by Kobe Bryant
Rolabi sat down on the bleachers and was gone. The team stood around Peño, eyes wide.
“Where . . . How did . . . ?” Big John said.
Peño stared at the empty bench, mouth agape. “This ain’t cool.”
He thought of the strange vision, and the knights marching into battle, and Rolabi’s instructions for him. What did he want from Peño? To keep the bench ready? More pep talks?
“So . . . we’re pretty set on our coach being a witch, right?” Big John said.
Lab scowled. “What are you, six? There’s no such thing as witches.”
“I thought it was magicians that you didn’t believe in,” Peño said dryly.
He saw Devon plunking himself on the bench and thought about Rolabi’s instructions again—to make sure everyone knew they had a job. To have them ready. He recalled that Devon hadn’t said a single word in two days now, and Peño had noticed that he was playing soft. Timid, even. Maybe Rolabi wanted him to get the potential out of guys like Devon. He could do that.
Peño sat down beside him and noticed a card on each bag with a W and a number.
“So,” Peño said, glancing at Devon. “New guy. Homeschooler. Big baller.”
“You’re not going to rhyme, are you?” Lab said, sitting down on Peño’s other side to change.
“Maybe later,” Peño said. “Just want to get to know the new kid. For instance, I noticed you don’t like to shoot. Or rebound. Or push people. And yet you’re huge. I’m a little confused.”
Devon shifted, scratching the back of his neck. “I . . . I was just getting used to the team.”
Peño could see his uneasiness. He was shy, to be sure. But they needed a beast down low.
“Understandable,” Peño said, nodding. “Usually I can dribble. It was a weird day. But, man, be big. Or at least show me some workouts. You’re like an ox. A box. A lock stock and—”
“Please stop,” Lab said.
Peño sighed, shooting Devon a grin. “My brother doesn’t get my genius.”
He noticed that Vin was tapping numbers into his phone, glancing at the card in his other hand. Only Vin and Twig had cell phones. Twig lived in the suburbs, but Vin was from the run-down inner city like the rest of them. He never told anyone how he had managed to get the cell phone or who paid the bills for it.
“Well?” Peño asked as Vin hung up.
Vin frowned. “A recording. It said the line was for parents. And it said ‘Good night, Vin,’ which was creepy.”
“He’s a witch,” Big John said.
“I think you mean a wizard,” Vin replied.
“There’s no such thing!” Lab snapped.
Peño gave Devon a quick pat on the knee. “See you tomorrow, bro. Step on somebody, will you? Just not me. I’m too beautiful.”
That got a laugh out of him, and Peño slipped his shoes off, thinking. If he needed to get his teammates ready for battle, he could do that. But where would he be in all of that? How could he still become a star? That was his true focus this year. Peño felt a distinct flash of disapproval.
You are still not ready.
THE NEXT DAY, Peño turned back to his brother and folded his arms, blocking the doorway.
“Last chance,” Peño said. “Admit that you saw something.”
Lab rolled his eyes. “I told you I did. But it was just a trick!”
“How can it be a trick? Have you ever seen a magician do those things?”
“It’s called sleight of hand,” Lab said.
Peño scowled. This had been going on all night. Lab refused to believe that Rolabi Wizenard was anything but a fraud magician. It was infuriating, and Peño felt his temper rising.
“But the visions—”
“Hypnotism,” Lab said, walking around him to the doors.
“And the bag—”
“Prop bag.”
Peño squeezed his hands into fists and hurried after him. “It was real. You know it was.”
“If you’re so sure he’s magical, why didn’t you tell Dad?”
Peño paused. “Well, because—”
“Because he wouldn’t believe you,” Lab responded. “Because magic doesn’t exist.”
“I didn’t exactly say it was magic.”
“Then what is it?” Lab snapped, turning to him. “Huh?”
Peño could see the red splotches on his brother’s cheeks. Their mom used to call them “angry spots.” They stretched from his narrowed eyes to his clenched jaw. And they all call me the jalapeño, Peño thought wryly.
“What is your problem?” Peño asked. “Why can’t you admit that something is off?”
“Because that’s not how the world works. It ain’t magical, Peño. Sorry.”
He turned to go inside, but Peño grabbed his arm. “Is this about Mom?”
Lab yanked his arm away. “It’s not about anything.”
“I miss her too—”
“And you saw her dying just like I did,” Lab said, turning back. “Wasn’t it magical?”
Lab yanked the doors open and stalked inside. Peño stood there for a moment, his throat dry and raw. He remembered. White beds. A beeping sound echoing in the hallways. Warm hands turning cold. A little voice inside agreed with Lab. There couldn’t be magic in the Bottom.
Peño followed his brother into the gym. The musty air slipped over him like a glove, but it was no comfort today. Vin and Reggie were getting ready, and he nodded at them as he sat down. A strange silence had settled over Fairwood. It felt difficult to break . . . as if simply speaking or laughing wouldn’t do it. It was a waiting, suspenseful quiet, and Peño fidgeted uncomfortably.
“Anyone’s parents call Rolabi last night?” he asked, breaking the silence.
“Yeah,” Vin muttered. “My mom liked him.”
