The Great Quarterback Switch (5 page)

Michael grinned happily, not minding at all that Tom was receiving the accolades. He turned, caught Ollie’s eye, and gave
him the “V for victory” sign. Ollie acknowledged it by showing Michael the same sign, plus his big, teeth-revealing smile.

Michael turned his attention back to the game, the resounding din of the applause slowly diminishing. Scoring, he thought,
was of secondary importance. What was more important was that their thought-energies
had worked. By concentrating and wishing as hard as they could, they had accomplished the miracle of exchanging places. That,
at last, he had gotten to play football again!

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, not even interested in seeing Vince kick for the extra point. A loud groan told
him that the kick wasn’t good, anyway. So the score remained: Eagles 13, Scorpions 7.

The Eagles had a rough second quarter. Twice they were penalized for being offside, and twice they were hit with fifteen-yard
penalties— for clipping and for holding— a total loss of forty yards, while the Scorpions chalked up another touchdown.

Each team scored once during the second half, but it was the Scorpions who pulled the squeaker, 21-20.

“What’s the matter?” Tom asked Michael
when they were alone for a brief moment after the game. “Didn’t you want to go back in?”

“No. I was too tired,” said Michael. “And nervous. I was afraid I might ruin it.”

“Ruin the game? Heck, we lost it, anyway.”

“Yeah, I know. But I was bushed. Scared, too.”

“Scared? Of what?”

“That somebody might sense that something was different. That would’ve ruined it. Did you see Ollie?” He looked over his shoulder
as he spoke. He saw Ollie and waved. Ollie grinned and waved back.

“Yes, I saw him.” Tom smiled. “Maybe his being here helped.”

“Uh-oh, squash it,” said Michael, lowering his voice. “Here come Vickie and Carol.”

The girls came toward them, grinning like
Cheshire cats. Carol was eating a Popsicle again.

“Hi,” greeted Vickie. “Sorry you lost.”

Tom shrugged. “That second quarter beat us,” he said.

Carol looked at Michael. “I guess you really get hung up in a game, don’t you?” she said. “I don’t know how many times I said
‘Hi’ to you, and you never turned around once.”

Michael stared at her through widened eyes. “I’m sorry. What quarter was that?”

The girls looked at each other to verify the exact time.

“The first quarter, wasn’t it?” said Carol, frowning.

Vickie nodded. “Right. The first quarter.”

The first quarter,
thought Michael.
It was probably when Tom and I had exchanged places. Oh, great. That’s just great.

He grinned nervously at her. “That’s right. I really do get hung up in a game. I’m sorry, Carol. I’m really sorry.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” she said. “I wouldn’t get mad at you for a little thing like that.”

Michael was glad when his mother and father arrived to break up the party. Tom introduced the girls to them, then the girls
left, and the Curtis family went on its way home. They rehashed some of the plays of the game, while Michael restrained himself
from telling them about the complete, wonderful success of their thought-energy process. He wouldn’t ever tell, no matter
what. That was one thing that was a bound secret between him and Tom. And, of course, Ollie Pruitt.

They weren’t home more than half an hour, just long enough for Tom to get out of his uniform and into clean clothes and knock
off a sandwich, when Tom suggested to Michael that they go next door to see Ollie. The idea had been bubbling inside of Michael’s
head, too.

“Sure!” he said excitedly.

They found Ollie cutting the shoots of a sea grape plant.

“Well, howdy, boys,” he greeted them cheerfully. “Good game. Too bad you lost it.” He held the shoots while his eyes flicked
from one brother to the other. “It worked, didn’t it? You got your TEC to work perfectly.”

“Yes, we did, Mr. Pruitt,” Michael exclaimed. His body quivered with joy and excitement. At least they could share their experience
with Ollie. He was a true believer. He would appreciate it.

Michael explained it to Ollie first, how he had felt when the game had started, how he had tried to concentrate and wish so
hard to
put himself in Tom’s place; and then Tom butted in, saying how he had concentrated on the switch, too. And, suddenly, in one
split second, the
actual
exchange: Tom in the wheelchair in Michael’s clothes, and Michael on the field in Tom’s uniform.

“We proved it’s possible, Mr. Pruitt!” Michael said proudly. “And we’re going to do it again!”

