Double Team Page 5

  He shot me a look. I thought he was going to say something, but he didn’t. So two plays later, it was Deuce and me against Mike. I had the ball, and I shot toward the hoop. I had my head down, like I’d already decided to take it all the way to the rim. Mike jumped in front of me. As he did, I dished it off to Deuce for an easy score. I wanted to show him that I was willing to pass, that that’s how we needed to play.

  Instead he said: “See? If you’d done that more on Saturday, we could’ve won.”

  Now I was the one not saying what I was thinking: No, because you couldn’t beat your defender. The next time it was Deuce and me, I did keep it. Mike jumped in front of me again, but he was too late. His feet weren’t set and he was too deep under the basket anyway. I finger-rolled the ball up and in a split second before the collision.

  Any good ref would call that a blocking foul on him. But there were no refs out here today, and Mike got up mad. “Take it easy, man!” he said.

  “We’ve got to practice hard,” I fired back, “or we’ll never be as good!”

  I didn’t have to say as good as who. They knew who I meant.

  So of course the next time Mike had the ball, he ran me over. I sort of knew it was coming, and I had good position and my feet set. It was a charge on him all the way, but again: no ref. He knew it, too.

  “Charge,” I said, peeling myself off the ground.

  “Just trying to practice hard,” he said.

  Deuce gave him a low five and that really annoyed me. I even wondered if Deuce had passed it to Mike just so he could run me over.

  “This drill isn’t working,” I said.

  And it wasn’t. It was like we were getting worse as a team instead of better.

  “Yeah,” said Deuce. “Because you’re not doing it right.”

  “I’m the only one who is doing it right!”

  “Then why am I the one who just scored?” said Mike.

  “On my assist,” said Deuce. “You’re just mad because we schooled you.”

  I was mad. My face was hot and my heart was pounding, but it wasn’t because they had schooled me. It was because they were teaming up on me and only seeing what they wanted to. If that’s how they were going to be, I had something to show them.

  “You really think that?” I said. “I can beat the both of you at once!”

  “Yeah, right,” said Deuce.

  “Yeah,” I said, looking straight at him. “Right.”

  “Okay,” said Mike, puffing out his chest to try to make himself look bigger. “Let’s go.”

  “I’m in,” said Deuce. His chest was too small to inflate, but he squinted his eyes, trying to look tough. “What’re we playing to?”

  “One,” I said. “That’s all I need.”

  “Your funeral,” said Deuce. “And we get the ball first.”

  I checked the ball in to him at the top of the key. Then I guarded Mike like Deuce wasn’t even there. I knew that would get under his skin, and it did. He took off for the basket, and I took off a half second later.

  We were both going full speed by the time Deuce reached the hoop. A pump fake or a pass back, and I was doomed. But I knew he was just going to go straight up with it. He was looking up at the hoop like it was a Thanksgiving turkey. I was taller and I jumped higher. The few steps he had on me weren’t enough. When the shot went up, so did I. As I flew past, I plucked the ball right out of the air and came down with it like it was a rebound.

  I took the ball back out, and started up the play. They both tried to guard me at once. I tried to zip past Mike, since he was slower, but he just kept backing up and giving ground. As soon as I stopped or slowed down, I knew they were both going to swarm on me and tie me up. So I didn’t stop.

  I pushed hard, trying to turn the corner on Mike. I got close enough that Deuce had to come around the other side to seal me off. Then I spun back in the direction where Deuce had been and elevated. I had a clean twelve-foot shot, and I drained it.

  “Game over.” I looked at Deuce and Mike and walked off the court.

  I thought about that shot all the way home. I wasn’t thinking about how I’d made it. I was thinking about why I’d had to. How had it become me against them? It felt like I was being double-teamed as soon as I stepped on the court.

  Maybe it was time to let them know about the other tournament. Everything would be out in the open then — but maybe that would be even worse. I needed advice. But the house was empty again when I arrived. There was no one to talk to.

  I walked into the living room. The MechaNoize III case was in the center of the table. I picked it up and saw the note Junior had stuck to the front: Level 2 was ROUGH. You’re up!

  I sat down and battled my way through level 3. It was definitely harder than level 1, but I was ready. I’d been battling for hours. I finished the level and saved it for Junior. I went over to the table by the phone to get another sticky note to leave for him.

  Before I even got there, I realized I needed the phone more than the note. I dialed the number by heart.

  “Hello?” I heard.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hi, baby,” said Mom.

  “Hi,” I said. “You busy?”

  “You know I always have time for you.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I couldn’t help but smile. Talking to Mom on the phone always kind of turned me back into a little kid, but I didn’t mind. There was no one around to see me anyway.

  “So what’s going on?” she said. “Is something bothering you?”

  She always knew why I was calling — sometimes even before I did!

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s” — I tried to think of how to start — “it’s complicated.”

  “Well, I’m sitting, and your dad is paying the phone bill,” she said with a chuckle. “So we’ve got time.”

  Her good mood helped me loosen up.

  “It’s my boys Mike and Deuce,” I said. “You remember them?”

