Game Changers (6 page)

Ben saw Shawn's face start to redden, like he'd just missed with another pass, heard him say, “You don't know me.”

“Trying, dude. Trying.”

Ben wished he had Lily with him, she always knew how to say the right things, even when she was busting on him, or Sam, or Coop. Plus, she had more common sense than any other kid he knew. But she wasn't here, so Ben did the next
best thing, tried to get her voice inside his own head, trying to find the right words.

“I'm not saying you're supposed to
like
losing, especially like that,” Ben said. “You just can't let it show the way you did yesterday. I'm telling you as a friend.”

Shawn gave him a long look and said, “Thanks.”

“Just thought you needed to hear that.”

“No,” Shawn said. “The part about us being friends.”

Ben grinned. “It is what it is.”

Shawn said, “You sure my dad didn't put you up to this?”

“Nah, I'm just a dope trying to get you to chill a little.”

“You're not,” Shawn said. “A dope, I mean. I know I'm the one who acts like one sometimes. I just can't help myself, I guess.”

Then he said, “I couldn't help it after the game. I let everybody down.”

Ben said, “Seriously? So what? You were trying to make a play. Trying to win us the game. Maybe if I'd been paying closer attention, I could have come to the ball better.”

“Stop,” Shawn said, his voice louder than it had been. “Making excuses, I mean. My dad does enough of that for me.”

Man, Ben thought, this guy
was
rough. Today he didn't want you making excuses for him. The day before, he blew off Coop because of a bad snap that was as much his fault as Coop's.

Ben could see Shawn's face getting red again.

“I get scared in games,” Shawn said. “I want to do well so badly, as much for my dad as for me, that I try
too
hard. And then as soon as something goes wrong …”

He put his hands out, like he was helpless to explain it to Ben any better than that.

Just the two of them out here behind the house. But really trying to be friends now. Be
boys
. Doing what you did at their age, trying to understand stuff.

Ben said, “So you get scared sometimes. It happens.”

“
All
the time.”

“
No
, it doesn't. If it did, you'd be throwing picks or fumbling snaps on every play.”

Shawn was the one taking a deep breath now, the air then coming out of him in a big blast, saying, “The bigger the play the smaller
I
play. Maybe you didn't notice as much last year, because we won all those games at the end. But believe me, I noticed.”

“Everybody gets scared out there,” Ben said. “Even pros get scared. I read one time that this guy Bill Russell, played for the Celtics about a hundred years ago, used to boot before every single game.”

Shawn tried to smile. “Whoa, I'm not that bad. I'm not booting.”

“You're not bad at all!” Ben said. “You gotta find a way to have fun. This is
supposed
to be fun.”

“You're not listening. It's not fun for me.”

Ben looked at him, this kid who seemed to have it all.

“So we gotta figure out a way to make it fun,” Ben said.

If Shawn heard, he didn't let on, just got up off the bench and came over to where Ben was sitting.

“You said we were friends now, right?” he said.

Ben grinned, stretched out his arms, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Well,
yeah
.”

“I'm not so good at being friends with guys. But when somebody is your friend, you can trust the guy, right?”

“Right,” Ben said.

“So if I tell you something and you swear you won't tell anybody else, you won't. Right?”

“Swear,” Ben said. “Like they say in the movies, I don't talk even if I'm caught behind enemy lines.”

But Shawn wasn't kidding and Ben could see he wasn't kidding.

“Swear on your heart?”

Ben went along, kept his own voice serious, put his hand over his heart and said, “On my heart.”

“I don't want to play quarterback,” Shawn O'Brien said.

Ben said, “Come on, man, you made one lousy pass.”

“No, you don't understand,” Shawn O'Brien said. “I
never
wanted to play quarterback in the first place.”

Ben stared at him, hoping he didn't look as surprised as he felt. Knowing he'd heard right, but not quite believing. Shawn had
never
wanted to play quarterback.

Really?

“You ever tell your dad that?” Ben said.

What came out of Shawn O'Brien now wasn't much more than a whisper.

