Airball (5 page)

And pray Coach was sane enough to never actually put me in.

The first day of practice, I marched into the locker room armed with a gym bag, roll-on deodorant, and a brand-new pair of McNet XJ7 Jammers from the JCPenney over in Great Bend. The shoes were a gift from my grandmother, who, when she thought I wasn't looking, also bought Ace bandages, an ice pack, and a quart-size jar of professional-strength deep-heating rub. I think she was less confident in my athletic ability than she let on.

The other guys were already there, bragging and swaggering. But I was ready for it. I'd been practicing. I'd worked out a pretty smooth high five, and I knew I could count on Bragger for at least one good chest bump. Plus, I'd spent twenty minutes that morning in front of the bathroom mirror perfecting my one-handed, at-the-waist fist clutch—“Yes! He scores!”

I dangled my Jammers casually over one shoulder, raised my hand in flawless high-five form, and slapped and jabbed my way across the locker room. Duncan Webber punched my shoulder. Manning Reece air-boxed me to my locker. And Bragger was good for the chest bump. So good, I think he dislocated my ribcage.

But I didn't care. I stood there sock-footed on the clammy cement and took it all in. Clanking lockers. Flying sweat socks. Toxic sneaker fumes mingled with the aroma of industrial-strength disinfectant. If I didn't think about it too hard, I could almost believe I belonged here: Kirby Nickel, Superjock.

Right. More like, Kirby Nickel, Kid Who Breaks Out in Hives Lacing up His Gym Shoes.

I peeled off my jeans and T-shirt. And casually tugged on the legs of my undershorts so they'd cover as much skin as possible. I'd been wearing boxer briefs ever since I'd started seventh-grade P.E. because I sure didn't need a bunch of other guys staring at my butt every day. At the enormous, humiliating, heart-shaped pink birthmark on the back of my leg, right where my thigh met my butt cheek. Boxer briefs were the perfect solution—long enough to cover my legs and snug enough not to flop around when I moved. I tugged on them again just to be sure.

I wriggled into my practice clothes, then hunkered on the bench in front of my locker and pulled on my Jammers.

Practice went about as well as any of us expected. We were, after all, the Stuckey seventh-grade basketball team. Missing the basket was clearly our best talent. Coach spent most of his time blowing his whistle and assigning laps. By the time practice was over, we'd run around the gym at least 150 times, which, by my calculations, equaled roughly twelve miles, which, if we'd been running out on the highway, would've taken us all the way to Whipple and back. We filed into the locker room, our sweat-soaked practice clothes clinging to bodies too exhausted for even a half-hearted high five.

Coach marched in behind us.

“You think you worked hard, don't you?” he barked. “You think you can take your showers now and scurry on home to your mommies. Well, you got one more thing to take care of. You gotta elect yourselves a team captain.” He narrowed his eyes. “Think long and hard about who you pick. Your captain is your team representative. The face you show to the world. You pick somebody who's not up to the job, what does that tell the world?”

The truth, probably. But I didn't say that.

Coach looked us up and down for a long moment, then strode into his office and swung the door shut behind him. We stood there for a minute, watching the miniblinds in his office windows rattle against the glass. Then Eddie stepped forward. Of course. “I think we can take care of this pretty fast.” He snapped the waistband of his sweaty shorts. “It's obvious who should be team captain. And as captain”—he sauntered toward the shower room—“I believe the first shower is mine.”

“Whoa.” Bragger stepped out into the aisle to block his way. “Hold onto your panties there, Gertrude. You can't just appoint yourself captain. You heard Coach. We need to give this serious thought. We need to take nominations, discuss each candidate's strengths, and vote.”

Bragger turned to face the rest of the team. The jack-o'-lantern grin stretched across his face, and I knew trouble was on its way. Trouble that undoubtedly included me. I swear, if Bragger and I hadn't been cousins, I wonder if we'd even be friends. Friends you can pick. Family you're just stuck with.

“For our first and, as I'm sure you'll all agree, most qualified candidate, I'm nominating”—Bragger flung his arm around my shoulders—“Kirby Nickel.”

“Kirby Nickel?” I stared at him.

“Kirby Nickel?” Eddie stared at him too. “How do you figure?”

