Checked

by Cynthia Kadohata

  But I can see by the look on his face that none of his worries are in a separate box. They’re all messed up with the rest of his brain. That’s Jae-won for you. The world’s most tormented youth hockey player, for sure, and all ’cause he was born with magic hands.

  CHAPTER 21

  * * *

  SINBAD IS NOW being treated every other week. Strictly speaking, he’s in remission. I know that sounds like it should be exciting, but all it really means is that the doctor can no longer feel a lump on his leg. So the lump is gone and . . . that doesn’t really change much. The treatments continue. Then one of his doses doesn’t go as well as the others, and he stays sick for two days, though he gets a little better each day. He’s too out of it to jump onto the bed, so I take out my sleeping bag and stay on the floor next to him both nights. I call Dr. Pierre, and she says I should bring him in, but at the same time if I do bring him, there’s nothing she can do except put him on an IV and have him watched in the hospital. Since I can’t sleep at the hospital, that doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. Plus, I’m pretty much a 1,000 percent sure we couldn’t afford that. But this is the first time I really feel like he could die. And I know that if he dies, it needs to be with me lying next to him. That’s the way he would want it. I’m positive about that.

  On the second night, I go through my usual presleep regimen of filling Sinbad’s mouth with water from a syringe Dad got me from a mail-order pet-supply store. Sinbad gulps eagerly, so I give him a few drinks.

  Back in my room I think about how Lucas and his family are all Christians, so I text him and ask him to pray for Sinbad. We’re all on TeamSnap, an app for sports teams, so I’ve got everybody’s e-mail addresses and phone numbers. This is what Lucas texts me back: I’ll pray for him every night. I have three dogs that sleep with me. #Godisgood. I text back, Thanks!

  I don’t feel sad. I feel really, really, really focused on making Sinbad better. I pet him for a long time, but then I get the feeling this starts to bother him. Dad’s dad—Grandpa Adley—mailed me a magazine about alternative health care and nutrition. He complains a lot about how doctors have become pill dispensers, and he thought I might get some ideas on how to treat Sinbad during his chemo. There’s actually a story about dogs, and how you should chop up greens for their food every day. Sinbad is kind of obsessed with lettuce, so he probably gets enough greens. He’ll even eat watercress. Watercress is one of Grandpa’s things, so Dad buys it once every couple of weeks.

  Then right before I fall asleep, my phone dings and Lucas texts: I’ve been praying for a long time. Is he doing better? Me: He’s been sleeping. Thanks for praying! Him: You pray too. God will hear you whether you believe in him or not. Night. Me: Night, thanks again!

  That little exchange makes me an even bigger fanboy of Lucas. He wasn’t really close to anyone on the team last year, but he was one of the guys who always hovered around any man who went down on the ice, even if it was someone from the opposite team. Most guys skate away from an opposing player who goes down—that’s the way some coaches like it. But Lucas seems like he just has to be there, in case he can do something, whether it’s pray, run to get the kid’s parents, whatever. That’s more important to him than what the coach wants.

  I get on my knees in front of Sinbad and look upward. Is that right? I try holding my palms faceup. Please, God, I’m not going to lie—since you know everything, you probably know I don’t believe in you. That makes no sense, but you know what I mean. I pause; God is going to think I’m nuts. So I start again. Please, God, take care of my friend Sinbad. He had a hard life before he came home with us. He has scars on his skin. If you could let him be okay, I’ll . . . I don’t want to lie or say something that I know I won’t do. I think about what God might like. I’ll make sure I only get rescue dogs my whole life, even though I used to have a dream of buying an expensive Doberman if I make the NHL. Then that feels like I’m trying to bribe him. But I can’t think what else to say except: Thank you. I’ll rescue many dogs.

