Fake Out (6 page)

Ben scooped up his sweatshirt and joined Erin and Jordan as they walked toward the bleachers.

“Great recovery after I messed up that fake,” Ben said.

“You
almost
made it,” Jordan said.

“I know. I don’t know what happened. I thought through every part of the fake, but then I messed it up at the end.”

Jordan grinned. “Don’t think so hard,” he said. “Just let it happen.”

“That’s easy for you to say.”

Jordan laughed. “Sooner or later it’ll be natural for us. Thinking about it just leads to trouble.”

Loop and Alex from the Falcons were standing nearby. Their legs were covered with mud from the field. They’d played the
game before Ben’s and had routed another opponent.

“You guys looked pretty good,” Alex said as Ben walked past.

“
Pretty
good is right,” Loop said. “Better than last week, that’s for sure.”

Ben stopped. He gave Loop a hard look, but Loop was smiling and didn’t sound too smug.

“Not bad for a couple of last-place teams,” Ben said. He wanted to remind Alex and Loop that both of their teams still had a long way to go, but he didn’t want to be mean either. The two teams had the exact same records.

“I don’t know about you guys, but we aren’t in last place anymore,” Loop said. “Things are getting much tighter in this league. It’s still anybody’s championship to win.”

And it could be ours
, Ben thought.

All of that hard work was certainly paying off now. He knew he’d played the best game of his life except for that stumble. Every member of the Bobcats had improved so much since the start of the season.

Ben pulled his sweatshirt on over his head. He stood with Alex, Loop, and Erin and watched the next two teams warming up on the field. He knew that the Rabbits had the best record in the league, but he wanted to get a look at the Wolves. They were the Bobcats’ next opponent.

Ben heard his father calling from the parking lot. “Time to go!” he yelled.

“I’ll see you guys at school,” Ben said. “And who knows? We might get another shot at your team in the play-offs.”

Loop turned to Ben. “That would be fine by me,” he said. “But there’s a long way to go
before anybody should be thinking about the play-offs. Or a championship.”

“Guess you’re right,” Ben said. But after the Bobcats had played so well today, he could allow himself to think about it a little.

KICKERS

“Nice game,” Dad said, shaking Ben’s hand as he reached the car.

“Best one yet,” Ben said. “What’s the hurry?”

“We’re going to Larry’s race.”

“Oh yeah.”

Larry was competing in an important cross-country race that afternoon. The meet was at a park just a few miles away.

Mom leaned over the back seat and handed Ben a small paper bag with a peanut butter sandwich, a container of yogurt, and an apple.

“Thanks,” he said. “You don’t even realize that you’re hungry when you’re running that hard. But as soon as you stop, you’re like, ‘I’m starving!’”

When they reached the park, Ben spotted Larry’s team in their green sweatsuits jogging in a grassy field. The shirts said LINCOLN in big white letters. There were lots of other teams, too. Ben slammed the car door shut and ran over to his brother.

“Hey, Larry!” Ben shouted as he got closer.

Larry gave a quick wave, but he didn’t smile and he kept jogging.

“We won,” Ben said, running next to his brother.

“That’s good.” Larry was staring straight ahead and looked very serious.

The team members all stopped running and began to stretch. They bent their knees a little and reached for the ground.

“I
almost
scored,” Ben said. “But I made some pretty good passes.”

Larry shut his eyes and nodded. He stood straight up and reached his arms overhead. Then he jogged away again.

What’s his problem?
Ben thought. He didn’t bother to follow Larry. He walked back across the field toward his parents.

“Larry totally ignored me,” he said.

“He’s concentrating,” Mom said.

“This is a huge race for him,” Dad said. “He’s bound to be nervous.”

Ben hadn’t thought about that. “I guess he needs to focus,” he said.

“He certainly does,” Dad said. “You know how it is. When you’re in a soccer game, you aren’t thinking about anything but that, right? It can be even harder in a race.”

Ben agreed. If you messed up in a race, you didn’t have a teammate to help you out. When Ben had stumbled in the soccer game, Jordan had scored anyway. He could just imagine how it would be if things went wrong in a long race like this.

