There are thirty of us at tryouts today. Fourteen kids were cut to the B Team, and only five sixth graders are still here. I can’t believe I’m one of them. I don’t think Marcus and Shane can really believe it either.
“You’ve got to catch something today, Olson,” Marcus says.
I nod, then Coach Matthews shouts, “Ready?” and blows his whistle.
Marcus and Shane chant, “One, two, three,” and jump up and crash their chests into each other and then grunt a bunch of syllables that sound like huh gra huh huh huh graaaaa! I might have started tripping and fumbling more last year, but as soon as we switched to full tackle, they got more aggressive and tougher, and I’m pretty sure they actually did go through growth spurts.
My hands are sweating in the new sticky wide receiver gloves, and I know Coach Matthews is expecting me to make a big catch too. I feel bad that he wasted his new gloves on me, but maybe I’ll give them back when I don’t make the cut and some other kid who’s bigger and stronger and more brave than I am will get the ball to stick to them every time.
Everyone is standing around, stretching their legs. I’m too sore to even think about bending over to touch my pinchy cleats. I didn’t have enough time to get unsore from touch-and-goes in the firehouse with the guys before I got sore again yesterday from tryouts, so now I’m sore on top of sore.
“We’ve made it this far,” Marcus says. “Today we have to give it everything.”
He even talks like a pro, pumping up his team as if he’s at the center of the stadium with seventy-three thousand people staring down at him.
Marcus has always been the quarterback of our trio. He makes the calls, and Shane defends him, even if it’s to try anchovies on pizza when everyone knows that’s a terrible idea. They’ve been my friends forever, but I sometimes feel like I’m running out on my own and looking back with my hands up, tracking some throw that I’m not sure I really want to catch.
Coach Matthews lines us up, and before I can play with the laces on my cleats to give my toes more wiggle room, we’re clamping down on our mouth guards and running in place.
“High knees!” he calls, and I can hear the sound of everyone slapping their thighs as they lift them as close to their chests as they can. It’s hard to breathe with a mouth guard, and it’s hard to breathe in a helmet. Everything feels hot and trapped, and the only thing I want to do in the whole world right now is take off my shoulder pads and throw them down right there on the twenty-yard line because they’re heavy and rubbing against Great-Grandpa Olson’s dog tags and pushing down on me and making me feel even smaller than I already am.
Coach separates us into groups based on our positions, and I’m so glad I’m not Shane because he has to run full speed and smash into those blocking dummy pads that stand as tall and wide as an offensive center from the NFL. But he trots off like he can’t wait to plow his shoulder in, even if it sends him bouncing off and flying two yards back, helmet thudding against the ground and bringing up grass.
We’re running routes again. Coach is drawing quick lines on a whiteboard he holds in his hands. He swoops a line left then right and makes an X. “That’s where you’ll receive the ball,” he says. I can hear my heart beating in my helmet.
“Sixth graders first,” Coach says. “Marcus. Cyrus. Let’s see if you’ve got what it takes to play A Team ball.”
Marcus lines up and gives me a look like I better not mess this up. Assistant Coach Erikson snaps the ball, and I’m off, zigging right and swooping left just like Coach Matthews drew on his board. Then I’m looking back at Marcus. I see his eyes through the face mask, and they’re locked right on me. Hard. I raise my sticky-gloved hand, and Marcus pulls back and snaps a throw, and I’m tracking its perfect spiral path through the air. I know this pass will hit my hands even if I don’t try, and I don’t want it to be Marcus’s fault, and I don’t want it to be the sticky gloves’ fault either, so I find a place to stub my scrunched-up toe and tumble down, the ball flying over my head and bouncing head over tail.
“What the—? Cyrus! Oh my— Are you kidding me?” Marcus is yelling. “That was—”
“A perfect pass,” I call back. “Another perfect pass! I just suck.”
Marcus spits through his face mask. “You can say that again.”
“Nonsense,” Coach Matthews calls. “Get up. Run it again.”
He makes us run it four more times, and I complete one of the catches because I don’t want to be too obvious.
“Beauty!” Coach Matthews calls. “That was a real beauty!” Then he tells us to take a rest and lines up a couple seventh graders to run the same route.
“What the heck, Cy?” Marcus says, spitting out his mouth guard.
I just shrug and say sorry and watch the seventh grade wide receiver complete the pass on the first try.
At the end of practice, Coach Matthews says he’ll call us tomorrow to tell us if we’re on the A or B Team. Then we have to line back up for touch-and-goes again, and my legs already burn from being sore on sore, and I don’t want to breathe one more breath into this helmet. And it makes me wonder again about Parker, if he’s in a cage and feels shut in and too hot and just wants to get out. I wish Dad would give in and take me to the humane society so I could see for myself and let Parker rest on my shoulder for just one second more.
I finish toward the end of the pack. Marcus and Shane finish at the front with the eighth graders, and they give each other a chest slam and huh huh graaa and walk off together without even saying goodbye, and I walk on wobbly legs to meet my dad in the parking lot and slump into the passenger seat.
“Sore?” he asks.
“Dead,” I tell him. He laughs and starts the car, and I loosen my cleats and angle the air-conditioning vent toward my sweaty, eye black–smudged face.
As we pull out, the coaches wave, and my dad honks the horn—two quick beeps. I see Marcus shake his head, and if I had a birthday wish left over, I might use it to wish I don’t make the A Team, even if my name is Olson.