Left Out (20 page)

“Anyone want some dip for those chips?” Brett's dad pointed at them, and they both nodded before he left the TV room headed for the kitchen.

It was as if Brett had never made the suggestion.

“Why
doesn't
he coach the team?” Landon asked when Brett's father had disappeared.

“He says it's their show. They started coaching when Xander's and Mike's older brothers played. They've been doing it with Coach Furster as head coach ever since.” Brett unexpectedly tossed Landon the ball.

Landon surprised himself by catching it.

“Hey, maybe you'll play tight end in high school.” Brett looked serious. “Less blocking, more catching. You'd be a big target.”

“I don't know if I'll end up playing anything but left out.”
Landon's face tightened. “I can't believe my mom did that. Plus the coaches seem to like me handing out water more than being on the field.”

“Hey,” Brett said, glancing over his shoulder to make sure his dad hadn't returned. “My dad said she was right. They should've played you.”

“I'm still not that good.”

“Yeah, but you're there. You can line up and take a play. You need to get in the game. See what it feels like. Did you see Nichols?”

“I know I could do better than that.” Landon tried to sound confident.

“Yeah.” Brett nodded. “You can't do worse than that. But still . . . he got some action. You'll do it. You'll get in there. My dad will make it happen. They were just crabby because we lost. Coach Furster wants to blame everyone but himself. I'm telling you, we could run the ball like the Giants.”

“I wish your dad was the head coach,” Landon said. “At least the line coach. Why doesn't he coach the line, anyway? He played line.”

Brett shrugged. “My dad's the best coach, period, any position. Furster
said
it was because he thinks dads shouldn't be the position coach of their own kids—which I guess makes sense—but I think it's because Furster wanted his kid to have the best coach. I don't know. You know how grown-ups are. Everything's a riddle.”

They both turned to the TV set and watched the Giants offense take the field to kneel down on the ball and run out the remaining seconds.

“Giants, 1–0,” Landon said.

“Yup.” Brett beamed proudly. “And Coach McAdoo will be in a good mood, so the team will get off later this week and my uncle will be at practice. Wait till you see what that does to Coach Furster and Coach West. They'll pee their pants.”

Landon snickered. “At the same time?”

“Oh, for sure.” Brett grinned at him. “Two yellow puddles. Side by side.”

Brett's dad returned with a bowl of dip. “What are you two so giddy about?”

“Giants won, Dad.”

“Yeah,” Brett's dad said, cracking open a can of iced tea and taking a sip. “Now let's see if
we
can get the Bronxville junior football team a win, huh?”

“
And
get Landon in the game, right?” Brett said.

Brett's dad eyed Landon. “Would you like that, Landon?”

Landon wanted to be honest. He was still just flat afraid of getting smashed around. On the other hand, it would feel so darn good to be out there, on the field, in a real game. Wouldn't that make him a football player, no matter what the rest of them said?

“Landon?” Brett's dad spoke loudly and slowly. “Would you like that? Getting in a game?”

“Yes, sir! I've got to get in the game,” Landon said.

Monday in school, no one bothered Landon. In English class it felt like a three-way discussion about
The Count of Monte Cristo
between him, Megan, and Mr. Edwards. Landon loved it and couldn't have cared less if the other kids in the class were bored or annoyed.

Toward the end Mr. Edwards jumped off the top of the desk where he sat and wrote in big block letters on the board: DISAPPOINTMENT!

“This is what you need to know: Dumas was
disappointed
,” the teacher turned to them and said. “Disappointed with friends, society, with France itself. So, what will the author do with that disappointment? What will become of Mercedes, eh? Read on.
Read on
, all of you.”

The bell rang.

“And I want you each to find a partner by tomorrow!” Mr.
Edwards yelled over the hubbub. “You'll be doing a research paper on Dumas's life with a partner. Pick wisely, my friends. Pick wisely!”

As soon as they spilled out into the hallway, Megan tapped Landon's arm.

He looked into those eyes feeling dizzy.

Would she say it?

Megan smiled. “Partners?”

