Freddy Plays Football by Walter R. Brooks Page B

heavier than the boy, so the boy sat down hard.
    Freddy helped him up. “Oh, it’s you, Jason,” he said. “I’m sorry; I was thinking.”
    â€œWell, you sure get quick results,” said Jason. He was going over to the athletic field for football practice. “Everybody’s so discouraged that I don’t suppose there’ll be many out. I hope there’ll be enough of the scrubs to give us a workout. Come on along.”
    So Freddy went. He sat on the sidelines and watched the boys go through their signals, and then when seven or eight of the scrubs showed up, the coach, Mr. Finnerty, lined them up against the school team. But they weren’t strong enough to be much good. The coach danced around and yelled at them, and went in and played different positions himself but even he, when the scrubs had the ball, couldn’t gain a yard, and when the team had the ball it might as well, Freddy thought, be playing against a lot of field mice.
    A cold wind had sprung up, and Freddy slipped into Jason’s sweater which was lying beside him. There was a padded headgear on the grass, and pretty soon he put it on to see what it was like. And he had just adjusted it to fit him when Mr. Finnerty came over to him. “Hey, you—whatever your name is,” he said. “Get up and get in there. —Go on, no back talk!” he shouted, as Freddy tried to explain. “I didn’t get you boys out here to sit and watch the grass grow.” He grabbed Freddy by the shoulder and pulled him up. “Go in there with the scrubs, at left tackle.” And he gave the pig a push.

    Pretty soon he put it on to see what it was like.

    â€œOK,” said Freddy to himself. “Why not?” He knew quite a lot about the game from having watched it so often, and he ran out and crouched down in position just as Jason dropped back to kick. He watched the ball, and the second it was passed he plunged forward.
    Now Freddy was not large, but he was compact, and weighed nearly twice as much as Henry James, the right tackle opposing him. And of course he was closer to the ground, particularly as he ran on four legs. Henry went right up in the air, and Freddy ploughed on, sideswiped another player and sent him sprawling, and hit Jason just as the ball touched his fingertips. Jason went down and the ball rolled off to one side where it was captured by one of the scrubs.
    It was first down for the scrubs and they yelled their heads off. Freddy helped Jason up, and the boy grinned. “You been thinking again,” he said. Then the coach came up and whacked Freddy on the back.
    â€œYou boys,” he said, “that’s the way I’ve been telling you to keep down when you hit the line. That was the prettiest blocked kick I ever saw.” He swung Freddy around to face him. “You haven’t been out before, have you? I’d remember you if you had.” A startled look came over his face. “What—ah, what is your name?”
    â€œFrederick Bean,” said Freddy.
    â€œBean,” said the coach. “M-hm.” He backed away slowly. “Well—er, Frederick, I hope you’ll come out regularly. If you keep doing as well, I’ll put you on the team.” He had stopped looking at Freddy; he rubbed his chin and shot quick glances at the pig from under his eyebrows. Then he suddenly shouted: “Well, come on! We’ll let the scrub have the ball. They won it. Let’s see what they can do with it.”
    Freddy was pretty sure that all the boys knew that he was a pig. Indeed, he knew most of them to speak to. But he was sure that they wouldn’t say anything. Nobody raises objections to having a good player on his team. And for the same reason, Mr. Finnerty wouldn’t say anything either. So he buckled down and played hard. Of course he wasn’t any good at catching or throwing passes, and anyway, he needed all his legs to run with. But