Weston nodded again. “Hey, maybe we should get in a fight right now. Then I won’t have to worry about it.”
Theo gulped. “What?”
Weston punched him lightly in the arm. “Just kidding, dude. I don’t want to mess up this beautiful face.”
Theo forced a laugh and they continued on to the gym. For the rest of the walk, Weston told dead-baby jokes.
Weston led Theo around the back of the building, which was out of sight of the classrooms. Some of their teammates—Chris, Roger, and Sinjin—were already there. If this had been a teen movie, they’d be smoking or drinking beer. Instead, they were leaning against the wall and talking basketball.
Chris was describing some play from a pro game the night before. Theo didn’t recognize any names of the players or the teams. So he listened to the other boys talk stats and shots and team trades without contributing anything but an occasional enthusiastic nod. Yet, even though they seemed to be speaking a foreign language, he wasn’t bored. It was exciting to leave his nerdy self behind for a change. He made a mental note to start following the sport so that next time he could join the conversation.
If there was a next time, he corrected himself. Unless he could bring it on the court at practice, he doubted he’d ever hang with this group again.
COACH: “Theo, hustle, hustle, hustle! You’re running like you’ve got a load in your pants.”
Coach: “No, no, no, Theo, you can’t move your pivot foot.”
Coach: “Theo, pull the ball tighter to your chest. That’s why they keep stealing it from you. You hold it out like you’re offering free samples of yogurt at the mall.”
Theo did his best to correct his mistakes. But he just kept making new ones. In one play, Weston was dribbling toward the basket. Theo was guarding him, sliding, sliding, sliding, arms waving. Suddenly he slid into a brick wall and went down, his arms and legs folding up like a Swiss Army knife. He’d run into Roger McDonald’s two hundred pounds. Weston scored.
“Oops.” Roger smirked. He high-fived Sinjin.
Everyone scored. Everyone who Theo guarded.
Coach ended practice as he always did, with rounds of Sudden Death. Each boy was paired with another boy. One boy played defense, the other offense. The boy with the ball had one minute to score as many points as possible. Then they switched. The loser sat, the winner advanced, until there was only one. Like in Highlander.
Theo was paired against Roger, the slowest guy on the team, but also the heaviest. Theo decided to use his height advantage. He immediately drove to the hoop, hoping to get close enough to lob it in over Roger’s large, square head. But Roger stopped him ten feet from the hoop and kept his arm bar buried so deep in Theo’s spine that Theo thought it might be fused to his back. Theo tried to spin around him, but Roger just slid over and stood his ground. Roger might have been slow as a glacier, but he was also as hard to get around. In the end, Theo just took a couple desperate ten-foot shots, missing both.
Roger, on the other hand, hit two shots from the free throw line. Theo was the first to be eliminated. And the only one to score no points.
At the end of practice, an exasperated Coach called everyone over to the bleachers.
“Boys, I think you’ll all agree that we need to step it up if we’re going to beat Lemon Hill Friday. They’re very, very good. They can shoot, sure, but so can you. They’re fast, but I think you guys, as a team, are faster. The main advantage they have right now is size. They are a little bigger than you.”
Theo waited for someone on the team to point to him and say, “We have our own big man.” But no one did.
Chris Richards said, “What’s our strategy, Coach? How are we going to counter their size advantage?”
Coach stroked his goatee. “We stick to the plan. As a team, they’re bigger than us, but Theo is still taller than any one of their players. That gives us a slight advantage on the inside. So, we’ll just have to outplay them. They’re big, so they’re bound to be a little overconfident. That could turn out to be their weakness. We pass the ball, try to split the defense, and be patient when shooting. We wait for the open shot. Hopefully, Theo will help give us those open shots.”
The boys all nodded at the wisdom of that strategy, so Theo nodded, too.
“All right, everybody,” Coach said, “see you tomorrow.”
Everyone headed to the locker room.
“Theo.” Coach waved for Theo to stay behind.
