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of apples.
    “Here,” Ned said, making two lines of apples in the middle. “This is what the teams look like. And see, if I am here and I —”
    “Hold up,” said Granddaddy. “You’ve got that all wrong. Now, I —” Granddaddy leaned over. “Oh, this won’t do. Help me down to the ground, will you? Gentle, now. I don’t bend so easy as I used to.”
    Ned turned over the apple barrel and helped Granddaddy sit on it. Granddaddy kicked a pile of apples out of the way with the toe of his boot and picked up a stick. He pointed at the field.
    “First thing you got to remember is . . . Well, tell me how the pickup games work. How are the boys playing?”
    Ned pondered this.
    “I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, I’m not playing. They just play like football is played. They line up facing each other. Someone hikes it to Burton. He runs. Clyde’s team chases him. They tackle.”
    “That so?”
    “Sure,” said Ned. “That’s what the game is about, Granddaddy. You got to get the guy down before he gets to the end zone.”
    “If that’s all there is to it, Ned, then why do you need so many fellows to play the game?”
    “That’s what makes me mad. Burton should let everyone play. Doesn’t matter how many are on a team.”
    “How big are Burton’s and Clyde’s fellows?”
    Ned scoffed. “Big. That’s all they care about. Who’s tallest. Who’s biggest.”
    “Tall and big aren’t everything in football.”
    “Sure they are,” said Ned. “They even let Theo play and he’s in fourth grade. It’s only because he’s the size of an ox.”
    “It’s just as good to be quick and to be able to throw and catch as it is to be able to tackle.”
    Ned thought about his toss. Maybe there was hope yet.
    “Strategy just means giving each player a job and figuring out how to get the ball to the end zone. There’s more than one way to catch a fish.”
    Granddaddy pointed to one of the apples with his stick. “Say you did pick up a team. This is you. And these here are Burton and his team.
    “You’re going to have the ball. Burton’s fellows are in your way. They are all going to focus on tackling you, right?”
    He drew a line from the Ned apple to another apple. “Here’s one of yours.”
    “Ralph,” said Ned.
    “Ralph. He’s a back. Say he comes running by and you hand him the ball without Burton’s team noticing. Now they’re all after you and no one is paying attention to Ralph. So he runs around them and heads for the end zone. Touchdown.”
    “Huh,” said Ned. “I never thought of it like that. But what if they do see Ralph?”
    “You’re the quarterback. It’s up to you to check whether they see Ralph or not. If they do, you
pretend
to give him the ball, then throw it to an end instead. That’s the fellow who has been lined up on the end of the row. He should be one of your fastest players and a good catch. He’ll run around Burton’s players and look for you to throw him the ball, because you told him ahead of time to do it. The rest of your boys need to block Burton’s players, keep them away from the player with the ball.
    “It’s called a play. This is strategy. Like checkers. You’ve got to imagine what the other team is going to do and make a plan to outsmart them. You need your noggin more than a barrel chest.
    “Your throwing arm is a valuable thing in football. If you can throw the ball to a player down the field, it will get there a whole lot faster than if you run with it.”
    Ned studied the apples. He took his quarterback apple and made it plow into the center player in the other apple lineup. Strategy was good for touchdowns, but mowing down Burton Ward would feel even better.

“Ned! Ralph! Wait up!”
    It was Tugs, coming out the girls’ door at the back of the building, with Aggie Millhouse and Felicity Anderson. Gladdy was trailing along.
    “Tugs and them are walking me home,” said Gladdy. “I’m going to show them the sparrow nest Betsy Ann and I