The Football Fumble, page 4
Luke took the book from Kat’s hands. He quickly flipped through the pages. He stabbed his finger at a page near the end and cried out, “Ah-ha! This is what I was looking for! This is the perfect trick play for right now.”
“What do you mean? The game is over!” Max said.
Luke pretended to read the page quickly. “It’s called icecreamarooski. According to the book, it’s hard to say but easy to do. ‘To execute an icecreamarooski, the entire football team should proceed at once to the nearest ice cream parlor. Once there, each member of the team should order a cone, cup, or sundae of their choosing!’ ”
“I’m in!” Nico said.
Luke said, “Me too. As long as we don’t have to get peas on top of the ice cream!”
Alice, Kat, and the rest of the football team broke out in laughter.
After putting away their equipment, the team headed to Annabelle’s. It took a little while for the whole team to order, but soon they were sitting in front of the store, slurping and scooping their way through their treats.
When they were done, Nico and Alice disappeared inside. When they came out a few minutes later, Nico was carrying something behind his back. Alice nodded to Kat.
Kat stood up and rapped her knuckles on the picnic table for attention. “As coach of the Franklin football team, I’d like to say we all did a great job today,” she said. “We didn’t give up when we were down, and we believed in ourselves enough to come back and win the game!”
The entire team cheered.
Kat continued. “But we also wanted to recognize someone who really helped us with the win by finding new ways to play smarter and not just harder. That’s why we’re giving the MVP Club’s first Football MVP Medal to Max!”
The team cheered again as Nico presented Max with a “medal” made out of a paper ice cream dish with a ribbon poked through it to hang around his neck. Alice had even used a small squirt of hot fudge sauce to write the words Football MVP in the center of the dish!
Max hung the medal around his neck. As he was doing it, his finger smudged one of the hot-fudge letters.
Max held up the messy finger and then put it in his mouth. He pulled it out with a pop!
A big smile crossed Max’s face. “I have to say, that’s the sweetest MVP medal I’ve ever tasted!”
FOOTBALL TEAMS. Football teams have eleven players on the field at a time. But teams have many more players than that, because they can swap players in and out. NFL teams can have fifty-three players on them! Most teams have three special groups of players.
SPECIAL TEAMS. Special teams are used for kicking plays. A kicker tries to kick the ball for field goal attempts. Punters kick the ball on a fourth down.
LINE OF SCRIMMAGE. The line of scrimmage is the imaginary line that runs across the field where the ball is placed before a play. Neither team can cross over it before a play starts.
FIRST DOWN. A team has four tries (downs) to move the ball forward ten yards or to score. If a team doesn’t move the ball forward ten yards by the end of the fourth down, the other team gets the ball. Flag football games can have a different number of downs and yards.
END ZONE. Football teams are aiming for the opponent’s end zone. The end zone is an area between the end of the football field (the end line) and the goal line, where the goalpost is.
KICKOFF. Football games start with a kickoff. Kickoffs are when one team kicks the football to the other team. The other team tries to catch it and run down the field with it. Kickoffs also happen after the half and before each overtime. Flag football games usually don’t have kickoffs.
SCORING. Touchdowns are when a team runs or passes the ball into the other team’s end zone. A touchdown is worth six points. A field goal happens when a team kicks a football through the goalpost at the end of the field. Field goals are worth three points.
SUPER BOWL. The Super Bowl is football’s championship game. It’s the final game of the NFL season and is played on a Sunday in late January or early February, so it’s known as Super Bowl Sunday.
SNAP. When a center (one of the offensive linemen) tosses the ball back to the quarterback at the start of a play, it’s called a snap. Usually they throw it back to the quarterback from a bent-over position. But they don’t have to throw it. It’s legal for them to hand it off or even roll it!
OFFENSIVE POSITIONS. The offense plays when a team has the ball. It’s their job to move the ball forward and score. Offensive linemen try to block the other team from reaching the quarterback. Backs and receivers run or catch passes. It’s the quarterback’s job to receive the ball on the snap and throw it, run with it, or hand it off.
DEFENSIVE POSITIONS. The defense plays when the other team has the ball. It’s their job to stop the other team from scoring. Defensive linemen are closest to the line of scrimmage. They try to rush the quarterback or stop running plays. Linebackers play behind them. They try to stop runners or intercept passes. Defensive backs play even farther back. They also try to stop runners and intercept passes.
Turn the page for a sneak peek at
Excerpt copyright © 2016 by David A. Kelly. Published by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
TWEET! A whistle pierced the sound of bouncing basketballs. It was Ms. Suraci, the school’s PE teacher and basketball coach. She walked into the gym carrying a clipboard and a backpack.
