I nodded.
And then, almost like we’d planned it, we hiked up the bottoms of our matching Jayhawk boxers. And there, on the backs of our legs, were matching pink hearts.
And I know this part sounds crazy, like something I made up, but at that moment, a shaft of light really did beam down, and music really did swell up around us. Okay, so the light was the blinding bulb of a TV camera aimed right at our butts, and the music was the KU pep band blasting out the KU fight song to get the crowd riled up before the game.
Still, somehow it was perfect. Somehow it was the way I’d always imagined it.
I looked at Coach. My father.
I’d finally found my father.
Thirty-seven
“Well.” Grandma took a good, hard look at Coach’s pink heart. “If I’d known about that, it would’ve answered a lot of questions, wouldn’t it?” She peered up at Coach through her bifocals. “I always thought you were a good boy.” She gave Coach’s face a good, hard look, too. “You were good for my Melissa. You better be good for my Kirby, too.”
She gave Coach’s hand a squeeze, then left Coach and me to ourselves. She said it was because we needed time alone to sort things out. I think secretly she just didn’t want to miss tip-off.
Coach—my father—and I spent the first half of the game talking. Yeah, me and Coach. The kid whose tongue gets wrapped around his tonsils every time he speaks, and the guy whose main form of communication is a grunt. We didn’t look at each other much. Just sat there, side by side, watching the game, eating nachos, and figuring things out. Things we’d both been wondering about.
Like, for instance, why my mom never told anybody who my father was. Turns out she had been protecting him, just like I thought. Just like I told Bragger. Only, instead of protecting Brett McGrew while he fielded offers from every big-time basketball program in the country, she was protecting Mike Armstrong, who’d managed to land a scholarship to Kaw Valley Community College and was scrapping and scraping to make a name for himself in junior college ball so maybe a big-time program would recruit him as a transfer.
“I thought it could happen.” Coach shook his head. “I really thought it could. You know why? Because of your mother. Because she thought I could do anything. Everybody else noticed Brett McGrew. But your mom, she noticed me. I wouldn’t have gotten half as far if it weren’t for her telling me I could.”
And she kept telling him that, too, till one day, when he was off at college, eating, sleeping, breathing basketball, she called him. Said she couldn’t see him anymore. Said she’d found someone else. She didn’t tell him that someone else was me.
“And I believed it.” Coach ran a hand across his mouth. “Why wouldn’t I? She always deserved better than me, anyway. I figured I was lucky it took her as long as it did to catch on.”
I sat there for a long time after that, chewing my nachos. “I wish I’d known her,” I said finally.
“Yeah.” Coach stared straight ahead at the basketball court. “I wish you had, too.”
* * *
Just before halftime, somebody from the athletic department came and got us. We stripped down to our silky Jayhawk boxers and lined up at the end of the court, waiting for the half to end so the University of Kansas could retire Brett McGrew’s jersey.
Camera bulbs flashed. The Jayhawks and their opponents thundered up and down the court. Glittery cheerleaders bounced and yelled and shook their pom-poms. I stood at the edge of it, in my underwear, waiting to play basketball with my father on national television.
“So.” Bragger squeezed in between me and Coach. “What should I call you, now that we’re family? Mike? Uncle Mike? Uncle Iron Man?”
Coach shot him a dark look.
“Okay, maybe not.” Bragger nodded. “Maybe we’ll just leave it at Coach for now. Or no, I got it—Uncle Coach.”
Coach closed his eyes and shook his head.
The buzzer honked. Halftime. The Kansas Jayhawks jogged off the court. The Stuckey seventh-grade Prairie Dogs jogged on. A guy from the athletic department strolled out to center court with a microphone and a framed Brett McGrew number 5 jersey. He gave a little speech, telling all about McNet’s astonishing college basketball career. Then Brett McGrew took the microphone and gave his own little speech, thanking KU, the fans, his college coach, his parents.
“But my career wouldn’t have been possible without all the folks back home in Stuckey who believed in me,” he said.
He waved a hand toward Mrs. Zimmer and Mr. Dobbs, who had risen to their feet. Mrs. Zimmer fanned herself with one hand while holding her chest with the other. I thought she was going to faint dead away, right there in the third row. Mr. Dobbs had traded his John Deere cap for a Jayhawk basketball cap, and now he pulled it off his head and held it over his heart.
“I’d also like to thank a fellow player from those Stuckey years,” said Brett McGrew. “A guy who, even then, was helping his teammates, including me, play better basketball. The Stuckey seventh-grade coach, Mike Armstrong, who led his team to a perfect fourteen and O record this year.”
