Hoop Crazy (11 page)

“It sounds like you've already quit.”

“Well … do you blame me?” I asked.

“I think you probably won't be finishing top two in your division.”

“So you agree with me,” I said.

“I agree it's going to be tough, but I think you have a chance if you'd spread the ball around a little more.”

“We were shooting from all over,” I said.

“You and Kia were shooting from all over. You hardly used Ned at all.”

“We threw some passes in to him.”

“Not many.”

“As many as we can risk. He doesn't catch so well.”

“He didn't put up a single shot,” my father noted.

“And if you'd seen him shoot you'd know that's a good thing.”

“But it's not just me who doesn't know he can't shoot,” my father said.

“What do you mean?”

“Nobody's seen him play. They look at him and they see a big tall guy dressed like a basketball player.”

“Yeah?”

“So looking at him, they think he can play. If you give him the ball more — even if he doesn't
shoot — he's going to draw coverage. Then he can get the ball back outside to you or Kia. You can't win without him.”

“And we can't win with him either.”

“He has gotten better.”

“Getting better than he
was
wasn't hard,” I agreed. “He was the worst player in the world.”

“Was. Thanks to you and Kia he's become better.”

“We've spent every day practicing,” I agreed.

“Not to mention nights.”

“Nights?” I asked.

“You think you're the only one who wakes up in the middle of the night?”

“I didn't know you knew.”

“Your mother's and my bedroom overlooks the driveway, remember?”

“But why didn't you make us stop if it was bothering you?”

“I didn't say it was bothering me, I said I heard you. I even watched out the window for a while. It looked like you were having fun.” He paused. “Ned really has been trying, hasn't he?”

“For sure.”

“And you're been good to him … at least you have for the past few days.”

“I've been trying,” I said, still feeling badly about how I'd treated him before that.

“He's not a bad kid, is he?”

“No,” I said shaking my head. “He's different, but he's okay.”

“Then maybe he deserves a chance … even if he can't make the shots … even if you're going to lose … he deserves a chance to at least try to help your team win, don't you think?”

I nodded my head.

“And who knows? Maybe you might just win a game?”

“There's a chance I guess. Not a big one, but a chance.”

I took the ball and walked to the top of the court.

“Check,” I said as I bounced the ball out to the player who was covering me. He tossed it back.

“Monarch!” I called loudly.

Kia moved off to the side, taking her man with her. Ned set up in the high post. He towered over the player covering him. Actually even I was taller than all the players on the other team. He raised his arms high, making an easy target.

I took the ball and lobbed a light pass to Ned, well over the leaping hands of the other player. Ned fumbled the ball, and it almost dropped free before he recovered and grabbed it with both hands. All three of their players converged around Ned, jumping up and down, desperately trying
to stop him from shooting. He took the ball and tossed it back out to me. There was nobody on me at all, and I aimed and put up the shot. It hit the rim and bounced off ! Ned reached up and grabbed the rebound. He turned and fired it out to me. I passed over to Kia. There was nobody on her either and she took aim and fired. It was short, but Ned got the rebound again! He awkwardly lobbed the ball out to me. I shot and this time it dropped.

“Nice shot,” Ned said.

“I should have got it the first time.”

“All that's important is that you did get it,” Ned said.

“Thanks. Go out and cover the throw-in man.”

“Me?” Ned asked.

“Yeah, you. Wave your arms around a lot.”

I knew that either Kia or I should have gone out and left Ned standing under the hoop, but I was just too tired. It seemed to be getting hotter by the minute and while the other teams could bring in an extra man, we couldn't.

Ned walked out. The man bounced him the ball for the check.

“I got it!” Ned yelled. “I got it!”

The ref blew his whistle. “That was a check. You have to give him back the ball.”

Ned looked embarrassed. He handed the ball back to their man.

“Don't worry about it,” Kia said. “Just cover him.”

“That's time!” the ref yelled. “Final score eleven to nine.”

We shook hands with the other team members. Running out of time hadn't been how I'd figured we'd win — heck I hadn't even figured we'd win — but I didn't care. That evened things up at one win and one loss.

