The hat lifted. Light flooded in.
“Too bright!”
“It’s called daylight—and it helps if you want to see where you’re going.” The skin around the eyes that stared into his crinkled in a smile.
“Hi, Nana Grace.”
Jemmie’s grandmother leaned the broom against her shoulder. The scratchy sound must’ve been her sweeping her driveway. “What you playing at, Cody, blindman’s bluff?”
“I’m not Cody, I’m Detective Dobbs.”
“Well now, Detective Dobbs.” She put one hand on her bony hip, holding the hat with the other. “They got ‘eye’ in ‘private eye’ for a reason. To be one, you gotta be able to see.”
Nana Grace brushed the top of the hat with her fingertips. “This hat is mighty fine, but the way you’re wearin’ it you’re gonna get yourself killed.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to have to tell your mama you been hit by a car.”
“I’m staying right at the edge. I’m being careful.”
She pointed down. “While you’re being careful, tie that shoe.”
“Yes ma’am.” He knelt on the hot road, pulled the lace tight, made the two loops, and knotted them. He stood up again. “May I have my hat back?”
Nana Grace bit her lip and squinted at him. “Bend your ears flat and hold ’em that way.”
“Why?” But he bent his ears flat like she said. Nana Grace grandmothered all the neighborhood kids. Everyone listened to her.
Using his ears the way Dad used shelf brackets, Nana Grace set the hat back on his head. She crossed her skinny arms and nodded once. “That’ll work.”
“Bye, Nana Grace.” Now he could see, but his ears didn’t like being shelf brackets. At the corner he eased the hat up to give them a break and they popped up straight.
He let the hat drop over his face again and followed the call of the ball.
Justin
Ben scans his team—which no longer includes me. When Leroy showed up with his younger brother, Jahmal, they both refused to play on Girls. “Don’t make me hurl, I ain’t no girl,” said Leroy, doing his idiot rapper rhyming thing.
So Jemmie pointed to me. “Come on, Big. You’ve been promoted to Girls.”
I’ll admit it, I got flustered—first because she noticed me specifically, and second because I sometimes think her nickname for me is code for “fat.” When I didn’t answer fast, she took it as a yes.
I’ve been a Girl now for, like, an hour, and I’m so hot I wish someone would kill me. Ben’s sweating too. His hair is plastered to his face, but he doesn’t notice. His head’s in the game.
Deciding which of his two guys to hand off to, Ben holds the ball high. I’m white as school paste, but Ben’s arms are tan from mowing lawns, almost as dark as Jemmie’s. Being African American, she’s tan year-round.
Jemmie gets all up in Ben’s face, waving her arms. “You don’t get points for hoggin’ the ball, you know.”
“Leroy!” Ben calls.
Of course, Leroy. Leroy’s six foot fourteen and decked out in a blue satin basketball uniform like a pro—if a pro got his threads at Goodwill. But as he goes up for the catch, Jemmie cuts in front of him, snatches the ball, dribbles once as she pivots around him, then drives hard down the street.
I’m just thinking that being a Girl isn’t half bad when Jemmie bounce-passes the ball to me. I reach, but it rolls off my fingertips.
Leroy lopes after the loose ball.
Cass snatches it on the run. She swings around, but when she jumps to take her shot, Ben steps right into her. She goes down so hard, her ponytail jolts straight out.
She hugs the ball and blinks up at him.
Geez. He knocked his girlfriend on her butt over a stupid ball?
“Foul!” Jemmie yells. “Free throw.” She drags Cass to her feet.
Cass stands behind the chalk line we drew on the road. She’s usually solid when it comes to free throws, but this time she misses. Guess being set down hard by Ben shook her up.
Leroy snags the ball as it rolls off the rim, then he sinks a turnaround jumper. He pumps his fist in the air, the rubber bracelets jiggling down his arm, and he grabs the ball. “Nothing but net!”
“What net? All we have is a rusty hoop.” That’s me talking—but not real loud.
Leroy rolls the ball down his arm and pops it in the air with his biceps. “It grows every hour, I got Leroy Power!”
Jemmie taps a foot. “Could you be any more in love with yourself?”
