Travel Team (12 page)

Against: Danny, Bren, Matt, Oliver. And Colby Danes.

The only place where the Warriors had a height advantage of any kind was Matt against Jack, but that didn't mean squat, Jack Harty was a better player in just about every way.

Richie had Bren guard Teddy Moran. Danny took Andy Mayne, Colorado boy. As they all took their positions before the older ref, Tony, threw the ball up, Teddy walked close enough to Danny to say, “I was wrong. This team needs
more
girls.”

Somehow Matt got the opening tip from Jack, back-tapping it to Danny, who immediately put one finger in the air and yelled “Syracuse.”

It wasn't just the number one play in their offense, it was pretty much the only play, even if Richie had given them some options they could run, depending on how the defense reacted to it.

Danny passed to Bren, then cut away from the ball and set a pick for Colby on the right wing. She was supposed to cut toward the free throw line if the pick worked, and Bren was supposed to pass it to her if she was open. If she wasn't open, Danny was Bren's second option, cutting right behind Colby.

The Vikings switched on her, so Danny got the ball back. He was supposed to look for Matt underneath the way Colby would have. Because while they were doing their pick thing out top, Oliver Towne was supposed to be flashing across the baseline and picking Matt's man—Jack—and seeing if they could free Matt up for an easy layup.

It happened just that way, exactly the way Richie Walker had drawn it up for them, the way it happened when he had walked them through it the first time they'd practiced together.

Jack turned his head to see where Colby was after the first pick, even though Colby was covered. Oliver set a perfect screen, and Danny whipped the ball to Matt who, amazingly, did two things that qualified him for his own personal Book of World Records:

1. Caught the ball cleanly.
   
2. Made the layup.
   One more time, Danny thought: Holy crap. We're winning.
   

Even without a scoreboard, Danny had always been pretty good at keeping score in his head. Not just keeping score, but knowing how many points every player on the court had. He didn't know how he could do that, but he could, almost from the first time he started playing organized ball.

Just another part of having a head for the game.

But even he lost track now, as the Vikings scored either the next thirty, or thirty-two, points of the scrimmage.

That meant between Matt's basket and the two free throws Danny made with four seconds left in the first half.

Ty scored at least half of them, maybe more. The Vikings were doing fine just using their regular man-to-man, but then Mr. Ross had them put on their full-court press halfway through the first quarter, at which point they seemed to score ten baskets in the next twenty seconds.

The Vikings started double-teaming Danny in the backcourt as soon as he touched the ball. Instead of coming to help him out, the rest of the Warriors, with the exception of Colby, kept running away from the ball. When Danny would find somebody to pass it to, they hurried so much trying to get it right back to him, they usually threw it away, which usually meant another layup for the Vikings.

When by some miracle the Warriors did manage to get the ball over half-court, the Vikings would double-team Danny there, daring anybody else on his team to make a stinking basket.

While all this was going on, Teddy Moran was holding a nonstop, trash-talking festival, as if he were winning the game single-handedly. It was all Danny could do to keep his cool. But he did, knowing that you couldn't pick a fight when you were getting your doors blown off this way.

His dad tried calling a couple of time-outs.

They didn't help.

It was basically like trying to call a time-out right after somebody had yelled “Fire!” at a school assembly.

At halftime, Richie told them for what felt like the hundredth time to relax, telling them they knew how to play a lot better than this.

Will raised a hand and said, “You absolutely sure about that, Coach?”

“Mr. Harden talked to Mr. Ross,” Richie said. “They're gonna take the press off for the whole second half. And that one's on me, we didn't work enough on breaking the press. For now, try to stay with your man, and do the best you can running the offense.”

Danny said, “What offense?”

Richie gave him a look. “Hey.” That's all it took, Danny felt like he'd gotten a good swat.

“Sorry.”

“You knew these guys were better. And bigger. They've had a lot more practice time than we've had and most of them have been playing together a long time. Like I said: Don't worry about what they're doing, let's just work on our sh…stuff.”

He almost used another s-word, didn't.

The real s-word happened with about five minutes left in the game, as it turned out.

There was 5:25 showing on the clock. Danny would remember the exact time when Mr. Ross called a time-out and put Ty and Teddy back into the game, after he'd sat the two of them for most of the second half. Danny had been out of the game since the middle of the third quarter, and had started to wonder if his dad was going to put him back in, or if he might be done for the day.

But now his dad poked him and said, “Why don't you go guard your buddy.”

“Ty?”

“I was being sarcastic,” Richie said. “Take the mouth.”

“You heard what he's been saying the whole game?”

“I don't need to hear it, I can tell just by looking at his face,” Richie said. “I've been playing against guys like that my whole life. The only way to shut them up is to shut them down. So go do that.”

After the substitutions, the Vikings took the ball out. Danny picked up Teddy as soon as he got the ball in the backcourt.

Teddy put the ball on his hip and said, “Look, it's Stuart Little.”

But as soon as he put the ball on the floor, Danny took it from him, picking him clean off the dribble, and taking it to the basket for a layup. Teddy didn't even try to catch him, whining to the second ref, DeWayne, the one who looked like a dead ringer for Snoop Dogg, that Danny had fouled him.

