Shawn took the snap and ran around and tried to throw it as far as he could to Sam Brown. But as strong as Shawn’s arm was, even at eleven, he couldn’t throw it nearly far enough. The ball ballooned on him a little bit and came down at the Midvale twenty-five. Sam managed to outjump the three defensive backs around him and come down with the ball. But got tackled right away, what looked like a mile from the end zone. Sam was sitting on the ground with the ball still in his hands as the refs blew the whistle that meant the game was over and they’d lost. It was usually one of the things Ben McBain loved about sports, how the very next thing that happened in a game — the game you were playing or the game you were watching — could be the one that changed everything. But what he’d said to Lily turned out to be right: It wasn’t nearly as much fun when it happened to you the way it had just happened in the Midvale game. Happened to you and happened to your team. When you were that close to being 1–0 and walked off the field 0–1 instead.