  I remember all those dogs in the various shelters we went to. For some reason, there have always been two that I’ve never forgotten. One was a white dog that looked like she might have been half shepherd. I tried to talk her into coming forward, but she just lay at the back of the cage. She seemed very, very depressed, and her sign said she was sick. It just made me sad how depressed she was, and since the sign said sick, I figured nobody would take her home. She was probably dead within days of when I saw her, from euthanasia. Then the other dog I can’t forget was small and tan, and when I paused at her cage, she jumped up and down hysterically, and I knew exactly what she was trying to tell me: Take me home! Don’t let me die!

  Grandpa Adley says that Dad should never have taken me to those places; he should have just bought me a dog at the store or a breeder. “You upset him! And you don’t know where those pound dogs have been. They’re dangerous!” That’s the way Grandpa is. He’s supercool about some stuff, like alternative health and nutrition, but he’s kind of in the Stone Age about other stuff, like animals. He practically thinks PETA is a terrorist organization. He came close to having cardiac failure when I told him that I sent PETA a few bucks. He’s got a big heart when it comes to humans, though, so I really like driving out to Iowa to visit him every Christmas vacation. We bring Sinbad, and Grandpa and Grandma treat him pretty well. He also puts together an ice rink in his backyard just for the two weeks I’m there. He says it costs a few hundred dollars, which is why he can’t afford to give me any actual presents, except the Ice Warehouse gift card I mentioned earlier. But I think it costs more than a few hundred. Nobody will tell me. It’s crazy to think there are kids out there in foster care, and me and everybody on my teams always have parents and grandparents who do stuff like make backyard rinks for you and drive a billion miles a year taking you to practices and games.

  Sinbad suddenly retches.

  “You okay, big guy?” I ask.

  He stands up, gives himself a big shake, scratches at the carpet, and then instead of lying down where he’s been scratching, he hops onto the bed. He feels better! Just like that, I zoom from thinking he might die to believing everything’s going back to normal. Just like that, I’m in a totally different mood than I’ve been in. Just like that! I touch my nose on his, but he seems to be asleep already—he can fall asleep in literally one second.

  The bed feels so comfortable it’s like I don’t even want to sleep, I just want to lie there feeling incredibly comfortable. I never really thought about how great sheets are. They feel so soft! Sinbad keeps shifting over until I’m on the edge of the bed and have to get up and move to the other side of him.

  As soon as I wake up in the morning, I’m going to send Lucas a text thanking him for praying. I admit I think of reneging and buying an expensive Doberman when I grow up, but then I say, Just kidding, if you’re listening!

  CHAPTER 22

  * * *

  FRIDAYS, THEY’VE BEEN holding peewee four-on-four scrimmages over at Ice House. It’s twenty-five dollars, and Dad decides I should do it. It’s just once a week, and I’m desperate to get some ice time.

  It turns out to be a fast-moving score-a-thon that teaches me a lot about how much I like having the puck. When you’re D, you don’t handle the puck that much. In four-on-four, when I get the puck, I move with more speed than I knew I possessed, and instead of trying to dangle my way out of logjams, I use a few neat saucer passes that leave the opposition with their ankles broken. A saucer pass is a pass that you flick into the air, over your opponent’s stick. I learned the power of the saucer pass from a few stick times I did with Dusan when we had money.

  Now all my various lessons and scrimmages come together into one glorious dream: the four-on-four.

  Samvel Karapetian is running the four-on-four, and after the scrimmage he asks me who I’m playing for next season. I tell him, and he says, “You should have tried out for the Jets. We’re going to beat you.” But he says it kiddingly.
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br />   “Nah,” I say. “Ain’t gonna happen.” It won’t, either. Four of the players Coach Dusan turned down are going to be playing for the Jets’ peewee AAA, so theoretically we should be better. These are the Jets guys who didn’t make the Grizzlies:

  Jimmy Alexander. Jimmy has a lot of talent, but after he hurt his ankle and later his shoulder in the same season, he hasn’t been the same. His ankle and shoulder don’t still hurt, he just doesn’t love the game so much anymore. I played AA with him in the spring.

