Yard War by Taylor Kitchings Read Free Book Online

out of the way or die.
    “Touchdown, Rebels!” I flung the ball in the air.
    “It worked!” yelled Kenny, like the plan had been for him to drop the ball and kick it the wrong way.
    We had to make this extra point and the game would be tied. This time Dee played center and snapped me the ball. I pretended to hand it off to him and he ran outside to the right and took Stokes and Andy with him, while I walked into the end zone. Kenny ran like he had the ball, which was not part of the plan, and when he got across the goal line, Calvin landed on top of him. We call it “getting Calvined.” It hurts. We had to wait for Calvin to push himself off the ground before we could see Kenny again and know that he was all right.
    Nighthawks 28, Rebels 28. The next touchdown would win the game, it was our turn to kick off, and we hadn’t stopped them from scoring yet.
    I got everybody into a huddle.
    “Listen up, y’all. This is it.”
    “What’s the plan?” asked Dee.
    “No plan. I’m going to boom it all the way down to the other end of the yard and we just have to stop ’em.”
    “We can’t,” huffed Kenny, still catching his breath from being Calvined.
    “This time we will,” I said.
    “We could call it a tie and do something else,” Kenny said.
    “No we couldn’t.”
    “It’s just a game,” he said.
    “No,” I said, “it’s not just a game.”
    He would have been right any other day. Winning isn’t usually that big a deal. You cheer for your side, make fun of the other team, and get something to drink. But today we had to win because
Dee
had to win. Then nobody could say he didn’t deserve to play with us.
    Kenny made a fake whistle noise and raised his hand in the kickoff signal and brought it down. I ran to the ball.
    I tried to kick it too hard, like I do everything too hard, and got my foot too far under it, and it hung in the air like a wounded duck, barely past midfield.
    Calvin was watching it come down, waving his arms for a fair catch.
    “You can’t fair-catch a kickoff!” screamed Andy.
    Calvin turned around to Andy and the ball bounced off his head right into Dee’s hands. Dee streaked downfield and crashed into the end zone. Rebels 34, Nighthawks 28, Roses –5.
    “Rebels win! Rebels win!” Kenny was spinning like a crazy person with his arms stretched out.
    “Woo-hoo, mercy!”
I yelled.
    The Nighthawks were standing around looking at each other like they couldn’t understand what had happened.
    “No fair!” Calvin yelled.
    “Once it goes ten yards, it’s anybody’s ball, remember?” Dee said.
    “Yeah, but…he went too fast!” Calvin said.
    Some of the roses were just bent and some were all the way torn off. I checked the house to see if Mama was watching and told Dee it was okay, that it had happened before. I hid the broken ones in the pine straw and propped up the others. Then I put my arm around his shoulder and held up the ball like a trophy.
    Andy was so mad, he was almost crying.
    “Dee can haul butt.” Stokes was still panting. “I’ll grant you that.”
    “Dee!” At first I thought Willie Jane was cheering along with us. “Dee! Come here right now!”
    He ran to her. What could be wrong?
    She pulled him in close. I only heard “Now get on back to work.”
    “What’s going on?” I asked him when he walked back.
    “My mama said you need to go see your mama, and I need to get back to work.”
    Mama was pouring iced tea into some glasses on a tray.
    “Listen, Trip, Meemaw’s dropping by to show me some fabric.”
    “Fabric?”
    “Who knows, we might also talk about what kind of Halloween treats she’s going to make this year.” She looked at me with her eyebrows up and her lips tucked in, like I was supposed to get all excited about Halloween treats. “Now I need you to—”
    “Mama, Dee just won the game for us! How come he has to start raking again?”
    “It would be best if Dee did what he was hired to do. Your grandmother does not need to see