Comeback Kid

by Steve Moore

  I told Dad that I wanted to become a lean, mean rebounding machine and work my way into the Mighty Plumbers lineup, but so far it wasn’t exactly working out. Then I spilled the beans about the felonious gym rat and the accidental Rally Slide that had doomed me to permanent bench duty.

  He started another laughing fit, but Dad cut it short because he could tell that I was bummed out about not getting in games.

  “You’re doing the right thing. Keep working hard. It’ll pay off.”

  Dad asked for the basketball. The former hotshot athlete probably hadn’t touched a basketball since the ancient 1980s, but he walked to the opposite side of the yard next to Mrs. Smoot’s fence and launched a jump shot all the way back across the yard toward the hoop.

  Nothing but net!

  Dad turned and walked into the house as if it was no big deal.

  I was both amazed and discouraged.

  CHAPTER 23

  Our final regular season game was against the Madmen of A. E. Neuman Middle School.

  Stephanie and I skipped Ms. Katinsky’s literature class and retrieved our sports bags from our lockers. Then we walked out to the parking lot to board the van.

  Both the Mighty Plumbers and the Madmen were undefeated and tied for the division lead. Coach Earwax had prepared us for a hard-fought game. We were focused and determined—even Ricky Schnauzer, who had the fragrant towels, water bottles, and tasty protein bars neatly stacked and stored in the back of the van.

  Stephanie sat up front with me, Joey, and Carlos. Becky sat in the middle of the van next to Ricky, who was dressed in a pressed collared shirt and slacks. His hair was perfect.

  In the back of the van, Dewey and Skinny sat in two of the three prime shenanigan seats.

  Jimmy was a no-show. Again.

  Coach Earwax was about to get into the van when Jimmy walked out of school carrying his game bag and Mr. Jimerino’s car pulled into the parking lot. Coach motioned for Jimmy to come over to the van.

  Those of us in the van didn’t even have to strain to hear the conversation. Coach spoke out loud and clear.

  He told Jimmy that he wanted everyone to ride in the van together. As a team. And if Jimmy didn’t do that, he would no longer be on the team.

  Coach Earwax asked Jimmy if he was going to get in the van. Jimmy glanced back over his shoulder toward his dad waiting in the car. Then he shook his head.

  Coach got in the van. And that was it. Jimmy was off the team.

  As we pulled out of the parking lot, I looked back at Jimmy. He just stood there with his bag and watched his teammates drive off to play a game that would determine if Spiro T. Agnew Middle School would go to the Big Game.

  CHAPTER 24

  I was hoping the Mighty Plumbers would slaughter the weak and useless Madmen—from opening tip-off to final horn—so that I wouldn’t be held back on the pine in case we needed the Rally Slide to regain the Big Mo.

  But that didn’t happen.

  The Madmen were not weak and useless. They obviously had worked hard and prepared for the game. Even their equipment manager had the team’s essential supplies neatly stacked at the end of their bench. (Her hair wasn’t perfect, but pretty close.)

  Meanwhile, the Mighty Plumbers struggled to adjust to the loss of our hotshot star, who’d hogged (er, scored) most of our points.

  Joey took over for Jimmy at point guard. And he did a great job of controlling the ball.

  Joey was quick as a flea, as usual. The Madmen had a hard time keeping him from either stealing the ball or darting through the defense and dishing off to wide-open teammates.

  But the other Mighty Plumbers had never really adjusted to playing with an unselfish point guard.

  One time, Joey dribbled around . . .

  . . . er, under a defender and dished the ball off to Dewey, who was standing right under the hoop.

  Just like Skinny in the other game, Dewey was not expecting the pass. He wasn’t even looking.

  At least, it didn’t hit Dewey in his schnoz.

  The Madmen grabbed the turnover and scored.

  On the bench, Carlos and I were hopeful that we might get in the game, but the Madmen and the Mighty Plumbers stayed within a few points of each other all the way until the end of the fourth quarter.

  Finally, with only a few minutes left in the game, Coach Earwax turned and pointed at me. At first, I thought he was motioning for me to go into the game. But then he pointed at the floor and I knew what he wanted me to do.

