Free The Walk On by John Feinstein

anyone watch. He seems to think closing practice makes him more important.”
    “Yeah, well, that’s the way he is,” Alex said.
    “You don’t like him?” she said.
    Uh-oh. If she was asking him on behalf of the
Weekly Roar
, he had better be careful.
    “I didn’t say that,” he said.
    She gave him an actual smile—which made him a little bit dizzy. “I’m not quoting you for the paper. I’m just curious.”
    They had walked down one flight of steps to where the freshman lockers were. But she was continuing down whileAlex was heading to his locker. She stopped one step below him, which meant Alex was looking almost straight down at her.
    He dropped his voice as he answered. “He seems to think Lombardi could have learned from him.”
    She smiled. “As in Vince Lombardi?”
    “Yeah, him.”
    “You’re funny,” she said.
    She turned and headed down the stairs.

The good news about Chester Heights High as far as Alex was concerned was that the academics weren’t all that challenging. He liked his teachers and he also liked the fact that they didn’t seem to believe in burying their students in homework.
    The exception to this—naturally—was Mademoiselle Schiff. She hadn’t been kidding that first day about not speaking any English in class. She walked in every day and began speaking French so fast that Alex was often lost after
“Bonjour, mesdemoiselles et messieurs.”
    Alex needed no more than an hour most nights to deal with his other subjects—unless he had reading in history and English, which he often enjoyed—but he usually needed another hour just for French. He lived in fear of getting behind, especially in vocabulary, because he didn’t want to lookfoolish in class—or, more specifically, in front of Christine Whitford.
    The only good news was that he was no worse than just about everyone else in the class when Mademoiselle Schiff called on him. He almost always had
some
understanding of what she was asking, and fortunately, whenever a student began to stumble, she would move on to someone else before it became embarrassing.
    The one person who never seemed to get flustered was—naturally—Christine. She was Hermione Granger, except her expertise was in French, not magic. Her hand was always up, she was clearly a step ahead of everyone else, and of course, her accent was flawless—at least to Alex’s ear.
    On the day before the opening football game, Christine shocked Alex by calling to him as he was walking out of class.
    “Alex,” she said, surprising him for several reasons: One, that she was apparently speaking to him. Two, that anyone was speaking to him because, other than Jonas and a couple of the other football players, almost no one had spoken to him since his arrival. And three, that she called him by his first name. On the rare occasions when anyone other than Jonas spoke to him, he was Myers or, from Matt Gordon and Jake Bilney, Goldie.
    Hearing her voice, Alex knew it was Christine instantly. He paused, then looked back and saw her approaching. The weather was still quite hot, so she was wearing a T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops, pretty much like every other girl. Unlike a lot of the other girls, she wore no makeup. She didn’t need it.
    “What’s up?” he asked, hoping he sounded calm—even though he wasn’t.
    “So I’m one of the people covering the football game tomorrow night,” she said. “Mr. Hillier told me yesterday.”
    She had fallen into step with him.
    “How many people cover the game?” he asked.
    “Four,” she said. “Plus two photographers. I’m the only freshman.”
    “Congratulations,” he said, wondering if her starting a conversation with him meant he kind of had the upper hand. Should he go for funny or sincere?
    “Thanks,” she said. Then she lowered her voice. “Is it true that Coach Hillier thinks you’re better than Matt Gordon?”
    He stopped dead in his tracks and looked down at her. She wasn’t smiling.
    “Have you asked