Ultraball #1
Page 22
“But you’ll never be able to return to the UMC,” Strike said. “Zuna will be gunning to kill you.”
“I’ll figure out a way. Dark Siders cast no shadows.” She bit her lip. “It might be a long time before I see you again. I have no idea how we’re going to do it. But we will take down Zuna. Together.” She nodded to them, a glimmer of hope in her eyes. Then the screen blinked out.
“Miners forever,” Rock whispered.
Strike turned back toward the cavern, listening to the sounds of Taiko Colony preparing for evacuation. “We should go find Governor Katana. Make sure he understands all of this. I gotta admit, I’m still a little confused. The only thing I know for sure is that Boom is a genius.”
Rock nodded. “Taiko Colony is saved. Although not exactly how you planned.”
“I was so sure we were going to raise that Ultrabowl trophy,” Strike said. “My last chance at an Ultraball title. It’s all over now.”
“You probably have another year left before you outgrow your suit.”
“Even if I could play another year, Boom is gone. We’d have to find a new rocketback 1. We’ll never find another superstar to replace her.”
Rock pinched his lips into a taut line. “There is a possible solution to that problem.” He pointed at TNT, still in a heap on the ground.
Strike stared down at the boy who once had been his best friend in the entire world. Can I ever trust him again? he thought.
“It is true that TNT sold you out to Zuna last year,” Rock said. “But look at everything he’s done to try to make up for it.”
His grudge hardening deep in his gut, Strike glared at TNT. “He won’t even tell me how much Zuna paid him to stab us in the back.”
“That is true,” Rock said. “It does seem very odd to make such a promise to Zuna.”
Strike kicked at the cavern floor. If only TNT would come clean. With Torch, Strike at least understood why he had sold plays to Zuna. Anyone might do that, if the life of someone close to them was at stake.
A realization hit Strike like a meteor blasting into the moon. He turned to TNT. “The promise you made. Was it to Zuna?”
TNT slumped. With the barest of motions, he shook his head.
“Your mom,” Strike said. “You promised your mom you would never say anything?”
TNT grabbed the front of Strike’s jumpsuit. “She’s so ashamed of what I did. Of me. But what was I supposed to do? Zuna offered me one hundred thousand U-bucks to throw the game. When I refused, he threatened to hurt my mom. To kill her.”
Months ago, Strike would have scoffed at the idea of a Colony Governor threatening to kill someone.
Now it seemed all too real.
“Please don’t say anything, Strike,” TNT whimpered. “She made me swear that no one would find out.”
“Why didn’t you go to the authorities?” Rock asked. He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Sorry. What a stupid question. Zuna is one of the authorities.”
Strike gently pried TNT’s hands off his jumpsuit and turned away. Sadness and regret sat heavy in his stomach as he tried to process everything.
Rock cleared his throat. “Strike. I think you know what the answer has to be.”
Strike stuffed his hands into his pockets and stared into Taiko Colony’s flickering roof lights off in the distance. He had been living so long with this hate, this thirst for revenge against his former best friend.
But as always, Rock was right.
Strike punched Rock’s shoulder. “TNT will have to earn back his spot. We’ll have to try him out all over again.”
“Really?” TNT said. “Thanks, Strike. I’ll never let you down, ever again.”
Rock flipped his notebook open to the pages of jokes and chuckled to himself. “If TNT does make the team, he’ll need to go through rookie initiation.”
Strike smiled. “Yeah. The Taiko Arena locker rooms are sure in need of a good cleaning. The waste collectors are disgusting. They need to be scrubbed. By hand.”
TNT’s face fell. “Hey. You’re just kidding, right?”
“Another secret trapdoor pit on the one-meter line would play to our home-field advantage,” Rock said. “Someone would need to dig that.”
“He could scrape it out with his fingernails,” Strike said. “On hands and knees. With ‘KICK ME’ written on the back of his jumpsuit.”
“TNT’s butt is about the same size as an Ultraball,” Rock said. “It would make a good target.”
“I could use some kickoff practice,” Strike said. “A lot of kickoff practice.”
“Hey,” TNT said. “Come on, guys. That’s not funny.”
“No, it’s definitely funny,” Rock said. Cackling out his machine-gun laugh, he scribbled into his notebook.
Strike extended TNT a hand. “Never turn on me again?”
“I swear it,” TNT said. “Miners forever.”
They shook hands, softly at first, but then with a firm squeeze. “You’d better get started,” Strike said. “That new pit isn’t going to dig itself.”
TNT grinned. “How deep do you want it?”
Strike put one arm around Rock’s shoulders, the other around TNT’s. He wasn’t sure how they would fight someone as powerful as Raiden Zuna. But it was just like Boom said. They would find a way to defeat him. Together.
Maybe even win an Ultrabowl along the way.
The three of them headed back toward Taiko Colony to reassemble the Fireball Five. To prepare for the coming war.
