Toby Wheeler

by Thatcher Heldring

  We have hall passes, I thought. What are you doing here?

  I didn’t want to be nosy, though, so instead I said, “I’m showing Megan where room two-twelve A is.” That made me think of the class next door so I turned to Megan and added, “In sixth grade, JJ and I had music in room two-fourteen A, but we spent a lot of time out in the hallway—especially during rehearsals for the holiday recital. I was supposed to sing ‘Walking in a Winter Wonderland’ for my solo, only JJ gave me two candy canes to change the words to ‘walking in a woman’s underwear.’ From then on, every time we sang ‘Winter Wonderland,’ we started laughing so hard Mrs. Morrison would just point to the door without saying anything. Oh, man, it was the best. Remember, JJ?”

  JJ twisted a beat-up songbook in his hands. He had no backpack or any other books. Obviously he and Valerie were not on their way to class. Glancing down the empty hallway, he said, “Yeah, Toby. I remember. That was pretty funny.”

  Valerie smiled at Megan. “Are you new?”

  “I just moved here,” Megan said.

  “I like your skirt,” Valerie said.

  “Thanks. What happened to your forehead?”

  Remind me to thank Megan for that later.

  Soon Megan and Valerie were speed-talking. Their voices had reached a pitch my ears could no longer detect. JJ had tuned out too. He was absentmindedly tapping the songbook against a locker, while I began twirling my elastic key chain around my pointer finger.

  When Valerie gasped at the sound of a door closing, it was very startling. So startling that the key chain spun right off my finger and into Valerie’s cheek. It fell to the floor with a plink, but not before leaving a red mark underneath Valerie’s right eye. “Yeow!” she yelled. “Toby!”

  The footsteps, which had been fading, stopped, then grew louder.

  Valerie scooped up the key chain and threw it back at me. She missed and the keys rattled against a locker. That was the moment Coach Applewhite rounded the corner and zeroed in on us like a heat-seeking missile. Megan and I were in the clear. We had hall passes. But JJ and Valerie were busted.

  “What’s going on here?” Coach asked, straightening his tie. “Megan, why aren’t you in class?”

  “Relax, Dad. We have hall passes.”

  “Megan,” Coach said sternly. “Not in school.”

  “Sorry, Dad.”

  When Valerie heard Megan call Coach Applewhite dad, she popped her head to the side. “No way.”

  Coach peered at Valerie through his glasses. “Who’s this?” he asked.

  “This is Valerie, my friend.”

  Facing Valerie with his back to Megan, Coach asked, “Are you the one Megan had pizza with Sunday night?”

  Megan nodded rapidly in Valerie’s direction and mouthed, Say yes.

  Valerie never missed a beat. “Yup, that was me, Coach Applewhite.”

  “And why aren’t you in class?”

  “Sh-she was showing me where room two-twelve A was,” Megan sputtered.

  Would Coach buy it? We held our breath. Slowly, he looked us all over once more, told everyone to go straight to class, then turned on his heel and marched away.

  “Phew,” said Megan and Valerie at the same time. This caused them both to laugh hysterically. JJ and I looked at each other and shrugged. When the coast was clear, he and Valerie darted off down the hallway, then out the side door that led to the wooded area behind the school. I dropped Megan off at room 212A for earth science, then hustled around the corner to social studies. One thing bothered me. Megan had said the other night that I had nothing to worry about when it came to her father. But why then did she turn sheet-white and panic when Coach asked Valerie if she was the person Megan had been with on Sunday? If Megan had a reason to be nervous about her dad, didn’t I?

  8

  By Thursday, I had realized one thing: When it came to basketball practice, being the twelfth man was no picnic. I had to show up on time every day and run wind sprints whenever someone missed a layin or a free throw or whenever Coach Applewhite felt like blowing his whistle. Then I stood on the sideline while Coach walked the first and second teams through the offense. Once in a while it was fun. Sometimes, if one of the players wasn’t catching on, Coach would take the guy by the arm and act like he was helping a blind man across the street, which usually got a laugh. But that just led to more wind sprints and Coach lecturing us that if we were laughing in practice, we weren’t taking it seriously, and if we weren’t taking it seriously, we shouldn’t be there at all. I stuck it out, looking forward to the moment JJ and I would be on the court together. In the meantime, my way of taking practice seriously was to try to listen to Coach, while the other odd man out, Malcolm, made comments like this:

  “That’s not what Malcolm would have done.”

