Athlete vs. Mathlete: Double Dribble Read online

  I couldn’t help smiling back. I loved rhyming with my Masters teammates, and she was right, too. I was probably being a bit uptight, considering I hadn’t even met the new twins yet. I thought for a couple of seconds before rhyming back, “The Pioneers are like my brothers, but I should be willing to welcome others.”

  “See? That’s the spirit,” she said, grinning.

  We walked past the elementary school, which seemed to have shrunk in the past couple of years. The fireman’s pole I’d always been too scared to slide down looked tiny.

  “See that little drinking fountain?” I rhymed. “I used to climb it like a mountain.”

  She laughed and pointed to the playground. “Whenever I fell off those swings, I wished that I could grow some wings.”

  “Did you really?” I asked, laughing.

  “Fall or wish I had wings?” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I actually did both.”

  I didn’t remember spending much time in the playground back in those days. While Owen and his friends turned sticks into guns and chased each other at recess and lunch, I spent most of my free time in the library.

  What I did remember about elementary school was standing on the stage to accept the Science Award three years in a row. And the Top Student Award twice. Of course, Nitu had won the math honor four times.

  “Hey, if these new guys are identical twins,” she said, interrupting my thoughts, “do you think they can read each other’s minds?”

  I laughed. “I doubt it. Telepathy seems a bit—”

  “Sci-fi?” she asked.

  “I was going to say unlikely,” I told her.

  She shrugged. “Well, I think it would be pretty cool.”

  I thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know about that.”

  “Why not? Imagine if you didn’t have to open your mouth or write anything down because other people knew exactly what you wanted to say.”

  “But how would you stop them from knowing the things you didn’t want to say? Or didn’t want anyone to know?”

  She frowned. “Hmm. Good point.”

  “Our thoughts are the only things in the world that are completely private.”

  She raised an eyebrow at me. “Wait a second. Are you afraid someone would steal your Masters of the Mind ideas or cheat on a test, using your brain?”

  “Well … yes.” I had a lot of other concerns, too, but those were near the top of the list.

  “Oh, Russell,” she said. “You’re such a worrywart.”

  I’d been called worse.

  In fact, my own brother had recently called me “geek of the week” in the heat of an argument.

  But we were past all that. We were past a lot of things, and it felt good to be starting over with Owen. That was part of the reason I was upset about the “real twins” comment. Basketball was a new bond between my brother and me, and it seemed like such a delicate balance, I didn’t want anything to change it.

  Since I’d joined the Pioneers, the only thing that had been a bit tricky was splitting my time between my Masters of the Mind and basketball teammates. Sometimes I liked to eat lunch with Nitu, Jason, and Sara, but other days I liked being part of the action at the jock table with Owen and the rest of the guys. The conversation wasn’t quite as sophisticated, but the guys were a lot of fun.

  “I wonder how these new twins are going to fit in at Lewis and Clark,” I said to Nitu as we turned into her driveway.

  “What do you mean?” she asked. “If they’re jocks, they’ll just fit in with the jocks, won’t they?”

  I nodded.

  But what if they were a better fit at the jock table than I was? What if letterman jackets were more important than I thought? What if they took over as the school twins and took over my spot at the Pioneers table? Where would that leave me?

  “Man, you guys look serious,” Jason said when he and Sara joined me and Nitu a few minutes later in her basement.

  I explained the twin situation to him. “I just feel weird about it.”

  “That’s cool,” he said, nodding. “But you know it’s going to take more than a couple of new kids to replace you at Lewis and Clark, right, Russ?”

  “Uh—”

  “Dude, you’re an athlete and a mathlete. It sounds like those guys are just a couple of jocks who like to dress the same.”

  He had a point there. I had pretty well cornered the market on brains and, well, not brawn, but athleticism at school.

  “You’re one of a kind, Russ,” Sara said quietly. “Don’t give it another thought.”

  And I didn’t. For a while, anyway.

  By the time the meeting was over, the Masters team still hadn’t decided who should become our fifth and final member. It was proving to be a huge challenge.

  My stomach growled all the way home, so when I got there, I was thrilled to see Mom in the kitchen making spaghetti.

  “Oh, good. You’re back. Can you tell your brother we’re almost ready?” she asked, licking a bit of sauce from her thumb. “It’s his turn to set the table.”

  “I can set it,” I offered.

  Mom shook her head. “Changing the chore schedule will only lead to disaster.”

  She was probably right.

  I climbed the stairs and walked into Owen’s room. He was sitting at his desk, staring intently at the notebook in front of him. His tongue was sticking out of the corner of his mouth, which meant he was deep in concentration.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  He practically jumped out of his chair.

  “Whoa! You scared me, Russ,” he said, rubbing his chest like I’d given him a heart attack.

  He’d always been a little overdramatic.

  “I didn’t mean to,” I told him, glancing at the notebook. I could make out two figures, one wearing a jersey with an “H” on it, cowering under a basketball hoop while the other slam-dunked a ball.

  It didn’t take a genius to know that the “H” stood for Hogarth.

  “Is that Dante Powers?”