Teddy let Ty bring the ball up next time. Ty started the Viking offense on the left side, while Teddy ran to the right. He waited until Ty passed to Daryll Mullins in the left corner, figuring everybody was following the ball. Including Danny, who was between his man and the ball the way he'd been taught.

As soon as he turned his head, Teddy stepped up and hit him in the neck with an elbow.

It felt like Teddy had hit him with a bat.

He couldn't catch his breath for a second, dropping to his knees and holding both hands to his throat while everybody else ran up the court after Daryll Mullins made his jumper.

“Hey!” Richie yelled to Tony, the ref closest to the play. “What was
that
?”

Tony saw Danny on his knees then, but made a quick gesture with his hands over his eyes; it was his way of telling Richie he hadn't seen what had happened. Then he blew his whistle, stopping play.

Richie knelt down next to Danny.

“You okay?”

He swallowed hard, the inside of his throat feeling as if he were swallowing tacks. “I'm okay.”

“I'm taking you out.”

“
No
.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Hey,” Richie said, putting both hands on his shoulders, looking him straight in the eye. “Just play, okay? No payback, at least for now.”

Danny nodded.

Two minutes to go. Vikings' ball. Everybody on their team except Ty was goofing around now, doing whatever they wanted on offense, shooting from wherever they wanted to, making showboat passes, even though Mr. Ross kept making a show out of being pissed and telling them to run
their
stuff.

Danny noticed Ty giving warning looks to Teddy a couple of times. Like he was saying, Cut the crap. But Teddy ignored him.

Jack Harty, who hardly ever took a long outside shot, decided to fire one up from twenty feet. Danny and Teddy ended up underneath, each trying to get position to get the rebound. Ty was there, too, already having the inside position on Will.

While everybody was looking up for the ball, Teddy gave Danny another elbow, this one in the side.

Enough, Danny decided.

More than enough.

The ball had hit the back of the rim and bounced straight up in the air, as high as the top of the backboard.

As it did, Danny got a leg in front of Teddy Moran, planted it good and solid, and, as he did, used perfect rebounding position, elbows out, to shove Teddy hard to the side, his left elbow like a roundhouse punch into Teddy's rib cage.

It knocked Teddy off balance, made him stumble to his left, just as Ty Ross, who had gone high up in the air when the ball had finally stopped bouncing around on the rim, was coming down with the rebound.

Danny saw it all happening like it was super slo-mo on television.

Or in a video game.

Only this wasn't fantasy ball.

This was Ty landing on Teddy instead of the basketball floor at St. Pat's.

This was Ty Ross, not just the best twelve-year-old player in town but the most graceful, the one who never made a false move on the court, rolling over Teddy's back, the ball flying out of his hands, nothing to break his fall as he landed hard on his right wrist—his shooting wrist—with a crack on the floor that sounded like a firecracker going off.

Then Ty was rolling on the floor at St. Pat's, cradling his right arm to his stomach, screaming in pain.

T
HERE WAS A SECRET PLACE IN HIS ROOM
,
NEXT TO HIS CLOSET
,
THE WALL
hidden behind the poster of Jason Kidd.

It was where Danny had been measuring himself for a long time. Where he could check the progression he had made, say, between February 26 of fourth grade to October 16 of fifth grade.

He would use a pen, afraid pencil marks would fade over time or disappear, writing the date and the year, hoping there'd be one year where he'd see the growth spurt Dr. Korval kept promising him.

Only the growth spurt never came.

The lines just kept crawling their way up the wall.

Danny Walker was fast everywhere except here.

He would carefully untape the poster when it was time to make another entry, lay it flat on his bed, take his place next to the door frame, reach back, put the pen flat on his head and point it toward the wall, make another line. He never cheated. Not even on September 17 of this year, a couple of weeks after he started school, when he was desperate to break the fifty-five inch mark he'd hit back in July.

Except he didn't break the speed limit that day.

Or on October 2.

Or October 14.

His mom called him a streak of light and he even thought of himself as a streak of light sometimes when he was flying up the court, but he kept moving his way up the wall like an inchworm.

Now he took the Kidd poster down when he got back from the Vikings scrimmage, stared at all the lines and all the dates—the only progress he could see was that his penmanship was improving as he got older—and thought about measuring himself for the first time since October.

Instead he just sat in the beanbag chair Ty had been sitting in the other day.

Feeling smaller than ever.

Trying to squeeze his eyes shut so that he would stop seeing Ty lying there on the floor, rocking from side to side on his back, his injured hand not leaving his stomach.

Only closing his eyes didn't help. He kept seeing Ty. And hearing the voice of Teddy Moran.

“You happy now?” Teddy had said in the gym after it happened.

This was after Mr. Ross had decided not to wait for an ambulance and to take Ty to Valley General Hospital, just outside of town on Route 37, himself. The two of them had walked slowly out of the gym, Mr. Ross with his arm around Ty's shoulder, Ty holding his right hand in front of him with his left, the left hand shaking so bad you wondered why he even bothered.

