The League by Thatcher Heldring Read Free Book Online Page A

into the room. “So there
is
a secret. I knew it! Are you in trouble? Did you get a new girlfriend? Is Sara mad?”
    “Scram,” said Aaron. “Now.” He looked over at me. “Both of you.”
    “Hey! We had a deal.”
    Aaron pushed me and Kate out of his room and shut the door. “Deal’s off,” he said from the other side of the wall.
    “I’m not giving up!” I yelled back. “I will learn the truth!”
    “The truth about what?” Kate asked.
    “The truth about nothing,” I said.
    “If it’s nothing, why can’t you tell me?”
    “Because I don’t even know it,” I shot back, leaving her alone in the hallway.

    The next day at school, Francis caught up with me at my locker. “What are you doing Saturday?” he asked.
    “Not sure,” I said with my back turned. “Why?”
    “The amateur golf championship is about an hour north of here. I know they’re not pros, but some of them will be soon. We can say we saw them before they were famous.”
    After zipping up my backpack, I faced Francis. He looked like a dog that wanted me to throw a ball. I wished he would go with his dad without asking me. “You want to just go to the golf course and watch other people play?”
    “Yeah,” said Francis. “We’ll follow the players along the course. Sometimes they sign autographs. There’s food too. It’s a lot of fun.”
    Why couldn’t I just tell Francis the whole truth right then? That I didn’t think the golf tournament sounded fun. That I didn’t want to go to golf camp or play in the father-son tournament. That I didn’t even like golf. It would have been the right thing to do, but I was too afraid of hurting his feelings, so I lied.
    “Sure,” I said. “That sounds like fun.”

CHAPTER NINE
    On Saturday morning I got on my bike to ride to Boardman Park. McKlusky had invited me on Friday night to play football with him and some of the other guys from school. I told him yes right away, and I was glad I did. It was the first Saturday in June, the sun was out, and I was going to do what I wanted to do.
    Mom found me in the driveway. She was just coming home from an overnight shift at the hospital. Aaron was lifting weights in the garage.
    “Where are you going?” she asked me.
    “To meet some friends.”
    “How nice,” Mom said. “I’m going shopping, but I’ll be home by two. Call if you need anything.”
    Aaron sat up on the bench. “That’s it?” he asked. “You’re not even going to ask him what he’s doing? You don’t let me go anywhere without asking me what I’m doing.”
    “We trust Wyatt,” said Mom.
    “Real nice,” Aaron grumbled, lying back down.
    Sometimes it’s easier being the good one
, I thought as I rode away from the house.
    As the sun burned through the late-morning clouds, I coasted down the windy road that twisted and turned under the shade of giant elm trees. I pedaled past the grandstand where the Pilchuck All-Stars were warming up for a baseball game, rode over the footbridge that crossed the stream, and followed the path toward the back of the park. That was when I saw McKlusky and Caleb.
    They were standing with two small groups on a grassy field. Caleb was holding a football.
    “Hey, Wyatt!” McKlusky called with a wave as he came running over. “You made it! So, you want in?”
    I slid off my bike seat and straddled the crossbar with my feet on the ground. “Is there room?” I asked, watching Raj and Khalil placing cones at either end of the field.
    McKlusky nodded. “We’ve got nine. If you play with us, we’ll have even teams. We were going to play with a permanent quarterback, but it’s morefun the real way.” McKlusky held up two hands. “I mean, two-hand-touch real. Not tackle real.
    “I know it’s kind of lame,” McKlusky said as we hustled over to the other guys. “But if we play tackle, then the team that has Khalil just hands it off to him every time because nobody can bring him down.”
    I ended up on a team with Caleb, Khalil,