  Ethan Brown, my frenemy. Ethan puts in a lot of ice time and is a solid player, but for some reason he fell asleep out there during the tryout. I mean, we all disappear and go in and out of our best selves, but his case of this kind of disappearing is worse than usual. He also constantly sprays people in the face with water bottles in the locker room, which gets old. And he grabs other people’s gear and throws it outside in the parking lot. He’s tall and strong, but a stiff skater.

  Pasha Zharov. Like I said, Pash is one of my favorite people. He’s such a cool kid and such an awesome hockey player. I can’t speak for why Coach Dusan didn’t take him. I wish he’d made our team.

  Shawn Johansen. Nobody has any idea how Shawn made a AAA team. He can’t skate, can’t stick-handle, can’t defend, and can’t pass. And he doesn’t listen to the coach ’cause his mind wanders so much. My team played against his once last season, and he hardly got any playing time. His greatest skills are trash talking and dropping F-bombs. He can shoot okay, so maybe that’s why he made the team. He was super excited about making the AAAs, though, and claims that his team will have its own plane.

  In the car after the four-on-four, I’m feeling super psyched. Dad says, “You were looking good out there for someone who hasn’t been playing much.”

  “That’s the most fun I ever had playing!” I say. “They should start a league for four-on-four. I bet crowds would love it.”

  “Maybe so,” Dad says, “but hockey’s a pretty perfect game as it is.”

  I can’t disagree with that. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. A regular game is deeper.” The four-on-four is incredibly fun, like a milk shake, but a regular game is like steak. Then I say that out loud to Dad, and he just laughs, like he’s really happy.

  “A steak, huh?” And he laughs some more.

  That’s when I realize that he doesn’t laugh as much as he used to. So I continue. “Four-on-four is like . . .” But then I can’t think of anything.

  Dad says, “Four-on-four is like a bouquet of flowers, and a regular game is like a tree.”

  “Yeah!” I say.

  I feel good, and I can see he feels good. Four-on-four, man! It makes the world right!

  But then that night Dad gets an e-mail that pretty much ruins our day. It’s a ninety-page playbook from Coach Dusan. He says he expects us to know it backward and forward and will be testing us on it.

  The playbook is full of information and contains almost fifty plays, which are made up of both diagrams and text. I actually think I can remember fifty plays if I learn them on the ice, but I’m pretty sure I can’t memorize plays just from reading about them in a book. Like if one of my coaches demonstrates a drill on the ice, I catch on right away, and I can transfer the drill into reality during the next game. That is, it takes me a while to instinctively use the drill or play, but I don’t have any problems remembering what I’ve learned on the ice. However, I have a memory problem when it comes to the written word. I have to work twice as hard as the other kids at school to be able to remember things. I flunked seven tests last year that I studied hours for. I still forget my multiplication tables sometimes, even after my dad coached me on them three times a week for two years. If I work hard and long and study a lot, sometimes I just suddenly remember everything I’m supposed to. When that happens, I’m flooded with relief—until I have to memorize the next thing. I’ve never had to memorize ninety pages. I can’t even memorize one. Now Dad prints out the playbook and solemnly hands it to me. I take it and don’t move. “You okay?” he asks.

  “If I gotta memorize this, then I gotta memorize it,” I answer. Coach says in his e-mail that he wants all this understood by the end of September when we get out of the preseason. And Dad and I both know that he isn’t known for patience. I go into my room, close the door. I feel like a broken man, for sure. I want to play AAA like I want to live. Sinbad can sense I’m upset and presses against my legs.

  “Can you believe this?” I ask him. “Why didn’t anyone ever tell me about playbooks? I thought they were more of a football thing.”

  He doesn’t move, just lies across me looking at the side of the bed. He does that sometimes, just lies or sits somewhere staring. Got no idea what he could be thinking about.

  Dad knocks at the door, and I call out, “Yeah.”

  He opens the door. “Do you want me to help you somehow?”

  “I don’t know how,” I say. “I just have to start reading. I will in a minute.”

