For my Friday reading group at

  Woodlin Elementary—

  Aaron Boissiere

  Adam Levy

  Andrew St. Clair

  Jacob Wexler

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  The Real Story

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  CHAPTER 1

  Tim Beeman stared down the Hilton Prep track. Fifty yards, he thought. Fifty yards and a chance to show everyone what “the new kid” can do.

  At the starting line, Mr. Salerno, the physical education teacher, instructed the runners: “Beeman and Bland, you’re next up. Butler and Cavanaugh, get ready!”

  Tim shook out his arms and legs. Even though it was still summer, the morning air held a taste of fall. He ran in place for a few seconds, lifting his legs almost to his chest.

  Tim slipped his feet into the starting blocks and placed his fingers along the starting line like an Olympic sprinter. Nice and smooth, he reminded himself. No need to rush things. You’ve got plenty of speed. You can show all these Hilton kids what you can do.

  Tim looked down at the composite surface under his feet. It’ll be fun to run on a nice track like this. His arms and legs tensed as he waited for the call. Two more teachers, Mr. Rivera and Mr. Carpenter, stood fifty yards down the track, holding stopwatches.

  “On your mark…get set…go!”

  Tim burst out of the blocks, leaving Bland in his dust. At ten yards he was moving at full speed—legs churning, arms pumping, feet barely touching the track. Tim felt the wind in his face as he ran toward the bright light of the early morning sun.

  As Tim flashed by Mr. Carpenter, he heard the click of the stopwatch. Tim slowed to a stop some twenty yards past the finish line, took a deep breath, rested his hands on his hips, and turned around.

  Mr. Carpenter stood next to Mr. Rivera. They were both staring at the watch. Then the two men looked at each other.

  “Would you mind running that again?” Mr. Carpenter asked Tim.

  “Sure, no problem.”

  “Whenever you feel ready.”

  Tim walked slowly back to the starting line. I must have run a pretty good time if they want me to run it again, he thought. He stole a glance at the other runners waiting to race. They looked pretty impressed with “the new kid.”

  “Let Beeman run it again!” Carpenter shouted to Salerno. “After he catches his breath.” Mr. Salerno waved in agreement.

  Tim could hear the line of runners buzzing with talk about his run.

  “Man, Bland looked like he was running in cement.”

  “Beeman must have beat him by twenty yards…easy.”

  “He was really flying!”

  “Did they tell you your time?” asked a kid near the end of the line.

  Tim shook his head. “They just told me to run it again.”

  A short, chunky kid grabbed Tim by the shoulders and shoved him into the front spot in line. “Take my place,” he said. “I’m not running against you. No way. You got some serious speed. You’ll make me look like a complete loser. Even worse than Bland.”

  “All right, Fullmer and Beeman,” called Mr. Carpenter. “Next up.”

  The second race was just like the first. Tim was at top speed within a few strides and flashed across the finish line in a blur. That one may be even faster, he thought as he heard Mr. Carpenter click the stopwatch.

  This time after Tim slowed down, he took a moment and looked around the Hilton Prep track and football field. The concrete stands looked like a miniature professional stadium, a lot nicer than the field at Tim’s old school. A big scoreboard proclaiming that it was “A Gift from the Viking Class of 2009” stood blank at the back of the end zone.

  Tim turned around. Again the two coaches were huddled over the stopwatch.

  “Hey, Beeman!” Mr. Carpenter called out. “Do you always run like this?”

  Tim shrugged. “I guess. I’ve always been pretty fast.”

  “Pretty fast?” Carpenter repeated. “Kid, you just set the school record for the 50-yard dash for a freshman.”

  “Really?” Tim knew he was fast but…a school record?

  “Yeah, really. That record has been around for something like ten years.”

  Tim smiled to himself. Maybe a record in the 50-yard dash will make some of these stuck-up Hilton kids notice me. I might even get on one of the teams.

