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  “A daddy do-over?” Teddy said. He had a fake smile of his own going now.

  “I know you’re being sarcastic, but yeah, something like that,” his dad said. “Like I said, I’m just looking for a fresh start here.”

  That was it. Teddy stood up. “When was our first start?” he said.

  He walked across the room, got to the doorway, turned, and said, “Good talk, though.”

  Then he couldn’t help himself.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” he added. “I made the team.”

  SEVEN

  The Wildcats’ first game was Saturday, at home, against the Hollis Hills Bears.

  Hollis Hills was about an hour away. At least half the teams in their league were that far away, so the guys on the team knew they were going to do some traveling this season for All-American Football. They didn’t care. The idea of longer road trips just made the whole thing seem even more glamorous, like they really were playing in the big leagues.

  There were nine teams in the league, which meant eight games in the regular season. If they won their league, they qualified for the district final. Beyond that, details about the postseason were sketchy. Because this was a start-up program, even Coach Gilbert wasn’t sure what would happen if they won the district.

  “They’re figuring it out as they go along,” he’d said the night before at practice. “But here’s the way I figure it, and so should you: if we win enough games, good things will happen.”

  It was all good as far as Teddy Madden, number 13, was concerned. He was learning more about being a tight end with every practice, about how to run the cleanest patterns, how to throw the best blocks, even how to be a good decoy when the ball was going to Gus or Mike O’Keeffe or even one of the guys coming out of the back field.

  And he felt as if he and Jack were reading each other’s minds even better than when Teddy was Jack’s first option as a receiver. Teddy couldn’t speak for everybody else on the team. But one thing he knew for certain was that he and the quarterback were ready for Hollis Hills.

  The last practice before the game was on Thursday night, full pads, offense against the defense, everybody into it, everybody on the field treating it like a real game, nobody wanting to give an inch.

  About an hour into it, Gus said to Teddy, “Is this fun or what?”

  “You think pads and helmets are enough tonight,” Teddy said, “or should we have asked for body armor?”

  But he knew he was loving it the way everybody else on the team was. The way they were all getting after it just made him want to play Hollis Hills right now.

  Then he looked over and saw his dad standing on the sidelines next to Coach Gilbert.

  • • •

  They had already run their red-zone offense, and their two-minute drill. Coach told the offense to start at its own twenty yard line and run the first ten plays he planned to run on this same field against the Bears on Saturday morning.

  While they waited for Coach Williams to give the defense some last-minute instructions, Teddy just kept staring at his dad and Coach Gilbert.

  “What’s he doing here?” Teddy said.

  “What is who doing here?” Gus said, following Teddy’s eyes to the sideline.

  “My dad.”

  Gus said, “No kidding, that’s him over there with Coach?”

  “The man, the legend,” Teddy said.

  He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt and sneakers, and an ancient-looking cap with the Walton lowercase w on the front. He poked Coach Gilbert now and said something, and the two of them laughed.

  “Couple of boys,” Teddy said, “just chopping it up.”

  “But they are boys, aren’t they?” Jack said. “They did play on the same high school team, right?”

  “That was a long time ago,” Teddy said.

  “Well, it looks like all he’s doing is watching practice,” Gus said.

  “Yeah,” Teddy said. “Mine.”

  “Listen,” Jack said. “Don’t worry about what’s going on over there. Just what’s going on out here.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “Who said anything about easy?” Jack said, leaning forward and bumping helmets with Teddy. “This is a contact sport, remember?”

  “Focus, dog,” Gus said.

  Teddy looked at him. “Woof, woof.”

  David Madden wasn’t the only dad at practice. A bunch of dads would show up from work when they started at six o’clock, as they had tonight. Sometimes they’d stay the whole two hours. Teddy knew these were the real football dads, a lot of them former players themselves, some who’d played at Walton High the way Coach Gilbert and Coach Williams had.

  Even Cassie had shown up on her bike to watch the last hour of practice tonight, something she did from time to time. But then she was as much of a football fan as any girl Teddy had ever met.

  She didn’t just love the game. She knew the game.

  “Guys think everything is a guy thing,” she had told them one night when they were all together after practice. “They must have missed the memo about the NFL trying to attract more women to their audience.”

  Jack told the players that the first three plays were going to be running plays. And that if they made a first down, they were going to run three more running plays. Coach had told them that they were going to start the game against Hollis Hills as if the forward pass hadn’t been invented. That way when Coach finally did turn Jack loose, the Bears wouldn’t know what hit them.

  So Teddy concentrated on blocking for Jake Mozdean and Brian McAuley, their two best backs, pretending he was one of the big boys in the offensive line. He loved it when he’d put a linebacker on the ground and Jake or Brian would get five extra yards. One of the things he’d already realized about playing tight end was that size and speed and strength could make you just as good a blocker as a receiver.

  “That’s what I’m talking about!” Coach Gilbert yelled after Jake had ripped off another ten-yard run. “When you’re pushing them back like this, they’re all skill positions!”

  After eight straight running plays, the offense was finally facing its first third down, from the defense’s thirty-eight yard line. Once they’d made a couple of first downs, Coach had been alternating Jake and Brian, sending them in with the plays.

