Comeback Kid

by Steve Moore

  Every one of the Lakers players had contributed in the win. Meanwhile, Vido had scored ninety-nine of the Goons’ one hundred points. But they still lost.

  Billionaire Bill’s valuable nugget of advice started to make sense.

  “The main ingredient in stardom is the rest of the team.”

  CHAPTER 6

  At school on Monday, Jimmy Jimerino claimed credit for the basketball team’s comeback win over the Chaney Werewolves.

  He strolled into the cafeteria at lunch like one of those superheroes in the movies who just single-handedly defeated a madman and his clone army when they tried to destroy the world.

  My friends and I sat in our usual spot at the C Central table. It’s right along Jimmy’s path to the Jock Table, where he rules over a posse of slobbering kiss-ups.

  As Jimmy walked toward our table, he looked at Becky O’Callahan. (He and Becky once were “a thing,” but she had figured out pretty quickly that Jimmy didn’t exactly fry her burger.)

  Becky pretended to drop her napkin on the floor, and she ducked under the table to avoid eye contact with Jimmy.

  Then Jimmy looked right at me.

  I had just taken a huge bite out of that day’s Mighty Plumbers Special—“the Tyrannosaurus Mex.” It was a gigantic taco with tons of meat, beans, lettuce, tomatoes, imitation cheese product, and hot sauce. (It was one of the few cafeteria meals that actually fried my burger, so to speak.)

  Melted imitation cheese product and hot sauce oozed out of both corners of my mouth and dribbled onto my T-shirt. I was defenseless.

  Jimmy stopped and pointed at me.

  “Hey, there he is—Mr. Belly Slider!”

  His kiss-up posse laughed their rear ends off.

  Then Jimmy and his crew strolled off to plant their rear ends on benches at the Jock Table.

  Becky resurfaced from her fake napkin rescue mission. Joey resumed taking tiny bites out of the peanut-butter-and-anchovy sandwich that his mom had packed. And Carlos never even paused his frontal assault on his three—three—Tyrannosaurus Mex tacos.

  CHAPTER 7

  Later that day, Jimmy strolled into math class fifteen minutes late. He was chewing gum, which is a minor violation of school rules. And he was talking on his cell phone, which is strictly forbidden during class.

  Then he pointed at me and winked.

  “Mr. Belly Slider!”

  Mr. Spleen, the math teacher, was in the middle of scrawling alien symbols on the whiteboard.

  I kept waiting for Jimmy to be reprimanded for being fifteen minutes late, or, at the very least, for chewing gum. But that didn’t happen.

  Jimmy sat in his seat directly in front of me and slouched down so that Mr. Spleen could not see that he had switched his phone conversation to text messaging.

  He did stop chewing gum, but only because he had chewed the flavor down to zero. Jimmy pulled the worthless gum wad out of his mouth and stuck it under his chair.

  The entire class sort of just shrugged off the incident because Jimmy is a hotshot athlete.

  But one student decided to speak up.

  Jessica Whitehead, the school genius, raised her hand.

  Jessica is very smart, but she sometimes can act like an entitled athlete.

  Mr. Spleen thought about Jessica’s question for about 15 − 13 = 2 seconds. Then he just chuckled, turned his back, and scrawled more alien symbols on the whiteboard.

  Jessica was 15 − 15 = 0 happy about Mr. Spleen’s answer.

  CHAPTER 8

  When I got home after school, I barricaded myself in my room. Well, it wasn’t a barricade. The door doesn’t even have a lock. I just shut it firmly.

  It wasn’t like I was blocking out the world and acting all mopey and depressed because of Jimmy’s Mr. Belly Slider slam. I was just trying to keep one of my pets from escaping my bedroom and scaring my mom right out of her skull.

  Fido is the best pet in the entire universe, and I’m not even exaggerating. He’s a boa constrictor, which is a snake that can grow to ten feet. That’s big enough to swallow a small poodle.

  Fido’s not that big. Yet. For now he can only swallow a mouse or maybe a rat.

