Athlete vs. Mathlete: Double Dribble (16 page)

The math test turned out to be a breeze, and when the bell rang, Nitu and I left the classroom together.

“It looks like the Pioneers have lost a player,” she said.

“Yes,” I said quietly. “It's too bad.”

“Is it really?” she asked. “I mean, judging by the way you were talking about those two, I thought you might be happy about it.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised. I thought I'd kept my feelings pretty well hidden from the Masters.

“You were jealous.”

“Maybe,” I agreed. “But that doesn't mean I wanted to see someone get
hurt
.” Not Marcus, anyway. He was the nice one.

She must have seen the truth in my expression, because she patted me on the back. “It's not your fault, Russell.”

At practice that afternoon, Coach Baxter was obviously disappointed when he saw the cast.

“I'd heard rumors.” He sighed and asked, “How long are you out for?”

“It depends on how it heals,” Marcus said. “At least six weeks.”

I heard a couple of the Pioneers groan.

“
Hmm
.” Coach folded his gigantic arms over his chest. “Well, we'll still have some season left in six weeks,” he reminded the team. “Now, let's get warmed up.”

If I were Marcus Matthews, I would have taken the opportunity to relax on the bench during the absolute worst part of practice.

But I wasn't Marcus Matthews.

As I jogged around the gym, struggling to maintain a decent pace, I watched the Matthews twins run in perfect unison.

Even with an injury, Marcus had better form than I did.

“I can't believe he's
running
,” I whispered to Owen, as he passed me.

He shrugged. “There's nothing wrong with his legs.”

The way he said it made me wonder if he wished there was.

As we worked through our warm-up drills, Marcus did everything that didn't require the use of his broken arm. But near the end of practice, he was stuck on the bench for the scrimmage.

“How does it feel?” I asked, as I sat next to him and waited to be subbed in.

“Lame.” He sighed, then glanced at me. “You mean not being able to play, right?”

“No, I meant your arm. How does it feel?”

“Sore,” he said, shrugging. “Awkward, uncomfortable, and totally frustrating.”

“Tell me how you really feel,” I joked.

He didn't crack a smile. “I just did.”

Before I could say anything else, he pulled a notebook
out from under the bench and flipped it open to a blank page.

“Homework?” I asked.

He shook his head but didn't answer me. Instead, he bent over the book and started writing. He would watch Mitch for a couple of minutes, then scribble something on the page.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Taking notes,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Notes on what?”

“His playing,” he said with a shrug.

“What do you mean?” I asked. I'd never seen anyone but the sports reporter from our school newspaper taking basketball notes before.

“It's what my dad usually does. At games, you know?”

I nodded, but I didn't know at all. “Why?”

He turned to face me. “So we can go over the action together when we get home. Then we work on improvements.”

The last thing I wanted to do when I got home from a Pioneers game was dissect it. Either we won or we lost. Either we played well or we didn't.

And M&M
always
played well. What kind of improvements could they possibly need?

“Does he do it all the time?” I asked, glad that my own parents simply appeared at the games and cheered us on.

“When he's in town. He's working in New Orleans right now. Since I'm benched, I might as well do it for him.”

I only watched about half of what was happening on the court because I was trying to figure out Marcus's notes. Between the scrawled words, diagrams, and grunts, it was hard to tell exactly what he was tracking. And whatever it was happened to be complicated enough that his page looked more like notes from a high-school physics class than a simple middle-school scrimmage.

“Russell!” Coach shouted. His tone let me know that it wasn't the first time he'd said my name. “You're up.”

I ran out onto the court, stopping only to retie my shoelaces.

“Double knots, Russ,” Owen said, for what must have been the four hundredth time since I'd joined the Pioneers.

Coach blew his whistle, and seconds later I was running down the court, checking over my shoulder to watch Nate's progress with the ball.

“I'm open!” Owen shouted. Nate threw a bounce pass right to him.

Owen managed to get the ball a few feet closer to the net but not close enough to take a shot.

Mitch was guarding me and I was worried I'd never be able to shake him off. But to my surprise, one quick spin was all it took to find myself open.

“Over here!” I shouted to Owen, who passed me the ball.

