Ultimate Sports (10 page)

The ref considered for a moment. Then slowly, a smile broke across his face. He walked back to the wrestling mat, blew his whistle, and called for the next wrestlers.

And that’s how Sultan High pulled off the greatest upset in the history of high-school wrestling in Washington State. If you can’t be good, be lucky. If you can’t be lucky, stink.

When he was ten years old, Carl Deuker rode with his uncle Joe and his cousins Jimmy and Joseph, along with their dog, Cindy, from Philadelphia to the New Jersey coast. When they stopped for lunch they left Cindy in the car. Just as the boys did in “If You Can’t Be Lucky…,” when they returned to their car, they found the surprise that Cindy had left for them. Years later Deuker resurrected that memory as part of this story about a losing wrestling team.

Carl Deuker was never a wrestler himself, though he says he loved watching Big-Time Wrestling on Channel 2 from San Francisco. He did, however, participate in several sports; he was good enough to make some teams but not good enough to play much. “I was a classic second-stringer,” he says. “I was too slow and too short for basketball; I was too small for football, a little too chicken to hang in there against the best fast-balls. So by my senior year the only sport I was still playing was golf.” As an adult now living in Seattle, he plays tennis, golf, and volleyball.

Married and the father of a daughter, Marian, Mr. Deuker has been a teacher in Bothell, Washington, and is the author of two award-winning novels for young people:
On the Devil’s Court
and
Heart of a Champion
, both named Best Books for
Young Adults by the American Library Association. In fact,
On the Devil’s Court
appears on the ALA’s list of the 100 Best of the Best Books for Young Adults published between 1967 and 1992. That novel also was named the 1992 Young Adult Book of the Year in South Carolina. It’s the tension-packed story of a high-school basketball player who offers to sell his soul to the devil for one year of basketball greatness—and then is terrified that the devil might have taken him up on his offer!
Heart of a Champion
, Carl Deuker’s second novel, tells the story of two friends who share a love of baseball and also struggle with alcohol abuse.

It’s
country, right? I choose my clothes (sixties retro), I choose my shoes (Nikes), I choose my CDs (Hendrix and Nine Inch Nails), I choose my friends (you know who you are). If I were an adult (which I’m not—I’m a fourteen-year-old eighth-grade girl named Sun) I could vote, could choose my car, my career, whatever— like I said, a free country, right?

Wrong.

Quiz time: Please take out a number two lead pencil;
do not
open the test booklet until you’re told. Seriously, my question to you is this: What’s the most majorly thing in your life that you
can’t
choose? The answer is as simple as the eyes and nose on your face: your parents. Your parents and your brothers or sisters. That’s because no matter how free you think you are, the one thing nobody can choose for herself is her own family.

Here’s another way of putting it: Being born is something like arriving at a restaurant where there are no waitrons and no menus. Your table is set and your food is
there waiting for you. It might be fresh shrimp, it might be steak, it might be macaroni hot dish, it might be all broccoli; for some kids there might be no food at all, maybe not even a table.

Me? I was fairly lucky. My parents are (1) there, and (2) at least semicool most of the time. My dad’s an accountant and my mom’s a college professor. Both are in their middle forties, physically fit, and usually unembarrassing in public. My gripe is the old basic one for girls: My father spends way more time on sports with my brother, Luke, than with me.

Luke is in sixth grade, is already taller than me, and can pound me at basketball. At Ping-Pong. At any sport. You name it, he crushes me. I want to say right here I’m not a klutz. I’m nearly five feet six and have at least average coordination; on our basketball team I’m third off the bench, which is not that shabby considering that our school, Hawk Bend, is a basketball power in central Minnesota. But I won’t play one-on-one with Luke anymore. No way. Who likes to lose every time? It’s not like he’s mean or wants to humiliate me—he’s actually pretty decent for a twerpy sixth-grade boy—it’s just that he’s a natural athlete and I’m not.

I am thinking these thoughts as I sit next to my parents watching Luke’s team play Wheatville. Luke just made a nifty spin move (of course, he’s the starting point guard) and drove the lane for a layup. My mother, who comes to most games, stares at Luke with her usual astounded look. She murmurs to my father, who comes to all our games, “How did he
do
that?”

“Head fake right, plant pivot foot, big swing with leading leg, and bingo—he’s by,” my dad whispers. A quiet but intense man with salt-and-pepper hair, he speaks from
the side of his mouth, for there are always parents of other sixth-graders nearby.