“Yeah, Coach?” Theo said brightly, trying to show as much enthusiasm as possible. Maybe if he pretended nothing was wrong, Coach wouldn’t say anything about his abysmal performance during practice. He grabbed his towel and wiped his sweaty forehead.
Coach patted the wooden bleacher beside him. “Sit.”
Theo sat. Was this the farewell speech as he got kicked off the team? During Sudden Death, he might have welcomed it. But right now, with the reality staring him in the face, he realized he wanted to be on this team more than anything. More than he wanted to be on Brain Train.
“You know what I like most about basketball, Theo?” Coach started.
Theo thought, If you’re going to kick me off, do it quickly, like yanking a Band-Aid. But he said, “No, Coach.”
“Most players might say something like ‘the thrill of competition,’ or ‘scoring that crucial point to win the game,’ or ‘playing in front of all those people.’”
“There were like thirty people at our last game, Coach.”
Coach tugged on his goatee, a sure sign of annoyance.
Theo said, “Sorry. Go on.”
“The thing that I most like about basketball is that no matter who you are, how much money your parents have, how good-looking you are, or how many statistics you’ve memorized about pro players, you are always judged by one thing and one thing only: how well you play the game. There is no past, no future. It doesn’t matter how well you played yesterday or last week. It’s how well you play today. Right now. On this court. In this particular game.”
He paused, so Theo nodded.
“You see my point, Theo?”
“I think so. Basketball is like a democracy in which people are judged solely on merit.”
Coach smiled broadly. “Right. That’s right. Well said.”
“I just don’t see why you’re telling me.”
“Because, Theo, right now, right here on this court, you suck at basketball.”
Theo surprised himself by laughing. “What was your first clue?”
Coach sighed, trying to find the right words. “The point is, you don’t have to suck. You have potential, even if they”—he nodded toward the rest of the team already in the locker room—“or even you, don’t see it right now. You’re smart, analytical—”
“And tall.”
“Yeah, you’re tall, and that’s a definite advantage. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Sure, there are some excellent pros out there who are short by basketball standards, but they are the rarity. You’re taller than everyone else here, but not taller than all the players your age. Every year it seems like the players are getting bigger. You saw the video of Mamadou N’Diaye. The dude is like Goliath.”
“I’m sure glad we don’t have to play against him,” Theo said.
Coach stroked his goatee again as if it was a magic lamp and he wanted to wish that Theo were a better player. Then he suddenly changed the subject. “Look, Theo, I heard about your fight at the park.”
Theo blinked, a little surprised that word of the incident had reached the coach’s ears. “Not really a fight, Coach. One punch that barely grazed me. And I didn’t hit him back. At best, an altercation.”
“Listen, I appreciate that you’re trying to sharpen your skills by playing pickup games. I did the same thing at the same park. Great place to learn and meet other kids.”
Yeah, Theo thought, like Rain and Motorpsycho.
“Thing is, you can’t get in fights and stay on the team. We have a zero-tolerance-for-violence policy
. So be careful.”
“But I didn’t get into a fight. He punched me.”
He shrugged. “School policy, Theo.”
No point in arguing that, Theo thought. Once they pull out the old “school policy,” the time for rational thought and intelligent debate is over. They make “policy” sound like some giant fire-breathing monster that lives in a nearby cave and is very sensitive to any insults from the villagers. If they say or do anything Policy doesn’t like, he’ll come crashing down on the town and burn everyone to a crisp.
“Theo,” Coach said in a low voice, so low Theo had to lean in to hear him, “this isn’t a race thing, is it?”
“What do you mean?” Theo asked, taken aback.
“You aren’t trying to prove anything, are you? Being black doesn’t mean you have to, you know, be a tough guy. Doesn’t even mean you have to play basketball if you don’t want to.”
Coach stroked his goatee again. Each variation of stroking it expressed an entirely different emotion. This one was Teacher Concern.
“I’m not becoming Shaft, Coach, if that’s what you mean,” Theo said.
