Airball (12 page)

Bragger studied the picture thoughtfully for a moment. “And why Mrs. Zimmer agreed to let him go. I mean, she wants this retirement ceremony to be perfect.” He tapped the picture. “And what could be more perfect than this?”

I nodded. Sometimes he was brilliant. Bragger Barnes, my cousin, brilliant.

“You're right,” I said. “Coach and Brett McGrew played together for Stuckey. Coach was there to witness the beginning of Brett McGrew's greatness. Coach was there when Brett McGrew led the team to all those state championships. And now Coach'll bring a Stuckey team to Lawrence to honor Brett McGrew when he gets his jersey retired.”

“The sports reporters at the KU game are going to jump all over this,” said Bragger. “It's the kind of cheesy heartwarming story they just love. It does kind of choke you up.”

“Yeah. It's like—like fate or something.”

“Like a TV movie waiting to happen,” said Bragger. “Mrs. Zimmer's probably already got somebody all picked out to play her.”

“Probably.” I thought about it for a minute. “She's not going to be happy if her movie ends with twelve guys and their coach showing up at Allen Fieldhouse in their underpants.”

Bragger nodded. “I can't say I'd be real happy with that ending myself.”

Twenty-three

The next day at lunch, Bragger and I carried our trays to The Hulk.

And found Eddie, Russell, and Manning already sitting there.

Bragger raised his eyebrows. “Team meeting?”

Eddie shrugged and shook his head. Gnawed on a bite of hot dog. “Just eating lunch.”

Bragger and I looked at each other and slid into our chairs.

Duncan shuffled toward us, tray in hand. He motioned his head toward the empty seat next to Eddie. “That's probably saved, huh?”

Eddie glanced at Duncan. “Nope. Sit down.”

Duncan stood there for a second, stunned. Then he scurried around the table, giving the napkin wad a wide berth, and settled down next to Eddie.

*   *   *

The next day, we all sat together at The Hulk again. A couple of other players wandered over and joined us. The next day, a couple more. By the end of the week, the whole team was sitting there. Eating. Laughing. Trying to gross each other out by digging wax out of their ears with their carrot sticks. Duncan still looked a little nervous. Like he was afraid somebody'd suddenly realize he was sitting there and tell him to beat it. But he laughed at the ear wax, too.

Bragger glanced around the table. “Weird.”

“I know.” I shook my head. “Almost makes Stealth Uniforms seem sane.”

*   *   *

It was funny. Keeping this secret together like we were, well, it sort of bonded us together. It started in the lunchroom, but pretty soon it spilled over into practice.

There we were, running around in our underwear, with absolutely nothing to hide and no way to hide it anyway, and really, with nobody in the gym who cared what we were wearing. All that was left was basketball. So we played.

During a scrimmage a few days later, Manning passed the ball to Eddie, and Duncan, against all odds, managed to step into the passing lane at just the right moment. He reached for the steal, tripped, and skidded out of bounds with the ball.

Eddie held a hand out to pull him off the floor and—I'm not kidding—said, “Nice try, Webber.” And he was sincere. Not being a smart aleck. And then—no kidding—he said, “Hey, next time try not to lunge with your whole body. Move your feet and just reach for the ball with your outside hand. Like this. See? That way, you don't get off balance.”

Now, I'd never heard Eddie give anybody sports praise. Or sports advice. Especially not Duncan. And especially not after Duncan had picked off a pass intended for Eddie. But there he was, showing Duncan how he could steal the ball without taking a header into the bleachers.

And then—I
swear
this is true—he called Duncan “Big D.” Yeah, Big D. And not sarcastically, like you'd expect out of Eddie. Sincerely. With respect. Like Duncan was Eddie's buddy or something. A buddy named Big D.

When Duncan heard that, his chest swelled and he stepped up his game a little.

On the next play, Russell pulled down a rebound and thundered up the court, making a fast break for the basket. He was surrounded by defenders, three on one, and instead of trying to make the bucket himself like he normally would, he pump-faked, then kicked the ball out to Bragger, who was wide open at the top of the key. Bragger slipped in behind the defenders and laid in the easy bucket. I almost fell over. I had just witnessed the first assist in the history of our team.

