Long Shot for Paul (6 page)

Glenn’s fists were clenched. “You’d better not say it, Don!” he cried hotly. “You’d just better not say it!”

T
he Sabers played the Jackrabbits on the following Tuesday. Glenn hadn’t seen Don since Sunday. He wondered how Don was going
to act. Was Don so sore that he’d never pass the ball to Glenn again?

The jackrabbits took the lead right away. Glenn played the last two minutes of the first quarter and found that what he had
expected was right. There were times Don could have passed the ball to him but didn’t.

Coach Munson let Glenn start the second quarter. It was the jackrabbits’ ball. They tossed it in from out-of-bounds. With
short
passes they moved it to their front court. As they crossed the center line Don streaked in — intercepted the ball! Suddenly
two Jackrabbits swarmed around him. Glenn was open.

“Here, Don!” he cried.

Don feinted a pass to him, but didn’t throw. A moment later one of the jackrabbits knocked the ball out of Don’s hands. There
was a frantic scramble for the ball. The whistle shrilled.

“Jump!” yelled the referee.

Glenn caught Don’s eye, and Don looked away.

Don outjumped his man, tapped the ball to Andy. Andy barely got it away from an opponent, started to dribble it up-court,
then passed to Frog. Frog crossed the center line, passed to Glenn in the clear near the corner. Glenn feinted a shot, changed
his mind as a man leaped in front of him, and
passed to Don. Glenn ran in front of Don toward the front of the basket. Again he was open.

Don leaped for a jump shot. He was twenty feet from the basket, more than ten feet farther than Glenn. He released the ball.
But not at the basket! It shot in a swift, straight line directly at Glenn!

Though stunned with surprise, Glenn caught it. He sprang up, shot. The ball riffled through the net clean as a whistle.

He ran up the court as a player caught the ball and passed it to the ref. A hand slapped him on the shoulder.

“Nice going, Glenn,” Frog said.

“Thanks, Frog.”

The Jackrabbits brought the ball up to their front court, tried to work it close to the basket with short passes. The Sabers
clung to their men like leeches. They tried hard to steal the ball, to force a bad pass. All at once
a Jackrabbit took a jump shot. The ball struck the rim, bounced against the boards and down. Hungry hands flew up for the
rebound. Don got it.

Glenn ran in front of him. Don passed him the ball and Glenn dribbled to the side. He saw Andy bolting down the middle of
the court and heaved the ball to him.

The instant he released the ball he knew it was a lousy throw. The ball went sailing over Andy’s head and into the empty bleachers
behind the scorekeeper’s table.

“No, Glenn!” Coach Munson shouted. “Watch those passes!” He sent in Chet Bruner and Benjy Myles, took out Glenn and Frog.

“Thought you learned to keep your passes low?” Coach Munson said. “You’ve been doing pretty good.”

Glenn shrugged. He still needed a lot of practice in passing. That was the answer.

He thought of Don. Don had gotten over his grudge. He had passed to Glenn when he was able to. Maybe that challenging remark
to Don had done a lot of good after all.

The half ended with the Jackrabbits leading, 33–27.

Paul didn’t get in until there were two minutes left in the third quarter. Once Benjy passed him the ball and right away Paul
was called for traveling. Later he blocked a pass, caught it on a bounce, and passed it to Chet. Chet dribbled the ball all
the way to his front court, went up, and laid it in.

“The old go, Chet! Nice play, Paul!” the coach shouted. He looked at Glenn. “Well, guess your brother came through that time,
didn’t he?”

Glenn’s eyes sparkled. “Guess he did,” he said happily.

Paul went in for a while again in the fourth quarter. Glenn, in the game now, too, was surprised. He didn’t think the coach
would let Paul go in with the Sabers trailing by ten points, 58–48.

The ball was in the Sabers’ possession. Don flipped a short pass to Glenn, and Glenn passed to Paul. Paul was only a few steps
away. A Jackrabbit sprang in front of him and Paul moved back.

Shreeeeeek!
went the whistle. The referee spun his hands. “Traveling!” he shouted.

In spite of Paul’s violation, the Sabers got four points closer to the Jackrabbits’ score. The game ended with the jackrabbits
winning, 64–58.

