Football Champ (14 page)

SETH LOOKED DOWN AT
the table and pressed his knuckles into the wood.

“No,” Troy said, shaking his head and appealing to Seth. “That’s not true, is it, Seth? There’s no way you failed that drug test.”

“It’s not that he failed the test,” Mr. Langan said, looking at the commissioner, who wore a serious scowl. “It’s that he didn’t pass it.”

“What does that mean?” Troy’s mom asked.

“It means just that,” Mr. Langan said, turning to her. “They had a problem at the lab. It happens sometimes. We tried to have it rushed through and the samples got contaminated.”

“So, you can do another, right?” Troy asked.

“Of course,” Mr. Langan said.

“But we won’t get the results until Monday,” the commissioner said. “So there’s no way I can let Seth play on Sunday.”

Seth’s head dropped until his chin bumped his chest, and he squeezed the top of his nose between a finger and a thumb as he shook his head.

“It’s just one game, Seth,” the commissioner said.

“But we’re in the hunt for the playoffs,” Seth said, “and
I’m
the one who works with Troy. One game can make all the difference this late in the season, for the team, and for my career, too. And I’m also thinking about another game, a game on Saturday.”

“Saturday?” Mr. Langan said.

“I’m supposed to coach Troy’s team in the Junior League Football state championship,” Seth said, giving Troy a pained look. “If I’m not cleared, I can’t coach. I made a deal with the league president and the parents.”

“But that’s not fair,” Troy said, panic filling him at the thought of Mr. Renfro as their coach. “There
has
to be a way Seth can prove he’s telling the truth.”

The commissioner shook his head, and Mr. Langan said, “There’s no way without the test. The only thing I can think of is if you could prove that doctor is lying.”

“That would do it,” the commissioner said, “but I don’t see that happening, and anything short of that won’t be good enough. After the halftime interview on
Monday Night Football
, the entire country is talking
about this—not just sports fans, but school kids, teachers, cabdrivers. Seth Halloway is a name everyone recognizes and, until this, it was a name people associated with everything good in sports. This is a huge black eye for the league, and it won’t go away easily.”

“We’ve got to
make
him tell the truth,” Troy said.

The grown-ups just stared at him.

“I mean, Gumble is
lying
,” Troy said, his voice losing steam. “I know he is.”

Mr. Langan cleared his throat and said, “But we’ll have to prove that he is.”

Troy looked at his mom. She pressed her lips tight together and nodded her head, then said, “Meantime, you’ve got school tomorrow, Troy.”

They said goodbye to the owner and the commissioner. When they got outside, Seth suggested that Troy ride home with his mom.

“Not that I don’t want you with me, buddy,” Seth said, “but why don’t you give your mom some company?”

Troy rode with his mom for a minute in silence before she said, “So, you ready for this?”

“The championship game?” Troy asked.

“Not that,” his mom said. “The media frenzy.”

“What frenzy?”

“Troy, you don’t just predict plays for an NFL team, cause a scandal on national television, then get cleared by the commissioner himself without creating a media frenzy, a storm,” his mom said. “You thought they
wanted to interview you before? They won’t be asking now. They’ll be parking their trucks at the end of the driveway.”

“But there’s no scandal,” Troy said. “Commissioner Goodell said it’s okay. I just do what every coach in the NFL tries to do, only better.”

“Troy, no one has ever done what you can do,” his mom said. “People are going to want to talk to you about it. The scandal is people thinking the team is cheating, and Seth is cheating. Even if it’s not true, it’s a scandal.”

“But if I’m on TV, people can see that I’m telling the truth. They can hear our side of it. It’ll be good,” Troy said, unable to contain the excitement creeping into the distress he felt over Seth’s situation.

This would be his first taste of real fame. Everyone—including the father he never knew—would see him, Troy White, talking about his gift on national TV. They would see, and they wouldn’t be able to help but admire him.

“Of course, some of it will be good,” his mom said, “but sometimes it’s hard.”

“What could be hard about sitting there talking to Larry King?” Troy asked.

His mom glanced at him, sighed, and said, “I guess you’ll just have to find out. I don’t see any other way around it.”