The MVP Club and all the other teams gathered around her. Ms. Suraci blew her whistle again and waved her clipboard in the air for quiet.
“We’ve got a busy basketball season this year,” she said. “Our first travel tournament is this weekend. It’s the Big City Basketball Blowout. The playoff game on Wednesday will decide whether the red team or the blue team goes this weekend. But we have lots of other tournaments scheduled, so all the teams will have a chance to travel.”
The kids clapped. A chant of “Red Team! Red Team! Red Team!” rose up from Jenna and the members of her team. Ms. Suraci waved the clipboard for quiet again.
“Listen, no one will be going anywhere unless we can raise some extra money for travel expenses,” she said. Ms. Suraci leaned over and reached into her backpack. “And here’s how we’re going to do it.”
She held up a shiny bag of popcorn. “We’re having a fund-raiser for our travel teams,” she said. “The school’s parent group has donated all this popcorn. You each need to sell as much popcorn as you can by the end of the week in order to have enough money for this year’s tournaments.”
Ms. Suraci opened a couple of bags of popcorn and passed them around. Everyone grabbed a few bites and chomped away.
“Mmm…this is good,” Kat whispered to Alice. “I’ll take some more!”
“What do we get if we sell the popcorn?” Tim Reagan on the gold team asked.
“Good question,” Ms. Suraci asked. “You get to play travel basketball!”
Everyone laughed.
Ms. Suraci rustled around in her backpack. “But we do have prizes, based on how much each team sells,” she said. “The team that sells the second-most popcorn wins five of these.” She held up a bright-green T-shirt. It had pictures of popcorn all over it.
“Wow!” said some of the kids.
“Neat,” Max whispered to Alice.
“But the team that sells the most popcorn wins these!” Ms. Suraci said. She held up a bright-green sweatshirt that read FRANKLIN BASKETBALL.
“I want that,” Luke said.
“But that’s not all,” Ms. Suraci said. “The person on the winning team who sells the most popcorn gets the grand prize!” She reached into the backpack and lifted up the coolest pair of sneakers the kids had ever seen. They had special black-and-silver soles, with red stripes running up the sides.
“Oh man, that’s great!” Peter Paterson from the purple team said. “Those look fast!”
“Hey, those are the brand-new ones that just came out,” a boy said.
“The winner of the contest will get a pair in his or her size,” Ms. Suraci said. “Tom’s Sneaker Store on Main Street is donating them. I wish we had enough for a whole team, but we don’t. If you want to win the sneakers, your team has to sell the most popcorn compared to other teams, and you have to sell the most popcorn on your team.”
The kids all rushed forward to inspect the sneakers and shirts. Max held up a T-shirt. “That would look great on you,” Kat said. Nico picked up a sneaker. It felt super light in his hands.
TWEET! Ms. Suraci blew her whistle again. “Follow me!” she called. She led everyone to her office. Ms. Suraci had a huge pile of popcorn bags in the corner.
“Everyone starts with thirty,” she said. “But if you need more, stop in and see me.”
Ms. Suraci handed out the larger bags full of single-serving popcorn packages. Each team stepped forward to get their popcorn, then ran outside to start selling it. The MVP Club’s blue team was last.
As soon as they got their popcorn, Max and Alice headed for the front door.
“Hang on,” Nico called. “Not so fast!”
The MVP Club looked at Nico.
“Why not?” Alice asked. “We’ve got to start selling.”
Nico waved his hand in the direction of the gym at the end of the hallway. “We will, but first, we should practice for half an hour,” he said. “After all, now we’ve got the gym to ourselves! And we need more practice before Wednesday’s game if we’re going to win.” A big empty gym was one of Nico’s favorite places to be in the whole world.
“Ugh!” Luke groaned. “Practice, shmactice! Everyone is out selling popcorn, and we’re not!”
“Yes, but we’ll be the ones winning the game on Wednesday and heading to the Big City Basketball Blowout this weekend!” Nico said. “It will be worth it. We’ll still have time to sell popcorn later. Come on!”
Nico led the MVP Club back down the hall to the gym. But as they got closer, they could hear that the gym wasn’t empty! Someone was shooting baskets.
“Hey, who’s that?” Nico said. “I thought everyone was gone!”
Nico ran to the doors of the gym and pulled them open. The MVP Club burst inside.
On the far side of the gym, there was a boy shooting baskets.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” Max called out.
The boy grabbed the ball and swung around. He stared at the members of the MVP Club for a moment.
Then he dropped the ball and took off running!
David A. Kelly, The Football Fumble