No one said a word to Paul as Glenn walked with him to the dressing room. Only Coach Munson, who put his hand on Paul’s shoulder
and smiled encouragingly. “Have
to learn to pivot, Paul. And not to move that foot. They’ll call traveling on you every time.”

Paul smiled. “Guess I’ll have to practice on it,” he said.

If just one of the guys would say something to Paul while they were in the locker room, or taking their showers. But no one
did. Except Benjy. He always did. The others just talked among themselves, ignoring Paul as if he weren’t around.

Maybe Judy and I weren’t so smart in having Paul learn basketball, Glenn thought as he unlaced his sneakers and slipped them
off. Maybe Paul would be a lot happier if he just stayed home and constructed things out of the model set and played his keyboard.

On Thursday, December 30, the Sabers played the Blue Waves and won, 69–51. The next evening was New Year’s Eve. Mom played
Paul’s keyboard and everyone stood
around her and sang. It was snowing hard outside. Thick flakes of snow struck the picture window, melted, and streamed down
the outer pane like fat tears.

The children wanted to stay up and watch the New Year come in. Mom and Dad said it was okay. But at eleven o’clock Paul was
missing. Glenn found him on the bed, fully dressed and fast asleep.

“I figured he’d be too tired to stay up,” Dad said, smiling.

He and Glenn started to get Paul undressed, but Paul awoke. He laughed at having fallen asleep, then finished undressing himself.
He put on his pajamas and tucked himself in.

“Good night, son,” Dad said.

“Good night, Dad,” said Paul. “Good night, Glenn.”

“Guess I’ll hit the sack, too,” said Glenn, stifling a yawn. He said good night to Dad,
then went to the living room and said good night to Mom and Judy. Those were his last words to them this year. Then he went
to bed.

New Year’s Eve. What was so different about New Year’s Eve?

I
t stopped snowing by morning. The sun was up, greeting the new year like a happy child. The snow on the sidewalk and street
lay like a fuzzy white blanket.

“Boy, sure looks quiet out there,” Glenn said to Paul. “Guess everybody’s still asleep.”

They swept off the driveway that afternoon and the three of them — Glenn, Paul, and Judy — played basketball. They practiced
passing and foul shooting. Glenn figured that these were the important things for Paul to learn. At the same time he needed
the practice himself.

They each took twenty-five shots at the basket. Glenn didn’t bother to count how many he sank. But he counted Paul’s. Paul’s
first two shots barely missed the rim. He sank the next four, missed the fifth, then sank the next and the next.

Glenn’s mouth formed an oval. He looked at Judy and she looked at him. Her eyes danced.

“Guess who’s getting to be an expert at foul shots,” she said cheerily.

From that moment Glenn knew what he was going to have Paul practice on mostly. An expert? Why not?

They returned to school on Monday, January 3. Glenn hated to see the morning come, but once he was in school he didn’t mind
a bit. The students reviewed a little in each class, and the rest of the time talked about what they had done during their
vacation. It seemed as if even the teachers
weren’t anxious to do schoolwork this first day.

The next evening the Sabers played the Gators, the team that was leading the loop. They had lost only one game so far, and
that to the Blue Waves. News had gotten around that Dick Koles, their star center, was aver-aging nineteen points a game.

Dick started off hot as a torch. He sank two field goals and a foul shot to put the Gators in the lead, 5–0, in less than
a minute of play. Frog sank a long one to start the Sabers off. It seemed as if that was what they needed. For the rest of
the first quarter neither Dick nor the whole Gators team could keep more than two points ahead of the Sabers.

Glenn had gone in during the last few minutes of the quarter. He stayed in at the beginning of the second quarter, dropped
in a basket to tie the score, then fouled his man
on a layup shot. The Gator made both baskets, putting them ahead again by two points.

Then Glenn got fouled. The referee’s hands went out, one finger extending from each. If Glenn made the first shot, he had
another coming.

He missed the shot, and his hopes fell.

Paul went in for Benjy, but he never got the ball. No one passed it to him. Not once.

The Gators led at the half, 27–25. The Gators’ big gun, Dick Koles, had scored nine points so far.

The Gators cut loose in the second half. Their little left forward, a red-headed kid whom Glenn was guarding, dumped in two
long set shots. Then Dick Koles laid one against the boards for two points. A moment later he was fouled as he tried to do
it again. His layup missed. He was given two shots, made them both.

I guess he is a star, Glenn muttered to himself.

