The Football Fumble

  #1 The Gold Medal Mess

  #2 The Soccer Surprise

  #3 The Football Fumble

  #4 The Basketball Blowout

  Also by David A. Kelly

  The Ballpark Mysteries® series

  Babe Ruth and the Baseball Curse

  This book is dedicated to kids who are struggling to learn how to read. It wasn’t easy for me, either. Stick with it because reading’s so much fun once it “clicks” for you.

  —D.A.K.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2016 by David A. Kelly

  Cover art and interior illustrations copyright © 2016 by Scott Brundage

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks and A Stepping Stone Book and the colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web!

  SteppingStonesBooks.com

  randomhousekids.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 9780553513257 (pbk.) — ISBN 9780553513264 (lib. bdg.) —ebook ISBN 9780553513271

  This book has been officially leveled by using the F&P Text Level Gradient™ Leveling System.

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Other Titles

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Copyright

  List of Characters

  Chapter 1: A Winning Strategy!

  Chapter 2: Spied!

  Chapter 3: Disaster!

  Chapter 4: Cold Confrontation

  Chapter 5: Help from New York City

  Chapter 6: Hard Time at Halftime

  Chapter 7: Out of Gas

  Chapter 8: A Flicker of Hope

  Chapter 9: Football MVP

  MVP Stats

  Excerpt from MVP: The Basketball Blowout

  “Blue twenty-two!” Nico yelled. “Hut, hut, hike!”

  Nico snapped the football back to Max. Their friends Alice and Luke counted five-Mississippi and sprang forward. They were trying to grab one of the blue flags hanging from either side of Max’s waist before he could pass the ball or run by them.

  “Come on, Max!” called Luke’s sister, Kat, from the sideline.

  Max tucked the ball under his arm and started to run. Alice headed straight for him. Max dodged to the left to get away. But as he did, the ball slipped through his fingers.

  “Oh no! It’s a fumble!” Kat yelled as the ball bounced end over end down the field. The flag football rules at Franklin Elementary School allowed fumbles, backward passes (or laterals), and a few other plays that made it more like regular football. Just no tackling!

  Before Max could recover the football, Alice scooped it up. She tucked it under her arm and zipped down the field. There was no way for Nico or Max to catch up. Alice was a fast runner. A second later, she crossed the goal line.

  Touchdown!

  Nico’s shoulders slumped. He brushed his dark hair back. Nico was one of the best athletes at Franklin Elementary School. He loved playing every kind of sport, but he didn’t like losing. He held up his hands and shook them in pretend anger. “Max!” he said. “Not again!”

  At the far end of the football field, Alice held the ball up and spiked it into the ground. She pointed at Max and smiled. “Butterfingers!” she called. “Max has butterfingers!”

  Max scuffed the field with his shoe. “I’m just tired,” he said. “We’ve been practicing forever!” Max liked reading more than sports. But he loved playing with his friends.

  It was Wednesday afternoon. Max, Nico, Luke, Alice, Kat, and the rest of their team had spent an hour practicing football after school. They were getting ready for a big game against Hamilton Elementary School on Saturday.

  But after practice had finished, the five friends decided to stay even later to work on a few more plays. Kat was the team’s coach.

  Kat ran onto the field from the sidelines. The purple ribbons in her curly hair streamed along behind her. She waved her clipboard. “Alice, teasing Max isn’t helping!” she yelled. “Everyone come here and huddle up.”

  Alice ran back as Max, Nico, and Luke huddled with Kat.

  “Max, that was a good try, but you’ve got to hold on to the ball better, like this,” Kat said. She took the ball from Alice and tucked it under her right arm. “Use your fingers to hold the front of the ball and press the back of it against your biceps. Then hold it tight against your chest. That way it will be harder to drop. We can’t make any mistakes if we want to beat Hamilton.”

  “The only way we’re going to beat Hamilton is if they turn into eggs and someone gives us a whisk,” Luke said. He loved to joke, but no one laughed. Luke looked around. “Didn’t you get it?” he asked. “Eggs? Beat them?” Still, no one laughed. They were all too tired from practice. Luke shook his head. “It’s your loss,” he said. “You’re missing a good yolk!”

  Nico groaned. “Oh, that’s bad,” he said.

  “But not as bad as our chance of beating Hamilton,” Max said. “Maybe we can figure out a secret plan to win!” Max was big on secrets and special plans. He wanted to be a detective when he grew up, like his father. He had even gone to detective camp last summer.

  Kat nodded. “We might need a secret weapon to win. Even with all our practicing, it doesn’t look good. Hamilton has won five out of the last six years. It always seems like their players are bigger and better than ours.”

  “But they’re not!” Max said. “Well, they may be bigger than me, but they’re in the same grade as us.” Max was the smallest one of the group.

  “That’s not what makes them better than us,” Kat said. “They always beat us because they practice so much! They start practicing in the summer for this game. They always have special plays.”

