Jump Shot

by Tiki Barber, Ronde Barber, Paul Mantell

  “Yeah? That’s only five blocks from us!” Ronde said, surprised. “How did I not know that?”

  “Well, I . . .”

  “I mean, I never see you on the bus. I know I’m absentminded sometimes, but I don’t think I could have missed you three years in a row!”

  “I, uh . . .” Sugar suddenly fell silent. Then, just as quickly, he changed the subject. “You know what’s wrong with this team?”

  “Me? No! I mean, how would I know? I just got here!”

  If Ronde protested a bit too much, it was because he knew exactly what was wrong with the basketball Eagles. He was looking at him right now!

  “Well, let me save you the time and effort,” said Sugar as they started up the staircase that led from field level, where the gym and locker rooms were, to the main floor, and the doors that led to the parking lot. “I’ll tell you what the problem is—it’s that everybody’s just standing around, waiting for me to make a play.”

  Finally, Ronde could agree with something Sugar said, and wholeheartedly. “You may be right about that. I did see Bobby and Rory kind of dogging it today. But why do you think they do that?” he asked, trying to draw Sugar out.

  “They’re just wimps, that’s all!” Sugar ranted.

  Ronde could feel his anger. Sugar was almost shaking with rage at the thought of it. “I get double-teamed every time, and nobody’s willing to put a body on anyone! They could slam me to the ground, and none of those chickens would stick up for me.”

  That’s because they’ve had it with you, dude, thought Ronde. Maybe you should be nicer to them; even get them the ball once in a while.

  Of course, he didn’t say any of that—that would have been the end of the conversation then and there. Instead, he offered, “It looks to me like they’re discouraged, kind of.”

  “They’re a bunch of losers, that’s what they are!” Sugar thundered. He yanked open the door to the main hallway and charged through it, leaving Ronde to follow him. “They’ve got a negative attitude, and Coach Jackson is no better. You’ll see soon enough if you haven’t already. This is what I live with, and it really, really bites.”

  Ronde didn’t know what to say to that. Clearly, Sugar was upset about the state of the team, and he had every right to be. Everything he’d said was true, technically. What he didn’t seem to get was his own part in what was wrong with the team.

  “Well, there’s got to be a way to change things,” Ronde said, determined not to give up so easily. “There’s got to be a way to get the front line and the bench involved in playing their best.”

  He followed Sugar through the main doors and onto the path that led to the parking lot, where the late bus would be waiting for them. “How do you think we could get them to play better?”

  Sugar laughed bitterly. “Me? How should I know? I’m not them.”

  “Well, who would know better than you?” Ronde wondered. “You’ve seen every minute of every game from close up. You’ve been in the locker room, you’ve won with them and lost with them. You must have some ideas.”

  Sugar stopped walking, turned to Ronde, and looked right at him. “You’re pretty smart, Barber, you know?” he said. “I think having you on the team is gonna make us better. How do you like that, for starters?”

  Ronde smiled. “I like it a lot!” he said, and the two of them gave each other five.

  “I’m gonna tell Coach to start you,” Sugar said, clapping Ronde on the shoulder. “You can’t do any worse than Rory’s doing. And unlike Tiki, you won’t be chucking up shots every time I get you the ball.”

  “You’ve got that right,” Ronde said. “That’s the last thing I want to be doing is shooting. Funny, for a shooting guard, huh?”

  He laughed again, but Sugar didn’t join in.

  In fact, Ronde noticed that he was no longer even paying attention. Instead, his gaze was fixed on a woman standing by a green car, about halfway to the bus. She was tall and tired-looking, but she was smiling a sad smile and waving to Sean, beckoning him to come over to her.

  He looked away from her. “Come on,” he said, striding quickly toward the bus. Ronde had to jog to keep up with him.

  “What’s up?” he asked, but Sugar didn’t answer. He walked right by the woman without even looking at her.

  “Sean!” she called after him. “Baby, please! Don’t be like this. . . .”

  Sugar ignored her. He grabbed the door handle and yanked himself up the stairs onto the bus. Ronde paused before following him, and looked back at the woman.

