In the Paint (2 page)

However, he couldn't say the same for himself, Jake or Phil. None of them were very big. Matt stood about five-foot-seven. He was reasonably quick and athletic and had become an excellent ball handler and steady shooter, especially over an entire summer of practice, but he wasn't tall and he was pretty skinny compared to the older middle school kids like Jackson.

It was worse for Phil, who was only about five-foot-four and built like a fire hydrant. Phil was a hard worker, a dependable athlete, and already one of the best three-point shooters in the city, especially when he got his feet set. But the size factor was definitely going against him too.

Jake Piancato was a different story. He was nearly as tall as Amar, and he was perhaps the purest athlete of the four. But Jake didn't take basketball as seriously as the other three. In fact, he didn't seem to take anything seriously. He had been like that ever since bumping into Matt in the Lego center at preschool. No matter what happened, Jake always seemed to take everything in stride.

“You guys think too much,” Jake grinned, as Matt and Phil seriously debated, for the hundredth time that summer, the odds of them all making the South Side varsity.

“Better than not thinking at all,” Matt shot back. Phil laughed as Jake playfully smacked Matt across the back of the head with his gym bag.

The three boys were already at the top of Matt's driveway. He felt a slight tinge of sadness as he waved goodbye to his friends. This had likely been the final pickup game of the summer. Everybody was busy on the last long weekend before school started, shopping for supplies and new clothes and getting ready for Tuesday morning.

“See you guys later,” Matt said as he headed down the driveway toward the dark blue two-bedroom house he shared with his mom. “See you in middle school.”

The three friends exchanged smiles that were at once slightly nervous and excited. Each of them knew it was the start of a new era in their lives. School was about to get a whole lot more serious. And so was basketball.

chapter two

Matt peered into the bathroom mirror and carefully examined his chin. He was straining to detect a sign — any sign — of whiskers breaking out, but no such luck. Underneath his pile of wavy brown hair the same smooth baby face stared right back at him.

It was Monday morning, already the start of his third week of middle school and lately Matt had taken to a little more self-examination than usual. Going from Glenview Elementary to South Side had meant a significant social step. Instead of hanging out in the schoolyard with kids as young as kindergarten, the fresh crop of grade sevens he was a part of were now sharing their environment with teens as old as fifteen.

Matt had found it intimidating so far. The grade nine kids seemed so much older in the way they dressed and acted. Some of the boys were already practically able to grow moustaches.

The last couple of weeks had been like a whirl-wind, as he and his friends were thrown into South Side Middle School, a sprawling, brown brick campus which was about four times the size of Glenview. With five hundred students, it was nearly triple the population of their old school. Four different elementary schools fed into South Side, meaning Matt was meeting new kids and teachers every day.

School life in general seemed much more grown-up than it had at Glenview. For the first time, Matt and his friends had their own lockers in the grade seven hallway in which they could store their books, lunches, skateboards and MP3 players. Instead of one homeroom teacher who taught them everything, at South Side they had a variety of teachers and moved from one classroom to another for each different subject.

Suddenly, school offered choices too, and even the grade sevens had their own personal class timetables. Matt was excited about the “exploratory” periods available in middle school. It was cool to be able to take woodshop, where students would eventually get a chance to make their own furniture. And although he had been skeptical at first, Matt now had to admit that the cooking classes he had taken so far had already added to the repertoire with which he could surprise his mom.

The excitement of a new school had been tempered by the fact that math was proving even more difficult for Matt than it had been in elementary. And despite the many academic choices offered at South Side, opting out of math was unfortunately not one of them.

Helping to ease the transition to middle school, both academically and socially, was Miss Dawson, the advisory room teacher for Matt and Amar and another twenty-five grade sevens. Each school day began with a twenty-minute session in Miss Dawson's room. It was one of the best parts of the day as far as Matt was concerned. A tall, dark-haired woman with warm hazel eyes, Miss Dawson always seemed to have something interesting to bring up for discussion, and if anyone had questions, she usually had an answer. It seemed like she really cared, which helped Matt feel a little more secure as so many things around him were changing.

Any negatives about the new school were offset by the excitement of sports, in particular basketball. And the excitement had been building for the last two weeks. The team's first tryout practice was that afternoon.

With tryouts came a nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach and a pressure Matt had never felt before. He had put so much hope into making the basketball team at South Side, into following in the footsteps of his older brother, Mark, that he couldn't bear to think about not making it.

He and his friends had spent almost every day of the summer working out. Not just playing basketball, as in past vacations, but actually following the “workout schedule” presented by Coach Stephens when he had visited Glenview as part of the graduating grade six students' middle school orientation program in May. That schedule had included, among other things, two hundred jump shots and one hundred free throws to be practised each day of the summer. It had also included twenty “man-makers” at the end of each workout.

Man-maker was the nickname for a fitness drill that tended to leave most players exhausted and begging for air. It involved a basketball court but no basketball. Players had to run from the baseline, to the near free-throw line, touch that line and then return to the baseline. This was followed by an identical run-and-touch to the centerline, the far free-throw line, and the far baseline. All four trips constituted only one man-maker. And twenty of these at any kind of speed were absolutely draining on a hot summer day.

After two months of this regimen, however, Matt noticed that his body had become firmer and that he seemed to be able to run forever during the evening pickup hoops with the older players in the neighborhood. As the others began to tire in the second or third games, he felt himself getting stronger and faster and was able to push past them on the fast break for the first time ever. The summer shooting practice had improved his range too. He could now consistently hit a pull-up jumper from fifteen feet, and he was making eight of ten free throws on a regular basis. After working on his dribble all summer, he was now almost as good with his left hand as with his right. Matt approached these middle school tryouts knowing he had never been a better basketball player.

