Catch Him
Jack and I sat side by side in the classroom, waiting for the lesson to start.
After all that talk of rugby, I had expected him to be buzzing. Instead he sat sunk in thought. I could not have said how long we stayed like that before he dropped his voice, as if he were about to spill some tremendous secret.
"Hey. You know that thing you said you set up."
"What thing?"
"The magazine and the shop. What you mentioned earlier."
"Yeah."
Jack glanced around, just in case. Only after he had made sure no one was there did he ease his mouth open.
"That's Queensman?"
I nodded.
"Ultimate... that came out of there, didn't it?"
"It did."
"So the place with a line out the door every single day... you made that?"
Had he heard a word the first time?
His mouth fell open all over again, freshly stunned. So much for the claim that nothing I did could surprise him after Korea.
"How did you even pull that off?"
"Good question."
"Then this thing with Guccio is going to be a huge hit too, right?"
"...?"
"Everything you touch turns into a smash."
Praise is awkward when it is said straight to your face. Jack meant it kindly. I was only mortified.
Fortunately, the teacher chose that exact moment to walk in.
First period was economics. It was our homeroom teacher's class, so now and then he came in about five minutes early to pass along announcements. Today was one of those days.
"We are going to elect a first-year student council president. If anyone wishes to run..."
He did not get to finish.
"I'll run!"
A hand shot up. Julian Burnett, who never could resist shoving himself to the front.
"Candidates don't announce it here. Bring your platform to my office. Understood?"
In any case, rugby was the only thing on my mind.
When was PE again?
All I was doing was waiting for the hour they would turn us loose on the field.
Meanwhile, the PE teacher Devon was living through days of pure boredom.
He had come back to England after a glamorous—allegedly—life in America, and the dull grind of teaching had him crawling out of his skin.
Nobles, my ass. I should have just joined an NFL team.
A second-round pick, from what he had heard, got treated well enough.
He clicked his tongue.
Making a roster did not mean you succeeded. Even so, watching the men from his draft class light it up left a quiet ache. It was not really envy of them roaming the field. What he missed was everything that came after the whistle—the drinking, the singing, the delirious parties.
America... how I miss you.
The staff room was empty besides.
"Haaahm!"
Devon yawned wide enough to unhinge his jaw. He thought about sleeping, but he had a class the very next period. Looking for something to kill the time, he scanned the desk and lifted one magazine from a stack piled thick.
Queensman.
If he had to name the single thing that kept him upright through this tedious teaching life, it was that. Whoever had made it knew what he was about. It had distilled nothing but the things that drove men wild, and it was not vulgar for it, either. It carried a dignity no noble would be ashamed to be seen with. The copy had gone to rags from how many times he had been through it.
Nothing else to do.
Devon stuck a lollipop in his mouth and swung his feet up onto the desk. He was just about to sink into the reading when a voice came over his shoulder.
"Sir."
He turned the chair. A giant pushing two meters stood there. The face rang a bell.
"Second year. My name is Ralph."
The boy bowed before anything else.
"I came because there is something I would like to suggest."
"A suggestion?"
"Yes. You are the faculty advisor for the rugby club, aren't you?"
"Am I?"
"Yes, sir. You are."
Hmm. Now that he thought about it, that did sound familiar. On the day trouble had broken out between the first- and second-years, someone had asked him to scribble some scrap of an opinion. Whatever feeling he had had for the business dropped clean away after that, and he had put it out of his mind. A bit rich, then, to show up now and call him advisor.
"So?"
"What, you want a legal way to beat somebody up?"
"Sir?"
Ralph tilted his head as if he had no idea what that meant.
"Drop the innocent act. Shoulder in, jaw cranked—you are trying to wreck somebody, aren't you?"
"I-I don't know what you mean, sir..."
Devon did not answer. He only stared, and Ralph hurried on as if that were an explanation.
"The rugby club has almost no freshmen... I came to ask if you might set a little time aside for us, so we could get to know one another."
"Why aren't there any applicants?"
"A small misunderstanding, between the two sides..."
"A misunderstanding?"
"..."
"Not my business. Go."
Ralph was pushing two meters himself.
"Well? You leaving or not?"
In front of Devon, whose forearms were the size of bowling balls, he had no choice but to tuck his tail.
At last the PE period I had been waiting for arrived.
They had actually taught for the first month. After that, the class was nothing but free exercise, every time. I had assumed a school for nobles would be all riding and canoeing. The refined sports, as it turned out, mostly belonged to the girls. The boys threw themselves into rugby.
I, of course, had slipped out of it until now, sticking to runs and bodyweight work and training mostly on my own. So when I stepped forward, everyone looked baffled.
"I'll play."