Landon felt his soul float to the ceiling. “Sure.”

Lunch was lonely, but Megan's invitation carried him through the rest of the day. In gym class they played badminton. Landon was pretty bad, but it didn't matter one bit. Brett picked him for a partner. They won every game. Landon couldn't help chuckling when Mike slammed his racket on the gym floor and got detention.

After school Brett and Landon watched Genevieve's and Megan's soccer practice. When the girls were finished, the four friends walked to the diner. They were halfway up the block when Skip and his goons came out and saw them coming down the sidewalk. The three boys did an about-face and went the other way.

“Now that's what I call respect,” Genevieve said.

Everyone but Landon grinned. “I don't trust him,” he said. He knew Skip and his cronies weren't done with him. Then again, Landon couldn't imagine anyone wanting to tangle with Brett.

They ate french fries and milkshakes at the diner and then headed home. There was no football practice on Mondays, so Landon got all his homework done and still had time to watch some Monday Night Football.

Tuesday, Landon's stomach churned all day. Football practice was looming. The more the day wore on, the tighter his stomach twisted. He could only finish two of his four sandwiches at lunch, and he hurried home at the end of the day to sit in the bathroom for a while before trying to read in his favorite chair. When Landon's dad came up for air from his computer and asked Landon if he wanted a snack before practice, Landon took a pass.

“Ah, building up that intensity, are you?” Landon's dad looked like he hadn't taken a shower since the night before. His hair went in crazy directions atop his head, and he wore only one slipper on his feet, pajama bottoms, and a dress shirt buttoned in the wrong holes.

“Just nervous.” Landon tried not to stare at the crooked shirt.

“Well, it'll all work out.” His father beamed, rubbing the scruff on his chin and pointing at the computer across the room. “Your alter ego slayed the dragon today. What do you think of that?”

“Nodnal?” Landon raised an eyebrow, the wild hair and crazy clothes making sense now. “You're at the end? Dad, it's only been a couple weeks. . . .”

“Yes, Nodnal and I are close to the end, but it's not quite the end yet. I've been writing like mad. Lots left to happen still,
but
he's got people's attention. The first dragon is always the hardest.” Landon's dad stopped talking, but Landon kept looking at him, waiting for him to go on.

His father scratched his belly under the cockeyed shirt. “You get that, right?”

Landon sighed. “I get it. Everything's not a story, though, Dad.”

His father scowled. “No, no. That's not true, Landon. Everything
is
a story, and we are the authors of our own lives.”

Landon looked out the window at the trees swaying in a stiff wind. Random leaves had gone from green to yellow.

“I don't know, Dad. I don't know if we're writing it, or someone else.”

“Why would you say that?” his father asked with a sad face.

Landon stared at him and swallowed. “Sometimes . . . most of the time, I feel like I'm in a crowded room with my hands tied behind my back. I start one way and someone pushes me back. Then another person spins me around and I trip and fall. I get up and start going again and someone else gives me a shove.

“If I was writing my own story . . . it wouldn't go like this.”

During Tuesday's practice Landon kept expecting something to happen, like maybe Brett or his dad would stop things and insist Landon join the contact drills. He just didn't know. Everything was the same, though. Gunner Miller growled and snarled and drove Nichols on his back three plays in a row. Brett hammered Travis in a one-on-one drill, causing the blocky center to kick the grass. Torin and Jones, who appeared to be friends off the field, mixed it up like mortal enemies.

Landon shied away from the contact drills, and the coaches let him. Landon kept watching Brett's dad as he instructed Skip or the backup, Bryce Rinehart, on a pass play or Mike and Xander on how to run a pass route. He expected Coach Bell to do or say something about Landon's situation. On the couch on Sunday, it had seemed like Landon was almost part
of the Bell family, and if that was the case, wouldn't Coach Bell take him under his wing?

But the coaches were putting in a bunch of new pass plays—plays Coach Furster said he had devised to get the team a needed win—so there was a lot of teaching the coaches, especially Brett's dad, had to do. Landon reasoned that Coach Bell didn't have time to stop practice and interfere with the linemen. He didn't know what he thought Brett could do either; he just hadn't expected everything to be the same.

