The League (13 page)

Dad was in the garage when I coasted down the driveway. “There he is!” he said. “How was the first day of golf camp?”

“Great,” I said, reciting what I had read in
Golf for Everyone
. “We worked on our grips. They also
taught us how to shift our weight when we swing. We didn’t really get to do any putting, though.”

“You will,” Dad said. “I promise.”

I knew I wasn’t telling Dad the truth, but it didn’t feel like lying. It felt like telling him what he wanted to hear so he’d be happy. That made it easier for me.

At the start of dinner, Aaron reached over me and grabbed a burger off the serving plate in the middle of the table.

“What happened to your hand?” Mom asked him. “Did you hurt it volunteering?”

“Um, yep,” Aaron said, looking at his hand.

“How did that happen?” Mom looked concerned.

“Well, this other volunteer was trying to lift the lid on the storage shed where all the tools are kept. I went over to help him and just as I stuck my hand in there, the lid slipped and landed on it. I can move it fine, so I know it’s not broken.” Aaron forced a smile. “You don’t have to sue or anything.”

“El,” Dad said to Mom. “Did you sign any paperwork for this? There must have been an insurance waiver.”

Mom shook her head. “Aaron, is there anything we need to sign?”

“I’ll ask tomorrow,” Aaron said.

“Does anyone want to know about my day?” Kate asked, waving her fork in the air.

“Of course, sweetie,” said Mom. “How was your first day of golf camp?”

“Really, really great,” said Kate. “My coach, her name is Terri, is so nice and she told me I was a natural, which I guess is true.”

“Did you see Wyatt?” Mom asked.

I held my breath, but Kate didn’t miss a beat. “Only once,” she said. “His group was walking from the putting green to the driving range, but he was too far away.”

“Sounds like everyone’s summer is off to a great start,” said Dad, smiling. “I can’t wait to hear what happens tomorrow.”

After one day split between the League of Pain and the Pilchuck Laundromat, I had to agree with Dad. This was going to be a summer to remember.

The next day I was back in the game. “Derek’s mom found his bloody clothes and signed him up for art camp,” José explained. “And Luther twisted his ankle. You ready to step up?”

“Um, I guess so.”

José put his face right into mine. “Man, there’s no ‘I guess so’ in this league. It’s either yes or no. So which is it? Are you ready to step up?”

“Yes,” I said.

José nodded. “That’s better.”

On our first drive, we had the ball and were on the move, going no-huddle, which meant José was calling the plays from the line of scrimmage.

He looked down at Aaron, who stood at one end of the line. “Thirty-one eagle on three!” José shouted, scanning the defense. Spencer and Bunyon were creeping forward. Suddenly José raised his voice even louder. “Stampede! Stampede! Stampede!”

I had no idea what thirty-one eagle or stampede meant, so I just ran straight ahead as fast as I could. One of the Morons blew past me going in the other direction.

Behind me, I heard two thuds and suddenly everyone started running toward the line of scrimmage.

“Ball’s out!” I heard Bunyon yell.

I turned around to see José lying on his side with Spencer on top of him. Both teams were chasing after the football, which was bouncing away like a frightened rabbit. I watched as Julian scooped it up and ran for an easy touchdown.

José picked himself up and marched over to me. “What did I say?” he barked.

“About what?”

“Did you hear me call the play?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Did you hear me say stampede?”

“Yeah, but—”

“What does stampede mean?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Nobody told me.”

José grabbed Aaron by the collar. “Did you teach him the calls?”

“I was going to, but—”

José glared at Aaron. “You brought him here. It’s your job to teach him the calls.” Then he looked at me again, a little calmer now. “Stampede means blitz. You know what a blitz is, right?”

“When the defense rushes the quarterback,” I said, remembering what Roy Morelli had taught me in the two-hand-touch game.

“Right. When the other team blitzes, you have to help block. If they send four guys, Planet and Ox can’t stop all of them. Got it?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

José had one more word for Aaron. “He better know everything by tomorrow.”

Aaron and I stood in the middle of the field after the game ended and everyone else had left. “Listen up,” he said. “I’m going to tell you what you need to know and you better not forget it.”

“I’ve been getting straight As since second grade,” I said. “I think I can remember a few plays.”

“I hope so,” Aaron said angrily. “Because if I get on José’s bad side, I’m done.”

“Hey, don’t yell at me,” I said. “It’s not my fault José’s mad at you. You were supposed to tell me this before we played.”

“Look, it’s pretty simple,” Aaron went on. “You already know that stampede means blitz. When you hear that, stay near the quarterback and block anyone who’s trying to sack him.”

