Travel Team (4 page)

“Well,” he said, imitating her now, “I'm going to let it go just this one time.”

She laughed and came over with her coffee and sat across from him at the table, close enough that he could smell the smell of her, which was always like soap. She looked pretty great for somebody's mom, the way she always did, even before she started fussing with her hair and doing some fast makeup deal and getting ready for the day. Danny knowing that his mom was the prettiest woman in their school and probably in Middletown. Occasionally even described as “hot” by the high school boys at St. Pat's, something he wasn't sure should bother him or not. He just decided it was the ultimate guy compliment and left it at that.

This morning his mom wore the new blue dress she'd bought for herself last week at the Miller's fall sale.

Because Ali Walker was, in her own words, the “queen of sales.”

As moms went, from his own limited experience with them, Danny believed you couldn't be much cooler than his was, even considering all the things she didn't know about guys.

Despite all she
thought
she knew.

“Straight talk?” she said.

He knew what was coming, just because sometimes he did, sometimes he got into her brain the way she got into his. Maybe because it was just the two of them.

“You have to be strong today, you know that, right?” she said.

Danny said, “I'd have to be strong at Springs. I don't even think anybody from St. Patrick's made the team.”

“Are you sure? Did Jeff Ross tell you that?”

Danny pushed Waffle Crisp cereal around in his bowl. “I'm the best at St. Pat's,” he said.

“Your friends are still going to ask you about it. And they're going to want to talk about it. Because that's what kids do, they talk dramas like this to death.”

He was still staring down at what was left of his cereal, as if there were a clue in there somewhere.

Or a code he was trying to crack.

“Them asking me can't be worse than him telling me,” he said in a quiet voice.

“Hey,” she said, “is that true? The whole team is going to be from Springs this year?”

“Last year we only had three from St. Pat's. Me. Matt Fitzgerald. And Bren. Bren didn't even try out this year, he said he heard they thought he was too small to have made it last year.”

Bren Darcy had been an inch taller than Danny since first grade, an inch Danny kept thinking he could make up on him but never did.

“But what about Matt?” his mom said. “He's the tallest seventh grader in this town. God, his sneakers look like life rafts. If the mission statement is to get quote
bigger
unquote, how does he not make the team?”

“The only reason he made it last year was because he is so big. But he really doesn't know how to play basketball yet, and I don't think anybody's ever really taught him. His dad's a hockey guy, and I still think he's pis…mad that Matt didn't want to be the world's tallest defenseman.”

“Your father always said you can't teach tall.”

“Matt had just made up his mind that he was lucky to make it last year and wasn't going to make it this year. Like the opposite of Bren. And that's pretty much the way he played in tryouts.”

“A self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Danny looked up at her. “Like you telling me how hard today is going to be at school.”

“I'm just being realistic,” she said. “You know some of your friends are going to know, I'm sure the news has been instant-messaged through just about every neighborhood in Middletown, USA, who made the team and who didn't.”

“Mr. Ross said the letters won't arrive until today's mail.”

“Right. And everybody in this town is soooooo good at keeping secrets.”

“Mom,” he said. “I'm okay. Okay?”

“Look out for the ones who bring it up first, like they want to commiserate.”

He was pretty sure what she meant, just by the way she said it. The rule was, if he didn't know what a word meant, he was supposed to ask.

She said, “You know what I'm saying here?”

“They'll act like they feel bad, but they really won't?”

“They'll be the ones who are happiest that you didn't make it.”

“I get it.”

“And you'll get through this, kiddo,” she said. “It's like I always tell you: Everything's always better in the light of day. Especially for my streak of light.”

“Yeah.”

“Danny?”

“Yes, I'll get through it. And everything
is
better in the light of day.”

Ali Walker said, “I don't have to tell you about Michael Jordan again, do I?”

“Every time I go out for anything, you tell me about how he got cut from his junior high school team.”

“There'll be other teams,” she said. “There were for Michael Jordan and there will be for you.”

He thought: Just not this team.

Not the one that'll probably be the first one to make the World Series since his dad's.