“I can't,” he said.

“You
can't
?”

“My dad always says this is his dream backyard,” Shawn said. “He tells everybody that. But his real dream is
me
. Not
just me being a quarterback. Me being even a better quarterback than he was. It's the most important thing in the world to him. No, no way I can tell him this.
Ever
.”

Ben McBain liked to think he was pretty good, at least in sports, at anticipating what was going to happen next.

Not this time.

“That's why you have to help me,” Shawn said.

“Help you with what?” Ben said.

Completely lost.

Shawn said, “You have to help me be a quarterback.”

Not fair.

That was Ben's first reaction once he was back on his bike. First reaction and second and third as he took the long way home, going through town, giving himself some time to cool down, trying to figure out what had just happened.

But as fast as his bike was, it couldn't outrun this:

How totally unfair it was for him to be in this situation.

Forget about the guy not loving football the way Ben did. Forget
that
. Forget that he didn't love having a job that Ben would have given anything to have.

A job, by the way, he practically got handed with a bow around it.

Oh no, it was much better than that, he didn't even
want
the job.

Sweet.

Ben McBain couldn't remember a time when he
hadn't
wanted to play quarterback.

And even
that
wasn't even the craziest part. The really mad crazy part was that for Ben to be something that was even
more important to him than being a quarterback — being a good teammate — now he had to be Shawn O'Brien's quarterback coach.

Forget about what Sam might do if he found out Shawn's “secret.” Ben wanted to tackle the guy, too, even though he knew better, knew that wasn't him, that he had to help the guy even though Shawn had put him in a bad spot by swearing him to secrecy.

Talk about taking one for the team.

Check it out: Ben couldn't tell his parents what he knew about Shawn. Couldn't tell Sam or Coop. Couldn't tell Lily. She was the one worrying him the most. Trying to keep something from her was going to make Science seem like fun in comparison. Ben knew he was going to have to be careful around her, because if he wasn't, Lily would get that radar of hers going and demand to know what was up. Then he'd be in an even
worse
spot than he already was, because he and Lily had made their own pact all the way back in third grade, Lily making him swear that he'd never keep any secrets from her.

Ever.

And never lie to her.

Ben had never been much of a liar, anyway, lying had always seemed way too hard, no matter
how
hard telling the truth about something might seem.

The real truth right now was that he wished he'd never gone over to Shawn's, that he'd stayed home and played video games. Or read a book.

Sometimes when he was reading a book — Ben McBain loved reading almost as much as he did sports — he'd write down a sentence or two he wanted to remember. One time, he couldn't remember the book right now, he'd written down this quote, just because it had struck him funny:

“No good deed goes unpunished.”

When he'd shown it to his mom she'd smiled at him and said, “You gotta be prepared for something, pal. No matter how much you think you're doing the right thing, life can still take a wrong turn on you.”

Like now.

Before Ben had left he'd said to Shawn, straight up, “So, like, you're going to keep playing quarterback even though you don't want to?”

“I just have to get through this season,” Shawn had said. “Then maybe I'll figure it out after. I keep hoping that Dad won't want to coach
next
season, that it's not his plan to coach me every year until I get to high school.”

Ben had said, “So you're doing this for him?”

“I can't let him down,” Shawn had said, almost whispering even though it was just the two of them. “And maybe if I got a little better I'd be a little less afraid.”

They had been walking back up the hill by then.

“Afraid of what?”

“Of letting everybody down.”

“And you think I can help you?”

“You have to,” Shawn had said.

As he started up his block, Ben was thinking maybe
he was the one who ought to be afraid, that maybe he'd finally promised something he wasn't going to be able to deliver.

Yeah, he thought.

Definitely should have stayed home today.

 

Ben had never thought there were certain things he had to
do
to be a quarterback, like some kind of to-do list, even in pickup games. Once the pickup games started, he just
was
a QB. Just let it happen. If the play broke down, he made up another one on the fly. He'd seen this one play on YouTube, another Flutie play, where Flutie got jammed up in the backfield and the only way for him to complete a pass was throwing the ball behind his back, the way you would in basketball.