“What does thirty-one eagle mean?”

“The first number José calls is always for me. The second number is always for you. The three means I’m supposed to run a slant route. The one means you run a curl. If he calls a number with a two in it, that means a post route.”

“One for curl, two for post, three for slant,” I said. “What does eagle mean?”

“When you hear an animal that can fly, that’s a pass. Anything that can’t fly is a run. Like if you hear thirty-two bulldog, that’s a run play for you. Otherwise you’re always the check-down.”

“What’s that?”

“It means you stay close to the line of scrimmage in case José needs to dump the ball off to someone.”

“So I’m like his emergency exit?”

Aaron nodded. “Something like that. Anything hurt yet?” he asked, flipping a stick into the trees.

“Not really,” I said, suddenly feeling disappointed for some weird reason. “I haven’t even been tackled.”

“You will be,” Aaron replied. “But don’t worry,” he added. “The first hit is always the worst.”

If that was Aaron’s way of comforting me, it didn’t
work. The fear of pain was the reason Spencer Randle scared me so much. With his size and strength, he could do some serious damage to me, and I liked being able to walk and breathe. Still, deep down, I wondered if Aaron was on to something. What if getting hit was the key to not being afraid of Spencer? Maybe Brian Braun marched around town like he owned the place because the fear had been knocked out of him. I wanted to know the answer more than anything; I just didn’t want to pay the price.

Since it was too early for me to go home, I went to the drugstore to buy note cards. I sat on a bench in Boardman Park and wrote down the plays so I could memorize them before the next game. I figured it would be easy. After all, I’d memorized all the presidents, the state capitals, and the periodic table of elements in elementary school. Compared to that, this should have been a piece of cake.

Except when I went to the porch after dinner to study, I couldn’t concentrate. It was too much pressure. If I forgot that Helena was the capital of Montana, nobody got smeared on the football field. Today it was José. Tomorrow it could be me. Spencer was still waiting for his chance to blow me up.

I found the football on the porch and walked backward ten paces. Gripping the football like Aaron had shown me, I aimed for the tire swing and let it fly. The football fluttered over the tire. Hoping nobody had seen that throw, I grabbed the football and tried again, getting closer. Again and again, I aimed for the tire swing, each time pretending to snap the ball to myself and retreating four steps like José always did before firing. After my tenth or twelfth attempt, my throws got straighter and faster, then closer to the tire swing. I felt my arm memorizing the motion like my brain had memorized prime numbers. Finally, I hit the bull’s-eye, a beauty right through the tire.

“Hole in one!”

I turned around to see Evan standing at the gate. “How long have you been there?” I asked.

“Long enough to see you get one through,” she said, sitting down on the grass.

Taking a seat not far away, I saw a splint on Evan’s right ring finger. “What happened?”

“Jammed it in lacrosse,” she said, examining her finger as she moved it slowly back and forth. “It’s not broken, but Mom made me put this on anyway. We had it from the time I did break my finger.”

“Are you ever afraid of getting hurt?”

“Oh, all the time,” she said. “But that’s just part of life. If I didn’t want to get hurt, I’d have to stay inside
all day doing nothing. No thanks. Or I guess I could play golf,” she added, smiling.

“Ha, ha,” I said.

“Sorry, couldn’t resist.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’m not even …” I paused, unsure of whether to keep going. I wanted Evan to know that I was becoming a football player more than anything. So what was holding me back?

“I’m not going to golf camp,” I told her.

“You’re not?” Evan said. “What are you doing?”

“Flag football,” I said. “At the rec center.”

“I thought your parents wouldn’t let you.”

“They had a change of heart,” I said, still wondering why I hadn’t told Evan the whole truth. “I can be very convincing.”

Evan plucked a dandelion and sent the seeds flying with a single breath. “So, are you afraid of getting hurt?” she asked.

The honest answer was yes, more than anything. But I had ditched golf camp to play in the League of Pain to prove I was tough enough for football. I couldn’t admit now that I was scared. I had to be fearless, like Brian Braun. “Nope,” I said. “No fear. That’s my motto.”

Evan lay on her back in the grass and stared up at the black and blue evening sky. “What do you think Dr. Pirate’s motto is?”

I tried to think of a motto for Dr. Pirate, but I was too busy asking myself why I hadn’t told Evan about the League of Pain. The League of Pain was the most secretive thing I had ever done, so why was it too secretive for Evan? I could only come up with one answer: I wasn’t ready to tell Evan about the League of Pain because I wasn’t really in it. Not yet, anyway. Not until I felt the pain.