Kid Owner (21 page)

I knew what Coach Hubbard was going to say before he said it.

He couldn't even look at me as he cleared his throat. “Simpkin, you run with the first team. I can't have a player losing his starting spot because of an injury. That's just not how it's done in any big program, even the pros and college.”

I stood frozen. I could feel the fury building up inside of me like hot lava, melting everything else away, vaporizing my manners, my self-control, and my good sense.

“You got it, Coach.” Simpkin jogged off to take over my huddle.

Then it happened. I blew a gasket. I lost it.

“Simpkin's
dad
got to you?” I screamed. I whipped off my helmet and slammed it on the ground. “I
saw
it! I
know
!”

“Excuse me?!” Coach Hubbard's face was red with rage and he brandished his clipboard at me like it was a battle-ax.
“You're
way
out of line! You don't own
this
team! You're out for the day. Keep it up and you'll be out for the Eiland game! Now, hit the showers!”

“Ahhhhh!” I pulled my hair and shrieked with rage and stomped off toward the locker room without my helmet, without my starting job, and without a thread of sanity to keep me from trashing my locker like a cyclone. If I didn't play in that game, I'd lose the Cowboys for sure.
I
had to win that game, not Ben Sauer Middle School. If I was on the bench, it would be like a forfeit. Mr. Dietrich had been clear about that.

I went wild.

I yanked everything out and threw things as hard as I could against the opposite bank of lockers, screaming all the while. As the snowstorm of papers from my science folder cascaded down from their explosion on the ceiling, my vision cleared and I realized my life was in total ruin.

Did I cry?

Let's just say I sniffed and wiped something from my eyes that could have been sweat. It was like an oven in there.

I went into the bathroom and puked in the toilet and it seemed to empty me of a lot of poison.

Anyway, I picked up the mess I'd made in the locker room and steeled myself to do the right thing, which was to march out onto the field and apologize to my coach and hope and pray that he'd make me do a thousand up-downs until I puked myself (again) and then let me back onto the team. I wasn't going to be known as a quitter or a whiner or some spoiled brat. If I had to ride the bench forever and endure the sneers of
everyone, I wasn't going to quit. They wouldn't be able to say that about me.

My helmet lay where I'd thrown it. The team was in full swing of the offensive practice, with Jason Simpkin running the old offense like he hadn't missed a beat. As I reached down into the grass and wiped the dirt off my mouth guard, Simpkin launched a pass close to fifty yards in the air to a wide receiver in the end zone. It was something I could never do and it stung like soap in my eyes to see.

I walked over to Coach Hubbard. He ignored me until I tapped him on the arm. He signaled a play to a smirking Jason Simpkin before he took a deep breath and spoke without looking at me. “I thought I sent you to the showers.”

“Coach, I'm sorry. I never should have yelled at you. I don't know what happened to me. I lost it. I'm . . . Can I come back?”

Coach Hubbard made me stand there, suffering. He looked at his sheet and signaled in another play to the huddle as if I didn't exist. Simpkin threw another long touchdown pass.

Coach Hubbard sighed. “Take five laps and then get out there on the scout team at cornerback.”

“Yes, sir!”

“And Zinna, if you ever talk to me that way again, you are done.”

I nodded and bolted for the perimeter of the field before he could change his mind, taking off like a jackrabbit for the second time that day.

I ran until I was dizzy. A knife of pain jabbed my ribs and my lungs felt like bags of acid. If I had anything left in my gut, I would have lost it, but I already left my lunch in the
locker room. I was gasping and wheezing, but I jumped right out onto the field to relieve the scout team cornerback. He happily jogged off to the sideline for a break.

I noticed now that Jackson was on the scout team playing defensive end, and between plays I whispered to him. “What happened? Why are you not on offense?”

He shot me an angry look. “I mouthed off about how you should be our starting quarterback, and they benched me.”

“What?” My voice was barely more than a hiss.

“I didn't go for that bull.” His nostrils flared and he glanced over at Coach Hubbard, who was busy instructing Simpkin on something while the rest of the offense watched. Coach Vickerson marched away from us after having shown the scout defense the card for the next play. “I told them
you
were the only quarterback who could beat Eiland.”

