Unstoppable (11 page)

Chapter Thirty-Nine

COACH HAD A HANDFUL
of ground beef he was molding into a meatloaf. “Do you think you deserve to start?”

“I'm better than Varnett, right?”

Coach nodded. “Is that all there is to being a starter, just being the best?”

“It should be.” Harrison set down the knife and carried the salad bowl to the table.

“What if Varnett started, but you got most of the carries? What would you think of that?”

“I'd like to get all the carries.”

“Do you think you'll need the line to block for you?”

“Sure, a little, anyway. I can't run through eleven guys.”

“Right.” Coach slid his meatloaf into the oven. “Football is a team game. You need everyone working toward the same goal. That's my job, to get everyone working. So don't worry about starting. Leave that to me. Trust me. I want to win, and that's what you want too. You just be ready every time I put that ball in your hands to take it to the end zone. If I can ease you into this
and
keep the team happy, it'll be good for everyone.”

Harrison didn't fully understand why all the players—even people like Leo Howard—needed to be happy, or why they wouldn't be happy as long as they won, but he kept his comments to himself, trusting in Coach.

 

It was dusk by the time he finished cutting the lawn, but he was proud of the job he'd done. The old lady, Mrs. Peabody, tottered out onto her porch after he'd put the mower away in her garage and slipped a ten-dollar bill into his hand. Almost better than the money was the gleam in her eye when she thanked him.

“You're welcome, ma'am,” Harrison said.

“You're the new boy, aren't you?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“And so polite. Well, I'm not one for judging people by their past. You just keep doing a good job and people here will like you just fine.”

Harrison felt a knot in his stomach and only wanted to get away. “Yes. Thank you.”

He backed down the steps, but the woman followed him. “My daughter works at the school. She said you're some kind of violent criminal and not to let you in my yard. I said, ‘Pish, he's a
boy
, and I'm not afraid of anyone, not at my age.' So you don't mind folks, you just keep being a nice, polite boy and it'll all pass. It's just a small town.”

“Thank you.” Harrison hurried down the sidewalk.

The old woman called after him. “It'll pass.”

Harrison was out of breath by the time he got home. He let himself into the kitchen through the garage and heard Coach talking on the phone in the other room. Quietly, he closed the door and stopped halfway across the dark kitchen when he heard his name.

“I hear what you're saying, Doc.” Coach chuckled. “But they're kids. . . . What? You really want me to
tell
him
not
to ask her? Maybe he isn't going to ask her anyway. . . .”

Harrison staggered back and grabbed the handle of the refrigerator to keep his balance. He felt like a yo-yo, or a Ping-Pong ball, up and down, back and forth, good and bad, bad and good.

“Doc, Doc, all right. Easy. I understand. Yes, I know she's a nice girl and trust me, we all appreciate how nice she's been to Harrison. . . . Okay, Doc. I got it, Doc. Thanks. Yes, good night.”

Harrison heard Coach snap his phone shut before he let out a heavy sigh.

“What was that about?” Jennifer's voice came from the front room, where she sometimes liked to do her work at home.

“Oh, Doc and that Fall Ball at school. Seems his daughter is afraid Harrison's going to ask her to that dance on Saturday after the game.”

“So?”

Harrison heard Jennifer snap her briefcase shut and then the sound of her entering the living room.

“They're being nice, really.” Coach's voice sounded tired.

“Nice? That didn't sound nice to me.”

“Well, she doesn't want to have to say no. She's all in tears over it, and you know Doc when it comes to his daughter.”

“Then let her say yes.”

“I'm afraid that's not going to happen. She already said yes to someone else.”

Tears burned the corners of Harrison's eyes as he slipped back out the door and into the dark of night.

Chapter Forty

THE NEXT DAY IN
school, Harrison hurried out of his classes so he didn't even have to see Becky. He didn't care that she looked pretty in a turquoise shirt that somehow matched her eyes. The color turquoise made him want to gag. When he walked into lunch and spotted her sitting in the corner where they'd sat together all last week, he went the opposite way and found an empty seat at the end of a table on the far side of the cafeteria.