Hoping he keeps getting on her bad side with his showing off and the lame-o rhyming thing, I fade back to the safe zone, near the curb where the ball hardly ever goes, and watch Jemmie guard Leroy. He zigs, she zags—it’s like they’re dancing, they get so close.
Ben says on a scale of one to ten, one being “not a chance” and ten being “done deal,” getting Jemmie to like me is a high three. But as my best friend, sometimes he overestimates.
Leroy bumps Jemmie with his shoulder. She bumps back.
I’d put my chances with her at negative fourteen. Leroy has blue eyes like you never see on a black guy, and no zits—while I have one on my chin that deserves its own zip code. Leroy’s all slick moves, and here I am hiding out at the curb, my hands in the pockets of my plaid shorts.
I mean, who shoots hoops with their hands in their pockets?
Who wears plaid shorts?
“Give it!” Jemmie’s gold hoop earrings flash as she slaps at the ball. To Jemmie, life is a contact sport. To me, it’s more like a rerun of a bad old TV show—without snacks.
Leroy twists, keeping the ball away from her. “The girl can’t steal, ‘cause I’m the real deal!”
I sit down on the curb. This time Jemmie’s glare is for me, but it’s stinkin’ hot, and I’m not really in the game anyway.
Leroy passes to his kid brother—and Jahmal scores. Jahmal. A kid not much older than Cody.
Girls is ahead by eighteen points when a little kid comes poking down the road wearing a Humphrey Bogart fedora. (If you don’t know about HB or fedoras, you probably don’t watch old movies with your mom.) Everyone else is too busy grunting and sweating to notice him as he bumps along the curb.
I shade my eyes. “Cody?” The hat covers his whole head and makes the scrawny neck sticking out of it look like a pencil. “Can you see where you’re going?”
“I can see the ground.” He stops. “And what makes you think I’m Cody?”
“I recognize the shoes.”
“And the T-shirt.” Ben rests his palms on his thighs, gasping. “Which used to be mine.”
“Doesn’t prove it,” Cody says.
Leroy revs up. “Oh, you can’t disguise, ‘cause I reck-o-nize your skinny little thighs.” He bounces the ball, swatting it from one hand to the other. “You are Cody.”
“Am not.”
Leroy spins the ball on one finger. “Who are you, then?”
“Dobbs.”
Leroy tosses the ball up in the air. Still spinning, it lands on his finger again. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Dobbs.”
“Detective Dobbs.”
I like the hat. I’d wear it to high school next fall if it was mine. It would make me either cool or weird. “Where’d you get the hat, Detective Dobbs?” I ask.
“Closet.”
Leroy dribbles a fast circle around Cody. “Detect this, Detective Dobbs.” He pops the ball straight at Cody’s chest.
Cody can barely catch a ball when he’s looking right at it—but this time his hands whip up and he grabs it.
“Hey! You saw that coming!” says Leroy.
“Nuh-uh! I felt it. I have new detection powers.”
“For real? Let’s see if you can feel that ball into the basket, Mr. Detection Powers,” Leroy says.
Cody holds the ball in both hands and turns slowly.
“That’s it, that’s it,” Leroy coaxes as Cody turns away from the hoop.
“Leroy?” Jemmie pops him on the shoulder with her fist. “Quit be
ing a butt.”
“Not tryin’ to be rude, just messin’ with the dude.”
“Is anyone else getting tired of shooting hoops with Dr. Seuss?” I ask.
Leroy points to Cody. “And the Cat in the Hat.”
Which I have to admit is a decent comeback.
Leroy snaps the elastic waist of his satin shorts and struts over to Cody. “Let me help you out there, Detective Dobbs.” But halfway to Cody he stops and rests his knuckles on his hips.
Like a compass needle finding north, Cody is slowly turning toward the basket. When the basket is dead ahead, he plants his feet wide and swings the ball back and forth between his legs.
Leroy blows out his breath. “You still have that broom handy, Ben?”
If this was a movie, Cody would nail it and everyone would cheer, but it isn’t. It’s just life.
“Take your time, Cody,” I say under my breath as he swings the ball between his skinny legs. Not a chance he’ll hit the hoop, but why not stretch the moment when it still seems possible?