I felt an uncomfortable mix of joy and horror. “Well . . . thanks.”

“You'd have done it for me, too,” he said.

I swallowed, thinking of the touchdown I'd stolen from Jackson and how I'd been mad at him for getting all the attention after our game. “Jeez, Jackson. You're the best. I feel . . . kind of bad.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked. “Why?”

I swallowed. My mouth was all dry, but I felt like I had to tell him. “Well, I changed the play during the Hutchinson game so I could score instead of you. I got bent out of shape that you were like the hero. That's not a good friend.”

He grinned and slapped my back. “Aw, you're just a competitor. I don't care about stuff like that. There are enough
touchdowns to go around.”

I nodded in amazement. Jackson was the best friend ever. All I could do was whisper another thanks before I got into my position.

“Okay,” Coach Hubbard suddenly shouted at the whole team. “Five plays to end it. Live scrimmage! LIVE SCRIMMAGE! I WANT TO SEE SOME HITTING! WE GOT A BIG GAME SATURDAY! WE GOT EILAND! LET'S GO!”

The whole team let loose a roar. Live scrimmage was the real deal. We got to hit each other full speed, blocking, tackling, the works, and it was just what I needed to vent some excess rage.

The offense marched to the line and Simpkin roared out the cadence. He dropped back to pass; Griffin Engle and I smashed into each other before he sidestepped me and raced down the field. I fell back into coverage, running alongside Griffin, each of us slapping at the other's hands for position.

When I heard the crack, I stopped in my tracks and turned to look along with everyone else.

What I saw, I couldn't believe.

Jackson was stomping around bellowing and throwing his fists at the ground as if he were trying to shed the sleeves of some invisible winter coat. The rest of the team stood frozen in shock. Coach Hubbard's mouth hung open. Coach Vickerson gripped his head like it might fly off his neck.

Lying in a stone-still heap on the turf was Jason Simpkin and the football that had spilled from his hands.

“Yes!” Jackson snorted and thumped his helmet, still flush with the excitement of a monster hit. “Big dog gotta
eat
!”

Coach Hubbard began blowing shrill notes on his whistle, as if enough ear-shattering blasts might turn back time. They couldn't, and he finally stopped and rushed over to Jason. For a moment, I was shocked—I won't honestly say afraid—at the idea that Jackson had killed Simpkin, but Simpkin began to groan and twist on the ground.

“Water! Get me water!” Coach Hubbard waved his hand like a magician, and Coach Vickerson broke free from his own trance and scooped up his personal water bottle from the sideline. Coach Hubbard cradled Simpkin's head like a baby's while Coach Vickerson fed sips of water to our fallen quarterback.

Simpkin sputtered and came to life and looked around, clearly confused.

Coach Hubbard proceeded to ask him what hurt, going over every part of his body until it was clear Simpkin had his bell rung and no more.

Coach Hubbard bared his teeth and snarled up at Jackson. “
Jackson
, what the heck were you thinking?”

The question rained on Jackson's parade and he stood still with a blank look on his face, thinking for a moment. “You said ‘live scrimmage,' Coach. So I went live.”

Everyone waited to hear the answer to that unsolvable riddle, but none was coming.

“Glad he got cleared by the family doctor,” Coach Hubbard said. He gave Coach Vickerson the harsh look a coach usually reserves for his players when they mess up, I think to make sure the two of them were covering each other's backs if Simpkin's dad went nuts about him getting hurt.

“He did.” Coach Vickerson nodded wildly. “That's what the dad said. I saw the note. You
have
the note.”

Coach Hubbard patted his pocket and nodded, as though he sensed a possible lawsuit in the air and was relieved to know that they were on the same page. They helped Simpkin up and over to the bench. You might think practice would end, but then you probably don't play football in Texas. In Texas,
anything short of a roiling black tornado and you finish football practice.

So Coach Hubbard suddenly had another big decision to make, and because of my earlier tantrum, it was a tough one.