The crowd clapped. Coach’s face went red. He studied the toes of his shoes. Mrs. Zimmer beamed. Brett McGrew had announced our record on national television, and it was a better record than she ever could have imagined.
Brett McGrew handed the microphone back, and we started our scrimmage. Four players and Coach on one team, four players and McNet on the other, two subs for each. I was on Coach’s team. He’d picked me. First. I almost didn’t know what to do. I’d never been picked first choosing up sides before.
We tipped off, and the two teams rumbled up and down the floor, trading baskets. About halfway through the scrimmage, I picked off a pass. I fired the ball to Coach, and he thundered up the court for an easy layup.
Easy if he’d been playing with mere mortals. But we had a future hall-of-famer on the court. Brett McGrew whipped past Coach and set up in front of the hoop.
Coach didn’t stop. Didn’t slow down. He barreled toward McNet. Right toward him. He went in for the layup, but instead of going straight up, instead of charging into McNet and committing the offensive foul, he pushed off and spun around to the other side of the basket.
Th-bumpf.
The ball hit the backboard and swished through the net.
Iron Man Mike Armstrong’s spinning layup. Executed perfectly.
The crowd cheered. Or, at least, the part of the crowd that hadn’t wandered off to buy Coke and nachos. Coach’s team cheered, too. Brett McGrew slapped Coach a high five.
But Coach didn’t look at them. Not at the crowd or the other guys or even Brett McGrew. As the ball dropped through the hoop, Coach turned and looked down the court, searching, till his gaze landed on me. He nodded, smiled, and pointed, the way a shooter does to thank the guy who fed him the ball.
I nodded, smiled, and pointed back.
And then I just stood there. The other guys whooped past me down the court. But for a second, I stood there, in the shadow of the banners and the scoreboard and all that history. Stood there and took it all in.
Because sometimes the things you want aren’t possible.
Sometimes they’re not even good for you.
But sometimes, even if you kick the ball out of bounds when you dribble, even if your jump shots look like bounce passes, even if you end up on national television wearing nothing but your underpants—
Coach backpedaled past me, and as he did, he reached out and ruffled my hair.
—sometimes the thing you want most in the world really does want you back.
GOFISH
QUESTIONS FOR THE AUTHOR
L. D. HARKRADER
What did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be an artist and a spy. My plan was to own an art supply store, which would make a great cover for my spying activities, and when I wasn’t spying, I could sit at the front counter and paint masterpieces. I apparently thought store owners had nothing to do but sit at
their front counters. I also wanted to play second base for the Royals. I figured I could do that during summers when the spy business was slow.
When did you realize you wanted to be a writer?
Third grade. Most third-graders, when they got their work done in class and had free time, would run Hot Wheels along the inside of their desks or make fake fingernails by squirting glue in the curved part of their rulers and waiting for it to dry. Me, I wrote poems. And then illustrated them. And my teacher thought they were wonderful. Or at least, she told me she thought they were wonderful. So, during the summer after third grade, I wrote a whole book of poems, with illustrations and a construction paper cover, and when I went back to school in the fall, I gave it to her. Many years later, when I was home from college, I ran into my teacher—Mrs. Mary Wager, a wonderful woman—and she remembered my book of poems. She said she still had it. With encouragement like that, how could I not become a writer?
What’s your first childhood memory?
I have this horrible memory of being held down by my dad and two nurses while our doctor pulled a bean out of my nose.
What’s your most embarrassing childhood memory?
In kindergarten, our teacher brought out a bowl of something creamy and yellow and told us it was pudding. She asked if anybody wanted a bite. I, of course, raised my hand high in the air and said, “I do! I do!” Then she told us it was a joke. It wasn’t really pudding, it was finger paint, and we needed to go put our paint shirts on. There I was with my hand in the air with all the other kids laughing at me and feeling pretty smug that they hadn’t volunteered to eat finger paint. I don’t think I ever volunteered for anything again. And I don’t like pudding so much anymore.
As a young person, who did you look up to most?
Nancy Drew. Well, my parents, too. But mostly Nancy Drew. This was during the late ’60s and early ’70s, when girls were still being told they couldn’t do everything boys could do, and here was Nancy, proving them all wrong. Nancy could do anything, and do it better than anyone. I wanted to be just like her when I grew up. I still do.
What was your worst subject in school?
