Stealing the Game (7 page)

“Come on, bro,” Jax persisted. He was lying on my bed, spinning a basketball on his fingertips. “You love playing basketball, and I owe this guy a favor. What’s the big
deal?”

“I have homework, Jax. Can we discuss this later?”

“Nope. He’s expecting my call.” He sat up without disturbing the ball’s spin. He slapped it a couple times on the side and it spun faster. “I sorta promised
him.”

“Not my problem,” I said.

He chuckled. “Oooh, tough guy, huh?” He let the ball drop onto his lap and beat it like a drum. “Listen, man, I just need you to do this one thing. I think we agree that
I’ve done plenty of favors for you. Don’t make me embarrass you by listing them.”

It was true. He’d never turned down doing a favor for me. He owed his life to me, after all. But I’d never held that over his head, and I wouldn’t have turned down Old Jax. But
this New Jax worried me. He was mysterious and secretive.

“Why is it so important?” I asked. “Is this the same guy I saw you giving money to?”

Jax looked surprised, then embarrassed. “I owed him some money. No big deal.”

“Why did you owe him money?”

Jax reached over and picked up my copy of
The Catcher in the Rye
. “Aren’t you too young for this? It has dirty words. And mature themes.”

I grabbed the book out of his hands. “It’s Advanced English. We had to get parental approval.”

“That’s what we’re all trying to get around here, isn’t it? Parental approval?”

“Wow,” I said, “that’s so deep. No wonder you went to Stanford. Must be where you learned to avoid answering my questions.”

He sighed and said in a soft voice, “Must be.” He bent over the basketball, his forehead touching it like it was cooling his face.

“You never used to be so evasive, Jax. I could always count on you for the truth. What the heck happened at Stanford to change you?”

Jax didn’t look at me for a while. He just rolled his head side to side across the ball. Then he sat up straight and looked at me with a sad expression. “I made a bet with the guy
and I lost. I don’t have enough to pay him, and he’s not the kind of guy who just says, ‘Pay me whenever.’”

“What does that mean? He’ll break your arm or something?” I joked.

He shrugged. “Or something.” No joke.

I felt the blood drain from my face. “Jeez, Jax.”

He saw my face and laughed. “I’m kidding, Chris. Nothing will happen. Except he’ll add interest to my debt, which I’d like to avoid. I’m kinda on a tight budget
right now, until I figure out what to do next.”

I didn’t know whether or not to believe him. I certainly didn’t want to take the chance that he might get hurt. “Since when do you gamble?” I asked.

“I don’t, usually. It was a onetime thing. Anyway, he has this club team he coaches and they’re going to be in a big tournament this weekend. He wants a competitive team for
them to practice against. I mentioned you and your buddies. I didn’t think he’d take me up on it. Anyway, he said he’d forget the rest of my debt if I got you and your teammates
to play them tomorrow at Palisades.”

“Just this once, right?”

“Right.” He stood up as if the meeting was over, even though I hadn’t actually agreed to anything. He knew I couldn’t say no to him.

So, I didn’t say anything.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” he said. He pulled a folded piece of paper out of his back pocket. “Mom and Dad had this out on the kitchen table. I think they wanted to ambush you with
it in the morning. That’s why I’m giving you a heads-up.”

I took the paper and unfolded it. It was a color printout about Stanford University. The beautiful campus. The impressive buildings. Happy students. Why wouldn’t they be happy? They were
going to one of the best universities in the world. Their future was certain to be happy. Not one of them held a comic book.

“With me, at least they waited until I was in high school to start the Stanford Push,” Jax said. He was smiling, but there was no humor in his face. He looked kind of angry.
“Next it will be pre-SAT classes on the weekends”—he started counting on his fingers—“then meetings with professional counselors, who lay out a plan for how to get
into Stanford, social clubs to join, community service organizations, science camps in the summer….” He sighed. “You get the picture, little man. They’re expecting you to
wipe away the stain that I caused. Good luck with that.” He snorted and walked out of my room.

Middle school had just gotten a whole lot more complicated.

JAX
was right.

The next morning, they were waiting for me at the kitchen table. Both were dressed in their freshly dry-cleaned lawyer suits. His and hers leather briefcases were standing on the counter, filled
with important papers that would change people’s lives forever.

