Chapter VIII: Ha! Ha! Big Joke!

The game on the following Saturday was strange. Johnny, who journeyed with the team to Chehalis, where the game was to be played, had never seen anything like it. Something quite mysterious and startling happened at the beginning of the second quarter. The score stood at 7-7. It was Hillcrest’s ball on their opponent’s twenty yard line, second down, and ten yards to go.

At that moment, while it was being returned from an unsuccessful attempt at a forward pass, in some strange manner, the ball came into contact with a Chehalis player’s toe and went bouncing into the bleachers. Johnny saw this but thought little of it. He was to think a great deal more of it later.

The ball was slow in getting back onto the field. This was not strange however, it was a cold day. Many blankets tended to hamper the spectator’s movements.

When the ball came back it was Rabbit Jones, Hillcrest right half, who received it. The ball, he thought, seemed queer, yet he said nothing. Twenty seconds later the ball was in play. Rabbit had it and was preparing to throw a forward pass to Dave Powers, who had run around left end to receive it.

Then Rabbit did a strange thing. To the vast surprise of all his team mates, instead of carrying out the play, he allowed his arm to drop to shoot the ball at last far and high, curving away toward a spot where no one was.

“Don’t touch that ball!” These words were on Rabbit’s lips. He did not say them. Nor was there any need, for as it reached the highest spot in its long, broad curve, with a boom like a cannon shot, the ball burst.

A sudden cry of surprise rose from the bleachers. But from one pair of lips—Rabbit heard it distinctly—there came, “Ha! Ha! Big joke!”

Who had said it? Rabbit’s gaze from face to face of the opposing team came to rest upon the big right tackle. “Yes,” he assured himself, “he said that. And it was his toe that pushed the ball into the crowd a moment ago. Something queer there.”

Though the boy thought all this, not one word, for the moment, did he say to his team mates. The whole affair puzzled him greatly. Why had he changed his mind so quickly? Why had he thrown the ball for that long forward pass into the great nowhere? Had he known the ball would burst? Well, scarcely that. It had all been very strange. The ball had been cold like ice. He had imagined that he felt it swelling. He had acted, perhaps, on instinct. Who knows?

But no more of that. Here was a new ball. The whistle was blowing. No time, this, for dreaming. Hillcrest must win. Just must! They had lost the week before. The score now stood at a tie. Twenty yards from a touchdown.

“Come on now boys!” Dave Powers urged. “Let’s get in there and win!”

“Dave,” Rabbit whispered, “Dave, send me through their right tackle.”

“That fellow!” Dave stared. “He’ll smear you. He’s twice your size.”

“Try it!” Rabbit was pleading now. “Third down! Please, Dave—try it.”

In the huddle Dave gave his orders quickly. Rabbit was to take the ball through right tackle. His team mates gasped but said never a word.

Rabbit’s fingers trembled as they touched the ground, prepared for the play, but in his eye was a strange gleam.

Snap! The ball hit his hands. He was away. Guard and tackle on his team did their bit. It was not enough. As he leaped at the opposing line, the big tackle blocked his path. Then Rabbit did a strange thing. Coming to a dead halt he said in a low, tense tone:

“Ha! Ha! Big joke!”

Next instant he plunged head on. He struck that big tackle. He brushed him aside like a bag of straw, then plunged forward for a clean gain of nine yards.

“Made it! Made it! Made it!” chanted the Hillcrest rooters. “First down. Ten to go! We want a touchdown! We want a touchdown!”

“Again!” Rabbit panted, as he came up to Dave. “Just one more time.”

“One more time it is,” Dave grinned. “Don’t see how you did it, but it’s worth one more try.”

Again it was. Same play, same old forward plunge, same results. This time Rabbit did not say it all, only “Ha! Ha!” then he plunged. Again the jinx worked. This time he went all the way for a touchdown.

Amid the deafening din made by rooters, Punch Dickman kicked the goal and the score stood 14-7 in Hillcrest’s favor.

“Game’s not over,” Dave warned his team mates. “Not by a long mile. And we’ve got to win.”

“Yes,” Johnny whispered to himself as he heard the words, “They must win.”

He was thinking at that moment, however, more of Ballard than of all the rest of the team. Ballard, he knew, had been practicing entirely too hard. He was nervous and jumpy. If too much of the game depended upon him, he might do something rather terrible. He knew little about the strange events that were throwing the game, almost entirely, to Rabbit’s side of the team. He was thankful it was so.

“If only Ballard can get through a game without any mishaps,” he said to Jensie. “And if he can see his own team win, it will help a lot.”

“Yes,” Jensie agreed soberly, “it will.”

* * * * * * * *

“Dave,” Rabbit whispered, as they marched down the field for the kick-off. “That football did not just burst. It was blown up.”

“Blown up!” Dave stared. “How could it be? How could you blow up a football that’s been constantly in play for a half hour?”

“It went into the bleachers.”

“And came right out again. Rabbit, you’re crazy!”

“No,” said Rabbit, “I’m not. That big tackle knew all about it. That secret knowledge made him soft. I went right through him twice.”

“Twice. That’s right,” Dave whistled low. “It’s the queerest thing I ever heard. How could they? And why?”

“Wanted to get our goat maybe. Perhaps it’s what they’d call a practical joke.

