by Kobe Bryant
He started for the front doors with Kallo.
“Are . . . are you taking the tiger home?” Peño called.
The doors flew open, and Rolabi and Kallo strolled outside.
“He should really learn how to say goodbye,” Peño muttered.
Alfie shuffled to the bench, exhausted, and started to take off his sneakers.
“We practiced with a tiger today,” Peño said.
Jerome was the first one to laugh. Then the sound started to roll down the benches, and when it reached Alfie, he couldn’t hold it in either. It was all so ridiculous, he didn’t know what else to do.
“Drop some lines, Peño!” Jerome said.
Peño stood up, bobbing and using his right hand as if conducting his own performance. He freestyled another verse and finished with a dramatic point to the north wall. Alfie laughed, then realized it was the first time he had ever laughed inside of Fairwood. He had been playing here for nearly a year. This place had always been about pressure and cruel words and failure. Today, for once, it was about strength.
He sent his mother a text for a ride and waited on the bench, sneaking looks at Big John, who said very little and then left in silence. Alfie wondered if he was off to one of his jobs.
After a few minutes, Alfie zipped up his bag and went outside. On the way, he felt a stirring of pride. He had faced a tiger . . . and something he feared far more. And he had not backed down. Alfie thought of his father and wondered if he could find that same courage at home. As he walked out, Reggie fell into step beside him, slinging his bag over his shoulder.
“So, what do you think about our Wizenard now?” Reggie asked.
Alfie glanced at him. “I think I’m glad he’s here.”
THE MORNING WAS already scorching hot when Alfie stopped at the front doors of Fairwood. Summer in the Bottom was notoriously fickle—waves of dead, dry heat could be replaced by blankets of humidity within hours, and both could be chased away at any time by cold rainfalls rolling in from the east. Alfie would have loved some of that rain right now. Today seemed like it was a dead heat kind of day. He sighed and stared at the doors, where waves of heat were rolling off the dented metal. Then he frowned.
The doors had always been dilapidated: the moss-green paint was patchwork, the metal beneath marked with the residue of a hundred different government posters from back before they gave up promoting anything in the Bottom. But today the doors had been freshly painted a sharp emerald green, and when Alfie pulled them open, they didn’t make their usual complaints.
He stepped inside, still wondering at the paint, and saw a castle.
It was a pyramid-like structure with high stone walls, open passageways at all four corners, and a towering pinnacle at its center, upon which stood a huge trophy. Every youth baller in Dren knew it well: the national championship trophy. Alfie stared at it longingly.
Then he noticed that no one else was in the gym. Not even Reggie. He frowned.
“Why do you play this game?”
Alfie jumped, dropping his duffel. He turned around and saw Rolabi leaning against the wall beside the door, his eyes fixed on the stone castle.
“Did you build that?” Alfie asked.
“In a sense,” he replied easily. “Well?”
“I . . . well . . . I like it.” Alfie paused. “I love it, actually.”
“Why?” Rolabi asked, glancing at him. “Your teammates are often cruel to you. Your dad lectures you and makes you feel small. You don’t sleep before games. You are afraid.”
Alfie was about to ask him how he knew all that, and then he remembered that Rolabi did a lot of things that didn’t make sense. He tried to think. Everything Rolabi had said was true enough. Yet Alfie really did love playing basketball. Why? What did he love? The answer appeared and surprised him.
“I guess I like being on a team. Even if they don’t want me.”
“And you believe that—that they don’t want you here?”
“Yeah,” Alfie muttered. “I kind of got that impression from day one.”
“How many games have you missed?” he asked.
Alfie frowned. “None.”
“Practices?”
“None,” he said, not sure where Rolabi was going with this.
Rolabi laid a strong hand on his shoulder, calloused and rough yet gentle.
“They will need your courage on this road, Alfred Zetz,” he said gravely.
“I don’t have much courage . . .”
“I think you do.”
Alfie heard movement and turned to see Reggie stretching by the bench. He glanced at Rolabi, who was staring at the castle again as if deep in thought. Sensing their talk was over, Alfie wandered over to join Reggie, still thinking about his answer. It really was the team that mattered to him most—he could sense the truth in that—but he didn’t know why.
Because you have a lot to give, the voice said.
For some reason that brought a lump to Alfie’s throat, but he pushed it down again.
“Hey, man,” Reggie said. “What did you and Rolabi talk about?”
“I think it was about basketball.”
Reggie laughed. “Yeah . . . same.”
Alfie stared at the castle in wonder—ramps and ramparts and heavy stone. There were no scuff marks on the hardwood, no tools, nor any other signs of how the structure had been built.
“Yeah, not sure about that either,” Reggie said, gesturing toward the towering stone structure.
“Gonna make a scrimmage kind of tough.”
“There was a castle in that book,” Reggie pointed out.
“I remember. I just didn’t know he was going to bring it.”
Reggie laughed and pulled his ankle up, stretching his quads.
“Last night, my gran asked how training has been going,” he said.
“And?”
“I told her it’s been a little weird.”
“A pretty big understatement,” Alfie said. “What did she say to that?”
“She said things are only ever weird because we don’t understand them.”
