Athlete vs. Mathlete (7 page)

But he was already way worse at basketball than I'd imagined.

And he hadn't even taken a shot yet.

It turned out to be the longest day ever.

Dad spent three hours trying to be patient with the most uncoordinated kid on the planet.

I ran up and down the hill to retrieve the ball about six thousand times.

And Russ spent the whole afternoon trying to get even
one
of the things we were teaching him, and blowing it.

When he wasn't dropping the ball, he was bending over to retie his shoelaces.

“Maybe you should try double knots,” I suggested, when I couldn't take it anymore.

“I'll never get them undone,” Russ said, with a shrug.

“Russ.” I groaned. “That's the whole idea.”

“Come on, boys,” Dad called from down the court. “Let's keep it moving.”

When we were ready to go home and Dad pushed us to stay another half hour, I thought he was crazy. But it turned out he was right.

By that time, we knew for a fact that Russ was slow and his ball handling was garbage. On the plus side, we knew that he got tired really fast, but he could push through the cramps and keep going most of the time.

But in those last thirty minutes, we learned something even more important.

Russ and I stood under the basket, watching Dad come in for a shot. Without anyone telling him what to do, Russ lifted his hands and blocked it.

“Nice move!” Dad said, thumping him on the back and passing me the ball. “Let's try it again. Owen?”

I went in from the other side and when I aimed, Russ knocked the ball loose and it hit the pavement behind me.

“Denied!” Dad shouted, totally excited.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

We took a bunch more shots, and Russ stopped almost half of them.

“Whew!”
Dad said, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his T-shirt. “Nice work. Let's call it a day.”

On the walk home, I told Russ I was impressed with how hard he'd tried, and how he hadn't given up.

“Thanks, but I'm still pretty nervous about this, Owen,” he said quietly.

So was I. Sure, it had been cool to see Russ kind of start to get the hang of basketball, but trying hard wasn't exactly the same as being good.

And that's when an awesome idea hit me. An idea that could save us both at tryouts. “Look, we know you're not the best player.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“You know what I mean. But that doesn't matter.”

“It doesn't?” he asked, surprised.

“No, you've got something the other guys don't.”

“A sixth-grade math trophy?”

“No. Well, yeah, but something better.”

He looked at me like that was impossible.

I smiled. “You're tall and you can block a lot of shots.”

“So?”

“So?”
I laughed. “So all you have to do on Wednesday is stand there and wave your arms.”

It was genius. He wouldn't embarrass himself (or me!) and tryouts would be quick and painless.

I watched Russ limping next to me.

Well, maybe not painless.

Still, the plan was pretty brilliant.

“Just stand there?” he asked, looking at me like I was nuts.

I nodded and grinned. “Just stand there.”

Negative Impact

Our next Masters of the Mind practice was on Tuesday, followed immediately by a practice session with the Beaumont Middle School team.

When I got to Jason's house, his dad was watching a Blazers game in the living room.

“How is DeShawn Williams playing, Mr. Schmidt?” I asked.

His head whipped around so fast, I thought it might come right off his neck. “Fantastic,” he said, grinning. “He's hit every free throw.”

“He's shooting seventy-four percent for the season so far,” I told him, remembering the statistic I'd seen in our morning newspaper. It was kind of strange that what would
have been a C grade in school was headline news in basketball.

“Do you want to watch?” he asked, hopefully. “I've got three kids in this house and no one likes basketball.”

“Thanks, but I should get to the meeting.”

“Masters of the Mind,” he said, with a big sigh.

He sounded just like my dad.

When I opened Jason's bedroom door, everyone was sitting on the floor, squeezed between his bed, his tuba, and a prize-winning Lego battleship.

It wasn't the perfect arrangement, but it would work.

As soon as I sat down, I saw Jason staring at my new Nikes, and I felt proud of how cool they were. In fact, I was so busy admiring them that it took me a minute to notice the gloom in the room.

“What's going on?” I asked.

Before anyone could answer, the bedroom door swung open.

There stood Arthur Richardson the Third, dressed in brand-new khakis and a red golf shirt embroidered with a Harvard emblem. His blond hair was parted so perfectly that I wondered if he'd done it with a ruler instead of a comb.

“Hey, Arthur,” Jason said.

Arthur looked down his nose at all of us (which isn't really as bad as it sounds because our faces were at his knee level).

“We're sitting on the floor?” he asked. His eyes were wide, like he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

“Uh, yes,” Jason said, glancing at Sara, who shrugged.

Arthur Richardson the Third sighed and sat down next to me.

“I'm Russell,” I said, reaching to shake his hand.

He ignored it. “I know.”

