Isolation Play (Dev and Lee) (37 page)

I flex my claws, ignoring the stabbing pain in my side. For the first time in a long time, I really feel like I’ve let my fox down. My father, now, he’ll be sure to talk to me after this. He’ll tell me how only really tough guys can make it, not faggots who have sissy fox boyfriends. This horrible future keeps running in a circle in front of my eyes. If only they don’t score, I think. If only, if only—but on the next play, Bixon crashes through our line, sends Zillo staggering backwards, and lunges over the goal line.

Their kicker trots out onto the field. I get an idea, a flash, and I scramble to my feet. Steez yells something at me as I run past him, right to Coach. “Put me in,” I gasp, one paw at my side holding in the pain.

He glares at me. “What?”

“
Kick blocking.” I wave frantically at the field where they’re assembling for the point after. The officials are reviewing the touchdown, but I can see the replay up on the big screen, and I know it’s going to stand.

“
Sit down,” Coach growls. “You can’t jump, not like that.”

“
Put me in!” I insist. “I did it with Hilltown! We mess with their heads, they screw it up. Look at their kicker!”

He stares, then looks across the field. The Gateway kicker is a rabbit, talented but more prone to being rattled than our big stallion Charm. I’m aware of the red lights of TV cameras on near us. He shrugs, finally, and calls over the special teams coach. They have a quick conversation, and thirty seconds later, when the touchdown is upheld, I run out onto the field with the motley crew of rookies and our two special teams veterans, both rabbits.

Rabbits are great kick blockers; they can really jump. But they’re specialists, so most teams don’t keep more than two—if a rabbit plays running back or wideout, he’s too valuable to block kicks. The coaches have to deploy them carefully along the line. Then the blockers have to figure out where the kicker thinks they’re going to be, maybe move after the snap, and time their jumps. Extra points get blocked about once every fifteen or twenty tries, I forget what the actual percentage is.

So I go in and set up with the rabbits behind the main line. Because Gateway’s kicker is left-footed, he tends to pull his kicks to his right, our left. I line up in the center and our rabbits line up to either side of me, planning to jump to that left side once the ball is snapped. My job is to give them one more guy to think about, one more potential blocker to spook the kicker and hopefully make him kick it right into one of the rabbits. It worked in college, but college kickers are way easier to spook than pros. The only time it worked in Hilltown was against a rabbit kicker.

I stand tall behind the line, glaring down at the holder, a skinny brown wolf. I catch his eye and snarl down at him. His ears flatten. He turns and says something to the spotted rabbit lining up to kick, who looks at me as well. I bounce up and down on my feet, pretending to practice my vertical leap, and they call time out. In a game that’s 6-0 right now, a grinding, slow game, this extra point could mean a lot.

The pain in my side fades. The memory of being flattened is far away. I stalk around with the rest of the kick-blocking unit, yelling, “Yeah! Yeah! We got ’em worried!”

At first they all stare at me. Kick blocking is where the guys who barely made the team get put, and they don’t usually spend energy getting fired up. I push them, waving my arms, and then turn to the crowd. The crowd responds with cheers, and my teammates catch my enthusiasm: grins, growls and shoves go back and forth. We’re all practically dancing at the line when the time out’s over and the kicking team comes back on.

The holder and kicker ignore me. I line up between the rabbits, same as before. When the ball’s snapped, the rabbit to my right dives left, gathers himself, and leaps at the same time as the other, all four paws rising ten feet into the air. On my side, I don’t get quite as high, but I leap forward at the same time, my eye on the ball as it travels away from me, to my left.

I land on a teammate, a stag, though not on his head, thankfully. Pain crackles through my chest again as I watch the ball sail past both rabbits, up, and up...and wide of the goalposts. The officials below sweep their arms from side to side: no good.

You’d think we’d just scored. I smack my teammates on the back and they do the same to me, and when I get to the sidelines, Coach just smiles at me and shakes his head. I sit on the bench for one second and then pop up again, unable to restrain my energy.

On the kickoff, Ty gets the ball. He darts to one side, back to the other, sheds a tackle, and springs out into the middle of the field, with only the kicker to beat. Now we’re all jumping up and down, screaming at him: Go! Go! Go!

