by W. C. Mack
Russ shrugged.
Coach kept staring at my brother, like he couldn’t believe it, then he shook his head. “Okay, everybody line up at center court.”
We groaned, since we were way too tired for more drills.
But drills weren’t what Coach had in mind.
“If you hear your name, you’re on the team,” he said, then waited for us to calm down before he announced, “Nicky Chu.”
My old teammate waved his fist in the air and grinned.
Coach kept listing names and guys high-fived each other when they were called. Most of the players had been on the team last year.
But not all of them.
I was just starting to get worried when Coach said, “Owen Evans.”
“Yes!” I bumped fists with Chris, who’d already made it. We both jumped about four feet off the ground.
“Russell Evans,” Coach said.
What?
If I could have frozen in midair, I would have. Instead, my second-class shoes hit the floor with a thud. I turned to stare at my brother, who looked as shocked as I was.
Russ made the team?
How was that even possible?
All I’d wanted to do was stop him from embarrassing me … I mean, himself.
When I thought about how much Russ stunk before he made those amazing shots, I felt like he’d tricked us.
Like he’d tricked me.
Russ turned toward me, and his smile was so big, I thought it might eat his whole face.
I kind of wished it would.
I took a deep breath and gave him a thumbs-up, trying to look like I really meant it.
But I didn’t.
My brother and I walked home later that afternoon, side by side. My number five jersey was crammed into my bag. I’d wanted number eleven (Tim Camden’s number), but like everything else lately, Russ got it.
“I can’t believe it,” he said, for the eight-millionth time. “I never thought I stood a chance.”
“Me neither,” I said, shoving my hands into my pockets.
“I owe it all to you,” he said, quietly.
Yeah, he did. Why hadn’t he just stood there, like I told him to? He wasn’t supposed to make the stupid team!
“I think you’re magical.”
Huh? Magical?
I turned around to make sure no one had heard him. Then I looked at my twin, who was staring at his feet.
He wasn’t even talking to me! He was thanking his stupid shoes!
“Are you kidding me?” I practically choked.
“What?”
I glared at him. “Never mind.”
“Don’t tell Dad I made it, okay?” he asked. “I want to do it.”
I nodded. Yeah, Russ. You just do it.
You and your freakin’ magical Nikes.
For the first time ever, I didn’t want to talk about basketball when I got home.
“How did it go?” Dad asked, the second we walked through the door.
My brother made a big show of shaking his head and looking sad.
All I saw was more sneakiness.
“Russ?” Dad asked.
He shrugged. “I was the slowest guy at running lines.”
“Oh no.” Dad reached over to pat his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
My twin tried to hold back a laugh. “Sorry that I was slow, or sorry that I made the team, anyway?”
Suddenly he was a comedian, too? Jump shots? Punch lines? Mr. Hidden Talents rides again.
Dad stared at him. “What?”
“He made the team,” Mom said, jumping up and down. Her eyes were shiny, like she might cry.
“You made the team,” Dad said, slowly, still in shock. Then he grinned. “You made the team!”
He lifted his hand to give Russ a high five.
As usual, Russ missed.
“This is incredible,” Dad said, pulling Russ into a hug. “We’ve got to celebrate. Let’s go out for dinner.”
“I was going to make spaghetti,” Mom said, then smiled as she watched them. “Never mind. What about the Jade Palace?”
Great. Chinese food at my favorite restaurant, and I wasn’t even hungry.
“Seriously?” Russ asked.
“Of course,” Dad said, finally letting go of him. “You made the team, Russ. This is a night for celebration.”
“I made the team, too,” I said, but no one heard me. Was I invisible? In my own stinking house? “I made the team, too,” I said, this time a lot louder. I sounded kind of mad actually, which made sense.
I was mad.
Everyone stopped to look at me, surprised.
“Of course you did,” Dad said, slapping me on the back. “We knew you would. But this guy …” He turned back to Russ and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “This guy just made my day.”
Common Denominator
After so many years of being divided into brains and brawn, Owen and I had both been fine with our roles. But when Coach Baxter called my name, I realized that I’d only been fine with being the brains because I never imagined I could be both things—a mathlete and an … athlete.
Oh, I liked the sound of that!
I lifted the white tablecloth at Jade Palace, smiling at the sight of my Nikes.
They really were magical. And even more magical?
Dad was proud of me.
I didn’t think I’d ever stop smiling, especially when I thought about those jump shots.
The truth was, I’d barely heard the guys cheering as I made each one. When I’d thrown the ball, I hadn’t been thinking about Owen, or making the Pioneers, or anything to do with basketball.
I’d been thinking about an egg.
Or, more specifically, a Masters of the Mind egg, thrown at just the right angle, with a built-in net for brakes.
I’d run through the list of challenge ingredients as I shot the ball again and again, trying to think of what we could use for our net.
Later that night, when we were back at the house, I got the call from Sara.
“How was the meeting?” I asked.
There was a short pause at the other end, before she said, “He’s in.”
