by Scott Ostler
“We need to get you into shape, Carlos,” Penny said, tapping her clipboard.
“In shape?” I said, trying to get settled properly in my wheelchair, with the help of an orderly. “For what? For sitting?”
“Actually, yes,” Penny said. “You need to tone the muscles you use for sitting, and for everything else you’re going to be doing. We need to get your blood circulating. The exercises are good for your body and for your brain.”
I guess it was obvious I wasn’t eager to start this therapy thing.
“Your aunt tells me you’re a good basketball player, Carlos,” she said.
“Was,” I corrected her.
“People in wheelchairs play sports, too, you know,” Penny said. “Tennis, track, basketball, all kinds of sports.”
Whatever. I closed my eyes, wishing I could just go back to bed.
I knew I would hate the physical therapy, and I was right. Doing some really hard exercises so I could be a healthier disabled kid? What was the point in that? Besides, I was too weak to exercise. Couldn’t she see that?
The injuries to my intestines and stomach were so severe that I had to be fed by IV tube for the first month, then they started giving me tiny bites of baby food. I was on a baby diet and this woman expected me to do hard exercises?
Whenever I got stubborn, Penny would wait me out.
“Carlos, it’s okay if you get mad at me,” she said. “Even swearing’s okay. I’ve heard all the words.”
One day in the therapy room, Penny got out a basketball.
“This is cooler than that rubber ball we’ve been playing catch with,” she said.
I hated that. It reminded me that I would never play my favorite sport again.
As we wheeled back to my room in our wheelchairs, Penny dribbled next to her chair, then twirled the ball on her finger.
“You play basketball?” I asked. She smiled and shrugged. When I woke up later, the basketball was on my side table.
The next morning, a therapist named Roscoe came to take me to my workout. He wasn’t in a wheelchair. I was glad to see him, because he seemed like a nice guy and I figured he wouldn’t be as tough as Penny.
Wrong. He was even meaner than Penny.
“Let’s do some pull-downs,” Roscoe said, grabbing a metal bar hooked to an adjustable weight machine. He set it on a low weight and showed me how to pull the bar down to my chin.
“See if you can do five,” Roscoe said.
I did two and stopped, slumping back in my chair. “Too tired.”
Roscoe waved his clipboard cheerfully and said, “Penny’s orders, little brother. She told me, ‘Roscoe, do not baby Carlos. He’s tougher than he looks.’”
“You sure she was talking about me?”
Roscoe shrugged. “Here’s the bad news, bro: You’ve got me all week. Penny’s in Colorado playing in a tournament with the national team.”
“The national basketball team?” I said. “Really? She told me she played, but I didn’t know she was that good.”
Roscoe nodded. “She was All-American at Texas, now she’s the point guard on the women’s national team.”
I frowned at Roscoe. “Man, I wish I could play real basketball.”
Roscoe tilted his head and said, “You know Penny plays wheelchair ball, right? Her team is training for the Paralympics.”
My mouth fell open.
“Um, Penny’s been paralyzed from the waist down since she was thirteen. Skiing accident. At sixteen, she made the national eighteen-and-under wheelchair team. She got a college scholarship. The basketball Penny plays? It’s real.”
I grabbed the bar and did five pull-downs.
“Good workout, my man,” Roscoe said. “Let’s get you back to your room.”
I grabbed the bar again.
“One more set.”
TO THE BREEZE
MIA WAS WAITING FOR ME AT THE BUS STOP IN FRONT of school on Monday afternoon. “To the Breeze!” she called as I rolled up.
She was in her wheelchair, which surprised me, since she doesn’t use her chair all the time. Mia has a spinal condition. She’s okay walking short distances but uses her chair for longer trips. Around school she mostly walks.
She saw me eyeing her chair and laughed. “Hey, we’re going for max sympathy, right? Besides, I’m exhausted from that game yesterday.”
She was in a good mood, which didn’t surprise me. She looked nice, too, but not like she spent hours in front of a mirror doing stuff to her face, how some girls at our school looked.