Coach smiled. “I dig the reference, Theo. I just…I just remember the pressure when I was one of only a handful of black kids at this school. Sometimes it was like everything I did was seen by others as a reflection of all black people. I hated that.”
Theo nodded. He knew what the coach was talking about. Sometimes he felt like saying something mean to someone or skipping doing his homework. But he didn’t because he had a feeling someone might think “Black people are mean” or “Black people are dumb.” He’d talked with Brian about that and Brian had said he’d felt the same way, only about being Jewish. That everything he did or said could encourage some kids to hate Jews. Did Daryl feel that way about being Asian? Did Brooke feel that way about being a girl?
“Even if I did feel that way,” Theo said, “there’s nothing I can do about it, right? I mean, you feel the way you feel.”
“You’re right, you can’t change the way you feel. But you can use it to motivate yourself to become a better person. The trick is that you still have to become your own person. Not just what others want or expect. Understand?”
Theo nodded. Theoretically, he did understand, though practically he still wasn’t sure what his “own person” was yet. Adults liked to talk about this mythological Own Person, but they were always hazy on the details. Like most things, it seemed to come down to doing what they wanted you to do.
“All right,” Coach said. “Good talk.” His voice was back to normal volume and Theo understood that their private moment of sharing was now over.
Coach sent Theo to the locker room with a warning: “Just remember what I said, Theo. We’d certainly hate to lose you from the team.”
“Are you going to kick me off the team if we don’t win on Friday?” Theo asked.
Coach looked uncomfortable. Finally, he said, “Let’s talk Friday after the game.”
“So that’s a yes,” Theo persisted.
Coach didn’t answer. He walked off toward his office.
Theo sat on the bleacher and looked around the gym. So far today he’d been threatened with expulsion from both teams he was on. He thought about his life without those teams and he felt a dark sadness tighten around his neck until it was hard to breathe.
After a long while, he got up and trudged to the locker room. The other players had already left, so he had the place to himself. He didn’t mind; he didn’t want to face them anyway.
After Theo changed clothes, he walked across campus to exit through the front entrance. When he stepped through the gate, he saw an unwelcome figure: Motorpsycho astride his big black motorcycle.
Motorpsycho pointed his leather-gloved finger at Theo, and then dragged the finger across his throat in a slicing motion. Then he revved his engine and took off with such a jolt of speed that the front of his motorcycle lifted in the air like Ghost Rider. The screech of tires echoed across the parking lot.
Very dramatic, Theo thought. Also, very effective.
Theo waited inside the school gate for twenty minutes before finally daring to leave. The walk home was about a mile and took just enough time for him to count all the reasons this was the worst Tuesday in the entire history of Tuesdays. And that included the stock market crash of 1929 (on a Tuesday) that started the Great Depression that devastated the entire country for a decade.
This Tuesday, Theo thought, is the beginning of my personal Great Depression. But Friday will be much, much worse.
Theo’s Diary of Doom
Friday morning: Showdown with Constance to see if I get kicked off Brain Train.
Friday afternoon: Basketball game with Lemon Hill to see if I get kicked off the basketball team.
Friday after school: Avoid Motorpsycho, who wants to kick me out of living.
Friday night: Call Witness Protection and see if they have an opening.
The list reminded Theo of The Three Musketeers, which he’d read last year. In it, D’Artagnan is a young adventurer who goes to Paris to join the famous Musketeers. Only, he accidentally insults the men he idolizes, and he ends up with appointments to fight a duel with each of them—and they’re all scheduled for the same time.
As Theo ran through all the ways his life could soon crash and burn, he felt his phone vibrate with a text message. He checked the screen.
CG (he really should change that): What happened at bball today? You sucked worse than usual.
Theo: Thanks, stalker.
CG: They’re gonna cut u, dude.
Theo: U were supposed to tell me about Motorpsycho today.
CG: No time. 2 busy saving your butt from getting cut from Brain Train. Seems like nobody wants u on their team.
