The Extra Yard Page 9

  But as Teddy and Gus broke the huddle together, Teddy whispered to him, “Take off.”

  Teddy was in the shotgun. Charlie Lyons gave him an easy snap to handle. Teddy made sure to eyeball Nate the whole way. It would have been a major quarterbacking sin if he was throwing to Nate.

  Only he wasn’t.

  He’d called an audible.

  He made a sweet pump fake to Nate, then turned and saw that Gus was streaking down the other side of the field, having beaten his man by five yards.

  Teddy told himself to trust his arm as he let the ball go. His arm hadn’t let him down so far, even when he’d been picked off.

  His arm let him down now.

  Gus Morales did not.

  The ball was underthrown, badly. Teddy had put too much air under it when he saw how open Gus was. He could see it coming down short and behind Gus, like a terrible version of a back-shoulder throw. But Gus turned for the ball before the cornerback covering him did. He was able to put on the brakes and come back on the ball and somehow gather it in at the nine yard line before being knocked out of bounds.

  “Dude!” Gus said when he got back to the huddle, as if that described everything that had just happened. With Gus, that one word, “dude,” could be like a whole speech.

  First-and-goal. Teddy didn’t even look over at his dad, or Coach Gilbert. He didn’t want to see their reaction to him having changed the play they’d sent in.

  But all Brian said in the huddle when he brought in the next play was, “Coach Gilbert said that if you’re that determined to have your buddy win the game, let’s actually give him a chance to win it.”

  “That would be me,” Gus said.

  “Slot reverse,” Brian said.

  “Love it,” Teddy Madden said.

  He got under center, took the snap from Charlie, faked a handoff to Brian, turned and pitched the ball to Gus, who was running behind both of them. As soon as Gus had the ball in his hands, running left to right, he turned on the jets, turned the corner, put such a smoking-hot move on the Mustangs’ left corner that the kid fell down.

  Wildcats 13, Mustangs 13.

  On the conversion play, Jake carried three guys with him into the end zone. Now it was 14–13, Mustangs. That was the way the game ended.

  SEVENTEEN

  Teddy was having lunch with Jack and Cassie and Gus on his back patio, just after noon on Sunday.

  It had been Teddy’s mom who’d suggested they all have lunch together and talk about their community service obligation, how they might be able to work together and somehow save the music department and, ultimately, Mrs. Brandon’s job.

  “I promise not to wear you all out with this,” Alexis Madden said. “Or interfere with the one o’clock football games.”

  “Not just any one o’clock game,” Teddy said. “Giants versus Cowboys.”

  “I’m aware of that,” his mom said. “I’m actually surprised they haven’t declared this a national sports holiday.”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Cassie said to Teddy. “Now that you’re a quarterback, are you giving Eli Manning as much love as Odell Beckham?”

  “I have to admit,” Teddy said, “that I am feeling the love a little more for Eli these days.”

  “Can we take the football talk off the table for just a few minutes?” Teddy’s mom said.

  “They’d rather you took the food,” Cassie said.

  “If you do, Mrs. Madden, would it be okay if you at least left the chips?” Gus said.

  “I sometimes forget what an amusing group this is,” Teddy’s mom said.

  “Think about it, Mom,” Teddy said. “Would you want me hanging around with a bunch of humorless losers?”

  His mom sighed.

  “Could we talk about something that’s not at all funny for a few minutes?” she said. “Like Mrs. Brandon losing her job?”

  Cassie said, “It’s awful. You guys think of whoever your favorite coaches have ever been, in any sport. Because that’s who Mrs. B is in music. We can’t just let them shove her out the door.”

  Teddy grinned. “Mom just can’t let that happen to a former band member.”

  “A what?” Cassie said.

  “Yup,” Teddy said. “Mom and Mrs. B used to be in a girl singing group.”

  “Get out of here!” Cassie said. “You were rocking out back in the day, Mrs. Madden?”

  “I try to limit my singing around the house,” she said. “When the windows are open, it tends to scare the neighbors.”

  That much Teddy knew about his mom, even if he hadn’t known about the Baubles. She was always listening to one of her favorite radio stations, or playing songs from her iPod on the speakers spread throughout the house. And most of the time she would be singing along, still knowing all the words to an amazing number of songs.

  Jack said, “So what can we do?”

  Teddy’s mom told them that the town hadn’t explained exactly how much money it would take to keep the music program in place at Walton Middle. But she said she had a rough idea of how much it cost, per student, including the price of instruments; and how much money it cost to stage the big holiday show. Mrs. Brandon wasn’t going to lose her job at the school. She also taught history. Music, though, was her first love. She had told Cassie once that getting kids to love music made her feel like a writer getting them to want to read.

  “Mrs. Brandon likes the night of the show better than she likes Christmas,” Cassie said. “We can’t let them take that away from her too.”

  “You mean they might?” Gus said.

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “I heard my mom talking about it with my dad the other night. She said the town is pretty dug in on this. Without the money we’re talking about raising, no holiday show. And my mom thinks that next year, there will be no Mrs. B. She won’t stick around if she can’t teach music.”

  Teddy’s mom nodded her head. “We’ve basically got six weeks to come up with the money.”

  Then she told them that this wasn’t just finding a way to accumulate community service hours. This would be a way for them to serve the community at Walton Middle School the way Mrs. Brandon had always served it.

  “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 teamwork. 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.”

  EIGHTEEN

  The 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 aft
er 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.

  NINETEEN

  The 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.