by Steve Moore
My best friend Joey told me that his dad went to Spiro T. Agnew Middle School with Mr. Jimerino way back in the ancient 1980s. They both played sports, but Joey’s dad was a hotshot athlete and Jimmy’s dad was a benchwarmer.
He sat on the pine in baseball, football, soccer, and basketball. The Spiro coach only put Mr. Jimerino in the game if the score was a hundred to zip.
I guess that didn’t exactly fry his burger, because now Mr. Jimerino does everything he can to make sure that Jimmy is a hotshot athlete in all sports.
Mr. Jimerino is at every tryout. Every practice. Every scrimmage. Every pre-season game. Every league game. Every championship game. He even tries to weasel his way into team meetings.
Before every practice or game, Mr. Jimerino pulls Jimmy aside for a talk. No one knows exactly what he is saying, but we can tell that it is some kind of lecture because Jimmy’s shoulders are all slumped and his head is bowed.
And during the game?
Mr. Jimerino behaves as if HE were playing in the game. Why? I don’t know. You’d have to ask Mr. Jimerino. But I’m pretty sure all you’d get in response is an angry rant.
My grandfather, who is basically a hermit and lives on a sailboat in Hawaii, once told me about a mysterious mental condition where some parents “live vicariously” through their kids.
That means Mr. Jimerino pretty much feels like he got ripped off during his playing days at Spiro T. Agnew Middle School, and he’s trying to make up for it through his son.
Mr. Jimerino wants to pressure his son to be the hotshot athlete that he wanted to be.
Or at least I’m 73 percent sure that’s what Mr. Jimerino is thinking.
When Jimmy sat down on the pine and Joey replaced him in the game, Jimmy’s dad stood up and shouted at Coach Earwax. He didn’t really need to shout, though.
Coach Earwax ignored Jimmy’s dad (or maybe Coach’s ears were too clogged with wax to hear him), and Joey took over as the Mighty Plumbers point guard.
Then Mother T returned to her seat and Mr. Jimerino immediately went silent.
CHAPTER 14
I would love to tell you that the Mighty Plumbers basketball team suddenly woke up and played like champions when Joey hit the court, but that would be a huge whopper.
There was hope in the first minute.
Skinny Dennis passed the ball to Joey, who darted downcourt, around, through, and under the Stanford defenders.
In spite of his tiny size, Joey was quick as a flea, and the Green defense struggled to stop him from dribbling deep into the key. He was awesome!
It looked like Joey could score an easy layup, but at the last second he passed the ball to a teammate.
Skinny was wide open under the basket, but he was used to Jimmy’s habit of never passing the ball.
Derp!
The Green point guard grabbed the rebound off of Skinny’s forehead and dribbled the entire length of the court and scored an easy layup.
Mr. Jimerino, of course, blamed it all on poor Joey. I heard him mumble, quietly, so that Mother T couldn’t hear him.
When Mr. Jimerino mumbled that rude comment about my friend Joey, I got an urge to do something desperate.
We were losing by twenty-seven points. The Spiro crowd was gloomy and silent. Even the usually perky and hyperactive cheerleaders were all dreary and scrunching their faces as if someone had just cut cheese.
I decided to do the Rally Slide.
It was a huge risk. I had no idea if it could actually change the momentum of a game or if it was just a fluke. I could look like a fool for absolutely no reason. But I was sitting on the bench and didn’t really have much else to do.
I waited until the Mighty Plumbers had possession of the ball. Joey was standing at the top of the key preparing to do his quick-as-a-flea dash to the hoop.
I got up and imagined that a gym rat had just stolen a tasty protein bar from Ricky Schnauzer’s neatly stacked pile and it was making a break for its hideout under the bleachers.
I took three steps, dove onto my belly, and slid ten feet across the floor like a baseball player diving to snag a line drive.
Fortunately, the Spiro fans in the bleachers behind our bench remembered my epic belly slide in the game against the Chaney Werewolves. They all jumped up and down and cheered.