  So far, being a ninth-grade “new kid” was no fun. Tim hardly had anyone to talk with and nobody at Hilton knew who he was. But maybe that was about to change.

  After a quick shower, Tim got back into his Hilton Prep uniform—khakis and a dark blue golf shirt with the Hilton Prep insignia on the front pocket.

  As he walked out of the locker room, he glanced up at a big board that listed the Hilton Prep running records by class. A piece of masking tape had already been placed over the square for the freshman 50-yard dash. It read: Timothy Beeman 6.10.

  Freshman Boys

  50 Yards

  Timothy Beeman

  6.10

  100 Yards

  Justin Caldwell

  10.52

  200 Yards

  Walter Chwals

  22.29

  The other kids coming out of the locker room noticed it too.

  A tall boy stopped right next to Tim. “Hey, look,” he said. “A couple of days in school and this guy’s already on the big board.”

  “Right,” the boy standing behind him said. “Beeman’s the man…the new champ.”

  “What else can you do?” asked the tall boy. “Leap tall buildings in a single bound?”

  Tim smiled. Looked like things were changing already. He wished he could tell his mother.

  CHAPTER 2

  Tim looked across the Hilton Prep lunchroom and felt a familiar nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach. The first couple of days he’d sat alone, eaten quickly, and headed straight to the library. This is the worst part of being the new kid, he thought. Figuring out where to sit at lunch.

  “Hey, Tim!”

  He barely heard the voice over the noise of trays clattering and kids talking.

  “Hey, Tim. Over here!”

  Tim spotted Marquis Newhouse, the kid who sat behind him in Ms. Lin’s math class, standing and waving him over to the other side of the room. Tim weaved his way through the crowd of ninth and tenth graders, dodging their lunch trays. He finally reached the edge of the big room.

  “I figured you could use a place to sit,” Marquis said as he pulled out a chair. “The lunchroom is the worst.” He gestured toward a girl sitting at the table. “You know Sophia Singh? She’s the math whiz of the ninth grade.”

  Sophia made a face like she was tired of people talking about how smart she was.

  Tim set his lunch tray on the table and sat down.

  “Have you figured out this place yet?” Sophia asked, changing the subject.

  “Not really,” Tim admitted. “It’s tough learning everybody’s names. And it doesn’t help that just about everyone is wearing the exact same outfit.”

  Marquis took over, pointing around the room with his fork. “All right, we’ll give you a quick rundown. The athletes sit in the middle of the lunchroom by teams—”

  “You have figured out that Hilton Prep is a huge sports school, right?” Sophia interrupted. “Jocks rule.”

  “No question about it,” Marquis continued. “Football is king, so those guys sit right in the middle. Basketball is close by. Then baseball.”

  “The lacrosse guys are over there,” Sophia said. “They think they’re hot stuff, but—”

  “But they’re just guys who aren’t big enough or fast enough to play football,” Marquis said, finishing her thought. “They sit a couple of tables away.”

  “What about the girls?” Tim asked. “Do they sit by teams too?”

  “Not as much,” Sophia explained. “Some sit with the guys they like, but mostly they sit with their friends. It can get pretty cliquish.”

  Tim unwrapped his sandwich and took a bite. He wasn’t sure he’d ever figure out his new school.

  “What about you guys?” he asked. “Do you play anything?”

  “Track and field,” Marquis said. “It’s not a big deal.”

  “That’s why we’re sitting back here in the corner,” Sophia explained with a laugh.

  “But you should come out for track,” Marquis continued. “It’s a lot of fun. And we need more kids.”

  “When are tryouts?”

  “No tryouts,” Sophia said. “Everybody makes it. Like he said, we need the kids.”

  “All sports start next week,” Marquis explained.

  “None of the official teams practice the first week,” Sophia said, shaking her head. “It’s like they’re trying to pretend Hilton isn’t a jock school.”

  Marquis laughed. “Yeah, right.”