  Rally Slide.

  Once again, I slid ten feet on my belly like a baseball player diving to snag a line drive. The Spiro fans jumped to their feet and cheered. And the game momentum changed.

  The Mighty Plumbers played unselfish basketball and defeated the Madmen.

  Spiro was headed to the league championship.

  On the way to the van, Becky and Stephanie walked on either side of me and wrapped their arms over my shoulders. They could tell I was disappointed about not playing and wanted to make me feel like the Rally Slide was a big contribution.

  Becky said, “Excellent Rally Slide, Steve.”

  And Stephanie added, “Yeah. We needed that.”

  That made me feel better.

  But I still would rather have played in the game and grabbed about a hundred rebounds.

  CHAPTER 25

  The next day, I had two choices: Keep working on my rebounding skills or bag it and just slug out in my bedroom and reorganize my sports memorabilia collection.

  My chances of playing in the Big Game were puny.

  So I decided to devote my day off to reorganizing my collection of balls, jerseys, socks, helmets, and jocks that were signed (to the best of my knowledge) by the hotshot professional athletes who once owned them.

  But then I noticed that the lid to Fido’s terrarium was cockeyed. I looked inside. My snake had escaped—for about the billionth time.

  At first, I thought that Fido might be roaming around the house, but I hadn’t left my bedroom door open. So I searched my bedroom.

  I didn’t need to look under my bed because it was obvious that Frenchy was there, sound asleep. If Fido was under my bed, the psychotic poodle would be disturbed . . .

  . . . even more than usual.

  I looked in my closet under the pile of unwashed and toxic athletic socks that could have spontaneously combusted at any moment.

  Nothing.

  Then I spotted the rear half of Fido’s body. The front half of the snake was deep into my leather sports bag.

  Why was he nosing around in my bag? I don’t know. You’d have to ask Fido, but good luck getting even one word out of his mouth.

  Fido was overdue to be fed, so maybe he was hungry and had sniffed out the tasty protein bar in my bag that I had never got around to eating during the Madmen game.

  Anyway, when I stashed Fido back in his cage I noticed that the lid was bent up as if a large reptile had repeatedly shoved his nose against it. That was Fido’s escape route.

  I grabbed a basketball shoe that (I’m pretty sure) was signed by Kobe Bryant and set it on top of the lid so that Fido would not shove it open and roam the earth.

  Fido had escaped his cage about a billion times, and every time, he got caught and put back in the cage. But he never gave up.

  His obsessive goal inspired me to go into the backyard and practice rebounds.

  I tossed the basketball against the backboard and grabbed rebounds. Over and over. Until it was dark and Mr. Verheyen’s chickens went back in their coop and started making eggs.

  CHAPTER 26

  At basketball practice before the Big Game, Jimmy walked into Spiro’s dump of a gym.

  But he didn’t stroll in like God’s gift to basketball.

  Jimmy walked up to Coach Earwax with his head lowered. Then he waited patiently until Coach was done digging wax out of his ear with a car key.

  We were all expecting Coach Earwax to cave in and once again give hotshot athlete Jimmy a pass for life and le
t him back on the team with minimal consequences.

  Coach Earwax did allow Jimmy to rejoin the team, but on one condition: He would have to plant his rear end on the bench. Permanently.

  Jimmy didn’t even hesitate.

  “Thank you!”

  On the day of the Big Game, I got up and ate breakfast. (Bacon and two eggs from the super-chill chickens next door!)

  I got ready for school, then grabbed my backpack and sports bag. Then I noticed that the lid to Fido’s cage was bent up and the Kobe Bryant shoe was on the floor.

  Fido was gone.

  There was not enough time to mount a search, so I made sure my bedroom door was closed so Fido would not roam around the house and drive my mom right out of her skull.

  The league championship game was at home against Nike Preparatory Academy, home of the Platypuses. They are Spiro T. Agnew’s major nemesis in every sport except baseball.

  Nike is weak and useless in baseball. They’re still trying to catch up.