  “Oh, sure,” said Mom. “Your friends. I always liked those two.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “They’re great guys. It’s just, well …” I kind of paused. But then I decided I’d just tell her. I hadn’t called long-distance just to give her hints. “They’re great guys, but they’re maybe not quite as great as basketball players.”

  “Oh,” said Mom. “Trouble on the court. I saw you and your brothers out there when you were up here. After I got done with the food shopping and came to pick you up. I could tell you were more serious about it.”

  “We all are,” I said. “We’re all more serious. We’ve even been practicing.”

  “And Junior tells me you’ve been doing real well in the tournaments,” she said.

  “Yeah, but …”

  “But what, baby?”

  “But I guess that’s when things started to change, you know? We all get along fine off the court. But on the court, it’s like one part basketball, two parts drama.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” said Mom. “Those two go together sometimes.”

  “It’s like we used to just play, and that was easy,” I said. “But now we practice, and that’s harder. And at the end of all that practice, we’ve got these tournaments. And they’re great, but they change things. Once it’s official, we have to worry about things we didn’t have to worry about before.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Like, well, like who gets the ball the most.”

  “And who gets the ball the most?”

  I paused again. “Me,” I said. “Last time anyway. But it was just so we could win. That’s the other thing, Mom. I’m not bragging or anything….”

  “I know you’re not, baby.”

  “But I’m a little better than Mike and Deuce now. Like, Deuce is still really small. He used to be the fastest kid around, but at these tournaments …”

  “He’s not the fastest kid anymore,” she said. I was really glad she understood. I mean, she was my mom, so she was going to have my back anyway. But I was glad someone else k
new what was going on.

  “So if we want to score …,” I started.

  “Sometimes you’ve got to do the scoring,” she finished.

  “Yep.”

  “And maybe their feelings get a little hurt.”

  “I guess. Or maybe they hog the ball the next game. And run me over in practice.”

  “Because their feelings are hurt,” she said.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. I guess I hadn’t really thought of it that way. We were both quiet for a second as I let that sink in.

  “But it’s weird,” I said. “Because I still like them. And I still like the tournaments.”

  “It’s just getting harder to like them both at the same time,” she said.

  “Exactly.”

  “And there’s something else, isn’t there?” she said.

  How did she know?

  “Man, Mom, you can read minds,” I said.

  “That’s just called being a mom,” she said.

  “Well, you’re right anyway. There’s another tournament, a big one, and it’s the same time as the next one with Mike and Deuce. And I, well, I kind of agreed to play in both of them.”

  “Oh, Amar’e,” she said, like I was a puppy that kept chewing up her slippers. “This big tournament is the one you told me about last time?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I’d only told her the basics then, so now I told her the rest. I told her all about what Overtime had said to me. I told her about how good Jammer was, and that he wanted me on his team. I told her how this one would mean playing on a whole new level.

  “Overtime invited me personally,” I said, though I guess I’d already told her that.

  “And Mike and Deuce?” she said.

  “Nope,” I said.

  “So you could play in this invitational, and take a big step forward,” she said. “Or you could play in another little tournament with your friends.”

  “Yep, that’s basically it.”

  “And if you play with your friends, do you think things will get better between you guys?”

  “Probably not,” I admitted. “They’ll probably get their feelings hurt again. And I’ll probably be mad about missing Overtime’s tourney.”

  Now that I’d talked the whole thing out, it seemed a lot clearer.

  “You know what I think?” said Mom.

  “I think I know what you think,” I said.

  “Well, that’s a lot of thinks,” she said. “So I’ll just go ahead and tell you.”

  “Okay.”

  “I think you’re growing up, baby,” she said. “And not everyone grows as fast or as far, not in school, not in life, and definitely not on the basketball court.”

  I thought about how Deuce and I were on the honor roll, but that wasn’t really Mike’s thing. Sometimes he busted on us for being nerds, but he never got in the way when we needed to study.

  “Well, you’ve got to let yourself grow,” she continued. “Think about three trees in a lot, and one tree is growing a little faster than the others. Can that tree crouch down and pretend they’re all still the same size?”

  “No, ’course not,” I said.

  “Well, that’s you right now,” said Mom. “You’ve got to let yourself be your best. And even if it’s a little difficult right now, your friends are going to have to give you the space you need to grow.”

  She was right.

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

  “Anytime, baby,” she said.

  I knew what I needed to do. But that didn’t mean it was going to be easy.

  I was pretty jittery in school on Tuesday morning. I had this habit of chewing on my pencil when I was nervous, like before a big test or something. Well, if I chewed on it any harder now, it was going to become a second breakfast. I’d made up my mind, but now I had to tell Mike and Deuce. I just didn’t know how to do it.

  “So, uh, you ever think that we’re all, like, trees?” I started.

  We were in the hall, on our way back from art class. My palms were sweating, and I was sort of stumbling over my words.

  “What are you talking about?” said Mike.

  “We’re all trees?” said Deuce. “I think you might have gotten too many paint fumes in art class.”

