Fantasy League by Mike Lupica

not that you asked,” he said. “And no one would want to read it if I did.”
    He and Anna were in his room, sitting on the floor, all set up with his new microphone and headphones, and GarageBand installed on his laptop to do their first podcast.
    â€œThat’s where you’re wrong, Sparky,” she said.
    â€œI hate when you call me that, have I mentioned that to you?” he said. “Sparky sounds like a puppy.”
    â€œYou hating it is why I do it, silly,” she said, making that sound like the most obvious thing in the world. “Besides, you know how much other kids bug you for your fantasy picks? Now everybody is going to want them.”
    â€œEverybody,” he said. “You make it sound like we’re going to have a bigger audience than one of those singing shows.”
    â€œI always thought you should be putting your picks out there,” she said. “You know as much as the guys on the fantasy football shows on TV.”
    â€œI like sharing picks with you, not strangers.”
    â€œDon’t worry,” Anna said. “You will.”
    Their parents, all of whom loved the idea of the podcast—Anna’s mom even suggested they should try to get school credits for it—helped with the cost of a real radio microphone and brand-new headsets. For the past few days, Anna had been trying to explain the process of a podcast to Charlie, but to him it was the same as if she were trying to explain how to take his laptop apart and put it back together.
    They had already done some practice episodes and played them back, listened to them. Anna graded them like a hard teacher grading papers. But they had been good enough that Anna had now started promoting
The Charlie Show
on her Facebook page, even counting down the days to it.
    Some of the practice episodes had been with Charlie alone, some with him talking to her once in a while. Finally Anna had decided—who else was going to decide?—that on the first official episode the only voice anybody would hear would be Charlie’s.
    â€œIt’s the world premiere!” she said. “We’ve got to make sure they know who the star of the show is.”
    â€œYeah,” he said. “All eight people who will be listening.”
    â€œI don’t need any of your attitude, mister,” she said.
    â€œBut if I ask you to talk, you will, right?”
    Anna said, “I guess I could say a few words, if asked nicely.”
    She said that because it was still the preseason, one more game before Week One of the regular season. This would be a good chance for them to really see what worked on the show and what didn’t. They had agreed that the first part of the show would deal with the Bulldogs, looking back at last week’s game and ahead to the next one. The second part would just be stuff from around the league that Charlie found interesting, his opinions about the biggest games and biggest stories of the previous week.
    The last part of the show—Anna described it as “wait for it, I’m Charlie and I’m awesome”—would be Charlie talking fantasy football, including some of the picks he expected to make for the regular season.
    â€œOnce people figure out how good you are at this, it’s going to be
huge
,” she said. “Thing could go viral by the second week. Now relax. Just pretend you’re talking to me and have fun.”
    â€œWho said talking to you is fun?”
    She gave a whoop of laughter and punched him in the arm, did a check of the microphone, put her fist back out but just to get some pound from him this time.
    â€œLet’s do this,” she said.
    And they did, Charlie pretending he was hosting one of those pro football shows on ESPN. Except he was hosting it from his room. Anna had said they could take breaks if they wanted to, and they did after the first segment, Charlie saying he thought he wanted to have her voice in the