Free Penalty Shot by Matt Christopher Page B

Coach Wallace stared at him. “What do you mean, no!”
    “Not until he confesses.”
    The coach looked baffled. “Confesses what? What’s this all about?”
    “Confesses that he put a bunch of mean notes threatening my dog in my locker! I’ve been getting one every day this week!”
    “What?”
    This time, it wasn’t the coach who had spoken. It was Bucky Ledbetter.
    Coach Wallace turned to him. “Do you know what’s happening here, Bucky?” he asked.
    Bucky swallowed hard. “I — I’m not sure. I mean, I know a little of it, but that’s all.”
    Coach Wallace continued to look at him. Bucky dug his skate into the ice. “I should have said something sooner, but I didn’t
     know how. And I thought it was only that one time. I didn’t know it had been going on longer.”
    He looked up and shot a glance at his brother.
    The coach caught the look. So did everyoneelse. Hayes stood there, his head hung low.
    “It was me,” he mumbled. Then he lifted his head. “But I only put one note in Kevin’s locker. One! I don’t know where the
     other ones came from.”
    Jeff moved forward. “There were no other ones. Kevin and I just pretended there were, hoping you’d come forward to deny it.”
    “And it worked,” Kevin added.
    Jeff nodded. “You got pretty good at my handwriting, Hayes. But how?”
    “I — I found part of a composition you’d written in my sister’s trash can. I traced some of it. Changed words from what you
     had written until it was the note Kevin got.”
    Bucky cut in. “I caught him doing it,” he confessed. “I should have stopped him, but he told me it was just a joke. By the
     time I realized it wasn’t, it was too late.”
    Jeff shook his head. “You might have gotten away with it, Hayes. But you forged my writing again, didn’t you? By replacing
     my good composition with one you had tampered with?”
    “Yeah.” Hayes sounded defeated. “I grabbed your draft out of your notebook while you were giving the real one to the substitute.
     Then I just changed a few things and switched them later that week.”
    “Why’d you do it, Hayes? What did I ever do to you?”
    Then it all came out. “You stood in my way. I didn’t make the team last year because of you. Then you got thrown off and I
     was still sitting in the stands! Now this year, when you shouldn’t have even been allowed to try out, you’re playing first
     string.”
    “But you made the team this year and you’re subbing in all the time!” Jeff said in amazement.
    “Yeah, but how long can that continue? We all know there’s a better player just waiting for me to slip up.” Hayes’s eyes slid
     over to Sam Metcalf.
    Sam looked startled. “Gee, Hayes, I guess I can’t deny that I’d rather be a full-time player than an alternate. But I want
     to earn my uniform, not get it because someone was thrown off!”
    Coach Wallace put a heavy hand on Hayes’s shoulder. “Hayes, I think you better go to the locker room. I’ll be there in a moment.
     The rest of you, set up a shooting drill.”
    Hayes slumped, then skated slowly away. The other boys silently shuffled into place for the drill. Once it was going, Coach
     Wallace started toward the locker room.
    Jeff broke out of his line and caught up to him. “Coach, what are you going to do with Hayes?” he asked.
    The coach shook his head. “What do you think, Jeff? I can’t let him off the hook.”
    Jeff looked the coach in the eye. “Please don’t kick him off the team,” he said quietly. “Hayes made mistakes — big ones —
     but I can understand what made him do it. I — I know what it’s like to worry about keeping your place on the team. And I’d
     hate for him to go through what I went through last year.”
    Coach Wallace studied Jeff for a moment. Then he said, “Well, since you were the person most likely to be hurt by what Hayes
     did, what would you suggest I do?”
    “I know Hayes has to be punished. But couldn’t you switch him to