  She had put a white handkerchief to her mouth, and her shoulders were heaving up and down. Tears ran down her cheeks. She did not move, but stared after the bus as it rode away.

  Ronde sat next to Sugar, but he didn’t say a word. He was afraid if he did, Sugar might explode, and all the hard work of making friends with him would go right down the drain.

  I might not be able to fix all the basketball team’s problems, he thought. But at least I’ve finally got a clue about what Sugar’s problem might be.

  8

  TIKI AT WORK

  Tiki had never worked so hard in his life! Hours and hours of packing and unpacking boxes, walking the aisles to take items off shelves and put them on other shelves, then having to write down what he did on two different lists, so that Mr. Landzberg, or his assistant, or his secretary, or his salesmen, could read those lists and know what was where in the warehouse. Whew!

  Ronde hadn’t mentioned this part of the job. He’d talked about his errands around downtown Roanoke, and his visits to the house of the boy with the sick mother. But so far, Tiki hadn’t left the warehouse even once.

  It was kept pretty cold inside too. His floor foreman, Murray Wein, said that a lot of the merchandise kept better that way. But Tiki wondered if it wasn’t because it would cost too much to heat a warehouse that size, with such high ceilings. His mom had told the boys their electric bill at home was “outrageous,” and you could fit ten houses that size in this one big warehouse.

  By the time Tiki got home from his first day at work, he was exhausted. And he still had to write his reply to his own “anonymous” letter to the school paper!

  Luckily, Ronde wasn’t around. “Oh, that’s right—he’s playing tonight,” Tiki remembered aloud.

  He looked at the clock over the stove: 7:20 p.m. His mom wasn’t home yet either. On Wednesdays, she worked both her jobs.

  Seven twenty . . . It wasn’t that late at all. Still, it had been dark for over an hour. To Tiki, who was sitting down for the first time since school, it felt like eleven at night.

  Still, he sat down to write his advice column. He’d promised it to Laura signed, sealed, and delivered first thing tomorrow morning. He was no welcher, never had been—and he didn’t intend to start being one now!

  He wrote in his spiral notebook:

  Dear “Perplexed,”

  Thanks for writing, and I sympathize with your problem. There are lots of kids who act like the one you mention. They don’t realize that they’re not just hurting themselves, they’re hurting everyone in the whole group!

  What to do about it? Well, the thing is, as I see it, that this kid—or, let’s say, these kinds of kids—need to really look at themselves, and see themselves as others see them. I mean, sure, doing that will really rock their world. But if they’re ever going to change, somebody needs to take the risk of laying it all out in the open for them. As the commercial says on TV, “Only your best friend will tell you. . . .”

  I hope whoever it is, that they’re reading this, and getting the hint. I wish you the courage to speak up to this kid. And I hope if you do, that the kid forgives you, at least after they’re done being mad at you for telling it like it is.

  Good luck. Your friend, Tiki.

  Tiki put down his pen, yawning. He could barely keep his eyes open. The stairs looked a million miles away. He closed his notebook and lay back on the couch . . . just to rest . . . just . . . for a . . . minute . . .

>   • • •

  “TIKI!!”

  Tiki shot upright like the spring on a mousetrap. “WHAT?!?”

  “Yo, man, come on upstairs and go to bed.”

  “Wha?”

  Aren’t I already in bed? Tiki thought, confused. Then he realized he’d dozed off on the living room couch. “What time izzit?”

  “Ten o’clock, bro. Time for bed. I’ve been home for a while, but I let you sleep. You obviously needed it.”

  “Ah, man . . . work tired me out. . . .”

  “I know it,” Ronde said. “I didn’t say anything about that part, because I didn’t want you to feel guilty that I was working all those hours while you were playing b-ball.”

  Tiki nodded gratefully. “Yeah, thanks for that. Whoa. Everything is sore. . . .” He got up and followed Ronde upstairs.

  “Go on, you get washed up first,” Ronde said. “I’ve got to tell you about practice, and what happened after!”

  “Aw, man, not tonight,” Tiki begged, dragging himself into the bathroom and closing the door behind him. He tried the light switch, but the light blinded him, and he quickly shut it off.

