by Carl Deuker
“What’s this place?” I asked.
“It used to be a teachers’ workroom, but when the school was remodeled, they put in a new workroom by the main office. This room has been forgotten. I stumbled upon it by accident.”
“So why are we here?”
“I want to show you something.”
He sat down, switched on the iMac, and motioned for me to pull up a chair. The computer took forever to load, but once it did, the screen filled with folder icons, each with a different teacher’s name on it. Hartwell slid the mouse to me. “Double-click on Butler’s.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. Do it.”
I took the mouse and double-clicked. Again it took forever, but at last the folder opened. Inside were a bunch of other folders. Hartwell reached over and pointed to one entitled CURRENT YEAR.
“Try it.”
“Won’t there be a password?”
“Find out.”
I double-clicked.
Again it opened.
Butler didn’t have it protected.
My heart raced. On the screen was a file labeled CHEMISTRY. I double-clicked and a long list of files, organized month by month, appeared. Everything was there. The lab assignments, the quizzes, the tests, the answer keys.
Everything.
I looked at Hartwell.
He wagged his index finger, silencing me before I could get out one word. “Jonas, I don’t condone cheating, but a bad teacher like Butler—he’s the real cheater. He’s cheating you out of your chance for a college education.”
The room seemed unnaturally quiet. Ten seconds passed. Ten more. At last Hartwell patted me on the shoulder. “I’m going to leave now. If you want, you can e-mail those files to yourself. If you don’t want to do that, then close up the computer and forget I ever showed this room to you.” He paused. “Take as long as you want to decide. Like I said, this place is never used by anyone. You can find your way back, right?”
I nodded.
With that, he stood and walked out.
Once Hartwell left, my eyes went back to the screen. I’d cheated some in middle school by looking at other kids’ papers during tests, but I hadn’t cheated since then. Still, what Hartwell said made sense in a way. I was willing to learn, but Butler cared only about smart kids like Edward Yang. Maybe he was cheating me.
I opened up my e-mail account, selected all the quizzes and tests, attached them to an e-mail to myself, hit Send, and then logged out of my e-mail account. Next I double-checked to make certain that I’d left Butler’s folder exactly the way I’d found it. When I was satisfied I’d left no trace, I shut the computer down. The whole process took only a couple of minutes, but on that ancient computer, it seemed to take hours. When I returned to the main room of the library, Hartwell was nowhere to be seen.
There was a bank of computers in the back of the library looking out over the practice football field. I sat down in front of the one that was farthest from the librarian’s desk, opened my e-mail account, and clicked on the Butler’s file labeled TEST—NOVEMBER. There they were: all the questions and all the answers. I took a deep breath. Then, for thirty minutes, I pored over the material. I didn’t get it down cold, not by a long shot, but I got enough.
Butler passed the tests back two days later; I had an eighty-six. When Celia saw my grade, her eyes opened wide. “Way to go!” she mouthed.
“Pure luck,” I mouthed back, making myself both a liar and a cheater.
11
THE LAST HARDING HAWKS FOOTBALL game was on a Saturday night in the middle of November. I hadn’t attended a single game, partly because I’d been studying so much and partly because it would feel weird to walk into a stadium by myself. Then, on the Friday before the game, Celia asked me if I was going. “Maybe. I’m not sure. Why?”
“I was hoping you could give me a ride.”
My heartbeat quickened. “Sure, I can give you a ride.”
“Can you also give my friend Missy a ride? We normally go together, but neither of us can get a car.”
“No problem,” I said, my short-lived hopes gone.
When I pulled up in front of Celia’s small yellow house near the Burke-Gilman trail, she and Missy came out the front door before I even got out of the car. I drove to Memorial Stadium, and we sat together in the student section, but off to the side. Missy’s boyfriend was Colton Banks, the kicker. Every time there was a punt or a kickoff, she’d get excited, but nothing else excited anyone. The evening was cold, dark, and windy. Both teams were terrible; the game had no flow. About fifty times I asked myself why I was there.
