Center Court Sting (7 page)

Daren shook his head. “I guess I’m lucky to have you as a friend.”

“You better believe it!” Lynn grinned.

“Seriously!” insisted Daren. “I tried to give Gary Parnell basketball tips, but instead of helping him, I kept getting in
his face. I said these terrible things, and I imitated him, made him feel really stupid. Then his sister Judy yelled at me,
and I was, like, ‘What did
I
do?’ And the worst part was, I really didn’t know!

“Then, when I thought about it, I saw that it’s the same thing I do to Lou, to Andy — even
you
. And you’re my best friend! When I feel bad, I want to get back by hurting someone. It doesn’t really matter who.”

Lynn wasn’t smiling anymore. “Uh-huh. You’re good at it, too.”

Daren bit his lip. “I know I am. I make people feel like — like
I
felt when Ms. Cass got on me yesterday. No wonder most of the guys on the team hate me. That’s why I couldn’t understand
why you don’t hate me, too.”

“You’re wrong,” Lynn insisted. “They don’t hate you.
Nobody
hates you. They’re ready to be friends with you, when you show that you want to be friends with them.”

Daren stared Lynn, wanting to believe him. “You think so? I don’t know.… ”

“There’s one way to see for sure,” Lynn said.
“Act
like a friend. When you feel yourself getting ready to give someone the needle —
stop
. I bet everyone will forget there was a problem.”

“I still feel bad, especially about Lou,” said Daren as they mounted the steps into school. “I’m going to talk to Lou today.
I’m going to tell him I’m sorry, even if I have to hold him down to do it!”

Later that day, Daren got his chance. He and Lynn had just come into the cafeteria for lunch.

“There’s Lou over there,” Daren said,
pointing across the crowded room. “Maybe I can talk to him now and see what happens.”

Lynn looked where Daren was pointing. “Looks like Lou is going somewhere.”

Sure enough, Lou was wearing his jacket and dangling his backpack from one hand. He said something to Shawn, who was standing
with him. Shawn said something back. Lou turned and hurried out of the cafeteria, practically running.

“What’s going on?” Daren asked.

“Let’s ask Shawn,” suggested Lynn.

They crossed the room. Shawn was still watching the door that Lou had gone through, and didn’t turn until Lynn said, “Hey,
Shawn, what’s happening?”

Shawn turned with a worried look on his face. “Hey, Lynn.” Then he noticed Daren and his face went blank. He nodded, without
a word.

“What’s going on with Lou?” Daren asked. “Was he leaving school just now?”

The worried look returned to Shawn’s face. “Yeah, he had to leave.”

“How come?” asked Daren. “Is it about his mom?”

Shawn stared hard at Daren. “How do you know about his mom?”

“I — I just know, that’s all,” Daren replied. “Is she all right?”

“I don’t know,” said Shawn. “All I know is, his dad came by to pick him up and take him to the hospital.”

“You knew about this, huh?” said Lynn. “Were you the only one who knew?”

Shawn nodded. “He wanted to keep it quiet. He told me because we’re tight, but he made me promise not to tell anyone else.
I tried to get him to let the team know, but he wouldn’t.”

“Boy, I sure wish I’d known earlier,” muttered Daren. “I wouldn’t’ve…”

He stopped, not knowing what to say.

Shawn glared at Daren. “
You
were the last person he would have told.”

Daren shook his head. “Look, I know you won’t believe me, but I never meant to make Lou upset. Even when I was saying all
those things, I was just blowing off steam.”

Shawn narrowed his eyes, but he seemed to soften a bit. “Yeah, well, I guess I’ll see you guys at practice. Later.”

Daren and Lynn watched him go.

“You tried, Daren, and that’s the best you can do for now,” Lynn said.

Daren sighed. “Hope things go better at practice today.”

When Daren came into the locker room to prepare for practice, he was surprised to see
Lou at his locker, getting changed. After a moment’s hesitation, he went up to the taller boy.

“How’s it going?”

“Okay,” Lou said, lacing up a sneaker.

Daren knew that he had to say something more, but after the way he’d behaved toward Lou, he found himself stumbling over his
words.

“Listen — I — I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and — I’m sorry about the way I’ve been riding you. All I can say is that
I know I was a creep and that I wish it never happened, and it won’t happen again.”