Larry would be running 3,000 meters, just a little less than two miles. And this park was hilly. They’d be following paths through the
woods, up and down short, steep hills and longer, more gradual ones. And they’d be running fast. No wonder Larry was being quiet.

The runners were lining up at the start. Ben counted twelve teams on the line. Larry was usually the third- or fourth-fastest runner on his team, and the team was one of the best in the area.

“He’s hoping to finish in the top ten overall,” Dad said. “His team has a good chance to win the meet.”

Ben followed his parents as they walked toward the woods.

“If you time it right, you can see nearly all of the race,” Dad said. “Cross-country is one of the only sports where the spectators have to move around, too.”

The whistle blew to start the race and the pack of runners streamed across the grassy field. Several runners sprinted to the front.

“They’ll never keep up that pace,” Dad said. “Larry’s playing it smart.”

Larry was near the front of the pack, but he looked calm and relaxed.

The runners circled around the grassy area and turned onto a dirt path that would lead them into the woods. After a few minutes, four runners had broken away from the others and opened a 20-meter lead. Larry’s teammate Devin was among them.

Ben quickly counted the runners ahead of his brother. “He’s in sixteenth,” he said.

“That’s good,” Dad replied. “The hills will make a big difference. Every athlete has to work hard, but staying in control is the key. Larry is pacing himself just fine.”

As the runners entered the woods, Ben’s parents headed toward a different path. “They’ll pass this point in a few minutes,” Dad said. “Up this hill.”

A large group of parents and others were at the side of the path atop the hill. Soon Ben could see Devin and one other runner climbing the other side.

“Go, Devin!” Ben’s father called. “Relax and work this hill.”

Two other runners followed closely behind, and then came five more tightly bunched, including another of Larry’s Lincoln teammates.

“Where’s Larry?” Ben asked as several seconds passed.

And then he saw him. He’d moved into twelfth, but a huge pack of runners was just behind him.

“Come on, Larry!” Mom called.

“Top ten is right here,” Dad shouted, pointing toward the pack.

All of the runners were breathing hard and struggling as they climbed the steep hill. They were almost to the midway point of the race.
Ben watched in awe as the runners powered past him, their legs dotted with mud and their arms pumping hard.

After Larry passed, Ben and his parents moved quickly back to the field. The race course was two large laps, so the runners would be covering the same path again.

Ben made circles with his thumbs and first fingers, holding them up to his eyes like binoculars. He kept his focus on Larry, who was moving closer to the pack as they ran on flatter ground.

After Larry entered the woods, Ben turned and ran to the top of the hill again. It was only a minute or so before Devin appeared, with that same runner right on his shoulder.

The other runners had spread out a bit, coming up the hill alone or in pairs. The second runner from Larry’s team was in sixth.
Every couple of seconds another runner came into view. And then there was Larry, in tenth.

“Yeah!” Ben shouted. “Looking great!”

But Larry’s arms were close to his sides now and his mouth was twisted in pain.

“Don’t think about it!” Ben shouted. “Just sprint up that hill!”

Larry seemed to relax his shoulders a bit. He leaned forward slightly and moved closer to the next runner.

“All that hard work,” Ben said, shaking a fist at Larry. “Make it pay off.”

Larry nodded to Ben as he ran past. As he reached the top of the hill, Larry began swinging his arms again. He opened up his stride as he moved downhill, and within a few seconds he had moved ahead of his opponent.

Ben hurried partway down the side of the hill so he could see the finish line. Larry
was in ninth place and he had about 200 meters left to run. The eighth-place runner was a few yards ahead, and Larry was gaining on him.

They both were sprinting now, but Larry looked stronger. He surged ahead in the last few meters and crossed the finish line in eighth.

That took guts!
Ben thought.

Ben ran across the field and joined Larry and his teammates. Larry had his hands on his knees and his legs were shaking a little, but he had a big smile, too. “Looks like we won it, knucklehead,” he said, punching Ben lightly on the arm.