The Great Quarterback Switch (2 page)
Read The Great Quarterback Switch Online
Authors: Matt Christopher
“Do you think it’s possible, Michael?”
Yes. If we both believe that it’s possible, then I think it is. But you must want it, just as much as I do.”
“I do, Michael. I mean it. I really do. I’d do anything to make you as happy as I am. ”
“Thank you, Tom. Thank you very much. ”
Contents
THE #1 SPORTS SERIES FOR KIDS: MATT CHRISTOPHER
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T
-forty-three drive!” Michael Curtis yelled, pressing his hands against the sides of his wheelchair in order to push himself
up as far as he could. “T-forty-three drive, Tom!”
The Eagles had the ball on their own twenty-eight-yard line, and the T-43 drive was an effective play to try now, Michael
thought. He hoped Tom thought so, too.
Rick Howell, the Eagles’ substitute end, turned around on the bench next to Michael and smiled.
“Louder, Mike, and maybe Tom will hear
you,” Rick said kiddingly, his blue eyes squinting against the late afternoon sun.
Michael blushed as he returned the smile. “Yeah,” he said, “and so will the Colts. Why didn’t you punch me?”
Rick shook his head. “Not me, kid. Tom told me about those biceps you’ve developed.”
Michael’s smile broadened. Ever since he had purchased a set of barbells, he had been kidded by his brother, Tom, about his
bulging biceps. A few months ago Michael’s arms had been as round and soft as uncooked sausages, but he’d firmed them up by
working out.
Michael’s attention shifted back to the game. He heard Tom calling signals, saw center Jack Benson snap the ball, then Tom
take it and hand it off to fullback Vince Forelli, who charged straight ahead through the line. In the next play Tom handed
the ball off to left halfback Jim Berry, who
plunged through the right side of the line for a six-yard gain.
“Hey, how about that?” Michael cried, turning and slapping Rick on the shoulder. “Tom
did
call it!”
“Well, being twins, you guys could be tuned in on the same wavelength,” Rick replied.
“You mean like ESP?” The dimple in Michael’s chin deepened as he grinned. “Hey, that
would
be great, wouldn’t it?”
“Well, you both know all the plays, don’t you?” said Rick.
“Right.” Michael sure did, having learned them all while helping Tom study and memorize them.
His eyes twinkled as Rick’s words rolled over in his mind. In many ways Michael and Tom were a lot alike. Michael was born
about six minutes later than Tom a little over twelve years ago. He was named after the
grandfather on his mother’s side, and Tom after the grandfather on his dad’s side. It was the mutual wish of their mother
and father that the boys be named that way.
Both boys had coal black hair, with tufts of it sticking up near the back of their heads. They both had brown eyes, wide eyebrows,
and flat cheeks. The difference was the dimple in Michael’s chin. Tom didn’t have one. And then there was the sparkle in Michael’s
eyes, which seemed to be there constantly but which was only present in Tom’s eyes when he had been complimented for something
he’d done.
That was one thing Michael didn’t understand about his brother. Tom had so much going for him, but sometimes he lacked confidence
unless someone praised him. Michael couldn’t figure out why Tom lacked confidence like that.
The game grabbed Michael’s attention
again, and he tried to remain quiet this time as he watched the Eagles go into a huddle. A moment later they broke out of
it, and Michael’s heart began to pound as he tried to put himself in Tom’s place.
If Rick only knew how much Tom and I work on this ESP thing,
Michael thought, smiling to himself.
If he only knew that we are even considering a step
beyond
ESP, he’d think we’ve gone crazy.
That next step was Thought-Energy Control, or TEC, which Ollie Pruitt, the old man who lived next door to the twins, believed
in and had told them about. And Mr. Pruitt was no dummy, or crazy, either. He used to be a science professor before he retired,
and was in complete control of his senses.
Michael heard Tom bark signals. The ball was on the Eagles’ forty-three-yard line, and it was first down. The score was still
0-0 after five minutes into the first quarter.
The ball snapped from center. Michael saw Tom take it and fade back, knew Tom was looking for a receiver. The ends, Bob Riley
and Stan Bates, were running down the field, Riley on the left side, Bates on the right, both covered by Colts men.
