Football Nightmare Read online

  “What do you mean?” demanded Keith. “What is Larry saying?”

  Before Cody could answer, Heck said, “Cody … cool it, would you?”

  “No, really,” Keith said. “I want to know. Come on, Cody, what is Larry saying? Don’t worry — I’m not going to start a fight with him or anything.”

  Cody looked unhappily at Heck before answering. “Oh, just stupid stuff about the game last year, and what happened … you know, really dumb stuff.”

  Keith nodded. “How I cost us the unbeaten season and the championship, that kind of stuff?”

  “Which we all know is total garbage,” Cody said quickly. “Like I said, nothing for you to pay attention to or worry about.”

  “Absolutely,” Heck agreed. “The rest of the team knows that without you we probably never would have had a shot at an unbeaten season. Larry’s just jealous, that’s all.”

  “Sure,” Cody said as they reached the practice area. “Because Larry knows he can’t compete with you — that you’ll be our top receiver again this year, and he’ll spend a lot of time on the bench.”

  “Hey, guys,” said Keith, “I know you two are on my side all the way, but you saw the practice yesterday. Heck, you know that Larry is a lot better than he was a year ago. He’s going to be a player this season. He’ll make a contribution.

  “And as far as I’m concerned, that’s cool. We can use another good downfield threat. I don’t know much about what kind of guy Larry is, but he’s improved a lot.”

  “True,” admitted Heck, “but he better not badmouth you. For one thing, if Coach hears him doing that, the least that’ll happen is that Larry will get a major chewing out.”

  “He’ll get worse from me, if I hear any more out of him,” growled Cody.

  Keith put a hand on Cody’s shoulder. “Listen, I know you’re trying to help me, but if you get into it with Larry over this, you won’t be helping me or the team. And you might be the one to get chewed out.”

  “Keith’s right,” Heck said. “Don’t add to the problem — if there is a problem. Okay, Code?”

  The husky lineman said, “Yeah, I know, you’re right. But it gets me hot when this dude talks about Keith behind his back, that’s all.”

  “I can handle it, don’t worry,” Keith insisted.

  As they walked onto the field, Keith saw that the coach was talking to a man he didn’t recognize. The man seemed unhappy, and from Coach Bodie’s expression, the conversation appeared to be an argument. Finally, the strange man threw his hands in the air and walked away, looking like he hadn’t heard anything to please him.

  “Who is that?” Keith asked.

  Heck shook his head. “Never saw him before.”

  Cody scowled. “That’s Larry Vincent’s dad. He dropped Larry off at practice yesterday.”

  “What’s his problem?” Heck wondered.

  “Beats me,” Keith said, suspecting that he himself might have been the subject of the discussion, argument, or whatever it was.

  Shortly afterward, the coach called the team together. “There’s a point I wanted to mention to everybody before we go to work. I spoke about it yesterday but I’m going to repeat myself, because I don’t want anyone to forget it or misunderstand me on this subject.

  “Everyone makes mistakes in sports. Pros, even all-time greats, do it. So I figure that you’re likely to make some, too, at one time or another. And that’s to be expected. When you make a physical mistake — like dropping a ball — well, that’s just one of those things, and there’s no blame attached. None. I want each and every one of you to get that clear.

  “The kind of mistake that bothers me is the mental kind — the kind that shows that you’re not thinking, or that you’re not thinking like a team player. When that happens, the person responsible is going to hear from me. Count on it. Now, let’s get to work.”

  Once again, the backs and receivers stayed in one group with Coach Bodie while the interior linemen went with Mack. As they grouped up, Heck nudged Keith. “What was that about, do you think?”

  Keith shrugged. “Who knows?”

  But he thought that it might have been aimed at Larry and his father … and at him. He figured — and hoped — that the coach was reassuring him and warning Larry.

  In today’s drill, Coach Bodie had one receiver run a pattern while another receiver played defense and covered him. Jason was to throw to Keith with Larry defending, while Keith had to try to stop Larry from catching passes from Billy.