My mom never wore much makeup. Dad used to tell her that wearing makeup wouldn’t be fair to everyone else, since she was already so beautiful.
“Been waiting long?” I asked.
“Nope. I’ve been enjoying the sunshine. Let’s go see what kind of trouble we can stir up.”
Bay City is pretty small, so getting around is easy. After a five-minute bus ride, we got off right in front of the Bay City Breeze building.
In the lobby, a receptionist smiled and said, “Hello, welcome to the Breeze. What can I do for you folks?”
I gave Mia a look, like, Go ahead, and she stuck her tongue out at me so quickly that the receptionist didn’t notice. “Well,” Mia said, turning back to the desk. “We play on a wheelchair basketball team. Our gym is the old Earl C. Combs Armory, down on Railroad Avenue. The gym was shut down by the city more than a week ago, so now we’re kind of a homeless basketball team.…” She trailed off like she was running out of steam.
I jumped in. “The State championship tournament is coming up soon and we really need our gym, and we thought maybe this would be an interesting story for your newspaper.”
The receptionist nodded. “One moment.”
She picked up her phone and said, “William, this is Joan. There are two young people out here who have a story they think might be of interest. Can you talk to them?”
She hung up the phone and said, “Mr. Forrest will be right out.”
We thanked her and moved away to wait.
“Look at those photos,” Mia whispered, nodding at a group of pictures on the wall, under a sign: BREEZE PUBLISHERS. They seemed to go back about a hundred years, to men with old-fashioned hats and big mustaches.
“Those old-timers look like the bad guys in cartoons,” I said, and Mia laughed quietly.
I’ve never been great at talking to girls, but for some reason, with Mia it was kind of easy. Maybe because we’re teammates. We talked about school stuff and basketball, and after about ten minutes a man came through the door behind the reception desk. He was short, with spiky blond hair. He seemed way too young to be a real newspaper reporter.
“No funny hat and mustache,” Mia whispered.
“Hi,” the man said, extending his hand. “I’m William Forrest, a reporter here at the Breeze.”
We shook hands and introduced ourselves. Mr. Forrest pulled up a chair, took out a notepad, and said, “So. Tell me your story. What’s going on?”
We hadn’t planned anything out, but Mia’s a good talker and I had figured I’d let her tell our story. Except—
“Why don’t you start, Carlos?” Mia said, looking at me expectantly.
Trapped. “Well, Mr. Forrest,” I started, but he interrupted.
“Call me William, please. I haven’t been a reporter long enough to be called mister.”
“Okay, William,” I said. “Let me tell you about the Rollin’ Rats.”
“Wait a minute,” he said. “How did your team get a name like that?”
Mia said, “Carlos came up with that name. Blame him.”
“There is a family of rats living in our gym,” I said. “Actually their gym. That’s why we call it the Rat Palace.”
“The what?” he said, laughing. “Like, actual rats? Are you guys making this up?”
“No, sir,” said Mia seriously. “One of the rats is missing a front paw, so we call him Captain Hook. He and his friends like donuts with rainbow sprinkles, ever since Carl
os left his donut lying around one day at practice.”
William was taking notes, shaking his head and chuckling.
“Hey, I apologize,” he said. “I shouldn’t be laughing. I know the reason you came here isn’t funny, right?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “And we’re worried, because we’re trying to qualify for the State tournament, which is just seven weeks away. We don’t know if we’re going to get back into the Rat Palace, and our coach can’t get any information from the city. Nobody seems to know anything.”
“And the worst part,” Mia said, jumping in, “is that nobody seems to care. They didn’t even warn us when they closed down the Palace. They just showed up and locked us out.”
I jumped back in. “Without a gym, we won’t even have a team much longer.”
William turned serious. “Okay, Mia and Carlos. I think I’ve got the picture. Your team is in a tough spot, and I think this is a great human-interest story. The thing is, I’m new here, just out of college. Let me run this by my editor and see what he thinks. I can’t make any promises, except that I promise to get back to you.”