“My gran too,” Reggie said. “You?”
Peño shook his head. He didn’t like to tell the guys just how much his dad had to work.
“Pops got home late. So what did Rolabi say to them?”
“Wouldn’t tell me,” Vin replied. “My mom just looked like she was dazed.”
The rest of the team started filing in, most confirming the same story. Their parents had called, listened, and then said nothing else. Peño kept thinking about what his brother had said—about the day she died. He wished his mom could have phoned Rolabi last night too. He wished for a lot of things.
“We’re talking like this is normal,” Big John said. “It ain’t normal. It was magic, man.”
“There’s no such thing as magic,” Lab snapped.
“Is that so?”
The booming voice caught Peño completely off guard. He toppled face-first onto the hardwood, and the whole team went over with him. Rolabi Wizenard was standing behind the bench.
“If you don’t believe in magic,” Rolabi said, “you need to get out more.”
His eyes fell on Peño.
Did you find the cracks?
Stay out of my head! Peño thought.
“We will start with laps,” Rolabi said, his voice as calm as ever.
They started around the gym, and despite the easy pace, many of the players were soon breathing hard, Peño included. At five laps, the sweat was running down Peño’s face, and he vainly wiped it with an already-drenched sleeve, tasting salt.
“We will take free throws, one at a time,” Rolabi said. He hadn’t moved an inch since they started running—his eyes just followed them when they passed like the old oil portrait in Peño’s grandpa’s house. “As soon as someone scores, you will stop running for the day. If you miss, the team runs five more laps. You will continue walking while you wait for the shot.”
Peño immediately stopped, grabbing his muffin-top sides. It was like someone was squeezing them with a pair of vise grips. He shuffled out onto the court,
wiping his forehead.
“I got this,” he said with as much bravado as he could manage through his wheezing.
Rolabi threw him a ball, and Peño dribbled it a few times on the way to the line. He needed to extend the break in case he missed, so he stopped at the free-throw line and dribbled again with either hand, taking a deep breath to steady himself. Then he lifted the ball to shoot.
Peño gasped. The rim was now fifty feet overhead, and the whole gym had stretched to accommodate it, so that he had to crane his head straight back to see the rafters. The banners were so far up he couldn’t read the lettering, but his teammates were watching without comment.
“What . . . How am I supposed to . . . ?” he murmured.
Is this not what you always see? Too short to make the shot?
“Shoot it, please,” Rolabi said.
“This is not possible, this is not possible,” Peño said.
Grana makes it possible.
I am ignoring you today, magic voice that is probably Rolabi! he thought. And . . . “grana”?
You will see.
“Just shoot it normally,” Peño whispered to himself.
It was impossible to judge the distance. He cocked the ball back with one arm and chucked it at the distant ring like a baseball pitcher. But as soon as the ball left his hand, the hoop returned to its usual height, and he watched in disbelief as the shot sailed well over, ricocheted off the wall, the backboard, the wall again, and then rolled into the far corner for a dejected time-out.
“What kind of a shot was that?” Lab said.
Peño turned back to the team. “I . . . I don’t know.”
“Five more laps,” Rolabi said.
Peño shot the professor a look and then hurried to join the team. But when he fell into line, nobody moved. Peño suddenly started to slide backward, and he realized with horror that the gym floor was now sloping upward like a hillside. He crouched, trying to steady himself.
“Begin,” Rolabi said.
“Professor,” Vin said, “the floor . . .”
“When we are tired, the court can feel like a mountain,” Rolabi said, nodding.
“It is a mountain,” Peño said incredulously.
“Or is it a molehill?” Rolabi said. “Either way, the game continues.”
“My brain hurts,” Peño said, keeping his hands on the court for balance.
“Just run,” Reggie said. “We can get up there.”
The team hesitated, and then started up the hill. Peño was last in line now, and he was very conscious that if a player slipped, they would hit him on their way down. He kept a careful eye on Devon and Big John, ready to spring aside if they lost their footing. He didn’t want to end up as a Peño-colored stain beneath one of those bruisers. When he finally reached the baseline, he realized the team had paused once again. They were now facing a steep descent. Peño felt his stomach turn. He hated heights.
It was just the beginning. Each turn presented a new challenge: Peño climbed up stairs, hopped over hurdles, sprinted along a treadmill-floor, and stumbled up and down slippery hardwood valleys. After five laps, he was so sweaty, he felt like he might wither into a block of salt. Thankfully, Rain stepped out for the next attempt. Rain was a cold-blooded free-throw shooter—the best one on the team. The laps were finally about to end.
Peño leaned against the wall, wiping his face. “Lab?”
“Yeah . . . I saw it,” he muttered.
“Still a fake?” Peño asked dryly.
Lab didn’t answer.
Peño snorted and glanced at Rolabi. He was still motionless in the center of the court, his hands clasped behind him, the purse on the floor. Peño frowned as something flickered into place behind the professor—a blurred image, as if wrapped in fog. There were people back there.
The road will not be easy.
Rolabi’s lips weren’t moving, but the voice was clear now.
“Who are those people?” Peño asked.
