Left Out (25 page)

Breathless with joy, Landon ran off the field before he realized Coach Bell and Jonathan were waving him to go back. Landon stopped in his tracks, realized he needed to play offense now, and turned back toward the huddle. He heard a noise from the crowd and wondered if it was laughter. For once, he didn't care if people were laughing at him, because only moments before they were
cheering
, and that felt like it had been tattooed onto his heart, where it would remain the rest of his life.

In the offensive huddle, teammates kept congratulating him, and he was miffed when Brett stepped into the huddle and told them to shut up. “It was a good play,” Brett said, staring around, “but we've got a long way to go, guys. A long way.”

Brett couldn't have spoken a bigger truth.

The Tuckahoe defense was on fire, and by the end of the first half, Bronxville was losing 14–0.

Down in the corner of their end zone, the Bronxville team sat flopped down in a small cluster around their coach and his brother-in-law, wheezing to catch their breaths between mouthfuls of orange slices.

“You guys can
do
this!” Jonathan Wagner pounded a fist into his hand and paced like a caged panther.

“Catch your breaths, guys,” Coach Bell said. “Get some Gatorade and let's talk about what's going on. Linemen, you've gotta cut those guys on the back side. You don't have to block them, but you've gotta cut their legs out to keep 'em from busting clean into our backfield. Can you do that?”

The offensive line nodded fiercely. Coach Bell and Jonathan Wagner huddled up, just the two of them while the players gasped for breath. The coaches exchanged heated ideas before they nodded together and turned to the team.

The high school band finished their halftime show and filed past, grinning and snickering like fools at the sight of the exhausted kids.

“Okay, listen up!” Coach Bell barked. “We gotta have someone else play quarterback. We gotta try. Anyone, Gunner, Torin, I don't care, but we gotta get Brett back on the line or we don't stand a chance. Someone
has
to be able to take a snap and hand it off to Layne. Someone . . .”

Coach Bell and Jonathan Wagner looked around, expecting a reply.

Behind them, someone jostled the line of band members and finally pushed through to say, “I've got a quarterback for you, Coach.”

Everyone stared at the man in the brown tweed sports coat and expensive-looking dress shoes. Gold cuff links and a watch that looked a lot like Coach Furster's glinted from his wrists. This man was thin and taller than Coach Furster, though, with freckles on his somber face that crept up and over his shiny bald head. He reached around behind himself and produced a Bronxville football player, dressed and ready to go, but with eyes cast toward the ground.

It was Skip Dreyfus.

Mr. Dreyfus took his son by the neck and steered him toward the team. “Is Landon Dorch here?”

All eyes were on Landon, and he felt his face burst into flame.

“Landon, my son has something to say to you.” Mr. Dreyfus looked from Landon to the coaches. “Sorry for being late to the
party, guys. I just flew in from Hong Kong and got an update from his mother on the drive home from the airport. Skip and I talked, and he's eager to apologize to Landon and move forward with no bad feelings. Aren't you, Skip?”

“Yes, sir.” Skip kept his eyes down. “I am.”

“You are, what?” Skip's father asked.

“I am sorry, sir.”

“Good, now say it to Landon.”

Skip stepped forward, and Landon felt sick.

When Skip held out his hand, Landon shook it.

“I'm sorry, Landon.” Skip didn't raise his eyes.

“Okay,” Landon said.

“And nothing like it will happen again,” Mr. Dreyfus said. “Isn't that right, Skip?”

“Yes, sir.”

“There you go.” Skip's dad gave Coach Bell a salute and disappeared as suddenly as he had arrived.

Jonathan Wagner's grin lit up the world and he slapped Skip heartily on the back. “Nice.”

Skip only nodded, looking wildly embarrassed.

“Okay, bring it in.” Coach Bell held a fist in the middle of them all, and everyone put his hand in. “Now we can really do this, guys! Here we go! HIT, HUSTLE, WIN, on three . . .”

“HIT! HUSTLE! WIN!”

It was a roar even Landon could clearly hear.

They jogged to the sideline, where Coach Bell pulled Landon and Brett aside. “Guys, it's bulldozer time. We are gonna line up and cram this ball right down their throats behind the two of you. Once we establish that they can't stop us, it'll open up the counter and the naked bootleg with Skip. Wow, wait till Tuckahoe gets a mouthful of this.”

Brett's dad brandished his fist, and his uncle grinned and hovered beside Brett, nodding like a fool.

Bronxville had the ball. Landon studied Skip's face in the huddle. Skip wouldn't meet his eye, but he didn't offer Landon a sneer either. He was just neutral, and it made Landon wonder at the power of the quarterback's father.

“Okay,” Skip said. “Heavy right, twenty-six dive on one.”

“And say the count
loud
.” Landon glared at Skip, who looked up at him in total surprise.

They stared at each other for a moment before Skip smiled and blushed and said, “Okay, Landon. I'll make sure it's loud.”

Everyone looked at Landon with disbelief.