Ollie’s eyes sparkled. “Of course you’re going to do it again. You’ve got a good thing going, not only for you, Michael, but
for Tom, too. Now he can rest while you play, and nobody will know the difference!”

E
ight and two.

The ball was on the Eagles’ twenty-two-yard line. It was the following Saturday. They were playing the Moths. The Eagles huddled,
split, trotted to the line of scrimmage.

“Eight! Nine! Eleven! Hip! Hip! Hip!”

Jack centered the ball. Tom caught it, stepped back, faked a handoff to Jim. Jim bolted through the line, pulling a guard
and a linebacker after him as if they were magnetized.

On the right side of the field, Angie was
running like a gazelle. Hans Steiner, the Moths’ left end, was after him.

On the left side of the field was a stampede. Right end Chuck Willis and linebacker Moonie Jones were pounding the turf after
Bob Riley.

Lumpy was doing a good job blocking his man, Moe Finney, the Moths’ lanky guard. Moe might as well have been trying to push
aside an army tank.

But Nick Podopolis got through. Nick was the Moths’ middle linebacker on defense and played fullback on offense. He was big,
fast, and strong. He was a midget bull.

Michael saw him bust through the line between Jack Benson and Doug Morton. Nick went after Tom with his short, chunky legs
churning like pistons. His broad shoulders were down, and his arms were stretched out like tentacles.

Michael felt his heart rise to his throat. He
glanced over the field and saw that Angie had buttonhooked in, clearing himself from Hans. Then he glanced back at Tom. An
electric shiver coursed through him as he saw that Nick had Tom on the run. Tom was being chased back toward his own goal
line!

Concentrating hard, hoping that his thought-energies would work, Michael tried to switch places with Tom. This was the second
quarter and Tom looked tired. That long, sixty-two-yard touchdown run in the first quarter must have drained some of the strength
out of him.

But Michael knew that if Tom wasn’t concentrating and wishing, too, exchanging places with him was out of the question. And
apparently Tom wasn’t, for the exchange never came about. Tom was smeared on his own three-yard line.

“Oh, too bad!” said a voice behind Michael. He recognized it immediately. It belonged
to Carol Patterson. He had a notion to turn and look at her; he wondered whether she would be eating another Popsicle. But
he didn’t.

The loss of yardage put the Eagles where the Moths no doubt wanted them. Against the wall. On their second play the Eagles
fumbled the ball. The Moths recovered it, then went over for the touchdown. It was Nick who scored, and Nick, again, who kicked
the extra point. Eagles 7, Moths 7.

Michael sat in his wheelchair, hunched forward, as the teams lined up for the kickoff. He was anxious to go in, but was Tom
as anxious to come out? he wondered.
Darn Tom!
he thought angrily.
Now that I can go in the game, he won’t let me! He won’t cooperate!

Michael sat back, fuming. What a rotten deal to make. Tom had agreed to cooperate
on the thought-energy control, but now that they made it work, he was reneging! What a brother!

Suddenly Michael stiffened in his chair. What was he doing? Why was he making such a terrible judgment of Tom just because
their exchange had not been made now when he, Michael, wanted it?

Tom was too wrapped up in the game now. That was the reason, of course. The game was tight. And, being quarterback, Tom had
to mastermind the moves. The coach had given him almost full rein to run the team. That
had
to be the reason Tom wasn’t concentrating on TEC.

The smart thing to do, Michael figured, was for him and Tom to decide before a game when to concentrate on their thought-energies.
It would save time, and be less frustrating, too.

He glanced over his shoulder at the seat where he had seen Ollie at the last game. This time Ollie’s attention was on the
game.

Michael smiled, and looked away.

He watched Moonie kick off. It was a nice, long, shallow boot. Tom gobbled it up on the fifteen and did some fancy broken-field
running before he was brought down on the thirty-three. Michael smiled with admiration.
Darn it! But that kid can really run!
he thought.

Tom called pass plays on the first two downs. Neither one worked.

He glanced toward the sideline. He looked bushed. Was he worried, too?
Could be,
Michael thought.

Michael waved to him. Tom answered by barely making a gesture. Was he looking for help? Maybe even an exchange?

“The T-forty-three drive!” Michael said,
loudly enough to carry only ten feet. “The T-forty-three drive!”