Harding lost 13–9 on a last-minute touchdown that was set up by a fumble. Their record was 2–7 or 3–6, something awful like that, so no one was surprised or disappointed. We were leaving the stadium when Ashley Lau, one of Celia’s volleyball teammates, rushed up. “There’s going to be a party over in Laurelhurst. Everybody on the team is going to be there. You’ve got to come.”
Celia looked at me. “Do you want to go to a party?”
“I don’t know,” I said, hesitation in my voice.
Ashley smiled at me. “Come to the party. You’ll have fun.”
“I won’t know anybody,” I admitted.
“You know Celia and Missy,” Ashley said, “and now you know me.”
Ashley wrote down an address that meant nothing to me, but Missy guided me as I drove past the University of Washington, through tree-lined, dimly lit streets. Finally I pulled up in front of a fancy brick house with a huge lawn in front.
The party was at the home of one of the boyfriends of a girl on the volleyball team. His parents were out of town for the weekend. We followed the music down into a large basement area. The volume was loud, but not so loud as to get the police called. Celia and Missy immediately latched on to a group of friends. They tried to bring me into the conversation, but I couldn’t follow much of what they were talking about.
After a few minutes, Celia was dragged off somewhere by one of her volleyball teammates. I milled around until I found a corner with a big-screen television. I plopped down on a sofa and watched the fourth quarter of a Boise State–Hawaii game. Once the football game ended, I switched to SportsCenter, growing more depressed with every fantastic play.
Around eleven thirty, two guys showed up with a couple of cases of beer. They immediately cranked up the music, which made me nervous. If I got caught drinking and Knecht heard about it, that would be it for me. Goodbye scholarship. I couldn’t let myself get kicked off a basketball team before tryouts had even started, and in a fancy neighborhood like that one, neighbors called the police.
I searched out Celia. She was still talking to a bunch of her friends, but our eyes met just as one of the guys shouted out, “Beer for everyone!”
I didn’t want to come across as a loser, but I couldn’t risk staying, either. Just as I was about to go over to her, she came over to me. “Do you want to leave?”
“Yeah. Can you get a ride from somebody else?”
“No, I’ll go too. Let me find Missy and see what she wants to do. I’ll meet you upstairs, okay?”
Missy wanted to stay, but her kicker-boyfriend hadn’t shown up, so I was her ride home. She was angry, though, and she sat in the back seat letting us know it. When I dropped her off, she didn’t say a word as she got out of the Subaru. She just slammed the door and went into her house.
As we drove the empty streets, Celia told me she was glad we’d left. “I don’t want to do anything to mess up next year. If I got caught drinking and the school suspended me . . .” She shook her head.
“You don’t have to explain,” I said. “It’s the same for me.”
I pulled up in front of her house. Before she got out of the car, Celia leaned over and kissed me on the cheek—a kiss a sister would give a younger brother. “I’m sorry Missy was such a bitch. You’re a good guy, Jonas.”
Then she was gone, up the walkway and into her house.
12
I tried to concentrate during my morning classes, but I kept thinking about tryouts. During lunch I sat next to that same guy from algebra class, and he told some long story about his brother who was in the army. I was glad to be able to listen and not to have to say anything. At my locker after lunch, I joked a little with Gokul and for an instant wished that I played tennis like him or even golf. Everything was clear for those guys. Either you beat the guy or he beats you. Whether I could or couldn’t beat Brindle one-on-one wasn’t important; how Knecht saw us was what mattered.
I sat next to Levi in health. When the bell sounded ending class, we made our way to the locker room, where we changed before heading onto the court. Levi was relaxed—he had his position on the team cemented—but I was so nervous, my hands were shaking.
Step one was to make the team. As we shot around, I checked out the competition. Twenty guys were trying out for twelve slots. Two guys were tall but had nothing else going for them. Two others were short and slow—what were they thinking? A couple of other guys had stone hands; three others looked out of shape.
