Hero (15 page)

"You okay, Thorn?"

He looked at me, his eyebrows raised, a little sad, a little con¬cerned. His sincerity made my stomach rumble with guilt. You can always tell when someone asks how you're doing if they really give a shit, if they really want to know. "You seem like you've got a lot on your mind lately. Now I'll have to work some crazy hours while I'm getting used to the new responsibilities, but if you ever want to talk, just say the word and I'm here, okay?"

I pressed the beer to my forehead and felt the cool conden¬sation on the can drip down my eyebrows.

"Okay."

He grabbed the platter and grilling utensils and headed for the back door. With his hands full he said, "Hey, pop open that beer for me, would you?"

I wanted to take the platter out of his hands and ask him to sit down because there was so much I needed to talk to him about. I considered telling him everything, but I couldn't make any sound come out of my mouth. Suddenly I didn't even know how to begin a sentence.

I grabbed the aluminum tab and flipped it open. The beef exploded and sprayed fizz and foam all over my face.

Dad smiled and opened the back door with his foot.

"Gotcha."

CHAPTER TEN

MY ALARM WOKE ME up at 5:25 a.m., and instead of hitting SNOOZE, I hopped out of bed, threw on my sweats and sneakers, brushed my teeth, and went for a run. I chucked a full half-quart of Breyers mint chocolate-chip ice cream in the garbage on the way out the door. Had to be in perfect shape if I was going to make the League. They were a pantheon of the world's greatest heroes; there would be no second-stringers and no love handles.

Running always gave me time to think. It wasn't like practicing with a team, when I always worried if I was fitting in with everyone else. When I ran, I never thought about screwing someone else up or ruining the team's chance to win. It was a solitary activity, and sometimes that felt nice.

It also felt nice to think about my first practice with my very own try out squad for the League. I wasn't worried yet about competing with the other squads for the few slots on the big team. I was just proud to be a part of a team, and I was ready to dedicate myself to something I believed in, to work hard enough to see what my best could be. The sun was coming up, but the streetlights were still on, so I jogged at a strong pace, bathed under an even glow. I wondered who else would be on my squad. Pure excitement drove me to run all the way across town, and I found myself in the parking lot of the rec center where I tutored. I finished off my marathon with a few wind sprints. It was so early in the morning that hardly any cars were there, which left me plenty of room to run.

Light poured out of the windows to the gym, and I figured I had time to fit in some weights before my shift and tryouts. I jogged inside, and my sneakers squeaked against the shiny floor of the hall and the noise bounced off the concrete walls. I turned the corner and stopped short of the court when I saw something coming at me from the opposite end of the hall. It was a basketball, and it rolled at me until it came to a full stop right beneath my feet.

I picked it up and rubbed my heated palms over its rough, cool exterior. Then I heard the thudding sound of a basketball bouncing against the wood floor of the gymnasium. I followed the sound as if it were an old friend beckoning me to come play. In the gym I saw one guy far down at the other end of the court. He dribbled effortlessly to the basket and sailed high into the air and dunked the ball. Sweat sprayed from his hair and T-shirt when he landed on the floor. He turned and saw me standing in the doorway with the ball.

Even from that far away I could tell from his piercing stare that it was Goran. Silently, he walked over to me, palming the ball in an exaggerated dribble as he caught his breath. Soon, he was just a few yards away and he stopped. Neither of us said a word, and all I could hear was the sound of both of us trying to catch our breath after pushing ourselves so hard. His eyes never let go of mine, his expression gave nothing away. If someone had seen us, they could have mistaken us for two kids auditioning for a western, our hands on our basketballs pressed firmly on one hip, ready to see who would draw first.

His face reminded me of that time he shook my hand and I thought he was going to hit me. I wondered if my face reminded him of the same thing. My eyes drifted down to his legs, and I studied them for a moment. There was no scar.

In the blink of an eye, he took the basketball to his chest and flung it at me full strength. I saw the ball hurtling toward my face, and I instinctively dropped the ball I was carrying and held up my hands. The ball hit my hands with a large smack, and I felt my palms sting. My heart thumped as the ball struck my chest.