  When Jake got to the huddle now, he said to Jack, “Coach wants belly-and-go.”

  Teddy felt the excitement right away. It was his favorite play. Jack, who was great with the ball, was going to fake a handoff to Jake, knowing the defense was expecting a run on short yardage. He didn’t just want the guys in the defensive line, and the linebackers, to bite on the fake. He wanted to freeze the defensive backs just enough as Gus came across the field and set a legal pick on Gregg Leonard, the safety who was supposed to pick up Teddy.

  If it worked, Teddy was supposed to break to the outside and then down the sideline.

  That was where the “go” part of the play came in.

  When they broke the huddle, Jack grabbed Teddy’s arm, pulled him close, and quickly said, “Before you turn into a receiver, look like a blocker.”

  Teddy nodded.

  As he took his position, he couldn’t help himself: he looked over to where his dad was still standing next to Coach, and wondered if Coach had told him what play was coming.

  Teddy made sure not to get himself so worked up that he jumped the snap count. Once the ball was snapped, he got low, as if he were targeting Max Conte at middle linebacker. But he kept his eyes on Gus, waiting for him to come across the field. And as soon as Gus got close enough to Gregg—Gus had to act like a receiver himself, or it was a penalty—Teddy immediately kicked it up a notch and broke to the outside, going behind Gregg Leonard right away.

  He was running in space again, waiting for a throw from Jack Callahan.

  Exactly where he wanted to be.

  Before he even looked back for the ball, knowing how open he was, he told himself to focus only on the catch, not what he was go
ing to do after it.

  When he did turn around, he realized he had waited too long, because the ball was nearly on him. If he had waited even one more stride, the ball might have hit him right in the face mask.

  He got his big hands up in time, though, and pulled the ball out of the sky. It was here that he almost did get ahead of himself, looking up the field at all the green in front of him before he had secured the ball.

  He started to bobble it, feeling for one terrible moment as if he might drop it, even though there wasn’t a defender within ten yards of him.

  But he didn’t drop it.

  He felt as if he were juggling it forever before pressing it to the front of his jersey with both hands and running the rest of the way into the end zone.

  When he turned back to look at the field, he thought about spiking the ball. He didn’t. He’d told himself once he’d made the team that he was never going to be one of those hey-look-at-me guys.

  Even though that was exactly what he wanted to yell back to the man still standing next to Coach Gilbert.

  Hey, Dad.

  Look at me.

  • • •

  When Teddy got to the sideline, Jack and Gus with him, his dad acted as if it were the most normal thing in the world for him to be here like this, watching his son play. Watching his son make the kind of play he’d just made on belly-and-go.

  “You told me he was good,” David Madden said to Coach Gilbert. “You didn’t tell me he was in training to be Gronkowski.”

  Rob Gronkowski was the Patriots’ tight end. Teddy was sure that his dad had no idea he was a Giants fan. It was one more thing he’d never asked about, one more thing to add to the long list.

  “And this guy here,” Teddy’s dad said, pointing at Jack, “I think he might already have a better arm than I did when I was throwing it to his coach in the old days. And I know he’s already a better ball handler.”

  “I doubt that, Mr. Madden,” Jack said. “But thank you.”

  Teddy looked at his dad. He seemed completely comfortable, as if being on the field like this, hanging with the boys, had put him in some kind of comfort zone, even with Teddy.

  “You guys got a few extra minutes?” Coach said.

  Teddy looked at Jack and Gus. They nodded.

  “Sure,” Teddy said to Coach Gilbert.

  “Watching that fake,” Coach said, “Teddy’s dad had an idea about a move he thought might work for Jack in a good spot, especially down near the goal line. You guys mind working with him?”

  Now Teddy hesitated. He didn’t want to do it. He didn’t want his dad thinking that he could just show up here and immediately become part of the coaching staff, part of the team. But at the same time, he knew he couldn’t say no, because that would just make him look bad in front of Coach.

  So instead of looking at Coach, he forced a grin and looked at his dad and said, “Have I ever denied you anything?”

  “I just thought it would be worth taking a look at before we call it a night,” Coach said. He nudged David Madden with an elbow as he added, “This guy has forgotten more about offense than most other guys will ever know.”

  They all walked back to the end of the field where Teddy had caught the pass, Coach included.

  “It’s not rocket science,” David Madden said. “It’s just an old-fashioned naked bootleg. It doesn’t work if the quarterback can’t sell the fake and then hide the ball. But seeing Jack out there, he can do both.”

  He set the ball down on the five yard line. He told Gus to set up like a running back and told Teddy to line up on what would have been the right side of the line.

  “It’s almost like being a magician,” Teddy’s dad said, “using a little sleight of hand. But it’s a lot like the play you guys just ran. Because they expected you to run the ball, that’s what they thought they saw when Jack put the ball in that boy’s stomach. But with the bootleg, you not only put it in there and take it back, but then you hide it on your hip, as you almost start jogging away from the play, like Coach has Jack do on most basic running plays.”

  Then he said, “Like this.”