  As he brushed his teeth in the dark, he heard Ronde from the other side of the door. “Don’t you even want to know?”

  “Mphfmgbh,” Tiki said, spitting out and rinsing his mouth. He opened the door, and went across the hall to the bedroom with his eyes closed, collapsing onto his bed. “I’m exhausted,” he said. “Tell me in the morning.”

  • • •

  Over breakfast, Ronde told Tiki about practice, and his conversation with Sugar afterward. Tiki listened intently. “Sounds like you really broke through to the dude,” he said approvingly. “I’m glad we switched up, man. You’re doing a better job of making friends with him than I ever could. I mean, he can be such a jerk. . . .”

  “That’s what I thought too,” Ronde said, “but then, get this—just when I think I’m getting under his skin, you know? Like we’re starting to relate like we’re friends? That’s when he spots his mom in the parking lot—and suddenly, he froze. It was like I wasn’t even there—or worse, like he wished I wasn’t.”

  “Weird,” Tiki said. “Maybe he and his mom were having a fight or something.”

  “If they were, it must be pretty bad,” said Ronde. “He left her there with the car, and took the bus home.”

  “Whoa,” said Tiki as the bus pulled up to their stop and they got on board. From there all the way to school, they were busy fooling around with their friends, telling jokes and trading gossip.

  Sugar Morton was nowhere to be seen, Tiki noticed. Maybe he and his mom had made up, and she was driving him to school like she used to.

  Tiki thought about the advice column he’d written. It was in his book bag, in a sealed envelope, with “for Laura Sommer” written on it.

  He’d been pretty harsh on Sugar in his response, he knew. And now he was beginning to regret it. What if Sugar had bigger problems than Tiki knew about? After all, that’s what had happened at Landzberg’s, where that kid Ralphie had played hooky from work, and everyone was mad at him until Mr. L. sent Ronde to investigate.

  Tiki wondered if something similar might be going on in the Morton household. Maybe I shouldn’t print my column, he thought. Maybe I should write a new one, with a gentler tone. . . .

  No, there’s no time for that, he realized, beginning to panic. Laura would be waiting for him in the entry hall, right by the main office, just like they’d arranged. He couldn’t tell her to wait till he’d rewritten the letter. He’d put her off way too long already. Why, oh why, had he ever gotten himself into this mess?

  Then he reminded himself of his reason for making up the letter—he wanted Sean Morton to read it, and recognize himself in it! That way, maybe things on the basketball team could begin to change for the better.

  Tiki sure hoped it worked. He especially hoped that, whatever happened to the team, his actions wouldn’t cause more hurt than people were already feeling.

  • • •

  Laura had had the column for two days already, and Tiki had heard nothing from her. Then, finally, as he was headed for work after Friday classes, he heard her familiar, penetrating voice calling his name from down the hallway.

  “Tii-kiii!”

  “Oh, hey,” he said, waving as she came jogging over to him.

  “Loved the column!” she gushed. “You are so good at this!”

  “Uh, thanks . . . I guess,” Tiki said, pleased but embarrassed.

  “And I hope he gets the message,” she went on.

  Tiki flinched. “Huh?” He looked around, panicked. Then, satisfied that Sugar was nowhere nearby (of course he wasn’t—there was a practice underway in the gym), he turned back to Laura. “Who do you mean?”

  “Whomever you’re talking about,” she said. “Oh, come on, you can tell me. My lips are sealed!”

  That was a laugh—Laura’s lips were never sealed. She was the editor of the school paper, so she always knew whatever was going on. And her job was to print it—or, if she couldn’t print it because it was unprintable, to talk about it with everyone she ran into—which was everyone in the school, come to think of it!

  “How should I know who the writer was talking about?” Tiki said with a shrug.

  “Are you kidding?” she snorted. “I know you wrote that letter!”

  “What?!”

  “I knew right away—did you think I wouldn’t notice? You hand me a letter ‘to Tiki’ that’s written in your own handwriting. Then you turn in your column about it. So I ask myself, ‘What’s up with that?’ ” She stared at him, a twinkle of mischief in her eyes. “So, come on, dish—you can tell me—whom are we talking about here?”