“Are you ready to rock and roll?” she said.

Danny took his bowl over to the sink—good boy, Walker—and rinsed it and placed it on the bottom rack of the dishwasher.

“‘Rock and roll' is so incredibly lame,” he said. “You need to know that.”

“Rock and roll is here to stay,” his mom said. “And will
never
die.”

“You tell me that about as often as you tell me about Jordan getting cut.”

She shut off the television, and the kitchen lights, made sure the back door would lock behind them when they left.

“I get with a good thing,” she said, “I stay with it.”

“I forgot to ask before,” Danny said. “Is
he
staying?”

Ali Walker went out the door first, saying, “He actually mentioned that he might hang around for a while.”

Danny made one of those looping undercuts like Tiger Woods made after sinking a long putt.

Without turning around, his mom said, “I saw that.”

A
S SOON AS HE WALKED IN THE SIDE DOOR AT
S
T
. P
ATRICK
'
S
,
THE SIDE FACING
the baseball and soccer fields, Danny knew that everybody knew.

As if somehow his classmates had all Googled up “Danny Walker” and there was a place you could go to read all about how he hadn't made seventh-grade travel. How being a small, flashy point guard in Middletown wasn't nearly as big a deal as it used to be.

How Richie Walker's kid hadn't made the team.

He walked down the long hall to his locker, eyes straight ahead, imagining they were all watching him and they all knew.

Even the girls.

Tess Hewitt, who he really liked—though he was quick to point out to Will that didn't necessarily mean
liked
liked, and to please shut up—was standing next to his locker when he got there about ten after eight, five minutes before first period. So was the red-haired witch, Emma Carson.

Danny believed that Emma got to St. Patrick's every morning by taking the bus from hell.

Emma had started liking Danny in fifth grade, and had continued liking him right up until it was clear that not only did he not feel the same way about her, he was never going to feel the same way, he didn't even want her on his e-mail buddy list. That was when she apparently made a decision to torture him any chance she got.

Which meant today was going to be the closest thing for her to a school holiday.

Or a national holiday.

“Any word yet on travel?” she said.

Tess gave her a look and poked her with an elbow at the same time. Tess was taller than Emma, taller than Danny, too, by a head, with long blond hair that stretched past her shoulders, and long legs, and blue eyes.

Next to her, Emma Carson looked like a fire hydrant.

She wasn't as pretty as Tess, as nice, as smart. As skinny. Even at the age of twelve, Danny Walker knew that Emma going through middle school and maybe even high school standing next to someone who looked like Tess Hewitt wasn't the most brilliant idea in the whole world.

Danny tossed his backpack, the one his mom said was heavier than he was, into his locker, grabbed his algebra book; he'd done his homework in study hall the day before, knowing he wasn't going to be much interested in cracking any school books later if he happened to find out early that he hadn't made the team.

“I didn't make it,” Danny said, his words landing harder in his locker than the backpack had.

He turned to face Emma. “But you knew that already, didn't you, M and M?”

Danny knew she hated that nickname, whether the other kids were talking about the rapper Eminem or the candy. Probably the candy more, since it was generally acknowledged by the male population at St. Patrick's School that Emma Carson could stand to lose a few.

“I didn't do anything, Daniel Walker,” she said. “You're the one who didn't make travel.”

“Well, you got me there,” he said.

Tess said, “I'm sorry, Danny.”

He wasn't sure whether this was technically commiserating from Tess or not, since Emma was the one who'd originally brought up the subject of travel, and him not making it. He was sure of this, though: He wanted to talk to Tess about this in the worst way; he'd even thought about going online last night to see if she had her own computer up and running and open for business.

It was a lot easier to talk about stuff like this online. To talk about almost anything, actually.

It's why he wished his dad would get a computer. Maybe then they could have a real conversation.

Maybe then they could talk.

“Whatever,” he said.

Emma said, “I heard the whole team is from Springs.”

