Chapter
1
Splaaaaatt!
Eddie Becker grabbed my football jersey. “Okay, Jigsaw. This is it. Tie score,” he urged. “If they score a touchdown now, we lose the game. You know what’s coming, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” I grimaced. “Bigs Maloney, right up the middle.”
Joey Pignattano squeezed his eyes shut. Joey didn’t want any part of tackling Bigs Maloney. I didn’t blame him. We’d been trying to bring down Bigs all afternoon. It was like trying to tackle a refrigerator.
Ouch. Even my bruises had bruises.
I was so black-and-blue, I looked like a grape. I’d had enough football to last me through the winter—and it wasn’t even Thanksgiving yet.
Bobby Solofsky clapped his hands together. He shouted, “All right, let’s win this game!” Solofsky was quarterback for the other team. He stood over the ball. Ralphie Jordan got set, waiting for Bobby to hike the ball. Ralphie was playing wide receiver. He was faster than a text.
Joey Pignattano, my teammate, lined up opposite Ralphie. “You wouldn’t hurt a guy with glasses,” Joey bleated.
I stood across from Bigs Maloney. It was my job to cover Bigs. After all, no one else wanted to do it. Bobby called out the signals, “Ready, set, green thirty-nine! Blue twenty-six! Orange-orange, green-green. Hut-one, hut-two, hut-threee…”
“Oh, just hike the ball already,” Eddie complained.
I glanced warily at Bigs. No, smoke didn’t pour from his nostrils. Horns didn’t grow from his head. And Bigs didn’t wear a ring through his nose. But in every other way, Bigs resembled a bull in a rodeo, busting to break loose. He was getting the ball, all right. I knew it. He knew it. Everybody on the planet knew it. I bet even the little green men on Mars knew it.
Bigs Maloney was going to take the ball, and he was going to run right over me.
And like a rubber dummy, I was going to try to stop him. I knew something else, too. In about ten seconds, I was going to be flatter than a tortilla at Taco Bell.
Who invented football, anyway?
“HIKE!” Bobby yelled.
Ralphie sprinted down the sidelines, arms waving. “I’m open! I’m open!”
Bobby faked a pass to Ralphie.
“Watch out for the Quarterback Sneak!” Eddie called out.
Suddenly, Bigs circled back and took the handoff from Bobby. It was the Statue of Liberty play! Bigs wrapped two thick arms around the ball. He cradled it to his belly. Bigs pawed the ground, snorted, and charged.
Where was a red cape when I needed one?
Aaaaaaargh!
Whap, kersplish, oof, splaaaaatt!
The next thing I knew I was lying flat on my back. Dizzy, I stared at the spinning sky. A few clouds floated past. They were white and fluffy. One even looked like a wittle, itty-bitty bunny wabbit. Off in the distance—far, far away—I heard Bigs Maloney rumble into the end zone. Or maybe it was a herd of rhinos tap-dancing on my skull. I wasn’t sure.
Joey knelt beside me. He poked at me with his finger. “Jigsaw? Are you okay?”
I blinked. At least my eyelids weren’t broken. “Anybody get the license plate of that marching band? I think I was just trampled by a tuba.”
“Don’t try to talk, Jigsaw,” Joey said. “You’re not making sense.”
Ralphie and Bigs gathered around me. “S-s-sorry, Jigsaw,” Bigs stammered. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s just that you were sorta in my way. Do you think you can walk?”
“Sure I can walk,” I muttered. “You put one foot in front of the other.”
“Can you get up?”
“Don’t be silly, Bigs,” I said. “Of course I can. But right now I’m doing my impression of highway roadkill. I’m pretending to be a chicken who tried to cross the road at the Daytona 500. What do you think?”
Ralphie whistled softly. “I think you look like the agony of defeat.”
“I think you look like road pizza,” Bobby observed.
“I think you need a hand,” Joey said. He reached down to help me up. And that was all anybody needed to know about Joey Pignattano. He’ll help you up when you’re feeling down.
Copyright © 2001 by James Preller
