Airball (9 page)

“Scrimmage?” I stared at the clipping. “
Scrimmage?
We have to
scrimmage?
”

“Cool,” said Bragger.

“Cool?” I looked at him. “Do you have any idea what this means? It means we have to play basketball. In the fieldhouse. With fans and reporters and the Stuckey school board watching. With TV cameras recording our every pathetic move. What part of that could possibly be cool?” I scanned Mrs. Zimmer's letter. It had to be a mistake. “Why didn't Coach ever mention this? Why wasn't it on the permission slip? It should've been on the permission slip. Everything is supposed to be right there, in writing, on the permission slip. I'm sure it's a school regulation.”

Bragger shrugged, obviously not comprehending the seriousness of violating school regulations. “Maybe it was supposed to be a surprise.”

“A surprise?”

“And you know,” said Bragger, “I don't mean to burst Mrs. Zimmer's bubble, but that sports column guy was kinda right. Except for Brett McGrew and that other player with all those steals, Stuckey hasn't made a dent in the game of basketball. I hate to say it, but without Brett McGrew, Stuckey really
would
be a big, smelly armpit.”

“Exactly!” I said, trying to steer the conversation back on track. “Which everyone will see for themselves when the seventh-grade team—of which I am a member—humiliates itself on national television during this
scrimmage.
”

“I think you're getting yourself all worked up over nothing, Kirby.” Grandma shuffled the mail into a pile and set it on the counter. “I imagine it'll just be a short little exhibition thing. Nobody's going to be paying much attention to you boys, anyway. They'll be too busy watching Brett McGrew.”

“Yeah.” Bragger's eyes locked onto mine. “Remember him? Brett McGrew? The whole reason we're going? Don't think of it as a scrimmage, Kirby. Think of it as an opportunity to get closer to Brett McGrew.”

Oh, yeah, it was an opportunity, all right. An opportunity to show Brett McGrew once and for all I had no business being his son.

Sixteen

Maybe it was Mrs. Zimmer. Maybe it was the bump on the head. Whatever it was, Coach started acting strange, even for Coach.

I really didn't have time to think about Coach. Not at first. I was too busy thinking about the scrimmage. I thought about it all weekend, and by Monday morning, I'd come up with an amazingly brilliant Step Five: Take a Dive.

Literally.

During practice, sometime before we went to Lawrence, I'd make a maniac dive to keep the ball in bounds, or a wild leap to bring down a rebound, or an insane lunge for a steal, and
presto:
a sprained ankle, a pulled hamstring, a mangled tendon. That's all it would take to keep me on the bench during the KU scrimmage. I'd get to meet Brett McGrew, but I wouldn't frighten him by actually trying to play basketball.

It was the perfect plan. I couldn't fail. Falling down was maybe my best talent. All I had to do was take that talent to the next level. Fall down harder, faster, and with a little more rotation.

The injury itself was pretty ingenious, but here was the brilliant part: With all that adhesive tape plus an Ace bandage and maybe an ice pack or two wrapped around the damaged body part, I'd look athletic. More athletic than I'd ever looked in my life. Shoot, wearing that much medical gear, I'd look positively All-American.

And to top it all off, when we got to the fieldhouse, I'd make a big show of trying to get into the game. But of course, my injury would be too serious to allow me any playing time, so I'd grimace in pain and hobble back to the bench. Acting all disappointed, of course. Any uncoordination on my part (and there
would
be uncoordination—we're talking about me, after all) would be blamed on the injury, not on my own personal lack of motor skills.

Amazing how much a sprained ankle could cheer me up. I actually started to
feel
All-American. Not in the athletic sense, of course. I wasn't completely delusional. But in the figuring-things-out sense. The sense that no matter what Coach or Mrs. Zimmer or anybody else threw at me, I'd figure out how to deal with it.

I was feeling so All-American, in fact, that I'd actually talked myself into showing Coach my list of team strengths and possible plays. It was good strategy. And it could work. It could totally work.

Of course, it could totally fail, too. We weren't dealing with a real talent pool here.

