Class Favorite (17 page)

The game went back and forth. The Bandits held a two-point lead, then the Jets. Both teams struggled to pull ahead, and the guys got sloppy with fouls, violently checking one another below the basket. First one of our guys, then one of theirs. People screamed, voices went hoarse. Dad said Mom's cheeks were so pink with excitement that she looked like she'd just met Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran. With forty seconds left on the clock, he asked her out to a movie. Dad joked that she was so caught up in the excitement that she would have said yes to Jack the Ripper. At twenty seconds, Bowie scored a basket that gave us a two-point lead. All we had to do was hold on. But at ten seconds, the Jets threw a sloppy jump shot, which bounced undecidedly on the rim until finally sliding through the net. A great moan came from half the crowd. Hidden in the back of the bleachers was Enzo, a smile snaking onto his face—no way could they make it without him. The crowd slumped, frowns settled on their collective faces, their spirits melted. But the Bandits didn't give up.

The clock ticked down, and the crowd shouted the seconds like it was New Year's Eve.

“Five! Four!”

A kid by the name of Kenny Camry made his way to the half-court line.

“Three! Two!”

He chucked the ball from mid-court just as the buzzer
sounded, and the crowd held its breath. The ball sailed down the court, high in the air. Mom grabbed Dad's hand and squeezed tight, hoping, waiting, until . . .

Swish!

The basket was good, and the crowd exploded into a seismic celebration. Popcorn flew into the air, and no Ladel-loving butt remained in its seat. Mom and Dad jumped and hugged and laughed as if they had just won the lottery, and fans swarmed the court to join the team in their ecstasy. Someone stole the net from the rim, but Coach Randolph scooped up the ball and held it tight, even as the guys dumped ice-cold water over his balding head. No one noticed Enzo Vincenzo slip quietly out the side door. No one ever heard from him again. Rumor is he home-schooled the rest of the year, then transferred to a high school in Angelica Springs. To this day, people debate what became of him. Sometimes you hear of Enzo “sightings,” kind of like Elvis, but no one knows for sure where he went or what he did after that night.

Since then, before every basketball game the Bandits play, the head coach gets The Ball and gathers the guys around it in a circle. Everyone piles their hands on top and chants, “Never give up! Fight! Fight! Bandits win! Now!”

Having shamefully forgotten about The Ball, I stood dumbly by as the team repeated the ritual.

Just before the ref blew the whistle to start the game, Coach
Eckels made me clear the stray practice balls off the court and put them in the storage room just off the court. Sounds like an easy job, but I felt ridiculous in my Rudolph-red socks, and bending over in my too-short skirt was not an easy task. I had to kneel straight down in a kind of squat position, pressing my knees together to keep anything from showing in the back or through the front. Ten balls later, my thighs were shaking with exhaustion. Apparently, the
Toning for Teens
I had done over the break hadn't toned me enough.

After wheeling the cart into the supply room, I took my seat at the end of the bench. With Shiner sitting beside me, I readied myself for a stat career I hoped would take me through senior year in high school.

What did I find? Even though I had once tried out for the sport, I have absolutely no interest in basketball other than watching Jason Andersen dribble, do a layup, a free throw, a jump-shot, a pass. His calf muscles looked amazingly complex when he crouched in a low dribble. His hair was matted to his wonderfully pale forehead before the end of the first period, his eyes shined brightly beneath, and his lips looked fuller and rosier from the exertion. When he fouled, he guiltily raised his hand so the scorekeepers—and I—could easily identify him as the culprit of unnecessary roughness. I felt like he was raising his hand to wave, just to me, so I could write it in the little margin on my mini picture of the court.

I also realized that Shiner could actually be sort of cool, in a Shiner kind of way. Since Coach never put him in, he sat at the end of the bench near me. He looked at my clipboard and asked what I was doing. I explained it to him, and when I got bored in the second period, he offered to do them for me.

At half-time, Coach told me to air up the balls in the storeroom and had Shiner show me how to work the air-pumping machine. I guess since he hadn't played, Coach Eckels didn't think Shiner needed to be at the meeting. Of course, Hector got to go to the locker room, and he hadn't played either, so I didn't really understand.