“You couldn't have a real season for yourself so you had to wreck ours?” Teddy yelled at Danny when the Rosses were gone.

In a voice the size of a penny Danny said, “It was an accident.”

Not even sure why he was saying anything back to him.

“He shoved me into him,” Teddy said, addressing the rest of the Vikings now, not dropping the sound of his own voice one bit. Most of the Vikings were still there, along with some of the parents who'd shown up a few minutes early for pickups. Teddy pointed right at Danny and said, “
He
did this to Ty.”

“It was an accident, you moron,” Will finally said.

“It was,” Danny said again.

“You keep telling yourself that, little man,” Teddy said to Danny. “You tried to get me and you got Ty instead. Does
that
make you feel big?”

“I didn't mean to,” Danny said.

He was going to say something else then, something that would explain what had happened, to the Vikings, to their parents, to the Warriors.

Maybe to himself
.

Except his throat closed up suddenly, the way it had when Teddy got him in the neck with his elbow, and he started to feel his eyes fill up, and no words would come out.

He felt his dad's hand on his elbow.

“I'll run you home,” he said.

“Nice team,” Teddy said now, to both of them.

“Shut up, kid,” Richie said.

Teddy's father, Garland, was standing next to him. Garland Moran had the same pinched face as his son, same pig eyes, just an adult version. “Hey,” he said, “you can't talk to my son like that.”

“You ought to try it once in a while,” Richie said. “It might teach him some manners.”

Then father and son began walking out of the gym, but not before Teddy hit Danny with one more sucker punch.

“He actually told me you were his
friend
, Walker.”

Danny didn't turn around, kept walking toward the front doors. Wanting to run.

Now he felt as if Teddy's words had chased him all the way to his room. He got out of the beanbag chair, that move taking as much effort as his dad usually showed getting out of a chair, took a pen off his desk, put a mark about an inch above the floorboard, and the date.

You're as big as you think you are, his mom always told him.

You're as big as you feel.

He was in his room the next afternoon, lying there on his bed and listening to the Jets game on the radio instead of watching it downstairs, content to stay here by himself until it was time to go to high school.

“Hey there,” his mom said, standing in the doorway. “It's my solitary man.”

“Huh?”

“Another old song.”

Danny turned down the volume on the radio when it was clear she was staying. That she was there for a Mom Talk.

“I just got off the phone with Lily Ross,” she said.

He waited.

“It turns out he only broke one bone in the wrist,” she said. “So that's pretty good news, right?”

“Wow,” he said, “a broken arm. That's
great
news, Mom!”

“You know what I mean,” she said. “Your father thought it could have been much worse just because of the way he landed and the pain you guys said he was in. The doctor told Lily that some Jets quarterback had a wrist injury in about the same spot a few years ago—”

“—not some quarterback. Chad Pennington—”

“—and broke four bones and had some ligament damage.”

“They operated on him that time. Did they operate on Ty?”

Ali Walker nodded. “To put a pin in there. He'll be in a cast for a while.”

Danny sat up on the bed. “How long?”

“They'd only be guessing.”

“Okay, what was Mrs. Ross's best guess?”

“She didn't talk about how long he'd be in the cast, just that the whole healing process was going to take at least three months, probably closer to four.”

November. December. January.

Back in February.

Maybe.

The official Tri-Valley League season, Danny knew, started the first week of January and lasted until the middle of February. The tournament was the last week of February.

So if Ty was lucky, he could get a game or two in before the tournament.

“So he'll be able to play again this season?” Danny said.

His mom said, “She didn't say that. The doctor reminded her that they just needed to keep their fingers crossed. And that if everything went well, he
might
be able to play again this season, as long as he is convinced—this is Dr. Marshall, the orthopedic surgeon, talking—that there is no chance of Ty reinjuring himself.”

Danny let himself dead-fall back on his pillow, staring up at the Stockton poster.

“He
might
be able to play.”

“If not, he'll be ready for baseball.”

“Yippee.”

“Might be able to play is better than won't be able to play.”

Danny said, “You think I could maybe call him?”

Ali Walker didn't say anything.

Danny raised his head back up off the pillow, repeated himself as if she hadn't heard him the first time. “Mom? You think I could call Ty?”

“Maybe you ought to wait a couple of days. Lily said he doesn't want to talk to anybody right now. Including his own parents.”

“You think it would be all right to e-mail him?”

There was another pause, not as long as the one before, and she said, “Why don't you just wait on that, too.”

Danny said, “He blames me, doesn't he?”

“Honey, I think he's just hurting in general.” She came over and sat on the end of the bed. “And you're hurting.”

“I'm fine.”

“You want to talk about this?”

“No,” he said. “But I can see you do.”

“I thought it might be better if you just talked it out a little instead of sitting up here and brooding about it.”

“Actually, I've been partying.”

“It was an accident,” she said.

“How much did that help Dad?” Danny said.

“He learned the hard way,” she said. “Accidents happen in life. Sometimes they just happen, and nobody's to blame.”

“Somebody was to blame this time,” Danny said.