  Nico clapped his hands together. “That’s it! I’ve got it,” he said. “I know how to win Saturday’s game against Hamilton! This is a job for the MVP Club!”

  Everybody turned to look at him. A little while ago, the five friends had helped save their school Olympics by discovering who was trying to sabotage the games. They were awarded Most Valuable Player medals. After that, the kids had decided to form the MVP Club to play sports and have adventures together.

  “How can the MVP Club help Franklin beat Hamilton?” Alice asked.

  “It’s easy,” Nico said. “All we have to do is spy on Hamilton’s practice tomorrow after school and learn their plays!”

  “Pssst! Kat!” Max whispered. “Keep your head down!”

  Kat ducked. It was Thursday afternoon, and she and Max were hiding behind a brick wall outside Hamilton Elementary School. The rest of the MVP Club had voted to send just two members to spy on the team.

  “Follow me,” Max whispered. “But stay down so we don’t get caught! If the Hamilton team knows we’re here, they might beat us up or something!”

  He led Kat along the wall that ringed the athletic field behind the school. The Hamilton football team had just come out to practice.

  Max and Kat crept along the wall toward the bleachers on the far side of the field. They could hear the calls of Hamilton’s quarterback. “Red twenty-four! Red twenty-four
! Hut, hut, hike!”

  Kat peeked her head over the top of the wall, then motioned for Max to pop up and watch the action. The Hamilton team wore matching football jerseys. The players on offense wore red. The players on defense wore white. They also had matching plastic cleats. They looked a lot more professional than the Franklin team.

  The Hamilton quarterback was so large he looked like a middle school kid. Two receivers had run far down the field as their defense tried to stop them. The players around the quarterback blocked the rushers so he had time to make a throw. Two seconds later, the quarterback saw an opening and let the football fly. It sailed high into the sky and came down right before the end zone. The Hamilton receiver shot to his right and held his arms out. The football dropped into his hands like someone had placed it there. One more step and he crossed the line.

  Touchdown!

  Kat let out a soft whistle. “Wow!” she whispered. “They look like an NFL team compared to us!”

  Max sank down on his heels. “I know,” he said. “We need a plan.”

  Kat tugged his shirt. “Come on,” she said. “Once we get to our hiding spot, we can study their plays.”

  They continued along the outside wall until there was an opening. A few minutes later, Max and Kat had found their way under the shiny silver bleachers. It was dark and damp, but they had a clear view of the field from between the rows of seats.

  “This is great!” Kat said. “It’s so easy to spy on their practice!”

  Max nodded. He pulled a pen and small notebook out of his back pocket. “You watch and tell me what they’re doing, and I’ll write it down,” he said.

  For the next half an hour, Kat and Max studied the Hamilton team. They watched as the team ran through one play after the other. Kat would describe the plays, and Max would write them down. Kat also used her phone to take pictures.

  Hamilton’s quarterback looked good. But one of the other Hamilton players really stuck out. His name was Logan. He was taller and bigger than most of the other players. Even though the quarterback called the plays, Logan kept telling the other players what to do.

  “I can’t believe you just dropped that pass!” he yelled at one. “We’re not going to win with mistakes like that!”

  A few plays later, Logan exploded when one of the smaller Hamilton players didn’t run fast enough. “My grandmother runs faster than that!” Logan hollered. “You’re out for the next five plays.”

  The player went and sat on the sidelines while another one took his place.

  “Wow, Logan’s hard on his teammates,” Max said. “That kid was running fast.”

  Kat nodded. “Yeah, he likes picking on people,” she said. “It’s too bad because Logan actually seems to be a pretty good player.”

  Hamilton kept practicing. And Logan kept yelling at different teammates. When a player flubbed a handoff, Logan got three other kids to tease him. The three kept dropping the football and pretending to cry. Logan laughed out loud. But it looked like the player who had made the mistake was the one who really wanted to cry.

  Shortly after, the football team took a break for water. Max looked over his notes. He had written down a bunch of Hamilton’s plays and formations and taken notes on the different players.

  “They’re a really good team, even if Logan’s mean,” Kat said.

  Max nodded. “They are definitely better than us,” he said. He looked at the notebook in his hands. Max thought for a moment, and then his eyes lit up.

  “But we’re a good team, too,” he said. “And more importantly, they’re not perfect! They make mistakes just like us. And Logan’s big, but he’s a bully. I think we can win!”

  Max tapped the notebook against the back of his hand. Then he threw the notebook into the dirt.

  “What did you do that for?” Kat asked. She leaned over and picked it up.

  “You know, we are a good team. Too good to be doing this,” Max said. “We need to win because we did our best. Not because we spied and cheated.”

  Kat looked at Max for a moment. Then she nodded. “Yeah, you’re right,” she said. “This seemed like a good idea, but we’re better than this. Let’s rip up the notes and leave!”

  Max took the notebook back. Then he pulled out the pages he had written on and tore them all up. He tossed them into a nearby trash can. Kat deleted the pictures she had taken.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Max said.

