Read Online Catch That Pass! by Matt Christopher - Free Book Online

1
    T hird and eight.
    The pass down. The Cadets had to pass. They weren’t gaining enough yardage on the ground.
    Jim Nardi stationed himself in the middle linebacker slot in front of the Cadets’ center. To his far left was Bill Brown,
     to his far right Yak Lee. The cornerbacks and safety men were spread wide in a parallel line behind them.
    “Hup one! Hup two!” yelled Terry Jason, the Cadets’ quarterback.
    The snap from center. Jason faded back.The Vulcan and Cadet lines tore into each other in a crash of helmets and shoulder pads.
    Jim bolted through the narrow hole between right guard and center, then stopped. Jason had thrown a pass, and the ball was
     lobbing over Jim’s head!
    Jim leaped. His hands wrapped around the ball and brought it down. In the same instant, he saw a red-and-white helmet and
     blazing red jersey coming at him. The thick padded shoulders looked like the shoulders of an angry, charging bull.
    Jim’s nerves shattered like glass. Frantically he flung the ball to the ground.
    Shreeeeep
!
    The whistle stopped the would-be tackier. Less than a yard from Jim, he grinned behind the double bars of his face mask.
    “Why didn’t you hang on to it?” he said. “I haven’t had a tackle yet.”
    “I’m sorry,” replied Jim. “Why don’t you ask Terry to try it again?”
    He spun on his heel and started back to his position when a hand grabbed his elbow. He looked into the angry eyes of Hook
     Wheeler, the left safety man.
    “You had it in your mitts! Why’d you knock it down?”
    Their eyes clashed. “It was slipping out of my hands,” said Jim. Darn Hook! Why didn’t he mind his own business?
    “Slipping, my eye! You had it in your mitts! I saw you! Everybody did!”
    The whistle shrilled. “Come on,” snapped the ref. “Let’s hustle it up.”
    Fourth down and eight. The ball was on the Cadets’ twenty-seven-yard line. The Cadets went into punt formation. Their fullback
     kicked the ball—a long, spiraling aerial. Hook Wheeler caught it on the Vulcans’ thirty-eight and carried it across the forty—the middle of the Midget football field—to the Cadets’ thirty-one.
    The defense went out; the offense came in. Someone slapped Jim Nardi on the back. “No harm done, Jim. We got the ball anyway.”
    Jim looked at Bucky Hayes, the husky left tackle and Jim’s close buddy. “It … oh, never mind.” He wanted to tell Bucky, too,
     that the ball had slipped, but why lie about it? Why talk about it at all? He’d hang on to it the next time, if there was
     a next time.
    He trotted up to the bench, avoiding Doug’s eyes. Doug was his brother and coach of the Vulcans. He was in college and had
     played football his freshman year. In high school he had made All-State end.
    “What happened out there, Jim?” he asked quietly.
    “You mean when I—”
    “When you knocked the ball down.”
    “Well, that’s all. I knocked the ball down.”
    “But you had it in your hands.”
    Jim flushed. “No, I didn’t! You don’t think I’d knock it down if I—”
    “Okay, okay Forget it.”
    Chris Howe quarterbacked the Vulcans. He got the ball to the Cadets’ nine-yard line. Then the Vulcans lost five yards on an
     offside penalty. On the next play, Chris flipped a spiral pass into the end zone, hitting left end Ben Trainor a yard inside
     the out-of-bounds line for a touchdown. Fullback Ronnie Holmes kicked the conversion. Seven to nothing.
    In the second quarter, a Cadet safety man picked off a pass Chris had intended for Pete Witz, the flashy right end. The Cadet
     was pulled down on the Vulcans’ fourteen. They tried a double reverse and gained sixyards. Jim Nardi made up his mind that no runner was going through the middle. He’d stop any man cold who would try.
    “Hup one! Hup two!”
    The quarterback faked a run through right tackle, drawing some of the players toward that side of the line. But the fullback
     had the ball! He was fading back behind the right side of his