Stealing the Game (9 page)

“Yes, it did,” he replied. “It required that you ignore math and think outside the parallelogram. Right, Chris?”

I didn’t know what to say. So I said nothing.

“Let’s take out our copies of
The Catcher in the Rye
and see what our old pal Holden’s been up to,” Mr. Laubaugh said.

“Now,
there’s
a basket case,” Clancy said.

I was relieved to start discussing Holden’s problems so I could forget about my own.

“
YOU
ready to play some serious ball?” Jax asked. He was smiling but seemed jittery, which was not like him.

“I don’t know how serious it will be,” I said, “but we’ll give them a good game.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. But can you beat them?” He gripped my arm a little too hard.

I yanked my arm away. “What’s wrong with you, dude?”

He took a step back, as if he’d just realized what he’d done. “Nothing. Sorry, Chris. I just hate owing this guy.” He leaned closer to me and lowered his voice, even
though we were the only two people on the court. “I’d
really, really
like you to beat this guy. You know, just to make a point.”

“What point?”

“You know, that he’s not all that. Not as cool as he thinks.” He shrugged. “It would mean a lot to me.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. It wasn’t like Jax to get all worked up about a bunch of middle school kids playing basketball in the park. But then almost nothing Jax was doing
lately seemed like his old self. I hoped Theo was having luck with his phone calls to Stanford.

“Dudenheimer,” Roger said, pulling up on his bike. “Where are the unfortunate victims of our superior basketball skills?”

“Coming,” Jax said, nervously checking his phone. “Be here any minute.”

The rest of my team arrived during the next ten minutes: Rain, Tom, and Gee Hernandez. Gee’s real name was Jesus (pronounced Hay-zeus), but people teased him by using the Christian
pronunciation, so he shortened “Jesus” to “Gee.” He wasn’t on the school team, but I’d played with him before at the park and he was scrappy and fearless.
I’d seen him dive on the pavement for a loose ball and come up with the ball, bloody elbows, and a big grin.

“Gee!” Rain said with a smile. “I didn’t know you were playing.”

“Chris said your team needed a little salsa flavoring,” Gee said, exaggerating a Mexican accent he normally didn’t have.

Rain laughed. “I’m the hummus, you’re the salsa, what’s Roger?”

“Good ol’ all-American burger,” he said. “With fries.”

Gee nodded at Roger’s big belly. “And a milk shake.”

Roger laughed and patted his stomach. “You know it, bro.”

Tom pointed at Rain’s T-shirt. It was white with the word
FOREIGN
in small black letters. The word was so small you could barely read it. “What’s that
supposed to mean?” he asked.

Rain made her own T-shirts with what she called “one-word poems” on them. I never really got them, but I thought it was cool that she did it.

“Why’s the lettering so small?” Roger said. “At first I thought it said ‘forgotten.’”

Rain said, “That’s a good one. I’ll do that next.”

“But what’s it mean?” Tom asked again.

“An artist doesn’t explain her art. That would defeat its purpose, which is to make you think about what it means.”

“Man, I hate that explanation,” Tom said. “Same crap we get in class. Just tell us, okay?”

I could see Tom was getting a little agitated. He was a math whiz with straight A’s, but in English he struggled to maintain a C. He was the polar opposite of me.

“Is this about immigration?” Gee asked.

Rain shrugged, holding her ground in refusing to explain. Unfortunately, this wasn’t good for team morale, so I decided to say something.

“Maybe she’s asking us to think about all the meanings of ‘foreign,’” I said. “Like, at first, you think she means a foreigner, someone born in another
country. But then you think, maybe she means everything that’s foreign to us, like how Wall Street works, or most of the stuff on the news.”

“I know how Wall Street works,” Tom said proudly.

I ignored that. “And we’re all afraid of what’s foreign to us, what we don’t understand, so maybe the word is small to show that what’s foreign can be afraid of
us
, how we react to what we don’t understand. Sometimes cruelly or violently.”

They all stared at me as if I’d just popped out a few extra arms, like Armed & Dangerous.

“That’s pretty good,” Rain said. She smiled like someone relieved to be understood. “Pretty darn good.”

Not really. I knew that Rain had been hassled by some kids because her parents were Muslim and also by her family because she didn’t really practice Islam. So she was foreign to
everyone.

