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boy’s legs, searching for a break, but he found none. “Your boy’s going to be okay. Things like this happen all the time—.”
    Jenkins seemed about to say something else, but before he could speak, a soft moan drifted from the lips of the boy on the ground, and for the moment the argument was forgotten.
       “Is he all right?” Charlotte LaConner asked. She was standing up in the grandstands, shading her eyes against the late afternoon sun as she struggled to see what was happening on the field. In the row in front of her Elaine Harris turned and smiled encouragingly.
    “He’ll be fine,” Elaine replied. “He just wound up on the bottom of the heap, and Jeff knocked the breath out of him.”
    Charlotte opened her mouth to say something else, then changed her mind. The truth of the matter, she knew, was that she just didn’t like football. But in Silverdale that was the next thing to treason, and she’d long since learned to go to the games and cheer the home team on. Not that they needed much cheering, since the Silverdale team was one of the best in the state. Last year, in fact, the team had woundup in the state finals and lost by only a single point to a team from Denver.
    But why did the game have to be so rough? That’s what she didn’t understand. It all seemed so pointless to her. All she’d ever been able to make of it was two tides of humanity moving up and down the field in a series of plays that she failed to comprehend, much less enjoy. Still, Jeff loved the game, and since he’d become the quarterback last year, her husband had become almost a fanatic. Even she had to admit there wasn’t much else to do in Silverdale, so it was easy to understand why the whole town always turned out for the games, particularly since the team was very nearly certain to win. Indeed, she sometimes wondered if the town was so fanatic because the Wolverines were so good or if the team was so good because the town was so crazy about the game. But, it was a violent, dangerous game, and the clash of bodies on the field sometimes made her shudder. Now, as an ambulance came onto the field, her attention shifted back to the boy who still lay inert on the grass.
    It wasn’t just that he got the wind knocked out of him—they wouldn’t have called an ambulance for that. When Jeff fell on him, he must have gotten seriously hurt. Without thinking, she squeezed hard on her husband’s hand, and Chuck LaConner, knowing what was in her mind, returned the gesture.
    “It wasn’t anybody’s fault,” he assured her. “It’s just the breaks of the game, and you’ve got to get used to it.”
    But Charlotte shook her head. “I’ll never get used to it,” she replied. “Can’t we leave now?”
    Chuck stared at her as if she’d spoken in a foreign language. “Leave? Honey, it’s the first game of the year, and your son’s the star. How can you want to leave?”
    “But it’s over, isn’t it?”
    “Still a minute and a half to go,” he told her with an affectionate grin. “They stopped the clock at the end of the play. Look.”
    Charlotte gazed out at the field, and sure enough, theinjured boy had been put into the ambulance. As the ambulance left, the crowd shouted out a cheer for the fallen player. Then, almost as if nothing had happened, the two teams took up their positions for the final plays of the game.
    On the last play Jeff LaConner hurled a forty-yard pass for a final touchdown, and was carried off the field on his teammates’ shoulders as Silverdale’s supporters, their cheers a roar, rushed down from the bleachers to congratulate their heroes.
    In the stands Jeff’s mother remained frozen in place. What, she wondered, counted for more? The fact that Silverdale had won? Or the fact that one of the Fairfield boys was now in the hospital?
    It was Elaine Harris who finally provided her with the answer. “What are you doing still up here?” she asked, smiling broadly at Charlotte. “It’s Jeff’s