Athlete vs. Mathlete: Double Dribble (18 page)

Paul gritted his teeth, then yowled in pain.

“No way,” I whispered.

Coach and the ref helped him up onto one foot as he hopped off the court.

“This doesn't look good,” Chris said. “Not at all,” I said, rubbing my forehead.

Everything had been so perfect! The Twinvaders were on the bench, the original Pioneers were rocking the court … and now Paul was hurt?

The game was held for about five minutes while Paul was taken to the doctor. When he turned back to look at us, there was nothing the rest of us could do but wave and nod as he left.

Shoot!

I had a feeling I knew what was going to happen next.

Coach Baxter decided to put the healthy twin in.

Even though we'd been scrimmaging with him all week at practice, he didn't look right. It took me a minute to realize I'd never seen him in uniform by himself.

“He looks weird alone,” I whispered to Russ.

“He's not alone,” Russ said. “He's with us.”

“Whatever,” I said, shaking my head. If Russ wanted to live in some messed-up alternate universe, that was his own business.

The ref blew his whistle and the game was on again.

One of the Gophers dribbled up to the basket and went in for a layup, but Russ was ready to block the shot with a single hand.

“Denied!” a bunch of girls screamed from the bleachers.

I took off down the court, ready to put some points on the board, but right when I got to the net, a Gopher popped up out of nowhere. I couldn't get past him or through him, so I looked for help.

“Matthews is open!” Chris shouted.

There had to be somebody else. If I wasn't going to score, I wanted a real Pioneer to do it.

I bounced the ball and looked at the shot clock. Three seconds left.

I checked over both shoulders and there was nobody to pass to.

Nobody but a Matthews brother.

I had no choice.

I tossed the ball to him and he caught it easily enough. But that was all he did.

Seriously. He just stood there!

“Shoot!” I yelled, as two of the Gophers made their move, but it was too late. They'd already stolen the ball.

“What was that?” I asked the twin, smirking as we jogged toward the center line.

He didn't say anything. In fact, he totally ignored me.

I would have ignored him, too, but for the rest of the quarter, every time I had the ball, he was my only option. And every time I threw it to him, the kid totally froze.

It was awesome!

“What's his deal?” I asked Russ during a break in the action.

“I don't know. Maybe he just needs some time to warm up.”

“Warm up?” I laughed. “The quarter's almost over and he totally stinks.”

I couldn't have dreamed up a better situation!

“And we still have three more quarters to play,” Russ said, fixing his glasses.

“Totally not the point,” I told him.

I wondered if the guy would get his act together soon.

Lucky for me, the answer was no.

I don't know whether it was more painful to watch Mitch Matthews struggle on the court or to watch pure happiness take over my brother's face while he did it.

Coach Baxter had pulled me out to rest, since I still hadn't built up the kind of stamina my teammates had. I could handle a few minutes of play at a time, but not much more.

Owen, on the other hand, suddenly looked like he'd had a long nap and could play for hours.

I'd seen his energy level pick up the first time Mitch lost the ball for us, and he'd seemed happier every time Mitch made a bad pass or missed a shot, which was actually pretty often.

Marcus was the exact opposite. With every mistake Mitch made, he jumped up from the bench or shouted advice
that was too late for his brother to use. Then he scrawled notes in his book as he shook his head.

“I'm sure he'll be fine,” I said.

Marcus glanced over at me. “I hope so.”

“He will,” I said with a confident nod. “Don't worry.”

Marcus offered me a shy smile. “Thanks, Russell.”

At halftime, the Matthews twins left the gym to talk while Owen grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler and sat next to me on the bench.

“You're playing well,” I told him.

“Thanks.”

I waited for him to say something about Mitch, but he didn't.

“It looks like Mitch is having a tough time out there,” I said.

“That's for sure,” he agreed, laughing. “The guy can't get it together
at all
.”

“It's too bad,” I said quietly.

“For him, maybe, but not for the rest of us. The Pioneers are back!”

“And trailing by six,” I pointed out.

Owen rolled his eyes. “It's only halftime, Russ. We'll get it back.”

“I hope so,” I told him.

But we didn't.

The third quarter was full of sloppy plays and bad judgment. The fourth was even worse.

I was back in the game when we had three minutes left on the clock.

Owen had the ball and was dribbling down the court faster than I'd ever seen him, his face shiny with perspiration.

“I'm open!” I called. I waited for the pass, which was perfect. So was my position—I didn't have to move an inch before I took the jump shot.

The ball teetered on the rim before falling through the net.

