Part 9 (1/2)

”That was not,” he said, in the same clipped tone, ”the topic I a.s.signed you.”

For a second I couldn't figure out what he was talking about. Then I realized what he meant.

”Oh,” I said. ”Right! I'm sorry. That's my fault, Mr. Morton. I'd already read Beowulf ”-I thought it safer to say this than the truth, which is that I hate Beowulf. You never know with lit teachers...they can be really touchy about that kind of thing-”so we traded topics with someone else. Is that not allowed? I don't remember hearing you say so.”

Mr. Morton frowned. Clearly I'd stumped him. Because he'd never said anything about trading topics being a no-no.

Still, that wasn't the only thing he was sore about.

”Did you work with your partner at all on that proposal?” he demanded.

My partner?

Then I remembered. Lance. Of course.

”Sure,” I said, lying through my teeth. ”He helped gather some of the source material-”

”I highly doubt that,” Mr. Morton said. He was totally outraged. I could tell by his eyebrows, which were way lowered. An older guy-well past retirement age, if you ask me-Mr. Morton's eyebrows were gray, like his neatly trimmed beard.

”I a.s.signed you to work with a partner for a reason, Elaine,” he said severely.

”I'm sorry,” I said, truly taken aback. Teachers never yell at me. I'm pretty much a model student-like with my driving. I'm afraid to break the law. Mostly. ”I...um...we...uh, we divided the paper up. I wrote the proposal, and he's supposed to do the oral report-”

But Mr. Morton wasn't falling for it. He said, ”When I a.s.sign you to work with a partner, you're supposed to WORK WITH THAT PARTNER. You and Lance are to be together. I am not accepting your proposal.”

This caused me to make a shocked noise, because no teacher had ever rejected anything I'd ever written before.

But Mr. Morton didn't seem to notice my shock, since he went on with, ”And on Monday morning, I want to have a word with both of you. I'll expect to see you and Mr. Reynolds in my cla.s.sroom, first thing. You can let him know when you see him.”

I was stunned. What was this all about?

”All right,” I said.

I said ”all right,” but I wasn't feeling all right. I was definitely freaked. How had he known? How had he known Lance and I hadn't worked together on the proposal?

By the time I got back to my seat in the bleachers, I had calmed down a little...but not much.

”Where're the dogs?” Liz wanted to know, when I slumped down into my seat beside her. And that's when I realized I'd been so upset over my conversation with Mr. Morton that I'd forgotten to get the hot dogs.

”Sorry,” I said. ”Listen to this.” And I told them both what Mr. Morton had said to me. ”I mean, can you believe it?” I asked, when I was done describing what had happened. ”Does he have a reputation for being a stodgy old crank? Mr. Morton, I mean? Or is it just me?”

The question had been rhetorical. I'd fully expected them to say, ”Oh, yeah, he's a crank.”

But they didn't. Stacy went, ”I don't know. Everybody has always seemed to love Mr. Morton.”

”Yeah,” Liz said. ”He's been voted best teacher every year since he started at Avalon, practically. And everybody gets a real kick out of the way he says 'Excalibur.'”

”Really?” I found this extremely hard to believe.

”I don't get why you're so mad,” Stacy said. ”I mean, he's practically ordering you to spend more time with your loverboy. Where's the tragedy in that?”

Liz laughingly agreed. ”Seriously,” she said. ”I'd pay cold hard cash to be told to spend more time with Lance Reynolds.”

I slumped in my seat. There was no point in telling them that my lack of enthusiasm at having Lance as a research partner stemmed from my being completely in love with his best friend.

So I just shut my mouth and didn't say anything for the rest of the game....

Until, sometime in the fourth quarter, when the teams were tied at twenty-one, something weird happened. At least, I thought it was weird. Not having been to a football game before, maybe it happened every day. Who knew?

But I did see exactly how it happened, because it involved Will, so I'd been watching closely. Will had called out some numbers and someone had snapped him the ball. He'd run with it for a few feet, looking for someone to throw it to.

Then something happened that hadn't happened at any time before during the game: Lance wasn't there to keep Will from getting tackled. Instead, Will got hit, hard, by a member of the opposing team.

Seeing this, I gasped and leapt to my feet, then looked around accusingly for Lance. He came running over from where Jennifer Gold was standing on the sidelines.

Jennifer Gold? What had Lance been doing, chatting up Jennifer Gold while Will was getting the snot knocked out of him?

I wasn't the only one who was appalled. The Avalon coach whacked Lance on the back of his helmet as he went racing to Will's side. A lot of whistles got blown, and the guy who'd tackled Will peeled himself off him. Lance fell to his knees beside Will's crumpled-oh, G.o.d! Don't let him be dead!-form, ripped off his own helmet, then leaned over to grab the front of Will's uniform, calling his friend's name.

I watched, my heart in my throat, not realizing I'd been holding my breath until a second later, when Will started, slowly and painfully, to get up.

Then I let out my breath in a whoosh and, my knees too weak to hold me up anymore, sat down....

To find both Stacy and Liz staring at me with their eyebrows raised.

I felt myself blus.h.i.+ng, and hoped they wouldn't notice in the darkness.

”I had no idea football was so exciting,” I said lamely.

A second later, with Will seeming to have brushed off Lance's apologies with a good-natured laugh, the game started again.

Only this time, no one got close to tackling Will. And the guy from the opposing team who'd knocked him down before? Well, first chance he got, Lance brought him down so hard that the game had to stop again, and the guy had to be removed from the field on a stretcher.

One thing was for sure: n.o.body was going to hurt A. William Wagner and get away with it if his best friend Lance had anything to say about it.

Avalon won by seven points. The crowd went nuts.

And then it was time for Will's party.