Most Valuable Page 4

  After we got done, we did the whole thing in reverse: loading the truck back up, dropping Manny off, unloading at home…. Then I took a much-needed shower. Before my hair was even dry, the phone started ringing.

  Junior and I both charged for it and almost collided. I got there a step ahead of him. When the phone rang at this time on Sunday, we both knew who it was. Junior slunk off to the living room and waited his turn.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said.

  “Hey, Amar’e!”

  She was living up in New York State with my little brother. These Sunday calls were mostly just to catch up, but she had a sixth sense for when something was bothering me, too. “Everything good in school?” she was saying.

  “Yep,” I said.

  “How are those grades?”

  “Good.”

  “And how about out of school?”

  “Okay,” I said. “Kind of.”

  And just like that, I could feel her locking in.

  “And why’s that?” she said.

  “Well, there’s this tournament I’m helping with.”

  “Mmm-hmmm,” she said.

  And that’s all it took for me to tell her the whole thing.

  “So you’ve asked all the people you know and you only have half the people you need?” she said, summing it up a lot better than I had.

  “Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”

  “Well, let me ask you something,” she said. “Those other tournaments you played in, or going out for the school team, did you know all those players?”

  “No way,” I said. “I still don’t really know a lot of —”

  Suddenly, I got what she was saying. So far, I’d asked all the best players I knew, and Jammer had done the same. If we wanted to drum up enough players, we were going to have to open things up a lot more. Immediately, players came to mind. A sweet scorer who’d given the Bears fits when we played Central. A long, lean defender who’d given me a ton of trouble in that same game. Then other players, from other teams.

  “Amar’e, baby? You still there?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Thanks, Mom. You’re the best.”

  “You know I’m always here for you.”

  I always knew that. “Hey, Mom,” I said. “Is the little big man there?”

  “Sure is,” she said, and she went to get my half brother.

  I couldn’t talk to him for too long, because Junior was hovering around waiting. Once he got on the phone, I was the one waiting. I had to give Jammer a call. I had a question for him: Who are the toughest guys you’ve faced this year?

  * * *

  The next week flew by. After practice on Monday, the other Bears and I put our heads together to decide who else to invite to the Classic. I asked Kelvin who battled him the toughest down low and Isaac who did the best job of slowing him down. I asked Bibo and Joe who defended them the best — and who they had the toughest time defending.

  The locker room cleared out around us as we huddled up and talked it over. Sometimes the guys mentioned names I knew, players from teams we’d already faced that season. Sometimes the names were new to me, guys they’d faced last year, players who’d already been tough in seventh grade and would be back again this year.

  Either way, if enough heads started nodding when a name was mentioned, I figured they were the real deal. I wrote the names down on a new sheet in the same notebook where I’d written my first list. So much had happened since then and I still had a lot to get done.

  Pretty soon, we had a good list. Then we had to figure out how to contact them. “Anyone know Muni’s last name?” I asked. “Wait, is that his last name? And what about Fabrice?”

  Both of them played for our archrivals, the Central Cougars. I looked around and everyone was shaking his head no. “I always just call him Muni,” said Joe. “They always call him that, too.”

  “Wait a sec,” said Isaac. “All that stuff’s in the paper.”

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “That’s right.” The local paper always wrote up the Bears games — and they always used full names. Bibo was Mark Bibo; Joe was Joe Hanlon. The piece on our win over the Cougars would solve the mystery of Muni. They had a stack of old issues in the library, and I was pretty sure it was all online, anyway.

  I looked down at my list, a mix of first names, last names, and nicknames. Those old stories would have the answers.

  “Thanks, guys,” I said as we all grabbed our stuff and headed out of the locker room.

  “No problem,” said Kelvin.

  “Yeah,” said Joe. “It’ll be awesome to take on some Cougars in the Classic!”