All except one.
Joey and the other Mighty Plumbers on the court heard the burst of cheers from the Spiro crowd, and it pumped up their spirits.
Becky darted to the top of the key and set a pick for Joey. (A pick is sort of like a block in football, except no one gets their bones broken or face smashed into the ground.)
Becky’s pick allowed Joey to dribble around the key to the baseline, close to the basket. Instead of taking a shot, Joey passed the ball back to Becky. Then she passed the ball to Dewey, who passed the ball to Stephanie, who passed the ball to Skinny, who scored.
Every player on our team played a part in scoring the basket!
The Spiro crowd started chanting:
“Rally Slide! Rally Slide! Rally Slide!”
So I did it again.
I took three steps, dove onto my belly, and slid ten feet across the floor. And that’s all it took. The Mighty Plumbers seized the Big Mo.
With Jimmy sitting on the bench in the final minutes, the Mighty Plumbers rallied from a twenty-seven-point deficit and defeated the Stanford Green by two points.
Joey did a great job filling in at point guard, but there were no stars in the comeback win. It was a team effort. Even I got credit.
I was going to tell Coach about the felonious gym rat that stole expensive protein bars, but Jimmy approached Coach Earwax with his head bowed. It looked like he was maybe going to apologize for hogging the ball, so I gave them some privacy.
But before Jimmy even said a word to Coach, Mr. Jimerino swooped in and pulled his son away.
The team got on the van for the ride to Spiro T. Agnew Middle School. But Jimmy was not on board.
Jimmy road home with his dad. Meanwhile, two others took over his prime shenanigans seat in the back of the van.
Becky and Ricky?!
Oh. My. Derp.
CHAPTER 15
The day after our win against the Stanford Green, I took my basketball out into the backyard for more rebounding practice.
I was happy that our team had won. And my Rally Slide had turned into a fun sideline attraction that may or may not have helped Spiro regain the Big Mo.
But my mind was set on getting off the bench and into the game. I knew there was something more I could do to contribute. So I went back to work to become a lean, mean rebounding machine.
I had already moved my portable basketball hoop to the side of the yard away from Mrs. Smoot and her ten million hoarded cats, which were scared out of their tiny brains by any kind of loud noise.
The hoop was set up next to my other neighbor’s fence.
The chickens in Mr. Verheyen’s backyard were really laid-back. They pretty much just pecked at mysterious edible stuff in the grass all day and then laid eggs in a henhouse at night.
I was worried that my rebounding noise would disturb the hens and they would freak out and quit laying eggs. But Mr. Verheyen’s chickens didn’t even flinch.
I threw the basketball at the backboard, intentionally missing the hoop, and then I grabbed the rebound. And I kept doing it, over and over, until it was dark and Mr. Verheyen’s chickens had gone home to roost.
I was determined to become a lean, mean rebounding machine.
CHAPTER 16
The Mighty Plumbers’ next game was at home versus Simplot Middle School. At the start of the season, sports pundits predicted that the Blazing Spuds would struggle in a “rebuilding year.”
That’s a polite way of saying the Simplot basketball team was weak and useless and they would get creamed in every game.
Most of the time, everything that sports pundits say ends up being wrong. Then they slink off and hide in a closet full of stanky
socks until they reemerge the next season when everyone has forgotten all about their failed guesswork. Then they make wrong predictions all over again.
But this season, the sports pundits had blindly stumbled onto a correct prediction. The Blazing Spuds really were a weak and useless team.
With a goofy-looking mascot.
As usual, Becky, Dewey, Stephanie, and Skinny started the game against the Blazing Spuds. But Jimmy? There was a consequence for hogging the ball in the game against the Stanford Green.
Coach Earwax suspended Jimmy for the first quarter of the game, which I guess was better than no consequence at all.
