The Extra Yard (23 page)

Trying to make a play.

As he did, Scotty Hanley stopped himself maybe a yard from the line of scrimmage and threw this little floater to his wide-open tight end in the corner of the end zone.

Panthers 33, Wildcats 32.

That was the way it ended.

Teddy felt his knees buckle on the sideline, like he'd taken his last hit of the season. He even felt as if he might go down.

But he didn't.

Because then his dad's arms were around him, and not just keeping Teddy from falling to the ground. His dad was lifting Teddy up in the air, his embrace feeling stronger than it ever had, as if he never planned to let go.

•  •  •

They'd all gotten into the handshake line. The trophy presentation had been made at midfield. When that was over, Teddy sought out Scotty Hanley one last time.

“You got me good,” he said, leaning in—leaning down, actually—and bumping shoulders with him.

“And you would have gotten me if you'd had more time.”

“Some game,” Teddy said.

He couldn't keep himself from smiling. Because it
had
been that kind of game.

“Best I ever played in,” Scotty said, and then told Teddy he'd see him next year.

As Teddy walked away, it was sinking in that it was already next year for him, at least in football.

Coach gathered his players around him one more time and told them how proud he was of them, and that he was going to throw them the biggest pizza party Walton had ever seen next weekend. A few minutes later Cassie was on the field, telling Teddy and Jack and Gus that they were coming to her house for homemade pizza tonight.

It was an order, of course, not an invitation.

Teddy walked over and hugged his mom, as
she
told him how proud she was. Teddy thanked her. She asked if he wanted her to wait for him.

“Dad said he'd drop me,” Teddy said.

“That was some entrance,” she said, “wasn't it?”

“No,” he said. “That was just Dad.”

He walked back to where he'd left his helmet and his pads behind the bench. He'd put his jersey back on after he took off the pads, just because he knew when he took it off later, he'd be taking it off for good.

He saw his dad then, down the field, leaning against one of the goalposts, hands in his pockets, staring out at the field, almost like he was taking a picture of it for himself. For his own memory.

Teddy walked down there.

“I keep telling myself I should feel worse than I do,” his dad said.

“Funny,” Teddy said. “I keep telling myself the same thing.”

“You know why I don't? Because I know you did everything you could. And I mean,
everything
.”

“We both did,” Teddy said. “That last drive of ours was perfect. The game just ended too soon.”

“Like the season did.”

Teddy shrugged and smiled again. “There's always next season,” he said.

“There is that,” his dad said.

He put his arm around Teddy's shoulders. They walked across the field to the Wildcats' bench then, both of them probably wondering how they could lose the big game the way they just had and still feel like they'd won so much.

ALSO BY MIKE LUPICA

The Only Game

SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2016 by Mike Lupica

Jacket illustration copyright © 2016 by Dave Seeley

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lupica, Mike.

The extra yard / Mike Lupica.

pages cm. — (Home team)

Summary: “Teddy has been training all summer with his new friends Jack and Gus to make the new travel football team in Walton, but when his long-absent dad comes back to town and into his life he is faced with a much bigger challenge”— Provided by publisher.

ISBN 978-1-4814-1000-7 (hardback) — ISBN 978-1-4814-1002-1 (ebook)

[1. Football—Fiction. 2. Fathers and sons—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.L97914Ex 2016

[Fic]—dc23

2015013657