Time-Out (17 page)

“Are you ready for this?” Sam asked.

“Track and field? I hope so.”

“You'll probably be good at hurdling and the long jump,
since you're tall,” James said, piling some eggs onto his toast and shoving it into his mouth.

“Why does everyone
still
think tall is the answer?” I asked.

James shrugged. “You need long legs for some of this stuff. My brother's over six feet tall and he's awesome at . . . well,
everything
.”

“Mine, too,” Sam said.

“It stinks, doesn't it?” James asked.

“Totally. I'm never going to be as good as my brother at sports.”

“Me neither,” James said, shaking his head. “Mine will probably get a college scholarship for baseball.”

“Mine's been scouted for football since he was fifteen.”

“No way.”

“Seriously,” Sam said. “I'm doomed.”

“We both are,” James said, starting to smile.

The two of them shrugged, as though their fates were sealed, then started laughing.

I chuckled as I kept my eye out for my own brother.

When Danny had arrived back in the room the night before, I'd asked whether Owen had joined their game and he'd simply stated, “We had enough guys.”

I'd felt the usual urge to feel sorry for Owen, but it was overridden by the feeling that he'd gotten exactly what he deserved. If he treated people like Jackson poorly, he should expect to receive the same kind of treatment himself.

I spotted him with a tray of food and studied him for a moment.

He was scanning the room and I knew that he wasn't looking for an empty seat, but someone “cool” to sit with. He started to look frustrated, then desperate.

Our eyes met and he smiled as he started to walk toward us.

I don't think so, dear brother.

“Ready?” I asked Sam and James as I shoved the last piece of toast into my mouth and practically choked on it.

“Are you okay?” Sam asked, handing me a glass of water.

I washed the dry bread down my throat with relief. “Thank you,” I told him. “I'm fine. Are you ready to go?”

He looked puzzled, then pointed at the remaining food on his plate. “I was just going to—”

Owen was getting closer.

“We should probably get to the gym a bit early, don't you think?” I asked James.

“Oh, uh . . . sure,” he said, picking up his own remaining toast with one hand and his tray with the other.

The teammates followed me toward the aisle.

“Russ!” Owen exclaimed as he arrived at our table.

“Hey, O,” I said. “You can have this spot. We're just leaving.”

“What?” he asked, then frowned. “The session doesn't even start for fifteen minutes. I thought we could—”

“We've got to go,” I said, with an apologetic shrug. “Right, Sam?”

“Right,” he said, following behind me.

Once we were out of earshot, James asked, “What was that about?”

“Sometimes my brother needs a little time to himself.”

Russ was giving me the cold shoulder and I had no idea why.

I knew for a fact that I hadn't done anything to him. Yes, I'd put some pressure on him to come to camp, but he'd had a better time than he expected to.

He should have been thanking me.

I tried to talk to him in his room, in the cafeteria, and even in the courtyard on Wednesday morning, but he brushed me off every time.

Danny and the Hoopsters guys seemed to be busy whenever I ran into them. Half the time, Jackson was with them, which made zero sense. I was a thousand times better at basketball than he was and I couldn't understand why they wanted to shoot hoops with a kid who wasn't very good.

When Jackson wasn't with the pranksters, he still hung
out with me. I had to admit, it was kind of nice to have someone to talk to in the cafeteria and stuff, but I couldn't help wishing that the someone was . . . cooler.

“Did you try the coleslaw?” Jackson asked when we were having lunch in the cafeteria on Wednesday. “It's awesome!”

I stared at him, wondering how it was possible for a kid to be more fired up about coleslaw than basketball.

“It's okay,” I told him.

“Hey, Jackson,” one of the guys I didn't know said, giving him a high five on the way by.

I bit into my hot dog, wishing I'd gone a little heavier on the ketchup.

“So, you wanna hit the pool tonight?” Jackson asked.

“Who's going?”

He shrugged. “Us, if you want to.”

Just the two of us?
Boring.

“What are Danny and those guys doing?”

“I don't know.” He swallowed a mouthful of slaw. “We don't have to swim. We could do something else.”

I figured that my brother and the rest of the guys would be planning a prank for that night, and I wanted to be part of it.

“I kind of have some stuff to do,” I told him.

I was frustrated with the kid. I wanted to have an awesome time at camp, and that meant hanging out with other guys, not just babysitting Jackson.

“What's going on, Owen?” he suddenly asked.

“What?”

“We used to hang out and now—”

“
Used to hang out?
We've only known each other for a few days.”

“You know what I mean. I thought we were friends.”

“Hey, man,” another camper said.

Jackson nodded back and bit into his hot dog.

“Sure, we're friends,” I said. “Or you know, whatever.”

He frowned. “Well, are we or aren't we?”

“What? Friends?”

“It's a pretty simple question, Owen.”

“Sure. I guess.”

He squinted at me, like he was realizing something. “When it's convenient.”

“Huh?”

“You're my friend when there's no one else around.”

I looked from one end of the cafeteria to the other. “There's gotta be two hundred guys in here and I'm sitting with you.”

