CHAPTER 10

Thirty-five minutes later, I walk onto the field as a group of horrifying skeleton-like creatures gather up their equipment and leave. They all smell like the time our lunch lady burned the Tater Tots, and the tallest one is even bigger than Quake. He has three arms and random chunks of bone sticking out from his body.

As he walks past, he shoves me and growls, “Your human flesh is pale and weak.”

I glance around at Nova and the rest of the team, realizing they’re all waiting for me to make a witty comeback.

“Yeah, well, you smell like a school cafeteria exploded. And you look like you’re wearing a Halloween costume so bad that I totally wouldn’t give you any candy if you came trick-or-treating at my house.”

Not my best work, but the skele-giant sort of freaks me out.

Fire glows in his eye sockets. “Your words are as meaningless as your playing.”

“Way to show him who’s boss,” Nitro says with a snicker as the evil skeleton dude walks away.

“Who are they?” Ajay asks.

“They’re called Yextals,” Cricket Bob says. “Those pieces of bone sticking out of their bodies are from enemies they’ve eaten. They won their first two games by over a hundred points.”

Sunny shrugs and smiles. “If they keep winning and we keep losing, at least we won’t have to face them in—”

“Enough chatter.” Nova taps her watch and gives me a look. “Wyatt’s been working on a plan to turn the season around,” she says.

“What’s the plan?” Coach growls. “It better be good because so far I haven’t seen anything to give me hope that this glam-blasted group of flick-snittels can win a single game.”

Immediately the AI in my helmet starts offering suggestions.

But this time I turn it off. My stomach begins to churn and I’m glad I didn’t eat any breakfast. “Nova—that is, we—thought that maybe we could play better if we stopped trying to play football like my dad, or any other team you’ve coached in the past, and focused on the things we are good at.”

Coach rubs his chin. “Go on.”

Hoping this will work, I pick up the football and hand it to Ajay. “Astrid, I want you to tackle Ajay as hard as you can.”

“Hey!” Ajay yelps as Astrid lowers her helmet and charges.

Just before Astrid turns Ajay into country singer jelly, I shout, “Now, jump!”

Clutching the ball to his chest, Ajay hurtles over Astrid’s head like a matador dodging an enraged bull.

“Run, Ajay,” I say as Astrid spins around.

With Astrid hot on his heels, Ajay races down the field until he finally reaches the end zone.

Coach clicks his stopwatch and scribbles in his notebook. “Not bad!”

A bloodcurdling scream comes from the stands as Astrid sends Ajay bouncing across the bleachers like a beach ball on a windy day.

“My bad!” I yell. “I forgot to say stop.”

Coach opens a notebook and begins to write. “What do you call that play?”

“How about Jump and Run?”

“I like it,” Briny says. “Short and descriptive. You could probably dance to it with the right beat.”

“Watch this,” Crush says, tossing the football up and spiking it to Andromeda twenty yards away.

“Whoa,” I say, more surprised than the time my dad asked my Uncle Filbert to pass the roast beef and he threw it through the window and into the swimming pool where Aunt Florence was doing the backstroke. “Since when do baseball players spike balls?”

“We don’t,” Crush says with a grin. “But my mom was an Olympic volleyball player.”

“We could call it Vampire’s Death,” I suggest. “Because, you know, a spike to a bat?”

“I’m not a bat,” Andromeda says. But she laughs anyway.

For the next play, I have Prince Poodoo juggle the ball with all four hands to keep it away from defenders before tossing it to Nitro, who races down the field bouncing the ball over and around defenders with his feet and head until he scores.

“Impressive,” Coach says. “But it won’t work. Kicking the ball during play is against the rules.”

“Not true.” I hold up the QISL rules I’ve been reading because it’s one of the few books on the asteroid where we train. “Since some aliens only have feet, kicking the ball while running is legal.”

One by one, we come up with cool new plays using Nova’s impressive gymnastic skills, Andromeda’s acrobatics, Quake’s kitten-rescuing megablast, and Astrid’s ability to launch Cricket Bob completely over the defensive line. Even Briny and Chuck get in on the act, when the four-tentacled alien does a confusing shuffle that ends up with the ball hidden inside the snail’s shell.

“Nice work,” I say, slapping everyone on the back of the helmet. “I still don’t know if we’ll win. But even if we lose, we’ll do it our way. Now let’s go get some waffles. I’m starving.”

Crush folds his arms across his massive chest. “We still have one more player to go. What’s your secret skill, Wyatt?”

Cold sweat drips down my spine and my teeth chatter like the time I accidentally locked myself in the soda case at the gas station. (Don’t ask.)

“I’ve failed at everything I’ve ever tried. I once got kicked out of the chess club for painting faces on the pieces and naming them after famous historical figures. Queen Elizabeth beat the snot out of Benjamin Franklin.”

“Well, he’s already demonstrated his leadership skill by showing the rest of us what we’re good at,” Nova says.

Nitro shakes his head. “Okay, but unless fumble fingers suddenly learns how to throw a football, none of that will matter.”

Nova picks up the ball and wings it directly at my face.

Without any time to think about it, I raise my arms and make a perfect catch.

Moustapha whistles. “Nice hands.”

But the moment I realize I caught the ball, my palms start to sweat and I begin to bobble it.

“Throw it back to me now!” Nova screams so loud that we all turn in shock.

Acting purely on instinct, I fling her the ball. It’s not the kind of tight spiral my dad would throw. In fact, it has more wobble than me on a skateboard. But instead of bouncing off the water cooler or Coach’s head, it lands in her arms.

“How did you do that?” I ask, looking down at my hands like they must belong to somebody else.

Nova grins. “You are clumsy.”

I mean, I know that. But still…“Um, thanks?” I say.

“But you aren’t always clumsy,” she continues. “It’s like your muscles know what to do, but your brain gets in the way. Maybe stop second-guessing yourself and trying to think of what your dad would do and just be yourself?”

I’d never looked at it like that before, but I did spend a lot of time thinking about all the things my dad told me I was doing wrong back when we used to practice together.

“So you’re saying if I turn off my brain and play like myself, I can be an awesome quarterback?”

She wrinkles her forehead. “I didn’t say that. But you can be a lot better than you’ve been so far.”