Basketball (or Something Like It)

by Nora Raleigh Baskin

  Not that she didn’t think it was possible. Boys do all sorts of weird stuff. Having an older brother at home gave Anabel special insight. Hitting, farting, grabbing, running, burping, kicking, tripping, cursing, all seemed to be male favorites. Reciting lines from stupid movies was right up there.

  But fighting ranked high.

  By the time Anabel, Erin, and Brigit made their way into the circle, the fight was over. You could tell nothing had happened. It was a standoff, a name-calling flop fight. At least, that’s what all the kids were saying as they began to wander away.

  “Everybody go back and sit down,” Mrs. Ossie, the cafeteria lady said. She had one hand on Carter’s shoulder.

  But Anabel saw something else. She saw Jeremy standing next to Hank, right next to him, for no other reason than they were on the same team. Jeremy probably didn’t even know Carter. Or Alex. He probably had no reason in the world to get into a fight with either of them (although something told Anabel that if there had been a fight, Jeremy would have won it).

  But there he was. No questions asked. Jeremy had come from all the way on the other side of the cafeteria to take Hank’s side. To be on his side.

  Hank knew it, too. You could see it in the way he was standing.

  And when she recognized it, Anabel was suddenly envious.

  Jeremy

  Jeremy’s back was starting to hurt from sitting slouched down in the chair outside the assistant principal’s office for so long. He was about to sit up, straightening out his back for a little relief, but he looked over at Hank. Hank had his legs out, his hands in his jean pockets, and his butt at the very end of the upholstered chair, too, so Jeremy decided to stay down. He could ignore the aching in his back. It wasn’t worth looking eager or too concerned.

  Mr. Bernardino’s door could open any minute.

  One of those boys, Alex or Carter, had already been in there and was gone. The other one, Jeremy didn’t know which was which, was still in there. Jeremy had heard the assistant principal call their names, like he knew them already. Pretty well.

  Alex and Carter. No tough guys are named Alex and Carter.

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  He turned to the sound of Hank’s voice. “Do what?” Jeremy asked.

  “I mean, you didn’t have to get in trouble. For me,” Hank explained.

  Jeremy didn’t say anything. His back hurt too much, and Jeremy shifted his legs in and sat up.

  Hank immediately did the same. “But thanks,” he said.

  They were quiet again for a long while, still waiting, staring straight ahead. They could hear a deep, muffled voice on the other side of the wooden door. Obviously Mr. Bernardino was doing all the talking. It’s always that way. Jeremy wasn’t planning on saying anything when it was his turn. Nothing at all.

  “We have two games this weekend.”

  “Huh?”

  “Saturday and Sunday. We have two games,” Hank said. “If you need a ride or anything.”

  Why would he think that? Why would he think I don’t have a ride, Jeremy thought. Like it’s written all over my face. Like my grandmother can’t drive a car or something?

  Jeremy turned to say something appropriate and then stopped. Hank didn’t really mean anything by that. He probably just wanted to be friends. Hank was pretty okay, and he was a pretty good basketball player, too.

  “I’ll let you know,” Jeremy answered.

  The sound of a chair scraping against the floor and heavy footsteps meant Bernardino must be done with that big kid, Alex or Carter. Whichever one was the real big kid with the blonde hair.

  “He wouldn’t have done anything,” Jeremy told Hank.

  “Who?”

  “That big kid.” Jeremy pointed to the door.

  “Oh, you don’t know him,” Hank said, shaking his head.

  The door opened and Carter Burnell hurried out. He took up a lot of space. Jeremy and Hank watched him go. Mr. Bernardino called Hank in. Jeremy slouched down even further in his seat and waited.

  Anabel

  Normally Anabel wasn’t crazy about old people. It wasn’t like there were really any in her family. Both sets of her parent’s parents had died years ago. She didn’t even have a very old teacher. Mrs. Fronheiser in elementary school was pretty old, like fifty or something. But Jeremy’s grandmother, Mrs. Binder, was probably the oldest person Anabel had been this close to.

