Athlete vs. Mathlete (4 page)

“Ouch!” Dad groaned.

“You know what I mean,” I told him. “Tim Camden's only been in the league for three years. He hasn't even hit his prime yet. They were nuts to trade him.”

Russ reached for more popcorn. “I thought he didn't get along with the other players.”

How did he know
that
?

“That's true,” Dad said. “And no matter how good a player is, he needs to respect the rest of his team.”

“Sure,” I said. “But last season we would have lost a bunch of games without Camden. Like when we played the Lakers and he made the three-pointer, right at the buzzer.”

“I remember.” Dad nodded. “But I also remember how much he cost the team in the second quarter. We could have had a nice lead at the end, if he hadn't been fouling like crazy.”

He had a point.

“I like that DeShawn Williams,” Russ said. “I think the Trail Blazers—”

“Blazers,” I corrected. “Fans just say Blazers.”

Russ nodded. “Okay, I think the
Blazers
made a good choice.”

“I'm with you, Russ,” Dad said, grinning at him.

I rolled my eyes.

Like my brother had any idea what he was talking about.

“How do you even know about Williams?” I asked.

Russ shrugged. “The sports section was mixed in with the newspaper pages I'm taking to my meeting tomorrow. I must have scanned a couple of articles without realizing it.”

I rolled my eyes and shoved some popcorn in my mouth. I was better off focusing on the TV.

The Blazers were making some awesome plays, and even though it was a close and exciting game, Russ kept checking his watch. I finally asked, “Are you late for something?”

He sighed and tightened his grip on the book. “How can one quarter of a forty-eight-minute game possibly last more than twenty minutes?”

Math again?

“Time-outs and foul shots,” I explained. “Are you even
watching
?”

“My point is that it doesn't add up,” Russ said, reaching for the bowl. “The popcorn's good, though.”

By halftime we were still up by seven, the Blazers were shooting 63 percent, and the popcorn was going fast.

In fact, it was gone when the third quarter started. And so was Russ.

“Don't worry,” Dad said with a chuckle. “We'll make a basketball fan of him yet.”

That's what I was afraid of.

Weights and Measures

I woke up on Saturday morning and stared at my map of the solar system, which was always comforting. Earth was only
one
of all those planets and stars. And I was only
one
of billions of people on Earth. And of those billions,
millions
of people had bigger problems than basketball tryouts.

I couldn't help smiling.

I had a great book to read (a Blazer game had prevented me from enjoying it the night before), my Masters meeting was in a couple of hours, and tryouts would be nothing but a memory in less than a week.

I rolled out of bed and carried
Aidmere Lost
downstairs.

Of course, I wanted to pull things together for Masters of the Mind before I got lost in my book. As hard as it was to do it, I left the novel on the kitchen counter and found some
of the items we needed for the challenge. Once I had the margarine container, aluminum foil, newspaper, and chopsticks from Jade Palace in a bag, I checked the fridge for eggs and heard Owen behind me.

“Milk, please,” he said.

I handed him the jug and opened the egg carton to see what we had left. “Cool beans. Half a dozen.”

“Just cool, Russ,” he corrected. “Half a dozen what?”

“Eggs,” I said, then told him about the challenge.

He rolled his eyes when I finished. “Why don't you guys ever build something people can use?”

“Like what?” I asked, wiping a smudge from my glasses.

“I don't know. Something that flies or whatever.”

“Aircraft?” I asked, surprised. When he nodded, I went over our list of materials again. We couldn't exactly build a jet fighter out of chopsticks and newspapers. “This isn't Boeing,” I told him. “It's Masters of the Mind.”

He shrugged. “So, how about wrapping the eggs in rubber bands?”

“We'll only have six of them.”

“But they're
rubber
. They'll help it bounce.”

I shook my head. “It won't work.”

He thought about it while a milk mustache dried on his upper lip. I was glad that he was interested enough to want to help, considering he'd never asked me a single question about Masters of the Mind before. Ever.

His interest got me thinking.

What if
Owen
joined the team as our fifth member? That would give the two of us something in common and add a very different point of view to the team.

I was just about to suggest it when he said, “Why don't you boil the egg? Water's on the list.”

“Yes, but not boiling water,” I reminded him.

“So heat it up.” He shrugged.

“We don't have a heat source, Owen. Should we rub the chopsticks together to make fire?” I couldn't help laughing.

Owen glared at me like I'd hurt his feelings and left the room before I had a chance to say I was sorry.

Within seconds, I could hear a familiar noise: a basketball slamming against the pavement. Over and over.

Dad and Owen, at it again.

I didn't follow him outside because I was afraid they'd invite me to play. One wasted night in front of the TV was more than enough basketball for me, especially when I knew we'd be out practicing for tryouts in less than twenty-four hours.

I was already dreading it.

Once I'd read a few chapters and eaten a couple of blueberry muffins, Mom drove me and my shopping bag of challenge ingredients over to Nitu's house.

I hoped there would be some good news on the Chao replacement. I honestly couldn't understand why Masters of the Mind wasn't more popular with the rest of the kids at
Lewis and Clark. The competitions were fun, and so were all of the meetings and practices leading up to them. The team members were great, and they all loved problem solving, just like me.