  For the rest of the week, I got busy making that happen. I switched into detective mode and did some digging. That’s what I was doing after practice Tuesday when a familiar car screeched to a stop in the driveway. By the time I got to the door, I saw Jammer heading my way. Carl was waiting in the car, so I knew we were going somewhere.

  “Think we got a court for the game,” said Jammer. “You should come check it out.”

  I gave him a suspicious look. “Why, is there something wrong with it?”

  “Just come on,” he said, waving me toward the car. He had his poker face on and wasn’t giving anything away.

  “Hold on,” I said. “Let me tell my dad — and get my sneakers.”

  The trip was familiar right from the start. I knew every turn we were going to take before Carl even signaled. And things were just as familiar once we got there. I climbed out of the car. “This is the court where Overtime got hurt,” I said.

  “Yep,” said Jammer. “Pretty nice one, too.”

  I looked around. I was half seeing it as it was now and half remembering how it had been that night, flooded with light and sound and packed with people. It was definitely a nice court. But …

  “Isn’t it, I don’t know, a little weird?” I said. “I mean, it’s his tournament, and this probably isn’t his favorite place right now.”

  Carl shook his head. “Man, at OT’s age, if he held it against every court he’d gotten banged up on, he couldn’t so much as shoot a free throw without leaving the state.”

  That seemed like a pretty good point, and it wasn’t like we could ask him. The last time we’d tried to call him, that same nurse had given us strict orders not to “pester him with basketball stuff.”

  “Yeah,” said Jammer. “OT would just want the best court possible. And this is it. We can even use the sound system from last time.”

  “Yeah, that was nice,” I admitted. We wouldn’t have some guy clowning around and making jokes into the mic during games, but it would be perfect for calling out the action, announcing winners and matchups and all that other stuff. “How’d you get it, anyway?”

  A sly smile appeared on Jammer’s face. “A little guilt goes a long way,” he said.

  “What, you guilt-tripped ’em?” I said.

  “Not exactly,” he said. “I pointed out that Overtime was in the hospital and that his big tournament still didn’t have a court lined up. I mean, I might have mentioned where he got hurt a few times. Just, you know, in case they’d forgotten.”

  “You’re an operator, man,” I said, breaking out into a smile of my own.

  “Never said I wasn’t.”

  I took another long look around the court.

  “I think we should have it at night,” I said. “Under the lights.”

  “Definitely.”

  Deuce was acting all cagey in homeroom on Wednesday, so I knew something was up. I waited him out. Finally, he looked both ways like he was undercover and slid a piece of paper across the top of my desk. “What, are we passing notes now?”

  “Just look at it.”

  I looked down again and said, “It’s blank.”

  He looked at me to see if I was messing with him. I was, but I don’t think I gave it away. Finally, he reached over and flipped the paper right side up.

  “Whoa!” I said. “This is awesome.”

  That’s when I realized
Mike was standing on the other side of my desk. They were both admiring their work, and I was, too. It was a sweet flyer. It said 20 Years of Classic Action in big type at the top, just like we’d planned. Then there was an awesome action shot and all the info: the address of the new court and the date and time. They’d even included a “suggested contribution,” since this was OT’s big fund-raiser for his other tourneys.

  “You guys work fast,” I said. I’d only given them the info the day before. “Thanks!”

  “What?” said Mike. “Who says this is for you? Now that we’re going to be playing, we want to make sure we have an audience.”

  “Yeah,” said Deuce. “We owe it to our public!”

  I waved them off, but I had to admit it. Of all the invitations I’d handed out for the Classic, being able to invite Mike and D was the best.

  “Now,” I said. “We just need to figure out where to make a whole mess of copies.”

  “I got that,” said Deuce, reaching over and taking the flyer back. “Trust me.”

  I looked over at Mike and gave him a look, like: Do you know what he’s up to? He shook his head. “I think the less we know about this, the better.”