The Sabers called time out. Coach Munson got into a huddle with them. Jim and Andy had to guard that Koles kid better, he
said. And Glenn had better guard that little redhead closer, too.

“He flits around like a fly,” Glenn said, smiling.

“You flit after him,” the coach told him.

After time in was called, Glenn tried to flit after the redhead when the redhead flitted. It paid off. He intercepted a pass,
bounced it to Jim. Jim dribbled it to the front court for a basket.

Jim and Andy kept glued to the Gators center. There were fewer passes to him. Little by little the strategy worked. Now and
then the Sabers pumped one in, and gradually the score on the Sabers’ side edged nearer the Gators’.

Two minutes after the fourth quarter started, Chet Bruner, in Glenn’s place, sank a set shot from the key. The Sabers went
ahead by one. With three minutes to go the coach sent in Paul.

“Oh, no!” Glenn heard Don moan. “What’s he doing that for?”

Glenn was surprised, too. But if Paul was given the ball, and was fouled …

Paul was in the clear at the side of the keyhole. Jim had the ball, trying hard to keep away from two Gators who were after
him like hornets. He flipped the ball to Paul.

“Shoot, Paul! Shoot!” Glenn yelled from the bench.

Paul looked at the basket for a fraction of a second, then shot. The ball rolled around the rim, dropped through!

The fans screamed. Glenn leaped up, clapping thunderously. “Thataway, Paul!” he cried. “Thataway, of kid!”

Later, with the ball in the Sabers’ possession again, Paul was called on a holding violation. The Gators took it out. They
passed wildly. It went out-of-bounds and it was the Sabers’ ball again. They worked it up-court. Jim, surrounded by Gators
beneath the basket, tried a hook shot. He made it!

The seconds ticked away. Fifteen to go … fourteen … thirteen … Amidst cheering shouts, the Sabers walked off with the game,
58–56.

“Paul Marlette,” said the
Evening Journal
the next day, “was the spark that ignited the Sabers. His field goal in the last quarter was the turning point of the game.…”

T
he Sabers continued on a winning streak, defeating the Cowboys, the Shawnees, and the Jackrabbits. Some of the guys said it
was Paul’s basket in the Gators game that had brought them luck.

If it was luck, some of it had rubbed off on Paul. He sank a field goal in the game against the Cowboys and one in the Shawnees
game. He was fouled in the jackrabbits game and given one shot, but missed it.

He didn’t play much, however. The coach didn’t dare let him. Paul couldn’t seem to
learn to pivot on one foot, nor to pass without getting the ball intercepted, nor to guard his man without grabbing hold of
him. To keep Paul in the game too long would be next to disastrous.

“He’d hurt the team,” Coach Munson explained to Glenn during the last quarter of the Jackrabbits game. “He’d hurt himself,
too. His mistakes would bother the devil out of him. But he’s come a long way. Just playing a little while in each game has
helped him. I can see that.”

“He’s best on foul shots,” Glenn put in.

“I see he is. Goes to show you what steady training will do. How are the boys treating him on the outside?”

Glenn shrugged. “I guess they’re better. Frog speaks to him all the time now. So does Stevie.”

“What about Don?”

“He does when he feels like it.”

“Don’t worry. He’ll come around, too. He’s like Paul, in a way. Some things come to him very, very slowly. He has to work
on it for a long time. He appreciates Paul. He just hates to admit it. One of these days he’ll come out of it like a chick
hatching out of an egg. You wait and see.”

The final game of the season was against the Blue Waves, on Tuesday, January 18. It was the Big Game. Both teams were tied
for second place, with nine wins and five losses each. The Gators had already clinched first place with thirteen wins and
two losses. They had beaten the Cowboys in the first game that evening. The poor Cowboys finished in the cellar with only
two wins and thirteen losses.

In the starting lineup were Andy Searles and Don Marshang at the forward positions,
Jim Tilton at center, Glenn and Stevie Keester at the guard positions. The bleachers were nearly filled.

Tom Snow, the Blue Waves’ tall center, outjumped Jim and tipped the ball to a teammate. A couple of passes got the ball near
the Blue Waves’ basket. Glenn ran in to block the ball as a Blue Waves man started up with it and he struck the player’s wrist.
The whistle shrilled. He turned away in disgust, putting up his hand to show that he was the offender.