“Three points!” Owen shouted, already racing back toward our basket. “Let's keep it up, guys!”

Nate scored a couple more times with some nice layups. When Nicky Chu was fouled, he made both of his baskets for another two points.

But the Gophers were scoring, too, and we couldn't keep up.

At the two-minute mark, Owen was hit in the face by a flying elbow and given two free throws.

I watched as he lined up the first shot and bent his knees before bouncing the ball once. He straightened and threw it.

Thunk
.

It bounced off the rim and the crowd groaned.

Owen bobbed up and down on his toes a few times to loosen up and took another shot.

This one sailed right in.

“Yes!” he said, pumping his fist hard.

We had twenty-three seconds left when Mitch Matthews dribbled down the court, surrounded by Gophers. He spun
around to shake off the player who had a grip on the back of his jersey and took the shot.

The ball bounced off the corner of the backboard just as the buzzer sounded.

And with that, we officially lost.

Our new winning streak had turned into a losing streak.

I followed the rest of the guys into the locker room, listening as they tried to cheer each other up.

“Are you happy now?” I asked Owen, when he opened the locker next to me.

“What? No.”

“You got what you wanted,” I reminded him.

He didn't say anything but I knew from his expression that he was trying to hold back a smile.

I ate lunch in Mr. Hollis's room one afternoon, tired of watching my brother gloat at the lunch table. As I bit into my ham sandwich, I tried to ignore the word “jerk” as it flashed in my head over and over again.

Why couldn't Owen root
for
the team instead of rooting
against
the Matthews brothers?

“You're in here early,” a voice said, from the doorway.

I looked up to see Marcus, alone.

“I'm just taking a break from the cafeteria.” I quickly added, “It's too noisy in there.”

“I know what you mean,” he said, walking into the room and setting his books on the table next to mine.

“Where's Mitch?” I asked, surprised to see him alone.

“The cafeteria. I left to see the school nurse.”

“Are you okay?” I asked, glancing at his cast.

“Yeah. It's just that my arm gets really itchy, and she has a special scratcher I can poke down there.”

“Cool,” I said, nodding.

“Have you finished your homework assignment?”

I couldn't help laughing. No one had asked me that for years. “It's done.”

“Mine, too.” He pulled a book out of his bag and flipped it open. “Want to play a word game until the bell?”

“Sure,” I said, smiling. I was pretty good at word games and looked forward to maybe showing off a little.

“It's an etymology game,” he said, then glanced at me. “You know what that means, right?”

“Etymology? Sure, it's where a word comes from.”

“And why,” he said. “For example, the word ‘ballot'? It comes from the Italian word for a pebble. Italians used to vote by putting a pebble into whichever box they chose.”

“Interesting,” I said, and meant it.

He looked down at the page. “Want to take a guess at ‘escape'?”

I thought about it for a moment. “It sounds like it might be French?”

He shook his head and smiled. “That's what I would have guessed, too. It's Latin. Want to guess the why?”

I nodded, already liking the way this game stretched my brain in new directions.

After a full minute, I'd tossed out a few ideas but hadn't found the right one. “So, what is it?” I asked, excited to learn something new.

He read, “In Latin, it means, ‘out of cape.' It says here that the ancient Romans would try to avoid capture by throwing off their capes when they ran.”

“I like that one,” I said. “It's kind of like shar-peis.”

He gave me a quizzical look. “You mean those wrinkled dogs?”

“Yeah. They were bred that way in China. If they were attacked by another animal, the other animal would only be able to grab loose skin and do less damage than if it bit into the body.”

“Weird,” Marcus said, then smiled. “But cool.”

“Let's try another one from the book,” I said, totally enjoying myself.

“Okay, here's a good one. ‘Regret.'”

It was a funny word to choose, because it was something I was feeling at that very moment.

If I'd given Marcus a chance at the very beginning, we could have been friends all along.

Over the next couple of days, I thought a lot about Marcus Matthews. I thought about how interesting he'd turned out to be, and how he'd opened my eyes to some new ways of looking at things, like words.

I also thought about how lost he seemed without basketball.

And I knew there was something I could do about that.

It turned out I had to wait until the Pioneers' next practice to catch him alone.

We were sitting on the bench when I asked, “Have you ever heard of Masters of the Mind?”

“The team?” he asked, and when I nodded he said, “Yeah.”

“We specialize in thinking outside the box.”

He didn't say anything.

“So do you,” I finally added.

“What?”

“You specialize in thinking outside the box.”

“I do?” he asked.

“Yes. Here at practice, in math class … everywhere.” I took a deep breath. “And we could use someone like you.”