Home Team (7 page)

It was a bit strange not to have them at the games, but it was okay. In some ways it felt like I was a little kid with his mommy and daddy cheering for him all the time. But I wasn't a kid anymore. I
was
in grade six.

Kia and I walked toward the swings. No need to talk about where we were going. When you'd been friends as long as we had, there was often no need to talk at all. We just knew what the other was thinking. We both took a swing, although I was so tired I didn't feel like swinging, just sitting.

“So the Raptors aren't coming,” Kia said.

“Doesn't look like it. At least not coming this year when it will do any good for us. Although maybe we'll get the mascot,” I added. “He is the best mascot in the league.”

“I was thinking that there still is one more thing we haven't tried,” she said.

“There is? What?”

“What if we asked JYD to help?”

“I already thought of that,” I said.

“You did?”

I nodded my head. “I emailed him.”

“And you didn't tell me?”

“I guess I forgot,” I lied. “He said to say hello to you.”

“And you forgot that too? What did he say?”

“He wished us luck.”

“And is he going to help? You know, make a call or something?”

“I'm not sure it's that easy. There might not be phones where he is.”

“I'm pretty sure Las Vegas has phones,” Kia said.

“He wasn't in Vegas. He was in Africa, and then he was going to China.”

“Wow, that's exciting. Is this like a trip with his family?” Kia asked.

“Johnnie's with him, but the rest of the people are part of his NBA family. He's one of a group of retired NBA legends and current WNBA players with the Basketball Without Borders program.”

“I've heard of that, but, you know, I think there are phones in Africa and China. I think most of the phones here are made in China.”

I shrugged. “Yeah…I guess. I just didn't really, exactly ask him to help us…much.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“It just felt bad, pestering him all the time for favors.”

“It's not pestering him. You should email him again and ask him to help get a Raptor here.”

“
You
could email him if you wanted,” I suggested. “It's not like I'm the only one with his email address.”

“Well…”

“Well what?”

“When you mention it, maybe it is asking him for another favor, like we're taking advantage of him.”

“Exactly.”

“So unless we can come up with another idea, the Raptors aren't coming to our school,” Kia said. “You got any other ideas?” she asked.

“Nothing. We've tried everything.”

“I guess,” Kia agreed.

Lailah came out the door, waved and started walking toward us.

“Hi, guys,” she said. “That was a lot of—”

Her words were lost in the roar of the plane passing overhead.

“I can't get over how loud they are,” she said.

“You get used to it,” Kia said.

“I don't think I could
ever
get used to it.”

“You won't be here long enough to get used to it,” I said. “Next year is middle school and we're gone.”

“And the Raptors come,” Kia added. “That really sucks.”

“Don't you have
any
other ideas, Nicky?” Lailah asked.

I shook my head. “I got noth—”

A second plane came overhead and the engines again overwhelmed everything. There were a lot of them today. Sometimes it would be days and days without planes, and then other days it seemed like every two minutes. It all depended on which runway they were using, which depended on the direction of the wind.

Today the wind was coming from the right—or I guess wrong—direction, so we had lots of air traffic overhead.

Lailah was waving up at the plane as it passed.

“What are you doing?” Kia snapped.

“Just waving, saying hello, being friendly.”

“They can't see you, you know,” Kia said. She shook her head and had a look of disgust on her face.

“Maybe they can,” Lailah argued.

“They can see the school and the playground for sure,” I said. “I even saw my house once when we were flying back from New York.”

“Then maybe they
could
see me,” Lailah said.

“You're slightly smaller than a house…especially without those ridiculous nails!”

“There was nothing ridiculous about my nails!” Lailah protested. “Nothing.”

“I heard that the field is going to be ready by the end of the week,” I said, changing the subject completely.

My statement was greeted by silence.

“Did you see that they delivered all the sod today?” I pointed at the big wooden pallets loaded with pieces of sod. It would be great to have grass on the field and be able to play out there.

There was still no response from either of them.

“I wonder how long it will be after they put down the grass before we'll be able to go out on it? Do either of you know?”

Nobody volunteered an answer. Great…I was having a conversation with myself and it wasn't even a good conversation!

Another plane came in. It was even lower and louder. Right now I welcomed the sound to break the silence.

Lailah started jumping up and down and yelling and waving so loudly that even the sound of the plane didn't drown her out completely. The plane passed.

“I'm sure they could see me
that
time,” Lailah said.

“Yeah, and I'm sure they could
hear
you as well,” Kia added.

“I think they could see me. What do you think, Nicky?”

“Me? You want to know what I think?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah,
Nicky
, what do you think?” Kia questioned. They both stood there staring at me. Lailah was smiling and Kia was scowling. They were both waiting for an answer—an answer that was guaranteed to make at least one of them angry with me. I tried to think of an answer that would please them both, but I realized that was impossible.

Then, out of nowhere, an answer came into my mind. It brought a smile to my face.

Chapter Fourteen

“I need the whole team to come back to school tonight,” I said.

“What?” Kia questioned.

“I need everybody to come back to school.”

“What are you going to do, have a vote to decide if the planes can see Lailah?” Kia asked.

“No, of course not. But I do need everybody, or as many people as we can get, to come here for six thirty. That should give us enough time before it gets dark.”

“Enough time for what?” Kia asked.

“Yeah, for what?” Lailah echoed.

I smiled. “It's a surprise.”

“I love surprises,” Lailah said.

“I think that his surprise isn't going to involve makeup, fake nails or fancy clothes,” Kia snapped.