“Thank you,” Landon said, and they broke the huddle.

Brett bounced up to the line, jittery and muttering to himself. Suddenly, he turned and grabbed Landon's face mask, pulling him close. “We're gonna
do
this, Landon. We are gonna
do
this, my man!”

Landon caught the thrill. “Let's go.”

At the line, a Tuckahoe defender sneered at them, laughed, and mocked Landon in a garbled voice, crooking his arms and waving his hands like there was something wrong with him. “
Let's go. Let's go.
What are you gonna do, you big, fat dummy?”

Brett nearly jumped out of his cleats. “You're gonna see what he's gonna do, 'cause you just lost your free ride into our backfield. Time to pay up, wimp.”

“Pay this.” The defender slapped his own butt.

Brett just growled.

They lined up. The cadence rang out loud and clear. On “one,” Landon and Brett fired out together like the double blade of a monster snowplow, lifting and ripping and grinding, driving the two players in front of them back until they crumbled and went down, and then they plowed right over them looking for more defenders.

It was a scrum, but Guerrero picked up eight yards. They lined up and did it again for six, then again for four, before Guerrero hit a crease on the next play and picked up seventeen. They ran the same play over and over, twenty-six dive. It was almost unthinkable, but Bronxville marched down the field. Tuckahoe's head coach was pulling at his hair, throwing his hat, and screaming at his defense from the sideline like a madman. They stacked up linebackers and blitzed the gaps, but with Landon and Brett foot to foot, there was just no stopping them from pushing defenders back or down to the dirt.

When they punched it in from the three-yard line, Landon turned and hugged Brett and Guerrero at the same time, howling to the sky.

Brett yelled, “We are gonna win this thing, Landon. We're gonna win it!”

When things settled down, there was Skip, blocking Landon's path back to the bench.

“Hey.” Skip showed no emotion, but he wasn't letting Landon by.

“Hey, what?” Landon asked.

Skip stared hard at him with his lips pursed tight and his eyes swirling with emotion. “I want to tell you something.”

“O-kay.” Landon let the word drag out of his mouth and still he waited for Skip to speak.

Skip took a deep breath. His eyes skittered around the field before settling on Landon's face and locking in. “Landon, I really am sorry. I'm not just saying it.”

Landon studied Skip's face, and a lifetime of reading expressions told him it was true. Skip
was
sorry.

Landon smiled widely and put a heavy paw on the quarterback's shoulder. “That's okay, Skip. Forgive and forget. That's what my dad says . . . and it's true.”

“That's . . . nice. Thank you.”

“I like right tackle,” Landon said.

“Right tackle likes you too.” Skip laughed.

“No more left out.” Landon felt like he
was
writing his own ending, and he knew it when Skip shook his head, put a hand on his arm, and answered him loud and clear.

“No way. Right tackle only. . . . No more left out.”

It was during a book tour that I first met two deaf boys who were fans of my stories and, like me, avid readers and football players. Anyone who's heard me speak to students at a school knows the thrust of my message is that reading not only makes us better students, but most important, better, kinder people. Kindness begins by understanding and believing that each person is just like you on the inside and disregarding the differences on the outside. When someone is sick or disabled, those differences can be profound. I wanted to write a story about a character we could all identify with, one who dreams of success and acceptance but who was also profoundly different.

While the two deaf boys I met, Brett Bell and Layne Guerrero, appear as characters in this book, it is the main character, Landon Dorch, who more closely resembles them and, more important, their experiences. I want to thank Brett and Layne for sharing their stories, their dreams, and their hardships with me. I hope the result is that you, the reader, will develop the same bond with Landon as I have. And, most important, that when you see someone who is deaf or has cochlear implants, that you reach out to let them know that YOU know it doesn't matter.

Finally, I want to thank Kristi Bell, Brett's mom, who gave me so much time and shared so many personal anecdotes, which I know breathed life into this story.

Photo by Laure Lillie

TIM GREEN
is a Syracuse University alumnus. He graduated magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and covaledictorian with a degree in English. After being selected in the first round of the 1986 NFL draft, Tim continued his excellence both on and off the field. He is a practicing lawyer, a
New York Times
bestselling author in two different genres, a TV personality, and a coach.

Tim calls reading “weightlifting for your brain,” an essential habit that increases school success and builds character. Since Tim began writing for kids in 2007, his books have sold more than a million copies, and Tim has made more than nine hundred school visits and spoken to nearly a half million kids across the United States. Tim delivers a powerful message about the importance of education, reading books, and good character. Even though his own childhood dream was to become an NFL player, he had another dream equally as powerful: to become a writer. He now urges kids to put school before sports and to think about success in terms of personal relationships and kindness rather than fortune and fame. Tim uses all his speaking fees to buy copies of his books for kids, libraries, and schools who couldn't otherwise afford them.

Tim Green lives with his wife and their five children in upstate New York. You can visit him online at
www.timgreenbooks.com
.

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