But if we picked out the things we were good at and concentrated on them, we might just win some games. If nothing else, we'd confuse the other team for a while. They'd probably never seen anybody do the things we were good at. Not on purpose, anyway.

Monday after school, armed with my list and pumped up with temporary courage, I trotted into practice with Bragger. We found all the windows in the gym taped over with black bulletin-board paper. Which all by itself should've tipped us off that something was up. Something we didn't want any part of.

And, just in case we didn't catch on right away, Coach was waiting by the locker room door. Behind a big stack of boxes. Bright red with a big swirl and the words S
TEALTH
S
PORTSWEAR
in gold. The blotch on the side of his face had turned into an angry purple bruise.

Final clue: when Coach stepped out from behind the boxes, he was naked.

Okay, not
naked
naked. But close enough. Closer than I ever wanted to see. He stood there, right in the middle of the gym, wearing nothing but his undershorts and whistle. Hands on his hips. Hairy chest puffed up. Knobby chicken legs poking out beneath his boxers.

By this time, the other guys had all traipsed into the gym. And stopped cold. We stood in a startled huddle, all twelve of us, trying not to stare at Coach. It was like a train wreck—so horrible you didn't want to look, and at the same time, so horrible you couldn't tear your eyes away.

“Everybody at the beauty parlor was laying bets on what Coach would do next,” Duncan whispered. “Boy, are
they
all going to lose.”

Coach flipped his clipboard under his arm and paced over to stand directly in front of us.

“Listen up,” he barked. “This”—he pointed at his bare stomach—“is highly advanced technology.”

We glanced at each other out of the corners of our eyes.

Coach pulled out an official-looking document with a gold seal on the cover. “You're looking at a Stealth Warm-up Suit, gentlemen. Developed by the Marine Corps.” He tapped the document. “Completely undetectable by radar.”

We stared at him.

“Lightweight. Aerodynamic.” Coach flexed his shoulders. “Fits like your own skin.” He flipped the document open and ran his finger down the page. “Forty-two percent less wind resistance.” He looked up at us. “Thirty-eight percent less gravity.”

“Less gravity?” Eddie whispered. “You can't get less gravity. Unless you go to the moon.”

Russell shook his head. “I think that's where Coach is.”

“And tough.” Coach punched himself in the chest. “Like wearing full-body armor.” He slapped the document shut and looked at us for a long moment. “This technology is powerful, gentlemen. In the wrong hands, frankly, it could be dangerous. Which is why the Defense Department included a built-in fail-safe. If I couldn't handle this technology, you wouldn't be able to see this.”

He held out his arms and turned slowly, so we could get a good look. Turns out his back was as hairy as his front. Information I truly didn't need.

“Because for those who aren't winners, for those who don't have what it takes to control the technology, the uniforms are”—Coach stopped turning and squinted from player to player—“invisible.”

We stood there, mouths open.

“Did he say what I think he said?” Bragger hissed.

Eddie nodded. “He must be using a Stealth Brain.”

Coach paced over to the stack of boxes. “Stealth technology enhances all your physical skills. Helps you run faster. Jump higher. Play longer.” He thumped the top box. “Stealth technology is going to help us beat Whipple.” He held the box out to Duncan, who had no choice but to take it. “These are Stealth Uniforms, gentlemen.” He handed a box to Manning. “It takes time to get used to the new speed and agility, to get the uniforms functioning fully with your body's natural current, so starting today, we'll wear them at every practice.”

We froze.
Every. Practice.

As Coach passed out the boxes, he grunted a few things about the science behind the uniforms. When he reached the bottom of the stack, he gave us a long, hard look. “Remember.” He narrowed his eyes. A vein pulsed in the purple bruise. “Only true winners have what it takes to control Stealth power. So if you got a problem with your uniform, if you can't handle it, you got no business on my team. Do I make myself clear?”

We stood there, all twelve of us, holding our suspiciously lightweight boxes, and nodded like bobbleheads.

