On Wednesday, Danny was finally allowed back on the football field. And he’d come to practice with his very best attitude. Really.
Maybe Coach was right. Danny had been on the team for four years and, outside of his schoolwork, football pretty much defined his high school life. During the off-sesason, he was lifting with the other players or hanging out with Garcia and Ox. There were all those hours he’d spent putting on weight, drinking all those horrible protein shakes. He’d literally bled for this team, and they had for him. This year’s team had a legitimate shot at a good run for the state title. He was a team captain and needed to act like it. If they had a better QB now, maybe there were other ways he could contribute . . .
The day started with him working with the QB coach. He and Alice were on opposite sides of the field throwing passes while receivers and running backs ran to catch.Then they got in line again and came back the other way. The original second-string QB had also recovered from his ankle injury, but they’d moved him to linebacker. And Hanson was gone.
Danny’s throws weren’t good. His concussion had healed, but he wasn’t rusty from not playing for a week. It was because he couldn’t stop looking over to see what Alice was doing. Every pass she made was a perfect laser shot into the waiting hands of the receivers.
The harder he tried to match what she was doing, the more he messed up. Overthrowing guys, the ball landing five yards beyond their reach. Or throwing it so hard, the guys were dropping the passes. “You trying to kill me, Noodle?” one shouted from across the field.
After passing drills, he and Alice worked with the QB coach on footwork.
It was ridiculous. Coach would show a video clip on his phone, and she’d have it down immediately. Meanwhile, Danny felt like he was moving his feet in thick, wet sand. Coach had to grab hold of Danny and turn him the way he wanted Danny to go. It was humiliating.
After a water break, things got even worse. Coach Williams told Danny to work with the receivers for a little while.
An argument rose up in Danny’s mind, but he remembered what Coach had told him—be a team leader. So he clenched his jaw and jogged over to the group.
“Look who it is, our fearless leader!” Jeremiah Davis joked.
“Yeah, yeah.” Danny tried to play it cool. “Figured I’d run with you clowns for a while.”
“You’ll be running all right,” another guy said. “All day, every day.”
“You got hands, Noodle?”
“Guess we’ll find out,” Danny said.
“That android first string now?” Jeremiah asked casually.
Danny shrugged. “Coach knows what he’s doing. If Alice is the better QB, then I guess that’s how it is.”
“That’s not right, man,” one of the guys said, and the group seemed to agree.
“Whatever,” Danny said. “I’m just glad to be back on the field, you know.”
They all looked at him. Maybe it was something in his face, but they weren’t believing him.
“What the heck are we standing around for?” the offensive coordinator shouted. “Line up!”
Danny got in line with the receivers. Alice stood twenty yards away, making the throws as the coordinator shouted out routes. Alice had thrown the ball before he even turned. It was a perfect spiral, a clean arc, and it landed right in his hands.
Come on, Danny thought with a scowl. He wanted to find a weakness, something he could use to put her in her place. No weakness ever appeared. She did it all perfectly. In fact, the more she passed to him, the better the passes got. She was learning how he liked to catch within half an hour.
Each route he ran, Danny felt himself getting slower. He’d started the day determined to become one of the starting wide receivers or, worst case, to become the best backup QB in the whole country. By the time they were halfway through practice, though, he was already questioning that plan.
After practice, Alice asked him again if they could talk about football and the team.
At this point, Danny just laughed. “You already know everything,” he said.
She’d started to argue, and he escaped into the locker room.
For the first time since he’d started playing in the seventh grade, he wanted to quit.
The team, football. What’s the point?
This was an android world now.