Alfie snorted and started to pull on his sneakers. “She sounds like a smart lady.”
“She is, I guess. Maybe a bit optimistic.”
“What do you mean?”
Reggie hesitated, and then shook his head. “Nothing.”
“What is it?”
Reggie scratched the back of his arm—a habit Alfie knew well.
“She thinks I can play in the DBL. Says I’ve got the heart.” Reggie sighed. “Kind of funny, since I don’t even start on the Badgers. I told her I’m trying, but it ain’t gonna happen.”
“Who says?”
Reggie gestured around them. “Just being real. We’re in the Bottom. It takes a special kind of talent to get out of here. Rain talent. You don’t get to the DBL being a bench player.”
His voice cracked at the end, and he looked away.
“I think you have the heart too, Reggie,” Alfie said. “That counts for a whole lot.”
Reggie glanced at him, and Alfie saw that his big, dark eyes were like glass.
“Thanks, Alfie,” he said hoarsely.
And then he took off, running faster than any normal warm-up would call for.
Alfie began to stretch, watching as the team came in one by one. Even Peño and Lab arrived separately. Each player jumped when Rolabi spoke, talked to him briefly, and then wandered over to the bench with the same bewildered look Alfie figured he’d been wearing after Rolabi questioned him. When everyone had arrived, they gathered in front of the castle.
Twig eyed the ramps, wondering what the drill could possibly be.
“Today we are working on team defense,” Rolabi said.
He unceremoniously flipped his bag over and dumped a pile of helmets and pads o
nto the floor: five red and five blue of each. Something in his bag squawked.
Rolabi closed the bag. “Take one of each, please,” he said, gesturing to the heap of equipment. “Fasten the helmets tightly.”
There seemed to be no talk of starters versus the bench, so Alfie grabbed a blue helmet and matching pad at random. Belatedly, he checked to see whose team he was on: Peño, Rain, Jerome, and Big John, who glared at him with distaste, if not quite hatred.
Great, Alfie thought. My own teammates will probably knock me off the fortress when I’m not looking.
“The game is simple,” Rolabi said. “One team will attack, and the other will defend. The team to get the trophy in the least amount of time wins. The losing team will run laps while the winners shoot around. Blue team will defend first.”
Unsurprisingly, Rain took the lead. He led the blue team up the closest ramp, and Alfie felt the walls on the way: they weren’t stone at all. They were rubbery and firm, like the mats his father kept in the garage. His defensive pad covered the ramp opening almost to the inch, so there was no way to squeeze past it. It seemed like it should be easy to stop the attacking team.
When they had climbed the ramp, Rain gathered them into a huddle and assigned a man to each of the lower ramps, with himself as the floater. The idea was to simply call out if you were doubled.
“What happens if they start switching and I get Devon or something?” Peño asked.
Alfie was thinking the same thing. In fact, the more he thought about it, the trickier the game became. While there were five defenders and only four initial ramps, the other team got to choose where they attacked. How could the defense stop them from doubling or even tripling up?
“We got to talk,” Rain said. “Make sure you call it out if someone is getting past you.”
Everyone nodded, but something about the plan was still nagging Alfie.
“Let’s rock it, boys!” Peño shouted.
It was too late to argue now. Alfie ran to one of the ramps and raised his pad like a closing drawbridge, shifting anxiously behind it. His chosen ramp was at the back, facing the bleachers, so he couldn’t see the red team. Standing there waiting was giving him butterflies.
What if Devon came to his ramp? He would run right over Alfie.
“Begin,” Rolabi said.
The word seemed to echo around Alfie, bouncing off floors and walls and reverberating through the castle. Then the scene changed.
Alfie stepped back in amazement as the hardwood floors caved into a ditch surrounding the castle. Dark, brackish water sprang out and filled the moat instantly. The floor on the far side then stretched into a narrow bridge that led directly to Alfie’s ramp. The fortress walls turned into blocks of real stone, and even his T-shirt and shorts changed into a suit of shimmering armor with blue trim.
Oh man, Alfie thought, shifting nervously. Please don’t give Big John a sword.
“Charge!” Lab shouted from somewhere unseen.
It didn’t take long for him to spot the attackers coming for his ramp . . . Reggie and Lab. They charged across the narrow wooden bridge, their armored boots clanking on the wood.
“Help!” Twig shouted.
He was almost bowled over, but he spread his feet wide and held, straining against the joint attack. Reggie was pushing into Lab’s back, driving him forward, and with their feet churning, the two boys started to push Alfie back. His feet slid steadily up the ramp.
He glanced behind him, alarmed. In seconds, they would be through.
Then Alfie felt someone slam into him from behind, stopping the slide. Rain had joined the fight.
Together they pushed forward, using the downhill slope to their advantage, driving the attackers back toward the bridge and the swampy moat. Reggie abruptly broke off, abandoning Lab and sprinting back across the bridge. Reggie turned, heading for another ramp.
“Keep pushing, Twig!” Rain said, taking off again.
Alfie set his legs and drove into Lab, trying to keep his feet from sliding.
“Give up, Twig!” Lab said through gritted teeth.
“You give up!”
