Generation Dead Read Free Page B

around Pete and TC since they'd started practicing in late August, and Pete figured he was looking to join the Pain Crew. He decided to favor the kid with a snicker and a quick nod of the head. With Lame Man acting like a wuss, it wouldn't hurt to round out the ranks.
    "Did you see that one dead chick?" TC said, his wide belly hanging over the front and sides of his briefs. "The one in the skirt?"
    "Yeah, I saw her," Pete replied. "And I think I could bring her back to life, if you catch my meaning." TC and Harris barked out forced laughter. "If the dead didn't disgust me so much."
    His audience, on cue, fell silent.
    "Hey, Adam," Pete said, leaning in close so that only Adam could hear, "did you hear who's trying to join the team this year?"
    "Thorny? The kid you just terrified?"
    "Naw," Pete said. He saw that he was going to have to work on Adam a bit this year. Adam just wasn't picking up on the backfield signals like he used to. "Somebody else."
    Adam looked at him, waiting. That was something, too. Adam used to be a nervous sort of kid, awkward and gawky, uncomfortable in his own skin, and now he had a self-confidence and poise uncommon in most guys his age. Pete thought that Adam was becoming more like him. He gave Adam his best conspiratorial smile, hoping to rekindle the early days,
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    back when Adam gave him unwavering loyalty instead of grief.
    "Somebody dead."
    "Oh," Adam said. He flexed his ankle and decided he didn't like how the lace on his left cleat was tied.
    "Oh?" Pete said. "Oh?" He looked over at Stavis and made the universal "I'm dealing with a moron" face. Stavis grinned and shook his head. "That all you've got to say?"
    "What am I supposed to say, Pete?"
    Pete frowned, because there it was again, that attitude .
    "You don't care that a dead kid is joining the team?"
    "I don't have feelings about it either way."
    Pete had a temper, but he was good at riding it, turning it into something useful. He wanted to smack the kid, giant or no. Time was, Pete could have slapped him around and Adam would have taken it. But back then Adam didn't have that muscle tone, and Pete wasn't sure this was the right time to test how solid Adam had become.
    "Well, Coach has feelings about it. Big time. I heard him arguing with the Kimchi over it." Kimchi was his name for Ms. Kim, the much beloved principal of Oakvale High.
    "Really?"
    "Yeah. He tried just about everything. Not fair to the other kids, practice season already started, blah blah blah. She wasn't having it."
    "Well then," Adam said, getting up, "I guess he plays." Pete rose with him. "Well, I guess we get some say in that."
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    Adam waited him out again.
    Pete flexed his hand. "Coach wants us to take this dead kid off the board." "He say that?"
    "Not in so many words," Pete said, "but his meaning was pretty clear."
    Adam nodded. "I'm going to play," he said. "I'm not going in for any assassinations."
    "Oh?" Pete said, a wide smile on his face. "Not like last year?
    Adam stared back at him, a look of fury burning through his passive mask.
    Pete showed his teeth. "Not like with Gino Manetti?"
    Adam didn't reply. He gave each lace a final tug and seemed satisfied with the results.
    "I don't think we can hang out this year, Pete," he said.
    "Just like that, huh?"
    "Just like that."
    "Did I say something? Are you pissed because I was talking about Scarypants?"
    "It isn't so much the things you say, Pete," Adam told him, "it has more to do with what you are."
    Pete looked at him and felt the rage constrict his hands into fists.
    "What I am," he repeated. "You want to explain that?" Adam picked his helmet off the bench and shouldered past Pete.
    Pete called Adam an asshole under his breath, but he
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    said it loud enough for just about everyone to hear.
    Gino Manetti had been an all-star running back for the Winford Academy Warriors. In a game in which Manetti had already scored three touchdowns on the Badgers, Adam put an end to his season--and his career--with a