  I keep my bedroom door closed because Fido often escapes from his terrarium. If I leave my door open, he roams our house searching for me because we’re bonded and he’s got “separation anxiety.” That’s a psychological disorder common in boa constrictors and most first graders.

  I have two other pets inside my bedroom: A bug-eyed goldfish named Zoner who has narcolepsy, which causes her to fall asleep unexpectedly, and Frenchy, a poodle who is just about the right size for a ten-foot boa constrictor to swallow.

  Zoner is one of those “low-maintenance pets.” She just needs to be fed and, when she suddenly falls asleep and turns belly up, I just need to make sure no one thinks she’s kacked.

  But Frenchy is high-maintenance and totally demented. He lives under my bed and never comes out except to “do his business” in the backyard. (And then I have to clean it up.)

  Frenchy demands that his food and water be delivered to him under the bed. Why? I don’t know. You’d have to ask Frenchy, but all you’d get in response would be growling and snapping teeth.

  Frenchy is the most entitled dog in the entire universe, and I’m not even exaggerating. He’s worse than entitled hotshot athletes, because I’m pretty sure they don’t “do their business” in the backyard and then make someone else clean it up.

  That afternoon, I finished my homework in about two minutes. It helped that the only assignment I had was a study sheet for a test in history. Mr. Chisholm, the history teacher, always makes the study sheets an exact replica of the test, so all I had to do was memorize the answers.

  I had a lot of time before dinner, so I decided to take my basketball outside and practice rebounding. I figured if I worked hard and got really good at leaping up and grabbing rebounds then Coach Earwax would have no other choice than to put me in the game.

  But first, I had to find my basketball.

  I normally keep it in my closet underneath the pile of rancid athletic socks that drives my mom right out of her skull. But it wasn’t there. I looked everywhere in my room with no luck.

  Then I got down on my hands and knees and looked under my bed.

  Frenchy immediately growled and snorted. He somehow had dug the basketball out from underneath my rancid sock pile without kacking from the toxic fumes. Then he’d pushed it into his demented poodle cave beneath my bed.

  Frenchy wasn’t going to give up the basketball without a fight. What a ball hog!

  I tried to reach under and grab the basketball, but Frenchy growled even louder and snapped his teeth. He’s never actually bitten anyone, but I wasn’t going to take a chance, because a wounded hand would hurt my ability to rebound.

  So I went and got a broom and used the handle to rescue my basketball from the mad poodle. I knocked it out from under my bed, but Frenchy pretty much shredded the broom handle with his canine teeth.

  CHAPTER 9

  My house has a large backyard with a pond where my pet duck, Cleo, sticks her head underwater all day and scarfs up mysterious edible scum off the bottom. Cleo is very intelligent. She has the IQ of a ninth grader, and I’m not even exaggerating.

  Oh, and Cleo thinks she’s a dog.

  Anyway, I also have a portable basketball hoop in my backyard. It’s backed up against the fence between my house and our neighbor’s. Mrs. Smoot is a recluse, which means she never leaves her house—not to plant flowers in her front yard or to vote in local elections or to work out at a gym.

  Never.

  No one in the neighborhood even knows what she looks like. But I do know that Mrs. Smoot has about ten million cats, by my estimate. She is a pet hoarder.

  I went out into my backyard with my basketball and stood in front of the portable hoop.

  There is only one way I know to practice rebounding by yourself. You throw the basketball at the hoop with no intention of m
aking a basket. Just chuck it at the backboard, then go get the rebound when it ricochets in an unpredictable direction. It’s a great way to sharpen reaction skills.

  I was working hard and doing a good job snagging unpredictable rebounds. Unfortunately, my aim sometimes was off target. A few times, instead of hitting the backboard, the basketball ricocheted off the side of Mrs. Smoot’s house and made a pretty loud racket.

  Her ten million hoarded cats freaked out.

  And Mrs. Smoot called the police. Derp!

  I guess she and the cats thought they were being attacked by zombies or pelted by meteorites. Anyway, an officer showed up at my house.