  Tim went back to eating his sandwich.

  “Whoa, heads up,” Marquis said, sounding a little startled. “Hawk at eleven o’clock. Something big must be happening for him to come down off his mountain and into the lunchroom.”

  “Who’s Hawk?” Tim asked.

  “Coach Hawkins,” Sophia said in a low voice. “He’s been the head varsity football coach here for twenty-something years. He practically runs the place.”

  “Look, he’s coming over here,” Marquis said.

  “You’re kidding.” Sophia turned around in her chair to get a better look, then swung back to face them. “You’re right, he is coming this way. What could he want with us?”

  In a moment, Coach Hawkins stood above their table, dressed in pressed khakis and a blue Hilton golf shirt with “Coach Hawkins” stitched into the breast pocket. His shoulders were squared back and he looked Tim right in the eye.

  “Are you Timothy Beeman?”

  “Yes sir,” Tim answered. Coach Hawkins seemed like one of those guys you just had to call “sir.”

  “I’m Coach Hawkins,” he said, shaking Tim’s hand. “I’m the head varsity football coach around here. I’ve heard about you.”

  Marquis and Sophia looked at each other and then at Tim. Their jaws were almost hitting the lunch table in surprise.

  Tim didn’t know what to say so he let Coach Hawkins do the talking.

  “I heard you broke the school record for the 50-yard dash this morning during your PE class.”

  “What?” Sophia blurted out. “You didn’t tell us that!”

  “Well, he did,” Coach continued with a small smile. “Ran it in 6.10 seconds. It’s up on the big board if you don’t believe me.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Marquis said. “In 6.10?”

  Ignoring him, Coach got right down to business. “Ever play football, Timothy?”

  Tim shook his head. “Not really. I mean not on a real team. I’ve…you know…played touch football at the park. But my mom didn’t want me to play tackle.”

  Coach’s smile got bigger. “Maybe I can talk to your mother.”

  “Um…she died three years ago…when I was eleven.” Tim felt funny talking about his mother in front of kids he had just met. Truth was, he didn’t talk to anyone about his mom, except sometimes his dad.

  The news seemed to knock the coach off balance. “I’m…I’m sorry…really sorry to hear that. Maybe I could talk with your dad or—?”

  “Oh yeah,” Tim said quickly. “My dad likes football. We watch the games on TV and throw the ball around sometimes.”

  “How are you at catching the ball?”

  “Pretty good,” Tim said, trying not to brag. “I mean, if I can get my hands on it, I can usually hold on to it.”

  Coach Hawkins rested his hand on Tim’s shoulder. “That sounds good to me. Tryouts start on Monday. Coach Flores is in charge of the junior varsity. He can teach you how it’s done. We would love to see you out there. The Vikings can always use someone with your speed.”

  “Hey, man. Maybe you don’t want to be out there with all those big guys hitting you,” Marquis said in a low voice. “Stick with track.”

  “Son, Tim here is so fast, no one’s going to catch him.” Coach Hawkins laughed as he walked away.

  Tim took another bite of his sandwich and gulped down the last of his milk.

  Marquis leaned back in his chair. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You set the school record for the 50-yard dash. You have a personal interview with the Hawk in which he practically begs you to play football. And it’s your first week at Hilton Prep?”

  Marquis looked at Sophia. “Can you believe it? We’ve got us a celebrity here—an honest-to-goodness Hilton Prep celebrity—at our lunch table!”

  “Come on, it’s not that big a deal,” Tim protested.

  “It’s not that big a deal? The legendary Hawk came looking for you. He knows your name. Hawk doesn’t know me and I’ve been at Hilton since second grade.”

  “So are you going out for football?” Sophia asked Tim.

  “I don’t know.”

  Marquis frowned. “Are you kidding me?” he said. “Of course he’ll go out for football. At Hilton Prep, football is king!”

  CHAPTER 3

  “Hey Tim, could you bring me the cayenne pepper?” Tim’s father called from across the kitchen.

