In the Paint (13 page)

Before Matt knew it, he was telling Miss Dawson all about his injury and the altercation with Grant Jackson and his fears about not being ready for Friday's game. It was weird, but ever since he had started going to South Side that fall, he had sensed that Miss Dawson was somebody he could trust. She asked a lot of questions and she really seemed to listen when he answered and her advisory themes made a lot of good, common sense. Miss Dawson shook her head slowly as she inspected his knuckles. “That looks really sore,” she said. “It's too bad, Matt.”

By this time, other kids had begun pouring into the room, including Amar and Andrea. Matt took his seat and waited patiently through Principal Walker's announcements.

When they were over, Miss Dawson stood up and moved to the center of the classroom. This was a time when students could discuss things that interested or concerned them and a time when Miss Dawson could impart some of what she liked to refer to as “life's lessons.” Mostly, it was a way for her to stay firmly in touch with the group of students for whom she was specifically responsible.

“How's everybody doing this morning?” Miss Dawson asked. “I know, I know, it's Monday, and you'd all just as soon it be Friday …

“The theme for this morning,” she continued, walking toward the chalkboard, “is adversity.” She picked up a piece of white chalk and spelled the word out across the board, emphasizing each letter with an underscore. “Can anybody tell me what this means?”

Several hands shot up. Miss Dawson spied Amar's arm in the air first and pointed toward him. “It's like something hard or difficult,” he said. “You know, like Duke had to overcome adversity against Kentucky to win its game in the NCAA Tournament on Saturday.”

Matt had to laugh. Amar had managed to bring basketball into the advisory topic and the session wasn't yet two minutes old.

“Right, Amar,” Miss Dawson said. “And do you know something else about adversity?”

This time no hands rose. The room was silent.

“Well,” she said, picking up the chalk again. “Adversity can build something. Does anybody know what that something is?”

Again, silence. Miss Dawson began writing. When she finished, the board read: “ABC — Adversity Builds Character.”

“Think about anything you have ever accomplished that you have considered, in the end, to be worthwhile,” Miss Dawson said. “Didn't most of those things involve overcoming some kind of adversity? If you aced a test, didn't you overcome the adversity of not knowing the information in the first place? And didn't you overcome the adversity of being too tired or too busy to study? Success and satisfaction are almost always the result when you manage to overcome adversity.”

Matt looked across the room at Andrea. She was the only one in class dressed in shorts because of the long, red cast that extended from her right thigh down to her ankle. She was watching Miss Dawson intently.

From time to time during the rest of the school day, Matt thought about the topic of that advisory period. His own adversity this week was nothing compared to what Andrea was going through. He didn't have a cast on his hand and he still had a chance to play basketball. But first he had to stop feeling sorry for himself and give himself a fighting chance to work through this injury.

Coach Stephens stood over the circle of players seated in the middle of the South Side gym floor. He looked as serious as Matt could ever remember seeing him.

“Okay guys, listen up,” the coach began. “We have four practices to get ourselves ready for North Vale and the city championship game. We've worked hard to get here and we need to keep up that hard work if we want to be successful in our last game of the year.”

Coach Stephens gave the Stingers a brief synopsis of the North Vale Nuggets and what they could expect from the opponent that had finished third in the regular-season standings. North Vale wasn't overly big — in fact the Stingers were on average taller than the Nuggets — but they had a pair of star players in John Trimble and Kenny Lemay. Trimble was a quick, crafty grade nine point guard who was considered to be the best defender in the city. Lemay was a lanky grade eight small forward who could shoot the three-pointer better than almost anyone in the league.

“It's pretty simple. Contain these two guys and we should win,” Coach Stephens told them. “But if we let Trimble get a bunch of steals and Lemay take a whole pile of open threes, we might as well just give up now because they will bury us. Does everybody understand this?”

Heads nodded solemnly all around. One of the best things about Coach Stephens was that he was meticulously prepared. He knew everything about the team South Side was facing, their strengths, their weaknesses and how best to take advantage of them. No Stinger could ever complain about being unprepared, at least not from a coaching standpoint.

