Athlete vs. Mathlete: Double Dribble (8 page)

Which meant I had to try harder.

“He's good,” I grunted at Chris, even though I'd forgotten what player he was asking about.

“Blow out the air every couple of steps,” Owen suggested. “Don't keep sucking more in.”

And risk my lungs deflating completely? “I'm okay,” I croaked.

“No, you aren't. Trust me, it'll help,” Owen insisted.

But breathing wasn't going to help me. Nothing was.

With each step I lost a bit of speed, until I was trailing them by a couple of feet, then half a lap.

Keeping up just wasn't in the cards.

When Coach Baxter finally blew the whistle to stop the torture, I'd never been more grateful for anything in my life. I walked in circles for a few seconds, hands on my waist while I caught my breath. I tried to ignore the fact that none of the other guys were even slightly winded.

“Winning streak or not, we still need to work on some basics,” Coach said. “Starting with free throws.”

My specialty! I couldn't help smiling.

Coach split us up into two groups, and I was assigned to the far net with Nicky Chu, Paul, and a handful of the other guys, including M&M.

Terrific.

We lined up to take turns shooting, and I somehow ended up sandwiched between the twins.

“My brother and I want to stand together,” the one behind me said.

“Oh, uh … sure,” I told him, moving aside.

They couldn't be two feet away from each other?

The twins waited their turn, exchanging smiles and nods I couldn't even begin to understand. It was like speaking without words. Sign language without the signs.

Telepathy.

“What are they doing?” Nicky Chu whispered.

I shook my head instead of answering, trying to imagine doing the same thing with Owen and not succeeding.

Coach blew his whistle and the first twin dribbled to the free throw line and held the ball under one arm while he shook the other to loosen it up, then crouched and straightened a couple of times. When I thought he was ready, he crouched and straightened again.

Was it basketball or ballet class?

He finally took the shot, which soared through the air in a perfect arc and dropped right through the net with a silent but deadly
swish
.

“Sweet,” Nicky Chu said quietly.

And I had to admit it
was
sweet. That is, until the second Matthews brother did the exact same thing, right down to shaking his hands loose and crouching.

“Amazing,” Paul said. “They're
exactly
the same.”

There was another silent
swish
, and the ball was passed to me.

I was a terrible dribbler, so I carried the ball to the free throw line. I liked taking shots when there was no one between me and the basket, and the silence made me feel calm. I had time to relax my shoulders and every other body part before throwing the ball.

I took a deep breath.

“Nuts!” Owen shouted from the other basket as I heard a ball bounce off the far rim.

I sighed, then bounced the ball twice, took a deep breath, adjusted my glasses, licked my lips, and rolled my shoulders. I bent my knees and jumped in the air as I threw the ball.

It bounced off the backboard with a satisfying
thwack
and dropped right through the net.

Whew
.

“Nice shot,” one of the twins said as I joined them at the back of the line.

“Thank you,” I said, smiling.

“Your stance is kind of weird, though,” the other one added.

“Yeah, crooked,” the first one agreed.

“But it was still a decent shot,” the other said.

“Yeah, and a basket is a basket, even if you look—”

“Weird scoring it,” they said together.

What?

Between the back of the line and my next turn shooting, all I could think about was my “crooked” stance. Dad had told me it was fine when we practiced, and I
had
scored, so did it matter if I looked weird shooting?

Yes, it did.

Metalloids: boron, silicon, germanium …

The twins took their next shots, and both were perfect.

Arsenic, antimony, tellurium …

The ball was passed to me and I took a deep breath as I approached the line for my second turn.

All I could think about was my crooked body.

“Try pushing off the other foot,” one of the Matthews brothers called out to me.

My shoulders tensed.

“And relax,” the other one added.

As if I could.

I exhaled and threw the ball, which fell about three feet short of the basket.

“Now
that
was a brick,” the two voices said in unison.

I made my way to the back of the line and missed the next four shots I attempted.

I stood in line, waiting for my next humiliation and focused my attention straight ahead.

As I stewed over M&M's successful efforts to psych me out, I realized that I'd discovered a new element to add to the periodic table.

It was incredibly toxic and it was going to take helium's place, with an atomic number of two.

Twinidium.

Our game against Dante Powers and the rest of the Hogarth Huskies was coming up fast.

I was feeling more nervous about it than I wanted to. It seemed like I'd been looking forward to going head-to-head against Dante forever, but that was back in the days of the old-school Pioneers. Back when I only sat on the bench because I needed to catch my breath.

I'd had a couple of dreams about the game, and more than a few daydreams during class.

In my head, I beat Dante every time. I outdribbled, out-passed, and outshot him. I beat his state record
and
got carried off the court on my teammates' shoulders.

If even
one
of those things happened on game day, I'd be stoked.

But we had to play the Willamette Warriors first.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Pioneers piled onto the bus for the trip to Willamette, ready to keep our winning streak alive.