  “The what?”

  “The cayenne pepper. Look in the spice drawer.”

  Mr. Beeman stood at the counter staring at a cookbook as Tim rummaged through a drawer filled with spice containers.

  “Is it this red stuff?” Tim asked, holding up a small jar.

  “Yeah, that’s it. Great. Now set the oven at 375 degrees.”

  “What are you making?”

  “Pecan-encrusted tilapia,” Tim’s dad answered proudly. “The recipe sounds really good.”

  Tim wasn’t so sure. He preferred hamburgers or pizza to fish.

  But the dish turned out to taste a lot better than it sounded.

  “Hey, this isn’t bad,” Tim said after his first bite of the flaky fish.

  “You sound surprised,” Tim’s father said. “You didn’t believe your dad could do anything but make spaghetti or grill hamburgers. O ye of little faith.”

  The candles on the table flickered as the two continued eating and talking. Tim’s mother had loved candles at dinner, and he and his father still always ate dinner by candlelight.

  “How’s school going?”

  “I guess I’m getting used to it.”

  “Well, it’s only the first week. It might take a while.”

  “It’s kind of tough meeting kids,” Tim admitted. “Coming to the school in the ninth grade. I mean…everybody’s already in a group.”

  “How’s lunch period going?” Dad asked. “I remember that was the hardest when I moved. The big question was always ‘Who do I sit with?’”

  “I sat by myself the first couple of days but today I sat with Marquis and Sophia, kids from my math class.” Tim took another bite of the tilapia and continued. “Hilton Prep is way different from Central. Sports are huge at Hilton. Most of the kids hang out with their teammates.”

  “Maybe you should try out for something,” Mr. Beeman suggested. “Like track. You’ve always been a fast runner.”

  “Oh, that reminds me. They timed us in gym class today, and I set the school record for freshmen for the 50-yard dash.”

  Tim’s father almost dropped his fork. “You’re kidding me! What was your time?”

  “I ran it in 6.10 seconds.”

  “Whoa!” Mr. Beeman sounded impressed.

  “That should get you on the track team.”

  “Actually, the varsity coach wants me to try out for the junior varsity football team.”

  “You mean that guy Hawkins? I’ve heard he’s the head honcho in Hilton sports. What did you tell him?”

  “I told him about Mom.”

  “Did you tell him she was a doctor and treated a lot of kids who got hurt playing football?”

  Tim shook his head. “I didn’t go into all that. I just told him she didn’t want me to play football.”

  Tim and his father sat in silence for a while. It had been three years since Tim’s mother died of cancer. They’d stayed in their old house for a while, but this past summer when his father was promoted, they’d moved to another city. So now Tim was in a new school, a fancy private school. “A fresh start,” his father had called it. Lots of things were different at his new school and in their new house, but the reality of his mom being gone was always close by.

  Tim’s father finally took a deep breath. “One thing I’ve learned in the last three years,” he said in a soft tone, “is that it’s you and me now. We have to make our own decisions.”

  He pushed his chair away from the table and popped his last bite of fish into his mouth. “So what do you think?” he asked.

  Tim thought for a moment. “I’d kind of like to try football,” he said. “But I’m not sure. I mean, I’ve never really played the game.”

  “With your speed, the coaches will most likely put you at wide receiver,” his father said. “You could make a pretty good one.”

  Tim laughed. “Coach Hawkins said I was so fast they’d probably never touch me.”

  “That reminds me of your grandfather. He was a big fan of ‘Bullet Bob’ Hayes of the Dallas Cowboys.” Mr. Beeman smiled as he recalled the details. “Hayes was an Olympic gold medalist sprinter in the 1964 Games. Then he got drafted by the Cowboys in one of the later rounds. He was the fastest guy in football. Your grandfather said he was so fast nobody could cover him one-on-one. The teams started playing more zone defenses because of him.”

 

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