Airball (10 page)

“Then she can't find out.” I looked at them. “Coach said it himself: ‘What we do in the gym, stays in the gym.' And Coach isn't talking. So as long as
we
don't talk, nobody'll know.”

“So what are you saying?” Duncan hugged the lid close to his belly. “You're saying we just march out there in our underwear and act like it's normal?”

The guys looked at me.

“Yeah.” Bragger nodded. “That's exactly what he's saying. The windows in the gym are all taped over, so it's not really any different than being in the locker room. We see each other's underwear in here every day. Now we'll see them a little bit more. That's all.” The jack-o'-lantern grin spread across his face. “Besides, none of you guys has to go first. Kirby's our team captain. He'll lead the way.”

Gee, thanks, Bragger.

“And if Kirby can strut out there wearing next to nothing…” Bragger looked directly at Eddie.

Who narrowed his eyes. “Hey, I can do it, too.” He shot a glance at me. No way Eddie was going to let anybody else, especially not a scrawny wimp like Kirby Nickel, look more fearless than he did.

“Good.” Bragger turned to the other guys. “Russell?”

Russell glared at him. “If they can take it, I can take it.”

“Manning?”

Manning swallowed. And nodded.

One by one, all the guys agreed. Reluctantly. But they agreed. Nobody wanted to be the sissy who couldn't take it.

“Wait a minute,” said Duncan. “Let's say we practice in our underwear. We're still forgetting one thing: Someday practice is going to end, and we'll have to play a real game. Against another team. With our parents and the whole rest of the school and Mrs. Zimmer watching. What then? Huh?”

Yeah. What then?

Eighteen

Grandma says whatever doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Which told me that when this whole thing was over, I'd either be dead or Arnold Schwarzenegger. Either one sounded better than nearly naked captain of a seventh-grade basketball team.

But there we were: twelve guys and their coach, standing in a middle school gymnasium, trying not to stare at each other's underwear. Wind rattled the papered-over windows behind us, sending a goose-bumpy shiver through my whole body.

Coach watched us for a long moment. Trying to figure out, I guess, whether we were having any trouble with our new uniforms. Whether he'd have to cut anybody from the team.

But we weren't admitting anything. We hunkered down behind each other, our hands and arms wrapped around as much of our bare selves as we could cover. But we didn't say a word.

Finally, Coach tucked his clipboard under his hairy armpit. “All right, we've wasted enough practice time. Let's get warmed up. And I want to see some hustle.”

Oh, we hustled, all right. You've never seen how low the game of basketball can sink till you've seen a bunch of no-talent seventh graders hustling through a full-court press in their underpants. And one of those seventh graders—me—diving for every loose ball like a bird dog on steroids.

And, sadly, coming through it with all his body parts intact.

Because naked or not, I had an ankle to twist and a limited amount of time to twist it in. Unfortunately, it turns out I have frighteningly strong ankles. My legs are knobby and scrawny and look like they might snap in two just from trying to hold up my Jammers, but I have the sturdiest ankles in recorded history. I couldn't get one of those suckers to twist no matter how funny I came down on it or how hard I landed. Or how many other guys landed on top of me.

Coach watched me all through practice, his face knotted into a frown. Every time I peeled myself off the floor, I'd look up, and there'd be Coach. Watching. I felt like a bug in a jar. A hopelessly uncoordinated bug. With ankles of steel.

But there was a reason I noticed him watching me. I was watching him, too. Secretly. Between crashing to the floor and heaving myself back up. Because Russell had made a good point. Did Coach really believe this Stealth Uniform business? Did he seriously think the uniforms existed? That they'd make us run faster and jump higher? And turn invisible if we didn't?

Or was he messing with our heads?

I studied Coach as he pressed us through an inbounding drill. Was he using some kind of sports psychology on us? Some bizarro kind of sports psychology? I'd heard of coaches making their team practice without a ball. But without clothes?

We ran through the drill a few more times, then finished with some free throws. As we filed toward the locker room, coach blew out a big breath, shook his head, and strode from the gym.

