The Counterfeit Tackle (3 page)

The Marlins chose the north goal. A moment later both teams were ready. The referee lifted his hand, blew his whistle, and
the Marlins kicked off.

The kick was shallow. The ball hardly spun as it shot through the air. Jimmy caught it against his stomach and started to
run forward with it. Buzz was already running down the field, looking for a man to block. The whole Marlins team
was charging forward like an army. All eleven men had their sights on Jimmy.

Buzz got in front of a Marlin man, lifted his arms to block him. He let out a grunt as the man pushed him aside. He fell to
one knee, rose, plunged ahead to block another man.

The whistle shrilled. Jimmy had been tackled. Buzz’s heart pounded as the Otters gathered into a huddle.

“Forty-three,” said Craig. “Corky! Pete! Break open that hole!”

They broke out of the huddle, went into a T formation. The ball was on the twenty-seven-yard line. It was first and ten.

“Ready! One! Two! Three! Hike!”

Tony Krebbs centered the ball. Craig caught it, spun halfway around, shoved
the ball against Frosty’s stomach. The fullback put both arms around it and plunged through right tackle. Buzz tried to shove
his man aside. He felt himself thrust backward instead. He caught a glimpse of Frosty plunging past him, then Frosty being
pulled down by the Marlins’ big tackle.

A yard loss.

“Corky!” Coach Hayes shouted from the sideline. “Keep your shoulders down! Down!”

On the next play Buzz kept his shoulders down. He dug his toes into the hard ground, too, remembering what Corky had told
him.

This time Craig threw a screen pass. He was well protected by his linemen as he flipped the short, spiraling pass to Jimmy
Briggs. Jimmy caught it and ran
toward the left side of the field, dodged a couple of Marlin tacklers, then was knocked out of bounds on the thirty-eight-yard
line. A twelve-yard gain!

“Nice run, Jimmy!” said Craig.

“Nice pass!” smiled Jimmy.

In the next play the Otters got the ball across the forty-yard line, the midway mark on the eighty-yard-long field. In three
downs they moved it to the Marlins’ eighteen.

Beads of sweat lay on Buzz’s forehead. He took back everything he had said about the tackle position’s being easy. There was
more to it than just crouching there and staring into your opponent’s eyes. Blocking him and driving forward to open up a
hole for your ball carrier were acts that took a lot of energy. This was no job for a weak kid.

Buzz began to realize that he wasn’t as strong as he had thought. It was a good thing that there were ten other men on the
team who were in better condition than he was.

Right halfback Alan Rogers caught a short pass that netted another four yards, putting the Otters on the Marlins’ fourteen.
On the next play Craig faked a pass, then handed the ball off to Frosty.

Frosty fumbled it! He tried to pick it up and accidentally kicked it. Marlin men charged through the line and a mad scramble
for the ball followed.

Someone fell on it. There was a pile-up of green and brown uniforms that looked like a quickly made-up sandwich. The whistle
shrilled, and one by one the players unpiled.

Buzz look anxiously to see who was at
the bottom. Whoever it was must be flattened out like a pancake.

It was Frosty. By a miracle, he wasn’t flattened at all. Under his chin was the football, with his arms wrapped tightly around
it.

It was an eight-yard loss. Buzz glanced around at some of the Otters’ faces around him. They all looked as if they’d eaten
green apples.

Third down. Fourteen yards to go for a first down. The ball was on the Marlins’ twenty-two-yard line.

Craig passed. It was long and spiraling beautifully! Reaching up his hands near the end zone was Goose Marsh! He caught it,
and was tackled almost in the same spot.

Three yards from the goal line!

“We want a touchdown! We want a
touchdown!” yelled a host of Otter fans from the sideline.

First and goal to go.

Frosty took the hand-off from Craig and bucked the line. One-yard gain.

He tried it again.

No gain. Third down. Two yards to go.

In the huddle Buzz looked squarely at Craig. “Have Frosty take it between me and Pete. We’ll open a hole for him big enough
for a truck.”

Craig looked back at him. “Okay, Corky. We’ll try it. We’ve
got
to get this touchdown!”

They broke out of the huddle. The teams lined up, facing each other at the line of scrimmage. Craig began barking signals.
The ball was snapped. Craig took it, turned, handed off to Frosty. Frosty charged into the line between right guard and right tackle, where Pete Monino and Buzz were digging their toes into the turf, driving back their opponents.

The hole was there. Maybe it wasn’t big enough for a truck, but it was big enough for Frosty. He went through it and over
the goal line.

A touchdown!

Frosty kicked for the extra point but missed by inches. The Otters went into the lead, 6 to 0.

Craig and Goose ran up beside Buzz, smiling happily.

“Thataway, Corky! You and Pete sure opened up a hole that time!”

Buzz was panting from all that hard work. It was almost too much of an effort to smile. But he smiled, anyway. It was what
Corky would do.

It was what he wanted to do, too.

T
HE Marlins ran the kickoff back to the Otters’ twenty-four-yard line. On the very first play Ollie Colt, the Marlins’ speedy
fullback, busted through left tackle for a sixteen-yard gain. Buzz found himself lying flat on his back. He didn’t even know
what had hit him.

With goal to go the Marlins tried a pass. Craig intercepted it! He ran it back to his eleven, where he was tackled hard.

Two plays later the first quarter ended.

Substitutions came in for Buzz and a couple of other players.

“Nice hole you made there for Frosty,” Coach Hayes complimented Buzz. “But what happened to you in that other play, Corky?
When Ollie Colt went on that long run. Do you know?”

