Mr. Tomski holds his hand up and checks the time on his wristwatch. When the last kid comes puffing up, he says, “All right, folks. That was just about twenty-two seconds, from start to finish. Now if I were standing guard at the north wall of the Alamo, you would have been in the range of my brown Bess for about twenty-two seconds.”

He counts out the seconds again on his wristwatch—using his fingers: one, two, three, four, five; one, two, three, four, five, again and again. Everybody’s gone quiet. “You think maybe next time you’d like to run a little faster?” he asks.

Nobody answers. Mr. Tomski waits. “Except you wouldn’t have had to,” he says at last. “Because on that night, on the fifth of March 1836, almost exactly a hundred and eighty years ago today, the three men guarding the walls had fallen asleep.”

“Excuse me!” A loud angry voice suddenly breaks in. Sam is striding across the field toward us, in big brown boots and green shorts. His heavy key chain clatters against his belt. “You can’t be here,” he says. “This is the football field.”

“I’m teaching a class,” Mr. Tomski says.

“I don’t care what you’re teaching—this is my football field. You are not authorized to be messing around on my football field.”

Mr. Tomski raises his voice. “I am a teacher at this school. I am teaching a class. You will not talk to me in this way in front of my students.”

“I’ll talk to you any way I want to talk to you,” Sam says. He looks at the kids. “Now get off my field. All of you.”

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know whose side to take. Mr. Tomski is shaking his head. “What is it about football in this school that makes everybody crazy?” he mutters under his breath.

But Sam hears him. “You know how long it takes me to get this field ready for the season? A field of grass, in Texas?”

“The season doesn’t start until August.”

“Yeah, but the grass grows now. Don’t make me say it again. Get off my field.”

“I’m teaching a class,” Mr. Tomski says as calmly as he can, which only makes him sound angrier. “I am a teacher at this school.” He has started to repeat himself. “I’ll get off your field when the class is over.”

Sam stares at Mr. Tomski. Then he sees me. I’m standing at the edge of a big group of kids, hoping he doesn’t notice me. But he does, and we look at each other, until I suddenly look down at my feet.

When I look up again, Sam is walking away from us across the field. His keys swing back and forth at every step. I watch him go, and count out the seconds in my head, the way Mr. Tomski counted them before. One, two, three, four, five; one, two, three, four, five. I get to thirty-seven before Sam disappears inside his hut.