I didn't care how he figured. “Look, Bragger, I don't want—”

Bragger clamped a hand over my mouth. “Trust me, Kirb,” he muttered in my ear.

He puffed up his chest and gazed from player to player. “Our captain must go above and beyond the call of basketball. He must put the team's needs ahead of his own.” Bragger's voice quivered with emotion, just like Reverend Wesley Jack Wooten's, the TV evangelist on Channel 7. “Who here is willing to make that sacrifice? To put the team's needs above his own comfort? Be honest now. Who among us is willing to lead this team no matter how much it hurts?”

“Hurts?” said Duncan. “I don't want to get hurt.”

“Me, neither,” said Russell. “I thought the captain just had to shake hands with the other team's captain before games and stand next to Coach for yearbook pictures.”

Bragger nodded. “That's what a lot of people think, Russell.” He gave the team a sad, sympathetic smile. “But there's more to it than that. There's leadership. Courage. Honesty. Think about it. Who had the guts to attempt a spinning layup in front of the school board? Yes, he fell on his face, and yes, he knocked the wind out of himself. The point is, he wasn't afraid. He wasn't afraid to try, and he wasn't afraid to face Coach's fury. Kirby Nickel is not afraid to endure pain for the sake of his team.”

“Yes, I am, Bragger,” I hissed. “I am very afraid.”

“Kirby Nickel knows what his team needs.”

“No, I don't, Bragger. No. I. Don't.”

“Kirby Nickel will lead our team to victory.” Bragger grabbed my wrist and pulled it straight up in the air, like a prizefighter who'd scored a knockout. “He's got my vote for team captain. Who's with me?”

“Me!” Duncan's hand shot up. I'm not sure he was voting for me or voting to keep his own sorry self out of danger.

One by one the hands went up. Bragger had converted the nonbelievers. And I, Kirby Nickel, the clumsiest kid in the gym, was elected captain of the Stuckey seventh-grade Prairie Dogs.

Bragger was still holding my wrist, and now I yanked it, and him, to the side. “You just elected me to a whole heap of trouble, you know that? Do you know what Coach is going to do when he finds out who his captain is?”

“I bet he'll be surprised.”

“Surprised?”

An image flashed into my brain: Coach, the way he looked after my spinning belly flop. Face squinched into a burning snarl. Purple vein in his neck pulsing with rage. Fists clenched so tight his biceps strained against the sleeves of his sweatshirt. Biceps that were bigger around than my entire flimsy body.

“Oh, he'll be surprised,” I said. “He'll probably hemorrhage, he'll be so surprised. I'll be doing a fair amount of bleeding myself, what with his big, meaty fists clamped around my throat all season long. What were you thinking?”

Bragger looked at me for a long moment. “I don't get you, Kirby. Every kid in the world is dying to be captain of
something.
But you, you'd rather be the guy who gets picked last choosing up sides.” His shoulders slumped. The Wesley Jack Wooten voice was gone. “Fine. Go ahead and be mad. You won't think it's so awful when you're scrunched up next to Brett McGrew at the KU game, grinning like an idiot at the TV cameras.”

“What are you talking about?”

He shook his head. “For such a smart kid, you are unbelievably slow sometimes. Who do you
think
is going to be hanging out with McNet? Not Eddie or Russell. And certainly not Duncan.” He flung his arm toward the team. “None of those guys. Because they aren't the captain. You are. And even if it doesn't mean anything to you, it probably does to Brett McGrew.”

He ambled over to where the rest of the team stood watching. Waiting. Sweaty red faces looking to their captain to make his next move.

I blinked. Brett McGrew. Standing next to Brett McGrew. Maybe even talking to him. In actual conversation. All because I was the captain of the basketball team. And Bragger …

I glanced at him. He had his foot up on the bench and was tying and retying his shoestrings into a sturdy, even bow, careful not to look at me.

… Bragger had figured this all out before we ever got here. He probably started planning it the minute I told him Brett McGrew was my father. He'd cooked up his own surprise Step Three of The Plan: Get Kirby elected captain against his will.

Still, what if Bragger was right? What if I
could
be the team captain? What if somewhere, deep inside, I had it in me?

