Here to Stay Page 9

  “Something was left in Beej’s locker,” Todd said. I was surprised, but there was a reason he was cocaptain with Marcus. There was also a reason Will wasn’t, and hadn’t been a captain during his original senior year. The team stayed quiet. Steve looked at the floor, avoiding eye contact with everyone. Will’s jaw clenched as he glared at Todd.

  “Open it up, son,” Coach Johnson ordered me.

  I stood and opened my locker. Nothing was in there. There was no trace of the bacon or my practice clothes.

  I spun around to face Will. “When did you do it?”

  His face was blank, and he shook his head as if he didn’t know what was going on.

  “Who helped you?”

  “I don’t know what he’s talking about, Coach,” Will said.

  “The hell you don’t!” Marcus said, his nostrils flared in disgust.

  “Whose side are you on, Marcus?” Will asked. “We’ve been teammates for years and you take the new kid’s word over mine?”

  “We’re teammates, so I tolerate you. That doesn’t mean I like you. Besides, Drew and I’ve been carrying your deadweight for two years. All you do is shoot Js that you can’t make.”

  “Carrying me? That’s rich. There wouldn’t even be an athletic program like ours without my family’s contributions.” He couldn’t help himself.

  “Everybody shut up!” Coach barked. “Unbelievable. I thought I had a team of young men, and what do I have? I have a bunch of whining crybabies. I should have us forfeit. Is that what you all want?” Nobody said anything, but we knew he was bluffing. He wanted to win. He wasn’t going to trade in the playoffs for a lesson about bullying.

  Coach walked over to Will and squatted down, getting right in his face.

  “When the play calls for you to set a pick, you set a goddamn pick. Got it?”

  Will gave a slight nod, but he didn’t look scared. Why should he be? Will was a Thompson. He could get away with anything.

  “You’re not at Trinity yet, kid. You think I don’t know people over there? Huh?” Will looked away, but Coach stayed right there. “You remember who you play for. When I tell you to hustle, you hustle. When I tell you to rebound, you rebound. Hell, when I tell you to take a piss during basketball season, you take a piss. And when I tell you to set a pick for someone, you set a pick, whether they’re black, brown, orange, purple, or rainbow.”

  I bristled. I hated that kind of thing. It was usually a phrase dropped by people adamantly trying to prove they weren’t racist. Purple and rainbow people don’t exist. If I saw a rainbow person on the court, I probably would care, and I would ask them if they needed medical assistance. Will continued to look at the floor, but his face turned a deep shade of crimson.

  “We understand each other?” Coach asked. Will nodded, but Coach waited, hanging there with his nose not even an inch away from Will’s. Finally, he stood and walked back to face all of us.

  “Now, I don’t know what was in B’s locker. Frankly, I don’t think I want to know. I do want to know if we are going to continue to have a problem.” This time he looked at me. Like I was the problem. Like they hadn’t had any team issues until I showed up. My presence was getting to be a distraction, and Coach looked at me like it was my fault Will and Drew and Steve hated me. “Good,” Coach said. “Marcus, I want you to keep feeding the ball into the paint.”

  That was it. We were all supposed to forget it and focus on the game.

  ***

  By the time I subbed in for Drew toward the end of the third quarter, I was ready to rip somebody apart. Marcus inbounded the ball to me.

  “There goes Majidi, dribbling fast down the length of the court, and—OH MY GOODNESS! He drops the sledgehammer! Up high and down hard!”

  “Are you kidding me? The boy can dunk? Where has he been hiding that all this time?”

  The crowd went nuts, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to make the other team hurt. I wanted someone to hurt. Armstead called a time-out in an attempt to kill our momentum.

  I walked over to our bench. Marcus jumped on my back.

  Coach Johnson shook me by my shoulders. “That’s what I’m talking about!” he said, but his approval didn’t mean much at that moment.

  “You didn’t tell us you could dunk!” Marcus yelled. I hoped he wouldn’t expect me to do it on a regular basis. I had practiced in the park with Sean, but it wasn’t something I could do on command.