Wednesday's football practice was like déjà vu all over again. Landon stretched and went through agility drills and then migrated to the sideline when the hitting started. Nichols shot him a nasty look before asking the question others also seemed to have on the tip of their tongues: “Where's the water, Landon?”

He couldn't help himself. If he wasn't going to dive into the drills, and if no one was going to encourage him, he wanted to do
something
. Without answering, he went for the carrier and began supplying his teammates with bursts of cool liquid, which, pitiful as he knew it was, made him feel like he was contributing to the effort of defeating Tuckahoe. Brett, Gunner, Timmy, and the other linemen hunkered down in their stances and blasted each other with grunts and groans and flying sweat, and Landon told himself that maybe when Brett's uncle showed up on Thursday, he'd give it a try. What reason was there for him to get into the fray now?

“Landon?” Brett took a water bottle from him and spoke so gently that Landon barely heard a sound through the whistle
blasts and shouting. “Come on. You should get in there.”

“I . . . uh . . .” Landon thought about the hand drills he'd done with his dad. Maybe he was ready, but he glanced at his water carrier and held up an empty bottle. “Let me refill these and then maybe . . .”

Brett nodded his head. Landon thought he said, “Okay,” before diving back into the drill.

Landon felt like a tug-of-war rope, stretched and straining, first going one way then the other. The discomfort of disappointing Brett pulled against the discomfort of being smashed into and knocked around like some giant kitten. Paralyzed by indecision, Landon kept the water bottles circulating around and cheerfully refilled them a second time at the spigot outside the back entrance to the school.

Practice was halfway over and they were running through plays as an entire team when Landon saw some of the other backup players nudging each other and pointing up at the parking lot. Skip Dreyfus, who wouldn't even look at Landon, shoved an empty water bottle at him, and Landon replaced it in the carrier before he looked to see whatever was distracting his teammates.

Up on the hill was a gleaming, midnight blue F-350 pickup. The enormous grille and chrome rims the size of manhole covers sparkled in the last rays of sunshine. It was the biggest, nicest truck Landon had ever seen. The door swung open and Jonathan Wagner, the Giants' starting right tackle, got out, hitched up his pants, and marched right for the junior football team's practice.

Everything stopped.

The whistle Coach Furster kept clamped between his teeth dropped from his mouth to the end of its lanyard like a prisoner on the gallows.

Jonathan Wagner wore mirrored sunglasses and a silky black T-shirt. Cowboy boots poked out from the hem of jeans that clung to his telephone-pole legs. His face was set in a concrete scowl. He
looked
like an NFL player—until he stopped and his face turned merry and he spoke in the excited voice of a kid at Christmas. “Hey, Coach Bell. How you guys all doing?”

Brett's dad hugged the Giants player and they clapped each other on the back with thundering strokes. Brett's dad turned to the other coaches. “Guys, you know my wife's brother, Jonathan Wagner?”

Coach Furster stepped right up to shake hands like they were long-lost friends. “Jonathan, heck of a way to start out the season. I've been a Giants fan since before I was born.”

“Me too.” Coach West got in on a handshake and puffed his skinny chest. “I'm the police chief here in town, so you just let me know if you need anything.”

Landon glanced at Brett, who snickered and mouthed, “I told you so.”

Coach Furster had his hand on the enormous player's back like they were buddies as he turned to address his team. “Guys, this is Jonathan Wagner. We all know him. He's Brett's uncle and the two-time Pro Bowl tackle for the New York Giants.”

Jonathan looked around, nodding and smiling. “Brett, come here, you.”

Brett went to him and Jonathan gave him a one-armed hug before his eyes roved over the rest of the team. Landon slowly
set the water carrier down in the grass. He didn't want Brett's uncle to see what he really was.

“Where is he?” Jonathan looked around until his eyes locked on Landon. “Hey,
my man!
How you doing, Landon?”

Landon saw the entire team look his way with utter disbelief swirling in their eyes.