Pedro could feel the heavy beat of his heart now, felt it even more than he had when he and Joe and Sarah and the rest of their guys had first taken their seats in a row of chairs about halfway back from the stage.
“And I want you to know that being class president at our school is not some honorary position,” he said. “The person who wins this election will help me run what we call town meetings about various school issues, will join the Honor Council, which makes sure the laws of our school are obeyed, and will give the keynote speech at graduation this year.”
Mr. Lucchino paused then, looked out at the audience, and said, “This isn’t just a popularity contest. This is about being a leader.”
The principal of Pedro’s school was sounding exactly like his dad now.
Pedro half expected Mr. Lucchino to keep going and start talking about America.
Once more, he heard his father’s voice inside his head.
President Morales.
If Papa only knew,
Pedro thought.
It was quiet for a moment, because Mr. Lucchino was still at the podium. Pedro had Sarah on his left and Joe on his right. He wondered if either one of them could hear his heart now, pounding away like there was an entire drum set inside him.
Then Mr. Lucchino explained the process. Candidates would be nominated and seconded, and then the nominee would announce from the stage who his vice president would be.
The highlight of the campaign would be the day when the candidates for president had a debate in front of the school, and then gave their speeches.
Sarah whispered into Pedro’s ear. “The campaign hasn’t even started and I am
so
into it.”
“Not nearly as into it as you’re going to be,” Pedro said.
“What does that mean?” she said.
Pedro just smiled and put a finger to his lips. Sarah’s response was to jab him with one of her elbows.
“So,” Mr. Lucchino said, “without further ado, we will accept the first nomination for president of Vernon Middle School.”
Pedro couldn’t catch his breath now, feeling as if he’d just finished running wind sprints.
“Showtime,” Jamal said from down the row.
Pedro could have sworn Mr. Lucchino was looking right at Ned Hancock as he said, “Okay, who’d like to go first?”
Jeff Harmon and Dave DeLuca were sitting in the front row, on either side of Ned. They ran toward the stage now as if it were a race to see which one of them could get to the microphone first.
In the crowd, a lot of the other kids were already applauding, almost by force of habit.
Jeff started it off, playing up his big moment, saying in a deep announcer’s voice, “I would like to place in nomination of the name of the next . . . ”
When he paused there, Joe said to Pedro, “The next American Idol?”
“ . . . president of the sixth grade . . .
Ned Hancock
!”
Over the cheers that erupted in the auditorium now, Bobby yelled into the microphone, “Second!”
More cheers, like Ned had just won another big game for one of his teams.
Then Ned walked up, taking his time, smiling, not sweating this because he never seemed to sweat anything. He walked across the stage as if he owned it, owned the whole place, really. He calmly stepped to the microphone and said, “I accept.”
More cheers.
Then he said, “And I pick Jeff Harmon to be vice president.”
Another cheer.
Ned not saying he was picking Jeff to run with him, Pedro noted. Picking him to
be
vice president.
Like they’d won the election already, without a vote. Won by “acclamation”—something Pedro had just learned in Social Studies when they’d begun talking in class about the upcoming school election, before he’d even thought about running.
When everybody quieted down, Mr. Lucchino said, “Anybody else?”
Nobody moved.
The principal looked one way, then the other.
“Is Mr. Hancock really going to run unopposed?” he said.
Still nothing.
Pedro began to wonder if Joe had changed his mind.
“Anybody at all?” Mr. Lucchino said. “Because if not, I’d actually be forced to select somebody myself . . . ”
Joe stood up then, as if he’d been waiting for just the right moment, maybe wanting Ned to think that he
was
running unopposed.
Joe made his way down their aisle, slowly walking toward the stage as if he was the one who had all day now. He made his way even more slowly across the stage to the podium.
When he got there, he looked over the crowd, still no expression on his face, leaned in and said, “Pedro Morales.”