  * * *

  For the rest of the day, the tourney took a backseat to the upcoming Bears game. We were playing the Lake South Gators tomorrow, and it was time to buckle down and really focus on that. Everyone kind of knew it, too. The guys playing in the Classic stopped asking me for updates and double-checking details.

  The game was at Lake South. In the locker room before tip-off, Coach B reminded us what was at stake.

  “The Gators have one loss,” he says. “That means they’re only one game behind us. If they win: Bam! They’re in first place. And you know who’s in second?”

  “Us?” said Kelvin.

  Coach shook his head and waited a moment, just to build the drama. “The Gators’ only loss came from the Cougars. That means if we lose, the Cougars are in second and we’re in third.”

  There was some rumbling in the room. We definitely couldn’t have that. Dropping from first all the way to third? And having our archrivals leapfrog us?

  “No way!” shouted Kelvin, jumping up off the bench.

  Then we all stood up. “Not gonna happen!” said Isaac. Even Bibo chimed in with a loud “Uh-uh.”

  We took the court knowing what was at stake — but so did the Gators. They could smell first place and were even more fired up by their home crowd. They started off turbocharged, running full out and throwing themselves at every loose ball.

  “Weather the storm!” shouted Coach. “Weather the storm!”

  We all knew what he meant. They call Florida the Sunshine State, but we had more than our share of big storms down here. But even the biggest storms blow over. We knew if we could keep it close for the first five minutes or so, the Gators’ energy level would come back down to earth.

  To do it, we needed to stay tough on defense and score enough to keep pace. On both ends of the court, we had to battle a bunch of hyped-up Gators on the boards.

  Their top defender was legit. His name was Walter, and he was trading off on Bibo and me. He was doing a good job, but I figured all that switching off could get pretty confusing. And I knew just how to make it worse. The next time the ball sailed out of bounds, I walked over to Isaac. “How about a pick-and-roll with Bibo and me?” I whispered.

  He got it immediately. “Yeah,” he said. “Definitely.”

  It worked like a charm. I set the screen for Bibo, and with both of us right next to each other, Walter hesitated just enough. The fact that he recognized the possible pick-and-roll just made it worse. He knew who had the ball now, but not who’d end up with it. He stayed on Bibo, and one of the other defenders jumped up out of his area.

  I rolled to the hoop with a patch of court all to myself. Plenty of room to catch a quick pass from Bibo and drain a short jump shot.

  The next time up, we did the same thing. This time Walter switched onto me — and Bibo kept the ball and scored.

  We didn’t do anything fancy on the defensive end, just battled and tried to be smart. They were crashing the boards like crazy. We responded by getting position and boxing out.

  Add it all up, and we held our own. Sure enough, Coach was right. After five or six minutes of total intensity, the Gators started to go flat. Their energy level started to drop like the air going out of a balloon. Meanwhile, the score was tied, and we felt like we were just hitting our stride.

  We took the lead a minute later, and cruised into halftime with an eight-point cushion. Things were going pretty well, but then it happened. It was right after the half. I was getting a quick rest on the bench, so Bibo was battling Walter one-on-one. Kelvin put up a hook shot that rimmed out. Bibo and Walter went up high to grab the rebound. Bibo got his hands on it first, but the two bumped bodies in midair, and Bibo came down wrong.

  “Uh-oh,” said the guy next to me on the bench. I hissed some air in through my teeth, and Coach just dropped his head. Bibo had turned his ankle — a lot. For a split second, it looked like he was standing on the side of his sneaker instead of the bottom of it. Now he was on the ground, curled up and holding his ankle.

  The whistle blew and half a dozen adults rushed onto the court.

  The rest of the game was a blur. Now I was the one battling it out with Walter. During time-outs and breaks in the action, little bits of news trickled in: “looks bad,” “on his way to the hospital,” “X-rays.”

  We were all worried about Bibo. He wasn’t just a great player, he was a really good guy, too. When I first joined the team, I was the new kid and the only sixth grader. Some of the players gave me a really hard time. But not Bibo. He stuck up for me and passed me the ball.

