“Fine,” she said. At least, that’s what her mouth said. Her face said the opposite. “Hank Zipzer, you may step forward.”
I took a big step and joined the other kids in line.
I’d made it! I was on the team.
“Practice begins tomorrow at three o’clock,” Ms. Adolf said. “Be prompt. Be focused. And no gum chewing during practice.”
I was so glad to have been chosen. I made a promise to myself: I was going to be prompt. I was going to be focused. And I was going to be gumless.
CHAPTER 5
“I made the basketball team,” I blurted out at the dinner table that night.
“Hank, you interrupted your sister,” my mom said. “She was just telling us about what happens to reptiles in cold weather.”
“I’m sorry, Emily,” I said, although I didn’t really mean it. “I just couldn’t keep the good news in my body anymore. So it flew off my tongue.”
“Hank, I didn’t know you had an interest in basketball,” my dad said.
“I didn’t know either until Frankie and Ashley said they had been picked for the team.”
“How’s your shooting?” my dad asked.
“Needs work.”
“How’s your dribbling?”
“Needs work.”
“How’s your passing?”
“Never heard of it.”
“It’s when you assist another player by passing the ball so he or she can shoot,” Emily said. “Everyone knows that. Even Katherine.”
Emily’s pet iguana, Katherine, who sits on her shoulder during dinner, whipped her tongue out and hissed at me.
“No one wants to hear from you,” I snapped. “You didn’t make the team.”
“Do not take that tone of voice with Katherine,” Emily said. “She’s very sensitive.”
“Awww . . . what’s going to happen?” I said, faking a nice tone of voice. “Is she going to cry when she’s spitting up lettuce balls?”
“For your information, Katherine digests her lettuce very well,” Emily snapped.
“All right, you two,” my dad said. “That’s enough. Hank, after dinner I’ll take you downstairs to the basement courtyard and give you some basketball pointers.”
“Great idea, Dad, but there’s no basketball hoop in the courtyard.”
“Leave it to your creative dad,” he said.
“Okay,” I said, even though I had no idea what he was talking about.
“I didn’t know you played basketball, Stanley,” my mom said.
My dad kind of puffed up his chest. “I was a pretty fair player in my day. They called me Dr. Dunk.”
“Wow, Dad,” I said. “I didn’t know you were a doctor, too.”
“That was his nickname, you muffin head,” Emily said, “because Dad scored a lot of points.”
“I think you boys will have fun playing basketball together,” my mom said.
I wasn’t sure. My dad can get really impatient when he’s trying to teach me a game. Last week, he was trying to teach me how to play Scrabble, which is not a good game for me since I can’t spell. I tried to explain to him that he could roll his eyes at me all he wanted, but it wasn’t going to help me be a better speller.
My dad suggested we skip dessert and go right downstairs to practice. That was okay with me, since my mom is into making super healthy, semi-disgusting desserts. That night it was tomato soup cupcakes with blueberries.
I grabbed our basketball, and we took the elevator down to the basement. We walked through the laundry room and out the back door to the courtyard. It’s a cement square surrounded on all four sides by our ten-floor apartment building. My dad reached into a grocery bag he was carrying and pulled out two wire hangers. He twisted them together, then bent them into a circle and hung them up on a nail that was sticking out of the brick.
“This is called using your head,” my dad said, pointing to his homemade basket. “Now let’s practice using your hands. Take your first shot.”
I held the ball in my hands and took aim. Just as I was about to let it go, I heard a noise from Mrs. Park’s apartment. It sounded like a teakettle going off. I turned to follow the noise, and the ball went sideways. It never even came close to the basket.
My dad shook his head.
“You need to focus,” he said. “Concentrate. Keep your eyes on where you want the ball to go. Understand?”
“Completely, Dad,” I said.
I picked up the ball and took aim again. This time, I stared as hard as I could at the basket—until a fat gray pigeon swooped down from a windowsill. I saw it from the corner of my eye just as I let go of the ball. Once again—you guessed it— I shot a total air ball.
I could see the frustration building up in my dad.
“Let’s give shooting a rest,” he said with a sigh. “Let me see you dribble.”
I picked up the ball and dribbled around the courtyard. At least, I tried to. It’s a good thing there were four walls around me. Otherwise the ball would have rolled into the Hudson River.
Finally, we got to passing.
“Okay,” my dad said. “I’ll pass to you, and as soon as you catch it, pass it back to me. Step forward to meet the ball.”
He threw me the ball, and it landed on my chest, but I held on to it. Then I threw it back to him, which wasn’t easy, because he was moving all around the courtyard. We must have passed the ball between us five or six times in a row.
“Hey,” I said, stopping to catch my breath. “I’m really good at passing. That makes me feel great.”
“Don’t get overconfident,” my dad said. “What you need is game time. There’s no better way to learn the game.”
“I’ll never get game time,” I explained. “I’m just a substitute. Ms. Adolf doesn’t want to put me in.”
“We’ll see about that,” my dad said. “No son of mine just sits on the bench. Tomorrow, I’m going to school to have a chat with this Ms. Adolf.”