Russell and Bragger banged their fists together, Russell as proud of his pass as Bragger was of his basket.

Coach saw all this, of course, eyes squinted. And his snarling took on a new tone. He still yelled at us every time we breathed, of course. But instead of yelling that we were uncoordinated sissies who couldn't make a basket if the hoop was ten feet wide and three feet off the ground, he started yelling things like, “A little more follow-through and you'll own that shot, Barnes.” And, “Pretty good pass fake, Wiles, but don't telegraph with your head.” And, when Duncan was lying under the basket, eyes rolled back in their sockets, gasping for oxygen, “Way to take a charge, Webber.”

At the end of practice Friday, he gathered us around the blackboard in the corner of the gym.

“You're starting to play unselfish basketball.” He squinted from player to player and grunted, Coach's version of a compliment. “I think you're ready for something new. Something that requires real teamwork.”

He explained the Eddie/Manning High-Lob-to-the-Low-Post play, the one I'd thought up. He drew out
X
s and
O
s on the blackboard. Then we ran through the play for real.

Eddie dribbled around the perimeter. Drew all the defenders away from the basket. And you could see on his face he wanted to take the shot himself. Wanted to slice through the defense, one on five, and take the ball to the hoop.

But he controlled himself.

Manning faked to the outside. Bragger set a pick. Manning slipped in behind the defenders, ready to take the pass. The first couple of times he posted up right under the basket and just camped there. And Coach whistled him for staying in the lane too long. I pretty much expected that.

Didn't take Manning long to catch on, though. Eddie made his moves. Dribbled. Faked left. Faked right. Really looked like he was trying to find an opening through the defense. The other offensive players stayed with him. Looked like they were trying to get open. Trying to help Eddie out. Manning ran to the outside, too.

Meanwhile, Bragger set the pick, and Manning slid down to the low post. Eddie lobbed the ball. Manning caught it. Stepped into the paint. And laid it up. Two points.

A classic backdoor play. Executed perfectly.

The guys high-fived each other.

Eddie caught Coach's eye. “Excellent play, Coach.”

“Yes, it is.” Coach nodded. “And you can thank your captain for it. He came up with it.”

Coach jogged out onto the court to set up the play again, and as he ran past, he reached out and ruffled my hair.

Twenty-four

Coach ruffled my hair. With his actual hand.

It must be a sign, I decided. A good sign. A sign that I—and the whole team—might actually come through this thing in one relatively undamaged piece.

Either that, or a sign I should quit before I made the damage permanent.

But I couldn't quit. We were too close. Too close to maybe beating Whipple. Too close to maybe having a winning season. Too close to meeting Brett McGrew.

Brett McGrew. My father. My actual father. I never thought it would happen, but here we were:
this close
to meeting my father.

And also, as Eddie pointed out Monday at lunch, way too close to playing Whipple in our skivvies.

He crunched his crackers into his chili. “We all thought Coach would come to his senses. But how long's it going to take? We don't have a lot of time here.”

“Yeah,” said Manning. “The Whipple game's next week.”

“And we're ready for it.” Eddie shoveled up a spoonful of chili and cracker crumbles. “We can take Whipple.”

“Easy,” said Russell.

Eddie nodded and swallowed his chili. “But we got to be wearing clothes.”

“I'm not worried,” said Duncan. “Kirby's got it all figured out.”

I looked at him.

Duncan shrugged. “I've seen you watching Coach. And writing in your notebook. I know you're working on something.”

Eddie looked from me to Duncan, then back again. “So,” he said. “Whatcha got?”

“Well—”

I pulled a pencil and my notebook from my backpack. Opened the notebook and set it in the middle of the table so the team could see the two columns.

“Duncan's right,” I said. “I've been watching Coach. The evidence is pretty skimpy. I don't really have enough data to support either theory. But if I had to guess, I'd go with
Coach Is Psyching Us Out.
”

Bragger nodded. “That side's winning, four to three.”