On film, later, we’ll see the fox smirk as he leaps to avoid the kicker’s diving tackle. The rabbit grabs at Ty’s bushy red tail, and for a moment it looks like he caught it. Then the fox lands, his tail flicks free, and he’s off like a rocket. Nobody else comes near him.

“
TOUCHDOWN FIREBIRDS!” screams the PA. The crowd goes nuts. Ty stands in the end zone, arms spread, and when he comes back to the sideline, we mob him. He’s not letting go of the ball, grinning fit to bust.

“
Nice run, Fish,” Coach says, and nods at the ball. “Keep it. For now.”

Charm bumps me on his way out to kick the extra point. “They ain’t gonna rattle
me
,” he says, and they don’t. He boots it through as clean and true as I’ve seen him kick it.

And so we’re up, 7-6, at halftime. Except for the stabbing in my ribs, which I don’t mention to anyone, my embarrassing moment is wiped clean. I leave the phone off at halftime, though I dearly want to text Lee and find out what he thinks, if he’s off the plane by now.

The fact that I made up for my gaffe doesn’t stop the guys from giving me a hard time about it. “Goin’ out for soccer?” Norton says, elbowing me. “Practicin’ your flopping?”

“
Har har.”

“
Nah, he was just tryin’ to clear outta the way so he could play on special teams again.” Vonni comes up, his tail wagging.

“
Maybe if one of you two could’ve backed me up...”

“
You weigh both of us put together,” Norton says.

“
I wouldn’t go after that guy one on one.” Vonni holds his paws up, grinning.

“
I’m not that heavy,” I punch Norton in the shoulder and he falls dramatically backwards, over a bench.

“
Oh, help!” he calls, waving his arms from the floor.

“
Asshole,” I laugh.

It’s a weird atmosphere in the room. Even though we’re only up a point, we feel like we’ve got all the momentum. Coach gives us a short, punchy speech about how we’ve taken the best they can throw at us and we’ve kicked it right back in their faces—a shout-out to Charm, who raises his hands over his head and yells “Fuckin’ A!”

The defensive line is getting a lesson on plugging the wolverine’s running holes. Over across the locker room, I see Aston and Jaws talking to our offensive coordinator. It’s the busiest, most intense halftime I’ve ever been in. Gerrard takes me and Carson aside and tells us that from now on, there’s always going to be two of us on Bixon. If it’s just one linebacker, then one of the safeties will come down to help.

I grin until Gerrard asks me, “You looking forward to going back out?”

“
Hell yeah!” This little talk means that I’m starting the second half. They still trust me. Whether Gerrard understands or not, I don’t know, but he smiles back at the same time as he shakes his head.

I pump my fist as we jog back out. My legs ache, my side still hurts, but I feel great. I’m gonna take that wolverine down if it kills me.

This time, some of the Tornadoes’ O-line snicker at me on our way out to the spot. “Hey, Twinkletoes,” one of the sheep calls. “Nice fall. Get your ass taped up?”

I flex my claws. I ignore him. Lee’s watching me on TV somewhere. I glare into the backfield, and I line up. The ball’s snapped, and we play.

My ribs don’t bother me, not for the most part. Then again, I’m so hyped up that I might just be ignoring it. I played a whole half on a broken paw in high school, and this doesn’t hurt nearly as much as that did. It’d take a lot more to keep me off the field.

They run twice for every pass, and the “Twinkletoes” taunts die away into the grunts and thuds of bodies slamming into each other. Three times in the quarter I get near Bixon, twice with Gerrard backing me up, once with Norton. We corral him, limiting him to a short gain. He and the elk are getting through the line a lot less, though our guys are getting tired and Bixon’s a machine, legs churning as strongly as they did in the first quarter.

Our offense isn’t doing great. Jaws might be a wolverine, but anyone can see he’s not quite as elusive as Bixon. He punches into their defense for a yard here, two yards there. Aston only has time for short passes, and our receivers are hit as soon as they catch. But they do catch, and Jaws gets one nice run off on this series, a blown assignment by their defensive end. We force our way down into field goal range and Charm kicks one through to put us up 10-6. We go into the fourth thinking that’s pretty good as leads go. “Just hold ’em, team,” Coach says, and we yell our approval.

