Captain Nobody Read Online Free Page A

we ran out of hot dog buns. And coleslaw. And napkins.
    â€œIt’s Chris Newman’s last football game!” shouted our neighbor Mr. Hennessey between bites of his cheeseburger. “We wouldn’t have missed it for the world!”
    As Dad worked the grill, he kept checking his pager and answering his ever-ringing cell phone. “Come on down!” he told everyone who called. “The more the merrier.”
    While arranging trays of chips and dips, my mother muttered, “I wish I could remember where I put the egg rolls.”
    â€œMom,” I said, “they already ate the egg rolls.”
    â€œWell, no wonder I can’t find them!” She sighed. “I was afraid I was losing my mind.”
    I carried the chip trays through the growing crowd. Most folks helped themselves without interrupting their conversations. Once in a while, though, someone would look down and notice me. Then they’d all ask the same question.
    â€œHey, Newt! You must be so excited for your brother, huh?”
    â€œYeah. Real excited. You want a chip?”
    And I was excited. I swear. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I should be home, making a costume for Sunday night.
    At seven o’clock, the Fillmore High School marching band paraded through the parking lot and into the jam-packed stadium. We shut down the barbecue, loaded all the picnic stuff into my parents’ SUVs and took our seats.
    As usual, my mom and dad had reserved a section halfway up the bleachers on the fifty-yard line where they could be surrounded by tons of neighbors and friends. I had a ticket for a seat somewhere in the middle of that mob, but as more and more people crammed in around Mom and Dad—hugging and chatting and eating and drinking—I found myself being squeezed out of my place, squished down the row, and squashed onto an end seat next to a very large lady, who jumped to her feet and shrieked like a fire engine during the opening kickoff. When she sat back down without looking where she was going, she just about flattened me. I scooted sideways in the nick of time . . .
    . . . and landed— splat! —in the aisle.
    I didn’t really feel like fighting my way back to my seat. Halloween was still on my mind, so I wandered down the aisle and leaned against a railing. I watched the game with glazed eyes, worried that I was totally going to disappoint my only two friends in the world.
    But then things began to happen on the field that made me forget my Halloween blues.
    For three years in a row, the #1 defensive end in the county has been this guy from Merrimac High named Reggie Ratner. Reggie weighs about two hundred and eighty pounds and has a neck as thick as a telephone pole. My brother used to joke, “Reggie Ratner looks like a concrete truck with hair.” In the two previous years’ games, Reggie had chased my brother all over the field, but he’d never been able to bring Chris down, not once! So the day before this year’s Big Game, the headline in the Appleton Sentinel asked, “Will Ratner Finally Get Revenge?” In the article, Reggie was quoted as saying, “You watch. I’m gonna snap Chris Newman like a day-old breadstick.”
    From the opening drive, it looked like Reggie was determined to keep his promise. The Fillmore Ferrets tried their best to control him, but time after time Reggie broke through two, three, even four Ferrets and charged after my brother. In every case, though, Chris was able to hand off the ball or pass it at the last possible second. Reggie actually got so frustrated at one point that he yanked off his helmet and smashed it to the ground.
    â€œCrybaby! Crybaby!” yelled the Fillmore fans.
    â€œCrush him, Reggie!” shrieked the Merrimac fans.
    It went on like that, with both teams bashing each other senseless for the first two quarters. Fortunately, as the halftime horn sounded, the Fillmore Ferrets were leading,