Still, was he good enough to make the South Side squad? A voice in his head was telling him not to be so sure. If he had been six feet or taller, like a handful of the boys who would be at tryouts, there wouldn't be any question. But Matt was only five-foot-seven and he was only in the seventh grade. He entered tryouts as one of the shortest players. Would his skills and his fitness level be enough to earn one of the twelve spots on the varsity team? Could he make a big enough impression on Coach Stephens to secure a place even though most of the team would be older?

Matt was well aware that there were good grade seven players coming up from the other schools that fed into South Side too. Each of them would be going all out for a spot on the varsity. The hard truth was there just weren't many spots up for grabs.

As he approached the gym, which was tucked into the west end of the two-story South Side building, Matt felt the insides of his stomach flipping about and a light sweat breaking on his forehead. He hadn't ever been this nervous before. But then again, he had never had quite as much riding on his performance, either.

He drew a deep breath as he walked through the double wooden doors of the South Side gym. The waiting was over.

chapter three

“Okay, people, listen up,” Coach Jim Stephens told the thirty-three players assembled around center court. “I've got three basic rules and if you follow them, we'll be all right.

“The first is that you listen. When I blow the whistle, or I'm talking, you hold the ball and don't say a word. That way, I won't waste my time or yours.

“The second is that you try your hardest all the time. I'm not saying you have to make every shot or get every rebound. We all fail sometimes and we all make mistakes. I can live with mistakes if they come honestly. If I see you're not giving it your best, though, you won't last long here.

“The third rule, and this is the most important one,” Coach continued, his voice rising slightly and his eyes narrowing below his bushy gray-flecked brows, “you must respect your coach and your team-mates. There will be no back talking or infighting at South Side. You will be supportive of each other.”

As he talked, most of the players listened intently. South Side was the smallest of nine middle schools in the city. But it consistently had one of the best basketball programs, and its constant stream of graduating players was a major reason why the South Side High team was always a regional contender. The biggest reason the middle school feeder program was so successful was Coach Jim Stephens.

A tall, rigid man in his mid-forties who had once been a college basketball star, the no-nonsense coach commanded instant respect from most players. He also had a pretty simple way of operating. If you didn't give him that respect, you didn't last long.

There had been many talented, tall kids who had gone through the school during the fifteen years Coach Stephens had worked there who didn't stay on the team because they couldn't, or wouldn't, follow the rules. There were no exceptions, no matter how good the player. In the coach's world, no one player was ever more important than the team.

“Is all that clear?” the coach said, looking around as heads nodded. “Good then. Let's get started.”

Matt surveyed the group, which seemed so much older and more mature than the Glenview Elementary team on which he and his buddies had played for the last three years. He instantly recognized the player directly behind the coach, a muscular boy about five-foot-ten with dark hair and eyes. It was Grant Jackson — the boy from the incident at Anderson Park. But if Jackson recognized Matt, he wasn't letting on.

As Coach Stephens wrapped up his pre-practice talk, Jackson and his friends were smirking at the coach's comments, as if they'd heard this speech too many times before. The boys were laughing quietly about something, but they all went absolutely silent when the granite-jawed coach spun their way.

“McTavish, Jackson, White,” he barked at the trio. “Since you guys have been through all this before, why don't you lead everybody in ten man-makers to get us warmed up?”

Jackson's grin disappeared. He raised his eyebrows, but nevertheless hustled down to the baseline to lead the fitness drills. South Side's first practice of the year was officially on.

Once the balls were bouncing and the players moving, Matt's nerves faded into the background. The drills weren't much different than those he had done at Glenview, the players were just bigger and faster. The prospects worked in stations, with a half-dozen players under each basket, concentrating on specific skills such as dribbling, boxing out under the boards and defensive shuffles. For Matt and his friends, just being in the South Side gym with its see-through backboards, glistening oak floor and the huge maroon letters spelling “HOME OF THE STINGERS” painted along each baseline wall, was a thrill. Several times during the session Matt looked around, drew a deep breath and reminded himself to work as hard as he possibly could. He wanted this more than anything.

Near the end of the session, Coach Stephens split the players into groups of four so they could work on both executing and defending the pick-and-roll. Matt had practised this with his buddies all summer, playing two-on-two and developing a keen sense of when to use the pick to get free of his defender and drive hard to the basket, and when to instead fake the shot and drop the pass inside to the post player cutting to the hoop. “If you know how to run the pick-and-roll properly,” the coach said matter-of-factly before beginning the drill, “nobody can stop it.”

Matt and a beefy grade nine center with blond, spiky hair named Dave Tanner were paired up for this drill. They were matched up against Jackson and his best friend, Andrew McTavish, another of the boys with whom Matt had experienced the run-in at the park just weeks before.

For the most part, Tanner and McTavish played inside while Matt was pitted against Jackson on the perimeter. But near the end of the drill, Jackson nodded to McTavish and the two silently switched places.

Matt followed Jackson into the key as he moved to the free-throw line, posted up and waited for the pass. Matt had a decent defensive position on Jackson as McTavish dumped the ball inside. Jackson caught the pass and spun quickly, cocking his elbow and hitting Matt flush on the jaw. The surprisingly powerful shot rocked Matt backward, bringing the taste of blood mixed with sweat to his mouth and sending him sprawling to the hardwood. Matt was stunned, but he bounced up quickly, wiping the trickle of blood from the side of his mouth with his left hand as he felt his lower lip begin to swell.

One look at the hard-nosed, sneering Grant Jackson standing above him told Matt no apology was forthcoming. Jackson glared down at him with his hard eyes. “Just remember, rook,” he hissed quietly. “I'm the starting point guard on this team.”