“So was that better?” I asked my father.

“Better and smarter. As long as you keep feeding Ned inside, he'll draw people off of you and Kia. It doesn't matter if he can't shoot as long as they don't know he can't and keep covering him.”

“I need to sit down,” Kia said.

“Me too,” I agreed.

We started to weave our way across the site. There were games going on at every hoop, crowds gathered at the sidelines watching, little boom boxes playing a jumble of loud, competing sounds. As we walked, it felt like we were being bombarded by sounds, and sights, and even the smells from the refreshment stands.

“This is really something, isn't it?” I said, turning to find myself walking alone.

Anxiously I looked around to see everybody else
standing before a display behind me. I scrambled back to join them.

“Do you believe the size of those feet?” Kia asked.

In front of us were the running shoes of a whole bunch of NBA players. The exhibit was called ‘Step into their Shoes.' The shoes were sort of anchored to the floor and there were lineups of people waiting to take a turn to try on the different shoes.

“Do you want to try them on?” Ned asked.

“Maybe later. I need to get off my feet and sit down,” I said.

“There's a nice spot right over there by that tree,” my father said, pointing it out. “Why don't you four go and sit down, and Ned's mother and I will get you all a drink.”

“That would be great,” Kia said.

We started off in one direction while they went in the other. There were lots of people sitting in the shade but we managed to find our own little patch on the grass.

“You made some good plays out there,” I said to Ned.

“And a lot of dumb ones too. It's harder here than on your driveway.”

“It's not just harder, it's hotter,” Kia said. “I'm melting.”

It was still only ten-thirty and I knew it was go
ing to get hotter over the next few hours, but it was already like an oven. The sky was clear and blue and there wasn't a cloud in the sky to block out the sun, which was baking down on the blacktop of the parking lot.

“I was getting tired,” Kia said. “We really need a sub.”

“Sorry,” Mark said.

“So am I,” Ned apologized. “I still feel bad about —”

“No sense in worrying about that now. All we can do is play hard for the next three games.”

“Maybe we should save something if we play later,” Kia suggested.

“If we save anything, we won't be playing later. Let's just keep trying as hard as we can,” I said. “After all we've already won one more game than I thought we would.”

“You didn't think we were going to win
any
games?” Ned asked. He sounded shocked.

“Well … I really didn't know,” I said, squirming for an answer. “I just thought we'd have some fun.”

“It is fun,” Ned said. “Although it was a lot more fun winning than it was losing.”

“It always is,” Kia stated. “It always is.”

“We've got to stay focused out there,” I said. “Those whistles are driving me crazy.”

Every court had a ref, and every ref had a
whistle, which he blew at each stoppage of play. There were whistles coming at us from every direction and I had to fight the urge to stop at each one.

“It is distracting,” Kia agreed.

“Everything's distracting,” Ned added. “There's just so much happening all around us. It's hard.”

“All we can do is try to block everything out and concentrate on the basketball,” I said.

“That's not easy,” Kia said. “This isn't like any basketball game I've ever played.”

Ned laughed. “It's not like anything I've ever done in my whole life. This is … amazing.”

“Timeout!” I panted.

“One minute timeout!” the ref yelled.

I walked over to the side, still carrying the ball. Kia and Ned and even Mark came over and gathered around me.

“Do you have a play in mind?” Kia asked as she slurped down some water.

I shook my head. “I just needed a drink … and a break … I'm really tired.”

“Me too,” she admitted. “It feels like my feet are on fire. It's getting worse with every game.”

“I know. We've just got to push through this last game.”

This was our fifth game. We'd won two and lost two. We were down fifteen to twelve. If we won this game we had a chance at finishing second in our division, depending on what was going on in the other games. First place was way out of sight. The team that had beaten us in our first game had already won four games and, from the little bit I'd seen of the game underway on the court next to us, they were well ahead in their fifth game.

“So what are we going to do?” Kia said.

“We need a sub.”

“I know we need a sub but —”

“No, I mean we
are
going to sub. Kia you're out and Mark's in.”