“Thank you, Mom.” Danny hugged his mom. “Thank you!”
“Now you gotta make it, Danny.” She rubbed the back of his head. “I know you can. You’ve got everything your father had and more. You were born for this. Don’t you let me down.”
“I won’t, Mom. I won’t.”
They had dinner. She’d roasted a chicken and mashed some potatoes. Danny had a tall glass of milk and then she brought a peach pie from the kitchen. He was cutting into his second piece when his mom raised her head after a sip of coffee.
“Is that someone in the driveway?”
Danny listened.
His mom got up and went to the window, pushing aside the curtain just as the front doorbell rang. It was a sound they rarely heard because everyone they knew came in through the kitchen.
Danny’s mom wrinkled her nose and went to open the door. “Who could that be?”
Danny stuffed a big bite of pie into his mouth. His mom swung open the front door and froze.
“Oh!” There was a pause as his mom recovered her senses. “Ms. Rait, can I help you?”
Danny dropped his fork.
“Would you mind if I came in and sat down?” Ms. Rait’s voice was clear and strong.
Danny quickly flipped the classroom transfer form facedown on the table. He realized his mouth was full, and as Ms. Rait came into sight, he chewed and tried to swallow, but the pie got stuck. He gulped some milk to wash it down and began to choke.
“Danny?” His mom frowned.
Danny raised his hand to hold her off, ashamed, and tried to keep the whole mess from flying out his nose.
“Oh dear,” said Ms. Rait. She quickly closed the gap, braced herself on the crutch, and gave Danny’s back a careful thump with her free hand.
A glob of pie popped out of his mouth and plunked down on the tabletop. He immediately covered the mess with his napkin and wiped it up, his face warm with embarrassment.
“Happens to the best of us.” Ms. Rait pulled a chair out from the table with her free hand and sat down with a smile as pleasant as if she were an invited guest. “Now, we need to talk, and I’m glad it’s the three of us. I want you both to know that I am completely on your side. You never should have gotten to this point, Danny, but here you are, and it’s past time to fix the problem. Good news is: we can do it. Bad news is: it won’t be easy. You have to do the work. And you have to be able to read—no more copying from someone else.”
She looked back and forth between Danny and his mom. “So, should we start tomorrow?”
Danny and his mom were silent for a few moments. Then Danny’s mom cleared her throat. “Thank you for your concern, and thank you for helping Danny just now, but we are going in a different direction.”
“Different?” Ms. Rait blinked at them.
“Football is in his blood. His father was a Super Bowl champion.” Danny’s mom pointed to the framed photo on the mantel above the fireplace.
Ms. Rait squinted.
“Let me show you something.”
Danny’s mom walked into the living room and returned with the framed picture of his father with the Super Bowl trophy.
“They call this the Lombardi Trophy. My Daniel scored two touchdowns.” She offered it to the teacher with two hands as if it were a religious relic passed down over thousands of years.
“Oh,” said Ms. Rait. “How nice. The Steelers.”
Danny’s mom puffed up. “Danny’s father was a third-round draft pick.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what that means.” Danny could tell by the teacher’s face that she was serious.
Danny’s mom took back the picture, almost as if Ms. Rait didn’t deserve to hold it. Walking fast, she replaced it on the mantel, next to a Steelers helmet. When she came back she said, “You have no idea what it means to be a football player.”
“No, I don’t,” Ms. Rait said. “But then, even if you play, you still need something to do when it ends, and there aren’t many things you can do if you can’t read.”
Danny’s mom braced her hands on the tabletop and leaned toward the teacher like a judge rendering a decision. “Danny’s father always said his son would be even better than he was. He was aiming for Danny to be a first-round pick.”
Ms. Rait absorbed that before she said, “Danny could get hurt in high school and never even get a college scholarship.”
His mom’s hands flew into the air. “He could get hit by a car and none of it matters, right? We’re not talking about what could happen, we’re talking about what should happen. My son is on track for something very special, and as well intentioned as you may be, you’re throwing up a roadblock in front of his destiny. Everyone seems to see that but you.”
Ms. Rait turned to Danny. “You’re pretty good at math. There are one million high school football players. Someone told me only three hundred of them will get drafted into the NFL.”
Danny opened his mouth to speak, but his mom beat him to it. “Danny’s not just another player. Danny Owens is special. Ask Coach Kinen. Ask anyone. He’s Dan Owens’s son.”
“We’re talking about maybe missing one game,” the teacher said. “I don’t think he’ll miss even that, but if he did, and he is as good as you say he is, one game shouldn’t matter.”
“It’s the big game,” Danny explained. “The championship. Coach Oglethorpe and his staff from the high school will see it, and sometimes they take a young player for their varsity team next season. They don’t care about the other games. They only want a young kid if he proves he can perform under championship pressure.”
“Let me ask you a question.” Danny’s mom scowled at Ms. Rait. “You care so much about my son, why don’t you just help him learn to read and agree to pass him, too? What’s so hard about that?”
Ms. Rait took a long time before she spoke. “That’s how we got to this point, Mrs. Owens. Everyone wants to help Danny. He’s nice and polite and good looking. He’s a star athlete whose dad won the Super Bowl. So when Danny struggled, they ‘helped’ him. They passed him on. Let him cheat. And now he’s twelve and he can’t read.
“This isn’t your fault. It’s the school’s fault. This kind of thing happens when people are too afraid or too lazy to do their jobs. I am neither afraid nor lazy, and Danny needs to know that he has to do this. No faking. No cheating. No passing grades unless he really passes.”
Danny’s mom pointed at the paper on the table in front of Danny. Danny glanced at the peach pie skid mark.
“I already signed it,” his mom said.
“Yes, I know,” said Ms. Rait. “I can see the imprint of two signatures. The idea of playing in the NFL is very exciting. But it ends, doesn’t it? Then what?”
Danny’s mom didn’t say anything, and Danny thought Ms. Rait would leave. But the teacher pointed to the paper and said, “You signed it. The big question is, what will you do with it?”