Free Football Fugitive by Matt Christopher Page A

we have a tough opponent in the Vikings next Sunday,
     but we feel we can redeem ourselves.
    Good luck.
    Your pal,
    Yancey Foote
    That must have been the forty-ninth time he had read the letter. It gave him as big a lift now as it had done the first time
     he read it.
    But that was Yancey’s last letter to him. What had happened to him, anyway? Where had he gone to?
    Larry put the letter away, pushed in the drawer and went to the kitchen, glancing at the door of his father’s den which he
     sometimes used as an office. There was another door from the hall through which clients went to see his father, providing
     him with the privacy he needed for his law business.
    “You sure you don’t want a sandwich before you leave?” his mother asked him. “You’re going to be pretty hungry by the time
     you get back home.”
    “That’s okay. I’m not hungry,” he said. That’s because butterflies were flying around in his stomach.
    He looked out the window. A kid in a black uniform with white stripes down the sides, just like the one Larry was wearing,
     was coming down the street.
    “Greg’s coming, Ma,” said Larry. “I’ll go now.”
    “Good luck,” she said.
    He went to the door, then turned and glanced back at her.
    “Yes, Larry?” his mother asked.
    Didn’t Dad say he’d like to come to the game?
he wanted to ask her. But he didn’t.
    “Nothing, Ma,” he said, and went out.

2
    H i ya, Greg,” said Larry, looking directly at him so that Greg could read his lips. “How do you feel?”
    Greg shrugged his wide shoulders. He played right guard with the Digits, doing well in spite of his handicap; he was almost
     totally deaf.
    “Shaky,” he said.
    “Why? You did all right in practice.”
    “I know,” Greg replied in a low, awkward drawl. “But I’m still shaky!”
    He laughed, and Larry laughed with him.
    Greg had been deaf since birth, yet no one had ever doubted that he would make the team. He attended a special school where
     he had learned to talk. Not being completely deaf, he was able to hear quarterback’s signals if they were shouted loudly enough,
     and he was a fine player.
    They arrived at the field, started to throw warm-up passes, then lined up for brief warm-up runs. Larry found that running
     and throwing relieved the tension that had built up inside him. He was ready to go.
    The captains of both teams, Doug Shaffer for the Digits and Morris Hanes for the Whips, met at the center of the field with
     the referees. One of the refs flipped a coin.
    “Heads!” said Doug, just loud enough to be heard from the bench.
    He must have lost, because the ref put his hand on the other captain’s shoulder, and made a receiving motion. Then he touchedDoug’s shoulder and made a kicking motion toward the north goal.
    “Okay defense,” said Coach Tom Ellis, a former college player. “Get out there and reverse the situation. Okay?”
    A thunder of applause greeted both teams as they ran out on the field. A ref tossed a football to Pat DeWitt, who placed the
     ball in position on the forty-yard line. Then both teams lined up for the kickoff.
    Pat’s toe met the ball slightly off center, sending it spinning like a top toward the left side of the field. It hit the ground
     in front of a Whips lineman, and bounced crazily until one of the running backs pounced on it.
    The ref spotted it on the Whips’ thirty-eight.
    “Great start,” grumbled Jack O’Leary, a defensive back.
    “Maybe we’re all a little nervous,” said Larry.
    “Why? What’s there to be nervous about?”
    Jack was tall and thin as a fence post. Larry remembered that Coach Ellis had quite a time finding shoulder pads that would
     fit him. Yet to hear him talk you’d think he didn’t have an ounce of fear in him.
    “Guess you’re different,” Larry said.
    The Whips went into a huddle, broke out of it, and lined up at the scrimmage line. Larry settled in his middle linebacker
     position, his heart pounding.
One of the