From where he sat, he could just see her through the crowd. She looked up at everyone who passed by but never scanned the crowd to search him out. His afternoon classes were free from Becky, so he thought he'd dodged her for the day. When the final bell rang, he made his way to the locker room. In the crowded hall he felt a tap on his back. He turned and it was her.

“What gives?”

“With what?”

“I thought you were avoiding me after class, and then you didn't show up in the lunchroom. Is everything okay?”

“Fine.” Harrison turned to go.

She took hold of his arm. “Harrison, you're acting like you're mad about something.”

“I'm fine.” He shrugged her off and kept going.

“Harrison? Tell me. What's wrong? Harrison?”

Harrison spun and clenched his fists so hard his forearms ached. “Don't worry, I'm not asking you to any stupid dance. Dances are for pansies, so you can tell your dad not to worry. And stop sitting with me at lunch. I don't want you and I don't need you.”

Becky looked like he'd hit her with a board. Her mouth hung open and her face was all red. Everyone around them stopped and stared.

Harrison growled, then turned and didn't stop until he reached the locker room door, even though she followed him the whole way there. He slammed open his locker and the kids around him got quiet. He yanked his gear out and tugged it on, then laced his cleats and stamped out toward the practice field. When he got there, he kept his back to the school and silently tossed a ball back and forth with Justin until he noticed a couple of the ninth-grade boys looking up the hill toward the parking lot.

“There's your girl for the dance, Varny,” Bulkowski said. “And man, she is some girl.”

Adam Varnett said, “She's nice, that's what I like.”

“I like that blond hair,” Leo Howard said.

“You don't get to look, you punk,” Varnett said, shoving Leo, who shoved him right back because they were friends.

Harrison turned to see who they were talking about and nearly threw up.

Staring down at the practice field, dressed in her soccer uniform with her arms crossed, was Becky Smart.

Chapter Forty-One

THE RED MIST CLOUDED
Harrison's eyes throughout practice. On offense, he blasted his teammates with lowered shoulder pads and pumping knees. On defense, he slammed people down to the turf. By the time the team got to its scrimmage period, when Harrison got the ball, his teammates just shied away.

Coach blew the whistle and screamed, “Are you kidding me? Stop him!”

They lined up and Harrison got the ball again on a dive play up the middle. Bulkowski dove at his feet and caught a knee in the head that knocked him away like a fly. The linemen reached out for Harrison's jersey, but he ran right through them. When he hit the secondary, the free safety saw him coming and flinched without even an attempt at a tackle.

Harrison ran all the way to the end zone, turned, and jogged back.

Coach blew his whistle so hard it pierced Harrison's ear. “Everybody, and I mean
everybody
, start running and don't stop running until I say.”

The whole team—even Harrison—fell in behind Varnett and started to run laps around the field. Halfway through the first lap, Harrison turned on his speed and passed them all. As he did, Bulkowski said, “Ease up, will you?”

Harrison only ran faster.

Coach let the team keep on running and Harrison lapped them. Finally, seven laps into it, and after three of the big linemen had fallen to the ground, exhausted and panting, Coach called them in and they knelt around him in a tight cluster.

“I have never seen such a disgraceful display as that.” Coach glared at them all. “You guys want to beat Clayborn and you're afraid of your own teammate?”

Another time Harrison might have felt embarrassed, but not now. Now all he saw was red.

“He's a freak, Coach.” The voice came from the back of the group.

“Who said that?” Coach's eyes darted around. “I said who.”

The other players scooted away from Justin to give themselves some distance from the one about to catch the heat.

“Me, Coach.” Justin's words could barely be heard. “It's true.”

“What does that
mean
?” Coach asked.

“There's no one like him, Coach,” Justin said. “Harrison is my friend, but he doesn't care about that or anything. We never had to play a guy like that. He's unstoppable, Coach.”

Coach seemed to chew on it. Finally, he nodded his head and his voice came out softer than before. “We still need a better effort. All right, you guys take it in and come back tomorrow with your chinstraps buckled. We've got a lot of work to do.”

The team stood and shuffled toward the locker room.

“Harrison,” Coach said. “I want to see you.”