The Eagles broke out of the huddle and hustled to the line of scrimmage. Michael watched Tom step up close to the center,
the other three backfield men forming a T behind him.

Michael clapped with joy. They were going to run! It was the T-43 drive play!

Tom barked signals. As the words popped out of his mouth, Michael began to concentrate. He pictured himself in Tom’s place,
crouching as Tom was crouching, looking over the line as Tom was looking, yelling the signals as Tom was yelling.

Jack snapped the ball, faked a handoff to Vince, then chucked a short lateral pass to Jim. Driving forward like a small bulldozer,
Jim plowed through tackle for twelve yards!

Michael saw Tom leap with joy, saw Tom
turn toward him, his fists held high as he whooped it up.

Michael lifted his arms, too, as he joined in with the cry. He felt a thrill, the exhilaration of the play’s success.

Then, suddenly, he was on the field! He was in Tom’s shoes, in Tom’s uniform! He was in the game!

He looked toward the sideline. There sat Tom in the chair, except that Tom was dressed in Michael’s clothes.

They got in a huddle. Michael put his hands on his knees as he glanced quickly at the faces around him. The fear still lurked
that one of the players might sense something was different, but he had to risk it. He would cope with that problem when,
and if, it came.

“Wild dog! On two!” said Michael, hoping that a pass play would surprise the Moths.

The Eagles broke out of the huddle, assembled at the line of scrimmage.

“Four! Seven! Hip! Hip! Hip!” Michael barked.

He took the snap, faded back, glanced first toward the right, then the left. The ends were doing a good job of blocking their
men. And Vince looked free as he ran down toward the sideline, moving into Moth territory. He looked back and Michael whipped
the pass to him, throwing the ball ahead of Vince so that he would catch it on the run.

The play worked for eight yards.

Another quick pass over the line of scrimmage netted four yards and a first down.

This time, as a change of pace, Michael called for a running play. But Angie fumbled the ball as Michael handed it off to
him. The ball bounced back to the Eagles’ forty-nine-yard
line, where Michael pounced on it like a cat.

Second and eighteen.

“That was a lousy handoff, Tom,” said Vince disgustedly.

Michael blushed. “Sorry, Vince.”

“Why don’t we try a long pass, Tom?” said Bob in the huddle.

“Yeah,” agreed Stan. “Way out in the left flat. I can run the pants off that Steiner guy.”

“Good idea,” said Jim. “Give me the hand-off and I’ll heave it out to him.”

“Hold it,” said Michael. “We’re wasting time. They’ll expect a pass. We have to try something different. A surprise. Seventeen
sprint-out pass. If I can’t work it, I’ll run it.”

Nobody contradicted him. They broke out of the huddle.

He called signals. The ball was snapped. Michael started to fade back, then ran to the
right, parallel with the line of scrimmage, while he looked for his receiver, Stan Bates. Stan seemed to be free, so Michael
started to lift the ball to his shoulders to attempt the pass.

Suddenly he saw a Moth sprinting hard toward Stan, and Michael knew that an attempted pass might be disastrous.

He pulled the ball against his side and ran. He ran as hard as he could, bolting around right end as Jim Berry threw a fine
block on the Moth end.

Up the field, Stan blocked the Moth safety man, clearing the field for Michael, who went all the way.

A kick between the uprights put the Eagles in the lead, 14-7.

Vince slapped Michael happily on the back, then looked at him squarely in the eyes.

“Can you believe it?” he said, grinning.
“For a minute there, watching you run, I had a flash that it was Michael out here. Remember how fast he used to be? No one
could catch him.” Vince cocked his head to one side. “Guess you guys are more alike than I thought, huh?”

M
ichael’s heart flip-flopped. His face turned red, and he grinned back to hide his embarrassment— and his fear that Vince might
get more nosy.

“Nice kick, Vince,” was all he said, and he trotted back across the field, with the rest of the guys, for the next kickoff.

The Moths were able to carry off only three plays, netting them enough yardage to get them to the Eagles’ thirty-eight, when
the first half ended.

As the team came walking tiredly off the field, Michael concentrated on his thought-energies
again. He sensed that his thoughts and Tom’s were in direct communication. In seconds he and Tom were back to their normal
selves again.