He blinked hard. “Wow. Am I supposed to thank you or something?”

“No, I—”

“Are you doing me a favor by sitting here?”

“What?”

He waved his hand, like he was dismissing me. “Just go.”

What was his problem?

“Fine,” I said, standing up.

I carried my tray over to the garbage and when I looked back at Jackson's table, four more Hoopsters had sat down with their lunches.

Good. They could keep him busy for a while.

That night, I dropped by Russ's room, hoping Danny and the gang would be there. But they weren't. And Russ was nose-deep in a book, as usual.

The room was totally quiet, except for the sound of pages turning, and it was driving me nuts.

I wanted Russ to say something,
anything
, but it didn't happen.

I was looking out the window and spotted Jackson crossing the courtyard on his way to the cafeteria for dinner. He was wearing
another
Lakers jersey with Farina's name and number on the back.

Come to think of it, every Lakers shirt I'd seen him wear had Farina's name on it.

“I'm surprised he even has a favorite
team
, let alone a favorite
player
,” I muttered.

“Uh-huh,” Russ mumbled, not even looking up from the book.

I knew he wasn't listening, but I kept talking, anyway.

“As far as I can tell, the guy has about six thousand Farina jerseys and he doesn't even like basketball.”

“Who?” Russ asked, suddenly interested.

“Jackson.”

He fixed his glasses. “What about him?”

“Are you in or out of this conversation, Russ?”

He squinted at me. “That depends on what you're going to say.”

“I'm just surprised he'd wear Farina gear in Oregon.”

Russ frowned. “Wouldn't you?”

I laughed. “Okay, first of all, I'm not a Lakers fan. Duh, Russ.”

“But he's—”

“And if I was, I'd be all about Kobe.”

“Instead of Farina,” Russ said, like he was making sure he'd heard me right.

Since when was
he
into Farina?

“Yeah.”

“Even if he was your dad?”

“What?” I blinked hard, totally confused. “If who was my dad?”

“Farina,” Russ snapped.

What the heck?

“Okay, I don't even know what you're talking about.”

Russ sighed, like I was the one who wasn't making any sense. “What is Jackson's last name?”

I rolled my eyes. “Duh. It's Jackson.”

Russ held his head in his hands. “No. It's Farina. Roberto Farina is his
father
, Owen.”

I gulped. “Roberto Farina from the Lakers?”

“What do you think? The perfectly nice kid you ditched is
Jackson Farina
.”

“No way,” I gasped. “Why didn't he tell me? Why didn't
anyone
tell me?”

Russ shrugged. “They probably assumed you already knew.”

“But I didn't!”

“You've made that abundantly clear.”

“He can't be. He's not even a good player.”

“Basketball skills aren't genetic, Owen.”

“
Everyone
knows who he is?” I asked, still in shock.

Russ rolled his eyes. “You haven't noticed how the guys treat him?”

“What?”

“The smiles, the nods, the high fives, the—”

“Wait a second,” I said as a bunch of images flashed in my head. Russ was right. Guys were always saying hi, waving at him, and during lunch that very day, Jackson's table had filled up the second I walked away.

Whoa!

Had they been waiting for me to leave?

“So, you
have
noticed,” Russ said, interrupting my thoughts.

“I guess so. But I wasn't really paying attention.”

He shook his head. “Surprise, surprise.”

I thought back to the things Jackson had said about his
dad. There were basketball tips, but he'd also mentioned his dad knew some of the coaches at camp.

Oh.

Oh no.

My head was spinning. “Hold on. Does that mean we'll be playing in front of
Roberto Farina
on Friday? Is he our special guest?”

Russ shrugged. “I have no idea what special guest you're referring to, but Jackson told me his father would be here at the end of camp.”

“I can't believe this.” I groaned.

“What?”

“That I ditched the wrong guy.”

Russ made one of those faces at me that I hated. It was the you're-a-total-jerk face.

“Are there
right
guys to ditch?”

Oh, brother. “Not now, Russ.” The last thing I needed was a lecture from Nerdenstein.

“What? Why did you do it, anyway? Jackson seems like a really nice guy.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, distracted. “He's nice.”

Farina would be presenting the MVP award?

“And that's not enough?”

I sighed. “It's Hoopsters, Russ.”

“I'm aware of that. Why wasn't a nice friend enough?”

“Because I wanted to hang out with some
Hoopsters
-type guys.”

Russ stared at me, like he couldn't believe we were related. I knew that look, too. I used it on him all the time.

“Well, I guess this is an example of why you can't judge a book by its cover.”

“Yes, you can,” I snapped, then pointed to the one he was holding. The cover had a bunch of triangles and circles and junk on it. He was always reading that stupid sci-fi stuff. “I'll bet that one's full of boring fake space stuff.”

Russ raised one eyebrow at me. “Interesting.”

“No, it's not. That's my whole point.”

My brother flipped the book over and read the cover out loud to me. “
Basic Principles of Track and Field
.” He looked up at me. “Point made.”