Read Online Football Nightmare by Matt Christopher - Free Book Online Page B

that he had indeed heard right. He was on the starting team! He managed not to jump up and let out a whoop, but he felt really
good
.
    In addition, he felt a tingle of nervousness. Now he had what he wanted. It was put-up-or-shut-up time.
    What if he blew it …
again?
What would he do?
    Meanwhile, the coach was talking about running some new plays and drilling all the old ones, and Keith made an effort to follow it all, but found it hard to focus.
    As soon as Coach Bodie told the players to take a minute before they got to work, Keith headed straight for Larry, who was sitting on the ground and staring hard straight ahead of him. “Hey, Larry?” Keith called.
    The other boy looked up, and Keith stuck out his hand. “Larry, I hope there’s no hard feelings. I thought we looked pretty much dead-even lately, and it could have gone either way. And I figure you’ll get plenty of playing time.”
    Larry got to his feet and forced a smile onto his face. “Congratulations,” he said. “I guess you earned it. Anyway … well, good luck.”
    Keith thought that if it had been the other way around, he’d probably have had just as much trouble getting the words out.
    As practice went on, Keith noticed that Larry’s head didn’t seem to be in it at all. At one point, when Larry was on offense, Billy must have called for the receiver to cut toward the sideline, because that’s where he threw the pass. But the ball landed ten yards from any player, while Larry raced straight downfield. As he headed glumly back to the huddle, the coach glared at him, but didn’t say anything. Keith was sure that it was because Coach Bodie knew how Larry was feeling and wanted to cut him a little slack.
    Keith felt
pumped
. He couldn’t do anything wrong. One of Jason’s passes was tipped at the line of scrimmage and Keith somehow leaped over a couple of players to grab it before it hit the ground. He made a beautiful ankle-high tackle on Heck when it seemed that Heck was going to take it into the end zone. He hoped that he’d have this kind of feeling when game time rolled around.
    When the coach whistled play to a halt, Keith felt that he could keep going and going, like one of those batteries in TV commercials. “Keith, Larry, let me see you for a minute,” the coach called.
    Heck looked at Keith with a “What’s up?” expression, but Keith could only shrug. He had no idea.
    “Guys, with you two playing as well as you are, I’d like to put in a new play, a spread formation kind of thing, with both of you in the lineup and Heck in the slot. Here’s the idea.”
    He kneeled down, holding a clipboard with a penciled diagram on it. Keith caught Larry’s eye and grinned. Larry grinned back.
    “The thing would be to flood the secondary,” Coach Bodie said. “One of you two would go deep down one sideline, the other would cut across maybe fifteen yards out. Heck would be flanked, ready for a screen pass or something short. Billy has great peripheral vision and he could decide which man is most open. If, say, we’re behind with time running out, or if it’s a close game and we want to catch them by surprise, this could be a real weapon.”
    Keith looked at the coach and then at Larry. “Sounds great.”
    Larry asked, “When are we going to work on it?”
    “Tomorrow,” the coach replied. “I don’t know if we’ll use it right away, but I’d like to be able to if we want it. Take a couple of minutes, and then we’ll get back to work.”
    Keith and Larry nodded. Heck came up to Keith as soon as Keith was far enough away so that Larry wouldn’t hear their conversation.
    “What was
that
about?” he asked.
    Keith hesitated, and then said, “Well, the coach didn’t ask us to keep it a secret so I don’t see why I can’t tell you. He has a new play he wants to put in tomorrow, with Larry and me together.”
    Heck’s eyes lit up. “Yeah?”
    Keith nodded. “You’d be a flanker. We’d have three receivers in the pattern and