  It wasn’t really that she didn’t like old people, but they seemed so old. So far away from understanding anything Anabel was thinking or doing. And they look different.

  Anabel had watched her mother looking in the mirror, putting on her makeup, getting ready for work.

  “My lids are sagging. Anabel, look. Didn’t they used to be here?” she said. She had her pointer finger tugging up at her eyes.

  Anabel was sitting on the side of the bathtub. “No. You look exactly the same. You look beautiful,” she said.

  Anabel’s mother didn’t put down her mascara, but she turned sideways and kept jerking the little black wand up at her lashes. “You’re sweet,” she said.

  She looked back into the mirror. “But, God. I’m getting old. Life is too short. You know that, Ana? That’s why you’ve got to make the most of it. It just goes by so fast.”

  Anabel didn’t answer. Life might be short, but some days were really, really long. Besides, even as her mother was telling her to make the most out of life, Anabel knew she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. It was very comforting to do the exact same thing every day, doing only what you know you are good at.

  There was also something comforting about Mrs. Binder, even though her eyelids had clearly sagged completely years ago.

  “Your brother just made a shot,” Mrs. Binder told Anabel. She pointed down to the court.

  They had a ritual. They always climbed up to the top bleacher, far to the left, and leaned their backs against the wall. Mrs. Binder brought homemade cookies and Anabel brought two extra juice boxes from her pantry.

  “It was a lucky shot,” Anabel said. She poked the ministraw into her juice box.

  “Oh, you’re too hard on him. He’s good. Look, he just tried to block that other boy from shooting.”

  “He fouled him,” Anabel said.

  “Is that bad?”

  And she kind of liked that Mrs. Binder didn’t know anything.

  “It means the other team not only gets the two points, but they get to shoot a foul shot,” Anabel explained.

  “Oh, that’s bad then.”

  “Right.”

  It was getting crowded on the bleachers. The teams for the next game were starting to arrive and, of course, their parents. Some of the North Bridge parents moved up to see better.

  It was a close game. This new coach was doing a pretty good job. He had gotten all of the kids to play at least a little, and he put the weaker kids in with the stronger players so everyone looked better.

  Anabel was surprised. They might even win this game. Jeremy was playing great. Anabel was just about to tell that to Mrs. Binder, but two of the dads sat down right in front of them, nearly right on her feet.

  “Who found this guy?” one of the dads was saying. Anabel thought it was Tyler Bischoff’s dad, but she wasn’t sure.

  “I think Bruce Adler did. I think he knew someone who knew someone at his office,” the other dad answered.

  “Well, that explains that.”

  “What? Adler playing the whole game?”

  “Yeah, and look at that new kid, Binder. What a ball hog. He never passes.”

  Anabel looked over to Mrs. Binder to see if she had heard. It was hard to tell. She was just watching the game. She just rooted for everyone. Every kid. She even clapped when the other team made a basket.

  The-maybe-Tyler’s-dad-guy leaned in closer to the other man. “Wyatt is open half the time, but that kid never gets him the ball. He just shoots.”

  So that was Wyatt Greman’s dad. Anabel knew his little sister, Caroline, from Gir
l Scouts two years ago. She watched Mr. Greman’s bald head nodding in agreement.

  “He plays street ball. It looks good now, but against a good team he’ll turn over the ball every time.”

  That is so not true, Anabel thought. Jeremy was better than both their kids combined and they just didn’t like it. Anabel didn’t want to look over at Mrs. Binder again. Hopefully she didn’t understand what they were talking about. Or she didn’t know they were talking about her grandson. Or at best, she didn’t know they were saying mean things about him.

  The game was finally over. North Bridge won 36–33. The boys were jumping all over one another. Everyone looked really happy. Except for Mrs. Binder. She didn’t say anything to Anabel. She didn’t even say her usual, “Oh, Anabel, you’ll be playing someday. And you’re going to knock ‘em all off their feet.”