  “Malcolm would’ve dunked that.”

  “You’re lucky Malcolm isn’t guarding you.”

  “Coach better get Malcolm the ball soon, baby.”

  Coach had spent most of those first three days teaching us the offense—a motion offense. The idea was to move without the ball and set screens for each other to get the best shot possible. Raj always brought the ball upcourt. Khalil and Ruben were the post players. They set up on one side. Roy started on the wing, above Khalil and Roy, isolating JJ on the other wing. Coach insisted JJ get an open look on every offensive possession. The fact that Coach was running the offense through JJ made me feel like a million dollars because, to me, JJ was just the guy I had shot hoops with a thousand times on Boardman Street, and if I could play with him there, I figured I could play with anyone, anywhere. Coach also told us we would have to think for ourselves on the court. “There isn’t going to be a play for every situation,” he said. “You have to learn to recognize and react in the flow of the game. Observe. Anticipate. React. Finish!”

  In one typical motion, Raj crossed midcourt and made two moves. First he passed to Roy on his right. Second, he moved to his left and set a screen for JJ. If the timing was right, JJ would have an open shot somewhere near the top of the paint. But the timing was never right.

  “Rule number one for today,” said Coach, “you have to move with a purpose. If you stand around after passing the ball, the offense stalls. Movement, movement, movement!” He clapped. “If nothing looks good, reset the offense and run it again until we get what we want.”

  There was a pause before Coach sent one of the white shirts to the bench. Then he grabbed me and said, “Go ahead, son. Get in there.”

  I nearly fell on my face running onto the court. After two days of standing on the sideline with Malcolm, this was my chance. I might have been a rookie, but I could play with anyone on that team, and now Roy Morelli and everyone else would see it. I only wished there had been time to slap hands with JJ before the whistle blew.

  Coach waved me to the weak side, which meant the ball was going to come to me. Movement, movement, movement. Catch and shoot or catch and pass. My brain understood what to do, but my hands didn’t. Instead of passing or shooting, I put the ball on the floor and dribbled.

  Coach blew his whistle. “Wheeler, don’t dribble—pass! Do it again!”

  This time, I remembered to pass but forgot to move, and the offense got bunched up on one side of the court.

  Again, Coach blew his whistle. “Wheeler!” he barked. “Don’t just stand there—move to space! Do it again!”

  On the third try, I remembered to pass. I remembered to move. What I forgot was where to move. I was supposed to go left—toward the ball. I went right—away from the ball.

  Coach marched over to me, took me by the elbow, and led me to the correct spot. Of course, this made everyone laugh, which just made Coach more upset, and he ordered us to the line for wind sprints. The whole team looked at me, disgusted. Some of them groaned. Roy glanced down the line at me and muttered, “You’re killing me, Wheeler.” Even JJ was avoiding eye contact. Not a high five or a nod. It was as though instead of giving him a reason to see me as an equal, I
was giving him new reasons to see me as a chump. First, he was friends with the only eighth grader in Pilchuck who still wanted to trick-or-treat. Now he was friends with the rookie who couldn’t find the right spot on the court with two hands and a flashlight. I was going backward. I had to play better.

  On the fifth try, I finally got it right. Catch, pass, move with a purpose. Bing. Bang. Boom. When my screen led to an open jumper, Coach blew his whistle and clapped. “Good, Toby. You’re getting it. We just might make a basketball player out of you yet.” I was winded, but smiling. Ruben and Raj congratulated me, even though they were on the other team. Roy gave it up for me too—in his own way. “It’s about time,” he said as we caught our breath.

