Did you play football with a team, Mr. Powell?”

  A light sparkled in Mr. Powell’s eyes. “Yes. I played in college, Tommy. I was a tackle.”

  “Boy! That must have been great!” Tommy sighed deeply. A warm glow went through him all of a sudden.

  Mr. Powell drove the car up to the garage door and stopped. Tommy jumped out and opened the door, and Mr. Powell drove the car in.

  Mr. Powell came out. He put his arm around Tommy’s shoulders. They walked toward the house.

  “You’ve been with us about five months, Tommy,” said Mr. Powell quietly. “How do you like staying with us? Have we been treating you right?”

  Tommy looked up at Mr. Powell’s face. He hadn’t expected any question like that. He thought right away of his mother and father. A lump the size of an apple rose in his throat.

  “I like it here a lot, Mr. Powell,” he said, and swallowed. “You, and Mrs. Powell, and Betty — you’ve treated me wonderful. Just wonderful.”

  3

  After supper Mr. Powell relaxed in the living room with the evening paper. Tommy sat in the kitchen. He thought about the ten-dollar bill. He must have lost it while playing football.

  Finally he put on his coat and hat and grabbed a flashlight. “I’ll be back, Mr. Powell,” he said. “I’m going outside for a while.”

  He walked all the way back to the field. He decided on the way that if he found the money, he wouldn’t spend it. He would return it to Betty or Mrs. Powell. Maybe if he did that, they would like him better. They would let him stay at their house for always. But suppose one of the boys had found it?

  Tommy walked over the places on the field where he had run during scrimmage. He searched the ground carefully. The grass was cut short, but looking for the ten dollars was like looking for a needle in the haystack.

  He went to the spot where he had tackled Jim Neeley. Shining the flashlight ahead of him, he walked back and forth between the thirty- and forty-yard lines, his eyes glued to the ground.

  He saw something flutter and picked it up, but it was only a wad of chewing gum paper.

  Tommy kept looking. Then all at once he saw another bit of paper. It was pressed into the earth, half covered by the short blades of grass. He poked it out with his finger. It was the ten-dollar bill!

  He started out for home with the money in his hand. He kept his hand in his pocket all the way. He walked by the store. Two cars were parked in front of it.

  For a split second,
Tommy thought about going inside. Boy, you could buy a lot for ten dollars. He felt thirsty, too.

  But he went past the store and headed for home.

  Betty was in the driveway, shooting baskets into the hoop above the garage door. She had on a gray, hooded jacket. She stopped when she saw Tommy.

  “Tommy, where have you been?” she asked.

  “At the football field,” Tommy said. “I lost some money there and went back to look for it.”

  Betty’s eyes widened. “Money? Where did you get it, Tommy? Did my mother or father give it to you?”

  Tommy’s heart pounded. “I found it in the backyard,” he said truthfully. He held it out to her. “Here.”

  Betty shook her head. “Why don’t you keep it?”

  “‘Cause,” he said. “It’s not mine.”

  She looked at him thoughtfully, then smiled. “Let’s go inside,” she said. “I guess this is something for Mom to decide.”

  “I hope she won’t be mad,” said Tommy.

  “Not Mom!” answered Betty.

  They went into the house. Tommy heard a pounding in the basement. Mr. Powell must be working on the fruit shelves again. They found Mrs. Powell in the kitchen, a pile of papers spread out before her.

  “Mom, Tommy found this money in our backyard,” she said. “Did you lose it?”

  Mrs. Powell looked at the bill in Tommy’s hand. “I don’t know. Did you just find it, Tommy?”

  “No.” Tommy swallowed. “I found it after we’d been hanging out the clothes this afternoon. At — at first I wanted to spend it. My mom and dad always used to give me money to spend. But I went to the football field and played football. I lost the money. After supper I went back and found it. I — I changed my mind about spending it. I wanted to give it back to you.”

  There. See what they would do now. Maybe they would call up Mrs. Kilbourne at the Child Welfare Department in Lewiston and have him sent to another foster home.

  Then he saw a smile come to Mrs. Powell’s face.

  “Let’s not worry about whose money it is,” she said. “I think it was very nice that Tommy brought it back. Tomorrow both of you can go to the ice cream store and have a sundae each. How does that sound?”