The storeroom was right off the court through a heavy double door, which Shiner held open for me. Metal racks held ceiling-high piles of volleyball knee pads, baseball and softball bats, deflated footballs and volleyballs, beat-up helmets, and buckets full of baseballs. It was a jock's dream in there.

It also stank. It smelled like sweat, dirt, grass, and dirty socks, all rolled into one. The fluorescent light in the back corner of the low ceiling buzzed and flickered anxiously, making the gray walls look like a prison.

Shiner pulled a rusty metal contraption with a long rubber hose down from the shelf and plugged the cord into a socket behind the door.

“Man,” I said, feeling the need to fill the silence while I stood around and watched Shiner. “This place is a pit.”

“Yeah,” he said, looking around the dank room. “Reminds me of my sister's place. Small and stinky.” He smiled at me, showing crooked teeth.

“Totally.” His sister was three years older than we were, and used to make kissing noises whenever she saw me and Shiner together. She was tall and brash and always intimidated me.

Shiner flicked on the switch, and the pump roared like a ski boat as he showed me how to air the balls.

“You want it full, but not too full!” Shiner shouted over the humming and rattling. “Firm, but not too firm!”

“How will I know?” I yelled back.

“You'll just have to judge! There!” He pulled the needle out of the basketball and turned off the pump. Suddenly I could hear the cheerleaders outside the door doing their half-time routine—a bunch of clapping and stomping. “See?” He spun the orange orb in his palm, then bounced it twice on the concrete floor. “Perfect.”

“Thanks, Shiner,” I said earnestly.

“No problem.” He shuffled in the doorway for a moment, then said, “Hey, look. I'm sorry about today.”

“Which part?”

He laughed. “Well, I meant about knocking you in the hall when you were with Coach Eckels. I didn't see him there, but I'm sorry, anyway. It was a jerk thing to do.”

I can honestly say that I thought that Shiner Camry would
never bother to apologize to me for anything, especially since I never apologized to him for abruptly ending our Fall Ball dance. I was impressed, to say the least. “God, that was the least of my problems today,” I said. “But, thanks. It's okay. I mean, you don't have to apologize.”

He shrugged. “I wish I'd told you about Mrs. Everly's outfit earlier. I saw her walking across the parking lot this morning. That's actually why I came up to you in the hall—to tell you. That's just like me to try to do something nice then mess it all up.”

He put his hand on the handle of the door but didn't open it. We stood quietly for a moment, the cheers of the half-time routine coming through the walls muffled.

“Hey,” I called as he started to open the door. “You're good at basketball. I remember you used to like to play. How come you're not playing now?”

He shrugged his bony shoulders. “I don't think Coach likes me very much.”

There wasn't much I could say to that because it was probably true. Shiner always rubbed people the wrong way. I think no one really gave him a chance anymore. “Hey, was that your dad who played during the game in eighty-nine? Kenny Camry?”

“Yeah.”

“Really?” I wondered why more people didn't realize
it was Shiner's dad. “What ever happened to him? I mean, I know he had you and your folks split when we were little, but did he keep playing ball?”

Shiner opened the door and let the screaming crowd and cheerleaders into our tiny space. “No,” he said, an edge to his voice. “He decided to become a burned-out loser instead.”

I sighed as he left. I stuck the needle in the little rubber opening and flicked on the switch like Shiner had shown me and wondered if someone like Jason could ever go for someone like me. If you could have someone like Kayla or especially Rosemary, then why would you go for a period-roses, Kotex-locker, old-lady-clothes-wearing, Class Favorite wannabe who . . .

I didn't hear the explosion exactly. Not right away. In fact, I didn't hear anything. The whole world went silent, like someone had pressed a giant mute button. Then the ringing started. . . .

One moment the basketball was resting in my hand, the needle inserted like an IV, the pump humming like white noise in the background of my thoughts, and then . . .

Full but not too full
, Shiner had told me.

I was shaking. Not just my hands—which no longer held the ball—but my entire body. Uncontrollable, violent shaking, like I was standing at the epicenter of an earthquake. Next I heard a noise—a buzzing/ringing in my ears that sounded
like the emergency broadcast signal the TV stations sometimes tested, except this ringing drowned out all other sounds. It was quiet at first, building, and then it was all I could hear.

