Airball (14 page)

He planted himself in the middle of the locker room. “You're looking at your new uniforms, gentlemen. Better than what you've been playing in, huh?” He raised his eyebrows. “You didn't believe in those Stealth Uniforms, did you?”

We looked at each other.

“Oh. No.”

“No way.”

We shook our heads.

Coach nodded. “Good. 'Cause those things never existed. You knew that, right?”

“Right.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“We knew that.”

We looked at each other. Nodded.

“Funny thing about those Stealth Uniforms, though.” Coach crossed his arms over his chest. Narrowed his eyes. “They worked.”

We shot sideways looks at each other.

“They did exactly what I promised they'd do. Made you run faster. Jump higher. Play harder. They even pulled you together as a team. You didn't have a choice. Your coach was making you play ball in your underpanties. You
had
to stick together. Not bad for a box of air. And one more thing about those nonexistent uniforms. I told you that only true winners, only those who have what it takes to control the technology, can use them.” Coach pooched out his lips. “And I was right. You boys proved it. Every single one of you is a winner. Every single one of you showed me you've got what it takes.”

He nodded. Gazed from player to player.

“Now suit up,” he said. “Let's show this town what we're made of.”

Twenty-eight

Oh, we showed them what we were made of, all right.

We bounded into the gym in our snazzy new uniforms. And got hit by a freight train of noise. Pep band. Pep club. Cheerleaders. Spectators packed into the bleachers—Whipple, a wall of green T-shirts and ball caps, on one end; Stuckey, in red, crammed elbow to elbow at the other. Mrs. Zimmer, straight and tall, sat in the front row, a few seats down from Grandma.

The Stuckey fans whistled and cheered as we trotted over to our side of the court to start stretching and warming up. Whipple fans blew armpit farts. I wasn't surprised. You learn to expect that kind of thing from Whipple.

I sprawled on the floor to stretch my calf muscles. And tried to look cool and casual. On the outside, anyway.

The other guys weren't doing much better. Oh, sure, Bragger and Eddie did a good job of faking it. They smirked and swaggered and acted like they'd never missed a shot in their lives. And sneaked panicked, sideways glances at Mrs. Zimmer when they thought nobody was looking. And didn't sneak any glances at all at the seventh-grade cheerleaders in their flippy skirts, which was a dead giveaway, especially where Eddie was concerned.

Russell practiced his game face. He scowled at the Whipple players warming up at the other end of the court and let out mini–Coach growls from time to time. And wiped the palms of his hands on his shorts, leaving nervous streaks of sweat across the shiny new polyester.

Duncan didn't even attempt a game face. He sidled up next to me as I sat hunched over on the floor, stretching my hamstrings.

“Kirby?” His voice was weak and wavery. His face, freakishly pale under normal circumstances, had taken on a gray tinge. “I think I'm going to throw up.”

“I know.” I switched legs so I could stretch the other hamstring. “Me, too. Keep telling yourself it's just pregame jitters. That's what I'm doing.”

We finished stretching and warming up. Coach gathered us beside the row of scuffed metal folding chairs that was our bench.

He consulted his clipboard. “Starting lineup: Reece, Poggemeyer, Barnes, Webber, and Nickel.”

“Nickel?” I stared at him. “You mean Wiles. Russell Wiles.”

Coach looked at me. “When I mean Wiles, I
say
Wiles. When I say Nickel, I mean you. You're in.”

“But I'm—I'm—”

“You're the most consistent player on this team.”

Oh, boy. That lightning bolt across his warm-up suit must've sucked all the juice from his brain.

“This is a joke, right?” I inched over next to him. Kept my voice low. “I know you're kidding, because, as I'm sure you've noticed, I'm not exactly starting lineup material. I have no discernible athletic skill. I've got to be the least-talented person to ever set foot in this gym.”

“Yep.” Coach nodded. “You probably are. But you've done more with less natural ability than anybody I've seen since, well, since me.”

