Soccer Halfback by Matt Christopher

Author:Matt Christopher [CHRISTOPHER, MATTHEW F]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780316095877
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2009-12-19T05:00:00+00:00

10

Maybe they were right. Maybe he should quit soccer and shift to football.

He thought about it as he lay on his back in his room later that evening. It was a small room, containing just his single bed, a small desk, and two long shelves under the wide windows. The shelves were filled with books and magazines his parents had started to subscribe to for him when he was seven years old. One of the magazines, Nature Life, still came.

He thought about the rugged game he had played that day. Practically knocked himself out running up and down the field. And being bushed when he had attempted that goal.

Pete was right. You do an awful lot of running in soccer.

But you also run a lot in football. If it wasn’t running, it was guarding, or tackling. But it wasn’t as fast a game as soccer.

When you boys were born he bought a football and a helmet for each of you: his mother’s words rang again through his mind. That was indication enough that he wanted both of you to play the one sport he liked best. And Jabber, though you can do what you want, remember that sport wasn’t soccer.

He had loved his father. John Morris was a strong-willed man who didn’t smoke or drink. He had laid down a law in the house that he expected to be obeyed. But he was also as warm and gentle as he was strict. He took the kids to circuses, carnivals, rodeos, and sports events. He bought them candy, ice cream, hot dogs, and hamburgers. What he didn’t do was give them money freely. He didn’t believe in that. “You’ll learn the value of money when you get older and have to work for it,” he had said.

Restless, Jabber turned and lay for a while on his stomach. Pete and his mother had made him feel guilty. If you don’t play football you don’t love your father. That was what they were telling him.

They were so wrong. He loved his father as much as they did.

He just didn’t care for football.

He took the wallet out of his pocket and looked at it again. It was like some vial of poison in his hand. He wished he had never seen it, never picked it up.

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