"Go on," Goran said. "Shoot it."

He held his chin high and walked forward a few steps so that he was standing right in front of me. He stood so close I could see the sweat bead up on his forehead into a swollen droplet that trickled down to his eye. But he didn't blink. He was waiting to see if I'd accept the challenge.

I looked down at the ball in my hands and sighed with a deep resignation. I relaxed my posture so that he could be sure I didn't want to play these stupid games with him.

Then I faked the best jump shot I'd ever faked, and when Goran predictably leaped up to block it, I drove past him to the

basket for an easy two. With one hand, I picked up the ball and winged it back at him hard.

"Your turn," I said through clenched teeth.

Thus began our one-on-one, a clash of the titans, an epic battle for dominion over the Tuckahoe Rec Center basketball court. If I made an easy jump shot, Goran would answer it with a three-pointer, while the sound of my swish still echoed in the rafters. I'd smack away one of his shots before he launched it, and he'd block my way to the paint as I moved toward the basket on the next go.

Things got even more heated from there. It was the best basketball I'd ever played in my life. If a recruiting agent had been there, we'd both have had contracts in front of us before we left the gym. My diaphragm heaved, struggling for oxygen, and the harder we played, the harder each of us wanted to win. We played in silence, no histrionics, no trash-talking. Either we were bitter enemies locked in a battle to the death, or we were best friends who felt totally comfortable spending time together without saying a word.

Finally, with the score tied at sixty-eight—an incredibly high score considering we'd only been playing for an hour—I guessed the right direction on Goran's next drive, knocked the ball out of his hands, and managed to grab the ball first when we both dove for it. As I dribbled the ball and thought about my next move, I briefly looked down at my watch. Even if I left now, I'd still be running late for my first job, and if I was late for my jobs, I'd be late for my first official League probationary practice, so it was time to end it right here.

I pumped another fake shot, which Goran fell for again—

I'd learned a few tricks from Dad in the stealth department—and drove around him the other way. Still, Goran had already learned to read some of my other moves well, so he was on top of me in an instant. I was so shocked by his reaction time that I made the cardinal error of picking up my dribble.

Now I was stuck. I had no choice but to pull back and launch a Hail Mary three-pointer, and I knew he'd be able to see it coming and block the shot, maybe even without his feet hav¬ing to leave the floor. Instead I watched the ball leave my hands unobstructed, and it sailed up toward the basket. I looked around for Goran and found him casually walking off the court toward the door. I turned to him and opened my mouth, about to ask him why the hell he stopped.

Neither of us looked to see if the ball went in the basket.

All his intensity had melted away in a single moment. A little boy in a karate uniform approached him and stopped just short of Goran's feet. Wrapped in his white robe, the kid looked more like a bedsheet was trying to eat him than a future martial arts champion. The little boy paused before Goran, uttered something in some sort of Asian language, and then bowed with his hands together. Goran responded, put his hands together, and bowed back at the boy.

Then the kid whirled around and threw an impossibly high kick that would have connected with Goran's jaw had he not thrown his hand in the hair to block it. The kid answered with a punch to the gut, which Goran again deflected. Finally, the kid jumped in the air with a scream and threw another fist at Goran. Goran blocked the punch with ease, but that had been the kid's plan. With his other hand he flicked Goran's nose. The boy landed and giggled, Goran held his nose, with his mouth open in surprise.

"Nice one."

He held up his hand for a high five, and the little boy gave it a proud smack. Then they returned to their initial positions and bowed respectfully to each other.

Goran's brow furrowed. "Where's your bag?"

The kid looked around and bit his lip.

"Go get it," Goran said. "You can't be late for camp." He mussed the kid's hair, and the little boy bounced out of the gym in a swirl of flowing white.

Goran turned back around to me and didn't say a word about the game. Instead he looked me up and down.

And then he smiled. At first it was just one side of his mouth, but then the other side raised up to join it, and he gave me a toothy grin. Not perfect teeth; you don't get those when you grow up in Croatia. But I'd never seen him look like that: equal parts boy and man. Happy.

