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game? What happened?”
    “You ought to know, Ned,” said Clyde. “Come on, boys, let’s go.”
    “How would I know?” said Ned. Then it hit him. Ned had taken Lester’s football once, but that was before. He was going to win it fair and square this time. But if the ball was missing, would anyone believe him?
    “I guess we have the whole field, then,” said Franklin. “Uh, Ned, if you do have the ball, you could bring it out now. Is it over at Mr. Lewis’s?”
    “Good work, Ned!” Paul said. “Is it ours now? Why didn’t you bring it? How did you get it?”
    “I didn’t take it, Paul! I don’t have Lester’s football. Wouldn’t I have brought it Saturday if I did? He said Burton didn’t go to the game. Something must have happened. Come on, Ralph. G.O. will know. Let’s go find him.”
    The most likely place to find G.O. after school was at the pool hall. The boys ran all the way there, but hesitated outside the door.
    “I can’t go in,” said Ned. “Mr. Carl will remember me.” They stood against the side of the building. “Besides, you said you’ve been in before. All you have to do is run in and holler for G.O. and run out.”
    “But I . . . right,” said Ralph. “Sure. If you’re chicken.”
    Ned peered around the corner as Ralph walked to the door, hesitated, then pushed it open and disappeared. He watched for a few minutes, then leaned his head back against the bricks. If he didn’t have Lester’s football, and Burton didn’t have it, where could it be? It seemed as though Ralph had been gone for hours.
    Finally, he came back with G.O.
    “I just talked to Luther in there,” G.O. said. “He says Burton was at Liberty Park Saturday morning, feeling pretty full of himself for being Lester’s brother, trying to talk Luther and William into gambling on the Hawkeye game.
    “Mr. Ward came looking for Burton and found him in the park with the money out and gave him a whap right there in the park. Told him he could not go to the game, he’d have to wait at his aunt’s. Luther says Burton was bawling like a baby. Said he
had
to see Lester. They couldn’t keep him from Lester. But nothing doing. And now he can’t find that ball. Burton says he had it with him at the park and forgot it there, but Luther says he didn’t have it by the time he saw them. Burton’s dad is making him work at the store every day now, says it will teach him to be responsible.”
    Ralph whistled. “He’s not just a chicken. He’s a baby chicken.”
    “Bawk,” said Ned weakly.

The next morning Ned slipped into his seat just as Mrs. Kelley started morning announcements.
    “On a serious note,” she said, “the seventh grade had a visit from Mr. Ward this morning. It seems that Lester’s football has gone missing. This is a valuable piece of family property and should be returned immediately. If someone is found to have the ball without turning it in, Mr. Ward may press charges.”
    Ned looked up. Hadn’t Burton just lost it? And what happened to responsibility? Press charges? He felt as though the word THIEF were tattooed across his forehead, like the man at the midway last summer at the fair who had FALSE tattooed across his.
    “Now,” continued Mrs. Kelley, “Mr. Ward isn’t accusing anyone. But since football seems to be awfully popular with the boys at school, he wants to know if anyone has information, so word is being passed down the grades.”
    “Ned did take the ball that one time. . . .” offered Johnny. “And I heard he stole Miss Thompson’s purse.”
    “No one is being accused,” said Mrs. Kelley. “I’m just repeating what Mr. Ward asked me to announce. Now, we have a busy day. That’s enough about football. If you know anything about it, just talk to Burton or Mr. Ward or myself.”
    Class started but Ned couldn’t concentrate. He couldn’t even mouth the words to the Pledge of Allegiance correctly. He kept mixing it up with the Lord’s Prayer in his mind. “Deliver us