“Hey, bop-a-loo-bop!” After one last crazy swing, the ball flies.
Jemmie lets out a whoop. Cass does a perky cheerleader jump. Ben slaps Cody’s shoulder. Jahmal gapes, like he won’t believe what just happened unless he sees the instant replay.
“Nothing but net!” I pump my fist in the air. Luckily no one notices the move.
Leroy’s so impressed, he forgets to rhyme. “You da man, little dude!”
Detective Dobbs pushes the hat up and sees everyone celebrating, then grins. “Told you. I have powers!”
Leroy runs the ball down, then shoves it into Cody’s hands. “Again!” He jams the hat down on Cody’s head, then leans over and looks up under the brim. “You sure you can’t see?”
“Just the ground.” Leaving out the “hey, bop-a-loo-bop,” Cody flings the ball two-handed over his head and puts it through the hoop a second time.
We all go wild.
Leroy scoops up the ball. “Let’s see you go three for three.”
Don’t try it, I coach Cody silently. Three for three? Nothing that sweet ever happens.
I guess Cody knows it too. He ambles toward the curb. “The hat says maybe later.”
“Let me take a shot wearing it.” Leroy snatches the hat.
“Hey!” Cody throws his arms over his bare head. “Give it back!”
“One shot to see what it’s got.”
“The power only works for the hat-finder—and that’s me.”
Leroy trots back, cocks the hat so it covers his eyes, and shoots, but it goes long and…splat, it’s back in the rotten leaves on Mr. B’s carport roof.
“Told you,” says Cody, staring up at the ball.
Leroy shrugs. “Don’t need that old hat anyway. Hooping in a hat ain’t where it’s at.”
Leroy starts basketball camp—and summer school—on Monday. The first because he’s so good, and the other because he’s so bad. I just hope he’ll be too busy to hang out with us.
Without bothering to get permission, he scrambles up onto the truck hood and long-arms the ball. He jumps down, plops the hat on Cody’s head, and pushes the ball into the kid’s chest. “Come on. Show me that hat trick one more time.”
But Ben hangs an arm around his brother’s shoulders. “You getting hungry, Detective Dobbs?” Ben asks.
The hat nods.
“Me too. Let’s go check out what Mom’s doing with tofu and sprouts today.”
Cody skips backwards a step and says, “See you guys!”
“Sure you don’t want to join Girls?” I call after him.
He stops. “Can I?”
“No.” Ben turns him toward home. “Catch you guys later.”
In the split second it takes Ben to look back and wave at us, Cody runs smack into a recycling bin.
Ben slaps the hat brim. “Take off the stupid hat.” When Cody doesn’t, Ben puts a hand on his shoulder.
“Bye, Ben!” Cass leans toward him like he’s magnetic. He lifts a hand, but doesn’t turn around.
If I had a girlfriend I would turn around. Heck, I’d walk backwards until she disappeared over the horizon. I glance at Jemmie, but she’s taking free throws, nailing them one after another. That girl doesn’t need a magic hat.
I sure could use one, though.
Ben
I told my brother to take the hat off, but he acted like the hat made him deaf on top of blind. Cody always overdoes things. When our grandfather taught him pig latin, I was “En-bay” for weeks. Now it was the hat.
After he smacked into Ms. Dupree’s recycling bin, I kept a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey, Ben? You know whose hat this is?” He did a skip-step to keep up. “It’s Uncle Paul’s, the one who disappeared!”
In Cody’s head I bet our uncle disappeared in a puff of smoke. “Uncle Paul didn’t disappear. He’s traveling.”
“He’s only sent one postcard since I was three years old. That’s pretty disappeared.”
Yeah, it was. Sometimes I still missed my uncle. He was way cooler than his older brother, my dad. I steered my own brother away from the curb. “I’d like to pull an Uncle Paul sometime. Travel around. See things.”
“Can I come?”
“No.” I gave his shoulder a squeeze. “But don’t worry. I’ll send you more than one postcard.”
“How many?”
“Two.”
Cody twisted toward me. “Two?”
“Doof.”
“You’re kidding?”
