Читать книгу Lucky Shoes - Ray Millholland - Страница 6

On Tuesday, the first day of the fall term at Riverford High, curious Susie noticed that Andy’s schoolbooks were stacked at his elbow and that he was keeping one eye on the clock as he ate his breakfast.

“Why the mad rush?” she asked. “It’s more than an hour yet before the first-period bell rings. And I know you haven’t any first-period class.” She reached for a piece of toast and sighed. “When I get to be a senior I’m going to plan my last year’s courses so I won’t have to go to school before the second hour.”

“Sorry, got to hurry,” said Andy, gathering up his books and pushing back his empty cocoa cup. “I’ll tell you all about it after football practice tonight.” He glanced over at his father, saying seriously, “I haven’t forgotten, Dad,” and left the house.

“What is all this mystery?” Andy heard Susie asking as he closed the front door behind him and started for school at a dogtrot.

It was a mile from Andy’s home to school. During the football season he usually jogged the full distance to keep in top physical condition. But this morning he had jogged only a half mile before he overtook Ted Hall, walking in the same direction.

Ted peered at him through his thick eyeglasses and asked, “Where’s the fire or murder or what? Such haste is unseemly for a dignified senior.”

“What are you doing, heading for school this early?” Andy countered.

“I have certain responsibilities as an executive,” said Ted, and grinned to show that he was not taking himself seriously. “As student manager of the team I’ve got to get to the gym early and sort that mixed-up box of shoes into pairs for the reserve squad. Bad business having fellows running around in two left shoes or two right ones. People’s feet don’t usually grow that way.”

Ted paused to give Andy another inquiring look. “That reminds me of something else that is part of my official business. Have you untangled your conflict in class hours so that you can keep those new varsity shoes I gave you, or will you have to turn them in and draw an old pair from the reserve box?”

Andy passed over the note which his father had written granting permission for him to drop the late-afternoon machine shop course and take a first-period course in its place.

Ted read the note, then handed it back, saying admiringly, “Anybody who can argue grownups around to his ideas the way you can, old horse, should try out for the debating team. You’d win in a breeze.”

Andy said a little gloomily, “I don’t think you read Dad’s last sentence,” then read it aloud for Ted’s benefit : “ ‘However, I am leaving the final decision in this matter to my son.’ ”

“What are you crying about?” Ted asked brusquely. “You may not know it, because your folks are different. Most grownups do all the deciding and you have to do exactly as you’re told. Here you’ve got a chance to do your own deciding and you put up a groan.”

Andy folded the note and tucked it back into his shirt pocket with a little sigh. “This is one time I wish Dad had done all the deciding. Now I’ve got to talk it all over again with Mr. Stark and convince him, too, that it is the right thing to drop the machine shop course he teaches.”

“If you ask me,” said Ted pointedly, “your big problem isn’t talking this over with Mr. Stark. You can tell him that you have decided, with your father’s permission, to drop machine shop and there’s nothing he can do about it. I mean, you’ve got to make a place for yourself on the varsity first string this year. It’s your last chance, remember.”

“I’m going to feel like a chump if I don’t,” admitted Andy soberly.

Ted gave him an encouraging jab in the ribs with his thumb. “I don’t see how you can miss. That pick-and-shovel job you worked at all summer has put you in better condition than any other fellow on the squad. Cheer up, they’ll be calling you the iron horse of Riverford High before the season is over!”

They walked on toward school—still talking football, naturally. But now they were discussing the comparative strength of the other high school teams that Riverford High was scheduled to play, and what were the chances of “the team’s”—Riverford’s—winning the sectional championship. Which meant, of course, beating Mansfield High in the last game of the season.

“We’ve got at least an outside chance,” insisted Ted. “In the first place, we’ve got twelve—count ’em, twelve—letter men from last year’s squad. Remember Mansfield lost all but Reynolds in their backfield from graduation last June. Reynolds may be a little better safety man than Ken Blair of our team, but then Ken will have Marshall and Jim Eddins with him again this year to back up the line on defense. And you, of course,” he added hastily, then gave Andy one of his heartwarming grins. “Is that going to be something to watch! Mansfield has never played against you. So by the time they think they have Ken under control, in comes the iron horse of Riverford——”

Ted broke off with one of his quick dramatic gestures and pointed toward the empty seats of the football field, which, at that moment, they were passing as they walked toward the gymnasium. “And right there is where it’s going to happen!”

Andy thought of the last two years when he had sat on the substitute bench and watched with a sinking heart as Mansfield High won by top-heavy scores.

Ted shot him a quick look and said, grinning, “Never mind those wild predictions I made last year, and the year before that, and the year before that. I operate on the theory that if I keep on predicting long enough we’re bound to win someday.”

