Athlete vs. Mathlete: Double Dribble (3 page)

By the time the meeting was over, the Masters team still hadn't decided who should become our fifth and final member. It was proving to be a huge challenge.

My stomach growled all the way home, so when I got there, I was thrilled to see Mom in the kitchen making spaghetti.

“Oh, good. You're back. Can you tell your brother we're almost ready?” she asked, licking a bit of sauce from her thumb. “It's his turn to set the table.”

“I can set it,” I offered.

Mom shook her head. “Changing the chore schedule will only lead to disaster.”

She was probably right.

I climbed the stairs and walked into Owen's room. He was sitting at his desk, staring intently at the notebook in front of him. His tongue was sticking out of the corner of his mouth, which meant he was deep in concentration.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He practically jumped out of his chair.

“Whoa! You scared me, Russ,” he said, rubbing his chest like I'd given him a heart attack.

He'd always been a little overdramatic.

“I didn't mean to,” I told him, glancing at the notebook. I could make out two figures, one wearing a jersey with an “H” on it, cowering under a basketball hoop while the other slam-dunked a ball.

It didn't take a genius to know that the “H” stood for Hogarth.

“Is that Dante Powers?”

“Yeah. I'm just—”

“Fantasizing about beating him?” I asked, smiling.

“Well … yeah.”

“Do you think we can do it?” Judging by what I'd heard from the rest of the Pioneers, Dante Powers was a force to be reckoned with.

“As long as we work together,” Owen said, having learned some valuable lessons about teamwork recently.

The whole team was working together, and that was the reason for our latest wins.

How would two new players affect the chemistry the rest of us had together?

“Do you think Coach Baxter will play those Minnesota twins right away?” I asked.

Owen laughed. “Wrong sport.”

“What?” I asked, confused.

“The Minnesota Twins? They're a baseball team, Russ. Major league baseball.”

“Oh. Cool,” I said, trying to shrug it off. Flipping through those
Sports Illustrated
magazines every now and then might be a good idea.

“Anyway,” Owen continued, “I don't know what Coach will do. Brand-new guys won't know our plays or anything.”

“Sure,” I said, wincing. I barely knew them myself.

“Hey, are you watching the Blazer game with Dad and me tonight?”

“Who are they playing?” I asked, liking the fact that the answer would actually mean something to me.

“Oklahoma.”

A decent team with a higher than average number of fouls. “Sure, I'll watch,” I told him, starting to look forward to it.

Ever since I'd joined the Pioneers, Dad had been inviting me to watch the games. It took me a little while to get into it, but once I'd learned the terms and read some background
on the team and their players, it had turned into a lot of fun. I liked hanging out on the couch as one of the guys, cheering on
our
team.

When we sat down that night, I got my favorite spot on the middle cushion. That meant I had the best view
and
got to hold the popcorn bowl. It didn't get much better than that.

As soon as the game started, Dad said, “They look ready to win.”

“Fire in their eyes,” Owen agreed, shoving a handful of popcorn into his mouth.

“They have a better record than Oklahoma,” I said, glad to have something to contribute.

“Okay, almost
everyone
has a better record than Oklahoma,” Owen said, through his mouthful.

Our relationship might have changed in the last month, but he still liked to be a bit of a basketball know-it-all.

I let it go.

The Blazers played well in the first quarter, but when the second started, things seemed to go downhill. The passes were sloppy, they were taking shots they shouldn't have even considered, and no one looked like they were playing in the same game, let alone on the same team.

“Pass it to Johnson!” Owen shouted at the TV when Lamar Otis threw the ball to Kevin Maple. “Maple's been shooting nothing but bricks!”

I watched as Maple missed another basket.

“You've got to be kidding me,” Owen complained. “Johnson was wide open.” He flopped against his cushion like it was the most disappointing thing he'd ever seen.

I didn't take it quite so hard. I might have become a fan, but I wasn't a
superfan
yet.

Dad winked at me and I smiled back, then reached for more popcorn.

By the end of the first half, the Blazers had gotten their act together and Owen's enthusiasm had returned.

But in the beginning of the third, Maple was still missing shots and the Blazers were down by twelve points.

“Take the guy out,” Owen pleaded. “Put in Marshall, Buckman, Lewis, or …
anybody
.”

“They have to give Maple a chance,” Dad said. “They paid a lot of money for him.”

“How much?” I asked.

“Too much,” Owen replied.

“How much is that?” I asked.

“Anything over a dollar would have been too much, and they're giving that guy millions.”

“Over the next three years,” Dad reminded him.

“Yeah, well, he'll destroy the team in three years,” Owen said. “The Rose Garden won't even be standing when his contract is up.”

“That seems a little over the top,” Dad said, laughing.

“I'm serious,” Owen said. “He's the worst thing that could have happened to this team.”

But by the fourth quarter, he'd changed his tune.

Maple started making shots. And not just any shots either. He was hitting three-pointers from every possible angle, and every time the ball left his hands I could tell something magical was about to happen.

