“You’re the most consistent player on this team.”
Oh, boy. That lightning bolt across his warm-up suit must’ve sucked all the juice from his brain.
“This is a joke, right?” I inched over next to him. Kept my voice low. “I know you’re kidding, because, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, I’m not exactly starting lineup material. I have no discernible athletic skill. I’ve got to be the least-talented person to ever set foot in this gym.”
“Yep.” Coach nodded. “You probably are. But you’ve done more with less natural ability than anybody I’ve seen since, well, since me.”
He narrowed his eyes. Studied me. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, Nickel,” he said finally. He turned his back so the other guys couldn’t hear. “I wasn’t a born athlete, any more than you are. But I wanted it more than anybody. I turned myself into a basketball player through sheer bullheadedness. And I see that same bullheadedness in you. The way you dive for every rebound. Drive to the hoop when you get the ball. Push yourself relentlessly every minute of every practice.”
Yeah. Push myself to dislocate a limb.
“You’ve worked harder than anybody on the team,” he said. “Developed skills you weren’t meant to have. I never thought I’d say this, Nickel, but you’re a solid player. And you’re starting, so get your fanny over there.” He turned to Russell. “Sit here next to me on the bench, Wiles. You’re my sixth man. I’m counting on you to give us valuable minutes.”
Russell nodded and scooted onto the metal folding chair next to Coach.
The buzzer honked.
I stumbled onto the floor. As a starter. My worst nightmare.
And, at the same time, my secret dream come true. I’d never said this out loud. Not to Grandma. Not to Bragger. Not even to myself. But deep down inside, so deep I hardly let myself think about it, I had dreamed of this moment. Of being good enough to nail a starting spot. Even during those weeks when I was doing everything I knew to sprain a vital body part so I wouldn’t have to play, even then, in the darkest corner of my heart, I was wondering what it would be like to trot onto the floor as a starter. I was Brett McGrew’s son, after all. Wouldn’t it be cool if I could actually play?
The buzzer honked again. Game time.
The crowd noise quieted to a dull rumble. Mr. Greunke announced the starting lineups and we took our positions around the circle. Manning faced off against the Whipple center.
Manning had at least two inches on the Whipple guy. And his arms looked longer. Manning was built like a gorilla—big, bony knuckles dangling from long, lanky arms. Plus he’d been working on his jump. In practice he’d been vaulting a good two feet off the floor, which, for Manning, was like leaping a tall building in a single bound.
So tip-off looked good. Looked like a part of the game where we could hold our own.
Until, of course, the ref actually tossed the ball into the air, and Manning just hunkered there in his ready position. Didn’t jump. Didn’t try to hit the ball. Just crouched there like a paralyzed seventh-grade gorilla.
Meanwhile, the Whipple center batted the ball to the Whipple two guard, who pushed it up court and—tha-bump—sank an easy layup. Before any of our players had even made it down the court.
“Shake it off, guys,” Coach hollered as Bragger inbounded the ball to Eddie. “We’ll get that basket back. Manning, be ready. This is your play.”
Well, it would’ve been his play. Except that Eddie couldn’t get the ball across the midcourt line before his ten seconds were up. The ref blew his whistle. And Whipple had the ball.
Again.
The game skidded downhill from there.
We couldn’t get it together on defense. Manning lost his man immediately. Duncan basically knew where his man was, but, being Duncan, that didn’t mean he could keep up with him. Eddie dogged his man. Just dogged him. Hands in his face. Hips blocking him out. Feet sliding. Dogged him like, well, like a dog. Until Whipple set a screen and Eddie got turned around and ended up dogging Bragger.
We couldn’t get it together on offense, either. Whipple pulled off four steals when Duncan, in a panic, started passing to the first open man he saw. Sadly, the open man was usually wearing a green jersey. And every time we set up the Manning play, we might as well have handed the ball over to Whipple. Manning got under the basket, all right. He got under the basket and stayed.
And stayed.
And stayed.
Could have pitched a tent and set out a lawn chair, that’s how long he stayed.