  But Nike’s teams excel in every other sport because a wealthy alumni donor gives billions of dollars a year to the athletic program.

  The Platypuses pulled into our parking lot, but they were not riding in a van.

  It was a tour bus—one of those shiny rock-star tour buses with a kitchen and bunk beds and TV monitors and a delicious buffet and free Wi-Fi and a restroom that smells fresh and minty.

  The Nike Prep bus was huge. It transported nine players, the athletic director, the head coach, four assistant coaches, three athletic trainers, an equipment manager, an assistant equipment manager, a sports information director, and a videographer with a sound technician.

  And they probably could have squeezed in the Nike Prep cheerleaders, dance squad, school principal, mascot, and assistant mascot. But they all rode in a second rock-star tour bus!

  (FYI: Spiro’s wimpy van barely holds eight players, a coach, an athletic trainer, and a finicky equipment manager. And it struggles to get up steep hills.)

  The Platypuses basketball players disembarked from their luxury ride, led by the school’s athletic director. I remembered him from previous games with Nike Prep.

  Jimmy Jimerino had given him the nickname “Jeeves.”

  Jeeves handed each player a surgical mask as they headed into the musty visitors’ locker room in Spiro T. Agnew Middle School’s dump of a gymnasium.

  In the Mighty Plumbers locker room, we dressed for the game. I was about to stash my sports bag in my locker when I noticed water puddled inside.

  I looked up. Right above my locker, water was dripping from a leak in one of our dump-of-a-gym’s ancient pipes.

  I couldn’t leave my leather bag in the locker, where it would get soaked and turn moldy. I took it with me when the team went onto the court, and then I stashed it under the bench.

  CHAPTER 27

  Before the tip-off of the Big Game, Spiro fans and Nike Prep fans exchanged lame cheers.

  “We’ve got spirit! Yes we do! We’ve got spirit! How ’bout you!”

  “We’ve got MORE!!”

  The two team mascots faced off on the sideline and did that typical mascot thing where they faked like they were engaged in mortal combat.

  In the bleachers, Mother T took her usual seat a few rows up behind our bench and folded her hands on her lap. But Mr. Jimerino’s seat in front of her was empty. He had been banned.

  It was the first time in the history of Spiro T. Agnew athletics that a parent had been banished from a basketball game!

  My parents were at the game, so I looked back and scanned the bleachers. Even in Spiro T. Agnew’s dump of a gymnasium, the league championship game was sold out. But I didn’t need to look far, because Mom and Dad were sitting in the seats right behind Mother T. Derp!

  Amazingly, the Spiro gym’s ancient climate-control system was not malfunctioning. It wasn’t hot and it wasn’t cold. Somehow, Mr. Joseph, the building maintenance supervisor, had finally come up with a fix.

  Coach Earwax called us all into a huddle. He told the starters to “be quick, but don’t hurry.”

  Then he pointed at me and Carlos and said, “Be ready.”

  And finally, Coach pointed at the third Spiro benchwarmer.

  Jimmy Jimerino.

  Carlos, Steve, and Jimmy. The three Benchkateers!

  No one could have predicted it. Not even Joey.

  The Mighty Plumbers won the opening tip-off. Skinny Dennis tipped the ball to Joey, who dribbled under the legs of a Nike defender and darted—quick as a flea—to our end of the court.

  Joey got downcourt so fast that no one else was within twenty feet. So he took his time dribbling underneath the basket, stopped, took a big breath, and heaved the ball up and into the hoop.

  The entire Spiro home crowd went crazy. (Except for Mother T, who sat silently with hands folded over her lap.)

  Then Becky pulled off a shifty move. After the basket, a Nike player prepared to inbound the ball to a teammate. Becky faked as if she wasn’t looking, but at the last second she stepped in front of the pass, grabbed the ball, and scored.

  Carlos, Jimmy, and I jumped up off the bench. We each pumped a fist into the air and, with the other hand, waved one of Ricky’s clean and fragrant towels overhead.

  The Spiro cheerleaders bounced up and down and shook their teal-colored pom-pom thingies. The Spiro T. Agnew dumpy gym’s high-tech “light show” went off.