“Right. Plus it just seems to make more sense. See how the first column is just a jumble of things?” I thumped my pencil against the first column. “Coach watches us carefully, he gives the technology time to kick in, he thinks the uniforms are paying off sooner than he expected. That doesn't add up to much.” I moved my pencil to the second column. “But over here, you can kind of see a pattern emerging. A pattern molded around a science project. Coach studies us, gives his science experiment time to kick in, says he's created a monster, like a mad scientist or something.”

The guys studied the notebook page, heads nodding. Maybe they believed me. Maybe they just wanted to believe me.

“Plus, as Duncan pointed out, Coach isn't stupid.” I pointed to item number four in the second column.

I stopped. Frowned. No, Coach
wasn't
stupid. I'd forgotten one very important piece of evidence. I grabbed up the notebook and, in the second column, scribbled:

5. The Eddie/Manning backdoor play. If Coach really believed in Stealth technology, he wouldn't be coming up with new plays. He'd just rely on the uniforms to win the game.

I slapped the notebook back down in the middle of the table. The guys read the last piece of evidence.

“So we're his science experiment.” Eddie shrugged. “I can live with that. All we have to do is wait him out.”

“Easy,” said Russell.

Twenty-five

It was our last practice before the Whipple game, and Coach really got into it. Literally. We were running the Eddie/Manning backdoor play, and Coach put himself into the drill. Defending Manning.

He set his clipboard on one of the bleacher seats, dropped his whistle on top, and planted himself in front of Manning, knees bent, head up, arms out. Same defensive stance he'd been drilling into our heads all season.

“If you can get around me,” he growled at Manning, “you can get around anybody Whipple throws at you.”

But, of course, Manning couldn't. Not at first, anyway. Even after Bragger set the pick, he couldn't shake Coach long enough to get any kind of position. He couldn't get open for the pass. Couldn't get Coach out of his face.

But we ran through the play a couple dozen times, and Manning started to put a little more space between him and his defender. Finally, the last time we ran the play, Manning lost Coach long enough to post up. Eddie lobbed the pass. Manning caught it. Coach charged into the paint to defend, but Manning laid it in. Right over Coach's head.

Manning stood there, stunned.

Coach slapped him on the back. “Nice job, Reece.” He turned to the rest of the team. “Good work today. Get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow's the big day.”

We filed into the locker room. Everybody, including Coach, showered and went home. I cleaned up after them, showered and changed, and snapped off the lights. I clicked the locker room door shut behind me, hiked my backpack onto my shoulder, and set off, my footsteps echoing across the dark gym.

A single knife of light beamed through a crack in the papered-over windows and sliced across a flat object lying on the bottom bench of the bleachers. Coach's clipboard. With his whistle lying on top.

“Oh, man.” My whisper boomed through the empty gym.

I glanced around. What was I going to do? This was Coach's clipboard. His private clipboard. The sacred place where he kept everything important to the team. Plays. Rosters. Lineups. Scouting reports. And who knew what else. All strictly for his eyes only. He'd tie my arms in a knot if he knew I'd even touched it.

But I sure couldn't leave it lying there, unguarded, for just anybody to find.

I grabbed his whistle, then carefully picked up the clipboard, grasping the very top of the metal clip by two fingers. As I set off across the gym, a thin sheet of yellow paper slipped loose and fluttered to the floor.

Great.

I picked up the sheet. Started to clip it back onto the board, under the other papers, where it had been before. And stopped. The single knife of light landed on two words at the top of the sheet: S
TEALTH
S
PORTSWEAR
.

Stealth Sportswear? I slapped the yellow paper to my chest and glanced around to make sure I really was alone. To make sure nobody else could see what I'd just seen. The gym was still empty.

I sank down onto the bleachers, dropped my backpack beside me, and peeled the paper from my chest. Held it to the light. It was a receipt. A carbon copy of a receipt for—I swallowed—twelve sets of basketball uniforms, red for away games, white for home. And one warm-up suit, adult size extra-large.

I stared at the receipt. He'd done it. He'd actually done it. It didn't matter how much evidence I'd collected to prove Coach didn't believe in Stealth technology. To prove he was using sports psychology on us. Was messing with our minds. It didn't matter that column #2 made more sense than column #1. Coach had bought invisible uniforms.