He racked up eight three-second violations in eight minutes. Coach tried to get our heads into the game. He called time-outs. He mapped out plays. He gave pep talks. He set goals: “For the next three minutes, let’s concentrate on cutting their lead in half.” He substituted Wiles for Reece and Reece for Poggemeyer and Poggemeyer for Wiles.
But we still played in a fog. One step behind Whipple on every possession.
The buzzer sounded. Halftime. Finally. I’d been trying not to look at the scoreboard while we were playing, but there was no avoiding it now. I glanced up. Whipple 34, Stuckey 8.
The wave of green T-shirts cheered the Whipple players and armpit farted the Stuckey players. The Stuckey fans shook their heads and made their way toward the concession stand. Mrs. Zimmer marched behind them, her nostrils flared, probably to let off the steam that was no doubt boiling her brain.
Our guys trudged toward the locker room.
Twenty-nine
Coach tossed his clipboard. It skidded across the bench and clattered to the floor. He ran both hands through his buzz cut. Paced toward his office and back.
Finally, he looked at us. Looked from player to player. Looked hard.
“Who are you people?” He choked out a growl. “You’re not the players I coached in practice. You’re not the players who sweated their buns off every day, behind locked doors and taped-over windows. You’re not the players who went from ball hogging and lazy defense to actually working as a team.”
He strode to the chalkboard. Grabbed a piece of chalk and started drawing out Xs and Os. He stopped. Shook his head. And threw the chalk back down.
“No. You know what? I’m not going to do this. I could stand here all day drawing out plays. Showing you where you should have been and what you should’ve been doing. But you know all of it already. It’s what you’ve been doing in practice every single day. That’s the frustrating part. The players I know, the players I’ve seen in practice, could beat this Whipple team. Because Whipple’s not that good. They made their share of mistakes. One of their forwards got into foul trouble early because of stupid reach-ins and had to sit most of the half on the bench. Their shooting guard isn’t much of a shooter. He thinks he is. He takes a lot of shots. Hardly any go in. If we’d been rebounding at all, we could’ve put up a whole lot more shots of our own. But you know what? That shooting guard isn’t afraid to try. He’s not like you.” He swept his arm toward the team. “You all are just plain scared. And I can’t draw out a single play that can fix it. That’s something you’re going to have to fix yourselves.”
He snatched his clipboard from the floor, stalked into his office, and slammed the door.
We slumped on the bench in silence, watching Coach’s miniblinds rattle against the glass.
I glanced at the players. Coach was right. We were playing scared. The whole team was playing like I’d always played. Not scared of striking out or getting tackled or missing a shot, exactly. Scared of what people would think of me when I did strike out or get tackled or miss a shot. Scared people would think I was stupid. Scared spitless of looking stupid.
“Well, we sure look stupid out there tonight.”
I didn’t know I’d even spoken out loud till Eddie said, “No kidding. We didn’t look that stupid when we were playing naked.”
I nodded.
Then stared at him.
“You’re right,” I said. “You’re totally right.”
Eddie looked at me. Su
spiciously. “Yeah. So?”
“So.” I turned to Duncan. “The first time we walked into the gym in our underwear, how did you feel?”
Duncan swallowed. Glanced nervously at the guys. “Naked. Embarrassed.” He shrugged. “Cold.”
“And scared?”
“Scared out of my pants. Except I wasn’t wearing any.”
“We were all scared.” I looked at the other guys, who nodded. “But we did it anyway. And then we started playing basketball. Better than we ever had before. How come?”
Eddie shrugged. “Nothing left to lose.”
“Right.” I stood up. “We were as embarrassed as we were ever going to get. We didn’t care if we looked stupid, because guess what?” I untucked my lightning-bolt jersey. “We already looked stupid. Our uniforms took care of that. All that was left was basketball. So we played.”
I pulled my jersey over my head and tossed it into my locker. I peeled off my snazzy new lightning-bolt shorts, tossed them in, too, and stood there, in the middle of the locker room, in nothing but my gym shoes and underwear.