“That’s not such a good idea, Dad. Ms. Adolf is not very chatty.”
“I’m going to ask her to put you in the game,” my dad said. “All you have to do is hustle more and you’ll get better. But you can’t hustle without the opportunity.”
Every muscle in my body froze at the idea of my dad telling Ms. Adolf to put me in the game. Number one: Ms. Adolf doesn’t like to be told what to do. Number two: Did I mention Ms. Adolf doesn’t like to be told what to do? And number three: Ms. Adolf doesn’t like me. And if you put those three things together, it meant only one thing.
Tomorrow was going to be a disaster.
CHAPTER 6
The next day, school seemed to drag on even more than usual. We had a spelling test. I got three words out of ten right, and two of those were my name. I had to give an oral report on parakeets, but my brain was so busy thinking about basketball practice that I forgot to mention that parakeets are birds. Luckily, I did remember to mention that they have beaks and wings.
After school, Frankie, Ashley, and I ran all the way to the gym. Ms. Adolf was already standing at the entrance, clipboard in hand.
“See how prompt we are, Ms. Adolf?” I said with my best grin.
“There is no need for you to celebrate what is your responsibility,” the old sourpuss said. You’d think she could come up with a little tiny smile, even a twitch of her upper lip. But nooooooooooooooo, all she said was, “Practice begins now.”
The other kids arrived, and we spent the first few minutes warming up together on the court. I loved the squeaky sound our sneakers made against the polished wooden floor. I loved the echo of the ball bouncing on the court. I loved passing the ball and watching everyone take a shot. I was having so much fun, I didn’t even get nervous when Ryan Shimozato passed me the ball and it was my turn to shoot. It didn’t go in, but the ball actually touched the backboard.
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“Why don’t you try shooting with your eyes open, Zipper Butt,” Nick McKelty shouted from across the court.
“Because if my eyes were open, I’d have to see you,” I shouted back to him.
The big creep had no comeback for that. It feels really good to put a bully in his place. But the good feeling didn’t last long. It ended when I saw my dad walk into the gym, wearing his street shoes, which left a trail of black scuff marks all over the floor.
Ms. Adolf spoke to him before I had a chance to stop him.
“Pardon me,” she said, “but parents are not invited to practice. You may come to the game on Friday.”
“That’s what I want to talk to you about,” my dad said. “It will only take a moment of your time.”
I closed my eyes and wished that I could fly. I would fly to Iceland and stay there until my father left.
“I practiced with my son, Hank, last night,” my dad said, “and I saw major improvement.”
“I have yet to see any improvement,” she answered.
“I believe Hank will surprise you,” my dad went on, “if you just let him play. People can’t improve unless you give them a chance.”
“Mr. Zipzer, the point is, we are trying to create a winning team, not a losing one.”
I was so embarrassed! I had to stop this conversation any way I could. I ran over to my dad and took him by the arm.
“Thanks for stopping by, Dad,” I said, leading him toward the door. “Be sure and tell Mom I said hi.”
I held the door open for him, but he didn’t leave. Instead he stopped, turned to Ms. Adolf, and gave her his grumpy stare. I know that stare very well, because I get it every report-card day. And every left-my-homework-at-school day. And every forgot-to-make-my-bed day.
But Ms. Adolf didn’t care. She just stared right back at him. That woman could stare down a snorting moose.
“Bye, Dad,” I said, practically shutting the door in his face.
As soon as the door was closed, I ran back to Ms. Adolf. Like I said, she is not a person who likes being told what to do, and I knew my dad’s little visit had probably made her mad. I was right. By the time I reached her, you could almost see the steam shooting out of her ears.
“My dad loves to kid around,” I said, before she could say one word. “That part about letting me play was just a joke. You don’t have to do that.”
“Let’s see just how improved you are,” she said. “Please join your teammates for a passing and shooting drill.”
Each person had to pass the ball to another team member, who then got to take a shot at the basket. We went around and around the circle. Each time I got to shoot, I missed the basket entirely, and felt worse and worse. I noticed Ms. Adolf shaking her head, and it was definitely not in the up and down direction. Side to side is not the kind of shake you want.
Frankie and Ashley were good shooters, but Heather Payne was amazing. She’s so tall that when she jumped and lifted her arms, she could almost touch the bottom of the basketball net. But she was having trouble catching the passes from Nick McKelty. He threw the ball so hard that it smacked her in the belly and knocked the breath out of her.
“Here, Hank,” she said, throwing the ball to me after she’d made a shot. “You pass it. My belly can’t take another McKelty toss.”
I caught the ball, dribbled a couple of times, and then passed to Heather. She caught it, spun around, and made a perfect basket.
“Wow,” she said. “You’re great at passing. That was an amazing assist.”
I turned to Ms. Adolf as fast as I could, to make sure she had seen that. And of course, she hadn’t. She had her nose buried in her clipboard, no doubt making a note that I was the worst player on the team.
At the end of our drill, Ms. Adolf called the team together.