  When we left the huddle, Armstead had decided it would be in their best interest to double-team me. It wasn’t. Putting two guards on me left Marcus to send an easy feed to Todd under the rim, and Steve got a shot off too. They stopped double-teaming me after that.

  I made it a point to go for every rebound. I only let two get away. Every time I jumped up to grab the ball, the crowd cheered louder and louder.

  When Marcus called the same play from the second quarter, Will set a pick for me. No matter what he thought of me, he was going to listen to Coach. I darted behind the three-point arc. Marcus passed to me. When I dribbled to the hoop, the tall dude guarding Todd came up to block me. I bounce-passed to Todd under the hoop, and he got another bucket.

  “That’s it! Keep feeding the ball inside the paint,” Coach Johnson yelled as we ran back on defense.

  When we were beating Armstead by twenty points, Coach pulled me out and replaced me with a disappointed Drew. The crowd stood to applaud me as I walked to the bench. I didn’t look up to thank them. I sat on the bench, sweaty, sipped water, and waited for the game to end. We won, in part because of me, again, because I did what I was supposed to do. It didn’t change anything.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Monday after the game, everyone at school was staring at me again, but instead of suspicious glances and droopy, pitying stares, I was getting nods of admiration, thumbs-ups, and smiles. Students crowded around Sean and me as we walked to morning assembly. Some slapped me on the back. Others pantomimed my dunking for their friends.

  “What’s, um . . . what’s happening?” I asked Sean as we sat in our seats. He had kicked out Charlie, who was more than happy to sit in the back indefinitely. The teachers hadn’t objected, considering my “situation.”

  “I think you’re a popular jock now,” Sean answered plainly. Cassie Johnson and Emily Kartheiser, who sat in front of me, turned around.

  “You were amazing on Friday,” Cassie said.

  “We finally got Armstead!” Emily offered me a high five. “I have a cousin who goes there. She’s insufferable and always brags about how great it is there. I loved rubbing the score in her face!”

  “Thanks,” I said, slapping her clammy hand. I didn’t think popular girls had clammy hands.

  “Give him some love,” Sean said, taking hold of my wrist and lifting it. The girls cheered and laughed. I had walked into a parallel universe. They beamed at me before they turned back around. They had sat in front of me for years and had never initiated a conversation with me during assembly.

  “So let me get this straight, Kevin. Bijan . . . is a cool kid?”

  “The coolest of the cool. Subzero. The Iceman not only cometh, he has arrived, and it’s going to be a chilly time at Granger. Have your snowshoes ready and tell those dogs to mush, because Bijan is bringing on the FREEZE!”

  ***

  “I don’t get where the bacon went,” I told Sean at lunchtime. Two sophomores fist-bumped me as they walked by our table. “I mean, my locker had to have been cleaned out during the first half.” I looked down at my grilled cheese on my black plastic tray. Normally, I would have scarfed down two with tomato soup. But since the email, I wasn’t eating a whole lot or paying much attention to my appetite. My mom had noticed.

  I hadn’t told her about the locker. I didn’t want to add to her worries—or have her add bacon to the list of things to talk about at her stupid meeting the next week. Meanwhile, she
kept cooking my favorite meals, even though she really didn’t have the time. I would tell her I had a lot of homework to do, put my leftover food in Tupperware for the next day, then go to my room and lie on my bed, reading Gotham Central trades and trying to figure out who had sent that email.

  “Maybe it wasn’t someone from the team,” Sean said around a mouthful of sandwich. “Will has a lot of friends in low places. I’m sure he could get some freshman to do his bidding.”

  It made my stomach churn to think there was a whole group conspiring to make sure I had a lousy junior year. I took in classmates’ faces as they came and went, asking myself what I knew about them, whether I had said something to offend them, whether there was some reason they held a grudge against me. I was looking at everyone, hating that I was so paranoid. A few senior guys walked from the hot food bar and gave me the bro nod. I thought I remembered some of them wearing the here to stay shirts on Friday, but everybody loves a winner.