“I'm Nitu,” our math whiz said, with a smile.

“I know that,” Arthur said, impatiently. “I know who all of you
are
.”

There was a moment of awkward silence.

“So … welcome to the team,” Sara said, quietly.

Arthur raised one eyebrow in her direction. “I haven't committed yet,” he said. “I'll make my decision after the meeting.”

Since I was the one who'd pushed the rest of the team to give him a chance, I tried to smooth things over. “Sure,” I said, nodding slowly, “you're trying out for us and—”

Arthur looked at me like I'd told him the square root of sixteen was seven. “No,” he said. “
You're
trying out for me.”

Nitu, Jason, Sara, and I exchanged a look.

I cleared my throat. “Well, we're glad to have you here today, to uh,
consider
joining our team. Masters of the Mind is great way to—”

“Have you ever won Nationals?” he interrupted.

I took a breath. “No.”

He sniffed. “State?”

I glanced at Nitu, who was scowling at him. “No,” I admitted.

“Regionals?”

I cleared my throat. “We're a fairly new team and—”

“A yes or no is all I need,” he said.

“Then no,” I answered, feeling my entire body tensing.

Alkaline earth metals: beryllium, magnesium, calcium
.

“I see,” he said. “So, you'd like me to join a losing team.”

“No, we wouldn't,” Nitu said, and I turned to see a dangerous look in her eyes.

I quickly jumped in. “What Nitu means is that we don't want you to join a losing team. We want you to join a team with the
potential
to win.”

“We can take the heat when it's time to compete,” Jason said, cracking a smile.

“When we get a high score, we work for more,” Sara added.

“If we—” Nitu began.

“What are you doing?” Arthur interrupted, frowning.

“Uh,” Jason said, glancing at me before explaining, “sometimes we rhyme.”

“Sometimes you rhyme?”
Arthur looked disgusted, like he'd just been told we pick each other's noses.

“It's like a warm-up,” Sara said, looking embarrassed.

“Okay,” I said, ready to move on before Arthur ruined
the whole meeting. “I've been thinking about this egg challenge and—”

“We have a problem,” Nitu said.

It seemed like we had a lot more than one.

Strontium, barium, radium
.

“What is it?” I asked.

No one said a word as I looked from one face to the next, waiting.

Finally, Sara spoke. “The school will only pay half of our entry fee for the district competition.”

I was stunned. “What do you mean?”

“Just what she said,” Jason told me. “We have to pay the other half ourselves. By
Monday
.”

“That can't be right,” I told the group.

“It's right,” Jason said. “I mean, it's
wrong
, but it's right. We're doomed.”

“Half the entry fee?” I asked again.

Sara nodded. “Nitu and I talked to Mr. Wills this afternoon, and those are the rules.”

“And we don't have the money.” Nitu sighed.

“Let me get this straight,” Arthur interrupted. “You want me to join a losing team with no budget?”

“Not really,” Nitu said, shooting him another look.

“Listen, Art. We—” I began.

“Arthur,” he corrected.

“Okay, Arthur. This team is—”

“Lucky I came along,” he interrupted. “Not only was I
the top student at Connecticut's Walter Borderton Preparatory School, but my family is …” He paused and looked down at his hands, as though he was embarrassed, but we all knew he wasn't. “… very wealthy.”

“How nice for you,” Nitu said through gritted teeth.

“I'll have my father write a check.”

“No, thank you,” I told him.

“Why not?” He pointed at Sara. “She already said you don't have the money.”

I took a deep breath. “It's our responsibility to raise the money,” I said, relieved when the rest of the group nodded. “So we're lucky that this is a problem-solving club and—”

“Don't be stupid,” Arthur interrupted. “My father can just—”

Stupid?

“I'm team leader, Arthur, and I'm calling a vote.”

It took about two seconds for three hands to fly into the air and reject the idea of Arthur's father paying our registration fees.

Arthur sulked while the rest of us tried to come up with a real solution.

“What about a fund-raiser?” Nitu suggested.

“What kind of a fund-raiser?” Jason asked, and the brainstorming began.

The meeting had already exhausted me, and it had barely started.

As the minutes passed, I liked Arthur a little bit less every time he opened his mouth. And that was often.

Eventually, I did something I'd never done at a Masters meeting before. I started daydreaming about something else.

And even more surprising?

That something else was basketball.

When we finished up at Jason's house, we walked over to the public library on Northwest Thurman to meet the Beaumont team. They had a great track record, but we weren't going to let that bother us.

However, it looked like we might be in trouble when Beaumont's team of five filed into the library wearing matching T-shirts and serious expressions. They each carried a black briefcase, embroidered with the Masters of the Mind logo.