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regular Little League season. Only now, even after a full half against Midvale, it was as if the season had somehow started without them.
    When Mr. O’Brien finished talking to them, Ben went over to where Shawn was standing by himself behind the bench. Looking a little bit as if he was hanging his head despite what his dad had just told the team.
    â€œWe’re coming back, dude, no worries,” Ben said.
    Shawn said, “I stink.” At least he was consistent with that today.
    â€œAnd that would be a problem if the game were over,” Ben said. “Only it’s not. We’ve got a whole half to play.”
    â€œI stink and we stink,” Shawn said and walked away.
    Coop came over and said to Ben, “How’s the QB?”
    â€œSketchy,” Ben said. “ Very sketchy.”
    â€œWell,” Coop Manley said, “at least he hides it well.”
    Out of nowhere, though, Shawn got hot at the start of the second half. Got on one of those streaks where he did show off his arm. They had run a couple of plays on their first drive, but got into a third and ten, and Shawn hit Justin for a first down. Then Sam for a short gain, then Darrelle, then Sam again over the middle. Even the Midvale players acted surprised, like, where was this guy in the first half?
    Ben didn’t try to figure out why Shawn had found his touch all of a sudden, and maybe a little confidence, mostly because he didn’t care. All he cared about was that they were moving now. They were in the game.
    Finally Shawn threw a short pass to Ben, who caught the ball in the right flat and didn’t stop running until he was at the Midvale nine. Coach came right back to the play, and Ben was open again, but this time Shawn overthrew him. Badly.
    Ben came back to the huddle and tried to make a joke out of it. “I’m too short for a lob pass,” he said.
    â€œI am a total loser today!” Shawn said.
    Like all the passes he’d completed on the drive suddenly didn’t matter, like all it took was one bad throw to stop believing.
    â€œDude, relax,” Ben said. “We’re still gonna score. Those guys on defense must feel like they’re a car going in reverse.”
    Ben thinking that he’d added one more position to all the others Coach said he was going to play this season:
    Cheerleader.
    â€œDude,” Ben said, “it’s just football.”
    â€œTo you, maybe,” Shawn said, and then told them the play his dad had just sent in from the sideline.
    It was a draw play to Darrelle. Even though a defense usually has to be expecting a pass for a play like that to work best, Coop opened up a huge hole and Darrelle ran through it and the game was 12–6, where it stayed after Darrelle got stopped trying to run for the conversion. At this level of Pop Warner, hardly anybody was a placekicker yet, so teams always tried to either run or pass for two points.
    But the Rams were on the board, that’s what mattered. As they lined up for the kickoff, Ben said to Sam, “Our stupid alarm just didn’t go off when it was supposed to.”
    Sam grinned. “Don’t you just hate when that happens?”
    It became a defensive game after that, neither team being able to move the ball, Midvale’s Eagles still ahead by a touchdown until the last play of the third quarter, the Eagles punting from their forty-yard line. But their kicker, who didn’t have nearly the leg that Sam did, hit this low, wobbly line drive that Ben read all the way, the way he did sinking line drives when he was playing the outfield. Got a great jump on the ball, caught it in perfect stride, already at full speed, just short of midfield.
    He was halfway to the end zone from there before the guys trying to cover the punt for the Eagles realized how fast the play — and maybe the game — was going the other way.
    The punter was the last guy with a chance as Ben angled toward the right