  “Yeah. I’m just—”

  “Fantasizing about beating him?” I asked, smiling.

  “Well … yeah.”

  “Do you think we can do it?” Judging by what I’d heard from the rest of the Pioneers, Dante Powers was a force to be reckoned with.

  “As long as we work together,” Owen said, having learned some valuable lessons about teamwork recently.

  The whole team was working together, and that was the reason for our latest wins.

  How would two new players affect the chemistry the rest of us had together?

  “Do you think Coach Baxter will play those Minnesota twins right away?” I asked.

  Owen laughed. “Wrong sport.”

  “What?” I asked, confused.

  “The Minnesota Twins? They’re a baseball team, Russ. Major league baseball.”

  “Oh. Cool,” I said, trying to shrug it off. Flipping through those Sports Illustrated magazines every now and then might be a good idea.

  “Anyway,” Owen continued, “I don’t know what Coach will do. Brand-new guys won’t know our plays or anything.”

  “Sure,” I said, wincing. I barely knew them myself.

  “Hey, are you watching the Blazer game with Dad and me tonight?”

  “Who are they playing?” I asked, liking the fact that the answer would actually mean something to me.

  “Oklahoma.”

  A decent team with a higher than average number of fouls. “Sure, I’ll watch,” I told him, starting to look forward to it.

  Ever since I’d joined the Pioneers, Dad had been inviting me to watch the games. It took me a little while to get into it, but once I’d learned the terms and read some background on the team and their players, it had turned into a lot of fun. I liked hanging out on the couch as one of the guys, cheering on our team.

  When we sat down that night, I got my favorite spot on the middle cushion. That meant I had the best view and got to hold the popcor
n bowl. It didn’t get much better than that.

  As soon as the game started, Dad said, “They look ready to win.”

  “Fire in their eyes,” Owen agreed, shoving a handful of popcorn into his mouth.

  “They have a better record than Oklahoma,” I said, glad to have something to contribute.

  “Okay, almost everyone has a better record than Oklahoma,” Owen said, through his mouthful.

  Our relationship might have changed in the last month, but he still liked to be a bit of a basketball know-it-all.

  I let it go.

  The Blazers played well in the first quarter, but when the second started, things seemed to go downhill. The passes were sloppy, they were taking shots they shouldn’t have even considered, and no one looked like they were playing in the same game, let alone on the same team.

  “Pass it to Johnson!” Owen shouted at the TV when Lamar Otis threw the ball to Kevin Maple. “Maple’s been shooting nothing but bricks!”

  I watched as Maple missed another basket.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Owen complained. “Johnson was wide open.” He flopped against his cushion like it was the most disappointing thing he’d ever seen.

  I didn’t take it quite so hard. I might have become a fan, but I wasn’t a superfan yet.

  Dad winked at me and I smiled back, then reached for more popcorn.

  By the end of the first half, the Blazers had gotten their act together and Owen’s enthusiasm had returned.

  But in the beginning of the third, Maple was still missing shots and the Blazers were down by twelve points.

  “Take the guy out,” Owen pleaded. “Put in Marshall, Buckman, Lewis, or … anybody.”

  “They have to give Maple a chance,” Dad said. “They paid a lot of money for him.”

  “How much?” I asked.

  “Too much,” Owen replied.

  “How much is that?” I asked.

  “Anything over a dollar would have been too much, and they’re giving that guy millions.”

  “Over the next three years,” Dad reminded him.

  “Yeah, well, he’ll destroy the team in three years,” Owen said. “The Rose Garden won’t even be standing when his contract is up.”

  “That seems a little over the top,” Dad said, laughing.

  “I’m serious,” Owen said. “He’s the worst thing that could have happened to this team.”

  But by the fourth quarter, he’d changed his tune.

  Maple started making shots. And not just any shots either. He was hitting three-pointers from every possible angle, and every time the ball left his hands I could tell something magical was about to happen.

  It took me a few minutes to figure out what was different in that final quarter.

  It was Adam Donaldson. The new guy had finally been pulled off the bench and into his first professional game.

  “He’s from Duke,” Owen told me when I asked about him.

  Last month, all I would have known was that they were a private research university, but since I’d joined the Pioneers, I’d heard all about their famous basketball program.

  I thought about that for a minute. “Didn’t Kevin Maple play at Duke?” I asked.

  “What?” Owen asked, his attention on the TV. Then he nodded and said, “Yeah. Yeah, they played there together for three years.”

  For the final few minutes of the game, I didn’t watch the ball or the baskets. I watched Maple and Donaldson feed each other the ball, like each knew exactly where the other was at all times. They passed and scored to help the Blazers win the game by twenty-two points.

  It was easily the best teamwork I’d ever seen.

  Over the Limit

  I went to bed that night still smiling about the Blazer game. My favorite NBA team was in the middle of a winning streak, just like we were.

  We’d been working so well together lately I’d been feeling like nothing could stop us.

  But right before I fell asleep, Russ stopped by my room.

  “I’m worried about the Pioneers,” he said, turning on my light.

  Normally, I wouldn’t care if Russ was freaked out because the kinds of things he usually freaked out about were math problems and other stuff that didn’t matter.

