Schooled Read online

I know Coach meant well but I really wished he hadn’t said that. I saw Kurt lean over and whisper something to his little group, and a few of them started laughing. Coach shut them up with his whistle. I was pretty sure I was going to be hearing that thing in my sleep before long.

  “Get the cones!” he shouted.

  One after another, the Bears slid through the drill, bopping the tops as they went.

  “Crossover!” cried the coach. “Between the legs!”

  And they did. It was like watching a military operation. I still wasn’t sure how useful this drill would be when it was time for a real game, but there was no doubt these guys were good at it. Every once in a while, one of the bigger guys would lose the ball. Nothing against them, but I was glad. It took some of the pressure off me.

  I did pretty well on my first time around. I lost the ball twice, but it didn’t get too far away, and I didn’t hold things up much. I did better on my second try, and Coach B gave me a little nod as I crossed the line.

  “Cones away!” called Coach. “Fast-break drill!”

  I liked the sound of that: Who didn’t like fast breaks? But as I followed everyone up toward the center of the court, I heard something from the group behind me: “Try to keep up this time, kid.”

  I looked back, expecting to see Kurt again. But all I saw were unfamiliar faces. I wanted to say something back, but I wasn’t even sure who to say it to. Three lines were forming, and I got in the one on my right.

  If I wanted to make a statement, this is where I’d have to do it. The drill was pretty simple: There were three lines. The guy in the middle was on defense and the two on the sides were running the break. Of course, simple doesn’t mean easy. The first group that went blew by the defender only to brick the layup. The defender made all the right moves in the second group, but the guy hit a tough shot, anyway.

  I watched the action closely, and took a few looks at the players I’d be matched up with. They were both from Kurt’s group of friends, the ones who’d high-fived him after he’d given me a hard time at the tryout. The defender was named Joe, and everyone called the guy I’d be on offense with Deek.

  One more group went, and then it was our turn. Coach blew the whistle, and the defender started backpedaling fast.

  “Shut ’em down, Joe!” someone called.

  The coach bounced me the ball, and we were off.

  There were two rules on offense: You had to go full speed — I mean, they don’t call it a “slow break.” And you had to go toward hoop. That was so you couldn’t run over to corner, draw the defender with you, and then toss it to the other guy, wide open underneath. There was only one rule on defense: Don’t foul.

  I took a quick dribble and then fired the ball over to Deek. A lot of times on the break, the earlier you make the first pass, the more likely you are to get it back. I sprinted toward the hoop as Joe followed the ball and went toward Deek.

  Joe stayed there, too. He was on Deek like glue, which allowed me to break into the open on my side. I clapped my hands: Hit me! I was sure we would score now. I could practically see the ball going up and in. But Deek never gave it up. We made eye contact, so I know he saw me. Joe was on him like hair on a dog, but he forced up a fadeaway.

  PWAHNK!

  He got his shot blocked so hard it bounced off the gym wall. And there I was standing all alone under the basket. What was that? I wondered. They didn’t even look back at me as they walked back up the court, laughing to each other.

  I was on defense next. Coach blew the whistle and Deek started dribbling at top speed toward the hoop. I didn’t know if he was a ball hog or if he just hadn’t wanted to pass the ball to me last time. But I knew he’d pass it this time. I could tell he and Joe were tight.

  I stayed with Deek as he zoomed toward the rim. I could hear Joe’s sneakers slapping the court behind me, so I knew more or less where he was. As the space started to run out, I watched for the pass. When Deek one-handed the ball back toward Joe, I was ready. I plucked it right out of the air.

  TWEET TWEET!

  Our turn was over, but I was alone under the hoop for the second straight time. This time I had the ball. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I guess I wanted to make a point (or two). I rose up and popped in a short jumper.

  TWEET TWEEEEET! “Don’t hold up the show!” called Coach.

  I got the ball and fired it back up court. Then I followed Deek and Joe up the side of the court, so I wouldn’t get in the way of the next group coming down. Deek mumbled to Joe, “Show-off.”

