Free Football Nightmare by Matt Christopher

Billy would decide which of us to throw to. Coach called it a kind of spread formation.”
    “Like the pros use!” Heck was excited about the idea. “Come on, let’s tell Billy!”
    “Looks like the coach is doing that already,” Keith said, pointing to where the coach was talking to Billy and Jason, who were looking at the coach’s clipboard. “He’ll probably show it to you, too, before we finish up today.”
    “A pro set!” Heck repeated. “How fantastic is
that!?
”
    “Think we could make it work?” asked Keith. “It looks kind of complicated.”
    “With Billy at quarterback?” Heck exclaimed. “Sure we can! The other team won’t know what hit them!”
    Keith spent the rest of the day’s workout looking forward to the next day, and hoping he could do his part.

14
    W hen Mr. Stedman got home that evening, Keith was waiting for him eagerly. As he opened the door, Keith ran up.
    His father looked at him anxiously for a moment. “Anything wrong?”
    “Wrong? No! Everything’s great! Well, maybe not great, exactly, but good, at least I
think
it’s good. Well, I
hope
it’s good, but I’m not sure yet, because —”
    “
Ho!
Slow down, there!” called Mr. Stedman, laughing at Keith’s excitement. “I’m having trouble following this. First of all: Does this mean that there are no problems as far as football is concerned?”
    “Uhn-uhn, no problems. … Well, we have only two practices before we play the Mustangs and I’m nervous, but that’s okay, it’s not a problem, really.”
    “All right, then.” Keith’s father relaxed a little. “Everything is settled as far as Larry goes, then?”
    “Oh, sure!” Keith grinned. “Coach says I’m going to start and I shook hands with Larry and there are no hard feelings, even though he’s disappointed, but he stopped talking about me behind my back, and —”
    “Tell you what,” said his father, smiling now that he understood that Keith’s news was good, “let me sit down and catch my breath, and you can tell me all about it. But
slowly
, all right?”
    Keith and his father sat down together in the den, where Keith explained Coach Bodie’s new play. “It’s a winner! I think it’s going to catch the Mustangs totally by surprise. They won’t know how to cover us when we send out all those receivers, and Billy is going to pick their defense apart!”
    Mr. Stedman laughed. Keith stopped, staring at his father suspiciously. “What’s so funny?”
    “Nothing’s funny,” Mr. Stedman assured his son. “I’m just relieved that tonight’s football news is
good
for a change, that’s all.”
    “Oh.” Keith took a breath and sat back. “Yeah, I guess I was pretty down for a while. But that’s over now. I think. I’m pretty sure.”
    “Well, that’s very good, son. What happened to change your attitude? Just wondering.”
    “It was something Traci said when I went in to apologize to her the other night. She was talking about how she got over the nightmares she was having. She realized that things are almost never as bad in real life as they are in your dreams. And it was the same for me. I was making everything much worse than it really was, and when I saw that … well, I just, sort of … settled down.”
    “Well, well,” Mr. Stedman said. “Thanks to Traci. Did you tell her?”
    “I will tonight,” Keith replied. “I really owe her.”
    “She’s going to be very happy to hear that she helped you,” said Keith’s father. “She really loves you. I guess you knew that already.”
    “Sure,” Keith said, “but maybe I needed to be reminded.”
    The next afternoon, while Mack ran through some blocking drills with the interior linemen, Coach Bodie took the backs and ends aside to teach them his spread formation offense.
    “Now, I don’t know for sure that we’ll use this against the Mustangs tomorrow, but it’ll be good to have it available. And I’m pretty certain we’ll get around to using it sooner or later this