  But if he was concerned about the team, I needed to pay attention.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, sitting up in bed and rubbing my eyes.

  “We’re playing really well together, right?”

  “Definitely,” I said, nodding.

  “We’re passing, shooting, and communicating better than ever.”

  “Yeah, thanks to solid teamwork. Why are you worried about that?”

  “I’m not,” he said, adjusting his glasses. “I’m worried that these twins are going to upset the balance of the team.”

  “Upset the … what?”

  He shook his head. “Maybe I’m overthinking this, but I don’t want a couple of brand-new guys to interfere with what’s working for us.”

  “Hmm,” I said quietly. He was right. We didn’t need anyone to show up out of nowhere and mess with our system.

  “Never mind. I’m probably just being paranoid,” he said. “I’m going to bed.”

  After he left, I lay awake for a little while, thinking about the new twins.

  What was the deal with them making the team without even trying out, anyway? When Coach Baxter took over, he didn’t care who had been on the roster before, or that the guys and me had been playing together forever. We’d all had to prove ourselves at tryouts.

  And those matching bozos were just going to walk on? It wasn’t fair.

  In the morning, the twins were still on my mind as I got into the shower.

  I didn’t care that they were supposed to be big and athletic or that they had their own letterman jackets.

  Okay, maybe I did care about that part. The point is, they should have been treated the same as the rest of us.

  In the middle of thinking about it, I got a big blob of shampoo in my eye. It stung like crazy and I spent the rest of my shower too busy trying to prevent blindness to think about basketball or those stupid twins.

  By the time I was dressed and ready for breakfast in the kitchen, my eye was still red and watery.

  “Owen?” Mom said, looking worried. “Have you been crying?”

  “No,” I said, keeping the stinging eye closed. I told her about the shampoo and she helped me rinse it, but it still didn’t feel much better.

  By the time I sat down and started to dig into my waffle, Russ had made it to the kitchen.

  I saw out of my one good eye that he was wearing the awesome Blazer hoodie Dad got him … with a checkered collared shirt underneath it. I’d told him a hundred times that he’d never look cool dressing like that.

  And even worse? Instead of jeans or sweats, like the rest of the guys, he was wearing his brown cords. And they were so short, I could see his brown socks sticking out from the tops of his Nikes.

  Oh, brother.

  “Are you okay?” Russell asked when he sat down across from me and grabbed the syrup.

  “I’m fine,” I told him. “You wanna maybe switch that shirt for a regular one?”

  “You mean a turtleneck?” he asked.

  “No,” I said with a sigh, wondering what was “normal” about a turtleneck.

  “Are you sure you’re okay? You look like you’ve been crying,” he said, looking worried.

  I shrugged and told him about the shampoo, then rubbed my eye again, which only made it worse. Mom told me to stop, but I couldn’t help it.

  After breakfast, Russ and I met Chris outside so we could walk to school together. I knew Chris would dribble his ball the whole way there, as usual. He’d seen some show on ESPN about a player who had at least one finger on his basketball at all times, so Chris had started carrying his everywhere he went. I had the feeling he slept with it.

  I was all about basketball, but that was overkill.

  “Nice Blazer
win last night,” I said.

  Chris asked, “Are you joking?”

  “No. Why?”

  “You winked when you said it.”

  “He’s not winking,” Russ explained. “He has shampoo in his eye.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do you think?” I asked.

  “No idea.” He shrugged.

  I rolled my eyes. Well, one of them, anyway. “It was an accident!” I snapped.

  “Wow,” Chris muttered. “Touchy.”

  We were quiet for a minute or so, and the only sound was his ball slapping against the sidewalk.

  “We’ve got practice this afternoon,” Chris finally said.

  “With the new twins,” I added.

  “Do we know what positions they play?” Russ asked, as he adjusted his glasses.

  “No idea,” Chris said. “But I guess we’ll find out.”

  “You know, I haven’t even seen these guys yet. Are they in any of your classes?” I asked both of them.

  “Not so far,” Chris said.

  Russ shook his head. “I doubt they’ll pop up in any of my advanced classes.”

  He was probably right about that. Russ was the only mathlete I’d ever heard of, so the chances of the Minnesota twins being star players and geniuses were zero to none, as Dad would say.

  When we got to school, Chris and I walked to our lockers, which were right next to each other, while Russ headed upstairs.

  While I was pulling out my books, I kept checking the hallway for a sign of the new twins. It was like looking for Waldo in one of those books I used to love. And just like Waldo, I couldn’t find them anywhere.

  I went to English class, hoping at least one of the new guys would be in there so I could check him out, but I was surrounded by the same old kids who’d been there all year. And four of them asked me if I was either upset or had been crying.

  As far as spotting the twins went, social studies was a dead end, and so was math.

  Between each class, I looked at the swarm of students packing the hallway and searched for unfamiliar faces, but I came up empty (except for some girl who handed me a tissue, thinking I’d been crying).

  That was getting old.

  When I met up with the Pioneers at lunch, it turned out that both twins were in Nicky Chu’s art class, and they both sat at Nate’s table in English.