  I headed over to the last line for my second turn on offense. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t get a pass this time, either. As I walked to the end of the line, a hand popped out in front of me. It was waist-level, palm out. I looked up and it was Gerry, congratulating me for the stop. I didn’t know if he was offering a low five so that no one else would see it, or if that’s just what he did. But the way things were going, I’d take it. I reached out and slapped his hand as I passed.

  After that, Coach ran through some plays: pick-and-roll, high screen, backdoor cuts. I’d seen those plays before, but the way he talked about it was a lot more precise and detailed than what I was used to on the playground.

  “First game’s on Friday,” yelled the coach. “You all need to have this down by then. One mistake and these plays don’t work!”

  I could tell from the there he goes again looks on their faces that the others had heard this all before. Not me. I listened closely and tried to absorb as many details as I could.

  After practice, I volunteered to help get all the balls back into the rack. I was in no hurry to head into that locker room, anyway. By the time I did, it was mostly empty.

  Someone had a bunch of books spread out on one of the benches. I was pretty sure they were eighth-grade textbooks. It took me a few seconds to realize it was Deek. A few more people left, and suddenly we were the last two people in there. It was kind of awkward. I thought he might give me more attitude, and I wasn’t necessarily in the mood to take it.

  But he didn’t say a word. He just kept looking at those books. He opened one up, closed it again, pushed it aside, and then picked up another one. He looked stressed out about it.

  I grabbed my backpack, heavy with my own books, shut my locker, and got out of there. The last thing I saw as I slipped out the door was Deek stuffing every one of those books back in his locker and slamming the door shut.

  “Yo, STAT,” said Deuce from across the table at lunch. “We gonna see you at the lake?”

  “The lake?” I said, and then I remembered. Saturday was one of the big annual cookouts down at Lake Wales. It had some long, corny name, like the Lake Wales Whale of a Lake Lake Bake — like there’d been a sale on the word lake or something. As a kid with any self-respect at all, there was no way you’d say it out loud. “Oh, the cookout,” I said. “You know it!”

  “Well, we better get there before this guy,” he said, hooking a thumb toward Mike. And it was true, too. Mike could throw down with food. He’d eat pretty much anything and then ask for seconds. He looked up and, sure enough, his mouth was so full there was sandwich coming out the front of it.

  “Who, me?” he said through the food.

  We had a good laugh at that.

  “Mouth of the south!” said Dougie.

  Mike swallowed and said, “Aw, don’t worry about me. There’s going to be plenty of food there for everyone.”

  He was right about that. There was always a ton of food at the cookouts down at the lake. Mike got a faraway look in his eyes and started listing them off: “Burgers and hot dogs and barbecue chicken and potato salad. Corn grilled up just the way I like it.”

  We were all sitting there picturing it right along with him. And then we all looked down and saw our soggy cafeteria sandwiches. Reality bites sometimes. I looked down at my little carton of milk. “And fresh lemonade and iced tea,” I said.

  Deuce looked over at the so-called brownie on his tray. “And cakes and pies for dessert
,” he said.

  “Stop it, guys,” said Mike. “You’re killing me!”

  “You started it,” said Deuce.

  “Yeah, but I stopped before I got to the desserts,” said Mike. “That’s just messed up!” He looked down at his tray, then back up at us. He gave us a shrug like, What’re you gonna do? Then he popped the dried-up little brownie in his mouth and began to chew.

  “Like a hockey puck,” he said as he chewed. The brownie paste blacked out his two front teeth.

  Now that we’d started talking about the cookout, I was probably looking forward to it even more than Mike. I wasn’t as much of a food-seeking missile as he was, but I already missed hanging out with my boys. “Yep,” I said, “I’ll see you all there.”

  Thursday was just a good day in general. My friends were in a good mood, and we already had plans for the weekend. And we had the test on the Aztec chapter in history and I crushed it. I even got the extra-credit question.