We’d been warming up for ten minutes under Hartwell’s eye when Coach Knecht appeared, seeming slower and more bent over than ever. His wiry gray hair was uncombed, and he had a gray-black two-day stubble on his face. He looked more like the cook in some old cowboy movie than a basketball coach.
I slipped over to Levi. “Is he sick?”
“I don’t know,” Levi said, worry in his eyes.
Knecht motioned for us to form a semicircle around him. He seemed tiny standing before us, but his eyes were still bright. “Give it your best, and you won’t have any regrets,” he said in a shaky voice. He followed that with a few more things that I could barely hear before he nodded toward Hartwell and then slowly moved off to sit on a folding chair set up along the sideline at half-court.
Hartwell had us pin numbers to our shirts, and we got at it. Once I break a sweat, I stop thinking and simply play, but all that afternoon I stayed tight. Who was calling the shots? Hartwell or Knecht? Sometimes I dribble between my legs or behind my back for no reason. Hartwell would understand moves like that, but Knecht would think I was showboating. Same thing with crossing over on a guy or pumping my fist after a good play—both came naturally to me. Hartwell wouldn’t care, but Knecht wouldn’t like either.
When we finished the basic drills, Hartwell broke us up into mini-teams for three-on-three basketball. Knecht stayed glued to his chair, all the time taking notes on a yellow pad.
I didn’t have Levi or Cash or any of the starters on my team. The guys I did have didn’t know my game, and I didn’t know theirs. Nothing went terribly wrong, but nothing went right, either. One play was typical of my day. We were on offense, playing right in front of Knecht. A defender was overplaying this Brandon Taylor kid who was on my team. I was sure Brandon would go backdoor on him. I delivered a bounce pass to the exact spot where Brandon should have been, only he hadn’t gone backdoor; he’d popped out for a pass. My perfect assist ended up out-of-bounds. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Knecht write something down on his notepad. What was it? That I’d made a stupid turnover, or that I’d made a great pass?
For the last twenty minutes, we played five-on-five, using the two side courts. Hartwell moved Levi to my team. For the first part of the tryout, I’d been trying so hard to please Knecht that I’d played lousy. During that full-court scrimmage, I was determined to play my game.
The first couple of times up and down the court, both sides were just feeling one another out. Then Levi made a block and hustled to the corner to retrieve the ball. He hit me with a solid outlet pass near half-court. I didn’t have numbers for a fast break, but I pushed the ball anyway, looking for an easy transition hoop. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Levi flying toward the hoop, about ten feet behind me. I pulled up, waited a beat, and then lobbed the ball up above the rim. Levi soared up, caught it, and jammed it down.
Both my pass and his finish were fantastic, and guys on both teams were wide-eyed. I was grinning and so was Levi—until we heard Knecht’s whistle. The old man was up and out of his seat, energetic for the first time all day.
“What are you doing, Levi?” Knecht demanded as he tottered over, his face bright red, onto the court. Levi hung his head as if he were a toddler who’d been caught crayoning a wall. “Just lay the ball off the backboard,” Knecht commanded, his voice stronger than it had been all day. “Just lay it off the glass and in. That’s all you need to do.”
“Yes, sir.”
Hartwell caught my eye and then looked at the ceiling.
13
THE NEXT DAY KNECHT TOOK control. As Hartwell stood off to the side, Knecht called out the names of ten players he wanted at center court for a scrimmage. He sent me and the nine other guys over to a side court to shoot around.
I panicked.
The meaning was clear. I was in a battle with nine guys for one of the final two roster spots. If I had a bad practice—or if a couple of the other guys had a great practice—I wouldn’t even make my high school team. All hope of a scholarship would be gone.