“In preparation for our game on Friday, I have ordered special team jerseys for you,” she said. “As you’ll notice, each has a number.”
Oh boy. A team jersey with my own number on it. My lucky number is five. I hoped I’d get that number on my jersey. This was going to be so great.
She pulled the jerseys out of a box. They were blue with white numbers on the back. That was cool because blue and white are our school colors.
“Frankie Townsend, number 22,” she called. Frankie went up and got his jersey.
“Ashley Wong!” she said. “Number 15.” Ashley picked up her jersey and did a happy fist pump.
One by one, each member’s name was called. Shimozato, number 7. Sperling, number 9. Patel, number 30.
At last, she had called everyone but me. That was okay. For a great moment like this, I could wait. I stood there proudly.
“Hank Zipzer,” she said. I walked up to her. “Unfortunately, I ordered the jerseys before Principal Love suggested that you be on the team. Therefore, I don’t have a jersey for you. However, I was able to locate a T-shirt left over from last year’s team. It’s number 13.”
“But 13 is an unlucky number, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Perhaps that’s why it was left over from last year,” she said. “In any case, it’s all we have. It might be a bit large, but I trust you can make it work.”
“But this T-shirt doesn’t look like everybody else’s,” I said.
“Let’s be honest, Henry,” she said. “It doesn’t really matter, since you won’t be on the court during the game.”
I took the T-shirt without looking at it. Even though I was embarrassed, I tried to smile to cover it up, but I couldn’t make myself.
“Everyone put on your jerseys for a team picture,” Ms. Adolf said.
I slipped the T-shirt over my head. It came down below my knees. I wanted to run away. I sure didn’t want to be in the picture wearing that thing.
Suddenly, Frankie and Ashley were there by my side. They know me so well.
“Come on, Zip,” Frankie said. “I feel like standing in the back row.”
“Me too,” said Ashley. “Let’s go.”
So we took the team picture. If you looked at it quickly, you might not notice that I was the only one without my own team jersey.
But I noticed.
CHAPTER 7
My grandfather, Papa Pete, picked us up from school after practice.
“How come Dad didn’t wait around to walk us home?” I asked him.
“He had to go pick up some doggy treats for Cheerio. You know how grumpy that little puppy gets when he rolls over and there’s no biscuit for him.”
We left school and headed down 78th Street toward Broadway. “So how are my favorite basketball players?” Papa Pete asked as we walked.
“Not so good,” I answered.
“Ms. Adolf didn’t have a team jersey for Hank,” Frankie explained.
“It’s not about the uniform, Hankie,” Papa Pete said, giving my shoulder a squeeze. “Basketball is about having fun and playing your best.”
“Well, it’s not fun when you play like me,” I said. “I couldn’t put a ball in the basket if it were as big as the ocean.”
“Maybe you’re not the best shooter in the world,” Ashley said to me, “but you can sure pass the ball.”
“It takes all kinds of skills to make a team,” Papa Pete said. “Take Larry Green on my bowling team, the Chopped Livers. He has never thrown a strike in all of our games. But he brings homemade doughnuts, and that keeps us all happy.”
“I didn’t even know doughnuts could be homemade,” Frankie said.
“Someone has to make them,” Papa Pete answered with a grin. “They don’t grow on trees.”
Frankie and Ashley burst out laughing, but not me. I was still feeling down in the dumps. Of course, Papa Pete noticed right away.
“I have an idea,” he said. “Let’s stop at Harvey’s and get ourselves a slice of pizza. My treat.”
Th
e pizza cheered me up a little. It’s hard to feel too terrible when pepperoni is involved. But by the time I got home to our apartment, I was feeling bad again. It didn’t help that I had to show my dad the big blue T-shirt.
“This isn’t much of a jersey,” he said. “Is this what all the kids are wearing?”
“I was the last picked, and they ran out of the real ones,” I answered.
“Looks like I’m going to have to have another little chat with Ms. Adolf,” my dad said.
“I hope it goes better than the last one,” I said.
I was headed to my room when Emily called out, “By the way, Hank, someone named Heather Payne called for you. She’s a girl.”
“I know, Emily,” I said. “She’s in my class.”
“Your new girlfriend left her number.”
“She’s not my girlfriend, Emily. She happens to be a girl who is a friend.”
That wasn’t actually true. I had never hung out with Heather Payne. She had never called me before. I wondered what she wanted to talk about. I went into the living room, picked up the phone, and dialed her number.
“Hello. Harry’s Haircuts,” said a voice on the other end of the phone. “You grow it, we snip it.”
“May I please speak with Heather Payne?”
“Never heard of her, kiddo. You got the wrong number.”
Oh no. It happened again. Every time I try to dial the phone, I press the wrong numbers. Actually, they’re the right numbers, they’re just in the wrong order. My eyes are looking at the numbers, but my brain mixes them all up. I tried again, pressing each number slowly and carefully.
“Hello,” a voice said. I breathed a sigh of relief. It was Heather Payne.
“Hi, Heather. It’s Hank. I’m calling you back.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “I hear your voice.”
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