He handed us two of his business cards. “I appreciate you two coming in. Feel free to call or email me.”
When we were outside the building, Mia turned to me. “So what do you think?”
I shrugged. “At least he listened to us. And he didn’t baby us, which is good.”
“He really seems to think this is a good story, doesn’t he?”
We were heading in different directions—Mia to catch a bus home, me to the library a couple of blocks away.
“Well, we gave it a shot, Carlos,” she said. “Gandhi would be proud of us, right?”
I laughed and held my hand up for a high five.
Mia clapped her hand to mine and said, “See you tomorrow.”
She started to wheel away, then turned back. “Hey, this was a really good idea. I was kind of nervous, but you made it easy. Even if nothing happens, I’m glad we came.”
“Me, too,” I said. “Go, Rats!”
The second I said that, I cringed. Who says that?
“Go, Rats!” Mia said, then turned and rolled toward the bus stop.
Inside the library, I looked for the information desk. I needed to write a report for homeroom. We were studying city history, and everyone had to pick a local landmark and use at least one library book. I chose the Palace.
At the desk, I told the man that I was looking for books on city history. He led me to a section way in the back of the building.
“City history,” he said, with a bow. “Let me know if you need any other help.”
It didn’t take long to find what I was looking for—a big book in the middle of the bottom shelf, titled Bay City: From Gold Rush to Tech Times.
I thumbed through it. Lots of photos. I turned to the index and there it was: “Earl C. Combs Armory, pp. 205–208.”
This report would be a piece of cake. Or a chocolate donut with rainbow sprinkles.
STOMPER’S BUTT ON THE LINE
AFTER MY TWO SESSIONS WITH STOMPER, AND THE drills I emailed him, his fate was on the line. It was the second and last day of tryouts.
Stomper walked into the gym wearing his beat-up skateboard shoes. All the other guys were rocking real basketball shoes. That’s kind of how it is—no matter how rich or poor your family is, if you’re a basketball player, you find a way to get halfway-decent sneaks.
Stomper saw me checking his shoes and shrugged. “My mom was going to buy me some LeBrons,” he whispered sadly. “But Dad said no new basketball shoes until I’m actually on a basketball team.”
This final day of tryouts, I figured, was all about Stomper. Twenty-two guys were trying out, and at least nine of them had no chance. They weren’t very good, and they weren’t very tall. I was sure the last spot on the team would go to either Stomper or this kid named Luke. Luke was okay, he hustled, but he was so short he could barely hit the rim with his shot, which is something I could relate to.
I had texted Stomper Sunday night.
Four things. One, when you get the ball, pass it, don’t hold it. Two, box out. Three, bend your knees and stay low on defense. Four, hustle!
He didn’t reply. I worried that, even keeping it simple, I might be overloading his circuits.
Coach started with layups. If Stomper survived this, he had a decent chance. If not, the coach might cut him on the spot.
As the kids formed the two lines, a mean voice inside my head asked, Why do I care if he gets cut?
But Stomper was my student now. If he made the team, maybe that meant I was learning something about basketball.
Another thought popped into my head: Stomper was in the same spot I was in with my team. The new guy. An outsider, awkward and nervous.
Stomper’s first layup was… interesting. He caught the pass and you could almost hear him thinking. He slowed down, took two dribbles, shot… and made it!
Coach Miller, watching from midcourt with his arms folded, looked startled.
Stomper missed the next couple of layups, but he did jump off the correct foot and hit the backboard both times, a major improvement in one week.
He looked better in the defensive sliding drills, too.Still a little clunky, but he bent his knees and stayed low.
In a pick-and-roll drill, Stomper set a screen and the defender ran into him with a thud and went down. Coach Miller beamed.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s do some scrimmaging.”
I was feeling good about my coaching, but I knew this wasn’t over yet. Still plenty of time to mess up.
