The Extra Yard (12 page)

“You four are already a team,” Teddy's mom said now. “Probably the coolest team in this town, not just because of how good you all are in sports, but because of the way you look out for each other. I know you all understand the concepts of hard work and
team
work. What I'm asking you to do now is apply all of that to a project like this. Because if we win this one, I promise it will feel as satisfying to you as any championship you've ever won, or ever will win.”

“Mom,” Teddy said, “do you know how much you just sounded like one of our coaches?”

“Solid pep talk?” she said.

“I was waiting for you make us run some laps,” Gus said.

“Listen,” she said. “I've never seen anyone as competitive as you all are. I just want you to treat your school's music department like a trophy you're trying to win.”

She looked around the table, fixing her eyes on one face after another. “Okay?”

“Okay,” they all said.

The table got quiet, until Gus said, “But how?”

“Let's just spitball some ideas,” Alexis Madden said. “And there's only one rule of good spitballing: just shout out anything that comes into your head. What you think might be a dumb idea might turn out to be brilliant.”

That was what they did. Gus suggested a bake sale. Teddy wondered how much they could make washing cars in the school parking lot every weekend, around their game schedule. Gus said they should raffle off some really good prizes, but he wasn't sure what kind of prizes. Jack said that the trick was coming up with a good charity event without calling it a charity event, so that Mrs. Brandon wouldn't feel as if they were treating her as a charity
case
.

“I've got one,” Cassie said.

“Just one?” Teddy said.

“I'll handle trying to raise money on Gofundme.com,” she said.

“Go funny?” Gus said.

“Not funny, you idiot. It's this site where you can try to raise money for personal things that really, really matter to you.” She looked at Teddy across the table. “Go grab your laptop and I'll show it to you guys.”

Teddy jumped right up. He knew the drill. So did Jack and Gus. It hadn't been a request. He came back about two minutes later with his laptop and placed it in front of Cassie. She opened it up and showed them the home page, which had “Crowdfunding for Everyone!” at the top.

They all got behind her and watched as she scrolled down, showing them some of the different reasons for which people were trying to raise money.

“Fix Mrs. Seville's car” was one, with two thousand dollars having been raised so far. There was another one for an ex–newspaper editor with Parkinson's disease, and one for a Massachusetts police officer who'd been injured on the job.

Money had even been raised for a girl's sick puppy.

“But how can we do something like this without Mrs. B thinking we're treating her like some kind of charity case? She is way too cool for that.”

“By just telling people that she's
still
a rock star,” Cassie said. “By just putting her story out there, about somebody who
does
get kids to love music, and somebody those kids love even more.”

“Well,” Teddy's mom said, “I know I love this idea. Cassie, you are now our vice president in charge of social media.”

Cassie raised an eyebrow. “Only
vice
president?” she said. “What about girl power, Mrs. Madden?”

“You're absolutely right,” Teddy's mom said. “You are now president and chief operating officer of social media.”

“I'm comfortable with that,” Cassie said.

“Now, what about the boys?” Teddy's mom said.

“Maybe your dad could get ESPN to help out?” Gus said.

“No,” Teddy said. “Definitely not.”

“Why?” Cassie said.

“This isn't his,” he said. “This is ours.”

But he was looking at his mom as he said it. They both knew what he meant. Teddy wanted it to be hers.

The table got silent again. Teddy checked his phone. There were still ten minutes until the kickoff at MetLife Stadium. It was then that Teddy noticed Jack Callahan smiling, the way he had in football when he was kneeling in the huddle, about to run a play he loved.

“This is about music, right?” he said.

“All about music,” Teddy's mom said. “It's about all the music this woman has put into the life of this school for a long time.”

“Okay then,” Jack said.

“Okay what?” Gus said.

“How about we invent our own version of
The Voice
?” he said. “How about we have the four of us be judges, and have teams, and some elimination rounds, and then we sell tickets to the finals that parents or anybody else who wants to come can buy?”

“Mrs. Brandon can help us with the auditions!” Cassie said.

Without thinking, Teddy said, “Who's gonna be Blake and who's gonna be Adam?”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth he saw Jack and Gus staring at him.

“I thought you said you never watched
The Voice
,” Gus said.

“I mean, how would a guy who says he never watches the show know who Blake and Adam are?” Jack said.

Teddy at least had the presence of mind to pull out his phone again and say, “Oh man, it's two minutes until the kick!” Then he nearly ran inside the house.

But before he was through the kitchen door, he heard his mom say, “He's definitely going to want to be Blake.”

T
he next week of practice for Teddy felt like starting school all over again:

Quarterback school.

As much as he thought he knew about the playbook—and he knew more about it than any player on the team except Jack—what he really found out over the next three practices was how much he
didn't
know.

Halfway through Monday night's practice he said to Jack, “Explain to me again why you've always told me playing this position is such big fun.”

“Because it is big fun,” Jack said.

Jack had promised Teddy that he was going to make as many practices as he could from now on, his way of trying to help Teddy figure things out on the fly. Teddy told him he didn't have to do that. But he knew this was a way for Jack to contribute to the team.

But they both knew that Jack was only an assistant quarterback coach. Teddy's primary coach was his dad. The other night Teddy had been watching ESPN and heard somebody talking about how fast things changed in sports. Teddy already knew that, because of what had happened during the baseball season. But that was nothing compared to what was happening right now. He'd gone from having no dad in his life to having a full-time dad, at least when he was on the football field.