Sarah stood up, shot her hand straight up into the air the way she did in class when she had the right answer, and shouted out, “I second the nomination of Pedro Morales!”
No applause this time.
The only sound in the auditorium was the rustling of clothes as some of the kids in the front rows turned around to look at Pedro.
Bobby started to put his hands together until Pedro stopped him, not wanting some sort of pity clap from one of his friends.
Then Pedro went toward the stage, trying to make sure he wasn’t running, even though he wanted this over as soon as possible. He knew enough about himself to know this as he made his way up the steps: The guy who’d never wanted to draw attention to himself, who just wanted to be a
team
guy, was certainly the center of attention now.
He got to the podium and said, “I accept.”
No reaction to that either. But then he heard Mr. Lucchino behind him, saying, “Pedro, you’ve got to speak into the microphone.”
This time he leaned forward, but as he did, the mike poked him right in the nose.
That
got a reaction.
Laughter from the audience.
Pedro went back in again, feeling how red his face must have looked, and said, “I accept,” then raced right into the next part, saying, “And I choose Sarah Layng to run with me.”
He wasn’t even sure how much they heard after Sarah’s name because he was pulling back from the mike, wanting to get off the stage as soon as possible.
Mr. Lucchino came back to the microphone for the last time now, to give them the official dates for the candidates’ speeches next week. He told the candidates that they were allowed to make posters for themselves, or have posters made. Then he said the assembly was dismissed.
When Pedro got back to his row, Sarah was standing, hands on hips, but she was smiling.
He turned and pointed to his arm and said, “Why don’t we just skip right to the part where you slug me again for keeping the vice president thing a secret.”
“Why don’t I hug you instead?” she said.
“Not a chance,” Pedro said.
Pedro told his crew that he’d catch up with them, that there was something he had to do.
“What?” Joe said.
“I gotta say something to Ned.”
“I’ll wait with you,” Joe said.
Pedro wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted to say to him, just feeling as if he needed to say something before they were together at basketball practice later.
Ned came walking down the center aisle, Jeff on one side of him, Dave on the other.
Joe stood with Pedro.
When Ned got close enough, Pedro smiled and put out his hand. And for a moment, Pedro thought Ned was going to leave him hanging. He looked down at Pedro’s hand.
Finally he slapped him a casual low five, not much on it. They’d always been closer as teammates than as friends, but had always gotten along fine with each other away from the court.
“Good luck,” Pedro said. “Not that you’re going to need it.”
“Didn’t know you were running, dude,” Ned said.
“Tell you the truth,” Pedro said, “neither did I.”
“Hey, I’ve got a question,” Jeff Harmon said in a loud voice, because it was the only kind of voice he had, as if he went through life with his very own bullhorn. “Why
are
you running, Pete?”
He was the only kid in school who called him that, and Pedro never really understood why, except it seemed to be a way for Jeff Harmon to put him down. Like he could do that by Americanizing Pedro’s name, even though Pedro had been born in Vernon the same as Jeff had, the same as all his friends. He’d never thought he was different just because of his last name, or because his dad had been born in another country.
This time he decided not to let it go.
“It’s
Pedro
,” he said.
Jeff ignored him, turned to Ned and Bobby and said in a loud voice, “Guess
Pedro
here never heard of a little thing called a landslide.”
In a quiet voice, Joe said, “Wow. Landslide. Learn a new word today, Harmon?”
“Hey guys, chill,” Ned said now. “We’re all teammates, remember?”
It was true, all five of them were on the town team, and sometimes they were the five on the court.
“Ned’s right,” Pedro said.
“And teammates are supposed to stick, right?” Ned said.
Then before Pedro or anybody else could agree with him on that, Ned Hancock said, “Even when they decide to run against each other.”
Now he looked right at Pedro as if he were looking at him for the first time, as if he’d turned into a stranger.
“Right, Pete?” he said, grinning.
And in that moment, it was as if Ned was the one who had turned into a stranger.