I did have some admirable qualities, after all. I was conscientious and responsible. And smart. I got very good grades, especially in math. I kicked butt in math. I also kept my room fairly tidy and brushed my teeth twice a day without being told to.

And what was that other stuff Bragger said I had? Leadership? Courage? Okay, so leadership and courage might be stretching it. But he also mentioned honesty, and I certainly do have that. Mainly because I am not a very good liar. Still, I
am
honest, and that counts.

It had to. Otherwise all I had going for me was mathematics and good personal hygiene.

Ten

My first job as team captain was to go find the janitor to unlock the supply closet. It had taken one middle-school basketball team exactly six minutes and twenty-seven seconds to turn a moderately scummy locker room into a festering biohazard, and if I was going in, I needed heavy artillery: mop, plunger, industrial-strength deodorizing cleanser. And rubber gloves. No way was I picking up their fungus-infested towels with my bare hands.

My second job was to give Coach the results of our election.

I made sure the janitor was still around when I did it. I figured I'd need somebody to unclog the toilet after Coach tried to flush me down.

But Coach surprised me.

He didn't growl or snarl or clench his fists or make one move toward turning me into a human swirly cone. He just pooched his lips and looked at me, eyes narrowed.

“Team captain. Huh.” He looked me up and down. “You're not exactly athletic, but you're bright. I can't see you doing anything too stupid.” He leaned closer till his eyes were level with mine. “You won't do anything stupid, will you, Nickel?”

I swallowed. “No, sir.”

“Good.” He nodded and ambled out of the locker room.

The janitor followed him.

I rinsed out the mop bucket, flipped off the lights, and trudged through the empty gym by myself. Bragger had offered to wait for me, but I told him no, go on home, I was team captain now and had certain responsibilities.

The truth was, I couldn't blame him for coming up with a secret Step Three. I'd devised my own Step Three, and I hadn't seen fit to tell Bragger about it.

Of course, my Step Three didn't put anybody else's personal safety in jeopardy. My Step Three only involved getting people to do more of what they liked doing anyway: talk about Brett McGrew. My Step Three was to find out what kind of person Brett McGrew was, to see if he was the kind of guy who could go around knowing he had a son and not do anything about it. To see if maybe the reason my mom never told anyone Brett McGrew was my father was because Brett McGrew didn't want to
be
my father.

Which was why I didn't go straight home after practice. I scrunched my jacket up around my ears, leaned into the wind, and headed to the Double Dribble.

Warm cafe air wrapped around me when I walked through the door. I wound my way through the tables and scooted onto the stool at the end of the counter.

Mrs. Snodgrass filled a glass with Coke and set it in front of me. “Where'd you lose Bragger?” She reached under the counter for a straw.

“No place.” I dropped my backpack onto the floor. “Bragger and I don't always do everything together.”

“Really.” Mrs. Snodgrass looked at me. Her eyebrows were two thick black crayon marks carefully drawn across the bald ridges above her eyes. She raised them now, surprised. “I don't believe I've ever seen either one of you doing anything apart.”

I shrugged—casually, I hoped—and peeled the paper from my straw. I didn't have anybody to throw it at, so I set it next to my Coke.

Mrs. Snodgrass had the radio tuned to her usual country-and-western station, and now she started filling up saltshakers, sashaying around the restaurant in time with Garth Brooks. I could hear her husband, Mr. Snodgrass, clanking dishes around in the kitchen, but the afternoon coffee drinkers had all gone home, and the supper crowd hadn't come in yet. So except for me and Mrs. Snodgrass, the restaurant was empty.

“Hey, Mrs. Snodgrass,” I said. Still casual. “How well did you know Brett McGrew? You know, back when he was in high school?”

Mrs. Snodgrass unscrewed a saltshaker lid. “As well as most folks, I guess. Went to all his games, of course. And he stopped in here pretty regular. Him and his daddy used to come in on Saturday mornings for breakfast. Started when Brett was real little, and they kept coming in every Saturday till he went away to college. Even after that, they'd still have breakfast here sometimes when Brett was down from KU. He said nobody in Lawrence knew how to fix decent biscuits and gravy, so he had to load up on them whenever he was home.” She set the newly filled saltshaker back on the table and raised a crayon mark at me. “Why?”