Free The Great Quarterback Switch by Matt Christopher Page A

Riley
     and Stan Bates, were running down the field, Riley on the left side, Bates on the right, both covered by Colts men.
    Suddenly Stan cut sharply to his left, freeing himself from his guard. At that instant Tom let go of a pass. The ball looked
     like a large brown egg as it traveled through the air, wobbling ever so slightly. For a moment it seemed as if Tom had thrown
     it too far ahead of Stan, and Michael stiffened in his chair as he watched, every fiber in his body stretched like a guitar
     string.
    Then Stan’s outstretched hands caught the ball and pulled it to his chest. Stan cut at a diagonal angle toward the end zone,
     Colts men bolting after him. He was on the Colts’ forty-one when he was brought down. It was another first down.
    “Again, Tom! Again!” Rick shouted.
    “No!” Michael cried. “They’ll be expecting a pass now! We’ve got to run it! A power sweep should fool ’em! Yes, a power sweep!”
    The power sweep would call for the running backs to spring toward the left side of the line to protect the quarterback, who
     would be carrying the ball.
    The play Tom called for was a through-tackle plunge, and Vince did the plunging, gaining three yards.
    Then Jim Berry fumbled the ball on a handoff, and the Colts recovered it.
    Quickly, Coach Frank Cotter shoved in four substitutes. Tom was one of the players coming out. He sprinted off the field with
     his head lowered, as if the fumble was his fault and he felt guilty about it.
    “That’s okay, Tom,” Michael said to him, trying to keep his brother’s spirits up. “You had the right idea keeping the ball
     on the ground.”
    But Tom, taking off his helmet as he sat down, said nothing.
    The Colts got the ball back into their territory, and, on the Eagles’ thirty-five, they tried a pass. Kirk Tyler, the Eagles’
     safety man, intercepted it and carried it to the twenty-nine.
    Coach Cotter put Tom back into the quarterback spot. This time Tom called for a power sweep, and it worked for thirty-five
     yards. A line plunge went for two.
    Michael watched, feeling his nerves tingle again as he played his own secret, private game of quarterbacking the Eagles from
     his wheelchair.
    A
flat pass,
he thought, as the Eagles went into a huddle.
Fake a handoff to Jim, who scoots off to the left. Then shoot a pass to Angle as he runs to the right.
    The Eagles broke out of the huddle andwent into formation. Tom barked signals. The ball was snapped. Tom faked a handoff to Jim, turned and shot a pass to Angie.
     Angie swung around the end of the line and ran as if an army of ants were after him. Moments later he was over! A touchdown!
    Michael bounced up and down in his wheelchair, banging its armrests happily with his fists. “All right, Tom! All right!” he
     shouted.
    He slapped Rick on the shoulder. “You know, I think we have it, Rick.”
    Rick looked at him. “Have what?” he asked curiously.
    “ESP. I was thinking of that same play, and Tom called it. That’s ESP, isn’t it?”
    Rick shrugged. “Or just plain coincidence,” he said.
    A hand rested on Michael’s arm, and he looked around at his mother, a tall, trimwoman with straight auburn hair, which she kept cut to just below her ears. Because of a cool breeze, she was wearing her
     beige, three-quarter-length coat.
    Michael had forgotten she was at the game. She had been sitting in the first row of seats in the bleachers behind him. She
     was standing beside him now, looking worriedly at him through her steel-rimmed glasses.
    “Michael, the way you’re bouncing, you’ll be falling out of that chair,” she warned him.
    “No, I won’t, Mom,” he assured her. “I’m okay.”
    Then her eyes widened as she looked at his face. “Michael, you’re sweating!”
    He drew his arm across his forehead, felt the perspiration, wiped it off, and smiled. “Of course, Mom. It’s been an exciting
     game,” he told her.
    She tucked the blanket comfortinglyaround his legs. “I don’t want you