P.E. I loved playing sports (I did want to be second baseman for the Royals, after all), but I just found the whole P.E. experience humiliating, especially after I got into junior high and had to start showering with sweaty girls I barely knew.
What was your first job?
Detassling corn. There were about twelve of us in the corn crew, and we rode behind a tractor in this contraption that had big, metal buckets spaced just far enough apart to slide between the cornrows. We stood in the buckets, and as we chugged along, we had to reach out and pull the tassels off the tops of the cornstalks. I don’t know all the science behind it, but if we didn’t get the tassels off, the corn could pollinate or something. And apparently, pollinated corn is bad corn.
Where do you write your books?
I get lonely at my house all by myself, so I like to take my laptop and write in other places, like bookstores or coffee shops. My favorite place is the mall. Our mall has these cushy leather chairs scattered about in seating groups with tables and potted plants. If I get there early enough, I can get one of the chairs by the fountain. I hunker down with my laptop and my latte and write for hours. I actually get more written at the mall than I do at home because at the mall I can’t get up—if I do, I’ll lose my chair. So, I just sit there and keep writing.
Which of your characters is most like you?
Kirby, definitely. He’s kind of gawky, kind of geeky, not completely sure of himself, but determined to get the job done anyway. That pretty much describes me.
When you finish a book, who reads it first?
My sister. She’s not a writer, but she’s a lot like me—twelve years old on the inside. So, if she likes it, I know middle-schoolers will probably like it.
Are you a morning person or a night owl?
Definitely a night owl, which is pretty inconvenient since the rest of the world seems to be on a morning-person schedule.
What’s your idea of the best meal ever?
The best meals always start with dessert, and the best desserts are usually chocolate. So for me, the best meal would be anything that started with chocolate.
Which do you like better: cats or dogs?
I can’t pick. If I said cats, my dogs would get their feelings hurt, and if I said dogs, my cats would make me move out. Actually, I have two dogs, and they both like the cats better than they like each other.
What do you value most in your friends?
A sense of humor.
Where do you go for peace and quiet?
The mall (see above).
Who is your favorite fictional character?
Nancy Drew (see above). I also love Miss Marple.
What time of the year do you like best?
Fall. There’s something about that time of year—the crispness of the air, maybe, or getting ready for Halloween, or maybe all the fresh school supplies in the store—that makes me feel that anything is possible.
If you could travel in time, where would you go?
I think about this a lot. I’d go back to my own growing-up years and spend more time with the people I no longer have in my life—my mom and my grandparents.
What’s the best advice you have ever received about writing?
Just keep doing it. Even if it’s hard, even if every word you write stinks, even if it feels like you’ll never reach the end, if you keep going, you’ll eventually end up with a story you can be proud of.
What do you want readers to remember about your books?
I want readers to remember characters who stand up for the things they believe in and go after the things they want—characters who don’t give up just because it’s hard or because somebody else tells them they can’t.
What would you do if you ever stopped writing?
I get really cranky when I’m not writing, so I would never stop.
What do you like best about yourself?
I like to think I’m like my characters—I don’t give up on things I believe in.
What is your worst habit?
I like to wear my pajamas. A lot. Which is fine when I’m here by myself writing, but it can be a little embarrassing when the FedEx guy shows up at two o’clock in the afternoon and catches me in my bathrobe.
What do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment?
My kids. I have a son who’s thirteen and a daughter who’s twenty-three, and they’re both terrific people.
What do you wish you could do better?
Sing.
What would your readers be most surprised to learn about you?
I love big-band music.
About the Author
L.D. Harkrader never played underwear basketball, but did have a recurring nightmare about walking into the school cafeteria wearing nothing but pajamas. "I’m sure the dream meant I was afraid people would see who I really was," says L.D. "In telling Kirby’s story, I hope I show readers they shouldn’t be afraid to let people see who they are. Who they are is okay." L.D. lives in a small town in Kansas and, like Kirby, is a rabid Jayhawks basketball fan. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
>
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Gofish
About the Author
Copyright
An Imprint of Macmillan
AIRBALL. Copyright © 2005 by L.D. Harkrader. All rights reserved.
For information, address Square Fish, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Square Fish and the Square Fish logo are trademarks of Macmillan and are used by Roaring Brook Press under license from Macmillan.
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].
ISBN 978-0-312-37382-5
Originally published in the United States by Roaring Brook Press
First Square Fish Edition: 2008
Square Fish logo designed by Filomena Tuosto
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eISBN 9781250111241
First eBook edition: December 2015
Airball Page 14