Then Ned and his buds were out the double doors and gone.
SIX
The gym at Vernon High School was so big they could pull down a divider from the ceiling and make it two separate gyms on weekends once the town teams started playing games.
Tonight the sixth-grade team, the Vernon Knights, was at the high school. And just out of sheer luck, they didn’t have to share the gym with anybody.
“Madison Square Vernon,” Joe said when they walked in.
As far as Pedro was concerned, having the whole gym to themselves just made the night better. The newly polished floor, the overhead lights brighter than ever, everything feeling clean, as if you could just feel the whole season stretching out in all directions.
Even after the way the assembly had ended, with Pedro feeling as if he’d been called out—weirded out, really—by Ned and his friends, he was still excited, in an almost goofy, Christmas-morning way, to have the basketball season start, right here and right now.
It seemed to Pedro that everybody had shown up tonight with new sneakers—Jamal called them “right-out-the-box kicks”—and just the sound of them, the crazy, constant squeak of them on the polished floor, was like the best possible music downloaded straight to Pedro’s ears.
Their coach, Cory Harwell, was the same one they’d had from fifth-grade town ball, a coach they all loved playing for and couldn’t believe had moved up along with them. Coach Cory—as they all called him—had played Division I college ball for Vermont, even though he was only five-seven and looked enough like the little guard the Knicks had, Nate Robinson, to be his twin brother.
Coach Cory didn’t just look like a kid, he acted as happy as one, happy as any of them, to be back on this court.
If they weren’t pumped already, the sound of his voice—a voice that was a whole lot bigger than Coach Cory was—was really pumping up the volume now, echoing all over the big gym, bouncing off the walls and the ceiling as he got them right into a three-man weave fast-break drill.
“Pass and cut behind!” he was yelling from the half-court line. “Pass and cut behind. Uh-
huh.
Move that ball and move yourselves. Uh-
huh.
” Turning basketball into rap, getting them right into it in the first ten minutes of practice.
A few minutes later Pedro ended up in the middle, Ned in the right lane, Jeff Harmon to Pedro’s left. Pedro didn’t need any help from Coach Cory to get into this particular drill—it was one of his favorites, even though a lot of the guys thought it was boring. He loved making crisp passes, running at full speed, making his cuts behind the other two guys as tight as possible, like he was rounding a base in baseball. Loved seeing if the three guys in his group could make good enough passes and cuts that they could get in more than the five passes Coach Cory wanted them to throw before somebody got a layup without the ball once touching the floor.
“Make every one a thing of beauty!” Coach Cory yelled now. “Like my own dream girl Beyoncé!”
The last pass was supposed to go to Ned, and Pedro thought he’d led him perfectly. But for some reason Ned slowed up just enough, maybe just to get his footwork right for the layup, and Pedro’s pass wound up too far in front of him. The ball kept going all the way through an open door and out of the gym.
Making it look like a worse pass than it really was.
Pedro smacked his hands together hard, in frustration, the sound like a firecracker going off in the gym.
“What’s the matter, Morales?” Coach Cory said. He was smiling, but he usually smiled when he was getting his message across. “Forget how to make a simple chest pass over the summer?”
Now Pedro just put his head down, embarrassed. He knew Coach was playing with him a little, knew it was just their first practice, knew it was a drill he hardly ever messed up. But Pedro didn’t know anybody who liked being called out by the coach this way, even in fun.
“Okay,” Coach Cory said, “now I gotta put the pressure on everybody, right from the jump. We’re gonna run this baby ten times perfect, or I’m gonna make you suckers run ten laps for me.”
It was, Pedro knew by now, Coach Cory’s way. He made basketball fun. Just never easy. Made you laugh a lot. But made you learn more. He wanted you to do even the littlest things right, said it was like building a team from the foundation up, and then from there, once you had the strong foundation, it was just second nature for you to play the game right.