Why did we have to
beg
people to join our team, when the Pioneers had to narrow players down through tryouts?

“So, basketball is a pretty interesting development,” Mom said as she turned onto Nitu's street.

“
Interesting
is one word for it,” I told her.

She glanced at me, looking worried. “You don't have to play, Russell.”

“I won't,” I said, laughing. “I'm not going to make the team.”

She glanced at me, then back at the road. “You don't know that.”

“Sure I do. And I'm fine with that. I don't have time to play basketball. And I don't even want to.”

Mom pulled into Nitu's driveway. “Well, we're all proud of you, no matter what happens.”

“I know, Mom.” In my entire life, I'd never doubted that.

When I joined the rest of the team in Nitu's TV room, none of them were smiling.

Jason was the first to speak. “We have a problem.”

I thought about our warm-up the other day. “Not enough time to find a squirrel rhyme?” I asked, chuckling as I dropped my backpack on the floor.

“No,” Nitu said, grimly. “This is a curse that is much, much worse.”

“At least double the trouble,” Sara added.

“Is it something we can fix with some brainstorming tricks?” I asked.

“Can you guys stop rhyming, for, like, two seconds?” Jason asked.

“Sorry. What's wrong?”

“Only one person we've talked to wants to join the team,” he said, quietly.

“Only one?” It was worse than I thought. But, as team leader, I didn't want them to know that. “Well, that's not the end of the world. I mean, one person is better than none, right?”

“You haven't heard who it is yet,” Sara said with a sigh.

“Who is it?” I couldn't think of a single person we wouldn't want on the team.

That is, until Nitu moaned, “Arthur Richardson the Third.”

I almost moaned myself.

Jason shrugged. “Yes, you heard, that turd the Third.”

“Jason!” Sara gasped.

“What? I'm just rhyming.”

“Maybe he'll bring new steam to the team,” I said, hopefully.

“Will you make me scream in this bad dream?” Nitu asked.

Jason smiled. “Arthur takes ‘creep' to a new extreme.”

“I'm serious,” I said. “Maybe he'll bring something new.”

My teammates' jaws all dropped at the same time.

“Like a major headache?” Jason asked.

“No, like fresh ideas,” I told him.

“You've got to be kidding,” Nitu said, crossing her arms.

“He's smart,” I reminded her.

“So he says,” she replied.

Arthur's bragging
was
annoying. “Okay, well … he's willing to join us. And right now, that's half the battle.”

“But, Russell,” Nitu complained, “he's a total snob.”

She was right about that, too. Arthur had transferred to Lewis and Clark from a private school in Connecticut at the beginning of the year. Most of the seventh grade had had their fill of him by the end of the first week.

The only topic he was interested in discussing was his plan to go to Harvard University. He carried a handkerchief in his pocket to wipe off cafeteria benches and classroom seats before he sat down. He wore cuff links to school.

Actually, I kind of liked the cuff links.

I'd tried talking to him in the beginning, and I'd even invited him to join my math study group. But he'd brushed me off.

I couldn't let my hurt feelings affect the Masters of the Mind team, though. “We need a teammate, Arthur wants to be one—”

“
Might
want to be one,” Nitu corrected. “He'd like to come to a meeting to help him decide.”

“Great,” I said, hoping it would be a quick and painless decision for all of us. “And in the meantime, I think we need to get to work.”

Our math whiz sighed with frustration, then shook her head, as though she was clearing it. “Okay, the team at Beaumont Middle School invited us to meet them for a friendly practice competition next Tuesday after school.”

“That works for me,” I said, and the rest of the group agreed.

“How did they do last year?” Jason asked. “I know they beat us at home, but how far did they go? Regionals?”

Nitu shook her head. “State.”

“Seriously?” Jason gulped.

“And they came in second.”

“Whoa,” Jason said, quietly.

“So, we know they're good.” I shrugged. “But I'd rather practice with a good team than a bad one, wouldn't you?”

“I guess so,” he said, doubtfully.

“Hey, they're just like us, Jason.”

“But better,” he said, and sighed.

“Look,” I said. “Let's get started, here. We should think about the egg challenge, since it needs the most preparation.”

I started pulling items out of my backpack as Sara
marked each one off her checklist. Between the four of us, we had everything we needed, including duplicates of some items and even triplicates of duct tape and aluminum foil.

Sara and I got to work, sketching ideas onto our notepads. Jason and Nitu looked over each of the items on the table, trying to figure out which ones could be used together best and bouncing ideas back and forth.

I focused on trying to calculate how quickly the egg would be falling and how much of an impact would have to be absorbed by whatever we built.

It seemed like more than anything, we needed shocks.

Little did I know, there was a big one on the way.

Technical Foul

Mom called my bedroom a disaster zone, but it wasn't really that bad. The walls were covered with Blazers stuff, like last season's team poster, and a Camden jersey, hanging over my bed (the guy was still a Blazer to me, even if he
was
wearing a Jazz uniform that season). There was a Rip City Uprise flag on my desk. On my bulletin board I had ticket stubs from the games Dad took me to stuck next to a couple of programs.