Fritz was supposed to pick me up soon. I sent him a text to tell him to meet me at school with someone to drive my car back home. I didn’t want to show everyone that I had a driver and security people around me when I wasn’t at school. It was something Fritz had warned me about. We didn’t need to let the bad guys in on too many of our security measures.
“Okay,” I said, which shocked Jeff.
I bet he expected me to kick him out. Instead, we walked up to my apartment. Of course, Duke had abandoned me for Peggy and the boys. Bandit seemed to know he was being filmed because he made a lot of racket until I picked him up. It was either that, or he’d seen me get out his pet carrier and was politicking for me not to stuff him into it. Bandit might not appreciate all the travel, but he’d be with Halle soon, and I was sure he’d survive it.
The camerawoman filmed me finishing packing for my trip while Jeff peppered me with questions. The plan was for Chuck to come over and get our bags before picking us up to go to USC. He was also tasked with catching Bandit and putting him in his pet carrier. I thought about leaving the little beast free but was afraid he would decide to hide from Chuck. Before we departed, I put him in Duke’s crate.
I put some clean game clothes into a duffle bag and took my new posse to grab a car to drive to the game. Now, I had to choose the Jeep or my Demon. I debated the merits of both. Did I want to look like an ordinary high school kid and drive the Jeep, or out myself and drive the Demon? I saw that there were child car seats in the back of the Jeep. That decided it. I would just have to take the Demon. I shook my head when I realized I’d been fooling myself. There had never been any debate. I would pick the Demon to drive ten times out of ten if I had a choice. That was unless it might get dirty or rained on.
The camerawoman looked confused when she saw that my car came with racing seat belts. When I’d gotten it, that was the way the driver’s seat was set up. Dodge had used it as a test car. When my dad had added the passenger and back seats, he’d followed their lead. I thought it brought the coolness factor up a notch to explain that my car was so powerful, you couldn’t ride in it with regular seat belts. The camerawoman wasn’t as impressed as I was.
When I fired the Demon up and let the beefy motor idle, I glanced back and saw Jeff smiling. Maybe it’s just a guy thing to enjoy a muscle car. I was tempted to show them what it could do, but I figured my mom would see this footage at some point and didn’t want to deal with the fallout. When we got to school, I didn’t hesitate to take up two parking spots. I didn’t trust the dumbass teenage drivers not to ding my car up before Fritz could get it safely back home.
As I got out, Cassidy came bounding up.
“Keys!” she demanded.
Against my better judgment, I gave them to her. I wasn’t impressed when she smoked the tires backing out. She gave me a sheepish wave to let me know everything was okay before flying out of sight. I had serious doubts about whether she would go straight home.
I changed into shorts and a t-shirt, and Jeff walked with me to the boosters’ building. Mrs. Sullivan greeted us and pointed us to a table. Mary Dole had volunteered to help cook tonight. She made an Asian fried chicken that had been marinated in ginger, fish oil, and soy sauce, and then breaded in seasoned flour. It might have been the best fried chicken I’d ever eaten. She’d nailed the crunchy exterior and left the chicken moist. I made a mental note to steal this recipe.
◊◊◊
Jeff had asked me what I thought the score would be. He’d laughed when I said it very well might go to overtime and that we might not score more than forty-two points combined. Deep into the first quarter, it looked like neither team stood a chance of scoring three touchdowns.
It became apparent that Mt. Vernon’s offense wasn’t going to do anything, so Coach Hope had ordered me to the sideline. Coach Mason had the offense gathered together.
“This game is going to be determined by turnovers, penalties, and special teams,” he told us.
I believed him. Our first two possessions, we’d gone three and out. I felt we had the superior kicker, and Derek Hofmann was winning us the field-position battle so far.
“We just need to put together a drive,” I said.
The problem we were having was that their defensive line was made up of small, quick guys. If our linemen could block them, they were toast. The problem was, their quickness allowed them to avoid our blocks. There were times when I had four defensive linemen in my face. Even Captain Chaos had problems when that happened.
“Make them stand their ground,” a voice from the back said.
Both Coach Mason and I turned around to see who had said it. It was my brother Phil. Coach Mason chuckled.
“Out of the mouths of babes … He’s right. We’ve been overthinking this. We run right at them,” Coach Mason said.