The other guys showered and dressed. I hauled my backpack to the bench in the far corner. The bench I was starting to think of as my office. I pulled out my notebook, opened it to a fresh page, and drew a line down the middle to make two columns. At the top of the first column, I printed:
Coach Believes They Exist.
Under it, I wrote down the evidence I'd gathered so far:

1. Coach keeps observing us—me, especially. Maybe he's trying to figure out who he has to cut from the team. Maybe he's decided I'm first.

 

2. Coach didn't mention the loser factor. Not once, even though we didn't run faster, jump higher, or demonstrate any of the new skills Stealth technology is supposed to give us. Even though we were obviously naked. Maybe he's giving our electrical currents time to kick in.

I thumped the eraser against my bottom lip and studied the list. Then I printed
Coach Is Psyching Us Out
at the top of the second column. I thought about it for a moment, then scribbled down all the evidence I'd gathered in that category:

1. Coach keeps observing us—me, especially. Maybe he's trying to figure out if his psychology experiment is working. Maybe I'm his chief guinea pig.

 

2. He didn't mentioned the loser factor. Not once, even though we didn't run faster or jump higher. Even though we were all obviously naked. Maybe he's giving his psychology experiment time to kick in.

I looked at the page. So far it didn't add up to much. Coach was acting funny, yeah. But he hadn't done anything that definitely pointed one way or the other. Anything that proved he'd either lost his mind or was messing with ours. I closed my notebook and slipped it back into my backpack. I'd have to keep watching him.

Nineteen

Practice the next day started out pretty much the same: Coach watched the team, I secretly watched Coach, the other guys tiptoed around, all hunched over, trying to make their naked bodies as small as possible while I did my best to pop one of my bones from its socket.

Coach really watched during a rebound drill in which I slashed to the basket at approximately 110 miles per hour and fired a layup. Which didn't go in, of course. In my defense, since this was a rebounding drill, it wasn't supposed to go in, which meant that, for the first time in my life, my substandard shooting ability really came in handy.

But I wasn't finished. I spun across the paint, in front of Duncan, who was supposed to be doing the rebounding, pulled down my own offensive board, and vaulted toward the basket to lay the ball in.

And, unfortunately, landed square on both feet. No torn muscles. No popping joints. No excruciating pain. The ball even went through the hoop.

I was so disappointed.

Coach wasn't. He blew his whistle. “Looks like Nickel's been taking his vitamins.” He grunted, Coach's version of a compliment. “He's obviously got this Stealth technology down pat. You other guys need to watch and learn.”

Oh, brother. That was the wrong thing to say in front of Eddie. We were probably the most athletically challenged class to ever pass through the Stuckey unified school system, but even a klutzy bunch like ours has to have a best athlete, a kid who's clearly less uncoordinated than the others. For us, that kid was Eddie Poggemeyer.

And Eddie wasn't about to learn anything sports related from an all-elbows math geek like Kirby Nickel. He wasn't about to let Kirby Nickel—or anybody else, for that matter—master Stealth technology before he did. He certainly wasn't going to stand by and do nothing while Coach informed an entire team of basketball players that Kirby Nickel could do something in a gymnasium better than Eddie himself could.

Personally, I didn't care who was the best athlete. I'd figured out a long time ago it would never be me, which was the whole reason I was trying to inflict bodily injury on myself in the first place. I didn't want to impress anybody. I just wanted to strain a major muscle group.

But to Eddie's mind, Coach had issued a personal challenge.

I could see that mind working. Could see Eddie eye-balling me. Then eyeballing his own bare skin. Could practically see the gears cranking in his head as he tried to figure out which one was worse.

Finally he stepped out from behind Russell, stood up straight and tall in his ratty green jockey shorts, and said, “Give me the ball.”

I passed the basketball. Eddie caught it in one hand, dribbled between his legs, then stormed the basket. He banged the ball off the backboard, caught it at the top of his leap, and fired it back up before his feet touched the ground. The ball dropped through the hoop.

Eddie turned and glared at me. “Offensive rebound and two points. Would've been an alley-oop if I was a little taller. Unassisted.” He fired the ball into my chest.