"Same time tomorrow?"

I studied his smile. I was still trying to recover from our game, and I was panting so hard I couldn't speak. I nodded my head.

The kid appeared in the doorway with his backpack. Goran knelt down, the boy hopped on his back, and Goran sped out of the gym, piggybacking the kid off to camp.

I put my hands on my knees and struggled to catch my breath. It was a long time before I could breathe evenly again. All I could think of as I sprinted home, soaring across curbs and crosswalks, was one thing.

He smiled at me.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

AT FIRST I THOUGHT there'd been a mistake. I crowded into the elevator with a group of heroes on their way to their respective meeting rooms. I tried not to look too excited, but I couldn't help it. I was about to meet my very own team for the first time. My eyes scanned the different faces crammed in the elevator, and I wondered which ones were on my squad. Most of the heroes emptied out on Level A. Level B saw almost everyone else depart. I was left in the elevator with Melancholy Polly.

The door opened on Level C, and she asked lethargically, "Aren't you coming?"

"Oh, no thanks," I answered. "My group's on level D." "Level D?" She scrunched her nose like she smelled something bad. "I didn't know there even was a level D."

*  *  *

"Hi, is this the tryout group?" I had an eager smile on my face and a smudged list in my hand.

"No, that's down the hall," a familiar, raspy voice said. "This is the League's Narcotics Anonymous Group."

I looked up from the list to see Ruth, the seer, who cackled herself into a smoker's hack at her own joke.

"She's just kidding. You're in the right place, grab a chair." Typhoid Larry sat shivering on his cold metal folding chair. I reached out to shake his hand, but he only regarded it with a sigh. I remembered what happened last time I touched him and pulled my hand back.

There was one empty seat, so I sat in it. Unfortunately, it was positioned right next to Miss Scarlett, who smelled like pepperoni and sausage.

"Great," she said, and rolled her eyes. "Maybe we can get free tickets to the ballet now." She turned her back to me.

I looked around the room and thought certainly this was just a holding area for a much larger tryout group. They'd be joining us any second. Surely this wasn't our entire team: an old lady who, between smokes, said she could see the future; a girl who smelled like pizza and hated me; and a guy who made people sick. This couldn't be everyone. We at least had to have a team leader or something.

"You're in my seat."

I turned around and saw Golden Boy standing above me.

"You can either get another folding chair from the broom closet down the hall," he said, "or you can sit on the floor. We're about to get started."

Golden Boy introduced himself as Kevin and explained that despite years of service as Silver Bullet's trusty sidekick, he'd been saddled with the responsibility of turning us into "real" heroes. He explained that over the course of the next few months, we'd be competing with the other tryout teams to see who'd advance to the next stage. Now that he'd told us a little about himself, which in fact was very little, he asked each of us to say a few words about ourselves.

Scarlett launched into a retelling of her unremarkable ori¬gins before Golden Boy had a chance to complete his sentence.

"I grew up next to the Surry Nuclear Power Plant." She took a squeeze tube of cheap moisturizer out of the utility pouch on her belt and began rubbing it in her hands. The smell, a sickly-sweet combination of too many flowers, almost covered up the aroma of pepperoni. "So the morning after my twelfth birthday, I woke up and found I had a rack on me that'd make Dolly Patton blush, and that I could fry things in the skillet without turning on the burner." She rubbed the excess lotion from her hands into her cleavage. "I work at Rasheev's Pizza Delivery over in Kempsville, but I'm hoping I'll get to quit soon. Seemed like a good gig because I can keep the pies warm. Better tips. How much we get paid if we make the team?" She looked to Golden Boy for an answer.

"Urn." Golden Boy leafed through a binder in his lap. "I don't know if that information's in here."

"What about benefits? Medical, dental, 401(k)?" Scarlett was quick to ask.

Golden Boy perused the official League tryout manual at superspeed.

"It doesn't say. I'll have to have Sooz get back to you."

"You do that." Scarlett unfolded an aluminum wrapper, popped a stick of fluorescent gum in her mouth, and began chewing. "Okay, I'm done."