Free The Tanglewood Terror by Kurtis Scaletta

seen Eric eat,” said Tom. “I’m surprised he doesn’t light up.” The class roared, and it was pretty funny, I have to admit.
    “I heard they turn red,” said Tony when the laughter died down, “and then they blow up.”
    “I think that only happens in video games,” I told him. The class laughed again.
    “Do they burn you when you touch them?” a kid named Michael asked.
    “No,” I said. “At least I don’t think so.” I wasn’t sure because I hadn’t touched any.
    “Why don’t you reach into the jar and find out?” Heidi suggested.
    “Ah, those mushrooms are old and half dead,” said Michael. “I mean the live ones.”
    “Well, let’s go get some fresh ones, then,” she said. “There’s plenty on the football field.”
    “What?” Tom leaned forward at his desk. “I was there yesterday. It was fine.”
    “They must spread fast,” Heidi said. “Now there are mushrooms all over it.”
    “But we have a game tomorrow!” said Randy.
    “Not just any game,” said Tom. “A championship.”
    “Nobody told the mushrooms,” she said.
    A few kids ran to the window, but we were on the wrong side of the school to see the field.
    “Can we go look?” I asked the teacher. “It’s scientific discovery.”
    “I suppose,” she said.
    So the class herded out of the school and to the football field, which, like Heidi said, was overgrown with mushrooms. It could have been worse. They were mostly in one corner, spreading out across the back of one end zone and down one sideline to about the thirty-yard line.
    “They aren’t even lit up now,” said Michael.
    “It’s hard to see the glow in daylight,” I told him.
    Heidi dropped to her knees, cupped the mushrooms with her hands to create a dome of darkness, and peered into the gap between her thumbs.
    “It’s true! They’re lit up!” She looked at her hands. “They’re not warm.” I reached down and brushed my fingertips along the caps. It was the first time I’d actuallytouched them, and they felt like normal mushrooms, cool and a little slippery. You’d never know they were gobbling up nutrients so fast they were burning up.
    “Will you guys be able to play?” a girl named Mary asked Randy, who was just now catching up to the rest of us on his crutches. Mary was on the pep squad and was probably looking forward to the game as much as the players were.
    “They’ll take care of it,” he said. “And if they don’t, we’ll play anyway.”
    Coach said the same thing later.
    “There’s some guys coming to look at the turf,” Coach said, “so we’ll have to keep this short. But it’s our last practice before the big game, and we have to figure out a new plan for our offense.”
    We took the least mushroomy part of the field to practice some new offensive plays. The defense was only in there to scrimmage, a two-hand touch counting as a tackle. On about the eighth make-believe tackle for a loss of yardage made by me, Tom gave me a non-make-believe shove.
    “What are you doing, Beauchesne?” Coach shouted at Tom.
    “Blocking.”
    “The play was over a minute ago. If this were a real game, you’d get a fifteen-yard penalty. Do you think the offense can even net fifteen yards at this point?”
    “Well, tell him to stop being a jerk.” He pointed at me. “He won’t let us do anything.”
    “He’s not supposed to let you do anything. It’s called‘defense,’ ” Coach hollered back. Some of the kids laughed, and Tom glowered.
    We lined up again. I inched up from my middle linebacker position before the ball snapped, ready to blow past the guard and level the quarterback. Tom got antsy and snapped the ball too hard. The guy playing quarterback this series couldn’t hold on to it, so I plunged past the line and scooped it up.
    “Take it easy, man.” I handed the ball to Tom.
    “Thanks for nothing, jerk,” he spat out. He got right in my face and whispered, “If you hadn’t broken Randy’s leg, we wouldn’t have