Fortunately Jack stepped in and settled it.
"A new recruit is always welcome. Right?"
"Yeah. All right, then."
Of course I knew far too little rugby to be playing a match. Forget tactics. I was not even familiar with the names of the positions. Maybe Jack could tell. He came over quietly.
"It's nothing."
"...?"
"When I throw the pass, you run. No matter what. See that? All the way to the end."
I nodded.
"You charge their trench. That's the mindset!"
The army again?
"Remember. You cradle the bomb and throw your body into their lines!"
Not one person, though, looked ready to agree with Jack's theory of rugby.
The match was seven against seven. This was not the rugby club. It was fourteen boys from a single honors class, out there to play. The level could not possibly be high. Even so, maybe because most of them were nobles, their understanding of the game looked solid enough.
The whistle split the air, and the match began.
"Hold the wing!"
"Clear out!"
"Stick! I said stick to him!"
I could not have said how the first five minutes passed. Everyone tore after the ball in a herd, and all I managed was to run with them. What counted as defense? What counted as attack? From off the pitch it had looked clear enough. The moment I stepped onto the grass, the view narrowed.
The good news was that as time went on, the tempo, the paths the ball traveled, and the places the defense bunched all started to come into focus. After that I did not need Jack's calls. I held the spot where the ball was likely to arrive, gave a little twitch, and somehow managed to disrupt their push. Slow an attack and a reckless pass is bound to come. Sure enough, Jack took the gap and snatched the ball.
They walled him in, but he sold the run again and again—feint, feint—and then whipped the pass my way anyway.
"Run!"
He roared it so loud that people clamped their hands over their ears.
I took off with everything I had. Running, I trusted. Better than a straight sprint, even, I was used to cutting the way I did in soccer, knifing through the gaps between opponents. A defense that could simply grab you was another matter. Every instant I fought to keep my spacing, and more than once my breath caught. But once my speed was all the way up, staying with me was close to impossible. Someone cried out behind me. It did them no good.
By the time about ten minutes had passed, we were pouring in points, utterly one-sided. Maybe because I kept finishing the attacks. Complaints broke out from every direction.
"You said it was your first time!"
"How many has he scored on his own?"
"Does this even make sense?"
"You two on the same team is cheating."
The other side was trying to split Jack and me apart when a booming voice carried in from far off.
"Who is whining like this on a sacred pitch?"
Devon, of course. The man who usually tossed them a single ball and then lay on the bench watching clouds. Maybe that was why everyone went awkward the moment he came over.
"What beginner?"
The boy who looked the most wronged answered him.
"No, it's just—we put him on Jack's team because they said it was his first time. His skill doesn't make any sense."
"And that means you whine?"
"I wasn't whining."
"What's your name?"
"Gary, sir."
"And you?"
The other one who had been griping right alongside Gary. James Bernard.
"J-James, sir."
"You two, out. I'll take that spot. That settle it?"
What?
Devon, who had gone as far as a representative rugby side, was going to play himself?
A murmur ran through the field. Word traveled—however it traveled—and in a moment the place was loud. No surprise, really. This was probably the first time Devon had actually stepped onto the grass. For me, with a match against the second-years still ahead, it was rare experience.
Thrown, though. Definitely thrown.
For the sake of balance, it would be our seven against their six.
"I'll only play defense, so don't anybody freeze up."
I had known he was big. Facing him on the grass, the feeling was entirely different. Meeting his eyes alone multiplied the pressure a hundred times.
A moment later the whistle blew. The only thing that had changed was Devon.
I did not know rugby well, but we had one more player. If Jack and I just passed cleanly, we ought to manage somehow. My guess was more or less right. When Devon closed in, the pass went the other way. When he shifted, it went back again. We held on like that through the first few minutes.
And then he got a look at it.
Maybe the pattern of our passing had settled in his eye. Devon produced an athletic feat that made no sense at all and plucked the ball clean out of the air.
What was that?
True to his word, he did not join the attack. He flipped the ball to a teammate and dropped straight back into the defensive line. Which meant the other side had to attack as five, with Devon removed from the count. Ball security was bound to suffer. Sure enough, Jack stole it with a single tackle.
At once he checked where Devon was. The distance between Devon and me was considerable. Enough, it seemed, that Jack thought he could throw it. He turned toward me and floated the pass a little high, wary of that leap.
The problem was that the higher it went, the slower it traveled. Their players swarmed me before I could even take the ball. I was lucky, at least, that I jumped, won it, and burst forward the instant I landed.
It did not last.
Devon, who had been far down the pitch, had already closed until he was right in my face.
Was this what it felt like to meet a lion on the open grass?
He was frightening enough already. Then he let out something far more vicious.