“There's one other thing before we get to work,” the coach continued. “We've had a bit of bad luck. Matt's right hand is worse today, not better. We're not sure if he's going to be able to play Friday. So we're going to have to prepare as though he's not.

“That means Phil Wong will take the point with the first team for practice. If Matt isn't able to go on Friday, I want Phil to feel as comfortable as possible. Matt, you watch from the sidelines for today, okay?”

Even though Matt knew it was coming, being taken out of the starting unit for practice almost hurt worse than the kick that Jackson had leveled at his hand. He glanced over at Phil, who seemed to be surprised by the coach's words. Phil had worked as hard as anybody and had earned the chance to play more minutes. And even though Matt was nearly sick about being on the sidelines himself, he had to feel good for Phil.

Matt moved over to the bleachers to watch the team begin running through the offense it would use against North Vale's aggressive man-to-man defense. But before he could sit down, Andrea called to him from the open door of the trainer's room. “Matt,” she said. “Come in here.”

He wasn't sure why, exactly, but Matt felt his cheeks flush and his hands grow sweaty as he made his way across the gym. Andrea was holding a couple of ice packs, some tape and a makeshift sling made out of cloth. “Coach said we need to ice this down for at least a half hour each day,” she said. “I'll fix you up so the ice won't be slipping all over.”

Matt watched as Andrea worked expertly with the tape and the sling to keep the ice in place. She seemed to enjoy the job, although for the life of him Matt couldn't understand why. Some of the players took what she did for granted, like she was some kind of slave to the team. But Matt had seen Andrea play soccer and even shoot hoops before she had been injured. She was a better athlete than many of the boys she now waited on hand and foot as a team manager.

“What do you do this for?” he asked her as she finished up the tape job. “I mean, what fun is this for you, anyway?”

“I don't know,” Andrea replied, her eyebrows arching and her blue eyes growing wider. “It's just being around a team, you know. I just like the feeling. If it wasn't for my leg, I'd be playing hoops too. And I couldn't stand being the manager on the girls' team because it would be too hard to watch from the bench knowing I should be out there. Being manager with the boys lets me still be part of a team. Plus I think I might be interested in training or physiotherapy someday.”

“You mean, like a career?” Matt asked.

“Maybe,” Andrea said. “What do you want to do?”

“I don't know,” Matt replied. He suddenly realized he hadn't given it a lot of serious thought. “NBA multi-millionaire superstar, I guess.”

Andrea groaned and they both laughed. Matt hadn't talked much with her before this, even though they shared the same advisory period and every basketball practice. Andrea seemed pretty cool, though, and Matt found her easier to talk with than most of the girls he knew through school or the neighborhood. She seemed more normal and she liked sports. Obviously, Andrea also knew a thing or two about overcoming adversity.

Matt watched the rest of practice before heading home to meet his mom. As they drove to the clinic, he asked her, “Mom, what do you think I should do?”

“Well, you know I want you to see the doctor about it,” she said. “Then, we'll have to decide …”

“No,” Matt said, a little irritated. “I mean, what should I do? You know, like for a job, a career?”

“Oh,” she said. “I didn't know you were thinking about that kind of stuff yet. I don't know, Matt. What are you interested in?”

“Well, sports,” he said, grinning at her. “You know that, I guess. But I don't know what kind of job I could get in that area. Andrea was telling me today that she might want to be a trainer.”

“Andrea?” his mom said, stifling the urge to smile. “I haven't heard you talk about Andrea. Is that the girl who helps out your coach?”

“Yeah,” Matt replied. “She's our trainer. She gave me some ice for my hand.”

After a minute examining Matt's right hand and asking him a few questions, Dr. Shaw delivered the news. “It's just a deep bruise, Matt,” she said. “I know it's awfully sore. Just keep icing it for the rest of the week and take it easy. That's about all you can do.”