“Arthur?” I asked, feeling an ounce or two of happiness leave my body. “He wants to join?”
“Yes,” she sighed. “And he had a few ideas.”
“For the fund-raiser?”
“Yes, but he also had a lot of ideas about how the meetings should be run and … that kind of thing.”
“He’s probably just trying to impress us,” I told her. “We don’t need to change anything. We have a great system already.”
“I know,” she said, but she didn’t sound like she believed it.
“And the fund-raising?” I asked. “What’s the plan?”
“We’re having a bake sale.”
“A what?” I choked.
“A bake sale.”
“No, I heard you. I just … do any of us know how to bake?”
“I make pretty good peanut-butter cookies and Nitu’s going to try an Indian dessert. Jason said his mom would probably help him with brownies.”
“I’m sure my mom can help me make something, too.” I waited for more, but she didn’t say anything. “What about Arthur?”
“I’m not sure. We’re hoping that whatever he brings doesn’t have a Harvard emblem on it.” She sighed. “You know, it wasn’t easy, Russell. The meeting, I mean.”
“It will get easier.” We’d all adjust to Arthur because that was our only choice. It was as simple as that.
“The bake sale is this Friday afternoon,” she said.
“Mr. Wills said it was okay?”
“Yes.” She was quiet for a couple of seconds. “So, how did the tryouts go?”
“I made the team!” I couldn’t help smiling as I said the words.
“Oh no,” Sara said, then quickly added, “I mean, that’s great, Russell. Good for you.”
And it was.
Very good.
In th
e beginning, anyway.
Even though the Masters team had already met that week, we decided to have another meeting on Thursday because there was so much to discuss. This time, I hosted and we met right after school so Nitu wouldn’t be late for her father’s birthday party.
After I received some stiff congratulations for making the basketball team, we got down to business.
But not before Arthur suggested, “We should have future meetings on Tuesdays and Fridays.”
“Why?” Nitu asked, looking annoyed.
“Because the Friday meetings could run longer than the usual two hours. It’s not a school night.”
“But basketball games are on Fridays, aren’t they, Russell?” Sara asked.
I nodded. “And practices are scheduled for Tuesdays and Thursdays, starting next week,” I added. I knew that’s why Arthur had suggested the change.
“That’s going to take up a lot of time,” Jason said.
“There’s a time commitment, for sure,” I told the group, “but you all know that Masters of the Mind is my priority.”
“Except for yesterday,” Arthur said smugly.
“That wasn’t a regular meeting day,” Nitu told him.
“I would have thought an emergency meeting was the most important kind,” Arthur said.
“But you managed without me,” I said, realizing too late that it was the wrong thing to say.
“Yes.” Arthur smiled. “We managed perfectly well.” He cleared his throat for dramatic effect. “Without you.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to move on. “So, it’s decided. We’ll keep our schedule the same.” I looked at Nitu, who nodded. “Now, we’ve got the bake sale tomorrow, so we’ll all have our treats ready and—”
“Speaking of treats,” Mom said, appearing with a tray, “I’ve got milk and peanut-butter bars.”
Sara, Nitu, Jason, and I all reached for glasses of milk and slices of Mom’s specialty, while Arthur stayed in his seat.
Mom carried the tray over to him, but he shook his head.
“I’m allergic to peanuts.”
“Oh,” Mom said. “I’m sorry. I’ll find you something else.”
“No, thank you.” He sneered.
And that set the tone for the rest of the meeting. There was no smiling, no rhyming, and no kidding around.
By the time I told the team about the brilliant idea I had while I was making those jump shots, no one was in the mood to talk about the egg challenge. In fact, they seemed to stop listening as soon as I said the word basketball.
Later that evening I tracked Mom down in the den, where she was flipping through a magazine.
“Would you mind helping me with a baking fund-raiser?” I asked.
“Sounds fun.” She smiled. “When is it?”
“Tomorrow.”
She stared at me, then at her watch. “Are you kidding, Russell? It’s past nine o’clock.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I was distracted after my meeting and I forgot about it.”
I didn’t tell her that the distraction was trying on my Pioneers uniform and practicing jump shots in front of my bedroom mirror. I looked pretty good!
“Okay,” she said, and sighed, getting up from her chair. “It would have been nice to know about this before your team ate all my peanut-butter bars, though, don’t you think?”
“Good point.” I winced.
“But let’s see what we can whip up.”
I followed her into the kitchen, where she checked the pantry for ingredients.
“What about chocolate-chip cookies?” she asked.
“Perfect.” I would have happily agreed to anything she suggested.
She carried flour, salt, vanilla, and brown and white sugars over to the island in the middle of the kitchen.
“Can you please grab the butter and eggs, Russell?”
Uh-oh.
I opened the fridge door, hoping something had changed since I’d borrowed the challenge ingredients for my Masters meeting.
It hadn’t.
“It looks like we’re out of eggs,” I told her.
“What? I had most of a carton in there.”
“I had to use some for a Masters of the Mind project.”
