by Todd Hafer
Moments later, Cody shuffled toward the staircase as if an invisible hand were pushing him. As he passed the smaller of two entryways from the living room into the kitchen, he noticed that the door leading into the kitchen from the garage stood ajar about a foot. So that’s how someone got in without noticing me, and vice versa, he realized.
No way I should be doing this, he reminded himself as he reached the bottom step. This is so not like me. But it’s Mom’s wedding ring we’re talking about here. I don’t think I could live with myself if I just let some creep walk outta here with it. He stopped suddenly when the third step creaked under his left foot. He closed his mouth, allowing himself to breathe only through his nose. For a few seconds the rummaging sound stopped, then it resumed.
He reached the top of the stairs. The largest bedroom was about fifteen feet down a hallway to the left, just past Cody’s room. He chastised himself for not picking up a weapon while he was downstairs. It was too late to go back now.
He moved along the wall on the same side as the bedrooms, steadying himself with his left hand. Be smart, he warned himself. Just make sure it’s a burglar, not Blake or Pork Chop playing a joke, then you’re outta here. At a neighbor’s, calling the police.
He startled for a moment when he heard an abrupt clicking sound, but then he stifled a sigh when he realized it was just the furnace coming on. He clenched his right fist as he eased forward again.
Cody knew he should pray, but, as often was the case when he was tempted to step into trouble, he didn’t want to be accountable for the answer, which he figured would reflect the advice in Matthew’s gospel about earthly treasures versus heavenly treasures. He stopped when he reached his father’s bedroom. There was still sound, but now it was coming from the bathroom off the bedroom.
I guess Mr. Burglar has moved on to new territory, maybe looking for Percodan or something. Slowly, Cody leaned his head into the bedroom doorway. There was definitely no one near the dresser now. He took two tentative steps into the room. He thought about dropping to his knees and crawling along the floor, as the king-size bed might shield him from view of whoever was in the bathroom. But, just as he was about to bend his knees, he sensed someone behind him.
Oh, heaven help me, he gulped. There are two of’em.
Cody stood frozen. He didn’t want to whip his head around suddenly, as that would surely bring an attack from behind. Maybe if Burglar Number Two thinks I don’t know he’s there, he’ll just stay put, he reasoned. So, Cody Martin, eyes front. Don’t even think about looking behind you!
Then Cody noticed the mirror. It was oval shaped, centered above the chest of drawers. If I move just a little to my right, he thought, I might be able to see if anyone’s behind me. Or if it’s just my imagination.
Cody pretended to merely shift his weight to the right, but as he did, he picked up his right foot and let it slide about eight inches. He felt his teeth clench as he strained to see what might be reflected behind him.
The figure was large, wearing some kind of long coat. Cody felt the top of his head tingle, as if being pricked by a thousand tiny needles. Without thinking, he wheeled around and drove his right fist right where he hoped the burglar’s throat would be.
He punctuated the punch with an involuntary gorilla grunt, as he heard the figure hit the wall with a loud smack.
He was cocking his fist for a follow-up punch when he felt a sharp blow between his eyes.
Cody stood half-stunned and staring at the large shape in front of him. He wondered why he hadn’t gone down when the blow struck him, especially when he realized that it was a board or club that hit him, not a human fist.
“Who are you?” he growled at his opponent—his voice choking its way through a mess of rage, frustration, and fear.
No reply came. Tentatively, Cody stepped forward. He thought of something Blake had said in youth group earlier in the week: “Sometimes, fear is God’s microphone.”
Okay, Lord, he confessed. I’m hearing you, loud and clear. I’m sorry I didn’t bounce outta here a long time ago. But since I’m here, please don’t let this stubborn, silent thing in front of me be a ghost. Especially not the ghost of Gabe Weitz.
He took a step backward, keeping his eyes fixed in front of him.
He laughed in spite of himself, as the scene came into focus. The sensation reminded of him when he used to watch Wheel of Fortune with his mom, and, suddenly, his mind would fill in the missing letters of a phrase or name.
