number 17 Conner Payton

Chapter 4

Paulie was ordering pizza

Can I have some? I asked

Fine, but your help pays he said

Deal

Hell yeah, I want stuffed crust, what kind of question's that?

I nodded

Paulie, Abby, are you two seriously ordering a pizza right now?

We're about to practice

We're ordering it now so it gets here at the peak of our hunger

Yeah, oh do you have 20 dollars? I asked my dad

I don't care, hang up the phone and no I don't have 20 dollars for you to borrow

Damn I said

All right warriors, our season hasn't got off to the best start

What are you talking about?

We scored a touchdown

They we sang

We scored a touchdown we didn't get shut down

We scored a touchdown

All right, all right, true, but we did still lose 38 to 6

Wow, killing the vibe, coach

True mia said

Look, I know each of y'all are doing your best, okay?

We just need somethin' to pull it all together, a new voice

Are we firing coach bizone? Sarah asked

No, Sarah dad said to her

Is Mr. Payton gonna be our new coach?

Then we all cheered

Coach Payton is gonna be our new offensive coordinator

Then we all groan

Okay

How about that?

Our defense sucks too

Thank you

I started to laugh

Look, I want you guys to treat mr. Payton with the same respect you treat me

Oh, oh, we can do better than that

But to clarify, coach Payton is third in line

In other words, if coach troy were the president, I'd be the vice president

Oh, shit Ruby muttered

Hey language coach Payton told her

And if coach troy happened to get assassinated, I'd take over

Then dad and Maddy stared at him

Do you want me to break his arm I said

Abigail dad said

Coach Payton would then become the vice president

You never taught us anything Wendy yelled

Um, what happens if both of you guys got shot?

Then I will be in foster care Connie said

Well, I think they'd uh, cancel, I don't think we could play that game

Okay, that's good to know, guys, let's line up

Then Maddie hid her face in dad's shoulder

Thanks a lot dad said to coach bizone