Lou had put on his other sneaker, but he stopped tying the laces to look at Daren. “All right. I’d rather just forget about
it, myself.”

Daren let out a sigh of relief. “Really? Me, too.” He sat down next to Lou. “Listen, I
heard about your mom. How’s she doing? I saw you leave school early, and I was wondering —”

When Lou broke into a big smile, Daren suddenly realized how long it had been since he’d seen that look on Lou’s face. “She’s
doing a lot better. Her doctor says she’s going to be fine! Dad took me over so she could tell me the news herself. She’ll
be coming home in a week!”

“That’s great!” enthused Daren, genuinely pleased for the lanky center. “It must have been tough, trying to play ball while
your mom was sick.”

“It was pretty bad,” Lou agreed. He gave Daren a thoughtful look. “Thanks for asking about her.”

Daren stood up to go to his locker but sat again quickly. He nudged Lou and pointed toward the locker room door. Andy Higgins
had just come in. He saw the two Rangers looking at him and turned away quickly.

Before he could disappear, Daren called, “Hey, Andy! Come over here a second, okay?”

Andy slowly walked toward them. He looked nervous and unhappy.

“How are you doing?” asked Daren when the manager finally reached them.

“All right,” mumbled Andy, looking at the floor, the ceiling, the lockers — anywhere but at Daren and Lou.

“Hey, listen,” Daren said. “I know you do a lot of stuff for the team, and most of it is stuff we would hate to have to do
ourselves, like picking up towels. And almost nobody ever says thank you. Well,
I
sure don’t. So I figure this is a good time to say thanks.”

Lou nodded. “Yeah, that goes for me, too.”

Andy’s mouth dropped open. “You want to — to
thank me?”

“Right,” Daren replied.

“That’s about it,” agreed Lou.

“It’s okay,” said Andy, who still looked very confused. “Urn… I have something to say to you guys, too. I was feeling sort
of, well, angry about how nobody ever appreciates the things I do around here and how some of you were always picking on me…”

“It wasn’t right,” Lou said. “We shouldn’t have done that.”

“I guess I was the worst one of all,” added Daren. “I won’t do it again.”

“The thing is,” Andy went on, “about those drawings and the towel and Lou’s shoes being painted. I was feeling angry, I guess,
and
I
was the one who —”

“Forget it,” Daren interrupted.

“No big deal,” said Lou.

“You mean that?” Andy asked. “Really?”

“Definitely,” Lou replied. Daren nodded.

“I’ll buy you new shoes,” Andy offered.

“You don’t have to,” said Lou. “They were pretty old. I can wear them the way they are. Actually, they look cool painted red.”

“Yeah, they do.” Daren grinned at Lou and turned to Andy. “Where’s that paint? I may paint my shoes red, too.”

Lou started to laugh, and Daren and Andy joined him. Lynn and Shawn came over.

“What’s up?” Lynn asked.

Lou stopped laughing and said, “We were just talking about how the Rebels are going to get totally stomped tomorrow.”

“Completely,” said Daren.

Shawn and Lynn exchanged puzzled looks.

“You know these guys?” Lynn asked.

“They sort of look familiar,” Shawn answered. “But they sure sound different.”

O
n the day of the game between the Rangers and the Rebels, the crowd was the biggest that Daren could remember. As he came
out of the locker room into the gym, he was startled by the level of the noise. Although the game wasn’t due to start for
a while, almost every seat was full. He saw lots of signs scattered through the stands that said
go
,
rangers!
and
rebels rule!
and similar messages. As he looked around, he happened to spot Judy Parnell, sitting with Gary. Judy noticed him and waved,
and then poked Gary in the arm and
pointed. Daren smiled and waved back. Gary stood up and yelled something to him, but it was too noisy for Daren to hear.
He nodded to Gary anyway.

The Rangers began their warm-up drills, shooting layups. At the other end of the floor, the Rebels were doing the same thing.
Daren looked them over after his first layup. Their uniforms were gray and red, and he watched their big center, Drew Capp,
go up and lay the ball in. Capp was a big, strong player. It looked like he’d be able to dunk the ball someday soon. Lou Bettman
was definitely going to have his work cut out for him, trying to stop this guy. Of course, the other Rangers would be there
to help out.