  He made a difference for me, and for other players, too. Some of the guys were pretty emotional on the court. During a time-out, Isaac looked at us and said, “This game’s for Bibo.” From that point on, the Gators had no shot. We finished the game with the kind of energy they’d started it with and won by twelve.

  Afterward, we got the official word: a high-ankle sprain. We were glad nothing was broken, but high-ankle sprains were bad news.

  “How long will he be out?” asked Isaac after the game.

  Coach looked around the locker room. We’d all stopped moving — practically stopped breathing — waiting to hear the news. “Tough to say,” he said. “At least three weeks.”

  Isaac looked down at the floor and then up at me. We both knew the deal. With a little luck, the Bears would get Bibo back for the play-offs. But the Classic had just lost one of its best players.

  On the bus ride home, we were all trying to process the same thing: a big win and a big loss in the same game.

  As we pulled out onto the highway, I was thinking about that first pick-and-roll Bibo and I had pulled off against the Gators’ defense. That reminded me of Walter. The last time I saw him wasn’t on the court; it was outside the locker room after the game. He came up to me and said, “Man, I feel terrible about what happened.”

  “Not your fault,” I told him.

  “Yeah?” he said, and seemed to relax a little. “I didn’t see him land. We bumped pretty good going up for that ball, and I think coming down, too.”

  “That’s just basketball, man,” I said. Walter was a fierce defender, but he didn’t seem like a dirty one.

  “Thanks,” he said, “but I still feel bad. Can you tell him sorry for me?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I can do that.”

  It would be no problem to spot Bibo in the hallway at school now. I wondered if he’d be on crutches, or maybe in a boot for a while. As I was thinking that, Walter pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket. There was just one word on it, Walter, and his telephone number.

  “Just let me know if he’s okay, like if it’s not as bad as they think, or whatever,” he said. “And let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

  I looked down at the phone number. I already knew h
e’d probably end up taking Bibo’s place at the tourney, but I couldn’t deal with that right then. “Sure,” I said, and he walked away.

  Puhlll-DUMMP! PING! The bus cratered out in a pothole. The noise brought me back to the here and now. I looked over at Isaac in the seat across from me. He slid over like he had a secret to tell me.

  “I was just talking with Kelvin,” he said, looking me straight in the eyes. “Bibo’s out, so you’re playing with us now, right?”

  The question caught me by surprise — and it put me in a seriously awkward position. I mean, I was a Bear, riding the team bus. But I had other friends in the tourney, too: Jammer and Khalid, and Mike and Deuce, especially.

  “The Bears have got to win this tournament,” said Isaac, getting tired of waiting for my answer. I had to say something.

  “That would be awesome,” I said.

  “You mean it?”

  “Yeah, I mean … It would be awesome if the Bears won the Classic.”

  I was dodging, and Isaac was trying to pin me down.

  “So you’ll play with Kelvin and me?”

  “And then Joe could keep playing with Mike and Deuce,” I said, thinking out loud. It made sense, and it seemed like the teams would work. The thing is, right from the start, I’d sort of assumed I’d be playing with Jammer. And I’m pretty sure he assumed the same thing.

  “So,” said Isaac. “Yes or no?”

  He wanted a decision, but I hadn’t even thought about it. It had only been like an hour or so since Bibo got hurt.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I think I might still have to referee and all that on Saturday.”

  Isaac looked at me, trying to figure me out. “I’m not talking about the practice,” he said.

  I knew that, but it was all I had for him.

  “We’ll figure it out,” I said. “All that other stuff will —”

  Isaac didn’t look satisfied. “Come on. You have to.”

  Luckily, we were just about home. I grabbed my stuff and jumped off the bus.

  I scanned the parking lot and was relieved to see Junior’s car. I headed straight for it and had the door closed before the bus was even done backfiring.