Two-Minute Drill - Mike Lupica [5]
“Shhhh,” he said. “He thinks he’s big.”
But you had to say one thing for Brett: What he lacked in size, he made up for in speed. As soon as he was on the ground, he and Casey began tearing through every downstairs room in the house. Sometimes Casey was the one doing the chasing, sometimes Brett. Every few minutes, Casey would stop, lie down panting, tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth, and Brett would jump on his back.
The first time he did it, Chris said, “He looks like a jockey riding a horse.”
“Or Stuart Little riding one,” Scott said.
Right then the two dogs went tearing off again, like they were already best friends.
It wasn’t long before Scott’s mom pointed to them and said, “Outside. Now. Boys and dogs.”
Scott couldn’t wait to show Chris his field, anyway.
“Follow me,” Scott said as they made their way through his backyard, “there’s something you need to see.”
When they came through the trees, the dogs already running ahead of them, Chris spotted the goalposts.
“This,” he said, “is mad crazy.”
Scott said, “Welcome to Parry Field.”
Chris took Scott’s football out of his hands and, without even warming up or looking as if he were putting any effort into it, threw a perfect spiral from where they were standing that nearly clipped the top of one of the uprights.
“That throw didn’t exactly stink,” Scott said.
“Whatever,” Chris said. “Who does this field belong to?”
“Me.”
“This is . . . yours?”
“Mine and Case’s,” he said. “And my dad’s on weekends. You’re the first . . . guy I’ve brought here.”
He wanted to say “friend.” But he stopped himself, not wanting to scare Chris the very first time they were hanging out together. Besides, he’d always thought that being friends wasn’t something you talked about, it was something you just knew.
Something that just was.
“We gotta get some other guys from school back here as soon as possible,” Chris said, his voice excited. “Have you had any games yet?”
“I don’t know anybody yet,” Scott said.
“Well, that’s gonna change now,” Chris said, like it was easy.
Maybe everything came easy to him, even being friends.
They had been so busy talking that Chris hadn’t noticed Casey standing next to him, the football hanging from his mouth.
“He returned the ball?” Chris said.
Scott nodded.
Chris said, “Tell me he doesn’t do that every time somebody chucks it somewhere.”
“Pretty much,” Scott said. “Unless he gets distracted by a squirrel or a rabbit. It’s a good deal, if you don’t mind a little drool.”
“You throw it, and the dog goes and gets it?”
“Well, sometimes I kick it, and he goes and gets it.”
“You’re lucky,” Chris said. “If I even try to get Brett to fetch a ratty old tennis ball, he gives me this look, like, ‘You want me to get that?’ ”
Chris and Scott started light-tossing the ball to each other then, and Casey figured out pretty quickly that he wasn’t needed at the moment, so he and Brett went running off for the woods.
After a few minutes, Chris said it was time for them to cut loose a little bit and for Scott to go long.
Scott did that, running as fast as he could, feeling slower than a tractor with Chris watching him.
Chris waited until he was far enough away and put the ball right into his chest.
Scott dropped it.
“Good try,” Chris yelled.
Yeah, Scott thought, maybe it’s a good try if you’ve never played football before.
For the next few minutes, he was lucky if he caught anything. Chris kept putting the ball where he should have been able to catch it, even started taking something off his throws, lofting them a little more until they were practically like pop flies in baseball.
But the harder Scott concentrated, the harder he tried to will the stupid ball into his hands, the worse it got. He felt clumsier than he ever had before in his life.
And more embarrassed.
The one kid in class he wanted to impress, the one kid in the whole town he wanted to impress, and he was making a total and complete idiot of himself.
It wasn’t much different than if Chris had been trying to get Casey to catch the ball out of the