Coach Hubbard never mentioned the temporary Simpkin takeover and I never asked. Jason was hurt, and two concussions in a row made him strictly unavailable, and I was the quarterback. There really wasn’t anything he had to say. Everyone knew how it went, even the Simpkin clan. It was football.
Practice for the rest of the week went so well, it made me nervous. My receivers darted around like water bugs, especially Griffin. Just as I threw the ball, they’d turn their heads, or I’d throw it and they’d make the break I expected. My passes weren’t strong, but they were accurate. And Jackson? Jackson was Jackson, a raging bull in a barnyard of cows, pigs, and chickens. He was unstoppable. Confidence was high, almost too high.
But I was prepared—not only for the game and making middle-school history beating a team who hadn’t lost for five years, but also to win the Dallas Cowboys in my contest with Dillon.
The Dallas Morning Star ran an article about the game in its Wednesday online edition, complete with photos taken of me and Dillon talking on the sideline from the Cardinals game. No one knew how much was at stake. People just thought it was rich that the two kids battling in court over who’d control the Cowboys were facing off on the gridiron. They probably wouldn’t have believed it if someone told them the ownership would be determined by who won a middle-school game and I wasn’t going to be the one to tell. I had enough pressure on me as it was.
Still, interest was high. Local TV stations showed up for practice and interviewed Coach Hubbard. Even if my mom hadn’t banned anyone from interviewing me, Coach Hubbard said the school policy was no player interviews. We were too young.
With all the attention being given to us and the game, and all the pressure because of what was at stake, by Thursday, I was having a hard time keeping my food down. On Friday, I stopped eating altogether. My stomach was a jangle of nerves.
So the last thing I needed when I closed my locker and turned toward homeroom was to see Izzy scowling at me with her arms firmly folded, blocking my path.
“What?” I asked.
“You know what, Ryan. If you all win tomorrow, there’s that bonfire. Mya and Griffin are going as really, really good friends.”
“Tomorrow is the biggest game of my life, Izzy.”
“Well, the bonfire is after the game. Life goes on, you know. I thought maybe we were really, really good friends and we could go together, too, and then you got all weird about it and any time it comes up it’s like you can’t even look at me.”
I was, in fact, looking at the floor at that moment. I forced my eyes up into hers. “What? I can go—if you want.”
She smiled at me.
It was weird. I mean, when I heard about Griffin and Mya, I wanted to go with Izzy. I just had no idea how to go about it, and now it was just happening. “I mean, if you’d really want to go with me.”
“Hey,” she said, shrugging and then smiling to let me know she was teasing, “you’re the kid owner.”
I gulped down some bile. I wanted to tell her that I might not be the kid owner, but the bell rang and she started to slowly back away, heading for homeroom.