That made sense to Troy, and he was too excited
about the possibilities to worry about the concern in his mom’s voice. When they got home, she told him he’d better get to sleep. Exhausted, Troy crawled into bed, trying to come up with a way they could save Seth as their coach, and fell asleep quicker than if he’d been hit by a brick.

SETH DROPPED TROY OFF
at school Friday morning, and Troy quickly found Nathan and Tate at Tate’s locker.

Before he could tell them anything, Jamie Renfro sauntered past with a couple of his goons and said, “Hey, White, I saw in the paper your mom’s boyfriend didn’t pass his drug test. Gee, what a surprise. I hope you’re ready to ride the bench in that championship game.”

Renfro and his buddies laughed together before Renfro said, “’Cause you know my dad’s a much better judge of talent than that juice monster who’s smooching with your mom.”

“Yeah, you’re dad’s amazing,” Tate said. “For a quitter.”

“I wish you were a guy,” Jamie said, his face turning
purple with anger. “I’d smash your face.”

Nathan glowered at Jamie and balled his fists. “Lucky for you she’s not, then.”

Jamie tried to grin, but instead he glanced at Nathan’s snarling face, cleared his throat, and walked away with his goons.

“Is it true?” Nathan asked after they’d gone. “Seth might not be our coach?”

“Looks like he can’t,” Troy said, and he told them what had happened.

They stood for a minute, looking at one another in silence.

“It’s bad for us,” Troy said, “but it’s bad for Seth, too.”

“It’s a lot worse for us,” Nathan said. “If Seth gets cleared, he’ll be back next week. This is our only chance.”

“Yeah, but you know what they say NFL stands for, don’t you?” Troy asked him.

“National Football League,” Nathan said, grinning and puffing out his chest.

“Yeah, but also Not for Long,” Troy said. “As in, your career is over before you know it. Anything that speeds up your departure you avoid like the plague.”

“How does this speed up Seth’s departure from football?” Nathan asked.

“If Troy’s sending plays in through the defensive coordinator,” Tate said, “Seth’s backup is going to be
making plays all over the field.”

“He’s younger than Seth,” Troy said, “and faster, too.”

“He doesn’t hit harder than Seth,” Tate said, her dark eyes sparkling.

“But did you see when they printed the players’ salaries in the newspaper? He makes about a third of the money Seth does,” Troy said. “And if he plays as well, I don’t care how much they like Seth, football is a business, and businesses cut costs whenever they can.”

Wearing a pained expression, Tate said, “There’s gotta be a way to prove Gumble and Peele are liars, for us
and
for Seth.”

“What we should do is string that dope Gumble up by his feet and stuff chili peppers up his nose,” Nathan said.

Tate made a face of disgust and asked, “What?”

“Hey, I saw it in a movie,” Nathan said.

“I kept thinking about it last night,” Troy said. “There’s nothing we can do.”

“Don’t say ‘nothing,’” Tate said.

“Tell me you’re not actually saying we can string him up,” Troy said.

“No,” Tate said, shaking her head, “not peppers up the nose.”

The bell rang and they began to move toward their different homerooms.

“Then what?” Troy asked.

“We trick him,” Tate said, stopping to face them.

“Who?” Nathan said, wrinkling his brow. “Seth?”

“No,” Tate said with a sour face, “Gumble. We trick him into admitting he lied.”

“How?” Troy asked.

Troy’s homeroom teacher appeared in the doorway, glared at the three of them, and tapped his watch before pointing his finger inside the classroom.

“Let’s go, boys. Miss McGreer,” he said, “you better get going to your homeroom, too, young lady. You’re late.”

“Don’t worry about how,” Tate said as she hurried past the teacher. “I’ve got a doctor’s appointment, so I won’t see you in lunch, but you two just meet me after school. And bring your bikes.”

TROY KNEW THAT ANY
plan Tate thought up would be a good one, and in his excitement he forgot about the plague of reporters his mom predicted would be waiting outside their house. When the bus approached the dirt-road turnoff on Route 141, the driver had to veer away from the edge of the road to avoid the white television vans lined up along the gravel shoulder.