  He was pretty cool about the whole ricochet thing and my poor aim, but he told me to move the basketball hoop to some other part of the backyard so that I didn’t drive Mrs. Smoot and her ten million hoarded cats right out of their skulls.

  I had to keep practicing my rebounding. I wasn’t going to get a chance to play in a Mighty Plumbers basketball game unless I worked for it.

  So after the police officer left, I rolled the portable hoop to the opposite side of my backyard against our other neighbor’s fence.

  And I crossed my fingers and hoped that my off-target throws wouldn’t freak out Mr. Verheyen’s backyard chicken coop full of egg-laying hens.

  CHAPTER 10

  The Mighty Plumbers’ next game was played at Stanford Middle School, home of the Green. That’s their team name. A color. And it’s not even plural. Just Green.

  (Coach told us Stanford’s nickname once was the “Raging Robins.” But school officials changed it because they were worried that opponents would be frightened by the image of an enraged yard bird, which I’ve always thought was the whole point of a sports mascot.)

  The Spiro basketball players got to skip our last-period class. Most of the team lucked out because they missed math class.

  But Stephanie Jennison and I missed literature, which is one of my favorite classes—and one of the few subjects where I get above-average grades.

  Ms. Katinsky teaches literature. She also teaches theater and, on the side, coaches a couple of Spiro teams in order to earn a few extra bucks to pay for personal expenses. Stuff like food and rent.

  In case you don’t already know, schoolteachers work hard, but they don’t exactly rake in a lot of cash like other professionals.

  That seems backward. If it weren’t for teachers, the world would be crawling with people who can’t count or spell or sit quietly at a desk all day.

  I personally think the world should be more like this:

  Maybe in some other universe.

  Anyway, Stephanie and I skipped last period. I grabbed my basketball gear out of my locker. It was in a sports bag my dad had used when he was a hotshot athlete back in the ancient 1980s. It’s an actual leather bag. Not one of those wimpy synthetic bags that every kid in middle school drags around.

  The Spiro basketball team gathered in the parking lot and lined up to get on the van to our game across town at Stanford Middle School.

  I probably don’t even need to explain this, but the primo seats on trips to away games are in the back of the van.

  No players ever actually choose to sit up front.

  Joey, Carlos, and I lined up with most of the other players at the van doorway. But Jimmy Jimerino and his kiss-up posse member, Skinny Dennis, barged past everyone and took over the primo seats in the back of the van.

  Jimmy sprawled out on the back bench seat and told lame jokes loud enough for the entire van to hear. Skinny was obligated to laugh his rear end off even though he’d already heard the same jokes about a million times.

  (I thought it was ironic that Jimmy would tell that particular joke.)

  Meanwhile, my friends and I ended up sitting in seats next to Coach at the front of the van.

  Carlos sat next to Coach Earwax. He was totally trapped into silence and non-shenanigans. Joey and I sat in the seats across the aisle so we could at least talk to each other.

  On the ride to the game against the Green, I thought about leaning across the aisle and asking Coach Earwax if he could figure out some kind of rotation system for seating on van rides to away games.

  But the timing wasn’t right.

  He was busy cleaning wax out of his brain so he’d be able to make brilliant coaching decisions during the game.

  CHAPTER 11

  In spite of their weak and useless team nickname, Stanford Middle School had one of the best basketball teams in the league.

  Before running out onto the court, our team huddled around Coach Earwax in the visitors’ dank locker room for his pregame pep talk.

  (The visitors’ locker room was musty and unsanitary, because it’s practically a rule in school sports that home teams force the visiting teams to change clothes in squalid conditions.)

  In our huddle, Coach told us the only way that we could defeat the Green was with a “total team effort.”

  Coach used that term a lot. And every time he did, he looked directly at Jimmy Jimerino.

  His pep talk went on for another few minutes, but I missed much of what he said because my brain zoned out to random thoughts of lizards and cheeseburgers. My mind does that a lot, mostly when a coach or teacher or parent gets too wordy.