  Anabel figured that even if she hadn’t heard what those dads were saying, she could feel it. It was ugly. Like toxic waste.

  Mrs. Binder made her way slowly down the bleachers. Anabel watched her as she waited for Jeremy. She tried to put her arm around him when they were walking out, but he wouldn’t let her.

  It was like she was trying to protect him from that feeling. But Mrs. Binder had no idea what she was up against. She just had no idea.

  But Anabel did.

  Nathan

  Nathan’s father was excited to hear about the win. So perhaps, Nathan thought later, he had talked it up too much.

  The new coach, Quince or Vince or whatever, told everyone at halftime that the team needed a win this time. He said the play was going to be to Jeremy. He told Julian and Matt where to stand to set picks and keep the lane open. He told Camden to keep getting those offensive rebounds. He told Hank to keep pressing their point guard. It was working great. And he told Jeremy to keep shooting. He was hot.

  When you’re hot, shoot, he told Jeremy.

  Winning was good, Nathan thought. Even though he barely got off the bench the whole time, it was better than losing. It felt good. Satisfying.

  No, it was fantastic.

  And it made a much better story. Nathan’s mother had made roast turkey breast with gravy, string beans, and sweet potatoes. It all felt very festive.

  “I think I might like to come to your next game,” his father said. “Against Hollis. Is that right? It’s an away game, isn’t it?”

  “Huh?” Nathan stopped his fork midway to his mouth.

  “I want to try out our new digital camera,” his father added. “It’s got a telephoto lens, you know.”

  “I’ll come, too,” his mother said. She was smiling, but she had it all wrong, Nathan thought. He knew she was feeling guilty about the new baby taking up so much of her time. And true, Nathan hadn’t done much to convince her otherwise.

  “No, that’s okay, Mom,” Nathan said. “I know how tired you are.”

  He wasn’t going to be able to reverse the damage now. He had made it all sound so great. He had gotten carried away.

  “Of course I’m not too tired,” she said. “I want to see my son play.”

  Didn’t they say there was an amino acid in turkey that made people relax and feel good? Tryptophan, that was it. Only Nathan wasn’t feeling too good right then.

  “Maybe we won’t win again,” Nathan tried. “Maybe never again.”

  “So what?” his father said. He pushed his seat back from the table. He was actually smiling. It was definitely the tryptophan. It produced serotonin, which affected the part of the brain involved in relaxation.

  “But I might not play much this time,” Nathan went on. “I mean, since I played so much last game. You know, it’s got to be fair and all.”

  “I think the coach will play the best players. You’re not babies. You’re in sixth grade. In three years you’ll be in high school. At some point you play to win,” his father was saying. “The better players play more. You kids have to learn that sometime.”

  Nathan wondered what planet his father had been living on.

  “At least athletics is the one place where fair is fair. Where the better man gets the job,” Nathan’s father went on.

  He had spent so much of his life working hard. He had three graduate degrees that Nathan knew of. His father had so left behind the world he had come from, but he hadn’t quite landed in this one. Sports wasn’t fair at all. Fathers favored their own kids. Coaches had one agenda. Parents had another. Some kids made the team even when there were other kids who were clearly better. Some parents did favors for the coach; others just complained really loud.

  But Coach Vince seemed pretty fair. Everybody played. And besides, they won. Nathan almost smiled again, remembering, and then his mother spoke.

  “Anyway, it doesn’t matter if you play a lot,” his mother said. “We’ll just come to root for your team.”

  Mothers.

  “It’s settled then,” Nathan’s father said.

  Nathan thought he might be allergic to serotonin.

  Hank

  “It’s school policy not to ask anyone why they’re in here,” Mrs. Cooperman said. She was in charge of detention that day.

  “So why are you in here?” she asked.

  Hank smiled right away. Mrs. Cooperman was pretty and funny. Maybe detention wouldn’t be so awful after all.

