Free Crash by Jerry Spinelli Page B

how to use it before the game.
    Hogface Forbes wasn’t there. She hasn’t been to any games since she got kicked off cheerleading. She’s probably afraid if she came, she’d have to admit how good I am.
    But the Late Baby was there, in the stands with his ancient parents, yelling away like he was still a cheerleader. One thing I didn’t like too much—they were sitting right next to Scooter. In fact, it looked like they were talking back and forth.
    Afterwards Scooter said, “Those Webbs seem like nice people.”
    “They’re fishcakes,” I told him. And that was that.
    Today I was the big headline on the sports page: COOGAN SMASHES SCHOOL TD MARK.
    The story started out: “John Coogan has been living up tohis nickname all season long. Yesterday was no exception. The kid they call ‘Crash’ raced, weaved, and mostly bulled his way for three touchdowns as Springfield Middle School thumped Bayboro, 26-7.
    “Coogan’s third score, a 47-yard beauty, gave him 23 touchdowns for the year, breaking the old single-season mark of 20 set in 1985.”
    The article ended: “Perhaps the most incredible aspect of Coogan’s season-long performance is that he is only a seventh grader. That means he returns next year.
    “Springfield fans can hardly wait.”
    Mike called and asked if I had seen the story. I said no, so I could hear him read it to me over the phone.

28
    N OVEMBER 28
    Scooter cooked Thanksgiving dinner. Scooter
always
cooks Thanksgiving dinner. One year he came all the way from San Francisco to do it. Of course, the best part is that now, instead of going back to San Francisco or Cape May or wherever afterwards, all he has to do is go upstairs to his room.
    I remember when my sister and I were little, he would tell us that the store ran out of turkeys, so what we were having that year was Thanksgiving buzzard. Abby believed him, and she would bawl and bawl until he told her the truth.
    This year he told her it was a fake turkey made out of soybeans. She didn’t believe him, and she didn’t eat it.
    Tell you the truth, Scooter makes so many good things, you could throw out the turkey and not even miss it. Candied sweet potatoes, creamed onions, cranberry nut salad, corn pudding, gravy, cheese bread, and not one but two kinds of stuffing. One is the regular kind that goes into the bird. The other is oyster stuffing. It’s about the best thing there ever was. Abby and I are the only ones who eat it. We each gobble up what’s on ourplates and go for seconds and thirds till it’s gone. Only then do we start in on the rest of the food.
    But this year I figured would be different. When I saw the Great Crusader and Vegetarian digging in, I said, “You’re eating meat.”
    She stared at her plate. “Oysters aren’t meat.”
    “They’re not vegetables,” I said. “They’re not fruit.”
    Her fork hand flopped to the table. There was real pain in her expression. She was staring at the biggest sacrifice of all. Then she suddenly brightened up. “Hah!” she went, and stabbed a forkful of oyster stuffing. “Oysters don’t have faces.”
    We usually have relatives over for the day. This year it was Uncle Herm, Aunt Sandy, and Bridget.
    As soon as they came in, Uncle Herm was all over Abby and me. “Hey—there they are!” He starts clapping; Bridget looks around for a hole to crawl in. “Mister Touchdown and Miss Mall.” He lays a fingertip on each of us. “Am I allowed to touch you?”
    “You’ll just get bad luck touching me,” said Abby.
    By that she meant the mall is going ahead. Bulldozers went in the next day, and now the place looks like a farmer’s field ready for planting.
    Uncle Herm patted her head. “Hey, no big deal. Who cares anyway? The point is, you were on television. You’ll probably be getting calls from the talk shows any day now.”
    I guess nobody was surprised during dinner when he brought up a certain Christmas years ago. He wagged a drumstick. “I’lltell you, I knew that