It was his father’s bathrobe. It hung from the back of the closet door on a temporary hanger that slid over the door’s top. Cody usually found the robe wadded up on the bathroom floor or slung across an arm of the downstairs couch, but, obviously, the impending domestication was compelling Luke Martin to clean up his act. The closet door opened outward, so it was parallel to the wall when open all the way.
Cody rubbed the center of his forehead, chuckling again when he realized that his punch had caused the door to rebound off the wall, nearly putting a canyon down his skull. At least it missed my nose, he thought. I already have five and a half zits; that’s about all the imperfection my face can take at the moment. Anyway, big ups to you, Cody Martin. You’re the first guy to beat up—himself!
Cody felt his smile vanish when he heard more stirring from the bathroom. And his heart, which had only recently slowed enough so that he could feel each individual beat, accelerated again until his chest practically vibrated with a rapid-fire drum solo so fierce that he couldn’t tell where one heartbeat ended and the next began. I can’t believe, he scolded himself, that I forgot about the other burglar—who I guess is the only burglar. But that’s more than enough!
He moved briskly to the doorway, risking one glance over his shoulder before he planned to descend all nine stairs with one bound and sprint all the way to—somewhere loud and bright and very, very public.
That’s when he saw Miss Ella leap from the bathroom sink across the threshold of the bathroom.
“Oh, Miss Ella,” he said, his voice quivering. “Y-you’re behind all of this? You’re gonna pay, big-time.”
Miss Ella, who must have been patrolling the vanity in the bathroom, meowed and trotted toward Cody. Her purring intensified as she made figure eights through his legs, rubbing her lean body against his ankles.
“You scroungy feline,” he said, with mock disgust. “You almost gave me a heart attack—not to mention almost making it necessary for me to change my underwear! That’s the thanks I get for letting you come over and hang with me?”
Cody’s dad was severely allergic to cats, as well as ragweed, pollen, dust mites, and so on. Whenever Cody’s mom had completed medical forms for her husband, she replied “Pretty much everything” to questions about “known allergies.”
So she and the then-sixth-grade Cody had conspired to covertly “adopt” Miss Ella, a midsize cat with a sleek gray coat, as a surrogate pet. Miss Ella’s rightful owners, the Workmans down the street, didn’t seem to pay much attention to her. They must have seen her lounging on the Martin porch or following Cody when he went to the mailbox, but they never came over and accused the Martins of trying to win their cat’s affection and loyalty.
Miss Ella wasn’t allowed in the Martin house. If Cody’s dad had ever found cat hair on the couch, the game would have been up, and Miss Ella would be formally and finally banned from the premises. Occasionally, she managed to squirt between Cody’s legs when he took out the trash, but either he or his mom would retrieve her before she was discovered.
Cody hadn’t seen much of Miss Ella lately. Probably, he reasoned, because after his mom’s death, the years-old tradition of sneaking the cat albacore tuna and whole milk on the back porch had all but vanished.
“Aw, Mom,” Cody whispered softly as he tucked Miss Ella in his right arm and carried her like a football down the stairs, “even a stupid cat reminds me of you. It was fun, having a secret pet with you.”
He gently set Miss Ella down on the front porch. “You head back t
o your real home, okay? I’ll feed you some tuna this weekend. Sorry that I’ve been neglecting my duties.”
Back in the house, Cody felt his still-tense muscles relax when Blake picked up the phone on the first ring. “Uh, B,” he said tentatively, “I’ve been thinking, and I’m pretty sure my dad would be upset if you weren’t over here, like physically, at night. I’m pretty sure he’d give me a lecture about following the letter of the law—as well as the spirit of the thing.”
He heard Blake chuckling on the other end of the line. “What happened, Code? You watch a scary movie and get spooked or something?”
Cody erupted with a laugh that he hoped didn’t sound as fake as it felt. “Yeah, right, Blake. You think a stupid TV show can scare me? Ha!”
Cody hung up the phone. “A bathrobe, now that’s another story,” he said.
Chapter 7
Captain Cody?
The locker room buzzed with nervous energy. Outside, Cody could hear the cheers rising occasionally as Robyn and the frosh girls battled their longtime rivals from Holy Family. There’s nothing like the home opener, Cody thought, as he watched Bart Evans make his fourth or fifth trip to the urinals, passing Slaven, Sam Hooper, and Gannon on the way.
