Two-Minute Drill - Mike Lupica [0]
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
Turn the page for an excerpt from the next Comeback Kids book,
ONE
“I’LL NEVER BE AS GOOD AT FOOTBALL AS YOU WERE.”
“Be as good as you can be, kiddo,” his dad would say, “and I’ll be one happy guy.”
Scott would throw until his arm got tired, and Casey, who never got tired, would keep tearing after the ball and bringing it back to him, holding it by one of the seams that had come loose.
And then it was time for Scott Parry to get around to the only thing he was really good at in football.
He’d kick.
He might not have the hands, or the arm, or the size.
But Scott Parry could really kick.
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First published in the United States of America by Philomel Books,
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Copyright © Mike Lupica, 2007
All rights reserved
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Once more, this book is for
my amazing wife, Taylor,
and our four amazing children,
Chris, Alex, Zach and Hannah.
I tell them here what I tell them a lot:
No one is luckier than I am.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Christopher Dykes, M.A., C.A.S. He is the school psychologist at Saxe Middle School, New Canaan, Conn., and proved as I wrote this book that he’s never afraid to take on a new student. No matter how old that student is. And Coach Green, as always.
ONE
There were a lot of bad parts that came with being the new kid.
Scott Parry was already used to eating by himself at lunch, having nobody to talk to yet at recess.
And after just four days in the sixth grade at Bloomfield South, he pretty much expected to be sitting by himself on the short bus ride home.
He had always been shy, even in his old school, in his old town. And in the school and town before that. He just hadn’t realized that his new school was going to be this shy back.
It wasn’t that Scott wasn’t trying to fit in.
When they broke off into discussion groups, he tried to get with a new group of kids every time, hoping that at least one of them might want to talk to him when they were finished. And he knew better than to raise his hand every single time he knew the answer in class. But that was hard for him, because he basically knew the answer to any question his teachers asked.
It had been the same way for him at all his schools.
Sometimes he wished he weren’t so smart, because it seemed to make the other kids mad. What he