  So I was feeling pretty good when I said so long to Mike and Deuce after last period and headed for the gym. I thought my good day might keep going, and I’d have my first good practice.

  Man oh man, was I wrong.

  I ducked into the locker room and changed into my shorts and sneakers. I was wearing a T-shirt from one of the really good tournaments I’d been in, and I didn’t exactly rush to pull my practice jersey on over it. I was coming to play today. But as soon as I got into the gym, things took a nosedive.

  “I’ve got to take care of something,” said Coach B. He didn’t say what it was, but he was sporting a coat and tie instead of his usual shorts and neck full of whistles and stopwatches. “The captains will run things until I get back. They know what you need to work on as well as anyone. Just no one get hurt.”

  I barely even heard those last two sentences. I was thinking: Oh no, please don’t let him be one of the captains. I looked around for Kurt. As soon as I saw him, he gave me a wicked smile. Then he stepped forward.

  “I got this, Coach,” he said.

  Of course he was. Ugh.

  “You too, Mark,” said Coach.

  Another guy stepped forward. I’d noticed him before. The other kids called him Bibo, which I figured was his last name. He moved like a baller — smooth and easy — and he’d been unstoppable in the fast-break drill. But I’d never heard him say a single word. He let his game do the talking, and I totally respected that. But I knew it wasn’t going to help me today.

  TWEEEEEEET!

  I looked over. I couldn’t believe it. Kurt had the whistle, and Coach B was already gone.

  “All right, losers!” shouted Kurt. “Free throws! We’re not leaving any points at the line tomorrow.”

  And that’s when I realized it. The tone of his voice … The way he acted like he should’ve been in charge all along … This guy wasn’t just a jerk to me. This guy was just a jerk.

  “Eighth graders up here,” he said, pointing to one end of the court. “Seventh graders down there,” he said, pointing to the other. “Sixth graders, try not to hurt yourself.”

  Then again, he definitely wasn’t my biggest fan.

  There was some laughter from the usual suspects. Deek had his fist over his mouth trying to cover it up. (But not trying too hard.)

  “You come with me,” Kurt said to me once it had quieted down.

  Great, I thought as we all headed toward the lines. I was surprised to see Bibo heading down to the other end. He was only in seventh grade?

  The drill was downright diabolical. How it worked was that each player had to make four free throws before the next person could go. Everyone counted out each make: “One!” and “Two!” They didn’t count the misses, but they sure saw them. I was near the back of the line, and every time I heard “Four!” I got a little more nervous.

  This drill was designed to make us nervous, to put the pressure on, just like in a real game. I didn’t mind that so much. The problem: I hardly ever shot free throws. On the playground and even at most of the tourneys, foul calls were pretty rare. And most of those just meant you got to take the ball out. Free throws? That wasn’t a big part of my game.

  “Four!” I heard. I swallowed hard and took another step closer to the front. I guess they were about to be.

  They call them free throws, but I would’ve paid someone to take this set for me. I was second to last in line, so I’d just watched plenty of guys make their four. I pushed my goggles up onto my head for a better look and then did what the other kids had done. I bounced the ball a few times, got a good grip on it, and then bent my knees and kind of squatted down.

  I rose up and fired. It felt weird to stay on the ground and not jump. I had a lot more experience with jumpers from this distance than with free throws. Sure enough, without my legs in it, the shot came up short. It clonked off the front rim.

  One of the guys bounced the ball back to me. I put a little more oomph into the next one with my arms. I muscled it, and this one clanked off the back rim. At least I was in the neighborhood.

  “You just got two shots and missed ’em both,” said Kurt.

  He’d said the same thing to a few other guys, but it still stung. I didn’t even dribble this time, just rose up and drained a jumper.

  “One!” a few people called out, but Kurt blew the whistle.

  “Doesn’t count,” he said. “You can’t take jump shots from the line.”

  I wanted to say, “Pretty sure I just did.” I dribbled twice, bent my knees, and fired. The ball bounced from the back rim to the backboard and dropped through the hoop.