  On Larry’s first effort to get clear, he made a downfield run and an obvious fake to the outside, which Keith ignored. When Larry cut across the field, Keith was with him step for step, and even though Billy’s pass was accurate, Keith got a hand in to deflect it.

  “Good reaction, Keith!” the coach called out. “Larry, watch your fakes. You need to put more movement into them. You can’t just bob your head like that.”

  Larry nodded, looking unhappy. Keith tapped his shoulder. “I was watching your belt buckle, not your head. That’s why I didn’t buy your outside move.”

  Larry mumbled something that might have been thanks, but Keith couldn’t understand him.

  When Keith went down and out for a pass from Jason, he used a stutter-step that froze Larry just long enough for Keith to get free. Jason’s pass, however, was thrown slightly behind Keith, who couldn’t control it to make the catch. As he came back to the group, he noticed Larry whispering to Jason, who smothered a laugh.

  Knowing that the pass had been poorly thrown, Keith was irritated. He couldn’t help wondering if Larry had tried to put the blame for the missed catch on Keith. If so, Jason seemed only too happy to believe that the fault had been with the receiver and not the passer. But maybe he was all wrong, and in any case, Keith didn’t think that he should say anything. He was determined to let his play speak for him.

  As the drill went on, Keith saw that Larry was a step faster than he was, but he made up for it with better coordination and moves than Larry. Though Larry had improved from the previous year, he still couldn’t control his lanky legs that well. Still, Keith thought the two of them were pretty evenly matched.

  Unfortunately, Jason was proving to be a less accurate passer than Billy, sometimes overthrowing and sometimes throwing wide. As a result, Keith caught fewer balls. Keith assumed Coach Bodie would see that the missed passes were largely due to Jason’s arm, rather than his hands.

  But the coach didn’t have much to say to Jason, so Keith couldn’t be certain that he was correct. Little by little, Keith began to simmer, but said nothing and did nothing to show it. He noticed that Heck was trying to encourage him, smiling and giving him the thumbs-up when Keith made a good move and pointing out when Keith was not at fault on a blown play. Keith felt grateful but continued to steam.

  He also noticed Larry taking one or two players aside now and then, especially after Keith had not held on to a pass. Keith became convinced that Larry was trying to promote himself as a better player than Keith.

  Were other Bucks in agreement? There was no way to know.

  Finally, Keith went long on a deep fly pattern, leaving Larry, who he had faked out with a hip move, trailing by several steps. But he would have needed a stepladder to catch Jason’s pass, which sailed a few feet over his head. Keith slowed down and stopped — and was jarred a second later when Larry ran into him from behind.

  “Hey!” Keith snapped, rubbing his back where the other boy had slammed him. “Watch it! Didn’t you see I had stopped?”

  “No, I didn’t see you’d stopped!” Larry yelled back. “I figured that you’d keep hustling, like a football player is supposed to. But I guess that’s not your style, huh?”

  All Keith’s anger suddenly came to a boil. A little voice in his brain advised him to cool it, but he couldn’t do it.

  “‘Hustling’?” he shouted. “It’s not ‘hustling’ to chase a pass that’s ten feet over your head! It’s just dumb. Maybe that’s your style! That and ramming
into someone when his back is turned!”

  “I didn’t see you!” Larry yelled.

  “Yeah, right!” Keith screamed.

  By this time the two boys were nose to nose, both yelling, with other players staring. Keith noticed Heck running up and trying to get between them.

  “Chill out, guys,” he urged. “This is bad news, come on …”

  “What’s happening here?” Coach Bodie suddenly loomed in front of the arguing players, who immediately separated and became quiet.

  “I asked what was happening here?” the coach repeated, looking at both boys with a severe expression. “I turn away for a minute and I find two teammates spitting at each other like wildcats! Now what’s the deal here?”

  Keith took a deep breath. “Sorry, Coach. It’s just that he just ran into me hard from behind, and I guess I got shook up.”