He felt a distinct chill—a threat. Whoever those people were, they weren’t friendly.
The team must be ready. There is darkness on the horizon.
“Everyone, grab a drink,” Rolabi said aloud.
Peño flinched and looked around. The team was already heading for the benches, and he followed, unnerved. One of the shadows had looked familiar—a sallow, skull-like face that was on the news almost every night. But it had to be a coincidence. He couldn’t imagine why the president of Dren would be in Fairwood, of all places. He shivered as they took off again.
Lab, Vin, Big John, and Twig all missed. Peño figured he had lost ten pounds of sweat already. His limbs felt like cement blocks. Reggie finally hit a shot—though it rimmed around and almost reluctantly toppled in—and Peño doubled over, exhausted. Some guys managed a half-hearted cheer, but Peño could barely muster the strength to stay upright.
“Water break,” Rolabi said, heading for center court. “Bring your bottles over here.”
Peño straightened. “Maybe we should have jogged a few times in the off-season,” he mumbled.
“No more jogging,” Big John said. “Please, no more.”
Peño joined the rest of the team in a seated circle around Rolabi Wizenard. He let his legs plop out in front of him like overcooked noodles and sighed in relief, propping himself up with one hand. Rolabi fished around in his purse for a moment and then pulled out a flower in a simple clay pot. He set it down, stepped out of the circle, then stared at it, enraptured.
Peño looked between him and the flower, confused.
“What are we supposed to do with the flower?” he asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Rolabi replied.
Peño turned back to the flower, tried to think of something, and failed. “No.”
“We are going to watch it grow.”
Peño frowned. Watch a flower grow? Flowers didn’t grow in the Bottom, period—not much did—but even if they grew out of the poisoned soil, he was pretty sure you couldn’t see it happen. His mom used to keep a little herb garden in a box of soil on the back porch. She tended the green shoots meticulously, but the rain itself held poisons, and even the hardy mint withered after a season and never came back.
“Some things require a whole world to change,” she’d said, emptying her dead plants into a trash bag.
Peño had never known what to make of that. It had always struck him as deeply sad . . . a sign that he was stuck with the world he was given. That they were all trapped in a broken one.
But can one person change the world?
Peño glanced at Rolabi, weighing that. Is that what his mom had meant?
Peño turned back to the flower, trying to focus. But sitting still, even for a few minutes, was not an easy task. At home he always had something to do: the laundry, cooking dinner, packing their bags for school, making lists of groceries, dusting. He hated doing nothing. He took a breath, stretched, grew bored again, and tried to come up with rhymes for later:
We chill watching a daisy
A coach who’s mad crazy
Sitting with the Badgers
Going to . . . Ugh!
The minutes passed like hours. Peño started listening to the ticking of the clock and his own shallow breathing. They seemed to fall into a monotonous rhythm. He wanted to run around. Shout. Laugh. Isn’t that why he was here? It was so quiet. So still. He couldn’t bear it for another minute. His hands twitched at his sides. He was just about to give up when Rolabi broke the silence.
“What part of the body moves first?” Rolabi asked. “If you are defending someone, and they are approaching, what part of their body will move before the rest?”
“Their feet?” Peño said automatically. He was just relieved to say something.
“Feet are deceptive,” Rolabi replied. “And never first.”
&nb
sp; Peño slouched. He knew that. He hadn’t thought before speaking . . . kind of like he didn’t think before shooting. Why was that? Why did it always feel like everything was so unplanned ?
“The first thing to move is the mind. The opposing player must decide what he is going to do,” Rolabi said.
Peño snorted. “So we’re supposed to read his mind?”
“That would be helpful. But no. You are supposed to understand his mind.”
“I don’t get it,” Peño said.
“When you know what your opponent is going to do, you will defeat him.”
Peño felt his temper rising. Why did Rolabi always have to speak in riddles?
“And how do we figure that out?” he asked.
“That’s simple. You need to see more. And for that, you need more time.”
“And how are we supposed to get more time?” Rain asked.
Rolabi picked up the daisy and placed it back in his purse. “By watching the flower grow. Water bottles away. We have one more lesson today.”
Peño rubbed his forehead in exasperation. It felt like his mind had just done as many laps as his body. People didn’t talk like this. They didn’t stare at flowers or try to slow down time.
Maybe that’s the problem.
Can you just speak out loud like a normal person? Peño thought sourly.
Rolabi set up an obstacle course, and the team formed a line. It seemed simple enough.
Then Peño’s hand vanished. He stared at the wrist, which now ended smooth as a tabletop.
“What . . . where did . . . but how can . . . ?” Peño whispered, prodding the fleshy stump.
There was no pain. No sensation. It was as if he had never had a right hand at all.
Did you ever have a left?
“What is this?” Big John said.
“An exercise in balance,” Rolabi said. “Proceed.”
Lab stormed out of the line. Peño recognized the expression: mottled cheeks, eyebrows squished into a V, hands shaking. He had lost his temper again. But why? Lab still had both his hands.
“No!” Lab shouted. “This is too much. The other stuff . . . fine . . . but this is messed up!” He stormed toward the bench, then turned back. “And give me back my hand, you wack job!”