Button Down by Anne Ylvisaker

and change. We’re sitting in seats your father gave us. How about that? Ned, it’s our own Lester Ward!”
    “Yes, well, I’d better get back to the team,” said Lester. “Enjoy the game.”
    “Wait!” said Ned. He held out his ticket.
    “Would you sign this?”
    Mr. Jackson fumbled for a pen, and Lester wrote
Kindest regards, Lester Ward. Go, Hawks!
on the back of Ned’s ticket and handed it back to him.
    And then he was gone, down the ramp and into the dark cavern. Ned followed Mr. Jackson up to their row. They edged past knees and stomachs until they reached their places. Ned sat, clutching his ticket and reading Lester’s words again. He took off his cap and tucked it into the space created by a rip in the lining, then put his cap back on.
    All Ned could see was the backs and necks and arms of the people in front of him. Everyone shouted wildly and Ned shouted along, not knowing what he was shouting about.
    “Willis Glassgow!” he heard over the loudspeaker. And later, “NanNEEE PAPE!” and always, “IoWA! IoWA!”
    Ned didn’t feel the cold or the drizzle, or hunger or tiredness from standing. He breathed in the noise and the breath of all those people standing together. He became part of the crowd and found himself shouting along, “IoWA! IoWA!” and waving his arms when the others waved. Shouting when the others shouted.
    When the people on the end of the row left, Mr. Jackson and Ned moved to the aisle and Ned could see at last. From up above, it was like the field of
X
s and
O
s, only moving. The players looked like living checkers on a board. It all made sense from up above. He saw Willis Glassgow fake a handoff to his running back. He saw the end run past Monmouth’s defense toward the end zone. He saw Glassgow throw a long pass. The end caught it. Touchdown! The Ike! This was something for the winnings shelf.

There were cars parked up and down the street when Mr. Jackson pulled up in front of Ned’s house. The lights were on at Granddaddy’s place, and Aunts Fiona and Corrine were standing on his porch. Ned pulled the ticket out of his cap and burst out of the car, eager to run in and give it to Granddaddy. But Tugs came out of Ned’s house and ran to meet them before they reached Granddaddy’s porch.
    “He’s in there,” she said fidgeting. “He died. He’s dead. He’s still in his nightshirt. In his bed. But he’s dead.”
    Mr. Jackson hurried into Granddaddy’s house.
    Ned stared at Tugs. He who? “Who?”
    “Granddaddy Ike.”
    “But you and Gladdy were going to read him
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
today,” said Ned.
    “We did,” she said. “Until . . . until . . .”
    Tugs was wrong. Ned had mistaken Granddaddy for dead on the porch that one afternoon. He was probably just sleeping soundly. He got like that. He slept soundly sometimes.
    “He’s sleeping,” said Ned. “He’s going to wake up and surprise everyone. He did that to me a while back.”
    “The doctor was here,” said Tugs. “He listened for his heart. You can go see if you want.”
    “No!” said Ned. “I don’t want to see!”
    It didn’t matter now that he had seen Lester. It didn’t matter that Lester had talked to him. Had signed his ticket. That the Hawkeyes had won. Ned should have stayed home. He should have been the one reading to Granddaddy. “Did Dorothy get back to Kansas?”
    “You’ve already read it,” Tugs said.
    What did that matter? Granddaddy liked to get Dorothy to Kansas. He shouldn’t have let Tugs and Gladdy read.
    “He was supposed to wait for me to tell him about the game!” Ned started for Granddaddy’s house, then stopped. “I got Lester’s autograph for him. He was supposed to wait for me.”
    Tugs tried to put her arm around Ned but he pulled away. He looked at the porches filled with aunts and uncles and cousins, and he turned and ran. He ran through downtown, past Al and Irene’s, where Granddaddy played checkers on Wednesdays, past the barbershop, where