Mr. Jimerino was in the bleachers, sitting right in front of our school principal. Mother T sat with her hands folded on her lap, and Mr. Jimerino kept his mouth closed for the entire game.
Joey started at point guard. He had the entire first quarter all to himself, and he didn’t waste a single minute of the opportunity.
Joey darted like a flea around and under the Blazing Spuds defense. Then he passed the ball off to teammates who were wide open. Joey didn’t score, but he did get twenty assists in a single quarter!
The Mighty Plumbers were ahead, 40–16, when Joey sat down on the pine and Jimmy entered the game at the start of the second quarter.
Jimmy seemed to have changed his hotshot attitude. When he jumped off the bench, Jimmy shoved his water bottle into my hands and told me to hold it for him.
But then he added:
Whoa.
I had never heard hotshot athlete Jimmy or any of his kiss-up posse say that word. Ever.
Instead of hogging the ball, Jimmy played like a true point guard. He controlled the ball and passed the ball and took a shot only if no one else was open.
It was a total team effort. The Mighty Plumbers pretty much smeared the weak and useless Blazing Spuds.
I sat the pine for the entire game, even though there was never a need for me to do the Rally Slide to change the momentum.
Why? I don’t know. You’d have to ask Coach Earwax.
But I almost did a Rally Slide for a reason other than the Big Mo.
That felonious gym rat tried to help itself to another tasty and expensive protein bar. But when it poked its head out from under the bleachers, I turned and spotted it.
I think the rat must have recognized me from the first game of the season. It ducked back under the bleachers and never returned.
The highlight of our victory over the Spuds, however, didn’t even happen during the game.
After the game, before we all went into the locker room to change, Dewey picked up a basketball and launched a jump shot. It’s sort of his postgame ritual. He won’t leave the court until he makes a hoop.
But this time he didn’t make the shot or miss the shot. It was sort of in between.
The basketball bounced around the rim and then settled, perfectly balanced, on the bracket between the rim and backboard.
Everyone took turns trying to knock it down. Becky, Jimmy, Stephanie, Skinny, Jimmy, Carlos, me—even Ricky Schnauzer. We all failed, although I only missed it by a fraction of an inch.
Finally, Ricky fetched a broom. He was just about to poke the basketball loose with the broom handle when Joey literally sprang into action.
You already know that Joey is quick as a flea. But we all found out he also can jump like a flea.
The smallest guy on the Mighty Plumbers team walked underneath the basketball hoop. Then he jumped straight up—ten feet. Wow!
And I’m not even making that up!
CHAPTER 17
So this has nothing to do with basketball or the Rally Slide or my obsessive quest to become a lean, mean rebounding machine. But I need to bring something up that’s really awkward.
And I already know what you’re going to say.
No!
Well, yes. Sort of.
I did ask Becky to the dance. But she didn’t technically “scorch me,” so don’t even think that, okay? She had a previous commitment.
I probably shouldn’t have waited until the day before the Fall Dance to ask Becky, but that bad habit is common among guys my age.
Well, most guys my age.
Ricky Schnauzer had asked Becky two weeks—two weeks—before the Fall Dance!
So when I finally mustered up the nerve to ask Becky in the hallway between history class and geography class, I was way too late. She had no choice but to turn me down because Becky would never back out on Ricky or anyone else after she had already said yes.
It was nothing personal. And I wasn’t the only one who Becky turned down.
Jimmy also had waited to ask Becky until the day before the Fall Dance. He asked her about thirty seconds after I got scorched . . . er, turned down by Becky.
Jimmy didn’t handle it very well.
I had estimated my chances of a positive response from Becky to be about 70 percent, which is pretty much the score I get on every math test. But Jimmy probably figured his chance for a Fall Dance date with Becky was 100 percent.
I think he had assumed that Becky would blow off all other requests so that she could accept an invitation from Spiro’s hotshot athlete and Big Jock on Campus.
But Jimmy quickly recovered from his meltdown and went to his B Plan.