They had come to the crosswalk leading to the side entrance of the shop wing of the main school building. Andy turned off there to have a talk with Mr. Stark, the machine shop instructor, as he had promised his father he would. Ted turned off in the opposite direction and disappeared into the gymnasium.

Andy was about to put his hand on the latch of the shop entrance door when he heard someone say behind him, “Got a minute to spare, Carter?”

Andy turned to see Coach Dorman beckoning to him. Andy retraced his steps and said, “Yes, sir?” then waited, wondering what the coach wanted.

“Suppose we go into my office,” suggested Coach Dorman, pleasantly. “I’ve got something on my desk that I would like to have your opinion about.” He unlocked the small door to his private office in the corner of the big gymnasium building and motioned for Andy to enter first. “Take that chair beside my desk and make yourself comfortable while I dig out of the filing cabinet what I want to show you.”

Andy could not help noticing how the new coach moved with the springy step of an athlete in perfect physical condition, and how sure and direct he was in using his hands. When he pulled out the drawer of the filing cabinet he did it quickly without jerking it. Then when he had found the papers he wanted he closed the drawer with a single push but without slamming it. And when he sat down at his battered old desk he did not slouch but sat upright.

Suddenly Andy found himself looking into a pair of steady but pleasant brown eyes—brown like his own—and Coach Dorman was saying, “Mr. Skiles, your former coach, was kind enough to leave me his notes concerning the players from last year’s squad who would be coming back this year.” He turned back several pages before looking again at Andy. “What I am going to read you about this player is confidential—just between the two of us, understand. After I have finished, I am going to ask you some questions about this player because I think you know him better than any of his other teammates.”

Then the coach began reading from Mr. Skiles’s old notes: “ ‘This boy reported for freshman football three years ago. He was eager to learn the fundamentals and attended practice faithfully. But although he was larger than some of the other freshmen he never was quite good enough to warrant giving him a freshman football numeral.’ ”

Coach Dorman paused and said to Andy, “Here is what Mr. Skiles says about him as a sophomore,” and resumed reading: “ ‘In his second year I had hopes that this boy would find himself. He had grown taller and stronger, and his experience at first base on the freshman baseball team had improved his physical co-ordination. He did not drop a single ball thrown to him during the season and led the freshman team in batting. However, as a sophomore candidate for the football team he failed to meet my expectations.’ ”

Coach Dorman skipped the next paragraph, then resumed reading: “ ‘This boy reported for football as a junior this fall in better physical condition than any other candidate on the squad. He had practiced forward passing all summer; and when I held a forward-passing contest at the end of the first week of practice, he threw the ball ten yards farther than any of his teammates.’ ”

Andy found himself looking again into Coach Dorman’s steady brown eyes, which this time seemed puzzled about something.

“Here’s the part I don’t quite understand,” said the new coach. He laid aside Mr. Skiles’s notes and leaned back in his chair with his large bronzed hands clasped across his belt line. “ ‘This boy, in my opinion, has the makings of a good football player—not a headline-grabbing star, you understand, but one of those iron horses that every coach builds a team around when he is lucky enough to find one.’ ”

Coach Dorman broke off and tapped the sheaf of notes on the desk with the back of his hand. “But Mr. Skiles reports that this boy—who knew his football fundamentals perfectly—just couldn’t deliver under pressure in a game.”

“I think I know why,” said Andy slowly.

Coach Dorman leaned back in his chair and said, “I promise that anything you tell me about this boy will never be repeated. Now give it to me with the bark off straight, and don’t pull your punches.”

Andy took a long breath and said, “This boy was afraid—maybe yellow is a better word for it.”

Coach Dorman shook his head. “That doesn’t match up with my first impressions of this player. Give me some actual instances to back up your opinion.”

Andy looked down at his hands, then back up again, straight into Coach Dorman’s eyes. “It’s like this, Coach. When he was carrying the ball and a tackier came at him he would ease up a little. Not enough for anybody on the side lines, even Mr. Skiles, to notice, but just enough to keep from getting a hard jolt. And he used to do the same thing when he blocked for another ball carrier. He would bowl over smaller boys than himself, but when he was up against a boy near his own size——”

“Stop right there,” said Coach Dorman, raising his hand. “How do you know all this?”

“Because I’m the boy Mr. Skiles was talking about,” said Andy.

Coach Dorman made a curt movement with his right hand. “Carter, you’re badly mistaken about yourself. I’ve coached football at three different schools, but you’re the first boy I ever interviewed who did not show at least some signs of the jitters during my first interview with him.”