Danny said, “Boy, you have all the sports news of the day, don't you? Tell me, Emma, have you ever considered a career in broadcasting?” And then before she could say some smart-mouth thing back to him, Danny said, “Wait a second, considering how you spread news around this place, you've started your career in broadcasting already, haven't you?”

“C'mon, Tess,” she said. “I guess it must be
our
fault he won't be playing travel basketball this season.”

Tess looked as if she wanted to stay, but knew that would be violating some code of girl friendship. So the two of them walked away from him down the hall.

Before they turned the corner, Tess quickly wheeled around, made a typing motion with her fingers without Emma seeing, and mouthed the word “Later.”

Danny nodded at her, and then she was gone.

If yesterday was the worst day of his whole life, you had to say that today was at least going to be in the picture.

His best friend at St. Pat's was Will Stoddard, whose main claim to sports fame in Middletown was that his uncle was the old baseball pitcher Charlie Stoddard, who'd been a phenom with the Mets once and then made this amazing comeback a few years ago with the Red Sox, pitching on the same team with his son, Tom, Will's cousin.

Will's other claim to fame, much more meaningful to all those who knew and loved him—or just knew him—was this:

He could talk the way fish could swim.

He talked from the moment he woke up in the morning—this Danny knew from sleepovers—until he went to bed, and then he talked in his sleep after that. He talked in class, in the halls, in study halls, on the practice field, in the car when Ali Walker would drive him to St. Pat's, on the computer. When Danny would go to Will's house, he would watch in amazement as Will would carry on one conversation with him, another on the phone, and have four instant-message boxes going on his computer screen at the same time.

Knowing that he was going to have to listen to Will go on about travel basketball for the entire school day wasn't the most exciting prospect for Danny, but he'd caught a break when Will didn't show up at the locker next to his before the bell for first period; didn't, in fact, show up for algebra until about two minutes after Mr. Moriarty had everybody in their seats and pulling out their homework assignments.

When Will came bursting through the door, red-faced as always, his thick dark curly hair looking as if it had been piled on top of his head in scoops, Mr. Moriarty looked over the top of his reading glasses and said, “So nice of you to join us, Mr. Stoddard.”

At which point Will stopped in front of the class and theatrically produced a note from the pocket of his St. Pat's–required khaki pants, like it was a “Get Out of Jail Free” card he'd saved from Monopoly.

“From my mother, sir,” he said. “Car trouble. We had to drop the Suburban off at Tully Chevrolet this morning, and pick up a loaner, which turned out to be a piece of cra…junk, which meant we had to turn around and go back and get another one when we were halfway here. Plus, my father is out of town, and the car conked out at the end of the driveway….”

“If it's just the same with you, Mr. Stoddard, I'll wait for the movie to find out the rest of it.”

As he walked past Danny's desk at the front of the classroom, Will said, “Does this suck, or what?”

Danny knowing he meant travel, not being late for class.

Will had tried out for travel even though he knew he wasn't going to make it the way he hadn't made it last year or the year before. He had more heart than anybody Danny knew, more heart than Danny himself, he had always tried out, had always spent more time diving for loose balls than anybody in the gym.

But knowing the whole time he wasn't good enough.

Sometimes Danny thought that the only reason Will was even there was to cheer him on, to watch his back.

That kind of friend.

Now he was the friend saying “suck” too loud in Mr. Moriarty's classroom.

Mr. Moriarty said, “I don't believe I quite caught that, Mr. Stoddard.”

Will stopped where he was, turned to face the music.

“I
said
,” Will said, “that being late for a great class like yours, sir, really
stinks
.”

There were some stifled laughs from behind Danny. When they subsided, Mr. Moriarty said, “Why don't we just say it now, and get it over with.”

To the rest of the class, Will Stoddard said, “You've been a great audience, don't forget to tip your waitresses.”

It was his favorite line from some old
Saved by the Bell
rerun.

As always, there was a brief round of applause. Mr. Moriarty was older than water and liked to carry himself like a bit of a stiff, but he was a good guy. One who seemed to get it.

Or most of it, anyway.

Will was definitely right about one thing, though:

This did suck.

Even for a streak of light, even in the light of stinking day.