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Authors: Amar'e Stoudemire

Double Team (6 page)

BOOK: Double Team
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I
was home by four o'clock, sitting at the kitchen table with a big sandwich I'd just made, a glass of milk, and the postcard on the table in front of me. I just kind of stared at it as I ate, like I was expecting the little picture of Overtime to jump right out of the card and onto the table.

I wished it would. At least then I'd have someone to talk to about this. I had big news and no one to share it with. Dad was still at work. As busy as he was right now, he'd probably work until it got dark out. Junior had dropped me off on his way back to his own job. He was working a night shift for the guy who covered his day shift. Normally with news this big, I'd talk to Deuce or Mike. Not this time. Obviously.

I finished my sandwich, finished my milk, and looked at the card. There was someone I could talk to. I walked over and picked up the phone. I didn't have to look up the number. I knew it by heart. The phone rang once, twice, three times. Then someone picked up. It was my half brother.

“Hello?” he said.

“Hey, little man,” I said.

We talked a little, and I told him about the tournament.

“Is the trophy really as tall as me?” he said.

Okay, so maybe I exaggerated a little.

“Nah, not really,” I said. “But the next one will be. I'll send you a picture, okay?”

“Okay!” he said.

“Is Mom there?”

“Yeah, she's right here.”

“Put her on, all right? Talk to you later, little big man.”

I heard that weird bumping, rustling sound you always get when people are handing off the phone.

“Amar'e?” said Mom. “Hey, baby, it's good to hear your voice. How was the trip back?”

“Fine,” I said. “Had a tournament today.”

“How'd you do?” she said. “You have fun?”

“I had, um, some fun,” I said.

“Mmm-hmmm,” she said. She read me like a book.

“Yeah, not as much as the last one,” I admitted. “But we won second place. Got a trophy.”

“That's great!” she said. “And you know I'm not surprised. You know you're my superstar.”

“Yeah,” I said, looking down at my feet. I always felt a little awkward when she said stuff like that, even if she was, like, a thousand miles away. “And there's something else, too.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You gonna tell me, or do I have to guess?”

“You know who Overtime Tanner is?”

“Oh, sure,” she said. “He's a legend.”

“I met him! He was really nice.”

“That's great, baby! Were you at the superstars club together?”

“Aw, come on, Mom,” I said, but I had to smile. “He invited me to his tournament.”

“That's so great, Amar'e!”

“It's invitation-only. It says so right on the, well, the invitation.”

“It
is
the superstars club!”

We laughed. I laughed maybe a little extra, because I was trying to figure out how to bring up the next part. I was trying to figure out how to tell her about the other tournament on the same day, about my friends.

“Is there something else, baby?” she said.

How did she know? She had magic mom powers or something. I wanted to tell her, but I still wasn't sure how to start. I hadn't even really had time to think it through myself.

“Nah,” I said. “Just, I don't know, it's nice to talk to you.”

“All right, baby. You know I'm always right here if you need to talk, right?”

“I know.”

“All right, then, I better go. That little brother of yours is up to something in the other room. I can hear him out there.”

“Okay,” I said.

We said our
I love you
's and hung up. And then it was just me in the kitchen again. I put the dishes in the sink and looked around. The house was as empty and quiet as it had ever been.

Until the next day anyway. Sundays were always a little extra sleepy. I didn't think Junior was working, but I knew he wasn't around. I'd even checked out back. Now I was just poking around the house. After all the excitement the day before, it was a big adjustment. I sort of felt like a microwave lasagna left out on the counter to cool.

I checked the freezer: no lasagna. Then I wandered into the living room. I was thinking maybe I'd watch some TV. When I went to pick up the remote, I saw something cool right next to it. It was a brand-new video game:
MechaNoize III: Cyborg Invasion
.

“Nice!” I said.

I didn't even realize this one was out yet. I turned over the brightly colored case to read the full description on the back and saw a little note stuck there. It was from Junior:
Let's do this!

Cool! I put the game in and got right to it. It took me a few tries, but I finally cleared level 1. It was tough going, but I made those cyborgs pay for the trouble. How do you have guns for hands? That's got to make dinner awkward. I guess maybe cyborgs aren't big eaters.

Anyway, I finished level 1 and saved it. Then I got a new sticky note and a pen from the table by the phone.
Your turn!
I wrote and stuck it on the case.

It felt really good to get my mind off of the tournament situation.

B
y the time practice started on Monday, I still hadn't told Mike and Deuce about the other tournament. It's not like I didn't have opportunities to, but every time I almost brought it up, my heart got faster and my mouth got drier. It made me nervous, and I just couldn't figure out exactly how to let them know. We'd recapped the action at the lunch table and a few other places for kids who hadn't been there. We might have concentrated a little more on the high points. And it's possible that Deuce claimed that Jammer was “like, sixteen or something,” but we mostly stuck to the facts. I didn't brag about how we were going to win it all this time, but I definitely didn't disagree either.

Now we were warming up on our local court. I figured maybe I'd tell them before practice really started, but I didn't. I got this crazy idea that maybe I wouldn't have to. If anything came up before the game, I'd be off the hook.

“Saturday still good for both of you?” I asked.

“Yep,” they both said.

It was worth a shot. And it was only Monday. Something could still come up: a relative in town, the flu, a dentist appointment, a relative who was a dentist with the flu … I wasn't picky.

We talked about school a little and then eased into working on some plays. It was just simple stuff, and nothing with any contact. It was our first time on the court since Saturday, and it felt like we were all being extra careful. I guess we just remembered the hard feelings last time.

“That baseline play worked really well,” said Deuce.

So we worked on baseline stuff for a while. Then we did some fast-break drills. We were warmed up by now, and things started to get a little more serious. In the drill we were doing, two of us had the ball, and the third
guy was defending. There were only two other rules: You had to go fast, and you couldn't go backward. The goal was to get the defender to commit to one guy, so the other guy could get an easy layup.

So obviously you needed to pass, or at least make the defender think you were going to. But here's the thing: I was on defense on the first play, and I just knew Deuce wasn't going to pass the ball. When he gave a little head fake over toward Mike, I gave a little fake over in that direction. But I never left him. When he tried to speed past me, I was still right there. At his size, he couldn't go up over me. I basically engulfed him and snatched the shot right out of the air.

“Gotta pass that,” I said.

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.

BOOK: Double Team
12.44Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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