First play, Coach told Stomper to set up on the low block, and he remembered where the low block was. Progress. The guard tossed him a pass and Stomper passed it right back, like I had told him to. The kid hit a wide-open fifteen-footer.
“Way to work the ball, Walkman,” Coach called out.
Stomper hustled, almost like he was desperate. On end-to-end sprints, he ran out ahead of everyone.
And in the scrimmage, he rebounded. Not very gracefully (he bowled a couple of guys over), but he grabbed a bunch, screened guys off the boards, and the coach kept nodding.
Finally, Coach called everyone to center court.
“Okay, guys, that’s it,” he said. “Good work. I’ll post the final roster on the gym door early tomorrow morning. For those of you who don’t make it, I appreciate you coming out.”
Stomper had a pained look. He would have to sweat it out all night before learning how deep in his dad’s doghouse he would be.
I didn’t have to wait for my news.
As the players left the gym, Coach Miller said, “Carlos, I told you I would see about having the team vote on letting your team use the gym on Saturdays. But I decided that just won’t work. Our team really needs that gym time, and there are insurance issues and stuff like that. Okay?”
Of course it wasn’t okay. But what could I say?
“Okay, Coach, thanks anyway.” I went back to picking up the balls and equipment, silently fuming at the unfairness of it all.
When I went to get my backpack, a half-smashed package of Ding Dongs was resting on top, with a note, unsigned and scrawled on a piece of cardboard from another package of Ding Dongs.
Carlos, pretty sure I won’t make the team but thanks for your help.
I chucked the Ding Dongs into the trash can but tucked the note into my backpack.
The next morning, I got to school early and rolled over toward the gym. As I approached, I saw a kid standing at the gym door, alone, looking at the list taped to the door.
It was Stomper. He stared at the paper for a long time. When he finally turned away, his eyes were screwed shut, like he was trying not to cry. He didn’t see me as he walked past.
My heart sank. Stomper was a sad sight, and I felt bad for myself, too. All that work for nothing. I had failed as a coach, and now maybe Stomper would go back to his grumpy bullying ways at school.
I rolled up to the doo
r and read the list of twelve names, in alphabetical order.
The last name was Walkman, Roland.
We made the team.
MEET MAYOR MCCHEESEY
EVERY DAY AFTER SCHOOL, I CHECKED MY EMAIL FOR A message from William Forrest, and Mia and I checked in with each other.
Nothing. Still, I liked trading texts with Mia. She always threw in one of her Bitmojis, today the one with the big smile and the giant thumbs-up foam hands.
By Friday, we were both starting to think the Breeze wasn’t interested, and we were running out of time. Our home game on Sunday was already canceled. Rosie and Augie organized a group email chain for team parents, to see if they could get some answers or some action from city hall. So far, no luck.
It was just like Mia had told William—it seemed like nobody in power cared.
Then Friday after school I had a team email from Trooper.
Great news, Rollin’ Rats! Mayor Burns heard about our gym problem. His people contacted me and asked if we would like to meet him. He wants to visit the Palace and take a photo with us, then check out the gym for himself.
Looks like we’re getting some action! Not sure what sparked the mayor’s interest, but I’m guessing it has to do with Mia and Carlos visiting the Bay City Breeze.
Be at the Palace tomorrow morning, no later than 7:45. After the photo, we’ll practice at the old Shoe Barn parking lot. Remember, this is a photo with the mayor, so look sharp. That means no X-rated concert T-shirts, DJ.
When I told Rosie and Augie the news, they exchanged a look.
“This is great, Carlos,” Rosie said. “But I have to tell you, we’re a bit skeptical of the mayor. It has to do with your uncle’s job.”
Augie works for the Bay City Parks Maintenance Department. He started there as a teenager to help support his family, then paid his own way through college picking up litter and mowing lawns, and eventually worked his way up to become department supervisor.
“About a year ago,” Rosie explained, “Mayor Burns cut back the budget for Augie’s department, then he criticized the department in a newspaper story, saying the parks were in terrible condition.”