“Uh, Kirby? Kirb?” Bragger glanced at the other guys out of the corners of his eyes. “What are you doing?”
I shrugged. “You’ve heard of players being superstitious? Players who, if they’re not playing well, change their shoes at halftime? Coaches who change their tie? Well, I’m beyond superstitious. I’m changing my whole uniform. In the second half, I’m going Stealth.”
The guys stared at me. Mouths open, nothing coming out. Paralyzed by shock, I imagine.
Duncan, surprisingly, recovered first.
He stood up on wobbly legs. “I want to play better in the second half, too.” He wriggled out of his jersey, then his shorts. He came over and stood beside me. “I’m going Stealth.”
Eddie shook his head. “Man. You two are dorky enough as it is. You don’t need to help it along.”
“Hey!” Duncan took a step toward him, fists clenched. “We’re not dorky.”
“Yes, we are, Duncan. We’re the two biggest dorks on the team. And guess what?” I pinned Eddie with a steady gaze. “The dorks aren’t afraid to walk out into that gym in their underwear.”
Duncan looked at me. Swallowed. “Well, this dork kind of is.”
“I know. Me, too.” I gave Duncan an encouraging punch in the arm. “But the point is, we’re doing it anyway.” I turned to the other guys. “We dorks may be scared, but we’re walking out that door, we’re taking our places on the court, and we’re playing better basketball in the second half than anybody on either team. In our underwear.”
“Hey.” Bragger stood up. “Don’t leave me out.” He tugged his jersey over his head. “I’m a dork, too. And if I can take it—”
“Oh, man.” Russell shook his head. “If you can take it, I can take it.” He slid his shirt over his head.
“I can, too,” said Manning.
One by one, the guys pulled off their uniforms. One by one, they came over to stand in the Stealth huddle.
Eddie looked at us. Rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “God. We’re all dorks,” he said. And he peeled off his jersey.
Thirty
“What is going on here?”
Coach’s voice ricocheted off the lockers.
About knocked us flat. We froze. We’d kind of forgotten about him.
He strode across the cement. “What are you doing? We have to be out on the court in two minutes. And you’re changing clothes?” He stopped. “Don’t tell me. You’re not just giving up. Changing into your street clothes and going home.” He whirled on me. “Nickel?”
“Uh, no, sir. We’re not giving up. We’re, well, we’re ready for the second half.”
Coach scrunched his face into a frown. Raised an eyebrow. Looked at me like my brain had just turned to slush and leaked out my ear.
I took a deep breath. “You said it yourself, Coach. Stealth Uniforms made us run faster, jump higher, play longer. They turned us into a team.”
Duncan’s voice squeaked. “And you also said you couldn’t fix our scaredness. We had to fix it ourselves.”
Coach narrowed his eyes. Ran a hand across his forehead. “And this is what you came up with?”
We swallowed. Nodded.
“And you were just going to waltz out there and make me look stupid?”
Oh, man. We hadn’t even thought about that. About how our nakedness would embarrass Coach.
“Because I would look stupid, believe me, if I was the only one on the bench fully dressed.”
He shook his head and unzipped his warm-up jacket. He wriggled out of it. He tossed his pants on the bench. He tucked his clipboard under his hairy arm-pit, squared his bare shoulders, and marched toward the door.
We followed Coach out of the locker room and across the court, our goose bumps gleaming under the buzzing gym lights.
Nobody noticed us at first. Folks were still wandering back from the concession stand, finding their seats. Their voices rumbled through the big, hollow gym.
But then one fan, and another, and another, glanced down. Pointed us out to their neighbors. Everybody stared at us, stared at our underwear, stared at each other. The gym went silent.
Then folks started giggling. One by one. It started on the Whipple end, of course. Whipple fans have always been bad sports. But it didn’t take long to spread, and pretty soon even the Stuckey fans were laughing. First a snicker, then a chuckle, then a couple of guffaws, till the whole gym erupted in howls.
And we just stood there and took it.
The officials and the Whipple coach came racing over, of course. Swarmed Coach. Wanted to know what we were up to. What kind of mind game we were playing. Paged through the league regulations, trying to figure out how many rules we were breaking.