  He took the snap from Coach Gilbert, Gus came forward, Teddy’s dad put the ball right about Gus’s belt buckle with his right hand. Gus leaned forward like Coach had taught them, covering the imaginary ball up with both arms as Teddy’s dad put the ball behind his right hip, the arm looking as if it were just hanging there naturally, and jogged toward the sideline.

  Teddy watched him and thought, It’s like he’s still a player.

  His dad didn’t pull the ball up until he was running toward the pylon at the corner of the goal line.

  “If a corner or safety or linebacker sees it coming, or figures out what’s happening,” he said, “I run along the line of scrimmage as long as I can before I look to throw. Teddy? You hold your block as long as you can, before you start running toward the corner of the end zone. But most of the time, if the QB runs it right, he could walk into the end zone.”

  He told Jack to try it. The first time he did, as big as Jack’s hands were for a twelve-year-old, he dropped the ball when he tried to hold it.

  David Madden jogged over to him.

  “Grip it like you’re going to throw, fingers on the seams,” he said. “There’s no glue on the ball, it won’t just stick to your leg if you press it there.”

  The second time, Teddy watching over his shoulder as he imagined himself slow-jamming his way into the end zone, he couldn’t tell that Jack had the ball even though Teddy knew he had it.

  The third time they ran it, Teddy’s dad—Coach Dad, all of a sudden—ran at Jack from where he’d been standing in the end zone and told him to stop and throw to Teddy, which he did, a soft, accurate spiral.

  “Love it,” Coach Gilbert said. “It goes into everybody’s playbook tomorrow.”

  “Peyton Manning shocked the world running that last season,” Cassie called out from the sideline. “Shocked the world.”

  She always stayed out of the way when real practice was going on. But she must have figured it was all right to get closer to the action with just her boys on the field.

  Teddy’s dad turned around. “Smart girl,” he said.

  “Just ask her,” Teddy said.

  “Is she a friend?”

  “Her name is Cassie Bennett,” Gus said. “Coolest girl in the eighth grade.”

  “She thinks on the planet,” Teddy said.

  David Madden gave her a wave and called back to Cassie, “I better tell ESPN to start keeping an eye on you now.”

  Cassie said, “I know these guys think they invented sports. But I watch more ESPN than they do.”

  “Hey,” David Madden said, “maybe one of these days I can give you all a tour of the campus at ESPN.”

  “Like a college campus?” Cassie said.

  “Just with satellite dishes,” Teddy’s dad said.

  “I’m in if they are,” Cassie said.

  “Who knows,” David Madden said, “maybe I’m talking to the next Hannah Storm.”

  If Teddy didn’t know better, he would have sworn that not only was Cassie smiling, she might actually have been blushing.

  “Hey, let’s run it one more time,” David Madden said. “There’s one more wrinkle you can throw in, if they’ve shadowed both Jack and Teddy. Gus, or whoever the running back is, can run straight through the line if nobody tackles him, thinking he doesn’t really have the ball. Trust me, if he gets into the secondary and everything else has broken down, he’ll be standing all by himself under the goalposts.” He turned to Coach. “Remember how we beat St. Luke’s that time with the same play?”

  “Do I ever,” Coach said. “Chuck Cotter was scared that he might drop the ball, that’s how open he was. He acted like you’d tossed him a baby.”

  Teddy’s dad said, “Walton fourteen, St. Luke’s thirteen.”

  They high-fived each other, as if the play had just happened. Then Teddy’s dad grabbed the ball and told Coach Gilbe
rt to go deep, the way Jack was always telling Teddy to do the same thing.

  The pass he threw Coach looked great in the air, but then Coach had to come back, because the ball just seemed to drop all of a sudden. Teddy looked over and saw his dad wince and grab his shoulder.

  But when his dad saw Teddy staring at him, he grinned and said, “Timing’s a little off after all these years.”

  “Yeah,” Teddy said before looking away. “Timing’s everything, right?”

  When Coach got back to them, he nodded at Teddy’s dad and said, “Guy needs work.”

  “Tell me about it,” Teddy said.

  His dad and Coach walked off, arms around each other’s shoulders. Teddy and Jack and Gus watched them go. Cassie had come out to join them.

  “That was kind of fun,” Jack said.

  “Was it?” Teddy said.

  “C’mon,” Gus said, “you can see he’s still got the moves.”

  “Yeah,” Teddy said, “that’s my dad. The guy with all the moves.”

  “He seemed nice,” Cassie said.

  “Why, because he thinks you’re going to be a television star someday?” Teddy said.

  Then he turned to look at all of them at once.

  “You liked him, right?”

  They hesitated, as if they weren’t sure what the right answer was. Then they all nodded.

  “You can’t like him,” Teddy said.

  He took off his helmet and walked away, trying to calm down. He knew his friends hadn’t done anything wrong. He knew he wasn’t really mad at them. He was mad at his dad, out here trying as hard with them as he was with him, another time when he looked and acted like a salesman trying to make a sale. Of himself.

  It had taken him only one practice, and it was as if his dad were already in midseason form.

  EIGHT

  After their last class on Friday, all of them having made it through the first-week grind of starting school, Cassie came over to Teddy when they were at their lockers and said, “Walk home from school with me.”