The helmets of the Moon City football team were royal blue, with a picture of the moon on them. Their blue satin, red-striped uniforms looked fresh out of a laundromat.
It was Tuesday, October 7, and the Digits’ second game of the season. The sky was an ashen gray, with a golden circle in the spot where the sun was trying to shine through. It never made it.
“Twenty-one! Twenty-four! Hike! Hike!”
Larry, playing middle linebacker, a couple of yards behind Charlie Nobles and Joe Racino, plunged to the right the moment he saw Walt Fregoni, Moon City’s quarterback, hand off to his fullback, Bruce Green. Bruce hugged the leather against him like a loaf of bread and came bolting through the left side of his line. A hole opened up only wide enough to slip a piece of cardboard through, but Bruce came on like a flying wedge, his knees pumping high, his rubber cleats clawing the dirt.
Fear flashed through Larry and was gone almost as quickly as it had come. It was gone because Bruce was upon him before Larry could think about it.
He wrapped his arms around Bruce and felt the impact of Bruce’s body at the same time. Down he went, his head smacking against the ground, Bruce on top of him, for a four-yard gain.
Bruce pressed against Larry’s shoulders as he lifted himself to his feet. He was a tall kid and no lightweight. His dark eyes bored through the mask of his helmet into Larry’s, but his face was as blank as a plastic doll’s.
He carried the ball again, this time making a wide sweep around his left end. Rick Baron was thrown a block; Billy James lost his footing and fell. It was up to Larry or the safety man to bring him down — or Bruce would go for a touchdown.
Larry, legs pumping like pistons, reached Bruce, got hold of his right arm and went down to his knees. Bruce stopped, spun around, freed himself from Larry’s hold, and plunged ahead for eight more yards before Jack O’Leary grounded him.
The run gave Moon City a first down.
Jack got to his feet, giving Larry a cold, shriveling look.
On the next play Walt handed off to Alan Stevens, his left halfback. Alan fumbled the ball, but recovered it just before Digits men got to it. It was a four-yard loss.
Walt tried a pass. That didn’t work, either. Bruce carried again and gained six yards, but it was now fourth and eight.
They had to punt.
The ball spiraled into the sky, then rolled into the end zone and was brought out to the twenty.
The Digits’ offense came in. It wasn’t a complete change, mostly the line and two of the backs. Manny Anderson took the hand-off on the first play and went for two yards. Then Doug collected eleven for a first down.
He was given another chance, but this time Moon City held him to two yards. Then George faded back to pass. Right end Ray Bridges ran down the field like a cat, then stopped short and waited for the ball to come to him.
It never did. George’s pass, a beautiful spiral with hardly a wobble, was taken out of Ray’s hands by a Moon City back, who galloped down the sideline with not a single Digit getting near him.
Touchdown.
The kick for point after was good. 7–0, Moon City.
“You ever notice how quick a situation can change?” Greg said to Larry as they walked across the field.
“Do I ever. That’s the second time an interception’s been run back for a TD,” said Larry.
He thought of the man in the brown jacket again, but was too embarrassed to look toward the bleachers to see if he was there. Maybe Larry wasn’t as embarrassed as George, who had thrown that errant pass. But he was embarrassed nevertheless. The team was an eleven-man unit. When a blow like that happened — no matter who was at fault — every man felt it.
Just before the teams got into position for the kickoff, Larry, his embarrassment forgotten, glanced toward the sideline. A crowd was lined up behind the rope that was strung along the full length of the field. The bleachers were filled, but there was no mistaking the tall figure in the brown jacket. He was there, towering like a giant statue, his arms crossed, his sunglasses like the black holes of a skull.
‘Wonder what he thinks of us after that play?” Larry thought.
The Digits took the kickoff and went thirty-five yards before they were forced to give the ball up to Moon City. Moon City kept threatening to score again, but it wasn’t until the second quarter when they finally pulled it off.
It was Moon City 14, Digits 0 when the first half ended.
“He’s here,” Larry said as the team headed for the locker room.
“Who? The big guy?” asked Greg.
Larry nodded. “I wonder who he is? I have a suspicion, but I’m not sure.”
“You have a suspicion? You mean you think you know him?”
Greg stared at Larry’s lips as if he weren’t sure he had read them right.
Larry met Greg’s eyes squarely. “I said that I’m not sure, Greg. I just have a suspicion.”
“That’s what I thought you said,” replied Greg. “Okay, are you going to tell me who you think he is, or do I have to guess?”
Larry hesitated before answering. He could trust Greg to keep a secret, but what if his suspicion was wrong? Even Greg would laugh at him then.
“I’ve got an idea,” Greg spoke up. “Let’s follow him home after the game.”
Larry looked at him. “Why?”
Greg lifted his shoulders. “See where he lives.”
“What difference would that make?”
“Well, at least we’ll find out where he lives.”
“Okay. We’ll do that,” agreed Larry.
The talk that Coach Ellis gave the boys in the locker room was an attention-grabber. He had a knack of telling a kid about his mistakes so that the kid would never forget it. As for the kid committing the same mistake again, though, there was no guarantee. That depended on the kid.
The coach picked on them all. Some he spent ten seconds on, some sixty. You would think that all he had been doing was just watching the poor part of each player’s performance, so that he’d have something to say during the intermission.
“Did you get all that?” Larry asked Greg as they left the locker room to start the second half.
“I think so. I’m not sure. Most of the time the coach doesn’t open his mouth very much when he speaks, except when he sees me frowning at him. Every time I frown he knows that I’m not reading his lips very well, so he starts talking a little louder and forms the words with his lips. Didn’t you notice that?”
“Yes, I noticed,” Larry replied. “But how do you know he raises his voice?”
Greg shrugged. “I can tell. And, remember, I’m not totally deaf, either.”
If Coach Ellis’s halftime game analysis was an inspiration to his team, the coach of Moon City must have been equally inspiring. All the Digits managed to score was one touchdown, and that on a fluke sixty-four-yard run by Doug Shaffer after he had recovered a Moon City fumble.
When he scored, he jumped four feet into the air and tossed the ball up another twenty or so.
He also kicked the extra point successfully.
Moon City passed for a touchdown before the third quarter was over, then repeated the feat in the fourth. Neither time did Bruce Green succeed in booting the ball between the uprights for the points after, but it turned out that they were not needed, anyway. Moon City copped the game, 26 to 7.
“Are we going to follow the man?” Larry said to Greg as the teams walked off the field.
“We said we were,” Greg replied.
Following the big man in the brown jacket was about as easy as following a white line on black pavement. The boys remained slightly more than half a block behind him. Spectators and players of both teams filled the space in between.
After each block the number of spectators and players diminished as some of them turned off to go to their homes. By the time Larry and Greg had reached the fifth block there were just a handful separating them and the man.
“I wonder how far he’s going,” said Larry.
“Not too far, I hope,” said Greg. “My parents will start worrying about me.”
At the next block the man turned left.
“Hey, we don’t want to miss him,” cried Larry, and started running. Greg followed suit.
They reached the corner, turned it, and stopped as if they had run into a brick wall.
There he was, some twenty feet away, facing them with a smile that showed milk-white teeth.
“Hi, guys,” he said pleasantly. “Sorry you lost the ball game. But that’s how the cookie crumbles, isn’t it?”