Harrison returned and stood face-to-face with Coach. Coach put a hand on his shoulder pad. “Don't you worry about any of this. You just keep doing what you're doing. If you were this angry walking around, I'd be worried, but here, on the football field? The players who can bottle that intensity, that meanness, and turn it loose out here? They're the guys who get to one day play in the NFL.”

Harrison just stared at him.

Coach tilted his head to one side and let a smile creep onto his face. “You'd like that, right?”

Chapter Forty-Two

HARRISON DIDN'T SMILE. FOOTBALL
was serious business for him, and also for Coach. He spoke in a flat voice and said, “That's what I'm going to do. Football's my ticket, Coach.”

Coach nodded and slapped his shoulder pad. “All right, go get changed. I'm going to grade some poster projects in my classroom and I'll meet you home later. Don't worry. The rest of the team will be just fine with you when we beat the pants off of Clayborn.”

“I'm not worried.”

“Good.”

Harrison got changed and left the locker room without speaking or being spoken to. Justin caught up with him when he was halfway across the parking lot. “Hey, wait up. Don't be mad. I didn't mean anything bad, Harrison.”

“I know.” Harrison kept walking.

“You're not mad?”

“I'm fine.”

“Something's up your nose. You've been weird all day. Then you come out here and you're, like,
hurting
people.”

“Football's all about hurting people.”

“No, Harrison, it's not. Football's about scoring touchdowns.”

“People get hurt.”

“Right, but that's not the point of the game.”

Harrison stopped and clenched his jaw in frustration. “Maybe it is for me.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes, burning up the sidewalk, the afternoon sun filtering down through the broad trees that lined the street.

“How come you never talk about your parents, or where you live?” Harrison asked suddenly.

“How come
you
don't?”

They had reached the downtown area, a main street lined with old brick shops and clapboard houses turned into hair salons, insurance offices, and restaurants. Every so often, there were benches people could sit on. Harrison sat down on one and folded his arms across his chest.

“I live with Coach. He and Jennifer, that's his wife, they're my . . . foster parents.”

“Coach?” Justin sat down like he'd been hit in the head. “Our coach? You
live
with him?”

“I just told you. He's my foster dad.”

“Holy moly, that explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“Well, Coach is pretty tough on you. I mean, he's tough on everyone, but the way some of those jerks have been acting toward you? Coach goes crazy when teammates don't treat each other with respect. I mean, really crazy. But you? I guess he doesn't want people to think he favors you when they find out he's your . . . foster dad. Is that like being adopted?”

“No, that's something more. That's like being someone's real kid.”

“Sorry. I didn't know. That'd be crazy. I mean, you're pretty old.”

Harrison scowled. “It happens sometimes.”

“Don't get mad. I didn't even mean you.” Justin wagged his head.

“Who did you mean?”

“Well, I live with my grandmother, and she's not too happy about it. She even says so. I never thought there was a way out, that I could get a mom and dad, people to adopt a kid as old as you or me.”

“Where's your mom and dad?”

Justin looked down at the sidewalk. “No one knows. My grandmother says my mom's no good anyway. I don't know. Everyone's got some good in them, right? A little? No one ever said anything about my father.”

“That's me, too,” Harrison said. “Stuff happens.”

“Now look at you. After Saturday's game everyone in town will be talking about you.”

“Maybe,” Harrison said. “I don't know.”

“Don't know? Look what you did to everyone today. No one wanted a piece of you, especially me.”

“Well,” Harrison said, “I guess we'll find out Saturday. I don't know because I've never done it. I've never played in a real game.”

“It's all the same.”

“Did you ever have the feeling, when everything's going well, like, it can't last?” Harrison asked.

“I think I know what you mean,” Justin said.

“Everything seemed so great,” Harrison said, “like I was so high up it made me dizzy.”

“That's a good thing. That's where you want to be.”

“Yeah, but when it's too good to be true, it's because it
is
too good to be true.”

“What do you mean?” Justin frowned.

Harrison didn't want to talk about the thing with Becky. Instead, he said, “I just feel like I got too high, and now I'm on my way down. That's why I don't know what's going to happen Saturday. I just hope it's not another disaster. That's what my life has pretty much been—a disaster.”