My school backpack lay sloppily next to them, some old crinkled papers sticking out at wild angles like unruly hair. Nothing important in there. Nothing that would change anyone’s life.
Especially mine.

My mom held a fresh color printout of the Stanford University info. They smiled lovingly as they slid it across the kitchen table to me. I could see in their smiles that they only wanted the
best for me. Because of that, I wanted to do my best for them.

I took the paper and pretended I was seeing it for the first time. I tried to look enthusiastic. I hoped my eyes said, “Go Stanford!”

They talked about what a great school it was. Sports. Academics. Girls. My dad chuckled when he pointed out the pretty coeds on the printout and said, “Not bad, right?” My mom looked
away. I wanted to look away, too, because that was as close to a your-body-is-changing talk as we’d ever had. One time he did ask if we’d discussed sex in health class. I’d
nodded, and that was the end of the topic. Thank goodness.

I didn’t say anything. I kept the fake enthusiastic expression pasted on my face.

They talked about tutors, consultants, science summer camp. Pretty much all the things Jax had said they’d say, plus a few more.

I cranked up my phony smile to ten thousand watts. Holding a smile for your parents is harder than doing squats for the coach.

“And we think you should quit the school basketball team,” Dad said.

“What?” I said. I couldn’t have heard that right.

“Your mom and I have been looking into club teams. The college consultant I talked to said that club teams provide more playing time, tougher opponents, and showcase your talents better
for college scouts. It just makes more sense.”

I didn’t know what to say. They were lawyers. I’d never won an argument with them. But I tried anyway. “Club teams are expensive,” I said.

Mom nodded. “The one we called was four thousand dollars for the year. But if that will help you have a better future, we’re willing to pay it.”

Crap! They’d pulled out the better-future-for-you card. I tried, I really tried, to come up with some sort of logical argument that they would accept. But I couldn’t think of one. So
I just blurted out what I felt. “But I don’t want to quit the school team. I like the guys. I like the coach. We have fun.”

Mom and Dad looked at me with disappointment. I wasn’t sure whether it was because of the lack of reason in my outburst, or that I was defying their plan.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Dad said, and the two of them hurried out to work, their briefcases gripped more tightly than usual.

See? That’s why I don’t talk.

“
THIS
is your best?” Coach Mandrake barked. “You call
this
your
best
?”

Roger and Sami Russell were running downcourt as fast they could. Roger’s extra heft slowed him down to the point where he looked like he was running through ankle-deep mud. Sami, smaller
by thirty pounds, scampered like a Chihuahua toward the ball as it rolled away from both of them.

Coach Mandrake called this little exercise the Fox Hunt. The players called it the Gut-Buster.

“Please don’t tell me this is your best,” Coach said, shaking his head in frustration. “Because if this is your best, then we need to find a new definition for the word.
Something like ‘almost adequate’ or ‘slightly better than a toddler.’”

“Good one, Coach,” Weston said from against the wall, where the rest of us were waiting our turn.

Here’s how the Fox Hunt/Gut-Buster worked: Two players stand on the baseline under one basket. Coach tosses the ball (the fox) downcourt toward the other basket. The two players (the
hunters) take off after the ball. The first one to get the ball continues to the basket to shoot. The other guy defends the basket. If the shooter misses and the defender gets the ball, they both
take off toward the other basket, and the new shooter gets a chance to score. If he doesn’t make the hoop and his opponent nabs the rebound, then they have to run all the way back down the
court again. The first to score wins. More important, the winner
sits
. The loser goes back in line and keeps doing the exercise until he finally makes his shot. The last guy standing, who
never scored, has to come half an hour early to practice for a week to practice free throws.

Believe me, doing the Gut-Buster once is hard enough. Doing it two or three times can leave your mouth tasting like everything you’ve eaten for two days. Not pleasant.

To be fair, Coach keeps a sharp eye on the players. If he thinks anyone is struggling, he benches them until they feel better.

Which is why Theo was sitting on the bench, hunched over, wheezing like a vacuum cleaner that just sucked up a golf ball.

“I should…never eat…breakfast…on Wednesdays,” he croaked. He swallowed hard whatever had just come up into his mouth.

