Sugar glanced at Charlie and then smirked at Cotton. “That all something your mom told you?”
Cotton groaned. “Always with the mom. And no, it’s something anyone who knows the history of the world could tell you.”
“Okay,” Charlie said. He held up his hands. “I’m sold. Sugar, I’ll let you know how it is.”
Molly raced out of the house wearing inflated water wings so big her arms stuck almost straight out from her sides. She climbed onto the arm of Charlie’s chair and dropped knees first at his stomach. He caught her before impact.
She raised both hands and widened her eyes.
“Monsters,” she whispered.
“Nah,” Cotton said. “Charlie killed those.”
“Get in the water,” Charlie said. “They don’t like water.”
So Molly did.
As the sun set over the Gulf of Mexico, two half brothers, one half sister, one step–second cousin, three moms, one former foster mother, and two stepdads raised glasses of wine and water and milk and cran-apple juice and root beer to the memory of a man who had hurt most of them.
But even out of him, good had come.
And when the sun did set and the moon rose, and the guests left that big white beach house and her husband was reading a book to her daughter, Natalie Mack wrapped herself in a sweater and walked out on the beach.
Her son limped after her. He put his arms around her while the wind pulled at the blond hair piled on her head, and he saw that her freckles were wet.
“Mom,” Charlie said, “I don’t know that I’ve ever thanked you.”
She looked at him. “For what?”
“For keeping me safe when it was bad. For Mack. For Molly.”
She leaned against him.
“For everything,” he said.
And like a younger Mrs. Wisdom, she kissed him on the head.
Charlie Reynolds sprinted onto the field and didn’t slow down until he reached the huddle. He heard his mom’s sharp whistle. He heard Molly call his name. And then the huddle broke and he ran to his position split out wide by the sideline.
Sugar stood not ten yards from him, wearing his college hoodie.
“Speed, bro,” Sugar said. “You got it.”
Cotton was assessing the defense before bending down behind the center. He was cupping his hands and shouting down the line, pretending to call an audible. He loved doing that, but right now Mack only allowed him one audible per quarter.
“Twain! Twain!” Cotton shouted. “451 Bradbury!”
The other school’s fans had started their slow chant back up.
“Homeschool … Homeschool … Homeschool …”
Cotton loved that, too. He was done with his act. He slid under the center. Charlie’s eyes were on the ball. It snapped back into Cotton’s hands, and Charlie exploded off the line. He jab-stepped in, slapped his defender’s arms away, and then looped outside and accelerated. Another defender was racing over to help. Charlie heard the crowd inhale. He looked up and saw the ball high in the lights. It was soaring. Too deep.
Inside, Charlie scrambled for another gear, a gear his body knew was possible, an echo of the speed he had once felt when he was younger and the muck was new beneath his feet.
He found it. His legs churned. The teeth on the bottoms of his shoes barely touched down, but they tore the earth. He was flying now, pulling away from boys who wore a different color.
The crowd was on its feet, but Charlie only saw the ball. Thousands of voices unified in one growing swell of expectation, but Charlie only heard his own breathing.
He dove, and floated through the air like he was made of sparks.
Because he was.
Thanks to my lovely Heather Linn, who kept the spark of this story alive for too many years, and to Rory D, who devoured the first manuscript.
Thanks also to Liza McFadden, the Barbara Bush Foundation, and Celebration of Reading for all they have done for literacy, and for getting my feet planted in Florida for the first time.
Thanks to Judy Sanchez and U.S. Sugar for toting me out into the cane harvest and letting me play with fire while getting in the way of their amazing operation.
Thanks to Mary Ford for getting me onto the Pahokee sideline for the Muck Bowl.
Thanks to Captain Dan for the Swamp Boatery, and to Dane for falling in amongst the baby gators.
Thanks to my pops for first introducing me to Beowulf and the growling rhythms of Anglo-Saxon, and for his own brilliant verse-rendering.
Thanks to the rabbits.
Thanks to the runners.
Thanks to the One who invented quick and fire and heat, who beats the hearts and sends the breeze.
(Oh, and to Jim Thomas, because something tells me we have not yet begun to fight.…)
N. D. WILSON is the bestselling author of the Books of the 100 Cupboards, the Ashtown Burials series, and Leepike Ridge. Once, in the fourth grade, he split his buddy’s arrow while shooting at a mattress from twenty yards. Now he writes at the top of a tall, skinny house, where he lives with a blue-eyed girl he stole from the ocean, their five young explorers, two tortoises, and one snake. For more information, please visit ndwilson.com.
N. D. Wilson, Boys of Blur
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