It wasn’t much of a comeback, but in fairness, Alfie was kind of preoccupied.
“You can’t hold me, Stick Man,” Lab said, pushing again.
Alfie reddened. He hated that name even more than Twig.
“I’m doing . . . fine . . .”
“You sound tired.”
“Nope,” Alfie replied, trying to keep his voice steady.
He readied himself for another push, when Lab turned and ran across the bridge toward a different ramp. Alfie spilled forward, landing on his own pad and sliding down the ramp like a toboggan. He groaned.
So much for his valiant defense.
“A-Wall just took off!” Big John shouted.
“So did Lab!” Alfie said, picking himself up.
“Help me!” Rain said.
Alfie hurried up the ramp. He was too late.
Rain and Jerome were both lying on the floor, dazed, and the five red players were hoisting the trophy. Alfie realized what had happened. They had simply overwhelmed one defender and smashed through the weak outer perimeter. That left Rain to attempt to block the final ramp alone, but he had no chance against the entire red team. The attackers used their advantage.
They could find the weakness.
“Don’t worry,” Rain said, climbing back to his feet. “We’ll beat their time.”
“One minute and forty-seven seconds,” Rolabi said, his disembodied voice still strangely amplified. “Blue team, you will now attack. You have two minutes to prepare.”
“Let’s go,” Rain muttered.
Alfie followed the dejected group over the moat. He thought he saw something green swimming in the water and quickly hurried to the other side, making a note to watch his step when he crossed again. He heard something fluttering and glanced back. He stopped, astounded.
It was indeed a true castle: stone and mortar and wood, topped with crimson flags that billowed in some imagined wind. It looked like a miniature version of the castle in the old book, the one they had called the Castle of Granity. He imagined himself as Pana, seeing the real thing for the first time as she wandered up the debris-strewn beach. He found he wanted to see it.
The blue team formed a huddle near the benches, and once again, Rain took the lead and laid out the same approach as the red team: double up on some ramps and overwhelm the defender. Alfie couldn’t argue with the logic of that. There was no way to stop the attack—the defense was spread too thin. Obviously, the defenders were realizing the same thing. No one appeared at any of the openings. Alfie spotted someone’s head on the second level. Maybe more.
What are they doing up there? he wondered.
“Begin,” Rolabi said.
“They’re not set up yet!” Rain said. “Follow me in!”
The blue team charged in a single-file line behind Rain. Peño shouted war cries and hooted as he ran. As they ran up the closest ramp, Alfie fell into the rear, wondering how the defenders could be so unprepared. And then he ran directly into Big John’s armored back plate.
“Watch it!” Big John shouted.
“Sorry,” Alfie said, peeking around the group. “What did we . . . Oh.”
He immediately saw the problem. Devon was standing at the entrance of the final ramp, and the rest of the red team was lined up behind him, stacking their pads on one another’s backs. Alfie realized the genius of their plan. The red team was blocking the only ramp that mattered.
Rain didn’t seem as impressed. “Push!”
They attacked as one, driving forward, and Alfie felt his boots sliding on the stone. It felt like pushing against a wall. The red team had the higher ground . . . and Devon was holding them there. Getting past them would be impossible.
“Keep p
ushing!” Rain shouted.
A painful minute slipped by. Rain refused to admit defeat. It was admirable, but foolish.
They had been outsmarted.
Finally, Devon and the rest of the red team stepped forward as one and sent them all flying. Four players landed on top of Alfie in a downpour of elbows and knees. He groaned and crawled out from under the ragged pile. Big John’s big butt had landed right on his chest.
“The time is beat,” Rolabi said. “The red team wins. Blue team, laps.”
Alfie sighed, and the blue team trudged back down the ramps like a captured regiment. He stripped off his helmet, tossed it aside with the others, and started to run. It felt like an hour went by at least, and then Alfie finally made a free throw to end the misery. It was a small consolation, since they got to watch the red team shoot around and play games the whole time.
Alfie grabbed his water bottle and took a drink, plunking himself onto the bench. His feet felt like lead weights, and he struggled to even draw them in. Rolabi walked over to the benches.
You knew the plan was flawed.
Alfie glanced at him. Rolabi was right. He had suspected . . .
You have too much to give to stay silent.
No one will listen to me—
Because they know you won’t listen to yourself. Confront the hidden darkness.
Alfie frowned. Not because he was confused. Because he felt it. A cold spot.
The road is coming.
Rolabi walked over to the castle and plucked something round from one stone. It looked like a small cap. As soon as he did, the structure began to deflate. Alfie watched in disbelief as the whole castle shrank into a shriveled ball of rubber. Rolabi scooped it up and dropped it into his bag. Then he turned to the team, eyes flashing.
“What must a defender always be?” Rolabi asked.
“Ready,” Reggie said.
“The same goes for the entire team. If you are not ready, we are wasting our time.”
With that, he abruptly started for the doors, not sparing them another glance.
“Are we done for today?” Peño asked.
“That is up to you.”
The doors burst open, and Rolabi disappeared into the morning. Sunlight poured in for just a moment and then was wiped out by the doors. Alfie felt a familiar, unpleasant chill on his arms.