Daren would, for sure. This was the
new
Daren. He hadn’t said a nasty word to anyone and was going out of his way to be friendly. Some of the Rangers had responded
immediately and been friendly, too. A few,
like Shawn, were still holding back, as if they were waiting for the old Daren to put in an appearance. But so far, it hadn’t
happened.

Over and over during the Rangers’ last practice before this game, Coach Michaels had repeated the same things: “Help each
other, especially on defense. Don’t be selfish on offense.” Teamwork: that was the name of the game.

He had drilled the Rangers in man-to-man defense, where each Ranger guarded one opponent, and zone defense, in which each
player was responsible for part of the court. He had them work on what he called their “secret weapon,” a combination of zone
and man-to-man in which Lynn guarded Tony Tisdale while the other four Rangers stayed in a zone defense. Everyone had worked
hard, and Daren felt that the Rangers were as ready for this game as they could be.

The coach hadn’t said anything to Daren about his new attitude, but there had been no further talk about benching him, either.

Coach Michaels hadn’t wasted time talking about the importance of this game. He didn’t have to. All the Rangers knew that,
if they lost today, their season would end after the next game; they would not make the league playoffs. But if they won today,
they were
in
.

Somewhere in the stands, Daren knew, were his parents, although he hadn’t located them yet. His dad had taken off early from
work to be here. Most of the Ranger moms and dads were here today, even the ones who, like Mr. McCall, often had to miss games
because of work. Lou’s dad was there, though Mrs. Bettman was still in the hospital.

Daren knew that it would really psych him up, having friends and family in the stands.
He hoped that would inspire the rest of the team to play their best, too.

Of course, he knew that the Rebels also had friends and family out there, which was probably going to inspire
them
, making the two teams even in that department.

The buzzer sounded and the teams left the floor to hear final words from their coaches before the opening tip. The Rangers
grouped themselves in front of Coach Michaels. The coach had to raise his voice to be heard above the crowd.

“Remember, I want you to play a running game today. They like to play a half-court game, to walk the ball over the mid-court
line and to take it easy getting back on defense. We don’t want to let them do it. I think we can tire these guys out, and
that we have a better bench than they do. Without Tisdale or Capp on the court, the Rebels are a different team, so let’s
see if we can make
those two run out of gas. Look for fast-break opportunities, make them work to get the ball into their offensive zone. And
watch me for defensive signals, to know when to switch from man into zone defense. You’ve worked hard for this one, so go
out there and earn yourself a spot in the playoffs. Let’s see those hands!”

The Rangers formed a circle, with all the players’ hands clasped in the middle. The coach put his hand in, too. “Ready to
play?”

“Yeah!”
the Rangers shouted, and clapped their hands.

The Rebels controlled the ball to open the game and got it to Drew Capp. Daren moved in behind him, hands high. Capp faked
a shot, then flipped a pass to Tony Tisdale, who threw in a jumper that hit nothing but net.

As Lynn grabbed the ball to put it in bounds, Daren sprinted downcourt. Lynn’s
inbound pass was handled by Lou, who threw it to Daren. The Rebel defense had been caught by surprise, and Daren laid in
an easy two-pointer to tie the game. Daren smiled to himself. Tony Tisdale was going to have to do some serious running today
to keep up with him.

The game stayed even for the first several minutes. At one point, the Rebels managed to take a three-point lead, but the Rangers
came back and went up by one. Drew Capp scored a few baskets, but Lou scored as well. He threw in two fall-away jumpers that
Drew couldn’t block or stop. On Lou’s second basket, Capp fouled him, and Lou sank the free throw.

With the score tied midway through the first half, Tony Tisdale tried to drive the lane. Daren planted himself in his path,
and Tisdale rammed into him.

“That’s a charge on number twelve, red!” the ref yelled. “White ball!”

The Rebels raced back on defense. They weren’t going to let themselves give up any fast-break baskets if they could help it.
But it looked to Daren as though Drew Capp was already beginning to pant a little.

He flipped an inbound pass to Lynn, who dribbled the ball over the midcourt line. Frank O’Malley, the Rebel point guard, picked
him up. Lynn bounced a pass to Daren, who threw quickly to Peter Stuber, in off the bench. Stuber dribbled behind the key
and dropped the ball off to Lynn. Meanwhile, Lou had posted himself just above the foul line.