Suddenly Stan cut sharply to his left, freeing himself from his guard. At that instant Tom let go of a pass. The ball looked
like a large brown egg as it traveled through the air, wobbling ever so slightly. For a moment it seemed as if Tom had thrown
it too far ahead of Stan, and Michael stiffened in his chair as he watched, every fiber in his body stretched like a guitar
string.
Then Stan’s outstretched hands caught the ball and pulled it to his chest. Stan cut at a diagonal angle toward the end zone,
Colts men bolting after him. He was on the Colts’ forty-one when he was brought down. It was another first down.
“Again, Tom! Again!” Rick shouted.
“No!” Michael cried. “They’ll be expecting a pass now! We’ve got to run it! A power sweep should fool ’em! Yes, a power sweep!”
The power sweep would call for the running backs to spring toward the left side of the line to protect the quarterback, who
would be carrying the ball.
The play Tom called for was a through-tackle plunge, and Vince did the plunging, gaining three yards.
Then Jim Berry fumbled the ball on a handoff, and the Colts recovered it.
Quickly, Coach Frank Cotter shoved in four substitutes. Tom was one of the players coming out. He sprinted off the field with
his head lowered, as if the fumble was his fault and he felt guilty about it.
“That’s okay, Tom,” Michael said to him, trying to keep his brother’s spirits up. “You had the right idea keeping the ball
on the ground.”
But Tom, taking off his helmet as he sat down, said nothing.
The Colts got the ball back into their territory, and, on the Eagles’ thirty-five, they tried a pass. Kirk Tyler, the Eagles’
safety man, intercepted it and carried it to the twenty-nine.
Coach Cotter put Tom back into the quarterback spot. This time Tom called for a power sweep, and it worked for thirty-five
yards. A line plunge went for two.
Michael watched, feeling his nerves tingle again as he played his own secret, private game of quarterbacking the Eagles from
his wheelchair.
A
flat pass,
he thought, as the Eagles went into a huddle.
Fake a handoff to Jim, who scoots off to the left. Then shoot a pass to Angle as he runs to the right.
The Eagles broke out of the huddle and
went into formation. Tom barked signals. The ball was snapped. Tom faked a handoff to Jim, turned and shot a pass to Angie.
Angie swung around the end of the line and ran as if an army of ants were after him. Moments later he was over! A touchdown!
Michael bounced up and down in his wheelchair, banging its armrests happily with his fists. “All right, Tom! All right!” he
shouted.
He slapped Rick on the shoulder. “You know, I think we have it, Rick.”
Rick looked at him. “Have what?” he asked curiously.
“ESP. I was thinking of that same play, and Tom called it. That’s ESP, isn’t it?”
Rick shrugged. “Or just plain coincidence,” he said.
A hand rested on Michael’s arm, and he looked around at his mother, a tall, trim
woman with straight auburn hair, which she kept cut to just below her ears. Because of a cool breeze, she was wearing her
beige, three-quarter-length coat.
Michael had forgotten she was at the game. She had been sitting in the first row of seats in the bleachers behind him. She
was standing beside him now, looking worriedly at him through her steel-rimmed glasses.
“Michael, the way you’re bouncing, you’ll be falling out of that chair,” she warned him.
“No, I won’t, Mom,” he assured her. “I’m okay.”
Then her eyes widened as she looked at his face. “Michael, you’re sweating!”
He drew his arm across his forehead, felt the perspiration, wiped it off, and smiled. “Of course, Mom. It’s been an exciting
game,” he told her.
She tucked the blanket comfortingly
around his legs. “I don’t want you to catch a cold,” she said.
Just like a mother,
Michael thought. “Oh, Mom, let me alone,” he said, embarrassed. “I’m fine. Really I am.”
V
ince booted the ball between the uprights for the extra point. 7-0, Eagles.
In the second quarter Angie latched onto a pass that put the ball on the Colts’ eleven-yard line. After that it was easy riding
for another score, Jim getting it with a plunge through left tackle from the two-yard line. Then Vince collected his second
point after. 14-0, Eagles.
Four minutes before the half ended, the Colts’ quarterback, Larry Tubbs, pulled one out of the hat. He took the snap from
center, faked a handoff to his fullback, Jay Henderson,
then rolled to the right and released a long pass to his left end, Pat June. Pat caught the pass and had clear sailing ahead
of him as he went for the Colts’ first touchdown. Larry’s point-after kick was perfect. 14-7, Eagles.