Since he couldn’t see my face, I gave his shoulder another squeeze.
“Does one squeeze mean yes?”
I squeezed again.
“So, one is yes, and two is no. And three can be maybe?”
There’s a reason I call Cody my little “bother.” I gave his shoulder three hard squeezes, then changed the subject. “Hey, that was pretty sweet the way you made those shots. You could you see the hoop, right?”
“No way.”
I pushed up on the hat brim. As soon as his eyes came into view he smiled, showing off his half-grown-in big front teeth—he really believes the tooth fairy is keeping the ones he lost in a “special place.”
“Whoa!” Cody slapped the sunflower Mom painted on our mailbox. “We’re already home!” He flapped the mailbox door open and shut.
“You didn’t even check.”
“Of course not. It’s Sunday.”
“Then why’d you open the box?”
“For luck.”
“That’s how you made those hoops, right? Luck?”
Cody blinked up at me. “I dunno. I’ve only ever made a few baskets in my whole entire life. Today, without even looking, I just let go of the ball and—swish!” He stared at his hands. “When I held it, there was this…like…tingle.”
Oh boy, here we go. “Tingle?”
“You know…sort of a…magic tingle.” Cody opened and closed his hands, staring at them.
I crossed my arms. “A magic tingle?”
“Yes, a magic tingle!” Cody nodded so hard, the hat slid back over his eyes.
I walked away. “I’m going in for lunch.” He could find his own way up the driveway, or maybe the hat would tingle him in the right direction.
“Why couldn’t it be magic?” he shouted.
I sighed and walked back. “Magic is a little-kid thing, Cody.” I took the hat off his head. “Time to get over it. You’re about to turn seven.”
But with my uncle’s hat in my hands I felt a different kind of tingle. With his hat in my hands I started remembering him. No poof of smoke, but Uncle Paul had disappeared. One day he was here, sleeping in the room where Cody slept now; the next day he was gone.
“Say, Ben, is seven years old when you forget magic is real?” Even Cody’s freckles seemed to be staring up at me.
“No. Seven is when you figure out that it never was real.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t feel bad. It’s kind of a good thing that magic is
fake. Even in stories it’s only nice at first. It always messes up the person who has it.”
“Nuh-uh! Not Cinderella! Cinderella married the prince!”
“And they lived boringly ever after.”
Cody blinked up at me. “But the hat gave me powers!”
“Like the powers you had the time you tied your blanket around your shoulders and ‘flew’ off the top of the monkey bars?” I didn’t mention the broken collarbone. I’d tried the flying thing myself on the swings with Cass, both of us jumping when our swings hit the top. I got scraped up bad and her swing smacked her in the back of the head. Every kid has powers, until they try to use them.
“That was different. The blanket wasn’t magic.”
“Get real, Cody. ‘Magic’ only works in those comic books you like.”
“Not comics. Manga!”
“I’m telling you, just be glad hat magic isn’t real. If it was, and you messed up? You could destroy the planet.” I jogged across the yard. “Come on, Cody, let’s eat.”
“Gimme back my magic hat!”
I loped up the porch steps and winged the hat at him, didn’t even aim. Still, it landed on his head.
“See?” he whooped, pushing it back. “The hat likes me. It came right to me! Good old hat.”
“Hats don’t like people, and hitting that hoop was luck, not magic. You can wear the hat, but you’re still gonna have a normal, boring summer—and your head’s gonna sweat.”
Cody took the hat off and stared down at it. “I know you’re magic,” he mumbled. “But if I mess up, don’t destroy the planet, okay?”
Jemmie
All sweaty, I pumped the front of my T-shirt to let in some air.
“Wanna go now, Cass?” Girls had won three games out of four and my stomach was talking to me, big-time.
Cass finished tying her sneaker and straightened up. “Sure.”
“Hey, Jemmie.” Leroy’s voice came from behind us.
I turned. “Hey, what?”
His arms hung at his sides, the ball tucked against his waist like it was part of him. “How about some fun with a little one-on-one?”
The girls at school called him “Lookin’ Good Leroy,” and he did, but I got to look at him more than they did. Listen to him too.
Some Kind of Magic Page 2