  “Well,” said Larry, “he stopped short instead of running out a pattern, and I wasn’t expecting it!”

  “I didn’t stop short,” Keith came back. “I just —”

  The coach cut him off. “Enough! That’ll do! Both of you, come with me.” He looked at the other players, who were watching the action. “The rest of you, take a break.”

  He led Keith and Larry away until they were out of earshot of the rest of the team. Then he faced them, his arms folded across his chest. “Maybe I didn’t make clear to you two this morning the way I feel about mental mistakes. I’m going to try one more time, and I hope you’re both paying very close attention this time.

  “Mental mistakes show that you aren’t thinking like a team player. When two teammates fight with each other, they’re not thinking like team players. Did you understand me that time?”

  “Yeah, but —” Larry started, and Coach Bodie jumped in immediately.

  “‘Yeah, but …’ is not the right answer to the question I asked. One more time: Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  “Yes, Coach,” Keith said, staring at the ground and feeling very foolish.

  “Yes, Coach,” Larry echoed.

  “That’s the right answer.” The coach took a deep breath. “Okay. I don’t know what started this, and I am not even going to ask. I don’t want to get into one of these ‘He said this but I said that’ situations. You are teammates and you have to remember that. If there’s a problem between you, work it out. If I have to be brought into it again, neither of you will be happy with the result. Now let’s go to work.”

  Keith couldn’t help feeling like he’d been treated unfairly, because he thought Larry was to blame for what had happened. But he decided the smart thing was to get past it.

  In the next half hour, Keith made some good plays, including a diving catch that drew praise from the coach and an interception of one of Billy’s passes. He felt better afterward.

  But he kept spotting Larry having those whispered conversations with Jason and other Bucks.

  8

  The roar was deafening. Keith looked up at grandstands that seemed to rise into the clouds, and every one of the hundreds of thousands of seats was full, and the fans were all yelling at the tops of their lungs.

  Billy kept throwing passes to him, and he was always clear … and he couldn’t hold on to any of them. He dropped one after another and each time there would be a thundering chorus of boos.

  Gasping for breath, Keith spotted his family sitting in the front row, looking very sad. His father was shaking his head, and Traci was crying. All of his teammates, even Heck and Cody, kept pointing at him and scowling, while Larry Vincent kept smirking and shouting, “What did I tell you? He’s pathetic!. He’s a loser!”

  Coach Bodie called time-out and ran over to him, screaming, “We’re going to keep throwing you the ball until you get it right!”

  Keith’s legs felt like they were made of cement, and he couldn’t move. Billy threw another pass, but the ball went way over his head while he just stood there, feeling completely helpless.… He was a loser.… He was a loser.…

  Suddenly, Keith woke up. He felt shaky and was sweating heavily. The dial of his bedside clock read 3:30 A.M. He fell back on the pillow and closed his eyes. But the awful nightmare stayed with him and he couldn’t get back to sleep for what seemed like hours.

  When Keith sat down to have breakfast the next morning — the first day of school — his parents studied him carefully.

  “Are you feeling all right, Keith?” his mother asked. “You look like you might be coming down with something.”

  “No, I’m okay, Mom, really.” Keith knew that he must look awful after getting so little sleep the night before, but he didn’t want to talk about it with his mom and dad, and certainly not in front of Traci. Although he didn’t have much of an appetite, he managed to eat everything on his plate. He hoped that this would reassure his parents.

  “Well, I better get ready,” he said, getting up. “Big day today.”

  As he grabbed his backpack and windbreaker, his father followed him toward the front door. “Got a second, Slugger?”

  Keith was reluctant to talk to his dad, not wanting to discuss what was on his mind. “I really have to get moving.”

  “This won’t take long, I promise.”

  Keith couldn’t see any way out of it. “Well … okay.” He sat down on the porch steps, with Mr. Stedman next to him.

  “You had some trouble sleeping last night, huh?” said his father.

  Keith was surprised. “How’d you know?”

