Home Court (6 page)

T
here was already a crowd at the court by the time we arrived. And Carlos's crew was right at the center of it, hogging the good side of the court as usual. Yeti was hanging on the rim again like a jerk.

“He's going to bend that one, too,” I said.

“He might bend us,” said Mike.

“You want me to guard him today?” I asked.

“Nah,” said Mike. “I'm not tall enough to take Carlos. I'm just not looking forward to those elbows is all.”

“This'll be the last time you have to deal with them,” I said. “One way or the other.”

“Wanna bet?” said Mike.

“That's exactly what I intend to do,” I said.

“Huh?” said Mike and Deuce at the same time.

By now, some of the kids from our class had seen us.

“Here they come!” called Janie.

“It's on!” shouted Tavoris.

Carlos and his buddies turned to see what was going on. Once they saw it was us, you could tell they weren't all that impressed.

“What are you guys doing back on our court?” said Carlos the moment we stepped onto it.

“Shouldn't you be home with your tails between your legs?” said Ledge.

“Shouldn't you go back to the garbage dump you came from?” I said, kicking one of Yeti's flattened cans across the court toward them. My heart was pounding like a jackhammer. Was it possible these three had gotten even bigger overnight? The can skittered to a stop in front of Carlos. He looked down at it and then back up at me. Then he burst out laughing.

“Man, you have lost it, A
mar
'e,” he said. “Who cares about this little court?”

“I don't just mean the court,” I said. “You've been leaving your junk all over town.”

“So what if we have?” said Carlos. “Let the garbage man deal with it.”

That got me heated up. “My dad is not a garbage man!” I said. It must have been loud enough for everyone to hear because the crowd started making noise all around us.

“Oh, now we're getting somewhere,” said Carlos, clapping his long hands together. “You hear that, guys? This kid's dad is the garbage man, been picking up after us!”

“Like father, like son,” said Ledge. He let out a wheezy little laugh and Yeti low-fived him.

“He owns a lawn-care comp —” I started, but there was no point. These three had no class to begin with, so why would they start now? I just needed to put my plan in action. I wasn't one hundred percent sure about what came next, but I didn't let it show in my voice. I raised my head, and said loud and clear: “We decided to come back and take out the trash ourselves. And guess who's the trash?”

A chorus of ooooooh's went through the kids ringing the court.

Carlos looked around at the audience, and I saw his eyes stop somewhere back over my shoulder. I turned around and saw Junior walking up from the street with Timmy. He wasn't part of the plan, but I was definitely glad to see my older bro.

“What are you doing here, man?” I asked.

“Heard there was a big game going on,” he said with a little shrug and a big smile.

“There is,” I said. Then I turned back to Carlos.

“So what, you've got some friends,” he said. “Doesn't change a thing. We'll still crush you.”

I looked right at him and said: “Wanna bet?”

Another round of ooooooh's rippled through the crowd. Carlos looked around. He was definitely annoyed. “What do you have in mind?” he said.

I waited a few seconds until the court was quiet. I wanted everyone to hear this. “Make it, take it,” I said.

“Sure,” said Carlos.

“I mean the court,” I said.

“Huh?” he said.

“What's this kid talking about?” said Yeti, who was standing next to Carlos.

“I mean whoever wins gets the court,” I said. “Loser clears out for good!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I heard, but it wasn't from Carlos's side. It was my own team. Deuce and Mike pulled me aside.

“One sec,” said Mike, holding up his hands.

They both leaned in and whispered.

“Are you crazy?” said Deuce. “This is our court. We've been playing here since forever. These guys are just, like, visitors. We can wait them out!”

“Yeah,” said Mike. “Aren't you on the honor roll?”

I thought about that big history paper. “For now,” I said.

“Well, aren't honor roll students supposed to be smart?” he said. “You're risking our home court.”

“Hey!” said Deuce. “I'm on the honor roll, too, and I think this is stone-cold crazy.”

“Come on,” I said. “We've already lost this court. We have to check every day to see if these guys are here. And we'd have to do that every day for, like, ever. We couldn't ever just come up here for a game without worrying about it. Plus, they haven't missed a day since they showed up. Let's face it — they think this is their court now.”

Mike and Deuce looked at each other.

“Yeah,” said Mike. “You've got a point.”

“I guess,” said Deuce.

“Trust me,” I said.

They looked up at all the kids from school and then looked back at me.

“Okay,” said Mike.

Deuce just nodded his head yes.

“One other thing,” I said, just before I broke from our huddle. “We all need to play the best game of our lives.”

“That's just great,” said Deuce.

“No pressure there,” said Mike.

When I turned around, I saw Carlos breaking from his own huddle. They must've been talking it over, too.

“So?” I said. “Is it a deal, one game for the court?”

“Yeah,” said Carlos. “All right.”

I reached out my hand. He just looked at it for a few seconds.

“Unless you're afraid,” I said, which was pretty funny considering they could probably hear my heart pounding in Georgia.

“Not even a little,” said Carlos, reaching out and grabbing my hand. He shook it once, hard. Just like that, it was official.

“To seven again?” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Let's get this over with fast, so I can start enjoying my new court.”

“Win by two?” I said.

“Nope,” he said. “First team to seven wins, simple as that.”

Man,
I thought.
He sounds really confident, even with all these eyes on him.

“First team to seven!” Marcus called out, in case anyone in the back hadn't heard.

There was no backing out now. There were only two ways to leave this court now: as winners or forever.