  “One!” everyone called out.

  I took a deep breath. Three more to go. The rest of them didn’t go much better, but I hit the last two in a row. It felt like maybe I was getting the hang of it, but I was still glad to be done.

  Turned out, the kid after me was even worse. He was the biggest guy on the team, but he moved kind of awkwardly. He was probably in the middle of a growth spurt. Those can be tough.

  “He’s a brick HOUSE!” someone sang after he clanked his third shot in a row. But he was an eighth grader, too, so he had some friends to back him up.

  “Don’t listen to ’em, Kelvin. You got this.”

  But he didn’t. He clanked nine before he sank four.

  “Good thing you two are tall,” said Kurt, shaking his head.

  I looked over at Kelvin, and he made a funny bug-eyed expression at Kurt’s back. I’d done better than him — missed five, made five, if you counted the jumper — but I didn’t mind being lumped in with him. At least he had a sense of humor.

  “All right, let’s run some full court,” called Kurt.

  I thought the captains might pick teams, but they didn’t need to. We had numbers on our practice jerseys and we just went with odds against evens. Both teams ended up with the same number of players. They even had about the same number from seventh and eighth on each, so I guess Coach planned that out when he gave us the jerseys.

  I was on the odd team. Coach had given me a choice between Number 1 and Number 39. “Last two left in your size,” he’d said, and the choice was pretty obvious.

  Gerry was number 13, and we wound up standing next to each other. “Numero uno,” he said. “Nice.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Lucky thirteen!”

  “Yeah, right?”

  Kurt was on the other team, and Bibo was on ours. We got the better end of that deal. But I wasn’t too happy when Kurt handed the whistle off to Joe and named him “permanent ref.”

  I started off on the bench, but that was cool. There were just a few kids there. I loosened up a little, and just like that I was in the game.

  It felt good to run and cut and all that. I got open a few times — like wide open — but no one passed me the ball. I thought Gerry would’ve, but he was subbed out most of the time I was subbed in. Mostly, I just watched Bibo operate.

  He was shredding the defense with that smooth, easy style of his. Most of the time when he had the ball, the eve
n team didn’t even have a chance. He reminded me of someone. I couldn’t quite place it at first. Then he Supermanned straight up to the rim and threw down a dunk, and I knew. It was my friend Jammer.

  He reminded me even more of Jammer when he became the first guy to feed me the ball. He was bringing it up the court, even though he was basically a forward. The whole defense was watching him, but he saw me slip behind my defender. He flashed a quick hand signal. Blink and you’d miss it, but I didn’t blink. I knew from the day before that the sign meant backdoor cut.

  I flashed toward the rim, and he fired a one-handed pass that hit me in stride. I laid it in off the glass for an easy two.

  Of course, afterward, everyone was like: “What a pass!” and “Did you see that pass?” No mention of the cut or the bucket: It was like I still wasn’t on the court. Bibo gave me a little nod, though. I felt good about that.

  A minute later, I was back on the bench. I waited my turn, and when I got back in, I decided to be more aggressive. Our point guard was bringing the ball up this time. He held a hand sign up. Which one was that again? I thought. Oh yeah, pick-and-roll. I hustled over to set the pick.

  Of course, the other team knew that sign, too. Deek saw it and started trying to duck under the screen before I’d even set it. The result: a collision in the lane. We tagged each other’s shoulders pretty good.

  There was no way it was a foul. We ran into each other: It was a classic no-call. But as soon as Joe blew the whistle, I knew which way the call was going.

  “Offensive foul!” he called.

  “Our ball,” called Kurt. “Good D, Deek!”

  A few minutes later, Coach B reappeared. He’d changed into his practice outfit and didn’t have to wait to get his whistle back. He had like three more around his neck. He picked one and brought the game to a halt.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m glad to see you all still up and running.”

  I looked around. No one had gotten hurt while he was gone — though my shoulder might disagree.

  “Let’s wind things down with one last drill,” he said. “I need you guys healthy for the game tomorrow.”