  Kat nodded. They slipped out from under the bleachers and tried to sneak around to the other side of the brick wall.

  “Hey, stop them!” called out one of the Hamilton players. Max and Kat froze. They’d been spotted! “They’ve been spying on our practice!”

  The players on the Hamilton team started to run toward Max and Kat!

  “Quick!” Kat said. They scrambled around the brick wall and ran for their bikes.

  Right before they reached the bike rack, a red-and-white blur jumped over the brick wall. It landed on the ground directly in front of them.

  It was one of the Hamilton football players!

  He crouched down like he was going to tackle them. Max and Kat skidded to a halt.

  “Trying to steal our plays?” he asked. “You two must be from Franklin. But you won’t be going back there.”

  He smacked a fist into his palm. The rest of the Hamilton football team rounded the corner of the brick wall. They were coming from behind!

  “Go to the right!” Max yelled to Kat.

  Max shot to the left of the football player, while Kat shot to the right. They were both just out of reach. The football player didn’t know which one to grab for, so he lunged forward and missed them both! Max and Kat zipped past him.

  The football player fell to the ground as Max and Kat jumped on their bikes. They wheeled them around and pedaled with all their might.

  The rest of the Hamilton team ran after them. But a minute later, when Max and Kat zoomed around the corner to another street, the football players were far behind.

  It had been close, but Max and Kat had escaped!

  “Oof!” Luke grunted as his elbow bumped into a door. A pile of soccer balls, kick balls, and volleyballs slipped through his arms.

  THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

  The balls bounced all over the school hallway. Luke scrambled after them.

  “I can’t believe you volunteered us to do this, Kat,” he said. Luke scooted around and picked up the balls. “We should be out on the field with the rest of the football team. This is one of our last practices before the big game on Saturday!”

  “I know, but I promised Ms. Suraci we’d get this done today,” Kat said. Ms. Suraci was Franklin’s PE teacher. “We can go out there as soon as we move all the sports balls from the gym to the new supply closet in the hallway. When I told Ms. Suraci last week that we could do the project, I didn’t know we’d have football practice on the same day!”

  It was Friday afternoon, and the MVP Club had been working on Ms. Suraci’s project since school ended.

  Max picked up four balls from the pile and started to trudge toward the new supply room. “This is going to take forever,” he said.

  Luke nudged Max’s shoulder as he walked by. “But just think,” Luke said. “If it did take forever, then at least we wouldn’t lose the big football game tomorrow! See, there’s a bright side to helping Ms. Suraci!”

  Max groaned. “Luke, maybe we’d be able to win if you spent less time joking and more time thinking about the game,” he said.

  “Well, if you hadn’t run away from the Hamilton practice, we’d have all their plays and be able to beat them easily!” Luke said. He and Nico pulled out more balls from the closet.

  “Hey, Max and I decided that we wanted to win fair and square,” Kat said. “That’s why we tore up the notes and left.”

  Luke snickered. “Really? It sounded like you left because you were going to get torn up!”

  “Okay, we did have to leave in a hurry,” Kat said. “But Hamilton is the
one that’s going to get torn up on the field tomorrow! We just have to stick together and do our best. Even if they’re a better team, I know we can find a way to win.”

  Nico dropped his load of balls in the supply closet. His shoulders slumped. “We’re not going to find it in here,” he said. He pointed to his blue football jersey that read Franklin Football on the front. “We need to be outside practicing.”

  Kat watched as Nico, Luke, Alice, and Max carried balls from the gym to the hallway.

  “Hey! I’ve got an idea,” she said. “It’s not exactly football, but maybe we can practice and find a way to finish this job more quickly!”

  She had everyone finish up with the load of balls they had. Then she pulled and pushed each one of them into a different spot. She put Alice inside the gym’s closet. Then she put Nico about ten feet away in the center of the gym. He had a clear view down the school hallway. She put Max halfway down the hallway, near the new supply closet. Finally, she put Luke inside the supply closet.

  “Hey, are you giving me a time-out?” Luke asked. “Because if you are, I’m going to sit down and throw a temper tantrum!” He winked at his friends.

  Kat rolled her eyes at her brother and shook her head. “No, you’re going to help get the job done quickly so we can practice for the game! Watch this!”

  Kat headed back to the gym. On the way, she whispered to Max, Nico, and Alice. Then she stood to the side, put two fingers in her mouth, and gave a sharp whistle.

  TWEET!

  Alice picked up a ball from the gym closet. She tossed it sideways to Nico. Nico easily caught the ball and immediately threw it down the long hallway to Max. Max grabbed the ball and ran it into the new supply closet, where Luke stacked it up.

  Kat’s plan worked like a charm! For the next fifteen minutes, Kat coached the group as Alice tossed one ball after another backward to Nico, who then threw long passes down the hall to Max. Max ran them inside the supply closet and stacked them with Luke.