“Another thing.” Coach planted his fists on his hips. “These uniforms are our secret weapon. We don't want Whipple finding out about them. Which is why the windows are taped over. What we do in the gym, stays in the gym. Our plays, drills, lineups, uniforms—all strictly classified information. Got it?”

The bobbleheads bobbled.

“Good. Now suit up. Let's see how they fit.”

Seventeen

Well, they fit like skin, just like Coach promised.

We milled around the locker room in our underwear, shaking our heads, empty boxes scattered on the floor around us. Of course, they'd been empty before we ever opened them.

I stared at the boxes. I couldn't believe it. I'd spent all this time doing everything I could to get the team to Lawrence, and the whole world, including my coach, was working against me. Every time I got it figured out, every time I came up with a new strategy, something worse happened. All weekend, while I worked out Step Five, I kept telling myself that if we could get past this—past the school board, past a losing season, past the KU scrimmage—we were home free. Because nothing could be worse than me playing basketball in front of my father.

Ha.

I felt like hitting something. Of course, last time I felt that way, I'd ended up smacking Coach into a stupor with a basketball.

“I don't get it.” Duncan sat huddled at the end of a bench, clutching a red box lid over his bare belly, trying his best not to be naked. “Coach is loud. And tough. And sometimes he's just plain mean. But he's not stupid. Why would he give us invisible jerseys?”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “They're not invisible, Duncan. They don't exist.” He ripped the lid from Duncan's hands and waved it above his head. “Coach handed you a box of air.”

“I know that.” Duncan snatched his lid back. “I'm not stupid, either. I just don't know what else to call”—he waved the lid at his pasty white goose-bumpy self—“this.”

We all looked at Duncan's nakedness. I don't think any of us knew what to call it.

“Here's what I don't get,” said Russell. “Does Coach really believe all that stuff he told us? Or is this some kind of trick? I mean, how dumb does he think we are?”

“Yeah.” Eddie nodded. “What was that business about electrical impulses?”

“According to Coach,” said Manning, “if you've got the right charge, you're okay. If you don't—”

“—you're naked,” said Russell.

Eddie shook his head. “Right. Like we're really supposed to believe we've got electricity zapping around inside us.”

“Actually,” I said, “we do.”

The guys all turned to stare at me.

I swallowed. “Really. We do. You know brain waves? They're electrical currents that flow through our brain cells all the time.”

Eddie narrowed his eyes. “So … what? You're saying all that junk Coach told us is true?”

“No. No way.” I held up my hands. “I'm just saying that, you know, we do have inner electrical currents. It's possible that someday—maybe—in the future, somebody could harness their power. In some way. But not for this. Not for basketball uniforms.”

“Yeah,” said Bragger. “And even if that electrical impulse stuff was true, you've still got that business about antigravity and invisibility. Which we all know is demented.” He punched my arm, obviously trying to ride to my rescue. “Right, Kirb?”

“Well…,” I said.

Eddie narrowed his eyes again. “Well what?”

“Well.” I swallowed. “Some people have theories. It's all pretty complicated, involving electromagnetic fields, refracted light rays, and centrifugal force, but someday—maybe—in the future—”

“Man.” Eddie shook his head. “You must spend all your free time memorizing the Science Channel or something.”

“Well, I don't care what might be possible someday. Or on what planet.” Russell pointed at his red-and-white striped briefs. “I can't go out there like this.”

“You? How do you think
I
feel?” Manning snapped his Spiderman undershorts. “My grandma gave me ten pairs of these for my birthday. I got nothing but superheroes in my underwear drawer.”

I looked down at my gray boxer briefs. They weren't as humiliating as Spidey-pants, but I sure didn't want to parade them around the gym. Still—

I took a deep breath. “We have to.”

The guys stared at me.

“What?”

“You heard Coach,” I said. “If we don't wear his uniforms, we're off the team.”

Eddie snorted. “News flash, Nickel. Once Mrs. Zimmer gets wind of this, there won't
be
a team.”

“No kidding,” said Russell. “If she thought losing was embarrassing, wait till she finds out Coach wants us to lose in our underwear.”