  Derp!

  Nevertheless, in the first few seconds of the game, Spiro had grabbed the Big Mo.

  Our players had locked in on Coach Earwax’s game plan.

  On offense, Joey was the “quarterback” of the team. He passed off to Becky, Dewey, Stephanie, and Skinny whenever they were open.

  And on defense? The Mighty Plumbers were lean, mean, and focused.

  We played quick, but we didn’t hurry.

  At halftime, the Mighty Plumbers were creaming the Platypuses, 50–22.

  CHAPTER 28

  The second half of the game was a complete reversal of game momentum.

  What happened at halftime inside the visiting team’s squalid locker room?

  Maybe the Nike Prep coach screamed at his players and told them they were weak and useless and were getting slaughtered by the Mighty Plumbers inside our dump of a gymnasium.

  Or maybe the Platypuses coach just told them to never give up.

  “Think positive!”

  Whatever it was, the Big Mo shifted.

  The Nike Prep point guard, charged right at Joey. He used his height advantage to spot teammates who broke toward the basket. Then he passed the ball and they scored.

  The Platypuses poured it on.

  Joey kept penetrating the Nike Prep defenses, but they had adjusted to his flea-like speed and cut him off. Then they either blocked our shots or grabbed rebounds if we missed.

  And on the other end of the court, the Platypuses passed the ball, looked for the open player, and scored easy baskets. It was a total unselfish team effort.

  The Mighty Plumbers were getting outscored and outhustled and outrebounded.

  Nike Prep had the Big Mo and built a 60–50 lead with only a minute to go. The Platypuses fans were on their feet and chanting as if they had the Big Game totally in the bag.

  The Spiro side of the gym was silent.

  Coach Earwax called a time-out and gathered us on the sideline. He took a knee and scribbled a few mysterious lines on his whiteboard, but then he chucked it aside and stood up.

  Coach pointed at me. I thought he meant that I should get ready to do the Rally Slide.

  But I was wrong.

  I replaced Dewey in the lineup. Coach needed a lean, mean rebounding machine. But the Mighty Plumbers needed the Big Mo now more than ever. If I was in the game, who would do the Rally Slide?

  Coach pointed at Jimmy.

  “Do that belly slide thingy.”

  On my way onto the court, I looked back. Jimmy was stretching out in front of the bench in preparation for the Rally S
lide.

  Then I noticed something moving underneath the bench. At first I thought it was that gym rat nosing around in search of tasty protein bars. But it wasn’t the rat.

  It was Fido!

  My snake had stowed away in my sports bag, and now he was crawling out onto the floor only a few inches away from Jimmy’s feet.

  And I happen to know from an incident in baseball season that Jimmy suffers from ophidiophobia—a morbid fear of snakes!

  I thought about running back to the bench and stashing Fido back in my bag before he scared Jimmy right out of his skull and ruined the Rally Slide, but it was too late.

  The referee blew his whistle to resume the game.

  CHAPTER 29

  Jimmy Jimerino—Spiro’s hotshot BJOC—pulled off an excellent Rally Slide. He slid ten feet on his belly like a baseball player diving to snag a line drive. The Spiro fans immediately jumped to their feet and cheered.

  In the final minute of the game, the Mighty Plumbers played quick but we didn’t hurry.

  Joey controlled the ball and dished passes to Becky, Stephanie, and Skinny. I went to work on the boards. In my mind, I pictured my backyard hoop next to Mr. Verheyen’s super-chill chickens. I started hauling down rebounds, one after another.

  We had the Big Mo, and the Nike Prep lead began to shrink.

  I was able to take a quick glance at the bench. Fido was nowhere to be seen. Jimmy had been spared, but I had no idea where my pet had gone.

  With less than ten seconds remaining in the game, Nike Prep was ahead, 71–70. We had enough time for one last shot.

  Joey took the inbounds pass and dashed down the floor. At the top of the key, he stopped and quickly looked around. I was the only one open.

  Joey passed me the ball. The clock was down to three seconds.