  Next, Coach told us to start a full-court scrimmage. Now JJ and I were playing against each other, best friends matched up on opposing teams. Would I have an advantage others didn’t because I knew his game, or would I be his latest victim? I wasn’t sure. But being out there with him for some real up-and-down action, like we were back at the rec center, fired me up so much I almost forgot one of us was a benchwarmer. That feeling lasted about as long as it took Coach to say “Go!” What happened when the ball came to me was like a rec center game on fast forward. I had only held the ball for a second—barely time to open my eyes—when Raj and JJ closed in, shouting “Trap! Trap! Trap!” I panicked. Picked up the ball, then tossed it in the air like a hot potato and hoped whoever caught it was wearing a white jersey. A total rookie move, but what could I do? JJ had pounced on me. There was a look in his eyes I had never seen. Was it some competitive edge JJ saved for big moments, or had something about seeing me on the court in Pilchuck gym brought it out?

  He didn’t let up. And I tried not to back down. When Raj called motion, JJ was on the right wing, with me sticking him. I gave JJ space, knowing he would come off a screen and pass to Ruben—that was the play. But when JJ got the rock, he squared up and shot.

  “Good, JJ,” said Coach. “Toby, don’t give him that kind of space.”

  Next possession. Same situation. Only this time, I played him tighter. JJ got the ball off the pass, shimmied left, shimmied right, then left again, around me, and straight to the hoop.

  “Good, JJ,” said Coach again. “Toby, not so tight.”

  It continued. JJ went through me, over me, by me, and under me. He never said a word. Just picked me apart with this Terminator look on his face.

  “Hey, man,” Ruben said to him when Coach wasn’t listening. “Why don’t you give the guy a break?”

  “And someone else the ball,” said Roy.

  All JJ said was “I told you it wouldn’t be like the rec center, Toby.”

  “I never said it would be.”

  “Yeah, but you thought it. I know you.”

  Maybe he was trying to prove a point. Team ball was a different game than pickup ball. And I was going to have to get used to running with guys who were faster, stronger, and better. Still, did he have to show me up in front of the whole team—and Coach?

  Eventually, Coach called off the slaughter and we gathered in a circle at midcourt like we did at the end of every practice—after shooting free throws, of course. Raj had made two in a row so we got a one-day break from wind sprints. Everybody was pretty psyched about that—especially Khalil. Coach was about to send us to the locker room when the gym door opened and Megan entered. The sound of the door falling closed behind her made us all turn our heads.

  Raj straightened his uniform.

  Khalil sucked in his chest.

  Roy stopped picking his teeth.

  There was whispering and pointing, too.

  Coach smiled and waved at Megan. “Hi, Champ,” he called. “Be with you in a minute.” Champ? I could tell some of the guys were ready to bust out laughing when they heard that one.

  Megan looked at Coach, horrified. Her eyes grew to twice their normal size and her chin jutted forward in disbelief. Coach smiled back, sheepishly. Megan shook her head, then ducked into the gym office—but not before spying me and wiggling her fingers in my direction. Everybody who had been watching Megan spun their heads to face me.

  “Looks like the benchwarmer’s got a girlfriend,” someone said.

  Coach glared at me, his knuckles white on the clipboard.

  What was Megan thinking? It’s bad enough it took me five tries to run a simple play—now Coach thinks I’m putting the moves on his daughter! I had to say something. But what? “I’m her math tutor,” I sputtered at last. “I’m helping her with algebra.” I managed my best innocent face and looked up at Coach, who appeared to be doing some math of his own in his head. Something told me the equation he was solving went like this.

  Toby with Megan in the hall + Megan waving at Toby in the gym = dead man on the end of the bench.

  9

  The next day, Friday, Megan and I met in the cafeteria to work on math. We cleared some space at the end of a table along the back wall. The year before, JJ and I had sat at that same table, shoveling lunch down as quickly as possible so we could get outside and claim the one hoop with a net on the cracked basketball courts by the parking lot. When school started this year, two things had changed. First, the good hoop was gone, knocked down to make room for another portable classroom. Second, Valerie and Stephen began eating with us, which made me think that even if the hoop had still been there, we wouldn’t have been racing outside to claim it. I was getting a little tired of watching Stephen and JJ pass songbooks back and forth like they were pricing baseball cards while Valerie went through her mirror, mirror routine. Helping Megan gave me an excuse to sit somewhere else, so it was a win-win situation, as long as Coach didn’t show up and get the wrong idea.