And from that moment on, basketball practice officially became a competition.

I leaped for a rebound. Eddie leaped higher. I slashed for the basket. Eddie slashed harder. I dove for a loose ball. Eddie hurtled over me, leaped toward the bleachers, and slapped the ball back in bounds before crashing to the floor. Whatever I did, Eddie did, too, only bigger, stronger, faster.

Well. Bragger wasn't going to let two other guys steal all the glory. Bragger wasn't what you'd call athletically gifted, but lack of ability had never stopped him before.

And nakedness wasn't going to stop him now.

He decided three-point land was his. He fired shot after shot from beyond the arc. Some of them actually went in. The ones that didn't? No problem. Because as soon as Bragger shot, he stormed the basket to bang down the rebound.

Russell watched. Russell, who, despite a miserable scoring percentage, liked to think of himself as king of the three-point bucket. He watched Bragger shoot. And rebound. And shoot again.

Finally he peeled his arms from around his body, glanced down at his red-and-white striped briefs, and marched out to center court.

He bagged a couple of three pointers and pulled down a few boards of his own. And blocked a couple of Manning's shots under the basket, which woke Manning up and taught him the value of the pump fake.

One by one, each player stopped worrying about his underwear and started worrying about running faster and jumping higher. By the end of practice, the whole team seemed to be making a run for Best Athlete—lunging for steals, exploding toward the basket, guarding their man like he was an escaped convict.

Duncan even got in on the action. He actually started jogging down the court during the scrimmage instead of trudging along at his usual out-of-breath pace. He was still moving slowly compared to your average kid, but for Duncan, it was warp speed.

When practice was over, we filed into the locker room, sweaty and out of breath. Coach shook his head. “Stealth Uniforms are paying off sooner than I thought.”

Twenty

I pulled my notebook from my backpack and opened it to the right page. I set it on the chipped tabletop, smoothed my hand across the paper, and scribbled:

3. Coach says Stealth Uniforms are paying off sooner than he thought.

I sighed. One more for the
Coach Believes They Exist
column. I thumped my pencil eraser on the sad excuse for a lunch table we called The Hulk, trying to dredge up more evidence for our side.

Bragger shoveled a forkful of toxic waste—chicken and noodles this time—into his mouth. “Good guys losing?”

“Not yet.” I studied my list. “I haven't been able to collect enough data to support either theory. But it isn't looking good. Coach sure
acts
like he believes in Stealth technology.”

I sighed again. Closed the notebook, tucked my pencil inside, and slid it into my backpack.

And looked up just in time to see Eddie headed our way, lunch tray in hand. Russell and Manning followed close behind, like ducklings trailing their mother duck.

Eddie scootched his way around to the other side of The Hulk. He set his tray down across from me and slid into the chair. The ducklings sat down beside him.

Bragger and I looked at each other.

“Hey, Eddie,” said Bragger. “Glad you could join us.”

“Uh-huh.” Eddie shot a sideways glance at Russell. “We thought we should talk. You know, like a team meeting.”

I shrugged. “Okay.”

I noticed Duncan making his way across the lunchroom. He reached The Hulk. Saw Eddie and Russell sitting there. And stopped short.

Eddie saw him, too. “Grab a seat,” he said. “This involves you.”

Duncan blinked. Glanced behind him to see who Eddie was talking to. Didn't find anybody and turned back around. “Are you sure?”

“It's okay, Duncan.” Bragger motioned his head toward the seat next to him. “Sit down.”

Duncan nodded and slid into his seat, taking great care not to bump the napkin wad.

Eddie took a bite of chicken and noodles. He chewed and swallowed. Gave me a squinty-eyed look. “I don't like wearing my underwear in public.”

“Me, neither,” said Russell.

“Yeah,” said Manning.

I cut a look at Bragger. Who shrugged.

“Nobody thinks you do,” I said.

Eddie glanced from Duncan to Bragger to me. “Because yesterday in practice, when I was, you know, shooting and stuff? In my underwear? I didn't enjoy it. I just didn't want Coach getting mad at me. Thinking I couldn't play. That's all.”