  “I’m a light sleeper myself, and I heard you doing some serious tossing and turning. I don’t think your mom knew — she could sleep through an artillery battle — but I knew, and I was wondering what was up. Could this have anything to do with football, and what you’d been worrying about?”

  Keith was always startled at his father’s instinct for what was on his son’s mind. He had thought about ducking the question, but decided that maybe it was best to talk about it.

  “The thing is …,” he started, and then stopped, not sure of what the thing was. Then he blurted, “Maybe I was wrong about playing football, after all. I don’t know.”

  Mr. Stedman pursed his lips. “And last night has something to do with what you’re thinking?”

  “I had this really terrible nightmare about football, and it made me think that maybe Larry Vincent is right. Maybe I’m just going to hurt the team.”

  “Who is this Larry Vincent, and how do you know what he thinks?”

  Keith explained what Larry was doing and what had happened the previous day. “I don’t know.… It could happen again.… I don’t know what I’d do if that happened. Maybe I should just quit and stay out.”

  “I see,” Keith’s dad said. “Have you considered talking to Larry? Just the two of you, face to face, saying what’s on your mind?”

  Keith shook his head. “No way, I couldn’t do that. I just couldn’t.”

  “All right. Here’s my opinion.” Mr. Stedman fixed his son with a serious look. “I think you’re a fine athlete and that you’re more likely to help your team than hurt it. Of course, there are no guarantees. But I wish you’d stick it out, and if your teammates doubt you, you’ll convince them by playing your best.”

  Keith stood up. “I better go, but … okay. I won’t quit. I guess you’re right.”

  In his heart, Keith wasn’t sure at all.

  The first morning of school was busy. At the lunch break, Keith headed for the cafeteria feeling hungry. He looked around for Heck, whom he’d promised to meet, and spotted him across the noisy room. Sitting next to him, talking a mile a minute, was Larry. Keith felt a sudden lurch in his stomach and headed toward the table.

  Larry saw him coming and said a few more words to Heck, who looked uncomfortable and said nothing in return. Then Larry walked away, carefully avoiding Keith’s eyes.

  “Hey,” said Keith, sitting across from his friend.

  “How are you doing?” asked Heck, who seemed nervous.

  Keith wasn’t interested in s
mall talk. “What did he want?”

  Heck shrugged and muttered, “Oh, nothing much. Just … you know.”

  “Uh-huh,” Keith said. “Nothing much. Just talking about the weather, huh?”

  “Well …” Heck looked down at his lunch tray.

  “Come on, Heck, be straight with me,” Keith urged. “What did he want?”

  After hesitating a moment, Heck said, “What do you think? He was saying that he should be the go-to guy this season, that you can’t be trusted to make the big play. I told him I didn’t want to hear that stuff and that you’re a great receiver. I said that he had no business talking about you behind your back and that he’d better cut it out.”

  Keith slumped in his chair, his appetite gone. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s right.”

  Heck’s jaw dropped open. “Huh?”

  “Maybe I would hurt the team.”

  Heck’s eyes blazed angrily. “Listen up! The only way you’ll hurt the Bucks is if you wimp out and quit! I don’t believe this! Here’s what you better do: You better show up and go all out and make Larry look like a total doofus for putting you down. You’re a better receiver than he is, and all you have to do is show it. Coach Bodie will see it, too.

  “So … you coming to practice this afternoon, or not?” Heck demanded.

  Keith sighed. Then he nodded. “I’ll be there.”

  9

  The next couple of days went smoothly for Keith, who thought he performed well, on both offense and defense, where he was clearly better than Larry because of his reflexes and coordination. Possibly because of that, or because Heck had warned him, Larry had called off his whispering campaign against Keith — at least for the time being. The coach was satisfied with the team’s progress, and Keith relaxed his suspicion.

  With a little more than a week left before the first game of the season, Coach Bodie started running intrasquad scrimmages, in which one section of the team defended against the other group. Keith felt good about the fact that he was teamed up with Billy, Heck, and Cody on what looked like the first string … until the coach switched people around.