“I still don’t get it,” Tom said.

“Me neither, dude,” Roger agreed. “Sounds like something you’d say to impress a teacher.”

I shrugged. I’d pretty much talked myself out. Like my mom always said, I used words like each one costs me ten dollars.

“
Psst!
Chris!” Jax stage-whispered.

“Where’s your bike?” I asked Gee. I’d noticed him walking past the tennis courts instead of pedaling the black mountain bike he’d gotten for Christmas.

Gee scowled. “Stolen. Someone got into our garage, took all the bikes.”

“Holy crap,” Roger said.

“Chris!” Jax said more loudly.

I ignored him. “Theo’s dad came by our house the other night to warn us about that. It’s been happening all over the place.”

Rain nodded. “Our neighbors down the street got robbed, too. Thousands of dollars’ worth of tools. They also took every computer in the house and some jewelry from the
bedroom.”

“Chris!” Jax hollered angrily. “If you don’t get over here, I swear I’ll…”

I turned. Jax was standing about twenty yards away, waving for me to join him.

“What?”

“Come
here
!” he barked, waving even harder.

I went over to him while my team started shooting. “What’s the big 911?” I asked.

“What’s
she
doing here?” he asked, glaring at Rain.

“Playing basketball. Why?”

“Why? Because she’s tiny. These guys won’t care that she’s a girl, Chris. They will run right over her until she’s nothing more than a greasy stain on the
court.”

I was so mad and afraid of what I would say that I turned and walked away.

“Is that them?” Tom said. He pointed with the hand that only had four fingers. Well, four and a half. He’d lost half of his middle finger when he was three and reached into a
blender. (Did your stomach just kinda tighten into a fist? Mine did when he first told me.) Sometimes, for a joke, he’ll give someone the finger. But no one ever gets mad; they just stare at
his stump and look confused. That cracks us up. Anyway, he’s still a great ball handler and a dead shot from the free throw line.

Roger, Rain, Jesus, and I all turned to look where Tom was pointing. Five guys wearing gold basketball uniforms poured out of a white van, followed by the driver, Fauxhawk. On the side of the
van was a cartoon frog wearing a knight’s helmet and holding a pool skimmer like a lance. Under the frog, in big blue letters, it said:
SIR CLEANS-A-LOT POOL
SERVICING
. I guess Fauxhawk had a side job.

“Holy crap,” Roger said with a snicker. “Gold uniforms. You ever seen that before?”

“I haven’t,” Rain said.

“Hustle, hustle, hustle!” Fauxhawk shouted, clapping his hands repeatedly. The team burst into a quick run.

As they got closer, our expressions changed from smirks at their gold uniforms to stunned awe. For one thing, they ran in unison, their left legs hitting the ground at the same time, then their
right legs. It was like some kind of synchronized swimming routine, but on land.

Fauxhawk jogged leisurely behind them, but with a big grin on his face, like someone who’s won the lottery and just showed up to collect his winnings. He wore skinny black jeans, a vintage
KISS T-shirt, and a brown leather bomber jacket with so many zippers that it looked like it had been in a knife fight and the zippers were scars. His blond fauxhawk looked a little taller today,
like a tidal wave frozen at its highest point. In New York City, he would have looked like a gang member. In Southern California, he looked like a wannabe hipster movie star. I’d seen some of
those clothes in the fancy stores at South Coast Plaza. They were worth more than the van.

“They’re huuuge,” Rain whispered to me, some fear in her voice.

“Yeah,” I said. She was right. They towered over us, each near six feet tall, if not over.

“Maybe the gold uniforms make them look taller,” Gee said. He looked at Roger. “Right?”

“No, man, those dudes are monsters,” Roger said. “And coming from me, that means something.”

“No way they’re our age,” Gee said. “They’ve got to be fifteen and sixteen.”

“At least,” Rain said.

Fauxhawk scowled at his team. “What’re you waiting for? Go warm up!” He threw a basketball hard to one of the players.

The five guys immediately darted for the court and started running drills. They didn’t talk or joke or scratch their butts. They ran layup drills, passing drills, and shooting drills.

“So that’s what a club team looks like,” Tom said.

So that’s what doom and humiliation looks like, I thought.

“
CHRIS
,
this is Rand Winthrope,” Jax said. “Rand, my brother, Chris.”