He could either go with the old offense and install Estevan Marin as the starting quarterback, or fall back on me and Jackson and the spread playbook Coach Cowan had given him. Going back to me would create a political nightmare, but choosing Estevan wouldn't give the team the best chance to win.

I had no idea what Coach Hubbard would do.

But I probably should have known.

This was Texas, and all that mattered in football was winning.

“Zinna, get in at quarterback.” Coach Hubbard straightened as if daring any single one of us to even mention his seesaw strategy. “Give me that starting spread!”

Coach Hubbard hammered out a note on his whistle and everyone jumped into place. He grabbed a bar on my face mask and yanked me close enough to whisper. “Just call our three best plays.”

“Got it.” I didn't wait to give him a chance to change his mind.

Jackson beamed at me from his spot in the huddle as running back. He practically danced with delight. “We got this, Ry-Guy. We got this.”

Jackson and I fist-bumped. I called a throwback screen. We scored a touchdown on the first play, ran for thirty-seven yards on the second, and punched in another touchdown with a short pass to Griffin Engle on the third. Coach Hubbard lined us up to run ten exhausting cross-field sprints, then dismissed us after a chant as if nothing unusual had happened at all.

I couldn't help glancing at Jason Simpkin as I walked past his place on the bench. It was hard, but somehow I managed not to smile.

Coach Hubbard never mentioned the temporary Simpkin takeover and I never asked. Jason was hurt, and two concussions in a row made him strictly unavailable, and I was the quarterback. There really wasn't anything he had to say. Everyone knew how it went, even the Simpkin clan. It was football.

Practice for the rest of the week went so well, it made me nervous. My receivers darted around like water bugs, especially Griffin. Just as I threw the ball, they'd turn their heads, or I'd throw it and they'd make the break I expected. My passes weren't strong, but they were accurate. And Jackson? Jackson was Jackson, a raging bull in a barnyard of cows, pigs, and chickens. He was unstoppable. Confidence was high, almost too high.

But I was prepared—not only for the game and making middle-school history beating a team who hadn't lost for five
years, but also to win the Dallas Cowboys in my contest with Dillon.

The Dallas Morning Star
ran an article about the game in its Wednesday online edition, complete with photos taken of me and Dillon talking on the sideline from the Cardinals game. No one knew how much was at stake. People just thought it was rich that the two kids battling in court over who'd control the Cowboys were facing off on the gridiron. They probably wouldn't have believed it if someone told them the ownership would be determined by who won a middle-school game and I wasn't going to be the one to tell. I had enough pressure on me as it was.

Still, interest was high. Local TV stations showed up for practice and interviewed Coach Hubbard. Even if my mom hadn't banned anyone from interviewing me, Coach Hubbard said the school policy was no player interviews. We were too young.

With all the attention being given to us and the game, and all the pressure because of what was at stake, by Thursday, I was having a hard time keeping my food down. On Friday, I stopped eating altogether. My stomach was a jangle of nerves.

So the last thing I needed when I closed my locker and turned toward homeroom was to see Izzy scowling at me with her arms firmly folded, blocking my path.

“What?” I asked.

“You know what, Ryan. If you all win tomorrow, there's that bonfire. Mya and Griffin are going as really, really good friends.”

“Tomorrow is the biggest game of my life, Izzy.”

“Well, the bonfire is after the game. Life goes on, you know. I thought maybe we were really, really good friends and we could go together, too, and then you got all weird about it and any time it comes up it's like you can't even look at me.”

I was, in fact, looking at the floor at that moment. I forced my eyes up into hers. “What? I can go—if you want.”

She smiled at me.

It was weird. I mean, when I heard about Griffin and Mya, I wanted to go with Izzy. I just had no idea how to go about it, and now it was just happening. “I mean, if you'd really want to go with me.”

“Hey,” she said, shrugging and then smiling to let me know she was teasing, “you're the kid owner.”

I gulped down some bile. I wanted to tell her that I might not be the kid owner, but the bell rang and she started to slowly back away, heading for homeroom.