CHAPTER 16

Before we can even get back on the field, my new plan has its first hiccup.

“What do you mean you’re not going back into the game?” I ask Nitro, who is sitting on the bench in the locker room with a cloth pressed to his mouth.

He shakes his head.

“We need you,” I say.

He shakes his head again.

Nova sighs. “He doesn’t want anyone to see him with his two top middle teeth knocked out.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “Everybody’s injured. Heck, Astrid should probably be in the hospital for a week. But you’re going to risk losing Earth because you’re afraid your smile won’t be pretty enough? Just keep your mouth guard on.”

Nitro shrugs and mumbles something into the cloth.

I have no idea what he’s saying, but apparently Nova speaks washcloth. “He says that if his mouth guard gets knocked out and someone takes a picture, it will ruin his reputation.”

I run my fingers through my hair. The second half is about to start, and we need Nitro to have any chance of winning.

“Okay,” I say, realizing that desperation is the mother of exaggeration. “I’ve never wanted to admit this, but even though you can be incredibly obnoxious, you’re the handsomest dude I’ve ever seen.”

Nitro nods.

“But here’s the thing. You have an unfair advantage. Some guys have great hair. Some guys have great skin. Some guys have sculpted bods. But you have it all. In fact, you have so much going for you that even if someone does happen to get a picture of you by some remote chance, all it will do is let the world see that even with two missing teeth, you’re still more handsome than your closest competitor by a mile. Especially if you’re the guy who saves Earth.”

Nitro looks from Nova to me, then drops the washcloth and jumps up.

Nova narrows her eyes as we jog out to the field. “That was impressive. Tell me the truth. Do you really have a plan to win this game, or did you just say that to give us hope?”

I shoot a Flamin’ Hot Cheeto out of my helmet into my mouth and grin. “Does it matter?”

Nova snorts laughter. “I guess not.”

I do have a plan, but I’m also making it up on the fly. What my dad said about me trying things no one else ever would got me thinking. We made it this far because we stopped trying to be anyone other than ourselves and played our own game. But the Yextals have been watching all our tapes, and they’ve seen what each of us is good at.

They’ve planned their defense perfectly to stop our best moves. That’s why we’ve got to try things we never have before. Things that couldn’t possibly work—like printing a yearbook backward or combining sour gummy worms, cotton candy, cinnamon, and Reese’s Pieces. We have to run plays so unexpected that even a group of aliens as out there as the Yextals won’t see them coming.

On the opening kickoff, Ajay starts to go out to receive. But I call him back and huddle up with Quake, Nitro, and Andromeda.

Andromeda shakes her head when I tell them what I want them to do.

“But I am sure the Yextals—and probably the millions of humans and aliens watching the game—won’t see it coming.”

The Yextals seem a little confused when we send out three players to receive the kick. But we haven’t been a threat so far, so why worry?

Andromeda receives the kick and immediately tosses the ball to Quake, who rumbles down the field scattering defenders like bowling pins. When the Yextals finally have him surrounded, he throws backward to Nitro, who races down the field kicking the ball from foot to foot in the air before booting it to Andromeda.

The Yextals have completely forgotten about her, and she flies past two defenders before taking it into the end zone.

For a second the crowd is as confused as the Yextals by this strange combination of moves. Then the referees signal a touchdown, and everyone goes wild. Looking up into the stands, I see my dad pumping his fist and nodding as he jumps up and down.

Sunny starts to run onto the field to kick the extra point, but I stop her and point at her knee. “Are you sure your leg isn’t too sore to kick?”

“What the murd-curdles?” Coach shouts. “No one told me she was injured.”

RU-MD starts to fly forward, but I wave the droid back.

Instead, I whisper to Ajay, who has never kicked a football in his life, and send him onto the field.

Ajay huddles up with the team, and I tell them my plan.

Realizing we have to be trying a fake kick, the Yextals send their defenders blitzing around the edge of our line when Briny hikes the ball.

Terrified of being tackled, Ajay turns and runs toward the other end of the field with all the defenders following him. But what none of the Yextals realize is that Briny actually hiked the ball directly to Astrid, who rumbles into the end zone like a victorious German tank for a two-point conversion.

Now it’s our turn to kick off. Suspecting another trick, the Yextals bring in their best receivers.

“Looks like they’re expecting an onside kick,” Coach says.

An onside kick is one of the riskiest plays in football because you are intentionally kicking the ball short. If an opposing player touches the football and you recover it, you get to keep the ball and run a new set of plays. But if you fail, the other team ends up with an amazing field position.

It’s almost impossible to pull off when the other team is expecting you to try it—which is why no team would ever do it at this point in the game. Except us.

“We’re trying an onside kick,” I whisper to Coach.

His new bionic eye jiggles left and right. “That’s the worst idea ever.”

I grin, rubbing a little more grass on my face. “Exactly.”

When both sides are set, Sunny runs up to the ball, hesitates, and swings her foot low and to the left.

Instantly the Yextal defenders shift that way.

Except that her foot sails completely over the football and she does an amazing ballet twirl, distracting the Yextals while Nitro runs in from the other side.

Did I happen to mention that as part of being the greatest under-fourteen soccer player in the world, Nitro also happens to hold the record for most penalty kick goals scored in a single season?

Nitro’s foot connects with the football, and he shoots a perfect shot that bounces off an unsuspecting defender’s helmet straight into the arms of Andromeda, who flies through the air and wraps it up in her wings to give us back possession.

On the next play, I take the hike from under our center. As soon as Briny snaps the ball, Nova races down the field as I spin away and sprint right. When Nova is nearly to the end zone, I turn and throw the ball as hard as I can.