The Twinvaders didn't sit with the rest of us at the middle or the back of the bus, but instead right behind the driver. One of them pulled a notebook out of his backpack, and they studied it together.

Russ told me they were math superstars, but even my brainiac brother saved his homework for, well,
home
.

“What's the Warriors' record?” Russ asked from the seat next to me.

“Five and three,” I told him. “Not as good as ours.”

“But close.”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “We're close.”

We couldn't say the same about Hogarth, who hadn't lost a game yet.

I shook my head. I needed to stop thinking about Dante Powers and concentrate on the game that was only half an hour away instead.

“Is there anything I should know about them?” Russ asked.

I shrugged. “Just that we have to win if we want to keep our streak going.”

“No special tips?”

“Not really,” I said, confused. Special tips?

He was quiet for a minute and I started trying to get my game face on.

“Are you going to wear your watch when we play?”

“What?” I asked, totally confused.

“Are you going to—”

I rolled my eyes. “I heard the question, Russ.”

“So, are you?”

“I never do.”

He nodded. “Cool.” Then Russ cleared his throat. “Did you bring your Nike socks?”

I turned toward him. What was his deal? “Duh, Russ. I always wear them on game days.”

“Cool,” he said again. “You know, I've seen some kids wearing sweatbands. On their wrists?”

“Is that a question?”

“No.” He frowned. “Well, maybe. Do you think you'd ever wear those?”

“Ha! Not in this lifetime.”

“But NBA players wear them,” Russ reasoned.

“No,
some
NBA players wear them,” I corrected. “Not the ones I like.”

“Gotcha,” he said, nodding again.

I felt like I was taking a test and it was making me edgy. And I definitely didn't need to feel edgy before a game.

“What's with the twenty questions?” I asked.

Russ looked surprised. “I've only asked a couple.”

“Yeah, but you look like you're just getting started.” Before he could say anything else, I told him, “I'd just like some quiet time for now. Is that cool?”

Russ nodded.

But a bus packed with basketball players wasn't the place for quiet time.

While I looked out the window and tried to picture myself sinking a three-pointer, or even making a couple of good layups, the rest of the team cranked up the volume.

“How many points are we going to win by?” Chris yelled from the backseat.

“Thirty!” Nicky Chu shouted back.

“That would be sweet, but I'm betting more like fourteen,” Paul said.

They went around the whole bus and every guy answered.

“What about you, Owen?” Nate asked.

“I don't know. Maybe eight?” I said.

“Russ?”

“I think eight, too,” he said.

“You do?” I asked him, and he just shrugged and smiled.

When it was the Twinvaders' turn, they sounded like robots as they said at the exact same time, “We don't predict outcomes.”

“How do they do that?” I muttered.

“I have no idea,” Russ said with a sigh.

“Does anyone have an eraser?” one of the brothers asked the rest of us.

“Not in my gear bag,” I muttered to Russ. “I mean,
come on
.”

“I do,” Russ said, reaching for one of the eight thousand zippers on his backpack.

“Cool,” Mitch or Marcus said when Russ passed it forward. Then he actually
smiled
and kind of shrugged as he explained, “Miscalculation.”

“
Minor
miscalculation,” his twin corrected, loud enough for the whole bus to hear. Like anybody cared. “
Minor
.”

“Right,” the one with the eraser said, his cheeks turning red. He nodded to Russ. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Russ said, nodding back. After a second or two, he said, “I wonder what they're working on.”

“A plan to take over the universe, I bet.”

“You know, it's interesting. In math class the other day—”

“Hold up, Russ. I'm only telling you this to help you out, but unless somebody pukes, gets sent to the principal's office, or both, you should never start an
interesting
story with, ‘in math class.'”

“Right, but—”

“Are you sure this story is going to be interesting?”

“Maybe not to you,” Russ admitted.

“Cool,” I said, turning away from him to focus my thoughts on the game.

While the rest of the guys got amped up about the game, Russ and I looked out the window, totally silent.

When we got to Willamette Middle School, we filed off the bus.

“Here's your eraser,” a Twinvader said, handing it back to Russ. “Thanks for letting me use it.”

“Anytime,” Russ said, tucking it back into its pouch. “Were you working on the assignment from Mr. Hollis?”

“No. One of the girls from our old math club e-mailed us a problem, and we were trying to solve it.”

“Cool,” Russ said. “You know, Lewis and Clark has a math club, too, and—”

“We're not interested,” the other brother said from behind us.

“But it's a great group of people and—” Russ began, but he was cut off.

“Not interested. Come on, Marcus. We need to warm up.”

Without another word, he nudged his twin and they took off up the path to the main door of the school.

“So, I guess Mitch is the bigger jerk,” I said, glad to have cleared that up, anyway.

“I guess,” Russ said quietly.

Once we were inside the school, we followed the sound of squeaking shoes to the gym. When we got there, we saw that the bleachers were practically full.