  Anyway, I did hear one thing Coach Earwax told us. It was a quote from John Wooden, that ancient college basketball coach who Billionaire Bill also quoted.

  My teammates didn’t understand, but I sort of knew what he was talking about because my mom had used a similar phrase when I was learning how to mow the lawn.

  I’d rushed to get the job done so I could go do something more fun, like . . . um, pretty much anything else but mow the lawn. But because I hurried, I’d missed a bunch of little strips of grass. Then I had to go back and mow them again. Mom told me:

  “The hurrier you go, the behinder you get!”

  Mom meant that if I rushed the job, mistakes would be made. And I think that ancient Wooden dude was saying the same thing.

  CHAPTER 12

  The game against Stanford didn’t begin the way Coach Earwax had hoped.

  The Mighty Plumbers did not have a “total team effort.” We had a “total one-man effort.” Jimmy Jimerino was the star. Without the rest of the team.

  Here’s a short description of the first half of Spiro’s basketball game against Stanford:

  Jimmy. Jimmy. Jimmy.

  He scored every single point in the first half. The Mighty Plumbers shuffled into the musty and unsanitary visitors’ locker room trailing the Green, 50–42.

  Skinny slapped Jimmy on the back and gave him high fives. Why? I don’t know. You’d have to ask Skinny, who was wide open under the hoop during the entire first half because he was at least a foot taller than the Green center.

  As soon as we were all inside the locker room, Coach Earwax slammed the door. He walked over to Jimmy and stuck his nose about two inches away from Jimmy’s nose.

  Then Coach went off on a rant that sprayed about a gallon of spit right in Jimmy’s face. And I’m not even exaggerating!

  I didn’t catch everything that Coach Earwax yelled at Jimmy because, once again, he got really wordy and my mind zoned out to random thoughts of lizards and cheeseburgers.

  But I did hear Coach asking Jimmy about a hundred times: “Where was the team effort?” And “Is there an ‘I’ in team?” Oh, and “Why are you smiling?”

  The entire time Coach Earwax was lecturing, Jimmy had one of those smile/smirk things going on with his mouth. Coach clearly thought it was a smile. The rest of us knew it was a smirk.

  Jimmy’s brain might have been just zoning out to random thoughts of cheeseburgers and lizards.

  Or maybe not.

  Anyway, Coach Earwax told Jimmy—right in front of the entire team—that he would be benched if his “selfishness” did not disappear in the second half.

  CHAPTER 13

  Jimmy did play more like a teammate in the second half. Sort of.


  After the tip-off, Becky made an excellent move to get free under the basket. Jimmy wanted to shoot from WAY outside, but he tripped and had to make an awkward pass to Becky. She scored an easy layup.

  After that, Jimmy relapsed. He was a ball hog and the Mighty Plumbers fell further behind.

  The Green center scored six unanswered points. Even though he was shorter than Skinny, he was quick. And he wasn’t selfish.

  After scoring his six points, the center dished out passes to his teammates, and Stanford jumped out to a twenty-five-point lead.

  The Mighty Plumbers were getting smeared by the Green.

  Coach Earwax called a time-out. He took a knee in front of our bench. But he didn’t scribble diagrams on his whiteboard. Coach pointed at Joey.

  The time-out ended, and Joey entered the game as the point guard. Jimmy took a seat on the bench next to me. He was not happy. And neither was his dad.

  Mr. Jimerino had to follow strict rules when attending Mighty Plumbers games: No yelling at players. No yelling at referees. No yelling at coaches. And he had to sit right in front of our school principal, Mother T, who has a mysterious mental power that controls weak and useless parents.

  But right when Jimmy sat down on the bench and Joey entered the game, Mother T left the bleachers to get a hot dog and a soda. Or maybe to go to the restroom. I don’t know for sure.

  Anyway, when Mother T left and Joey went into the game for Jimmy, Mr. Jimerino broke out of his disciplinary probation. He jumped up and launched into one of his notorious rants.

  Quick Time-Out about Mr. Jimerino

  I’m about 73 percent sure that what I know about Jimmy’s dad is pretty much the truth.