  “Okay. Okay, well, give me a yell if you want to talk.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  He closes the door and I’m back alone, thinking. Everybody at the Grizzlies organization has a super lot of respect for Coach. He’s got a reputation for being one of the best coaches at developing talent in Southern California. Dad and I have been planning to get me on one of his teams for years. That’s the only reason we stuck with the Grizzlies when we have a club closer to our home.

  Coach Dusan loves the kids he picks for his teams—he had a player get cancer one year, and I heard he was so upset about it he could barely function after he heard. To help out the parents, he drove the kid’s little brother to school every morning whenever the player was having chemo. But I understand sports at this level. Your coach will leave you behind in a split second if you can’t cut it. Coach is a famous screamer. He’ll call a player out and scream at him during a game or practice. I’ve heard some of the things he hates are if a player is out of shape, if he doesn’t lay it all out there on the ice, if he loses concentration, and if he has to be told something more than twice. It’s that last category I’m worried about—in Grizzlies tier hockey you have a theory class once a week, and I’m pretty sure he’s going to need to tell me some stuff quite a few times. Tier hockey is AA and AAA, but last year my coach was kind of a slacker when it came to theory class.

  I figure this can all be tough, it can be lonely, and your only reward is playing in a game. But playing in a game is worth any amount of toughness and loneliness and yelling.

  One thing I never question—never—is if hockey is worth all the work. I just love the lifestyle. I love everything about it: the rinks, the cold air, the camaraderie, the speed, the parents screaming in the stands, and yes, the uniforms. The uniforms are so fire. We’re all kind of weird about what we look like. Like last season, a guy showed up with a new, expensive helmet, and a bunch of people started roasting him ’cause the helmet made him look like a mushroom. So then even though his parents had paid more than two hundred dollars for that helmet, he refused to ever wear it again. And I don’t blame him a bit.

  CHAPTER 23

  * * *

  SO I GO sit at my desk, staring at the first page. It’s just a picture of a hockey player. On the next page, the playbook starts out with rules for both players and their parents. I start reading, and I understand it all. Understanding isn’t my issue. It’s remembering what I understand. But at least it’s a little easier to remember stuff if I understand it. The rules take up several pages. It’s things like you’re not allowed to bring your phone into the locker room, a rule I’m sure exactly nobody will follow. And no texting or e-mailing with your teammates, and no social media with them. That’s a new rule, just to keep kids under control and not embarrass the club—players can send each other some crazy stuff on their phones, and the club wouldn’t like that stuff getting out. Once last season, two guys got mad at each other ’cause of misunderstood comments that were made on Instagram, and they kind of lost
their minds and sent each other some insanely angry DMs. It’s possible, though, that we’ll follow some of these electronic rules with Coach Dusan, ’cause we’re all in awe of him. What else? There’s a rule against swearing. A lot of coaches start dropping F-bombs on the players in peewee, but the players themselves aren’t allowed to swear, which is another rule nobody follows. And your parents aren’t allowed to talk to the coach until twenty-four hours after a game has ended. This is a firm rule that everybody will follow if they want their kid to stay on the team. This puts the brakes on parents angry about something the coach has done—like benching your kid—during the game. They can talk to the coach after they’ve calmed down. Coaches feel extremely strongly about this rule. Reading all this, I feel relieved. I know this stuff!

  I’m surprised when I look at the clock and see that it’s nine thirty, my bedtime. But I can’t stop myself, so I turn to the back of the playbook and start reading through one of the plays. I groan softly. First of all, I have no idea what any of it means. There’re lines this way and that, and circles with F1, F2, and F3 inside them. I know what these are—they stand for which forwards are in the play with the puck, with F1 being the closest to the puck, F2 next, and F3 farther away. But I can’t figure out all the lines. Some of the lines are solid, and some are dotted. Maybe the text and the solid lines describe the main play, and the dotted lines show an alternate play in case the main one is broken up? How am I going to memorize something when I can’t even understand it? I think about how my father hit a wall when he reached the NHL, and wonder if this playbook is my wall. Then I don’t even look at the page, just gaze at the window shade . . . it’s dusty, gotta clean that.