Mom rested one hand on her hip. “And what was this project?”
I explained the challenge, with plenty of detail, but Mom only focused on one fact.
“You threw half a dozen eggs out of Jason’s window?”
“When you put it that way, it sounds wasteful,” I told her.
“It is wasteful,” Owen said as he moved past me to get the milk.
“Masters of the Mind is about science and experimentation,” I explained, feeling defensive. “If there were no experiments, we’d never find cures for diseases or—”
“Hold on,” Owen said, leaving the empty milk jug on the counter. “Are you saying that throwing eggs out of a window is going to cure cancer?”
“No,” I snapped. “All I’m saying is—”
“All I’m saying,” Mom interrupted, “is that no eggs means no cookies.”
“What?”
“Russell, I can’t bake anything without eggs. You should have given me more warning. Never mind the fact that you should have asked for permission before using the last of them.”
“But I need the cookies for tomorrow.” I couldn’t let the team down! I was the leader! I had to do something. “Hold on.”
I ran into the den and logged on to the Internet. My fingers flew over the keyboard as I searched. The first substitute I found for eggs in baking was milk. I shook my head and sighed with irritation. Owen had just guzzled the last of it.
And why was he being so cranky, anyway?
I didn’t have time to worry about it.
I kept typing and within minutes, I was running back into the kitchen with great news.
“Applesauce!” I said.
“What?” Mom looked at me like I was speaking another language.
“Two-thirds of a cup of applesauce is equal to one egg.”
She sighed. I was pretty sure she wanted to get back to her magazine.
“Please, help me,” I begged.
And she did.
But that didn’t mean the bake sale went according to plan.
I carried my box of cookies to school on Friday, peeking at them every now and then to see if they looked any better.
They didn’t.
When they’d come out of the oven looking gooey, Mom did an Internet search of her own.
It turned out that one-third of a cup of applesauce was equal to an egg.
Not two-thirds.
I was embarrassed that I hadn’t double-checked.
Since we’d used all the applesauce and Mom said “no way” to a late-night trip to the grocery store, I was stuck with what Owen called “booger blobs” instead of cookies.
Just before three o’clock, I looked over our table of “treats.” Along with my soggy cookies and Jason’s scorched brownies, we had small bowls of something definitely not solid and not quite liquid, prepared by Nitu and … that was it.
I leaned in for a closer look at the bowls.
“It’s creamy phirni,” our math whiz explained. “It’s like chocolate pudding.”
Except for the lumps.
“We’re doomed,” Jason whispered.
“What’s in it?” I asked, ignoring him and hoping Nitu hadn’t heard what he said.
“Rice,” she said. “Try one.”
I took one of her paper bowls and three plastic spoons, so Sara, Jason, and I could share.
It was incredible. Not too sweet, and super creamy.
“Wow!” I exclaimed.
“My grandmother’s recipe,” she said, smiling. “She makes it for special occasions.”
“That’s awesome!” Jason said, licking his spoon clean.
“Did you make the peanut-butter cookies?” I asked Sara, hopefully.
“Yes, but …” She had tears in her eyes.
“I made them, but there was a complaint, so I can’t sell them.” Her face was bright red.
“A complaint from who?” I asked.
“Whom,” Arthur Richardson the Third corrected, from behind me. “And the answer is me.”
“What?” I choked.
“As I mentioned at the last meeting, I have a severe peanut allergy.” He sniffed. “Even the dust can give me hives. Those cookies were like a plate of grenades.”
I had to admit I liked the sound of that.
“He told Mr. Wills that his health was at risk,” Nitu explained, shaking her head.
“I’m so sorry I won’t be contributing to the bake sale,” Sara said as a single tear rolled down her cheek.
I felt a headache coming on.
The heaviest element is copernicium.
The lightest is hydrogen.
I patted her arm. “You couldn’t help it,” I told her. I glanced at Arthur, who was looking a little too pleased with himself. “So, you got rid of the cookies but didn’t bring anything of your own.”
“Of course I did,” Arthur said, with a smirk. “I’m waiting for my father’s personal assistant to bring it in.”
At that moment, a man in a pin-striped suit wheeled a cart down the hallway. It was loaded with boxes of Daley’s Donuts.
“Oh man. I love those things,” Jason said, licking his lips.
“My father owns six stores,” Arthur said. “They’re still warm.”
“The stores?” Jason asked.
“The donuts,” Arthur said, rolling his eyes.
“We can’t sell those,” Nitu said, shaking her head. “They’re manufactured.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Arthur told her. “They’re fresh, delicious, and addictive.”
“Selling bakery donuts goes against the whole concept of a bake sale,” I told him.
Unfortunately, that was the moment the bell rang and school was out. The smell of fresh-baked donuts was irresistible, and within seconds, we were swamped with customers.
As the bake sale went on, the entire student body chose the donuts. I saw Nitu’s expression change from hurt to angry and back to hurt again.
Sara handled sales and hurried the line along.
Jason and I took the payments, making change as quickly as we could while Nitu bagged treats.