It took me a few minutes to figure out what was different in that final quarter.

It was Adam Donaldson. The new guy had finally been pulled off the bench and into his first professional game.

“He's from Duke,” Owen told me when I asked about him.

Last month, all I would have known was that they were a private research university, but since I'd joined the Pioneers, I'd heard all about their famous basketball program.

I thought about that for a minute. “Didn't Kevin Maple play at Duke?” I asked.

“What?” Owen asked, his attention on the TV. Then he nodded and said, “Yeah. Yeah, they played there together for three years.”

For the final few minutes of the game, I didn't watch the ball or the baskets. I watched Maple and Donaldson feed each other the ball, like each knew exactly where the other was at all times. They passed and scored to help the Blazers win the game by twenty-two points.

It was easily the best teamwork I'd ever seen.

I went to bed that night still smiling about the Blazer game. My favorite NBA team was in the middle of a winning streak, just like we were.

We'd been working so well together lately I'd been feeling like nothing could stop us.

But right before I fell asleep, Russ stopped by my room.

“I'm worried about the Pioneers,” he said, turning on my light.

Normally, I wouldn't care if Russ was freaked out because the kinds of things he usually freaked out about were math problems and other stuff that didn't matter.

But if he was concerned about the team, I needed to pay attention.

“What do you mean?” I asked, sitting up in bed and rubbing my eyes.

“We're playing really well together, right?”

“Definitely,” I said, nodding.

“We're passing, shooting, and communicating better than ever.”

“Yeah, thanks to solid teamwork. Why are you worried about that?”

“I'm not,” he said, adjusting his glasses. “I'm worried that these twins are going to upset the balance of the team.”

“Upset the … what?”

He shook his head. “Maybe I'm overthinking this, but I don't want a couple of brand-new guys to interfere with what's working for us.”

“
Hmm
,” I said quietly. He was right. We didn't need anyone to show up out of nowhere and mess with our system.

“Never mind. I'm probably just being paranoid,” he said. “I'm going to bed.”

After he left, I lay awake for a little while, thinking about the new twins.

What was the deal with them making the team without even trying out, anyway? When Coach Baxter took over, he didn't care who had been on the roster before, or that the guys and me had been playing together forever. We'd all had to prove ourselves at tryouts.

And those matching bozos were just going to walk on? It wasn't fair.

In the morning, the twins were still on my mind as I got into the shower.

I didn't care that they were supposed to be big and athletic or that they had their own letterman jackets.

Okay, maybe I did care about that part. The point is, they should have been treated the same as the rest of us.

In the middle of thinking about it, I got a big blob of shampoo in my eye. It stung like crazy and I spent the rest of my shower too busy trying to prevent blindness to think about basketball or those stupid twins.

By the time I was dressed and ready for breakfast in the kitchen, my eye was still red and watery.

“Owen?” Mom said, looking worried. “Have you been crying?”

“No,” I said, keeping the stinging eye closed. I told her about the shampoo and she helped me rinse it, but it still didn't feel much better.

By the time I sat down and started to dig into my waffle, Russ had made it to the kitchen.

I saw out of my one good eye that he was wearing the awesome Blazer hoodie Dad got him … with a checkered
collared shirt underneath it. I'd told him a hundred times that he'd never look cool dressing like that.

And even worse? Instead of jeans or sweats, like the rest of the guys, he was wearing his brown cords. And they were so short, I could see his brown socks sticking out from the tops of his Nikes.

Oh, brother.

“Are you okay?” Russell asked when he sat down across from me and grabbed the syrup.

“I'm fine,” I told him. “You wanna maybe switch that shirt for a regular one?”

“You mean a turtleneck?” he asked.

“No,” I said with a sigh, wondering what was “normal” about a turtleneck.

“Are you sure you're okay? You look like you've been crying,” he said, looking worried.

I shrugged and told him about the shampoo, then rubbed my eye again, which only made it worse. Mom told me to stop, but I couldn't help it.

After breakfast, Russ and I met Chris outside so we could walk to school together. I knew Chris would dribble his ball the whole way there, as usual. He'd seen some show on ESPN about a player who had at least one finger on his basketball at all times, so Chris had started carrying his everywhere he went. I had the feeling he slept with it.

I was all about basketball, but that was overkill.

“Nice Blazer win last night,” I said.

Chris asked, “Are you joking?”

“No. Why?”

“You winked when you said it.”

“He's not winking,” Russ explained. “He has shampoo in his eye.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think?” I asked.

“No idea.” He shrugged.

I rolled my eyes. Well, one of them, anyway. “It was an
accident
!” I snapped.

“Wow,” Chris muttered. “Touchy.”

We were quiet for a minute or so, and the only sound was his ball slapping against the sidewalk.

“We've got practice this afternoon,” Chris finally said.

“With the new twins,” I added.

“Do we know what positions they play?” Russ asked, as he adjusted his glasses.

“No idea,” Chris said. “But I guess we'll find out.”