  Megan laid her book and papers on the table. The first sheet she showed me was a homework assignment. On the top of the page was her score: 3 for 10.

  “The positives were no problem,” she explained. “But the negatives gave me a hard time.”

  We went over her homework together.

  Problem one was adding positives: 8 + 12 = 20. Megan got that right, obviously. Problem two was subtracting positives: 54 - 18 = 36. Right again. Easy. Problem number three was more addition: 5 + (-9) = -4.

  “I understand that,” said Megan. She pointed to her number line. “I just started at five and counted nine places to the left. But this is what I don’t understand: negative five minus negative eight.”

  Her answer was negative thirteen.

  “It’s three,” I said.

  Megan scrunched her nose. The freckles bunched together. “How can a negative minus a negative be positive? I mean, if you have something negative and make it more negative, it should be really negative, right?”

  “Not if you’re taking it away,” I said. “Think about it like this. If you take away something bad, it’s actually good. Like on a team. If someone is being a pain and hurting the team, he’s a negative. Right?”

  Megan nodded. “Okay.”

  “So take him away from the team,” I said. “Subtract the negative. And what do you have?”

  “A better team, hopefully.”

  “Yeah—a positive.”

  After a while, Megan was feeling much better about positives and negatives. And I was starting to feel better about being in public with her. We talked for the rest of lunch, mostly about school and basketball. Hanging out with Megan was easy. It wasn’t that I didn’t see her as a girl—believe me, I did—it was just that unlike most girls, Megan never made me self-conscious, like there was something wrong with me. I could be myself around her, and that was pretty cool.

  “How’s the girls’ team?” I asked.

  Megan brightened. “I think we’re gonna be pretty good,” she said. “I hope people will come to our games.” She chewed on a granola bar and surveyed the cafeteria. I did the same. A few tables over, the girls’ team sat together, all of them wearing Pilchuck colors—green and white. Nearby, JJ sat with Valerie and Stephen at a four-person table, the fourth seat empty. Across
the room, most of the basketball team was gathered around Ruben. Khalil and Roy were on his immediate right and left. Occasional bits of food flew back and forth with good-natured laughter.

  At the other end of our table, Raj and McKlusky were really going at it about something. Raj was sitting ramrod-straight and slapping his palm on the surface with every third word. McKlusky was hunched over the table, wagging his finger. At first, I figured the argument was about this ongoing game of Risk they had been playing since June (and talking about every day before basketball practice), but the way the words girls, date, and blast kept popping up, it was clear we were way beyond world domination.

  Finally, Raj turned away from McKlusky in disgust and said, as though she was his last hope, “Megan, you’re a girl, right?”

  “If not, I’ve been changing in the wrong locker room.”

  “Right,” said Raj. “Well, maybe you can settle something. It’s about the Winter Blast.” Raj meant the dance at the end of January. I had skipped the Winter Blast the year before because there was a basketball game on TV that night. Also, I couldn’t dance and I was sure I would embarrass myself trying.

  Raj went on, “McKlusky says the reason nobody brings a date to the Winter Blast is that none of the girls want any of us to ask them. But I say the girls do want us to ask them, but we don’t because chivalry is dead.”

  “Tell them what chivalry means,” said McKlusky.

  Raj looked at McKlusky impatiently. “They know what it means. Don’t interrupt me.”

  “It means being a gentleman,” said McKlusky.

  “I know what it means,” Megan assured him as he and Raj slid over. “And if you’re asking me if I would want someone to ask me to the dance rather than just going by myself, the answer is it depends on who asked me.”

  “But you’re not opposed to it in principle,” Raj clarified.

  “That’s right,” Megan agreed.

  Raj slapped the table. “See,” he said to McKlusky. “Girls do want to be asked. My cousin was right.”