I dribbled even more carefully than usual, knowing how easily Mitch would be able to steal the ball.

But he didn't.

I did my best to hurry down the court and when I was within range, I took a shot.

“Nice!” Owen called, as the ball dropped through the net.

I turned to see where my guard was. Mitch was mouthing something to Marcus, who held his notebook in the air, as if anyone other than Superman could read it from twenty feet away.

“Let's keep our heads in the game,” Coach said. “Matthews, I need you to stay focused.”

Mitch nodded and shot his brother a frustrated look.

The next time I had the ball, I couldn't feel Mitch breathing down my neck, so I took off down the court. As soon as I heard his footsteps behind me, I passed to Owen, who wasn't quite ready for it. He stumbled, but managed to catch the ball and pass it to Nicky Chu for a basket.

The opposing team scored a couple of times, but then it was Nicky Chu with a beautiful layup, followed by a three-pointer by me.

It was, as Owen would say, “nothing but net,” as the ball swished.

I knew it had only been a matter of minutes and it was only a practice scrimmage, but it seemed like the Pioneers were playing like a real team again. It felt amazing!

For the rest of practice, Coach Baxter shouted words of encouragement and complimented us on our playing.

Except for Mitch, that is.

He seemed to be totally distracted from the game while
most of his attention was focused on the bench. Marcus tried to help him by cheering him on, flashing complicated hand signals and holding up his notebook, but none of his efforts helped.

Coach Baxter let Mitch take a break on the bench, so he sat next to his twin and watched the rest of us play.

At first, they looked like a couple of mismatched bookends, one with a cast and one without. But when I looked closer, I saw that their expressions were exactly the same.

They both looked miserable.

I walked home from school with Owen and Chris that afternoon, and it wasn't long before the topic turned to our injured list.

“I can't believe Mitch is out for six weeks,” Chris said, shaking his head.

“Marcus,” I corrected.

“What?” he asked, looking confused.

“It's Marcus who's injured.”

“Oh,” Chris said, shrugging it off. “Whatever.”

I tuned the two of them out during the rest of the walk home, distracted by what Chris had said. Well, more about how he said it than the words themselves, really.

The Matthews twins were two separate people, whether they were alike or not.

I kicked a stone ahead of me on the sidewalk, thinking about how jealous I'd been of their amazing closeness.

I'd desperately wanted Owen and me to be in sync and to feel that bond. But would I like it if we were so similar and so close that no one could tell us apart?

I thought about the math and science certificates I'd won, and how it had felt to stand on the stage and receive them. I thought about the success of the Masters of the Mind team and how amazing it was that they had chosen me for team captain.

How would I feel if I overheard someone talking about Owen's math skills, knowing they were really talking about mine? And how would he feel if the kids high-fived me in the hallway for plays he had made during a basketball game?

I didn't have to think for too long to know we would both hate it.

I went grocery shopping with Mom on the weekend and I saw M&M ahead of us in line at Safeway. I noticed that wearing the cast meant that Marcus couldn't part his hair quite so perfectly anymore, so the brothers had stopped looking exactly the same.

I didn't say anything to them, but I watched as they helped their mom unload their cart. Mitch dumped everything on
the conveyor belt at once while Marcus lined up all the boxed items in a strange order. I would have gone from tallest to shortest or something like that, but his clusters of boxes were all different sizes. It wasn't until the cashier started bagging that I realized he'd grouped his boxes to perfectly fill every corner of a standard paper bag.

The cashier smiled at him as she loaded layer after layer with ease. She didn't have to make a single adjustment.

“Smart,” I murmured.

“What, honey?” Mom asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

But it was something. Something very interesting.

I thought I had a pretty good understanding of the twins' personalities off the court, but before Marcus broke his arm, I hadn't noticed that they assumed different roles when they hit the hardwood. Strangely enough, when it came to basketball,
Marcus
was the more aggressive brother. The more I watched, the more obvious it was that Marcus was the one who'd always found openings where they shouldn't have been. Marcus made the shots that seemed impossible.

It was as though he'd linked geometry with basketball. He'd been the one to find the awkward angles and make them work. He came up with the plays that no one saw coming.