What he meant was, Wednesday was the only day we had practice before school. All other days we had it after school. On Wednesday afternoons Coach had to pick up his kids from their school
because that was the day his wife, a surgeon, performed all her arthroscopic knee surgeries. She’d even performed surgery on some professional athletes, including one Laker, two Clippers, a
Dodger, and two Anaheim Ducks. He’d told us that they met when she’d repaired the torn meniscus in his left knee. Sounds gross to me, but he always gets a dopey grin when he tells the
story. As far as I can tell, love has a lot to do with lame first-meeting stories and dopey grins.

“Faster, boys!” Coach Mandrake hollered through cupped hands. “My daughter’s hamster could get to that ball faster! Her
hamster
!”

“But, Coach,” Weston said, “even if your daughter’s hamster could get to the ball faster, then what? He couldn’t pick it up with his tiny hands. So he
couldn’t dribble or shoot.” He wiggled his hands as if they were hamster size, trying to dribble a giant basketball. “See? No can do, Coach.”

The rest of us standing behind Coach and Weston couldn’t help ourselves. We burst out laughing.

Coach turned toward Weston with a scowl. Even his goatee seemed to be frowning. “Excellent question, Weston. Do two laps around the gym and see if that helps you come up with the
answer.”

“Aw, Coach,” Weston complained as he started his laps. When Coach couldn’t see his face, Weston grinned at us and gave a thumbs-up sign. That’s because doing laps was
easier than doing the Gut-Buster. He could jog at a slow pace because Coach would be focused on us, which meant Weston wouldn’t get tired, plus he’d miss his turn hunting the fox
because we’d have to get to classes soon. Win-win. Exactly the kind of clever ploy Master Thief would use to overcome an obstacle. I made a mental note so I could use something like this in
my comic.

Coach glanced over at Weston and he picked up speed. When Coach looked away, Weston slowed down again.

“Is it still Wednesday?” Coach hollered at Roger and Sami. “Is it possible we’re actually going backward in time? Am I getting younger standing here?”

We all watched as Sami caught up to the rolling ball at half-court and jogged beside it for a few feet like a cowboy roping a cow. Suddenly he bent over and scooped up the ball, then started
dribbling toward the basket for what should have been an easy layup. Roger, with a scowl of determination on his face, chuffed after him like a sputtering locomotive. Say what you will about Roger,
he didn’t like to lose.

“You’d better make that shot,” Roger shouted at Sami. “’Cuz I don’t know if I can stop from running into you.”

Sami took the bait, glancing fearfully over his shoulder as he dribbled closer to the basket. The sight of Roger hurtling toward him like a wobbly meteor rattled him enough to make him miss the
layup. He quickly scrambled after the ball and spun to shoot again. Too late. Roger was there just in time to get a hand up, tipping Sami’s shot straight into the air. Roger used his bulk to
box out Sami, snag the ball, and start dribbling toward the other basket.

“Now, that’s what I’m talking about!” Coach said encouragingly. He tugged his goatee as if each tug were sending wireless energy to Roger and Sami. “Go, boys,
go!”

Coach Mandrake was the only black teacher at Orangetree. He also taught music and social science. I knew that he’d played keyboard for a rock band called Justice in the nineties. There
were some photos of them on the Internet. They put out a CD called
Dark Clouds Comin’
that had made the charts. I’d asked him once why the group didn’t stay together, and
he’d shrugged and said, “We didn’t know what we wanted. We just thought we did.”

I had no idea what he’d meant, but I knew it was supposed to be meaningful. Adults like to say things like that, as if life is a riddle we can only solve when we’re older. The thing
is, though, we’re alive right now, too. We’re going through scary stuff every day. We could use some answers now. But good luck getting them, unless they come in the medicinal form of
this-is-good-for-you-which-is-why-it-tastes-so-bad lectures. Has any kid ever gotten anything from a lecture, other than how to nod sheepishly and say, “Yes, I learned my lesson”?

Roger was within fifteen feet of the basket. He turned his back to the hoop and started reversing in, using his heft to force Sami backward. But Sami had quick hands and kept swatting at the
ball. Once he nicked the ball and it rolled away. But Roger grabbed it first.