"Yes, sir."
"You threw for six touchdowns against Clyde."
"Yes, sir. I don't remember some of them."
Coach Strickmann closed his eyes. When he opened them again, there was something in them Gerrit had never seen there before, and it took him a second to identify it, because it was the last thing he had expected. It was fear. "Son," Coach Strickmann said. "Do you know what I would have done, if something had happened to you out there? On my field? On my watch? Because you thought you couldn't tell me?" He took the glasses off his forehead and set them on the desk and pressed his thumb and forefinger into the inside corners of his eyes. "I've buried two former players. Did you know that? Neither one of them was football. One was a car. One was," he paused, "other things. But I've stood at the back of two churches. I'm not doing a third. Not for a playoff game. Not for any game."
"I know," Gerrit said. "I'm sorry, Coach."
"I don't want you sorry. I want you healthy. And then, God help me, I want you to tell your teammates. All of them. Yourself. Today. Not me, not Bettany. You." Coach Strickmann put the glasses back on. "Because every one of those boys in that locker room has had a headache he didn't tell me about. I guarantee it. And they'll listen to you about this a hundred times faster than they'll ever listen to me."
He told them at lunch. Coach Strickmann pulled the whole varsity out of the cafeteria into the team room, fifty-three boys in their Wednesday jerseys smelling of tater tots and Axe body spray, and Gerrit stood at the front, under the whiteboard with Friday's opponent still diagrammed on it in red and blue marker, and told them. Not all of it. Not the bleachers, and not Noor. But the hit, and the tunnel, and the test, and the three weeks. He told them he would not be playing on Friday, or probably for a while after. He told them that Bodhi Mbeki, the sophomore backup, was going to start, and that Bodhi was ready, and that he expected every one of them to block for Bodhi like Bodhi was the Big Ten kid. He told them that if any of them had a headache that didn't go away, they should go see Bettany, and if they were scared to go alone, they could come get him, and he'd walk them down the hall.