Mr. Fahrenheit Read Free

guy.
    â€œThe wand’s a Sparkler Stick. Twelve bucks,” the guy said, starting to laugh. “Bedford Falls, you suck, you bunch of rednecks! Have fun tonight, ’cause Newporte’s gonna kick alllll your asses next week! Benji Lightman, you suck, Bedford Falls you suck, NEWPORTE HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL FOREVER!”
    The Bedford Falls crowd booed. Some in the home crowd started laughing. A grown man’s voice, off mic, said, “Kid, you get the heck away from that!”
    After what sounded like a scuffle for control of the mic, the younger voice spouted one final sentence.
    â€œHey, Lightman, don’t set yourself on fire again.”
    Benji’s cheeks flared. In his mind, he pictured an old red door.
    He cut the thought off, shouting, “Let’s make it nine and zero!”
    He hurled the cards to the earth: two bangs of light and smoke, this time in the school colors of blue and gold. The marching band blared to life and the Bedford Falls Magic football team erupted out of the stadium tunnel, a rushing stream of shoulder pads and shining helmets, splitting around Benjilike they were a river and he a stone.
    He was almost back to the tunnel when a Bedford Falls player grabbed his bicep. The player’s fingertips bore white rings of athletic tape, the better to grip the ball on cold nights.
    â€œWrong way, sexy,” he said. The voice echoed through the stadium; Benji realized his lapel mic was still broadcasting and switched it off.
    â€œWhatever you’re thinking of doing,” Benji told him, “let’s do the other thing.” But he was already resigned to the fact that protesting was useless, because he recognized the expression on the player’s face: laser-guided rage. It was the same focused fury, familiar from four years of football game nights, that had made this quarterback the most singular and legendary athlete in the history of Bedford Falls High School.
    Quarterback Christopher Robin “CR” Noland said, “Nobody puts my Banjo in a corner.”
    The marching band departed the field in formation. The teams were stationed on the sidelines; the only people on the field now were each team’s offensive captain and the referee waiting on the fifty-yard line. CR was Bedford Falls’s captain. A lean mountain who towered over Benji by six inches, CR had hit puberty early and hard: Shortly after moving to town during the vanishing summer before sixth grade, he’d sprouted like a kid christened by comic-book radiation.
    Nearing the (bewildered) referee, CR stuck two fingers through his helmet’s face mask and whistled in the direction of the Bedford Falls sidelines. “Zeeko, this is a party of three!” he called.
    Zeeko—the team’s trainer and one of the few African Americans on the sidelines—looked uncertainly at Coach Nicewarner, who, after a moment’s indecision, motioned for him to join CR.“Jesus, help us,” Zeeko muttered as he caught up with Benji and CR, his eyes enormous behind his thick glasses. But there was a laugh in his voice.
    As they reached the fifty-yard line, the other team’s captain glared at CR. “Son,” the ref said to CR, confused, “this is a captains-only, no-mascots type deal.”
    â€œHell, sir, you think I don’t know that?” CR said earnestly. “These good-looking studs are captains.”
    â€œLove of God, son, they don’t even have uniforms,” said the ref. As if Benji’s tuxedo wasn’t enough, Zeeko was wearing the plaid hoodie and boxy Kmart jeans that had earned him his (affectionate) nickname, “Dad Clothes.”
    CR grinned, this huge smile that was absurd on his face, but it was precisely that goofiness that made it the sort of smile you just had to believe. C’mon, now, would I lie? “They’re injured,” he said. “Special teams.”
    â€œMore like special ed,” the other team’s