Free Soccer Halfback by Matt Christopher Page A

him that. You can’t tell him
     anything. Better not go, Tony. That wind is too strong.”
    Pete was circling wide over the hill some two hundred yards away, his wing dipping and rising like a ship caught in a wild,
     tumultuous sea.
    Jabber looked for Tom Miller, saw him down in the valley, gliding in for a landing. He heard clapping and a soft cry of triumph,
     and saw the girl, Jane Wallace, standing away from the car and applauding happily.
    He glanced back toward Pete, and froze as he saw Pete’s wing skimming the tops of the pine trees in the distance. Suddenly
     the yellow wing swooped toward the ground, rose for an instant, then floundered like a wounded bird.
    In a moment Pete was on the ground, obscured by the wing.
    “Tony! He’s probably hurt!” shouted Jabber anxiously.
    “Let’s go!” said Tony, quickly releasing himself from the harness and folding the wing.
    They sprinted across the rugged hill toward Pete, Jabber panting with worry. The wing was moving, billowing like a boat sail
     in the gusty wind. But Pete was lying still on the ground.
    They reached him, and saw the look of pain on his face as he lay there, a hand clutching his left leg.
    “Pete!” Tony crouched beside him.
    “I think I busted my left leg,” said Pete. “Oh, man, it hurts.”
    “The closest house is down in the valley,” said Tony. “I’ll drive down there and phone for an ambulance. Don’t move. Just
     stay put.”
    He took off like a sprinter in a hundred-meter dash.
    Jabber knelt beside his brother. “You shouldn’t have tried it, Pete,” he said, choking with emotion. “You saw the wind blowing
     Tom Miller around the sky. It was too strong.”
    Pete raised his hand. Jabber took it, squeezing it tenderly.
    “It’s spilt milk now, Jabber,” said Pete with a pained smile. “I know I shouldn’t have gone. But I would have been all right
     if that wind hadn’t caught me by surprise when I took off. It lifted me so fast that I hurt my right wrist. From then on I
     couldn’t control the wing. I’m sure I would’ve flown it without trouble if I hadn’t hurt my wrist.”
    Still the sure, arrogant Pete. Hating to admit to failure.
    As the minutes passed while they waited for the arrival of the ambulance, Jabber’s mind began to race. What if the injury
     was so serious Pete couldn’t finish the football season? Where would that leave Jabber? Would it really clinch his decision
     to give up soccer and shift to football?
    Right now it looked to him as if it would.

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    I t took twenty-seven minutes from the time Tony made the telephone call till the time the ambulance arrived. One of the two
     medics apologized for the delay, saying that they’d been on another emergency when the call came in.
    They examined Pete’s legs carefully and found that his left leg was fractured. How seriously, only an X ray could tell.
    They hustled him off to the hospital, Jabber riding along with him, Tony following in his car.
    “It was a stupid accident,” complained Pete. “It burns me to a crisp.”
    “Maybe it’s not too serious,” Jabber said, trying to comfort his brother. “Maybe you’ll be flying again before you know it.”
    “Well, it all depends,” said Pete. “If I’m a fast healer, I might be back up on that hill tomorrow.”
    He laughed, and Jabber laughed with him.
    “Don’t bet on it,” said the medic sitting beside Jabber.
    It took only minutes before the ambulance, siren going, rolled up to the curb in front of the emergency entrance of the Birch
     Valley Hospital. Pete was rushed inside to the emergency ward where a doctor and a nurse were waiting for him. Carefully the
     medics moved him from the stretcher to a table.
    “I’ll call Mom and tell her,” said Jabber.
    “No. Wait a while,” said Pete. “Maybe I won’t have to stay here.”
    He lay stiffly, his eyes shut with pain.
    “He your brother?” the doctor asked Jabber.
    “Yes.”
    “Then why don’t you sit in that office? The girl