[WIZARD24: Chapter Eight]

Ding-dong.

I heard footsteps in the house, then someone yell “Got it!”, then someone, a deeper voice, yell, “You better have clothes on this time!” and then, as the door swung open, “For God’s sakes, Joseph…”

Joseph, the younger resident of the household and the person I wanted to talk to, darted up the stairs. I could see why the man, who I assumed was his dad, had been angry with him, as Joseph was only wearing underwear. That’s not the best way to open a door… I thought, as the man started talking. “Sorry, what were you saying?” I asked. “I was asking who you wished to speak with,” the man said in a gruff tone. “I would like to see Joseph, if you don’t mind,” I said. After I said this, Joseph came back down the stairs, wearing a sloppily thrown on shirt and khaki pants. “Hello,” he said quietly. “Hi. Um, I was wondering if I could talk to you about something?” “Uh, yeah, I guess,” Joseph said as he stuck a finger up his nose. “So, you want to be a detective when you grow up, right?” “Yeah…” “And I heard a rumor that you’re practicing by keeping video of what goes on in the neighborhood?” “Yeah…” “So, um, do you happen to have tape of Friday afternoon? Something happened, and I want to see if I can gather any more information about it.” “Nope, sorry, I only take video in the morning. In the afternoon I upload it to my computer and analyze it, then at night I write down notes for the next day.” “Oh. Well, I’ll be going then,” I said. “Wait…you’re that kid, right?” “Um…what kid?” “The kid who that kid’s living with.” “Am I the first or second kid?” “First. The second is that kid who showed up a couple weeks ago out of the blue.” “Oh, Shane? What about him?” “Well, people don’t normally appear out of nowhere…” “We found him passed out in a park, and took him in,” I said, giving him the bare minimum to get out of the conversation, but he would not budge. He wanted more details, and we went outside to continue talking. I was worried that someone - namely Jake or one of his friends - would see us. Someone did see us, and that was Shane. He came over to join the conversation. “Well, look who it is,” Joseph said. He and Shane sat down and started talking to each other, and by the time they had finished, Joseph probably knew more about Shane than Shane knew about himself. We went back to Yates’s house, where we crashed for the day.

We were just hanging out at Yates’s house when Dustin realized he had forgotten something at our house. We decided to just all go back, though Yates wanted to stay home. As we walked back, the bushes shook, and out leapt Jake. I stepped between him and the kids and sighed. “What do you want, Jake?” I asked, taunting him by emphasizing his real name, not his preferred nickname of “Snake”. “Fresh meat, eh?” he growled at me, nodding toward the kids, who were huddled together, discussing something. “Yeah, I do think there’s fresh meat at the butcher, but that’s beside the point,” I said sarcastically. Jake did not think this to be very funny, and grabbed me by the collar. “Look, either you get out of the way or we have a problem,” he growled into my left ear. I refused to budge. This resulted in a right hook, which would’ve hit my ear had I not ducked out of the way. Quickly instructing Graham where to lead everyone, I ran around a parked truck. Stopping behind the truck, I watched out the rear windshield as Jake looked around. He turned around to walk toward the kids, which is when I ran out from behind the truck to try and protect them. He wheeled toward me.

“Hey!”

I looked toward Graham, who had shouted out. “What if we settle this with a game?” We hammered out the details, deciding that each side would have a week to gather teams for a football game to be played in Randol Mill Park. I was in charge of set-up, officiating, and, well, everything else. Jake was in charge of “beating us”, or so he said. We shook hands, and Jake left to go back to his house. I stood outside with the kids, who quickly decided they would be more useful as cheerleaders than as players. We were about to go home when someone came up to us and stopped us. “Hey, wait,” the mystery person called out. I turned to see a tall, stocky guy heading towards us. He looked like a football player, and he was exactly that. “I’m Kane,” he said, “I go to Martin. Anyways, I saw that kid picking on y’all and I wanted to see if I could help.” “Well, we decided to settle the fight with a football game in a week, if you would like to play for my team.” “Count me in!” he said. “Hey, mind if I come with y’all? I need to get to know people around here,” he said shyly. I decided to let him tag along. When we got inside the house, we sat down to talk about the details of the football game. I told him where and when to be there, and he told me he would make plans to be there and call me if anything came up. After he left, we realized how tired we all were, so the rest of the day was just us relaxing. We all went to sleep extremely early, with myself the last to nod off at about 8:30.

The downside of going to bed early, of course, is waking up early, which I did at about 4:50. Managing to grab some clothes, change, and sneak downstairs, I called Yates. He sounded tired, but said to call him back later, when he would really be awake. I was a little tired also, so I took a long nap, sleeping this time until 7:30. I called Yates again; this time, he was awake, and I easily convinced him to join our side for the game. Throughout the day, I contacted other friends; of these, Conrad joined the team, but Cooper and Carson were going out of town, as was seemingly everyone else I called or texted. I decided to just make do with the four I had, hope Jake didn’t have any more than that, and move on to the other areas I was in charge of. I went to the YMCA and asked if they could send a couple referees over for the game, and they agreed to do so if they could put up a couple banners around the field. I then called the park to rent out the space, and got everything figured out by Wednesday afternoon.

I spent the next few days going over strategy with my team. Kane would be our lineman, Conrad would be a receiver, Yates would play wherever, and I decided to split time between quarterback and receiver. We made it clear that we would play hard, but follow the rules. I figured the officials would be fair, and call us (Jake’s team, more likely) on any rule violations. Our game plan was to use a bunch of short pass and outside run plays, and defensively to hang back in coverage while Kane tried to get to the quarterback. Jake was a tight end and linebacker, so we had to wait to find out who the QB would be for their team.

We showed up the day of the game, and there was a good amount of people there. Parker and Ben joined Graham, Shane, Brady, and Dustin on the sidelines to cheer on our team. Jake’s team had only one fan, Piper, but they did have a decent team of three players. Jake was there, obviously, and the rest of his roster filled out with his neighbor Shane Cozart, an eighth-grader who also played tight end and linebacker, and Jared White, a Lamar student who didn’t play football, but was also one of Jake’s friends. I figured he would play quarterback. They had no lineman to match Kane, so he had a clear path to the QB after the three-second count we mutually decided to enforce.

It was quite the game. Jake’s team, surprisingly, didn’t play maliciously, and the lead flipped back and forth many times. With a minute to go, I called timeout. I called for a surprise play in which Yates would line up at QB, and Kane would run out for a pass. Conrad and I would line up out wide, but then come in to block. It worked to perfection, and we got to the three-yard line. The next play, we lined up normally, with Yates beside me as the running back. I took the snap, faked a handoff, and ran with the ball. Conrad was open in the corner, so I passed to him, and…he caught it to give us the lead for good!

After the game, we all met at midfield. Everyone was incredibly tired, so I had no worries about Jake or anyone else picking a fight. “Well, you know the deal. No picking on anyone in the neighborhood until next year,” I said. Jake did not like that he had lost, and he did not like that he had agreed to our terms - in my defense, a loss would’ve meant five rounds with him in a boxing ring, so I figured four and a half months without bullying us would make the deal even. Jake started to say something, but then thought better. “Fine,” he sighed as we shook hands. The rest of the day, like the previous Monday, was simply a rest day for all of us, as not only was I physically tired, but our cheerleading squad of Shane, Graham, Brady, and Dustin was also exhausted from yelling and running around trying to catch all of the action. In fact, until the school year started, there wasn’t much going on, other than my dad constantly being out of the house. I figured something was up, and my suspicions were confirmed when he finally came home and, as usual, pulled me aside for a chat…