  “Leaf me alone!” I said, playing it off like a joke. They laughed a little and we headed to our next class. Fail. I tried again afterward.

  “You guys heard about invitationals?” I said.

  “Oh, sure,” said Deuce. “Those are big-time. Aren’t too many for kids our age. But that’s basically how they spot the really top talent, like in high school and stuff.”

  “Yeah,” said Mike. “Sometimes they even have full camps before the game. They get all the best guys.”

  This was off to a better start than last time, but I had to tell them now. If I let it drop again, it would be even harder to work up to it again. A little wave of nerves broke over top of me, but I pushed ahead.

  “Well, I got invited to one,” I said.

  “Yeah, right,” said Mike with a little laugh.

  Not Deuce. He looked me right in the eyes. Once he saw my expression, he knew I was serious. He knew something was up, too, but he hadn’t figured out that part yet.

  “That’s awesome, man,” he said. His voice was sort of cautious. “Who invited you?”

  “Overtime,” I said, quieter than I meant to.

  “Did you say ‘Overtime’?” said Deuce. “Overtime Tanner invited you to play in a tournament?”

  “Wait,” said Mike, “you’re serious?”

  “Yeah,” I said, trying to answer them both at once. “In his tournament: the Overtime Invitational.”

  “Wow, STAT, that’s —” Mike started, but Deuce cut him off. He’d figured it out.

  “When is it?” he said.

  “Yeah, that’s kind of the thing,” I said. “I was gonna tell you….”

  “When?” said Mike.

  “It’s Saturday,” I said. “The fourteenth.”

  Mike got that look on his face, like when he’s trying to do math in class: “But that’s …”

  “The same day as our tournament,” said Deuce.

  “How can you play in both?” said Mike.

  “I can’t,” I admitted. “Listen, guys, I feel really bad, but I’ve got to do this.”

  “But you already said you’d play in the one with us,” said Mike.

  Deuce didn’t say anything. He just watched me like he did when he was defending me on the court and trying to figure out my next move.

  “I told Overtime the same thing,” I said. “It all happened really fast. I was sort of caught off guard.”

  Deuce shook his head.

  “Come on, D,” I said. “This is a really big opportunity for me.”

  “Yeah, for you,” said Deuce. He looked over at Mike and said, “I guess our invitations got lost in the mail.”

  “Seriously,” said Mike.

  “Come on, guys,” I said.

  “I guess that’s why you were hogging the ball so much at the tournament,” said Deuce.

  “What? No, that’s not fair,” I said.

  “A lot of things aren’t fair right now,” he said.

  I couldn’t argue with that. Then the warning bell went off, and you can’t argue with that either. We hustled to class.

  We sat at our normal table during lunch. I wanted to make my case a little better. I’d spent most of that last class thinking about what I was going to say, but they didn’t even want to talk about it. We basically wound up just sitting around chewing our soggy pizza squares and listening to Marcus tell his usual stories.

  We didn’t even sit together the next day. I sat down next to Tavoris and Marcus, as usual. Dougie sat down next. We all kind of scooted over to make room when Mike and Deuce appeared, but they just kept walking.

  “Heard you guys are having an argument about hoops,” said Tavoris.

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s about right.”


  “Oh, yeah?” said Marcus.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s just kind of a dumb thing.”

  “Like a misunderstanding?” said Marcus.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Basically.”

  I left it at that. If I said anything more, Marcus would end up telling the whole class. He was a good guy, but asking him to stop flapping his gums was like asking a fish to stop swimming.

  “I’m gonna go see what’s up,” said Dougie.

  We watched as he walked over to their new table. He didn’t come back. The rest of the day went pretty much the same. Right before the end of the day, word got back to me: Mike and Deuce were telling kids I was “big-timing” them.

  I didn’t think it was fair. It was just one tournament, and it’s not like the last one had gone so great. And they both would’ve done the same thing if they were in my sneakers. I could think of a dozen reasons why it wasn’t true. But it still stung. Big time.

  So, yeah, I was feeling a little hung out to dry when I got home from school on Wednesday. I went straight for the living room. My big brother and I had reached the final level of our video game. I fired up the game and got comfortable: The final level was always superhard on games like these, especially alone.

  I started out carefully, scouting out my surroundings on the new level. I knew there was an ambush coming, but I didn’t know where or when. I guess I must’ve been really concentrating because I didn’t even hear when someone else came into the room. Then Junior crashed down on the couch next to me!

  “Hey, STAT!” he said.

  “Aaaah!” I said, pausing the game and trying to act like he hadn’t scared the heck out of me. “I thought you were a cyborg ambush!”

  “Nah,” said Junior. “I’m the reinforcements. Got your back when you’re under attack!”

  “Cool!” I said. “I could use some backup right now.”

  “What do you say we finish this last level together?”

  We went back to where the game was saved and started the level over, this time with two players. It was easier this time because I didn’t have to watch the whole screen myself. The action started to build. Junior blasted a drone out of the sky with his electric-bolt launcher. Then I turned a weird spinning robot into scrap metal with my laser.