The coach cracked his desk with the palm of his hand emphatically. “You’re not one of those incurable flinchers, Carter! Get that through your head once and for all.”

The coach lifted his hand in a way to indicate that the interview was over. Andy stood up and tucked his new algebra book under his arm and said quietly, “That is how I used to feel. But this summer, when I was working on a construction job, I found out that I was as strong as, or even stronger than, some grown men.” He broke out in a slow grin. “They called me ‘Kid’ the first week; but after I climbed a rope hand over hand during one noon hour just to keep my forward-passing arm in good condition, they started calling me ‘Tarzan.’ ”

“Watch out, or that tendency to flinch at the moment of impact will come back,” was Coach Dorman’s dry comment. “I thought I was something extra-fancy as a triple-threat back during my high school days. But I overlooked the fact that I was playing behind a line of rock-’em-sock-’em teammates and that our competition was below par.

“So, when I showed up at college with my scrapbook loaded with clippings from my county-seat newspaper, I thought I was headed for big time. They played freshmen in our conference those days, and I fully expected to go right on being the star of the game.”

Coach Dorman paused to draw his hand across a smooth-shaven square jaw. “On my very first play in a college game I started out on an end sweep. I made just one yard before a big tackle and a bigger line backer nailed me between their shoulders and slammed me back three yards. When I got back in the huddle I bawled out my upper-class teammates for failing to block for me.

“I lasted just five more minutes in that game,” continued the coach. “My teammates opened up big holes—big, wide holes that let the defensive linemen get a clear shot at me. In those five minutes I became an accomplished flincher . . . It wasn’t until the last game of the season, in my junior year, that I got cured of flinching.”

Coach Dorman suddenly pointed to a framed photograph on the wall, a picture of a white-haired, dignified old Negro. “Uncle Joel, the janitor of our gymnasium, is the man who cured me of flinching after the coaches had given me up in disgust. It was the last game of a tough season, and the first-, second-, and third-string quarterbacks were on the injured list. No one else knew all the plays, so the coach had no one but me to call on.

“Just the night before the game Uncle Joel called me to one side and said, ‘Boy, I have been watching you every minute of every game you have been in. Now if you would only pretend like there was a hundred dollars lying out there on the ground back of the enemy’s goal line and those other boys was trying to keep you from getting it, you would sure go places with a football!’ ”

Coach Dorman broke into a slow smile. “That did it . . . Not a sports writer in the business gave us an outside chance to win that game—especially with a weak sister like me in there as quarterback.

“Queer thing about that game,” the coach continued in a reminiscent drawl, “I carried the ball only on the first and the last running plays of the game; I didn’t throw a single pass, and I punted only three times. When I faced the team in the first huddle of the game I pointed toward the enemy’s goal line and said, ‘Uncle Joel says there is a hundred dollars lying loose on the ground down there. Let’s go after it . . .’ We went there on that very first play,” added the coach.

“Was there actually a hundred dollars down there?” Andy blurted out.

“There was at least eleven hundred dollars down there,” insisted Coach Dorman solemnly. “One hundred apiece for every man on the team. I mean, in satisfaction, you understand. What’s more, we kept on ‘collecting’ all afternoon.”

Coach Dorman glanced at his strap watch and became all business again. “Sorry that I’ve kept you here gabbing longer than I promised. I’ll see you at practice tonight.”

As the coach was reaching for the door to the athletic department property room, where Ted Hall was sorting football shoes, Andy took his father’s note from his shirt pocket and said, “If you’ve got time, sir, I’d like you to read this.”

“Your pet play that you dreamed up all by yourself, eh?” said Coach Dorman good-naturedly, and took the note. He read it, then glanced up with a puzzled look of inquiry. “Is this note to Mr. McCall, the principal, what you intended to show me?”

“Yes, sir,” said Andy. “That’s why I came to school early today. I mean, I promised my father that I’d talk it over with Mr. Stark before I dropped machine shop and took some one-hour subject in its place.”

Coach Dorman handed back the note—almost as if it were burning his fingers, Andy thought, and said, “Sorry, old man, but it is an unbreakable rule with me as a coach never to discuss a boy’s study schedule unless I am asked to do it by the head of the academic department. If you promised your father to talk this over with Mr. Stark, then keep your promise. But you’ll have to excuse me.”

It was one of the hardest things Andy could remember ever having to force himself to do. He looked squarely at his coach and said, “If I don’t report for football practice with the others at the end of the sixth period, sir, it will be because I will be in the machine shop for the seventh and eighth.”

Coach Dorman shook his head, said, “Sorry, no comment,” and left Andy standing there with his father’s note in his hand.