I stuck out my hand. Rand Winthrope looked at it funny, like I’d just offered him a three-day-old fish I’d pulled from the trash. He grabbed my hand, gave it one weak pump, and let
go. First Place Prize for Creepiest Handshake Ever.

“Is this it, dude?” Rand said to Jax, turning his back to me as if I no longer existed. “This is your best team?”

“They’re all good players, Rand,” Jax said, but without any conviction.

Rand laughed. “No offense, man, but my guys are gonna hunt them, skin them, and mount their heads on my van roof. It’s not even a challenge.”

My team was on the court shooting, so they didn’t hear what Rand said. But I was angry enough for all of us. My stomach twisted and churned like I’d swallowed a snake that was
desperately trying to find a way out through my belly button. I waited for Jax to defend us, but he just looked away, avoiding my gaze.

“We’ll give them a game,” I said. My voice sounded normal, despite my twisting gut. But I was good at hiding how I felt.

Rand turned and snorted at me. “Kid, they’re not called the Undertakers for nothing.”

“Their jerseys say the Gold Coasters,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s their official name. But everyone knows them as the Undertakers, because they bury every team they play. What are you guys called, the Short Bus Boys?” He burst
into a harsh laugh that sounded like coins being shaken in a tin can. “Oh, sorry, the Short Bus Boys—and Girl.”

“Come on, man,” Jax finally said halfheartedly.

“Sorry, dude, sorry.” Rand shrugged. “It’s your money, bro. But when I played with the Wildcats, we’d call this bunch a light snack.”

“We may surprise you,” I said coldly.

I led my team over to the Gold Coasters (no way was I calling them the Undertakers) so we could introduce ourselves. Hopefully, they weren’t as obnoxious as their coach.

“Hey,” I said to the first Gold Coaster we came across. Like the rest of his team, he was tall and tan. They all had longish hair that was some shade of blond, as if they’d all
just come here from an afternoon of surfing and modeling for Abercrombie catalogs.

He turned around and looked us over as if this was the first time he was seeing us. He didn’t seem impressed.

I introduced everyone on my team, and he did the same with his team. He pronounced each name as if it were a precious metal too rare and valuable even to be listed on the periodic table:
Danforth, Clement, Lambert, Bendleton, Masterson.

“Masterson?” Gee said. “Like Bat Masterson, the gunfighter?”

“Not so much a gunfighter as a sheriff of Dodge City,” Rain said. “His first gunfight with a soldier was over a girl named Molly. It ended up with the soldier and Molly both
killed and Masterson badly wounded.”

“I didn’t know that,” Gee said.

Masterson stared at Gee and Rain like they’d just farted in a crowded elevator.

Suddenly, as if they’d heard a silent dog whistle, Masterson and the rest of his team ran over to Rand for some last-minute coaching.

Jax waved us in, too. We gathered around him. “You’ve got this, gang,” he said enthusiastically.

“Those guys are older, Jax,” I said. “You didn’t tell me that before.”

He shrugged like it didn’t matter. “Listen up, playas,” he said. “These guys are a little older and bigger, and they are from those cliff homes in Newport Beach.
They’re all richer than Donald Trump. They vacation in Spain and Tahiti and are going to get Mercedes or BMWs when they turn sixteen. While you guys are scrounging for summer jobs at Burger
King or McDonald’s, they’ll be cruising the Caribbean on their yachts. You’ll smell of french fry grease and they’ll smell of suntan lotion. So how about, just this one
time, giving them the taste of losing?”

I don’t know if Jax expected that speech to amp us up into some sort of Terminator-like killing frenzy, but mostly we just mumbled some assurances to him and walked onto the court.

“What’s with your brother, Chris?” Rain asked.

I shrugged. “He’s going through some stuff.”

“Who ain’t?” she said.

If Jax thought he was going to spark some sort of class warfare, he’d picked the wrong group of kids. We were used to all the über-rich kids from Newport Beach and Laguna Beach and
Turtle Rock. Heck, Kobe Bryant lived down there. We didn’t have anything against them just because they were rich. This wasn’t
The Outsiders
, with them being the Socs and us
being the Greasers. Orange County had just about every nationality and racial group you could think of, as well as every level of income. Most of us at Orangetree Middle School were upper middle
class, but only because most families had both parents working full-time.