But the Yextals have seen this play, and before I can get the pass off, they pile on me like toddlers on a box of fruit snacks. Except I don’t have the ball, and the confused skeletons search desperately before they spot Briny scooting their way toward the end zone with the ball that I never actually took from them wrapped in one tentacle.

The Yextals try to tackle Briny, but it’s harder than you might think to bring down a four-legged alien with no internal skeleton, and our center manages to get one tentacle over the goal line for a touchdown.

We try the two-point conversion again, with Prince Poodoo taking the ball and Astrid heaving him over the line. Because we ran this exact same play a few weeks before, the Yextals recognize it, and they all leap up to block Prince Poodoo from getting into the end zone.

But what they don’t expect is for Prince Poodoo to juggle the ball in midair and toss it back to me. With all the defenders smashed in the middle of the field, I grab the ball and lob it to Ajay to get ahead, 21–24.

Up in the stands the Earth fans are going crazy. But the Yextals answer back with a field goal, and the third quarter ends with the game tied 24–24.

The fourth quarter is so tight I literally couldn’t watch it if it was a movie.

With only three seconds left on the clock and the Yextals leading by two points, we manage to drive down to the forty-yard line. Sunny runs in to attempt a fifty-two-yard field goal that will win the game. The crowd freezes as Briny hikes the ball, Andromeda spins it to face the laces out, and Sunny boots it.

Standing on the sideline, I’m so nervous, I don’t even realize I’m holding Nova’s hand until the ball sails up, drifts, and finally spins just through the goalposts and everyone goes crazy.

Nitro throws his helmet in the air. “We win, we win, we win!”

Astrid throws Ajay in the air.

Coach throws his bionic eye in the air.

Quake throws a bench in the air, and Nova and I dive out of the way to keep it from falling on us.

Sunny and Andromeda start dancing on the field when the sideline referee throws a yellow flag. “Offsides!”

NOOOOOOO!

Up in his ship, Schnozly Grofsplot cackles with glee.

“He paid the refs,” Nova snarls.

Sunny frowns. “I hate to say it, but he is not a nice alien.”

Coach tries to challenge the call, but with less than two minutes to go, it’s against the rules. “What should we do?” he shouts, trying to find his bionic eye.

I shake my head. The penalty moves us too far back to try another field goal, and with just one second on the clock, we only have time for a single play.

The Yextals know they have to keep us out of the end zone, and they’ll totally be expecting another one of our tricks. But we’ve tried every one I can think of.

There’s a moment of silence. Then—

“You can do this,” Andromeda says.

Quake smacks my shoulder pads. “Quake believes.”

“You’re still kind of a dweeb,” Nitro says, keeping his upper lip pulled down over his missing teeth. “But I believe in you now.”

“I’m in,” Ajay adds.

The rest of the team puts their hands together, with Briny using a tentacle and Chuck adding his antenna.

Nova puts her hand in last. “I believe in you, Wyatt. And I believe in us.”

With less than fifteen seconds to get off a play, I glance into the stands where my mom and dad are anxiously watching, and suddenly I know what we have to do.

“Double-reverse fake-handoff corner end-zone toss.”

Ajay gasps. “We haven’t used that play since…”

“Since I froze up and Quake dislocated his arm.” I look at Quake. “Are you okay with running it again?”

He nods. “Quake trusts Wyatt.”

“You know you don’t have to use your dad’s playbook,” Nova says quietly.

“I know,” I say. A couple of quarters ago I’d have been afraid I couldn’t live up to my dad’s reputation. But I’m not scared anymore. The only reputation I have to worry about is my own—and my team’s.

“My dad used this play to win a Super Bowl. We’re going to use it to send the Yextals back to the boneyard and win the biggest football game the universe has ever seen.”

“Yeah!” Nitro shouts, before quickly pulling his lip down over his missing teeth again.

“But there’s going to be a few changes. This time—we’re adding some extra W00t!ness.”

I quickly explain what I have in mind before pulling a can of W00t! out from under my jersey, so they each can take a swig.

Half the team looks at me like I’ve finally lost it, but Quake nods and gives me a fist bump. “Quake likes Wyatt’s plan.”

We get into position, and then because I can’t talk with my cheeks bulging out, I count by tapping my cleat on the turf. On three, we all spit our W00t! into the other team’s faces.

We take advantage of their temporarily extinguished eye flames by immediately hiking the ball, as the boneheads growl and grab at their skulls.

Like the original play, I fake the handoff to Crush and roll right behind Quake. Only this time, instead of passing to Nova, I bounce the ball off Briny’s helmet back to Crush, who spikes the ball out to Nitro.

Nitro pretends to kick the football, but instead bounces it off his knee to Andromeda, who flies it back to Nova. Still behind the line of scrimmage, Nova again fakes handing it off to Crush, but instead throws my dad’s patented end-zone toss…to me.

Yex tries to cut me off, murder in his now-empty eye sockets, but I distract him by shooting Cheetos into his face and break for the end of the field.

As the ball soars toward me, I feel my brain starting to panic. Instead of thinking about the ball, I let my instincts take over and concentrate on inventing a new version of W00t! for the Yextals that tastes like Tater Tots and old—

The ball falls into my arms and I catch it perfectly, diving across the goal line just as Bone Brain slams onto a moving section of the field that sends him catapulting into the air like the time my cousin Tiffany jumped onto the trampoline from our house’s roof. Lying on my back as the Yextal takes flight, I hear the sound of the referee’s horn, and the game is over.

We win, and the Earth is saved!