There were two minutes to go before the half ended. Then one minute…
The Eagles were on the march, heading for another touchdown. The ball was on the Colts’ eight-yard line. Tom was calling signals.
Michael sat stiffly in his chair, his hands gripping the armrests. His pulse throbbed. He saw the snap from center, and could
almost feel the ball slide into his hands.
Grip the ball. Spread the fingers. Hand the ball off to Vince. Go, Vince, go!
Vince plowed through for three yards.
Quickly, the Eagles went into a huddle, scrambled out of it, ran again. It was another short gain.
The seconds ticked away. “Pass it!” Michael yelled, excitedly. “Pass it, Tom!”
Tom passed it, a bullet throw to Jim Berry, just left of the goalposts. Jim caught it.
“Way to go, Tom!” Michael cried, bouncing up and down in the chair, both fists raised in triumph. “You pulled it off!”
Rick glanced around at him. “Hey, man. You called it again.”
Michael’s face wreathed with a smile. “Sure. We’ve got ESP, I tell you.”
Vince’s kick for the point after was off to the side. But the lead was safe, 20-7.
Seconds later the horn blared, ending the first half.
Rick and the other guys on the bench dashed off to join their team for a meeting with the coach in the west end zone. The
Colts were running to join their coach, in the east end zone.
Michael sat back, took a deep breath, and relaxed.
“Can I get you a hot dog and a soda?” his mother asked him. She had come up in front of him, her warm voice like a song in
the cool September air. The breeze played with the straight ends of her hair.
“That’d be great, Mom,” he said. “I’m starved.”
He wasn’t really, but a hot dog and a soda would taste good right now.
“I’ll be right back,” she said, and hurried away.
Michael’s father came up beside him. “Enjoying the game, son?” he asked. Mr. Curtis was six feet tall, slim and pencil-straight.
The back of his left hand was scarred from a burn he had received while fighting a barn fire three years ago. He was a volunteer
fireman with the Bruner Volunteer Fire Company.
“I sure am, Dad,” Michael replied.
“Tom’s doing all right, isn’t he?”
“He’s doing real well.” Michael paused, thinking.
I won’t say anything to him about ESP. He might not believe in it.
“Got something on your mind?” his father asked. His brown eyes bored gently into Michael’s. Crescent lines formed around his
mouth as he smiled.
Michael looked at him, surprised. “No. Why should I?”
“I thought for a minute you wanted to say something else.”
Michael frowned, then nodded. “I did, Dad. But maybe you’ll laugh at me if I say it.”
Mr. Curtis shrugged. “Okay. I promise I won’t laugh.”
Michael hesitated, then looked closely at his father. “Do you believe in ESP, Dad?”
His father looked at him, straightened up
to his full height, and ran a hand across his chin. “Well, I do, to some extent, Michael. Why?”
“Maybe you think I’m crazy, but it seemed as if every time I called a play in my mind, Tom would call it. Isn’t that ESP?”
His father smiled and lifted his slender shoulders in a shrug. “Well, it could be ESP,” he said. “Maybe you and Tom have a
thing going between you.”
“Yeah,” said Michael, and looked away. No use pursuing the subject any further. He could tell his father wasn’t all that interested
in whatever Michael wanted to say. He was just being polite.
Michael was glad when his mother came with his hot dog and soda.
The second half of the game went by as painlessly for the Eagles as the first half had. Vince scored on a twenty-six-yard
run, and
Stan, on a pass. The Colts scored once, on an interception. It was Tom’s poorest throw of the game. The Eagles won, 33-14,
having missed a point-after attempt.
Mr. Curtis helped Michael into the back-seat of the car, while Tom folded up the wheelchair and stuck it into the trunk. On
the way home Mr. and Mrs. Curtis rehashed the game, throwing praises at practically every member of the Eagles team, including
the tackles and guards, those unsung heroes few people ever think about. Meanwhile Tom kept shaking his head and condemning
himself for throwing that stupid pass behind Bob Riley, the pass that was intercepted and resulted in the Colts’ second touchdown.