The field feels like a war zone the first time we go out in the fourth. The red numbers on the black uniforms facing us look like blood. We batter them again and again, trying to force a breach, clawing at every crack in their formation. They, just as determined, brace and hold. When they try to spread us out with passes, Gerrard sniffs out the plays and waves me and Carson back as they’re happening—not that either of us needs waving. The QB is really bad at disguising pass play, and it doesn’t take us long to locate the short receivers.

Then, in the second series, Bixon breaks free on the iso again. I’m between him and the end zone. He sees me, lowers his head, and I backpedal, looking for the angle to cut him off. Gerrard, having tossed the elk to the ground, charges in where I’d been. He gets an arm around Bixon, but the wolverine shakes him off and charges toward me. He doesn’t grin at me. He’s all business. So am I.

I meet him solidly, on the other side from my hurt ribs, which complain anyway. My arm holds him, slows him down. He drags me another yard. Carson hits him from the other side. Incredibly, he pushes us both another yard down the field, getting the first down before we pull him to the ground.

They go to Bixon twice more; we hold him to two yards. They play-fake on third and eight, completing a short pass to their slot receiver, a gazelle. I bring him down short of the first down marker, but they’re in range for a field goal. We limp back to the sidelines.

“
Good tackle. Stay there,” Coach growls to me as the field goal blocking team runs out. Sucking wind, paws on my knees, I don’t feel any urge to run out and join them, this time. My ribs feel like someone’s jammed a knife in there. My wrist is sore.

“
You okay?” Steez asks sharply. Behind him, Zillo’s looking anxiously at me, not at all the way he did in the first half, and not at all the way Pike looked at an injured Fisher. Guess he isn’t anxious for another taste of blocking Bixon.

“
Fine,” I growl, and watch them kick a long field goal to come within 10-9.

Ten minutes to go. We watch our offense drive down and stall. Jaws, spurred by his counterpart’s success, is running as well as I’ve seen him, but we just can’t get past midfield. Charm paces the sidelines, antsy for another try, staring between the scoreboard and the field. Gerrard and Carson and I just stand in a small huddle, not talking, watching until it’s our turn to go out. They’re as winded as I am.

If the offense didn’t score, at least they did take time off the clock. Six minutes left when we go out to stop them again. And now the Tornadoes are starting to panic. They stop giving the ball to Bixon, aware of the time, letting their rookie QB toss short passes that will stop the clock if they’re not caught.

This is the best thing we could hope for. Their receivers are cold; most of them haven’t caught a pass all game. I stick to that gazelle, and swat away one ball meant for him. The rest of the time, the wolf doesn’t even throw to him. On plays where I see the gazelle lose interest, I drop off him and help with the pass rush, getting myself one sack out of it when I catch the QB from behind.

The coaches start calling more blitzes to disrupt the young wolf’s throwing. Leaping towards him on one play, I see his wide eyes as he scrambles. I almost feel sorry for him.

We come back to the sidelines having left five minutes on the clock, and the offense goes out to chew it up. I give Gerrard a smile and get one back, a survivor’s smile. A winner’s smile.

Again, though, our offense just can’t move the ball. They take as much time as they can, but have to punt back to the Tornadoes with thirty seconds. Our fans are on their feet, a roaring sea of red and gold. Dully, we listen to the defensive coordinator tell us to “blanket the receivers.” I jog out, ignoring my wrist and ribs, my world narrowed to the gazelle. All of us on defense are similarly focused, summoning our last reserves to get through this series. At least they can’t run it, not if they want more than one play. It flashes through my mind that they could try that, if desperate. Go to their best player no matter what the situation.

I can’t tell anything from looking at Bixon, but the gazelle is clearly hyped and alert. He’s staring back at the QB, so I know, I
know
he’s been told to get open for a pass. I don’t have the luxury of glancing at Gerrard, not on this critical snap. But I trust my instincts. When the ball’s snapped, I shadow the gazelle so close I can tell what he had for breakfast.