Free Left Out by Tim Green Page A

several of the other slower kids on the first sprint, and then turned, ready to go again on the whistle. For the first ten sprints, he stayed ahead of Timmy, but then his stomach clenched. Timmy tied him on the next sprint. After that, even Timmy began to pull away. Still Landon labored on. He was going to do better. He wasn’t going to let them mock him.
    He chased the sluggish Timmy and kept at his heels. On the last sprint, when the rest of the team turned to cheer him over the finish line, he could only hear Timmy’s insult crackle in his head over and over. The jolts made his legs pump just a bit faster and just a bit more true. With hatred fueling him, Landon pushed past the pain. Halfway across the width of the field, Landon caught up to Timmy. The rest of the team went wild, cheering now for sure, delighted by the contest between two chubby boys for last place.
    Landon felt like if he could only beat Timmy, he’d stop being the biggest loser on the team. He’d have someone beneath him. With an agonizing groan, he flung his arms and legs forward. That’s when Timmy made the mistake of looking back. When he turned his head, his tired legs tangled. He tripped and fell and Landon slogged past, pumping his arms and legs for all he was worth, the team now going wild.
    â€œLan-don! Lan-don! Lan-don!” they all chanted.
    When Landon crossed the line, he staggered and collapsed. He rolled to his side and wretched, vomiting the remains of his father’s tuna and string bean casserole onto the grass. The entire team roared with laughter, and as Landon lay there, doubled in pain, he was suddenly not so sure that he’d made things any better for himself at all.
    Laughter swirled around him like smoke, and his vision was blurred by sweat and maybe a tear, but he tried to think not. Someone was saying something to him. He could hear it amid the other noise. He wasn’t sure what they were saying. He thought it was, “Come on, Landon, get up.”
    Then he felt a hand grip his arm, and he turned his head to see who had reached down to help him. When he saw who it was, Landon got so emotional that he almost lost it.

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    Landon didn’t break down. He fought his twisted face back into a mask of toughness and let Skip Dreyfus help him up. Everyone else was still laughing, but Dreyfus was all business.
    â€œLet’s go!” Coach Furster hollered. “Bring it in on me!”
    Everyone reached his hand in toward Coach Furster’s fist, carefully avoiding contact with the watch Landon had learned was a Cartier Panther. Landon concentrated on the coach’s face.
    â€œYou gonna be ready to beat Tuckahoe?” Coach Furster bellowed.
    â€œYes!” the team answered.
    â€œYou sure?” Coach Furster’s face turned red and his eyes turned dangerously close to his nose.
    â€œYes!” they screamed.
    â€œAll right, ‘Hit, Hustle, Win’ on three,” the coach barked. “One, two, three . . .”
    â€œHIT, HUSTLE, WIN!” The whole team shouted, raising their hands straight into the air before breaking apart like a wave on the beach.
    Landon found himself next to Timmy, with Skip’s spiky-haired friend, Mike, who was Coach Furster’s son, on the other side. Landon thought he heard Mike Furster talking to him, so he looked, but Mike was talking to Timmy.
    â€œ. . . careful or he’ll take your position.”
    â€œMy position?” Timmy wrinkled his face.
    â€œYeah, left out.” Mike busted out laughing like a maniac at his own joke. Landon looked away and kept going. He was aware of the joke. Some people played right tackle or left guard or right end, but if someone wasn’t even worth being on the field, their position was left out.
    Landon trudged uphill toward the parking lot where his dad stood just like the other dads, looking down onto the field.
    â€œAre you okay?” His father kept his voice down, but Landon