“He amazes me,” my mother says. She has not taken her eyes off Luke. I hate to agree, but she’s right—all of which clouds further my normally “sunny” disposition. I remember Dad and Luke working last winter on that very move in the basement; I went downstairs to see what was going on, and they both looked up at me like I was an alien from the
Weekly World News
. My father soon enough bounced the ball to me, and I gave it a try, but I could never get my spin dribble to rotate quickly enough and in a straight line forward to the basket. Not like you-know-who. “Watch Luke,” my father said. “He’ll demonstrate.”

Now, at least it’s the third quarter of the game and Luke already has a lot of points and his team is ahead by twenty so the coach will take him out soon—though not quite soon enough for Wheatville, or me. At the other end of the court Luke’s loose, skinny-legged body and flopping yellow hair darts forward like a stroke of heat lightning to deflect the ball.

“Go, Luke!” my father says, half rising from his seat.

Luke is already gone, gathering up the ball on a breakaway, finishing with a soft layup high off the board. People clap wildly.

I clap slowly. Briefly. Politely. My mother just shakes her head. “How does he
do
that?”

“Ask
him,”
I mutter.

“Pardon, Sun?” my mom says abstractedly.

“Nothing.” I check the scoreboard, then my own watch. I’ve seen enough. Below, at floor level, some friends are passing. “I think I’ll go hang with Tara and Rochelle,” I say to my parents.

“Sure,” my mother says vacantly.

Dad doesn’t hear me or see me leave.

As I clump down the bleachers there is more cheering, but I prefer not to look. “Sun.” What a stupid name—and by the way I do not
ever
answer to “Sunny.” I was allegedly born on a Sunday, on a day when the sun was particularly bright, or so my parents maintain. I seriously doubt their version (someday I’m going to look up the actual weather report on March 18, 1980). I’m sure it was a Monday; either that or I was switched at the hospital. Or maybe it was Luke—one of us, definitely, was switched.

Rochelle, actually looking once or twice at the game, says right off, “Say, wasn’t that your little brother?”

“I have no brother,” I mutter.

“He’s a smooth little dude,” Tara says, glancing over her shoulder. “Kinda cute, actually.”

“Can I have some popcorn or what?” I say.

“Or what,” Rochelle says, covering her bag.

They giggle hysterically. Real comediennes, these two.

“When’s your next game?” Tara says to me, relenting, giving me three whole kernels.

“The last one is Tuesday night,” I answer. “A makeup game with Big Falls.”

“Here or away?”

“Here.”

“With your record, maybe you could get your little brother to play for your team.”

“Yeah—a little eye shadow, a training bra,” adds Rochelle, “everyone would think he was you!”

I growl something unprintable to my friends and go buy my own bag of popcorn.

•   •   •

At supper that night Luke and I stare at each other during grace, our usual game—see who will blink first. Tonight it is me. I glare down at my broccoli and fish; I can feel him grinning.

“And thank you, God, for bouncing the ball our way once again,” my father finishes. “Amen.” If God doesn’t understand sports metaphors, our family is in huge trouble.

“Well,” my father says, looking at Luke expectantly.

“A deep subject,” Luke says automatically, reaching for his milk, automatically.

Both of them are trying not to be the first one to talk about the game.

“How was your day, Sun?” my mother says.

“I hate it when you do that.”

“Do what?” my mother says.

“It’s condescending,” I add.

“What is condescending?” she protests.

“Asking me about my day when the thing on everybody’s mind is Luke’s usual great game. Why not just say it: ’So, Luke, what were the numbers?’ “

There is silence; I see Luke cast an uncertain glance toward my father.

“That’s not at all what I meant,” Mother says.

“And watch that tone of voice,” my father warns me.

“So how many points
did
you get?” I say to Luke, clanking the broccoli spoon back into the dish, holding the dish in front of his face; he hates broccoli.

He shrugs, mumbles, “Not sure, really.”

“How many?” I press.

“I dunno. Fifteen or so.” But he can’t help himself: He bites his lip, tries to scowl, fakes a cough, but the smile is too strong.

“How
many“
I demand.

“Maybe it was twenty,” he murmurs.

I pick up a large clump of broccoli and aim it at his head.

“Sun!” my father exclaims.

Luke’s eyes widen. “Twenty-six!” he squeaks.

“There. That wasn’t so difficult, was it?” I say, biting the head off the broccoli.

Luke lets out a breath, begins to eat. There is a silence for a while.

“By the way—nice steal there at the end,” I say to him as I pass the fish to Father.

Luke looks up at me from the top of his eyes. “Thanks,” he says warily.

“It’s something I should work on,” I add.