He narrowed his eyes. Studied me. “I'll let you in on a little secret, Nickel,” he said finally. He turned his back so the other guys couldn't hear. “I wasn't a born athlete, any more than you are. But I wanted it more than anybody. I turned myself into a basketball player through sheer bullheadedness. And I see that same bullheadedness in you. The way you dive for every rebound. Drive to the hoop when you get the ball. Push yourself relentlessly every minute of every practice.”

Yeah. Push myself to dislocate a limb.

“You've worked harder than anybody on the team,” he said. “Developed skills you weren't meant to have. I never thought I'd say this, Nickel, but you're a solid player. And you're starting, so get your fanny over there.” He turned to Russell. “Sit here next to me on the bench, Wiles. You're my sixth man. I'm counting on you to give us valuable minutes.”

Russell nodded and scooted onto the metal folding chair next to Coach.

The buzzer honked.

I stumbled onto the floor. As a starter. My worst nightmare.

And, at the same time, my secret dream come true. I'd never said this out loud. Not to Grandma. Not to Bragger. Not even to myself. But deep down inside, so deep I hardly let myself think about it, I had dreamed of this moment. Of being good enough to nail a starting spot. Even during those weeks when I was doing everything I knew to sprain a vital body part so I wouldn't have to play, even then, in the darkest corner of my heart, I was wondering what it would be like to trot onto the floor as a starter. I was Brett McGrew's son, after all. Wouldn't it be cool if I could actually play?

The buzzer honked again. Game time.

The crowd noise quieted to a dull rumble. Mr. Greunke announced the starting lineups and we took our positions around the circle. Manning faced off against the Whipple center.

Manning had at least two inches on the Whipple guy. And his arms looked longer. Manning was built like a gorilla—big, bony knuckles dangling from long, lanky arms. Plus he'd been working on his jump. In practice he'd been vaulting a good two feet off the floor, which, for Manning, was like leaping a tall building in a single bound.

So tip-off looked good. Looked like a part of the game where we could hold our own.

Until, of course, the ref actually tossed the ball into the air, and Manning just hunkered there in his ready position. Didn't jump. Didn't try to hit the ball. Just crouched there like a paralyzed seventh-grade gorilla.

Meanwhile, the Whipple center batted the ball to the Whipple two guard, who pushed it up court and—
tha-bump
—sank an easy layup. Before any of our players had even made it down the court.

“Shake it off, guys,” Coach hollered as Bragger inbounded the ball to Eddie. “We'll get that basket back. Manning, be ready. This is your play.”

Well, it would've been his play. Except that Eddie couldn't get the ball across the midcourt line before his ten seconds were up. The ref blew his whistle. And Whipple had the ball.

Again.

The game skidded downhill from there.

We couldn't get it together on defense. Manning lost his man immediately. Duncan basically knew where his man was, but, being Duncan, that didn't mean he could keep up with him. Eddie dogged his man. Just dogged him. Hands in his face. Hips blocking him out. Feet sliding. Dogged him like, well, like a dog. Until Whipple set a screen and Eddie got turned around and ended up dogging Bragger.

We couldn't get it together on offense, either. Whipple pulled off four steals when Duncan, in a panic, started passing to the first open man he saw. Sadly, the open man was usually wearing a green jersey. And every time we set up the Manning play, we might as well have handed the ball over to Whipple. Manning got under the basket, all right. He got under the basket and stayed.

And stayed.

And stayed.

Could have pitched a tent and set out a lawn chair, that's how long he stayed.

He racked up eight three-second violations in eight minutes. Coach tried to get our heads into the game. He called time-outs. He mapped out plays. He gave pep talks. He set goals: “For the next three minutes, let's concentrate on cutting their lead in half.” He substituted Wiles for Reece and Reece for Poggemeyer and Poggemeyer for Wiles.

But we still played in a fog. One step behind Whipple on every possession.

The buzzer sounded. Halftime. Finally. I'd been trying not to look at the scoreboard while we were playing, but there was no avoiding it now. I glanced up. Whipple 34, Stuckey 8.

The wave of green T-shirts cheered the Whipple players and armpit farted the Stuckey players. The Stuckey fans shook their heads and made their way toward the concession stand. Mrs. Zimmer marched behind them, her nostrils flared, probably to let off the steam that was no doubt boiling her brain.