Lailah started to say something but I jumped in. “Clothes
are
important. Nobody should wear anything that's fancy or expensive.”

“I'm sure Kia won't have any trouble with that,” Lailah said.

“And Kia,” I said, cutting in before she could answer. “Could you get the message out to everybody and ask them to come back here?”

“Why don't you call them?” she asked.

“I'm going to be busy getting things ready.”

“What things?” she asked.

“If I told you that, it wouldn't be a surprise. Will you call everybody, please?”

“I could call every—,” Lailah started to say.

“I'll call,” Kia said, cutting her off.

“There's my mother,” Lailah said.

A fancy blue suv had pulled up to the school. A woman got out—she had wavy hair and was very well dressed. She looked and dressed like Lailah, and she waved in our direction.

“I have to go,” Lailah said. “I'll be back at six thirty.” She smiled at me and then walked away.

“She could have waved back at
her mother
,” Kia said. “She could have seen her because she wasn't in a plane.”

“I thought it would be better between you two once you were teammates.”

“Since when do you have to like everybody who's on your team?” Kia asked.

“Well…”

“Well what?”

“It's not just that you don't like her, but that you
really, really
don't like her.”

“I don't like phony people,” Kia said.

“She's not phony.”

“What would you know?” Kia questioned. “I just can't handle the way she acts. And what's even worse is the way the guys in the class act when she's around.”

“What do you mean?”

“You probably didn't notice because
you
act the same way.”

“What are you talking about?” I demanded.

“‘Oh
Nicky…
look at
meee
…aren't I
sooo
special… and you're
sooo
smart and such a good basketball player…you're like my hero!' ”

“She's never said that.”

“It must have sounded something like her, because you did know I was trying to sound like her.”

She had a point, but I wasn't going to give her that point.

“Maybe she didn't use those words, but it's the attitude, the goofy clothes with goofy nails. If you can't see it, then you're as stupid as everybody else.”

“If I'm so stupid, how come I came up with an awesome idea?”

Her expression softened. “What's your idea, and why do you want everybody to come here?” she asked.

“I guess you'll have to wait until six thirty to find out.”

“Come on, you can tell me. You know I hate surprises.”

“I'd really like to tell you, but I'm a little stupid and the idea just slipped from my mind. I'm sure I'll remember by six thirty though. I'm not
that
stupid.”

Chapter Fifteen

I looked at my watch. It was almost six thirty. At first I'd been worried that I wouldn't have things ready before they arrived. Now I was worried that nobody was going to show up. It was a good plan, and I'd done all the preplanning and the work to set it up. I just hoped we had enough people willing to help. I guessed that depended on how many people showed up. If Kia got in touch with everybody and they all came, we could definitely do it.

Then I had a terrible thought. When we dropped Kia off at her house, she was still angry at me. That was partly because I refused to tell her my plan. Really, I didn't want to tell her with my mother in the car. But getting Kia angry was never a smart thing to do. Maybe she wasn't coming back. Maybe she'd decided not to call anybody. Then it would be only Lailah and me, and no matter how hard we worked, we wouldn't be able to complete the project with just two of us.

A car pulled into the parking lot. It was Kia's parents' car. It stopped and Kia got out—and Lailah got out the other side! That was the last thing I expected, the two of them sharing a ride. As they started to walk over, two other cars pulled in and more members of the team climbed out.

Kia had obviously made the phone calls. I felt bad for thinking that she wouldn't have done it. Even when she was mad at me, she would still follow through on something she'd committed to doing.

As everybody walked over, I noticed that while Lailah and Kia were in grungy clothes, all of the guys were wearing our school basketball jerseys and their basketball shoes. Greg was even carrying a ball. What did they think was going on?

More cars pulled up and more of the guys got out—all of them wearing their jerseys.

“Hey, Nick,” Greg said, “where's Mr. Roberts?”

“At home I guess.”

“What's he doing at home?”

“He usually doesn't talk to me much about his personal life,” I replied.

Greg looked as confused by my answer as I was confused by his questions.

“But how can we have a practice without Mr. Roberts?”

I looked at Kia.

“I told them all that we were having a practice to get them here,” she explained.

“Why did you tell them that?”

“I couldn't tell them what was really going to happen because I didn't know,” she said. “Somebody wasn't willing to share it…remember?”

“You mean there isn't going to be a practice?” Greg asked.

“No practice.”

“So what are we doing here?” Greg questioned.

“It's something really cool, right, Nick?” Lailah asked.

“Hopefully. Let's wait until everybody is here, and then I'll explain it to everybody at the same time.”

“Where do you want this one?” Kia asked. She and Lailah were carrying a piece of sod between them.

“Here, I'll take it.”

I took the sod and dropped it to the ground, right inside the line. I unrolled it, pushed it into place and then tapped it with my foot so it was exactly in the right position.

“How many more pieces do you think we need?” Kia asked.

“Maybe twenty or so…no more than thirty pieces.”

“That's good. I'm getting tired,” Kia said.

“And dirty. Really dirty,” Lailah added. “I'm never going to get the dirt out from under my nails.”

“Lucky thing your nails are a lot shorter now,” Kia said, and they both started laughing, together, like friends.

“I'll go and get another piece,” Lailah said.

She left, leaving Kia and me alone.

“You two seem awfully friendly.”

“We are teammates.”

“Weren't you the one, just a few hours ago, who told me you don't have to be friends just because you're teammates?” I asked.

“Yeah, but things can change. She called and asked for a ride and we started talking.”

“And what did you talk about?” I asked.