Mark Goddard, short on height and talent but big on desire, sat on a bench near the entrance bouncing a ball firmly between his legs. The slap-slap of leather on cement seemed to set the backbeat for all the activity.
Coach Clayton moved to the center of the room. “Listen up,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically tight. “To start, we’re going with Bart and Brett at forwards, Slaven in the middle, and Goddard and Gannon at guards. Gannon, you’re on the point, so take care of the rock.
“We’re gonna go man to man on this team. Athletically, I like the way we match up with’em. Slaven, you remember Young, Holy Family’s center? He’s shot up to six feet five inches, but he has all the agility and grace of Frankenstein’s monster. So you can handle him. Just don’t let him push you around. And fellas, we gotta get back on defense. That’s why we’re zero and two right now. Please, fellas. Think defense! Don’t make me beg.”
The team hit the court for warm-ups. Cody heard a sprinkling of applause. He scanned the stands and felt his spirits deflate at the sparse crowd. After drawing full houses in the cramped middle-school gym the previous season, this was a letdown.
“I bet the chess team packs in a better crowd than this,” he grumbled.
“Let’s get some layups in,” Brett Evans called out.
“Nah,” his brother countered. “Let’s just shoot around for a while. Get loosened up.”
Cody saw Brett’s eyes narrow as he stared down Bart. “Coach said layups first.”
“Well, I didn’t hear him.”
“That’s because you weren’t listening, as usual! Some cocaptain you are!”
“Hey,” Cody offered, “let’s compromise and do tip drills.”
Gannon brushed past Cody, grabbing the ball from his hands. “Don’t let me interrupt your little sewing circle,” he said, his voice dripping sarcasm. “But I’m gonna shoot some buckets.”
Cody shrugged and jogged to the Eagle bench and plucked another ball from the stainless-steel rack on wheels. The rest of the team followed suit.
Cody had just missed his fifth straight shot from the left wing when the buzzer sounded, meaning it was game time. Woulda been nice to make at least one shot, he complained to himself. Just to prove I can still shoot. Of course, I woulda sunk at least two or three if Gannon hadn’t shot at the same time and messed up my shots. What does it matter anyway? I’ll probably spend half the game on the bench. I can’t believe Coach didn’t make me a starter right away. Has he forgotten I made all-tournament team last year?
Cody slumped at the end of the bench and watched Holy Family go on a 13–0 run to start the game. Keenan Jones took Bart to school on the first three Saint possessions, and, despite Coach Clayton’s pregame admonitions, Young dominated Slaven on the low post. If it had been Pork Chop at center, the story would have been different. But Pork Chop was playing JV ball. It had taken only three practices for the JV coach to wrest him from Coach Clayton’s clutches. He had notched eighteen points and fifteen boards (and four personal fouls and a warning for a technical foul) in his first junior varsity game. By midseason, Cody estimated, Chop would join Alston on the varsity.
As the Eagle frosh jogged off the court at the end of the first quarter, Cody stared at Coach Clayton, whose narrow face was etched in a frown. “Just dandy, kiddies,” the coach said. “We’re down 16–2— to a team we whupped by 14 last year. Now, math never was my strong suit, but I do believe that makes us about 28 points worse. Did you guys forget everything I taught you last season? This is the most disgusting thing I’ve seen since my ex-mother-in-law donned a two-piece bathing suit at a family reunion. All y’all so-called starters can take a seat. I’m clearing my bench; second five in, now!”
As Cody headed to the scorer’s table to check into the game, Coach Clayton hooked him by the elbow. “Dawg,” he whispered loudly, “how ‘bout stopping with the sulking, getting your head in the game, and starting with some leadership?”
The words stung Cody. For a moment, he thought about protesting his coach’s sarcasm. Then he saw his four teammates wandering onto the court looking like immigrants stepping on US soil for the first time.
“Listen up,” Cody said, approaching them. “Jones is all mine. Hooper, you take Young. And don’t be afraid to front him. Wright, you help Hoop if he gets beaten down low. Lang, overplay Mack to his right. He’s got no left hand. Berringer, it looks like they’re putting in a new guy at two-guard—you got him. C’mon, let’s get back in this!”