“No, I don’t,” said Buzz. “I was trying to bust through to get after him. The next thing I knew somebody knocked me on my
tail.”

“Right. And that was because you weren’t crouched down. You had your shoulders and your head up. I haven’t seen you do that
before. At least not this year.”

“Guess I just forgot,” said Buzz, trying to avoid the coach’s eyes.

If he slipped up in some way now, and the coach realized he wasn’t Corky but Buzz, he’d certainly be in a fix. Corky
would be in a worse fix. He’d be kicked off the team for sure.

The coach patted Buzz’s knee. “Just remember to keep those shoulders down. You have to keep your head up a little to look
the other guy in the eye. But don’t stand up so that he could knock you off balance. You’re no good in there then.”

Buzz nodded.

When the referee announced that there were four minutes left before the first half was over, Coach Hayes sent Buzz back into
the game. The Otters had the ball on their thirty-two-yard line.

They lost a yard on a line plunge, but gained it back on a quick pass over center. Craig passed again on the third down. This
time they lacked a yard for a first down.

In the huddle Craig looked at Buzz. Buzz knew what ran through the captain’s mind. Craig was remembering that touchdown they
had gotten and that it was Buzz who was mostly responsible.

A smile flashed across Craig’s face. “Can you and Pete open up another big hole, Corky?”

Buzz looked at Pete and smiled back. “Sure, if Frosty can hang on to that ball without fumbling it.”

As soon as he said that, he looked at Frosty Homan. Frosty’s eyes lowered and his face colored.

That was a wrong thing to say! I knew it! Corky would never have said that! Not to Frosty, one of the most quiet, bashful
kids around.

“Okay. Let’s go,” said Craig, slapping his hands together.

Buzz and Pete made the hole and Frosty plowed through for a five-yard gain. As they headed back across the line of scrimmage,
Buzz looked aside at Frosty. Frosty met his eye briefly, then looked away.

I can’t let him be mad
, thought Buzz.
I know that Corky likes him
.

He walked up beside Frosty. “Frosty,” he said softly, “I’m sorry about that crack I made. I didn’t mean it.”

Frosty shrugged. “Forget it.”

“You made a nice run just now,” added Buzz. “You can really move, Frosty.”

Frosty looked up and smiled. “Thanks, Corky. But if you and Pete hadn’t opened up that hole, I wouldn’t have been able to
do it. You guys deserve credit, too.”

“Oh, well,” grinned Buzz. “I suppose it’s in the line of duty!”

With a minute and a half to go before the half ended, Craig tossed a lateral to Jimmy Briggs. Jimmy then heaved a pass to
Gary, who was running down toward the right sideline.

Suddenly a Marlin backfield man bolted out in front of Gary, intercepted the pass, and raced all the way down the sideline
for a touchdown!

They converted for the extra point, made it, and the score was Marlins 7, Otters 6.

Buzz trotted up alongside Goose Marsh. “They struck like lightning that time, didn’t they?”

Goose shook his head unhappily. “It takes one bad play,” he said. “
Phoot!
and you’re behind.”

Craig ran the kickoff back to the Marlins’ thirty-three. Jimmy gained four yards on an end-around play, then Craig tried a
screen pass to Alan Rogers. It was high and wobbly, definitely the worst pass Craig had ever thrown.

Alan leaped high for it. He caught the ball, but he couldn’t hang on to it. At that moment Buzz, who had learned earlier what
to do on a screen-pass play, was standing behind the line of scrimmage. He was blocking his man from trying to get at the
passer.

Then his man broke past him. It was then that he saw Alan, who was only a few feet away from him, leap high for the pass.

When Alan fumbled the ball it bounced against his knee, struck the defender’s shoulder and landed in Buzz’s
hands. Stunned, Buzz could think of nothing but to run with it. He started running along the thirty-yard stripe until the
field was clear ahead, then turned sharply toward the Marlins’ goal, and the goal posts that were fuzzy images in the distance.

“Run, Corky! Run!” a voice shouted. Other voices joined in.

He crossed the twenty-five, the twenty, the fifteen. To his left he saw the Marlin safety man gaining ground fast. Buzz tried
to step up his speed. If he did, it wasn’t enough. He was hit on the nine-yard line and went down. When he crawled to his
feet, the referee spotted the ball on the seven.

Goose, Craig — the whole Otters team — pounded him happily on the back.

“Nice running, Corky!”

“Man, I never saw you move so fast before in my life!”

“Terrific, Corky!”

Craig put an arm around his neck. “You saved my life, buddy! That ball slipped out of my hand!”

“Just lucky that the Marlin guy didn’t catch it and that I was there,” smiled Buzz.

“If you had caught that ball before it had hit that Marlin guy, you couldn’t have run,” said Craig. “It would’ve been an incompleted
pass.”

Buzz stared. Boy, football certainly had the strangest rules!

Frosty bucked the line for a two-yard gain, then Craig pushed forward for another two. The Marlin line held like a wall, giving
just a little.

With third down and three yards to go
for a touchdown, Craig turned anxious eyes to Buzz and Pete in the huddle. Buzz knew what he was thinking. Break open a hole
for Frosty.

Buzz smiled. “Pete and I are ready, Captain,” he said.

Craig grinned. “Good! Okay, Frosty! Get on your horse!”

This time things were different. The hole was there one moment and closed the next. A Marlin linebacker had plugged it.

When the pile-up was unscrambled the ball was on the one-yard line. Last down. One yard to go. And only seconds before the
end of the half.

“This has to be it!” said Craig through tightly clenched teeth. “Frosty, run it through
left
tackle this time. The change might fool them just enough.”