Firm but not too firm
, Shiner had instructed.

I looked at my shaking hands, then down at the concrete floor, where the ball was blown into four oblong pieces. I knew I wasn't hurt, exactly—my limbs all seemed to be intact, and there wasn't any blood that I could see. Still, I didn't understand immediately what I'd done. It was that weird feeling of waking up in the middle of a dream—I paused for a moment, waiting to see what was real.

The ringing in my ears continued, but after a moment—a minute? five minutes?—I started to hear what was going on outside the door in the gym. Part of the ringing in my ears wasn't from the explosion of the ball, it was screaming. Girls were screaming, and I could hear a low rumbling, like a stampede. But I still couldn't budge.

Suddenly I was aware that something was on my arm—a veiny hand attached to a long skinny arm. Shiner. As I looked at him I realized how wide open my right eye was, and that the left was twitching uncontrollably. His mouth was moving frantically, but I couldn't hear a word he said. I just stared at him like I was comatose or something.

“Hey! Sara!” He shook me gently. “Are you okay? Sara?”

“Y-y-y . . . yes . . . yeah. I'm . . . fine.”

“Geez, was that you?”

I stared at him, finally aware of my mouth hanging open.

“Sara, take a breath, come on.” Shiner demonstrated for me by breathing deeply once, twice . . . I managed to follow his lead and took a long, deep breath, which I never knew could feel so good. I didn't realize that I hadn't even been breathing. By my third breath, I felt much calmer and was able to relax my shoulders and turn my Rudolph stocking feet to face him. I couldn't stop shaking, the ringing continued, and the pump hummed ominously in front of me.

“Was that you?” he asked again as he yanked the cord out of the wall, the sound of the pump stopping instantly while a steady ringing continued in my ears. “Did you . . .” Then he looked down and caught sight of the basketball. “Ah, hell, Thurman.” The concern vanished from his face, and he actually started to laugh. Shaking his head and laughing that high-pitched squeal of his, he bent over and put his hands on his knees, his back convulsing.

“You blew up a basketball?” he finally asked. “That's it? That's what happened?”

“Yeah,” I said, calmer now and, quite frankly, confused because he was laughing at my traumatic mistake. “I guess I wasn't paying attention.”

“Oh man, Thurman. You really did it this time. Man, this just ain't your week. Ain't your
month
. Shoot, I didn't know a
basketball exploding could be so loud. But, man, it is. You've cleared out the whole . . .” he started laughing again. “You've got the whole . . . oh, man, this is too good. . . .”

“What?
Shiner
. What's so funny?”

“You've got the whole gym cleared out. Everyone thought it was a bomb, it was so loud. The cheerleaders, they started screaming, and Kayla Cane screamed, ‘Bomb!'” He demonstrated this in an oddly high voice that sounded nothing like Kayla's. “Man, you should have seen it. It was a total stampede! Everyone is out on the football field right now. Nice work, Thurman.”

“Oh, my God,” I muttered, looking down at the exploded ball. “Oh, my God. This is just great. I'm going to get in so much trouble. Coach Eckels is going to be so mad. . . .”

“Ah, calm down,” he said, taking a step toward me and resting his hand on my back. “It's not
that
big a deal. You're probably not the first person to explode a ball.”

The door flew open. Coach Eckels pounced in frantically, his tanned skin a blushed pink. “What's going on? What happened?”

Shiner stepped back from me as if we were doing something wrong, and I dumbly pointed down to the torn leather at my feet. “I'm sorry. I blew it up.”

“My Lord,” Coach said, running his hand through his thick white hair, looking both relieved and annoyed. “You okay, Sara?”

“Yes, sir,” I said with a shaky voice.

“I think she's just a little shook up,” Shiner offered. Coach Eckels looked quickly over at him—I guess he hadn't noticed him standing there.

“Well, all right then,” Coach was saying, looking down at the ball. “Camry, go outside and tell Coach Wendell everything is fine. Tell him what happened and to bring everyone back in.”