The Walk On by John Feinstein Read Free Book Online Page A

then.”
    “Explains what?”
    “You’re a freshman, you made the varsity football team, you think you’re God’s gift.”
    Wow, she was tough.
    “How do you know I’m a freshman?”
    “
Everyone
in that French class is a freshman,” she said. “Unless you flunked French One last year and you’re a sophomore.”
    “I didn’t flunk anything,” he said defensively as she grinned.
    They had reached the end of the hallway and someone was calling her name. Alex was relieved to see it was another girl.
    “You better go,” she said. “You don’t want to be late for practice.”
    Alex didn’t have a comeback for that. Christine’s friend walked up, didn’t so much as glance at Alex, and said, “Come on. Meeting starts in five minutes. Let’s go.”
    “Meeting?” Alex said, not wanting her practice crack to be the end of the conversation.
    “School newspaper,” Christine said. “If you aren’t a varsity athlete, last period is for study hall or student clubs and activities.”
    She smiled and her eyes sparkled again. “Maybe if you ever get to play, I’ll write something about you.”
    Okay, he figured,
now
who was flirting? He decided not to repeat that thought—he didn’t want to come across as a cocky football player—but still he couldn’t resist a comeback.
    “Maybe you will,” he said. “
If
I decide to let you interview me.”
    Her friend was tugging on her arm, but she clearly didn’t want to let him have the last word either.
    “What position do you play?” she asked.
    “Quarterback,” he said.
    She laughed. “Quarterback? In that case, I guess I won’t be talking to you at
all
. Unless I do a story on what it’s like to sit on the bench all season.”
    The look on Alex’s face must have given him away completely, because her gotcha grin faded. “Don’t feel bad,” she said. “You’re a freshman. Matt Gordon won’t be here forever.”
    She and her friend turned and walked down the hall.For a split second, Alex felt lost. Apparently, everyone in this school knew who Matt Gordon was and that he was
the
quarterback on the football team.
    He watched Christine Whitford disappear into the crowds and the hallway got noticeably darker.…

    When Alex walked into the locker room a few minutes later, it was already packed. The soccer team also used the locker room and this was the first day of soccer tryouts. Alex considered himself lucky to have an assigned locker, even if it was buried in the back of the room.
    Jonas was already in his practice gear—everything but shoes and socks, since he still had to have his ankles taped—when Alex came around the corner.
    “I was getting worried about you,” he said, looking up. “You get lost or something?”
    Alex shook his head. “No,” he said. “I was trying to talk to a girl.”
    That got Jonas’s attention. “Really?” he said. “How’d that go?”
    Alex put his hands together as if he were gripping a baseball bat and made a swinging motion. “I whiffed,” he said, even though he wasn’t completely sure that was true.
    “Really?” Jonas said again. “First day of school and you asked a girl on a date? You’re a lot braver than me.”
    “Nah, I’m not
that
brave. I was just trying to talk to her.”
    “So how do you know you struck out?”
    Alex shrugged. “I could just tell.”
    Jonas gave him a look. “Did she just walk away from you or did she talk to you?”
    “She talked to me. She said she could tell by the way I came up to her that I was a football player.”
    Jonas laughed. “Dude, you didn’t strike out. You just didn’t get up to bat yet.”
    Someone was bellowing at the front of the room. “All football players, check the depth chart on the wall by the door on your way out. Know which group you are with—ones, twos, or threes—before you hit the field.”
    Alex knew that ones were first-stringers, twos were second-stringers, and threes were third-stringers. Coach Hillier had said he’d be a