  Behind the seniors, I spotted Stephanie and Noah holding their trays, looking for a place to sit because their usual spot was taken by freshmen. There was no seniority when it came to dorkdom. Stephanie noticed me and walked over to our table.

  “Is anyone sitting here?” she asked us.

  “You are,” Sean said.

  “Thank you.” She sat down across from me, and Noah set his tray down next to hers. “How are you, Bijan? I was hoping we’d get a chance to speak.”

  “I was too.” I wanted to talk to Stephanie, to apologize for the things I’d said and to ask her to leave me out of her mascot initiative, but not with Noah and Sean around. “Noah, did you tell Stephanie I was looking for her on Friday?”

  Noah balked.

  “No. He didn’t,” Stephanie said, her eyebrows knitted in confusion. “What did you want to discuss?”

  “Maybe we’ll find a time to talk about it later.” I took a sip of water to avoid Noah’s stare. His lips pursed. He looked at me like I was a fly on his windshield and he was about to turn on his wipers.

  “Okay,” Stephanie said, picking up on the uneasiness between Noah and me. “I wanted to let you know the board has agreed to listen to our position regarding the mascot at the meeting organized for the parents. Noah, Elle, and I are going to work on a presentation in the library tomorrow after school. If you’d like to continue to be involved, we’d love to have you work with us.”

  “Yeah, about that . . .” I said. A part of me couldn’t believe she was still going through with this. She wouldn’t even acknowledge that although she’d started this crusade, I was the one receiving the backlash.

  “Hi!” Erin said, coming up to our table with Jessica in tow. “May we join you?”

  “It’s a free country,” Sean said. “Until Jessica has her way with us.”

  “Har, har.” Jessica waited for Erin to sit down next to Stephanie before she found a place at the table. I’m not even kidding. She was that allergic to us.

  “What brings you over to our neck of the woods, Jessica?” Sean asked, finishing his drink with a long slurp. “Looking to broaden your horizons?”

  Jessica scrunched up her face. There was that pinched look Sean had mentioned.

  “We are here because Bijan played a great game and we wanted to congratulate him,” Erin said.

  “Uh, thanks.” I didn’t believe her, but maybe Sean was right. People love their sports stars, and athletics are the great social equalizer.

  “I’m having a little get-together at my house after the game on Friday. I was wondering if you’d like to come,” Erin said.

  Three weeks earlier, I would have leapt at the chance to go to one of Erin Wheeler’s parties. But at that moment, I couldn’t think of a reason why I should say yes.

  “It’s nice of you to invite me, but I don’t know if I’d mesh well with some of your guests,” I said, looking at Jessica. Her boyfriend was first on my list of people who couldn’t stand me. I could swear I saw her smirk. She knew what had happened in the locker room. I bet Will told her all about it. I bet Erin knew too.

  “We’re not all like that,” Erin said. “Plus, Marcus and Todd won’t let you sit a party out.”

  “Could he bring a friend?” Sean asked, waggling his eyebrows.

  “It’s a pretty small gathering,” Jessica said.

  “You’re all invited,” Erin said. Stephanie squirmed a little in her seat. She was probably still deodorizing the shoes Drew had puked on at the last party.

  “Okay. Thanks. I’ll think about it.” I half smiled at Erin.

  “Are you ready to go now?” Jessica asked.

  Erin turned to her redheaded minion. “I think I’m going to sit here for lunch.”

  Jessica snorted as she got up and went to go find people on her level.

  “Was Jessica at the game, by any chance?” I asked as Erin helped herself to one of Stephanie’s fries.

  “She showed up at the second half. She didn’t have her camera with her, so she wasn’t really a great help for yearbook. Why?” Erin asked.

  “Just curious.” Jessica could have been the one to clean my locker out, but I had no proof. I almost asked Erin if Jessica had smelled like bacon that night.

  “Should we bring anything? Champagne? Caviar?” Sean asked our exalted table guest and future hostess.

  “Nah, I’ll send Jeeves to go get some,” Erin said.

  “Seriously?” Sean asked.