  “Um . . . I can’t really say,” said Tiki, his eyes darting this way and that, desperately seeking a way out of this mess he’d gotten himself in. “I was . . . I was sort of sending someone a message.”

  “Oooooo!! A message!” Laura clapped her hands, delighted with this latest intrigue. “So, let me guess—”

  “No!” Tiki stopped her. “No guessing. This column stays confidential, or I’m not doing it anymore.”

  Ha! He stood there, arms crossed, knowing he had her stymied. She couldn’t argue with confidentiality. “So, what do you think?” Tiki asked her. “Will it work?”

  “You mean, will he read it?” she asked. “Of course! Everyone reads the paper, and everyone reads your column.”

  “Yeah, but do you think he’ll recognize himself?”

  “If he does, I hope he doesn’t fall apart altogether,” Laura said. “That column is pretty hard-hitting.”

  Just then, Sugar Morton appeared around the corner of the hallway. He went over to his locker, opened it, and took out a basketball. Closing the locker door, he came down the hallway toward them, dribbling the ball as he went. “Hey, Barber! You coming to practice, or what? We’re late!”

  “No, it’s me, Tiki,” Tiki said, waving.

  “Oh. Sorry,” said Sugar, now close enough to see for himself. Since Ronde’s haircut, everyone could tell them apart if they looked closely enough.

  “Hi, Sean,” said Laura.

  “Hey, Boo,” Sean said, smiling back at her.

  “How’s it going at home?”

  Sean frowned. “Great. Perfect.” He kept walking, dribbling the ball a little harder.

  “Sorry to hear that,” Laura said to his back.

  “Don’t sweat it. Not your fault. See ya.” Tucking the ball under his arm, he pushed open the stairway door and disappeared.

  “Poor Sean,” she said, sighing, as they both stared at the spot where he’d just been.

  “Huh? What do you mean?” Tiki asked, wondering if she knew how frustrated the rest of the team was at Sugar.

  “Oh. Well, I guess everyone doesn’t know this,” she said. “So keep it under your hat. I’m sure Sean doesn’t want people talking about his parents’ divorce.”

  “Divorce??”

 
; “I’ve lived across the street from the Mortons since second grade,” Laura said. “His mom left home last month. I haven’t seen Sean smile since.” She sighed. “Oh, well. Here’s hoping it all works out.” She patted him on the shoulder and turned to walk away. “Thanks again, Tiki. The column reads like a dream.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Sure you don’t want to tell me who it’s about?”

  Tiki smiled and shook his head.

  “Oh, well. Paper’s out first thing Monday,” she called back to him as she went outside.

  Tiki stood there, taking it all in. Divorce! If only he’d known. That must be why Sugar was acting so hostile toward everyone, and why he was so hard to reach out to!

  Tiki felt awful. His column was going to hit the presses, and Sean was probably going to read it. Laura might not have guessed who the column was about, but Sugar would know for sure.

  The idea that he might cause any additional pain to Sugar was unbearable. But it was too late to turn back now. Monday morning, the column would be public gossip item number one!

  • • •

  Ronde was horrified when he heard. “Man,” he said, “I wish you’d known that before you wrote that letter!”

  “I would never have written it,” said Tiki miserably.

  “But you know what?” Ronde said. “Maybe it will work out fine.”

  “Huh?”

  “Truth gets out one way or another, sooner or later. And since no one had the guts to tackle it face-to-face with Sugar, maybe this was the only way to move things forward.”

  “Forward? I hope I didn’t just push things off the cliff!”

  “Well,” said Ronde, “if worse comes to worst, I guess I’ll have to be there to pick up the pieces.”

  9

  THE HEART OF THE MATTER

  For days, Sugar Morton had barely spoken to Ronde. Ever since they’d been interrupted by the sight of Sugar’s mom in the parking lot, it was as if Ronde was getting the silent treatment.

  Now, in the visitors’ locker room at Blue Ridge Junior High, getting suited up before their crucial game against the Bears, Sugar still kept his distance. He sat deep in thought, staring at his locker, his hands joined between his knees.