“Can I play basketball?” Matt asked breathlessly.

“Give it a day or two,” the doctor replied. “If the pain starts subsiding, you can decide for yourself if you're capable of playing.”

chapter seventeen

It was the final practice of the season. Win or lose, after Friday's game the year was over. They would either finish as city champions or runners-up. And this Thursday session was their last run through the stretching, dribbling, defensive drills and offensive plays that had marked every one of Coach Stephens' highly organized practices since that first afternoon in September.

Everybody was excited about the big game, but probably nobody more than Matt. His right hand was still bruised, but the swelling had subsided and it was nowhere near as sore to the touch as it had been just a couple of days earlier. Matt had rejoined team workouts on Wednesday, and as he ran through the familiar warm-up drills with his teammates and the sweat began to trickle down his neck, he felt pretty close to normal again.

“Hill, you take first team today,” Coach Stephens barked. Matt switched his reversible jersey over to the solid maroon color worn in practice by the starting unit, while Phil flipped his own jersey back to white. “Glad you're doing better,” Phil said as he switched over to defense. “But you better be one hundred percent. I'm coming after you today.”

Matt smiled. It was typical Phil. Matt knew that Phil would push him as hard as he possibly could during this final practise session.

The Stingers were all business as they steamed their way through practice. Six months of workouts and games had raised everybody's skill level, and day after day of practising together had made South Side a finely tuned unit. The ball zipped back and forth between the starting five as they worked it against the mock North Vale matchup zone being played by the second team. Everybody's confidence level was high. Matt could feel it growing by the minute.

“All right, bring it in,” Coach Stephens said, motioning the players to gather where the giant hornet crest of the Stingers marked the tip-off circle.

“Tomorrow is the biggest day in each of your basketball careers so far. It's an important game, and one I think we have a good chance of winning. The gym will be packed and everybody will be making a big fuss out of the fact it's for the city championship.

“I know you guys will represent your school well. I have no doubt about that. Just remember two things: Give it your absolute best effort, and have fun. Tomorrow is one of those days in your lives that you'll always remember, even when you're forty-five-years-old and playing pickup ball at the YMCA. Trust me, I can remember every big game I played, even back when I was your age.

“Okay, hit the showers,” the coach concluded. “We'll see you all at the pep rally tomorrow.”

Matt wanted to make sure he was as well prepared as possible for the city final. So he iced his right hand for a half hour after supper, did his homework and then glanced at the clock radio on his bedroom dresser. It said 9:30. Time for bed, he decided. He would try to get as much sleep as he could tonight.

But going to sleep was much easier said than done. Matt kept running over the Stingers' offensive sets in his mind. He kept thinking about how he had to make sure to protect the ball against the hawking defense of John Trimble. He thought about his damaged right hand and wondered if it would hold up to the physical intensity of a city final. He kept looking at the glowing digits on his clock, trying to will himself to sleep and growing more frustrated by the minute. It was past 10:30 before he finally nodded off.

The alarm sounded, waking Matt from a fitful sleep. But within a few seconds, he was in full motion. Nobody had to coax him out of bed this morning, not with the city championship game that afternoon.

Matt made his way downstairs to the kitchen. He had meticulously planned his routine the night before. His white home uniform with the maroon piping around the V-neck and the words “South Side” across the chest was ready in the dryer along with his socks and baggy white shorts. He folded them neatly and slid them into his gym bag along with the nearly pristine black and white hightop Air Jordans that he saved for indoor basketball.

Next he went to the kitchen cupboard, pulled out a bowl and some Raisin Bran and lined them up neatly on the counter top. He walked to the front door and grabbed the
Post
off the front step. Then he methodically munched down his cereal as he flipped the paper directly to the Sports section.

The first three pages were full of NBA and NHL scores and a preview of this weekend's NCAA Tournament third-round games. But on the fourth page, a small headline caught Matt's eye and quickened his pulse. In fact, he almost spit a mouthful of Raisin Bran across the page.