Make it up, if you had to.

Just make the play.

Shawn was different. Oh man. No matter what the situation against Midvale, no matter what happened after the ball was snapped, Shawn had only changed the play his dad had sent in as some kind of last resort. Coach O'Brien could talk all he wanted in practice about secondary receivers. Shawn would still get locked in on the guy who was supposed to be getting the ball. The way he'd locked in on Ben right before the interception the day before.

It was almost as if Shawn was the robot like the one in his backyard, maybe thinking his dad was controlling him with a remote from the sideline.

It was almost time for the McBain family's Sunday lunch when he got back, the big bowl of fruit salad already on the dining room table. Sam and Coop and Lily were coming over to hang out later, after the Packers played the one o'clock game on TV, which meant Ben had some time before he had to explain to them why the Core Four might be about to become five for a while.

He'd gotten Shawn to agree to this: Ben could tell Sam and Coop that they were going to do some extra workouts on their own. So that they could all become more comfortable with one another. It was a legit idea, especially for Shawn and Coop, because they
had
messed up that handoff against Midvale, and it didn't matter whose fault it was, the ball still ended up bouncing around on the ground.

And it was
totally
legit that Shawn getting extra practice throwing to Sam could only help, since Sam was clearly the best receiver on the team.

Ben and Shawn agreed that the workouts would take place at McBain Field, even though Shawn's field was a whole lot better, both Ben and Shawn agreeing that Shawn would be a lot more relaxed without his dad being some kind of eye in the sky at the top of the hill.

Wanting to come down and help out.

“I mean this in a good way,” Shawn O'Brien had said, “but my dad is already helping enough.”

Ben was on his bed now, stretched out on top of the covers, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. Thinking: It wasn't just the game you were playing or the one you were watching that could turn around in a blink, sometimes it was your life.

He had come into the season wanting one thing: To be a quarterback. When he saw that wasn't going to happen, he just wanted things to be a little less complicated between him and Shawn, and now look where he was.

He heard a small knock on the door, said “Enter,” saw his dad's smiling face appear from behind the door. Never a bad thing.

“‘Bout five minutes until lunch,” he said.

“You need help setting the table?” Ben said.

His dad tilted his head to the side, frowning, trying to look confused. “Well, the boy definitely
looks
like Ben McBain,” his dad said. “And he
sounds
like Ben McBain. But if he's talking about laying out forks and knives, he can't possibly
be
Ben McBain.”

“No kidding,” Ben said, “sometimes you and mom really are funnier than TV parents.”

“Well,” his dad said, “you're nice to notice.” Then: “How'd it go at Shawn's? Your mom told me you were heading over.”

“It went okay, I guess.”

“Just okay?”

He wanted to tell his dad all of it, tell him how maybe the only way to save the season was to help Shawn get better — and get more confidence — playing a position he didn't even want to play. Ben wanted to ask his dad for advice,
totally
. But knew he couldn't.

All he said was “He's one of those guys who just wants it so bad it makes him
play
bad.”

No lie there.

Then Ben added, “Dad, does that make
any
sense?”

“Actually,” Jeff McBain said, “it makes perfect sense.” His dad smiled at him again, the kind that could feel like a hug even from across the room. “It's the kind of thing that happens to parents all the time when they become too parental. Sometimes we want to be great parents so much we end up acting like idiots, and if you tell your mom I said that, no dessert.”

“What is dessert, by the way? She wouldn't tell me.”

“Banana cream pie.”

“I won't talk.” Ben sat up. “Dad, I
gotta
find a way to prop him up. I'm just not sure I know what's the
best
way.”

The whole truth there, nothing but.

“Maybe you can convince him that he can help the team more by wanting it a little less,” Ben's dad said. “Does
that
makes sense to
you
?”

Ben nodded, smiling back at him, because it did.

“Mom says Lily's the genius,” he said. “Actually it's you.”

“Now
that
you can tell your mother,” his dad said.