Acknowledgments
Writing can be a lonely, soul-squashing process. Thankfully, I’ve been incredibly lucky, getting immeasurable support from friends, family, and community.
Alec Shane, my literary agent, gave me my first big shot. His multiple rounds of thoughtful notes expanded my manuscripts and improved them tremendously. Locating the right home for this book was just one of the many factors that make him The Man.
Speaking of The Man, Ben Rosenthal worked tirelessly with me to pump up, shape, and hone the book into fighting trim. I’m embarrassed to look back upon the draft I originally sent him—it feels like a thin shadow of what it’s grown into under Ben’s careful guidance. If you enjoyed anything about the book, there’s a huge chance it’s due to his editorial brilliance. The entire team at HarperCollins has been amazing, somehow managing to stay in Beast Mode 24/7.
So many people have read for me over the years, both for this book and for my dozen or so “practice novels” (also known as “fart-odored wordsplosions”). I’ve learned something from each and every critique. Thank you so much to Abby Cooper, Alec Shane, Alex Chen, Allison Denny, Amie Paradise, Andrew Chen, April Wall, Becky Appleby, Ben Brooks, Bill Malatinsky, Bonnie Perfetti, Brian Murphy, Brian Sargent, Brooks Benjamin, Cam Earles, Chris Brandon Whitaker, Colten Hibbs, Dan Lazar, Dana Edwards, Dee Garretson, Diana Buzalski, Elise Mebel, Ella Schwartz, Erin Earles, Erin Reece, Fred Lee, Frewin Hermer, Gail Nall, Glenn Bradford, Grace Jurkowski, Heidi Schulz, Jason Nelson, Jean Giardina, Jen Malone, Jennifer Skutelsky, Jessika Fleck, Jill Denny, Jim Horne, Jo Marie Bankston, Karen Hallam, Kathryn Crawford Saxer, Kathy Berla, Katrina Earles, Kieran Trudel, Ki-Wing Merlin, Laurie Litwin, Liesl Shurtliff, Lindsey Becker, Marissa Burt, Mary Lou Guizzo, Melanie Conklin, Mirjana Reams, Paul Adams, Rachelle Lopp, Rebecca Cianci, Rebecca Sutton, Rhonda Battenfelder, Ronni Arno Blaisdell, Ryan Hancock, Sara Wilson Etienne, Sarah Chen, Shannon Duffy, Shannon Schuren, Sloan Ginn, Spencer Lopp, Stefanie Wass, Wendy BooydeGraaff. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some people—apologies to those I’ve accidentally left off.
Special props to my writing group, MG Beta Readers, a collection of hardworking novelists at every stage in the process. Commiserating and celebrating with all of you has helped me keep whacking away at the words, even when it felt hopeless. You can find us at our blog, www.kidliterati.com.
A huge shout-out to my twin brother, Alex Chen, who somehow managed to read my earlier FOWs all the way through. All the way! Amazingly, he ne
ver once gagged on the stench or used the word “crapulific,” even though it was dead nuts on. Much appreciation to Andrew and Sarah Chen, who eagerly listened to me read those works of (f)art with excitement and laughter. And to Kate Kerkering, for always being there with a kind word, even when the manuscripts were less than kind to behold.
Similarly, Lorenzo Stubbs, my decades-long little (through Big Brothers), kept on telling me he was certain I’d eventually get one of my books published. Not sure why he believed in me so unwaveringly, but it drove me to make sure that his confidence wasn’t for naught.
Thanks to my parents, Fu-mei Chang and Winston Chen, for setting a great example, pushing me hard, and filling me with grit. I hope to do the same for my kids, Tess and Jake. I love you two, tons. Now for the eleventy-ninth time, get your fingers out of your noses!
Finally, none of this would have been possible without the enormous encouragement, never-ending support, and insightful advice (both literary and life in general) from my wife, Jill Denny. I always tell people how much smarter she is than me, but it’s also true that she’s funnier, wiser, tougher, more tactful, better smelling . . . pretty much everything. She’s the best.
The Best.
I’m a lucky man.
About the Author
Courtesy Jeff Chen
JEFF CHEN is a writer from Seattle, Washington. He also makes crossword puzzles for the New York Times and other major publications. In previous careers, he was a mechanical engineer listed on eight US patents and then cofounded a pharmaceutical company, Acucela Inc. He’s an avid rock climber and a terrible bridge player and likes ideas, people, and things with nerd cred. He’s about two-thirds of the way toward his lifetime goal of donating twenty gallons of blood (not all at once). This is his debut novel. You can visit Jeff at www.jeffchenwrites.com.
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Copyright
Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
ULTRABALL #1: LUNAR BLITZ. Copyright © 2019 by Jeff Chen. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Cover art © 2019 by Roman Semenenko
Title art and cover design by Joel Tippie
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018938806
Digital Edition JANUARY 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-280268-2
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-280266-8
1819202122CG/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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