Theo: U have time now. He was waiting for me after school. Gave me the death glare. Who is he and what does he want?????
CG: Not on phone. When I see u. Bye.
She disconnected.
Brian texted a moment later. He wanted to know everything that was going on, so Theo told him, including the coach giving him until Friday to improve. And Motorpsycho’s throat-cutting charade.
Theo: 3 showdowns on Friday. Should be called Black Friday.
Brian: Joke: What does a black guy call Black Friday?
Theo: I dunno.
Brian: Friday. Get it?
Theo chuckled. Count on Brian to make him feel better. He promised to call him later and he turned the phone off.
Theo arrived home a minute later. He opened the front door with a sense of relief. Finally he had found his refuge from the cold, cruel world.
The relief lasted all of one second. That’s when he saw Gavin standing in the living room, glowering at him.
“Hi, Gavin,” Theo said, surprised. “What are you—”
“You lying, thieving jerk!” With that, Gavin hurled himself at Theo, tackled him to the ground, and wrapped his hands around his throat.
ADMITTEDLY, Theo wasn’t much of a fighter. But as the air was being choked out of him, something caveman-ish kicked in, and he tried whatever he could to survive.
Like cry.
Scream.
Beg.
Since all of those are very hard to do without air, Theo switched tactics. However, those tactics were quite limited, given that he was flat on his back with the massive Gavin straddling him. Gavin’s face was so scrunched with rage that it looked like a big clenched fist perched on top of his bulging neck. He yelled “Thief!” and “Liar!” and other nasty words with such fury that each one sprayed saliva in Theo’s face.
Theo couldn’t decide which was worse, the choking or the spitting. One was painful, the other gross. Then he realized that’s the kind of debate you have when you’re delirious from lack of oxygen.
Theo bucked up his hips to throw Gavin off, but the move barely budged his muscular cousin an inch. He grabbed Gavin’s wrists and tried to pull them away, but Gavin was too strong. He reached up and wrapped his hands a
round Gavin’s throat; Gavin’s neck was so muscular it was like trying to squeeze a soccer ball.
Finally, he remembered a tip he had picked up from watching the spy show Burn Notice. On the show, the main character, ex-spy Michael Westen, gives all kinds of cool tips about how to break out of handcuffs, pick locks, make smoke bombs from peanut butter and mustard, and defeat much bigger attackers. In this case, all Theo had to do was peel back one pinkie finger and bend it until Gavin released both hands from his throat.
At first, it seemed to have no effect. Gavin kept his grip tight as a noose. So Theo bent the finger back even farther.
Gavin grunted and released that hand. He tried to jerk his pinkie free while keeping pressure on Theo’s throat with his other hand. Theo continued to bend the finger.
Crack!
“Owww!” Gavin yelped and released Theo’s throat. He jumped up and massaged his finger. “You could’ve broken it!”
Theo scrambled to his feet, coughing. “You could’ve killed me!” His voice was a little pinched from the choking.
“I wasn’t going to kill you. Even though you deserve it.” Gavin opened and closed his hand, wincing in pain.
“How do I deserve it? What did I do?”
“You ripped me off, man! You stole my music!”
“You gave me that CD,” Theo said. “I didn’t take it.”
“Yeah, I gave it to you to listen to, not put on the Internet!”
Theo just stared. “What are you talking about?”
“Liar!” Gavin hollered, and charged at Theo again.
This time Theo was prepared. Just as Gavin threw his arm around Theo’s head and pulled him into a headlock, Theo wrapped his arm around Gavin’s head. They danced around in a double headlock, muttering curses and threats.
“What are you two doing?” boomed Theo’s dad.
Both boys looked up to see Marcus standing in the doorway in his police uniform. They immediately released each other and stood up straight, almost at attention.
That’s when they saw the person behind Marcus.
Theo recognized the woman instantly from the dating website.
Sasquatch in the Paint Page 13