Our guys trudged toward the locker room.

Twenty-nine

Coach tossed his clipboard. It skidded across the bench and clattered to the floor. He ran both hands through his buzz cut. Paced toward his office and back.

Finally, he looked at us. Looked from player to player. Looked hard.

“Who
are
you people?” He choked out a growl. “You're not the players I coached in practice. You're not the players who sweated their buns off every day, behind locked doors and taped-over windows. You're not the players who went from ball hogging and lazy defense to actually working as a team.”

He strode to the chalkboard. Grabbed a piece of chalk and started drawing out
Xs
and
O
s. He stopped. Shook his head. And threw the chalk back down.

“No. You know what? I'm not going to do this. I could stand here all day drawing out plays. Showing you where you should have been and what you should've been doing. But you know all of it already. It's what you've been doing in practice every single day. That's the frustrating part. The players I know, the players I've seen in practice, could beat this Whipple team. Because Whipple's not that good. They made their share of mistakes. One of their forwards got into foul trouble early because of stupid reach-ins and had to sit most of the half on the bench. Their shooting guard isn't much of a shooter. He thinks he is. He takes a lot of shots. Hardly any go in. If we'd been rebounding at all, we could've put up a whole lot more shots of our own. But you know what? That shooting guard isn't afraid to try. He's not like you.” He swept his arm toward the team. “You all are just plain scared. And I can't draw out a single play that can fix it. That's something you're going to have to fix yourselves.”

He snatched his clipboard from the floor, stalked into his office, and slammed the door.

We slumped on the bench in silence, watching Coach's miniblinds rattle against the glass.

I glanced at the players. Coach was right. We were playing scared. The whole team was playing like I'd always played. Not scared of striking out or getting tackled or missing a shot, exactly. Scared of what people would think of me when I
did
strike out or get tackled or miss a shot. Scared people would think I was stupid. Scared spitless of looking stupid.

“Well, we sure look stupid out there tonight.”

I didn't know I'd even spoken out loud till Eddie said, “No kidding. We didn't look
that
stupid when we were playing naked.”

I nodded.

Then stared at him.

“You're right,” I said. “You're totally right.”

Eddie looked at me. Suspiciously. “Yeah. So?”

“So.” I turned to Duncan. “The first time we walked into the gym in our underwear, how did you feel?”

Duncan swallowed. Glanced nervously at the guys. “Naked. Embarrassed.” He shrugged. “Cold.”

“And scared?”

“Scared out of my pants. Except I wasn't wearing any.”

“We were all scared.” I looked at the other guys, who nodded. “But we did it anyway. And then we started playing basketball. Better than we ever had before. How come?”

Eddie shrugged. “Nothing left to lose.”

“Right.” I stood up. “We were as embarrassed as we were ever going to get. We didn't care if we looked stupid, because guess what?” I untucked my lightning-bolt jersey. “We already looked stupid. Our uniforms took care of that. All that was left was basketball. So we played.”

I pulled my jersey over my head and tossed it into my locker. I peeled off my snazzy new lightning-bolt shorts, tossed them in, too, and stood there, in the middle of the locker room, in nothing but my gym shoes and underwear.

“Uh, Kirby? Kirb?” Bragger glanced at the other guys out of the corners of his eyes. “What are you doing?”

I shrugged. “You've heard of players being superstitious? Players who, if they're not playing well, change their shoes at halftime? Coaches who change their tie? Well, I'm beyond superstitious. I'm changing my whole uniform. In the second half, I'm going Stealth.”

The guys stared at me. Mouths open, nothing coming out. Paralyzed by shock, I imagine.

Duncan, surprisingly, recovered first.

He stood up on wobbly legs. “I want to play better in the second half, too.” He wriggled out of his jersey, then his shorts. He came over and stood beside me. “I'm going Stealth.”

Eddie shook his head. “Man. You two are dorky enough as it is. You don't need to help it along.”

“Hey!” Duncan took a step toward him, fists clenched. “We're not dorky.”