Once again, he was about thirty seconds too late.
Right after Becky turned me down, as I was walking to geography class, Stephanie tapped me on my shoulder.
When I turned around, she was holding up a sheet of binder paper with the words “Will you be my date?” written in perfect Sharpie penmanship.
She apparently had the same day-before-the-dance bad habit as most guys my age.
Anyway, I had a date for the Fall Dance. And I didn’t even have to muster up any nerve to ask Stephanie!
About thirty seconds later, right after I told Stephanie that I would go to the dance with her, Jimmy strolled up and moved between me and Stephanie.
I turned and made a quick dash for geography class. Behind me I heard Jimmy’s response to getting scorched by Stephanie.
“You asked Steve Moore?! . . . Thirty seconds ago?!!”
CHAPTER 18
A couple of hours before the Fall Dance, I took my basketball out into the backyard to work on my quest to become a lean, mean rebounding machine.
The Mighty Plumbers had a game the next night, and I wanted to be ready in case I got a chance to get off the bench and show Coach Earwax my skills.
I started chucking the basketball at the portable backboard next to the fence between my house and Mr. Verheyen’s. About five minutes later, he poked his head above the fence and motioned for me to come over.
I thought Mr. Verheyen was going to demand that I stop annoying his chickens or inform me that he had called the police. But I was wrong.
Fresh eggs! It was a gift.
Apparently, all the racket I had been making in previous rebounding practices had triggered a psychological effect on his chickens that boosted their production. He now had more eggs than he and his entire family and close circle of friends could use.
I worked on my rebounding skills for another hour, then decided to quit. My big Fall Dance date with Stephanie was getting close, and I didn’t want to get so sweaty that even a shower couldn’t wash away the corrosive middle-schooler perspiration.
But I just couldn’t resist tossing the basketball at the backboard one more time. The ball bounced off the rim and flew toward the basket of eggs from Mr. Verheyen, which I had stupidly set on the ground nearby.
I dove for the rebound to save the eggs. But when I landed, my face smacked into a ceramic garden gnome that my mom had bought at a neighborhood garage sale in a moment of weakness.
Not even one of the eggs got cracked. And the garden gnome survived.
But I ended up with a big, swollen, gnarly black eye.
One hour before the Fall Dance.
CHAPTER 19
My turbo-hyper-worrywart mom made me hold an ice pack against m
y eye right up until I left for the dance. She was worried that it would swell completely shut and my date would be grossed out and not want to be seen with me.
But Dad said the black eye made me look “tough.” Like a hotshot hockey player after a nasty bench-clearing brawl.
I looked in the mirror one more time. After an hour under the ice pack, the swelling had gone down a little.
I couldn’t tell if the eye looked gross or tough or like an eye that had slammed into a ceramic garden gnome.
My dad drove me to Spiro. Stephanie and I had arranged to meet under the giant Mighty Plumbers mural in the cafeteria, which is where the dance was held.
At Spiro T. Agnew Middle School, it’s practically a rule that no one rides with a mom or dad to pick up a date at their home.
It’s too awkward. You don’t know whether to sit in the back seat with the date, like in a taxi, or split up and sit in front with your parent. Anyway, I’d rather wait until I’m old enough to get my hands on the wheel of a Porsche 911 Turbo and pick up the date by myself.
When I walked into the cafeteria, it was pretty obvious that everyone else had told their dates to meet them under the Mighty Plumbers mural. There was a big crowd of kids standing around waiting in two separate groups. Guys in one; girls in the other.
My two best guy friends were there. Joey was wearing a dress shirt with a hand-me-down tie from one of his older brothers. It was a little big.
Carlos also was wearing a tie—with a T-shirt. Why? I don’t know, but that’s just Carlos.
I looked for Stephanie. She hadn’t arrived yet, so I wandered over to the guys group and stuck my hands in my pockets like everyone else and tried to act cool and nonchalant.