And practices were different now, especially when they'd scrimmage. If Teddy did something wrong, with a drop or a read or how long he was supposed to hold the ball on a screen pass, Coach Gilbert would blow his whistle, and then Teddy's dad would take the ball and show Teddy exactly what he'd done wrong.

His dad had tried to prepare him before practice.

“There's going to be a lot of repetition,” he said. “Reps are how you get better.”

“I get it.”

“I don't want you to feel like I'm calling you out in front of the team when you do something wrong.”

“Got it.”

“For real?”

“You don't have to draw me a picture,” Teddy said, feeling himself getting irritated even though he knew his dad was just trying to help.

“I just don't want to hurt your feelings.”

“You should have started worrying about that a long time ago.”

His dad stared at him before he said, “We've got a lot of work to do.”

Teddy was sure he wasn't just talking about football.

Starting with Monday's practice, he had a good week, learning a lot about the little things that went into playing the position. The footwork, even on handoffs, began to feel more natural to him, to the point where he didn't have to think about it on every play.

And he kept telling himself not to overthink throwing the ball. It was the point that Jack continued to drive home, that he had to trust his arm.

When they finished with the last practice of the week on Thursday night, Jack said, “You're starting to get something.”

“That I wish your shoulder would heal by Saturday?”

“You're doing what my dad says you have to do in any sport,” Jack said. “Controlling the process and not freaking out worrying about results.”

“Oh good,” Teddy said. “One more little factoid I have to remember, until my head explodes.”

“You're a fast learner,” Jack said.

“Getting into college someday is going to be easier than this,” Teddy said.

Jack grinned. “You think you're going to get into college?”

“Watch it,” Teddy said. “Or when we start doing
The Voice
, I'll suggest to Cassie that you sing instead of coach.”

“I have a plan if that happens,” Jack said.

“Really.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I tell my parents we have to move.”

Planning how they wanted to do the singing competition at school had actually been a good thing for Teddy, just because it was the only time in his day when he didn't obsess about football. He could actually feel himself starting to get motivated, same as his friends were, just because the more they talked about it, the more they realized what a cool idea this really was. It was such a good cause for such a good person. Teddy's mom had always told him that the greatest energy source in the world was a random act of kindness.

Sitting on the bench next to Jack now, practice over, shoulder pads off and Teddy feeling the good kind of tired you felt after you'd left everything on the field, Teddy said, “You know that for all the complaining I do to you, I'm excited about starting at QB on Saturday.”

“You're ready, dude.”

What he wasn't ready for, as he was collecting his equipment, was for his dad to come over and tell them that the night for them to have that burger together had arrived.

“Just checked with your mom,” David Madden said. “She's going out with Mrs. Callahan and Mrs. Bennett. I'm dropping you home, waiting while you clean up, and we'll have a boys' night out.”

Teddy had learned a lot of good moves this week. He didn't have one to get away from his dad.

“Okay,” he said.

T
he place was called Back Street.

Teddy had been there a few times with his mom, and everybody in Walton said it had the best burger in town.

They took a booth in the front room, across from the bar. One of the television sets above the bar was showing the Thursday night football game on ESPN. The other two were showing baseball games, one the Yankees and one the Red Sox.

“This was a high school hangout back in the day,” David Madden said. “We'd come here after games for burgers and milk shakes. They only turned it into a sports bar after I went off to college. Since then, they haven't even changed the sawdust on the floor, as far as I can tell.”

“So this was, like, your place?”

“The best,” his dad said. He paused slightly and said, “From the best time in my life.”

There it was again. Loving Teddy's mom and having her love him back, that wasn't the best part of his life. Neither was having a son later on. Playing quarterback for Walton High, throwing the ball to his buddy Dick Gilbert, then coming over to Back Street to celebrate another win, that was it for him.

Good times,
Teddy thought.

They both ordered cheeseburgers. Teddy didn't eat cheeseburgers as often as he used to, or fries. But he was all-in tonight, mostly because of how hungry he was. At the very least, he told himself, he'd get a good meal out of this.

After the waitress walked away, Teddy fixed his eyes on the TV set showing the football game, Pittsburgh against North Carolina.

“So,” his dad said finally, as a way of bringing Teddy back into their booth.

“So.”

Teddy looked across the table and saw his dad's smile fixed in place, as usual. By now Teddy knew you could knock that smile off his face. But it wasn't easy.

“How do you think it's going so far?” his dad said.

“You mean in football?”

“We can start there.”

“I feel myself
thinking
more like a quarterback,” Teddy said. “Using what Jack calls the quarterback brain I didn't know I had. And the big thing is that I realize I don't have to see the whole field at once, even though I want to.”

“You can only control what you can control.”

Teddy almost said, “Tell me about it.” But he didn't. Instead he said, “Maybe it was because Jack made it look so easy. I had no idea there was this much to it, on every single play, even a running play off tackle.”

“When people say it's the most important position in sports,” his dad said, “they're right. Even at this level.”

“No pressure,” Teddy said.

“Don't look at it that way,” his dad said. “Are you kidding? You gotta treat this like some surprise package that got delivered out of the blue.”

“My life is just full of surprises these days,” Teddy said.

“Is that a bad thing?”

“I don't know, Dad. You tell me.”

Then he turned to look up at the TV set. Pittsburgh's quarterback had just completed a long pass. By the time he got home, he knew, the NFL Thursday night game would be starting, Packers against the Lions. He couldn't wait. He loved watching Aaron Rodgers play, now more than ever. He was the guy in the NFL who made playing quarterback look easy.

“Are we still just talking about football?” David Madden said.