Hartwell saw the fear in my eyes and came over to me. “You’re okay, Jonas,” he said, putting his arm around my shoulder and giving me a shake of encouragement. “You’re number eleven on Knecht’s chart, and he doesn’t even have a number twelve. Once you make the team, he’ll see how good you are. You’ll get your chance.”
His words were like the gift of a hunk of bread to a starving man. All that day, and all the subsequent days of the tryout, I played in-your-face defense, blocked out on defensive rebounds, made safe passes, and didn’t turn the ball over. Nothing I did was flashy or very fun, but on Friday, when Knecht posted the roster, my name was on it.
In the locker room, the guys who made the team hung around for a while to celebrate. DeShawn wondered aloud whether the team’s style of play would change with Hartwell as an assistant. “Maybe he can drag Knecht into the twenty-first century.”
“First he’ll have to drag him into the twentieth,” Cash said.
Everybody laughed—even Brindle—everybody except Levi. “Come on, Double D, it’s just a joke,” Cash said. “Knecht’s not God.”
Later, when I thought over what Cash had said, I realized how on the mark he’d been. People like Knecht and like Levi’s father—they were gods to Levi. He had them way up on a pedestal. I thought about my own father. He was a good guy, but he made mistakes, and I knew it. I was glad I didn’t think of him as a god, and I’m sure he was too.
14
THAT SUNDAY LEVI’S DAD’S CHURCH held its first services. Weeks earlier Levi had asked me to go, and I’d said yes. Now that the day had come, I was edgy. Was his father one of those crazy preachers who yelled about Satan and sin? And what about the people I’d be sitting with? Would they roll around in the aisles?
The church still looked like a store from the outside, but what Levi and his father had done inside was amazing. Levi had mentioned getting wooden pews from a church that had merged with another congregation. I figured the pews would be old and ratty like something from Goodwill, but they’d been sanded and oiled so that they looked both brand-new and a hundred years old at the same time. The same thing was true of the wood floors, which gleamed in the golden light. The plain wooden altar in the front of the church was lit from above by a spotlight so perfectly positioned that the light seemed as if it were coming from heaven.
The church was a thousand times nicer than I thought it would be, and the service was also far different from what I expected. I’d been worried that I’d be surrounded by a bunch of crazy people constantly screaming about Jesus. Instead, the service was dull. For twenty minutes, different people came up and read passages from the Bible. Then Levi’s father talked. There was no mention of hellfire or damnation; most of what he said was about how Hollywood was making American girls and boys chase
after sinful dreams. When he said those words, I glanced to where Levi and his family were sitting, looking for Rachel. She was dressed in church clothes, not the skintight, low-cut outfits she wore at school, but she was chewing gum, and as I watched she blew a tiny pink bubble.
About ten times I thought the sermon was over, but Levi’s dad kept talking. The hard seat got harder; my back started to hurt; my nose started to itch; I had to pee. I didn’t think he’d ever stop, but finally he led everyone in an Our Father and it was over.
I wanted to leave, but before I left, I searched out Levi. “You did a fantastic job,” I said, gesturing to the whole church. “This place is amazing.”
He was smiling. I was about to leave when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around, and there stood Ryan Hartwell. Hartwell must have come in after I had because I hadn’t seen him during the service. I fidgeted as Hartwell said the same things I’d said, and Levi’s smile grew even broader. It was clear that Hartwell was going to hang around for a while, so I slapped Levi on the back, told him how great the church was one more time, and then beat it out of there.
15
AT PRACTICE ON MONDAY, COACH Knecht looked better—at least from a distance. He’d shaved and was wearing a coat and tie. Still, if you got close to him, you could see gray stubble on his chin that he’d missed, and he had a long red gash on his neck where he must have come close to cutting his own throat while shaving.
Once the whole team had taken the court, Knecht talked about the importance of hard work and then sat off to the side while Hartwell ran the drills. Anybody walking into the gym that day would have assumed that Hartwell was the head coach, but the guys on the court knew the playbook was 100 percent Knecht.