  The whole thing had made him pretty nervous. He had never really had detention before. Not a real stay-after-school kind of detention. He had a bad stomachache that morning. He didn’t even want to go to school. But he had to. The school had called his mother the day before and sent him home with a note. Two days of detention.

  There is a no-tolerance rule about fighting, Hank’s mother was informed. (Of course, she called right away.) It didn’t matter who started it or for how long this boy, Alex, had been picking on her son. Hank’s mother almost started to cry right on the phone with the assistant principal. (Oh, God, please no.) Not because she thought Hank had been hurt, he obviously wasn’t hurt, but for the injustice of it all.

  Hank’s parents had this thing about injustice.

  “It was no big deal,” Hank had tried to explain that night.

  “Well, I’m glad you stood up for yourself,” Hank’s dad said. “You should do that more often.”

  “I did, Dad.” Hank said. “And I got detention.”

  “Well, that’s not real life. That’s middle school. In real life you’ve got to look out for yourself because nobody is going to do it for you. You’ll never get anywhere in this world unless you’re assertive. You’ve got to be more assertive.”

  Hank knew he wasn’t talking about the fight anymore or even about school. He meant basketball. He thought Hank was too unassertive. He felt Hank would be playing more if he demanded more time, the way the other kids did. The way the other kids’ fathers did.

  And frankly, Hank might earn more playing time if he were more assertive. If he played harder.

  At least, that’s what his father thought.

  Hank knew he already was playing as hard as he could.

  “Are you in here for fighting?” Mrs. Cooperman said. She took out a couple of plastic containers and placed them on top of her desk.

  Hank nodded.

  “I can see that. You look like some kind of tough guy. So where’s your friend? He’s supposed to be here, too.”

  They both looked at the clock as the little hand clicked into place and just as it did, Jeremy walked in.

  “Hope you two brought a snack,” Mrs. Cooperman said.

  “But I thought we weren’t allowed to eat in here,” Hank said.

  Mrs. Cooperman took a big forkful of her salad. “Well,” she said. “That’s true. But I don’t like to eat alone so you better bring something for tomorrow.” Mrs. Cooperman looked down at the computer sheet in front of her. “And we have another day together, so bring cookies if you can. I like cookies.”

  Anabel

  Anabel was late for the fourth day in a row. She missed the bus and her dad had to drive her to school.
He wasn’t getting this Mr. Mom thing very well. He was late. By the time he pulled into the drop-off line, all the other cars were gone. The doors were shut. Not a good sign.

  “I’m sorry, Anabel, but those are the rules. Three unexcused tardies and you get detention.”

  Anabel stood at the counter in the main office. She needed a late pass, and she got detention instead. If it helped any, the attendance secretary looked really sorry as she wrote out the slip. Really, she did.

  “What period do you have lunch?” the secretary asked.

  “Fifth, but I’m staying in for my science project,” Anabel said.

  “How about fourth? What do you have fourth?”

  “English.”

  The secretary was shaking her head. “Well, next week is sixth-grade testing. I’m sorry, Anabel, you’ll have to stay after for detention. Tomorrow. I’ll send a note home. Oh, now it’s okay. Don’t get upset. It’s not that bad. Anabel, I’ll explain it to your mother. Don’t worry.”

  Anabel didn’t know who to feel worse for, herself or the secretary. The secretary looked like she was going to cry.

  “It’s okay,” Anabel whispered.

  “I’ll call your mother. I’ll tell her it’s no big deal. It’s just one of those silly school rules.”

  “Sure,” Anabel said. She imagined the answering machine at home picking up the call. It got nestled in between a call about AAU tryouts and team photo day; nobody would even hear it.

  TRAP

  The next move was a clandestine masterpiece. Coach Vince quit and Tyler Bischoff’s dad quietly took over the team. There was a lot of speculation as to why Coach Vince actually left, especially after he had brought the team to its one and only victory.

  Most parents agreed it was the parents. Every parent other than themselves, of course.