  “No,” Erin said, giggling. “Just bring yourselves.” Next to Erin, Stephanie finally relaxed. She didn’t object when Erin took another fry.

  “Erin Wheeler’s got jokes! Who knew?” Sean commented. Not me. I didn’t know much of anything anymore.

  “Is Elle going to be there?” I asked.

  Erin put her chin in her hand and batted her eyelashes at me. “Why don’t you ask her?”

  “Wait,” said Noah. “You like Elle?”

  “You obviously haven’t been paying attention,” Erin said. “To anything other than Stephanie’s mascot thing, anyway.” Noah’s eyes widened. Stephanie cleared her throat and gave Erin a sharp look. Erin grabbed another fry off Stephanie’s plate and bit into it. Hard.

  “Why?” I asked Noah.

  “Nothing. I thought—nothing.” Noah shook his head. His eyes darted to Stephanie before he looked down at his plate.

  He thought something was going on between Stephanie and me? Seriously?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Now, when I’m yelling at you guys to box out, that doesn’t mean this.” Coach turned stiffly around on the court, jerking his arms and legs as though he were a robot. “It doesn’t mean turn around, stare up at the basket, and wait for someone taller to get the ball.”

  I had changed into my practice clothes in the bathroom of the schoolhouse instead of in the locker room. Was it a chicken move? Sure. But I was all about self-preservation. I didn’t want to deal with more surprises or fights in the locker room, so I avoided it altogether.

  “When you box out, you have to initiate contact with your man,” Coach said. He stood in front of Drew and put a hand on Drew’s chest, craning his neck to address the rest of us. “So when I want to put my body between him and the ball, I’ve got to make sure I have a handle on him, and then maneuver in front of him.” Coach quickly slid his foot to the side and pushed his butt in front of Drew’s junk.

  “This is fundamental stuff. You should have been trained to do this in middle school. This is basic basketball. The only guy to make a difference on the boards last game was B,” Coach said. He waved me over to join them in the middle of the key.

  “You know why he kept getting rebounds?” Coach asked the team.

  Nobody answered.

  “Because he was always moving. When a shot went up from our side, or from their side, he chased down the ball. He moved to the hoop. He didn’t stare up at the basket with
his mouth wide open catching flies, waiting to see if the shot went in.” That last bit was directed at Will. I can’t lie, I was glad Coach called him out on it, even if it wasn’t a direct hit.

  “So this next drill is in honor of your abysmal rebounding. The offensive man is trying to get possession of the ball at the top of the key without fouling. The defender tries to keep him away by boxing out. I count to four. Whoever doesn’t meet their objective goes to the back of the line and does five push-ups. Whoever retrieves the ball faces off with the next person in line. Drew and B, you two start us off. Everyone else, line up behind them.”

  I got in my defensive stance, low to the ground with my hand in Drew’s face. He was low too, on the balls of his feet, ready to pounce.

  “I want to see quick feet and clean contact. No bowling each other over, just good defense,” Coach said. He blew the whistle.

  Drew was fast, evading me easily. He got to the ball within three seconds. I jogged to the back of the line and did my five push-ups. Drew then beat Todd, Steve, and Marcus to the ball, so I was in good company. Drew was on a mission.

  Will thought the exercise was a wrestling drill. He yanked on Drew’s arm and held it. Coach blew the whistle.

  “Ten push-ups, Thompson. I told you not to foul,” Coach said.

  “I barely touched him,” Will protested as he retreated to the back of the line and dropped to the gym floor.

  “That’s some Bill Laimbeer style of play right there. Rough, tough, and no sense of culpability for his actions, Reggie.”

  “Are you kidding me? Thompson wishes he had a career like Laimbeer’s! Thompson has no grit. He crumples in a game like a paper napkin at a barbecue.”

  It was my turn again. The whistle blared. This time, I kept my hands behind me when I slid in front of Drew, keeping track of him and feeling his resistance against my back. We both ended up on the floor, scrambling for the ball, each of us grabbing it and playing tug-of-war. Coach blew the whistle and we stopped pulling, but neither of us let go.