“What in tarnation?” the driver said aloud, locking his eyes on Troy in the big rearview mirror above his head.

Troy shrugged and got up from his seat, moving down the aisle and avoiding eye contact with the kids, trying to ignore the ones with their faces pressed to the windows and the murmurs of excitement. Troy heard his name being whispered in the undercurrent of
voices, and it made the blood rush to his face. A crowd of reporters surged toward the bus door, calling his name. Camera-and sound men followed close behind.

“Is it true? Are you a football genius?” one of the reporters shouted, pushing a microphone into Troy’s face as he stepped off the bus.

“I guess,” Troy said, cameras going off.

The adults clamored and pushed one another so that their questions, pitched like hard rain on a tin roof, became confusing. Amid the noise, the sudden blast from a car horn made everyone look. There in the dirt drive, behind the windshield of the green Bug, Troy’s mom waved frantically to him. Troy ducked under the cameras and dodged through the crowd, slipping into the VW and slamming shut the door.

His mom popped the car into reverse, and the motor whined as they flew backward down the dirt track, leaving a cloud of glimmering dust in their wake.

“What the heck was that?” Troy said, his mouth still hanging open.

“A frenzy,” his mom said.

“Will they follow us?” he asked.

“I already told them that the first one to set foot on our property I’d have arrested,” she said. “They just got here or I would have picked you up from school. I called, but the buses had already left.”

“Man, that was crazy,” Troy said as they pulled to a stop in the middle of the red patch of clay.

His mom only nodded her head.

“But they won’t come down here?” Troy asked, peering up the dirt drive.

“No,” she said, getting out of the car, “but I think we’re going to have to pick one show and do an interview, an exclusive, or else they won’t leave us alone.”

“If we pick one, what will all the others do?” Troy asked, following her up the steps and into the house.

His mom plunked herself down at the kitchen table and said, “Once the first interview airs, the other shows will take little segments of it and do their own stories. Once that happens, they’ll stop pestering us. It’s a race to be first, and once you do the first interview, the race is over. Do you understand?”

“I guess,” Troy said, thinking of the wasted opportunities if he appeared on just one show but trusting his mom. He knew how hard she’d worked over the past couple of years to get her master’s degree in public relations, with straight As. “So, who are we going to talk to? Larry King? I love Larry King.”

“Let me go through the messages,” she said, standing up and heading for her bedroom, where she kept her desk and computer. “Cecilia Fetters e-mailed me a bunch of requests that came in through the team. I’ll make some calls and figure this thing out. We can talk about it tonight at dinner. Seth’s coming over.”

Seth’s name reminded him of Tate and her idea.

“Can I ride my bike?” Troy asked after a moment,
raising his voice so she could hear him from the bedroom.

His mom popped her head around the corner. “Are you crazy? You can’t go back down there.”

“Not there,” Troy said. “To Tate’s. I’ll take the trail through the pines. They’ll never see me.”

His mom wrinkled her face but said, “Well, okay, but you stay away from that pack of hyenas, right?”

“Of course,” Troy said.

When his mom disappeared, Troy hurried outside. From the shed, he removed his most prized possession, the twelve-speed mountain bike his mom gave him on his last birthday. For a Falcons fan as devoted as Troy, the red frame and black trim couldn’t be more perfect.

He mounted the machine and started off down the driveway. He reached the path through the pines, relishing the smooth action of the pedals and the soft click of the chain as he changed gears. Roots and dips in the path made the road to the Pine Grove Apartments a rough one, and the going was slow. By the time he reached the entrance to the apartment complex, Tate and Nathan were already waiting at the curb, their bikes parked in the grass.

“Where you been?” Nathan asked.

Troy explained the media frenzy to them, something they’d missed since the bus dropped them off before Troy’s stop.

“You should do an interview with Howie Long,”
Nathan said. “My dad likes his truck commercials.”

“No, Robin Roberts,” Tate said. “She’s an athlete
and
a real journalist.”

“Howie Long’s as real as it gets, sister,” Nathan said.

Tate rolled her eyes.

“Don’t worry about it,” Troy said. “My mom will figure that all out. Anyway, what’s the deal, Tate? What’s the plan?”