“And look!” Rabbit pulled at Dave’s arm. “They’re taking that big tackle out, putting in another man.”

“Well,” Dave grinned, “you can’t go through him if he’s out of the game.”

This was true. The full force of its truth came over the Hillcrest team as during the moments that followed, they battled to hold their lead.

Through a series of line plunges and end runs, Chehalis pushed them back, back, back to their own three yard line. Then the Chehalis quarter-back fumbled and Dave retrieved the ball.

This gave Hillcrest a short breathing spell. Then again disaster descended upon them. Rabbit fumbled the ball. It shot high in air. A Chehalis man caught it and carried it across for a touchdown. The goal was kicked. The score was tied. The grandstands became places of wild pandemonium. Then the whistle blew for the end of the third quarter.

“Rabbit,” Dave whispered as they dropped down upon the grass for a moment’s rest, “we’re thinking too much about that busted football. Perhaps that’s what they wanted. Anyway we must not. We’ve got to get in and win! Win! That’s what!”

“We—we will,” Rabbit exclaimed beneath his breath. “All the same,” he added, “I’d like to know how—”

“There you go!” Dave laughed. “Forget it!”

Yet Rabbit could not quite forget it.

With the score standing at a tie the teams settled down to a grimly fought fourth quarter. Chehalis attempted two line plunges, and one end run. Failing to make their downs, they kicked.

Hillcrest caught the kick, carried the ball to their own forty yard line, tried a line plunge, a forward pass and an end run, then kicked. So for ten minutes struggling, sweating, racing, plunging, all to no purpose, they beat their way back and forth across the field.

With five minutes left to play, Chehalis fought their way to Hillcrest’s twenty yard line. There for three downs they stuck. Then, like a flash out of the blue, from his position behind the line of scrimmage, the Chehalis full-back booted the ball straight over the bar for a field goal.

“Three ahead,” someone groaned as play was resumed. “They’ve got us.”

“Nothing like that,” Rabbit retorted. “Four minutes left to play. Touchdown! Touchdown!”

And the bleachers were chanting: “Touchdown! Touchdown!”

The struggle was resumed.

Time out for Chehalis. A player limped off the field. By this time Rabbit was too weary to see who replaced him. Soon he was to know and smile.

Once again play was resumed; Hillcrest’s ball on the opponent’s forty yard line.

They went into a huddle! Came out. The play called for two short lateral passes behind the line. While this was going on Rabbit was to break through the opponent’s scattered defense and prepare to receive a long pass.

Could he make it? He breathed hard. Snap! They were away. So was Rabbit. To reach his required position was easy. Where was the ball? Had the two laterals served their purpose? Yes! Yes! Here came the ball, straight for his outstretched hands and not an opponent near. What luck!

But wait! As he caught the ball and turned to run, he saw before him, not ten yards away, a huge player, in fact, none other than that right tackle, the one he suspected of some unfair trick. He had been returned to the game.

There are times when Rabbit’s mind works with the speed of a steel trap. This was one of those times.

Speeding straight at his opponent, he held the ball straight out before him, at the same time hissing:

“Here! Take it! It might blow up!”

For a space of seconds the big would-be tackler halted in his tracks. The expression on his face was a study.

As for Rabbit, he stopped short, pivoted to the right, flashed by his opponent to speed away and across the line for a touchdown. Hillcrest went into the lead.

In the last two minutes of play, Chehalis made a desperate attempt to score. Two forward passes were knocked down. An end run was blocked, a third forward pass was intercepted. Hillcrest marched down the field for a gain of twenty yards. Then the whistle blew. Hillcrest had won!

There followed the usual wild applause and the hearty congratulations, then Dave and Rabbit sauntered toward the exit.

“I tell you it’s nonsense!” Dave burst out. “Under such circumstances you just couldn’t blow up that football. Suppose it was full of gasoline or gun powder, how would you light it? I tell you it’s impossible!”

“I suppose it is,” Rabbit laughed. “It happened all the same. And I haven’t got a single theory about how they did it. One thing is sure, Dave, the ball was cold, cold as ice. I—

“Look! There’s something under the bleachers, something shiny—dollar maybe.

“Nope,” he said a moment later, “it’s a football pump. And look! What a fat one it is!

“Sayee!” he stopped and stared. “This is the very spot! The ball went into the bleachers right here.”

At that moment Johnny Thompson came up to them. Jensie and Ballard had gone off the field. Ballard was happy, he had played in a successful football game. True, he had been given no very important part in it, this he knew, was more or less a matter of chance. Next time,—well, anyway, he had on this day made no serious breaks. The future might take care of itself.

Johnny, however, was not thinking of Ballard at that moment. He was turning that strange air pump over and over in his hands. It was, he saw, a very ordinary pump, over which had been soldered an outer casing. The space between the pump and the casing was padded with asbestos. “As if the pump might get too hot,” he said to Dave as, assisted by Rabbit, Dave told what they knew of the strange occurrence.

“Keep still about this,” Johnny counseled at last. “The crowd thought the ball just naturally blew up; that happens, you know. Let them think it. We’ll get at the bottom of this mystery yet.”

Strangely enough, as often happens, this mystery was closely related to another and, had Johnny but known it, the solution of one would go far toward untangling the other.