Read Football Champ for Free Online Page A

for.”
    “You can’t run it in,” Seth said. “They’ll have a safety on either side.”
    “I won’t run it,” Troy said.
    The referee set the ball on the three-yard line and signaled Seth to get going.
    “You’re talking in riddles,” Seth said, scowling.
    “A throw back,” Troy said. Everyone would go to the right, but they’d send just one player back to the left, a classic trick play.
    “To who?” Seth asked.
    “The kicker,” Troy said.

CHAPTER TWELVE
    “ TATE? WELL, I DON’T call you a football genius for nothing,” Seth said, grinning again and nodding. “They’ll never pick it up. Go!”
    Troy sprinted out to the huddle. As he went to the line, Troy couldn’t help glancing up at Jamie Renfro. Like the rest of the Dragons crowd, the Renfros were on their feet. Troy wanted to win for a lot of reasons. He wanted to be a star player. He wanted to be noticed by coaches and college scouts. But he also wanted to show Jamie Renfro and his coach-dad how foolish it had been to sit Troy on the bench all season.
    The fans in both bleachers cheered wildly now, and Troy had to shout. He drew the play in the grass for his teammates as he spoke, then looked at Tate.
    “Tate,” Troy said as loud as he could, looking intoher big dark eyes, “you fake the kick, actually swing your leg. I’ll pull the ball at the last second and you take off into the end zone. They’ll all come for me, and you’ll be wide open.”
    “Me?” Tate said. Her eyes widened and glistened at him like glass.
    “You can do it,” Nathan said, slapping her shoulder pad.
    Tate rolled her lower lip under her upper teeth but nodded.
    Troy broke the huddle. They jogged to the line. Tate set her kicking tee down in the grass and marched off her steps. Troy knelt down over the tee and looked back at her.
    Tate smiled weakly. Troy smiled back and winked with an affirmative nod. He turned and signaled for the snap. It came like a bullet. Troy snared it and rested it on the tee for a split second before pulling it up just as Tate swung her foot.
    From the corner of his eye, Troy saw his line collapse and a blur of red surge at him like a typhoon. He tucked the ball, jumped up, spun around, and sprinted for the right side of the end zone. The Dragons came fast. The safeties covered the ends, sticking to them like glue, but that’s where Troy kept his eyes, knowing that if he looked at Tate it might give the trick away.
    He was nearly to the sideline with defenders all around him and no chance at running into the end zonebefore he cranked his hips and head around and set his feet to make the throw. He held it as long as he could, then launched it an instant before being buried in red. Little comets of light exploded across his field of vision, then went out. In the darkness at the bottom of the pile, Troy grunted in dismay.
    When he’d let the ball go, Tate was nowhere to be seen.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    AS HE FOUGHT HIS WAY up through the pile of bodies, Troy heard the explosion of cheers. He batted another arm off his face mask, stepped on someone’s leg, and tripped forward out of the pile like a zombie breaking free from his grave.
    There, in the end zone, atop the shoulders of the entire team, Tate sat with one hand holding up the ball and the other pointing a single finger to the sky. The scoreboard confirmed it for him. Somehow, from somewhere, Tate had caught his pass in the end zone for the two-point conversion. The Duluth fans poured over the fence, swarming the end zone. The Tigers were in the championship!
    As Troy ran for the melee, Seth scooped him up, holding him by the waist, hollering and spinning him in acircle as he sliced into the middle of the Tigers players and fans. When they reached Tate, Nathan was already there, holding her up. Troy flung his arms around them both, hugging them and screaming with joy as they, and the players and coaches beneath them, collapsed into a pile of laughing, bellowing winners.
    After a minute