W
e were down 0–1 faster than I could say “Uh-oh.” The other team ran a slick pick-and-roll that forced us to switch up our defense in the middle of the play. Deuce wound up on Yeti, who was too big for him, and Mike wound up on Ledge, who was too quick. They practically had their choice of how to score, so of course they chose option (C) None of the above.

As soon as the ball went to Yeti, I left Carlos to try to help Deuce out. And as soon as I did that, Yeti threw it back to Carlos, who was already sprinting to the hoop. He launched himself up toward the rim and dunked it. It wasn't exactly a tomahawk jam. If his fingers hadn't been so long, he might not have gotten it through at all. But it didn't matter: They schooled us in about three different ways on the play and finished it with a dunk.

Now the ooooooh's going through the crowd were for them. Kids were standing around the edge of the court, sitting on the grass, or hanging from the fence. Some of them were our friends, but some of them I barely knew.

“Not good,” I said to my teammates.

“Hold up,” I heard. It was Junior. “Huddle up for a second, guys.”

“Who are you?” barked Carlos.

“I'm their coach!” said Junior. I guess that was good enough for Carlos — that and Junior's size — because he didn't say another word about it.

“Now I remember where I've seen these guys,” my coach/brother said to us. “They're part of a travel team from the next town over. I've seen 'em play. That's why they were so smooth on that pick-and-roll. So listen up: You've got to work through that pick, and you can't double switch like that.”

We listened as he broke it down for us. I clapped my hands hard as we left the huddle. Then Deuce checked the ball back to Ledge for their next possession.

“We need a stop!” said Mike, and he got us one the hard way. Yeti ran over him on the way to the hoop. Mike had position and he didn't move his feet at all, not so much as tapping a toe. It was an offensive foul on Yeti, a charge all the way. But that didn't mean we were going to get the call. They hadn't given us any the last game.

“That was a foul!” said Mike, swiping dirt and pebbles off his backside as he got to his feet.

“Nah, nah, nah,” Carlos said. “Your feet were —”

A booming voice cut him off: “That was a foul, man!”

I didn't even have to turn to know those words came from the big, barrel chest of my older bro. Then I heard another strong voice chime in from the crowd. “That was a charge all the way!” called Timmy.

Carlos got a look on his face like he'd just whiffed someone's sweaty socks, but he said, “Yeah, okay. I guess we'll give you that one.”

Deuce and I high-fived Mike. “Nice play,” I said.

“Thanks,” he said. “But I don't know how many more of those I can take.”

Our first possession wasn't half as precise as theirs. We passed it around the perimeter a few times to get in the flow of things. Finally, on the third pass, one of them got lazy. Ledge was sort of laying off Deuce, so I put something extra on my pass. It was a bullet, and Ledge was still out of position when Deuce caught it. That gave our fastest player the half step he needed. He turned on the jets and beat everyone to the hoop. He laid it up to tie the score.

We felt good about that. Deuce smiled and even risked a quick
how ya like me now
look over at Janie, just to make sure she'd seen the play. That all lasted for about 0.5 seconds.

Deuce tried to return the favor on our next possession, but Carlos saw the long lead pass coming and picked it off. Then they went to work down low. Yeti scored on two straight possessions. He didn't run over Mike. He just backed into him, leaning on him with his big body. Yeti was wearing an old white T-shirt, so it sort of looked like Mike was trying to defend against a refrigerator.

Just like that, they were up 3–1. It looked like that refrigerator might put us on ice. Junior huddled us up before the next possession. “Come on, guys,” he said.

“That big dude is killing us,” said Deuce.

“You're telling me,” said Mike. “And I thought I was sore
before
the game!”

“Any ideas?” said Deuce. He was looking at our coach, but all my bro came up with was: “Don't suppose Mike could put on twenty pounds in the next few minutes?”

It wasn't exactly textbook coaching, but least it loosened us up a little.

“I've got an idea,” I said. “Let's all collapse down next time he gets it. His body is big, but his handle looks kinda shaky.”

I wasn't sure it would work, but we didn't have to wait long to find out. They dumped the ball down to Yeti as soon as they got it. And when the ball went into the post, we did, too. Deuce and I both dropped down. Ledge and Carlos didn't understand why we were giving up position, but they were happy to follow us closer to the basket. Both of them had their hands up, but Yeti had his head down, as usual.

He had Mike blocked off with his body and was dribbling the ball in big, lazy bounces. It was practically at head level for Deuce, who reached in for an easy steal. Now I was the one with my hands up. Deuce hit me with a sweet no-look pass, and I went right up with it. I heard one of Carlos's fingernails tick off the leather, but it wasn't enough. The ball went in, and Carlos came down shaking his hand.

It was 3–2, and now our friends in the crowd had something to cheer about.

We traded a few bricks after that, with both teams missing long jump shots. Then we traded buckets, making it 4–3. We were right in the game and feeling pretty good, but when we traded baskets again, I started to worry.

I'd just answered another one of Carlos's patented hook shots with a little up-and-under move. Now it was 5–4. Our classmates were enjoying the close game, but if we didn't close the gap, we were going to lose.

Even worse, we were getting worn down. They weren't fouling us as much as last game, but they were bigger at every position and playing hard. It was taking a toll. Deuce's jets were running out of fuel, and Mike was wincing every time Yeti so much as touched his back.

Sure enough, it came back to bite us. Deuce dumped the ball down to Mike. He had good position, no more than three or four feet from the hoop. But Yeti jammed his elbow hard into his lower back. Mike grimaced in pain and lost his dribble. Ledge got to the loose ball first and laid it in.

They had a 6–4 lead.

“Game point!” someone called out.

We were dog tired and down by two. It was time to put the second part of my plan into action. It was now or never.