Almost as one, Cody’s four teammates stared at him and shrugged. They’re probably wondering who died and made me boss, he reasoned. But that’s okay. I’m not having us go out and get spanked like the starters— in our house! This is downright embarrassing!
Holy Family got the ball to start the quarter. Mack drove right, then looked to lob to Young on the low block. Hooper fought his way in front of the much larger center and, after tipping the pass once, gained control of the ball.
“Outlet, Hoop!” Cody barked at the backup center, holding his hands out. Hooper fired a chest pass to Cody, who immediately looked downcourt and spotted a streaking Berringer. Cody cocked his right arm and hurled a football-style pass—right over Berringer’s head.
“Well, John Elway I am not,” Cody scolded himself, punctuating his remark with a slap across his thigh.
As he backpedaled into defensive position, he heard Coach Clayton yelling, “That’s the right idea, fellas! Keep it up! Keep it up!”
On the Saints’ next possession, Mack was successful in lobbing the ball over Hooper’s up-stretched hands.
“Help!” hollered Cody.
Quickly, Wright left his opponent and slid into position behind Young. When the big center turned toward the basket, he was surprised to find reinforcements in his way. Moments later, he was whistled for too much time in the lane.
Cody pulled alongside Lang as they ran downcourt to set up on offense. “Mack’s giving you lots of room,” he said. “He knows you’re too quick for him.”
Bradley Lang nodded. He called for the ball as soon as Berringer brought it across half-court. As Lang dribbled toward Mack on the left wing, the Saint guard gave ground, his hands low. Lang stopped quickly and elevated for a sixteen-footer that orbited the rim once before dropping in.
After consecutive blocks by Hooper and Cody led to Berringer fast-break layups, Holy Family’s coach ejected from his chair and signaled a time-out.
“We got’em running scared,” Lang said, smiling at Cody as they trotted to the sideline.
“Maybe,” Cody said grimly, “but we’re still getting waxed, 16–8.”
“You so-called starters taking note of this?” Coach Clayton said, staring down his first five with accusing eyes. The Evans brothers nodded sullenly. Slaven
studied his shoes as if they were the most interesting items in the entire gym. Gannon and Goddard stared straight ahead, eyes smoldering.
“Well,” the coach continued after a few uncomfortable seconds dragged by, “keep watching and learning. Second five, stay on the court.”
Holy Family got its first points of the quarter when Jones converted both ends of a one-and-one, but Grant slammed the door after that. The period ended with the Saints clinging to an 18–17 lead.
Cody jogged to the locker room expecting halftime praise for the second unit—and a hailstorm of criticism for the starters. Coach Clayton, however, said nothing until just before the team trotted out of the locker room. “We’ll go with our starters again to start the third,” he said quietly.
As Slaven and Young squared off for the second-half jump ball, Coach Clayton patted the chair next to him. “Martin,” he said, his voice ragged and weary, “right here, dawg.”
Cody whistled sadly through his teeth as he watched Holy Family stretch its lead to ten points. Jones set a beautiful back pick for Mack, and the latter returned the favor moments later. Young earned a three-point play when he head faked Slaven into the air, then banked in a shot from close range.
When Mack hit an uncontested three-pointer from the top of the key, Cody wondered if his coach might bolt onto the court and drag his lackluster starting five to the sidelines. Instead, he just sighed and turned to Cody. “You see what’s happening out there, don’t you, dawg?”
“Yeah. A massacre.”
The coach snorted. “That’s a pretty apt description. But why?”
Cody looked away from Coach Clayton for a moment, turning his eyes to center court where the Evans twins seemed to be arguing over who would assume the unenviable task of guarding Keenan Jones. “Well, I’m not sure, Coach, but it looks like nobody wants to take charge out there.”
“You get a gold star, Cody Martin,” Coach Clayton said, his voice resonating with disgust. “For the love of Larry Bird, nobody wants to be a leader. What we’ve got out there are five guys playing as individuals, not as a team. Nobody wants to be accountable for bringing’em together—the way you were with the second five.”