Now, Coach was a lot of things, but nobody could ever call him chicken. He stood right up to those referees and that coach, as cool and confident as if he’d been wearing a bulletproof Superman suit.
“We’re not up to a thing,” he said. “And we’re not breaking any rules. I’ve checked. Surely you’ve seen a game of shirts and skins. It’s a basketball tradition. We’re just taking it to another level. Now if you gentlemen will excuse me, I have a game to coach.”
He turned on his heel and strode back to the bench, whipped out his clipboard, just like he always did at practice, just like he would have if he’d been wearing clothes, and gathered the team for a second-half huddle.
After what seemed like a day and a half, the crowd finally settled into their seats. They stopped laughing, for the most part, but they were still talking, and not about Lloyd Metcalf’s fancy new combine, either. I sneaked a glance at the bleachers. There sat Mrs. Zimmer, straight and tall, her face purple with rage, her body paralyzed with humiliation.
The buzzer honked. I tugged the legs of my boxer briefs to make sure they were covering up everything they were supposed to cover and joined my teammates at center court.
“Well,” I said, “we look as stupid as we’re ever going to look. No matter what we do from this point on, we can’t be any more humiliated than we are right now.”
“All that’s left,” said Bragger, “is basketball.”
Eddie nodded. “Let’s play!”
Thirty-one
So we played.
Manning inbounded to Eddie to start the half. Then, while Eddie dribbled around the perimeter, drawing defenders, Manning faked to the outside, then drifted toward the basket and set up in the low post, just like we’d practiced. And, just like in practice, Eddie faked right, reversed left, and executed a smooth pass over the defense. Manning caught the pass, pivoted into the paint, and put the ball through the hoop. Two points. Four seconds into the first half, and Stuckey was on the board.
And even though we were playing in our underwear, even though we were the biggest embarrassment the town had ever endured, Stuckey fans cheered. They couldn’t help themselves. This was the Basketball Capital of Kansas, after all, and the citizens had to ro
ot for their team. Even Mrs. Zimmer. Her face was still purple with rage. But she clapped.
Whipple inbounded. Their point guard dribbled down-court, Eddie in his face the whole way. The guard broke left. Ran into Eddie. Swung right. Eddie was there. Stopped and brought the ball overhead for a pass. Eddie flicked it away, recovered it in one bounce, and charged up the court for an easy layup. Two points.
Eddie pumped his fist.
Coach swung his clipboard in the air. “Nice move, Poggemeyer!”
Stuckey fans leaped to their feet, cheering.
And we kept on playing.
Manning was a maniac in the post. After Whipple caught on and began guarding him, the Maniac just started going over the defender’s head for the basket, the way he’d gone over Coach’s in practice.
For Duncan, the free-throw line truly was a charity stripe. Whipple had figured out that Big D wasn’t the quickest player on the team. That he was vulnerable. So they double-teamed him every time he got the ball, trying to force a turnover. But Duncan was patient. He’d wait till they were all over him, hands in his face. Then he’d lob the ball in the general direction of the basket. And draw a foul. And then sink the free throws. He went ten for ten from the foul line.
Every player in a Stealth Uniform was playing great basketball.
Every player except me. I couldn’t get open. Couldn’t get a rebound. Couldn’t get a look at the basket.
“What’s wrong with you, Nickel?” Coach yelled. “If this were practice, you’d be crashing the boards, diving for loose balls.”
Yeah, I wanted to yell back, because if this were practice, I’d be trying to break my neck so I wouldn’t have to play.
And that’s when it hit me. Coach said I was the most consistent player on the team. But I didn’t get that way trying to play basketball. I’d gotten that way trying to avoid playing basketball.
So I just quit. Quit trying to play. Instead, I poured all my effort, once again, into spraining my ankle. My amazing, indestructible ankle. And within five minutes, I’d pulled down four rebounds, blocked three shots, and stolen the ball twice. I even put up three shots. Two of them actually dropped in.
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