“I’ll help you!” Luke says instantly and sincerely. “Right after supper!”

At this syrupy sibling exchange, my parents relax and dinner proceeds smoothly.

Later, during dessert, when my father and Luke have finally debriefed themselves—quarter by quarter, play by play—on the game, I wait for Dad’s usual “Well, who’s next on the schedule, Luke?” He doesn’t disappoint me.

“Clearville, I think,” Luke says.

“Any breakdown on them? Stats?”

“They’re eight-four on the season, have that big center who puts up
numbers
, plus a smooth point guard. They beat us by six last time,” Luke says. My mind skips ahead twenty years and sees Luke with his own accounting office, crunching tax returns by day and shooting hoops long into the evening.

“Big game, then, yes?” my father remarks, his fingers
beginning to drum on the table. “You’ll have to box out—keep that big guy off the boards. And if their point guard penetrates, collapse inside—make him prove he can hit the jumper.”

“He can’t hit no jumpers,” Luke says through a large bite of cake. “He shoots bricks, and I’m going to shut him down like a bike lock.”

“Huh?” I say.

“What?” Luke says. “What’d I say now?”

“First off, it’s ’any jumper.’ And second, how do you shut someone down ’like a bike lock’?”

“Actually, it’s not a bad simile,” my mother says. “If this fellow is ’smooth,’ so, in a way, is a bicycle—the way it rolls and turns—and a bike lock, well…” She trails off, looking at me.

I shrug and stare down at my fish. It has not been a good day for either of us.

“And who does
your
team play next, Sun?” my father asks dutifully.

“Big Falls. Tuesday night,” I say. I look up and watch his face carefully.

“Tuesday night, isn’t that?…” he begins.

“I’m afraid I’ll miss it, honey,” my mother interjects. “I have that teachers’ education conference
in
Minneapolis, remember?”

“Sure, Mom, no problem.” I keep my eyes on my father; on Luke, who’s thinking. I am waiting for the light-bulb (twenty watts, maximum) to go on in his brain.

“Hey—Tuesday night is my game, too,” Luke says suddenly.

“Yes, I thought so,” my father murmurs. The one-on-one experts have finally put two and two together.

“What time are your games?” my mother asks.

“Seven,” Luke and I say simultaneously.

My father looks to me, then to Luke. He’s frowning. Suddenly his gaze lightens. “By any chance are they both at the high school? In the adjoining gyms?”

“Middle school,” Luke says.

“High school,” I follow.

“Damn,” my father says, “they ought to take whoever schedules sporting events in this school system and—”

“I’m sure it couldn’t be helped, dear,” my mother interjects. “Sun’s is a makeup game, after all.”

“And the last one of the season,” I add.

My father looks to Luke. “So is yours, right? The last one of the season?”

Luke nods. He and I look at each other. I smile. I love moral dilemmas, especially when they’re not mine.

My father turns to my mother.

“Sorry,” she says to him, “I’m delivering a speech in Minneapolis. There’s no way I can miss it.”

“Well,” my father says, drumming his fingers, “I’ll have to think this one through.”

•   •   •

Amazingly, Luke keeps his promise, and after dinner we work on stealing. It is chilly outside in March, with patches of leftover snowbanks along the north side of the garage (this is Minnesota, remember), but the asphalt is clear.

“There are two main types of steals,” Luke says, dribbling. “First is the most basic, ’the unprotected ball.’ As your man is dribbling, he is not shielding the ball with his body, and so you go for it.”

“I have part of a brain,” I say, and lunge for the deflection—but Luke instantly back-dribbles, and I miss.

“It’s all in the timing,” he says, “all in when you start your move. Don’t start when the ball is coming back up to my hand—begin your move just when the ball
leaves
my hand, just when it’s released and heading downward.”

I track him, waiting—then try it. This time I actually knock the ball away.

“See?” Luke says. “That gives you the maximum time for your reach-in.”

We practice this a few more times.

“Be sure to reach with your outside hand,” Luke cautions, “or else you might get called for a reach-in foul.”

We keep working for quite a while. I start to get every third one, but I’m still not very good at it.

“It’s coming,” Luke says, then holds the ball. I kick away a pebble, which clatters against the garage door.

“The second type of steal is called the wraparound. It’s when your man is dribbling and you reach way around behind, almost wrapping your arm around him, and knock the ball away.” He flips me the ball, has me dribble, and snakes loose the ball two out of three times. Then he takes the ball back, and we work on this one for a while. I get one out of ten at best. Soon I am panting.

“The wraparound is the toughest one,” Luke says. “Maybe you need longer arms or something.”