by Kobe Bryant
The Spotlight Offense soon became obvious. The best options were always the brightest, which made choosing passes simple—Peño just had to follow the light. He realized that the post players were open a lot more than he had ever realized, as long as he kept his head up. Usually if he drove to the net, the defense would close in on him, and he got lost in the trees. Now A-Wall and Twig lit up behind the closing players, and he hit them on bounce passes for easy layups.
He was also using the others to his advantage. He rubbed off screens and faked passes. His shadow ran into Twig and A-Wall constantly, and it was getting annoyed—stomping around and waving its hands at its shadow teammates. But the real difference was the talking.
Peño had never heard the Badgers talk so much—at least not with the lights on. Even Twig was calling out screens and moving and making shots. The whole game became audible.
Finally, Rolabi stepped forward with the flower.
“That’s enough for today,” he said. “Sit and watch. Thank you, gentlemen.”
Peño sat down in front of the flower, focusing on it, and for once he didn’t feel the need to move or fidget. He was engrossed, but he did notice when the room fell into an even deeper silence, and he looked up and saw that the orb was back, floating only ten feet away. Peño shifted warily.
“Here we go again,” Lab muttered.
Vin went first, then Lab, and Peño raced after them. He tried to snag the orb on his first pass and missed badly, nearly falling from the overreach. He turned back, noticing that Devon, Twig, and Jerome were all still seated around the daisy, legs crossed beneath them.
Those are the three who already caught it, he realized.
He lunged wildly at the orb and ended up face-first on the hardwood.
“Ow,” he muttered.
The orb stopped in front of Rain, and Peño rolled over onto his stomach, watching the confrontation. Rain approached it slowly. Then, when the orb launched into a sudden switch of direction, he pivoted on one heel and caught it with his right hand. Rain grinned and was gone.
Peño caught Devon heading for the bench. Peño and Lab had been discussing the burly new recruit last night . . . and they had made a couple of bets. He figured now was as good a time as any to resolve them.
“Lab and I have a bet,” he said, walking over to Devon. “Why do you do homeschool?”
Devon shifted. “I . . . I like it better.”
“Oh,” Peño said, slumping. “I was betting your parents made you. How long you been doing that? Don’t know anyone who is homeschooled, you know? Seems kinda cool.”
“This is the fourth year,” Devon said, still not making eye contact.
“So you used to go to regular school?”
“Yeah.”
Okay, Peño thought, I can still win the second bet.
“Why’d you leave?”
Devon fidgeted. “I . . . didn’t fit in.”
“Oh,” Peño said, disappointed. “I bet that you were expelled. No offense.”
Devon loomed over Peño, standing a head taller and half again as wide. He didn’t seem to have an ounce of fat on him.
“Man, I wish I looked like you,” Peño said. “Your arms are thicker than my waist.”
Devon rubbed his arm. “Sometimes I feel a bit . . . too big.”
Peño laughed. “Too big? Own it, big man. You know what people call me?”
“Umm, no,” he said.
“Shrimp, lil’boy, baby mustache . . .”
Devon let out a chuckle, and Peño smiled.
“Yeah, I guess that last one isn’t about my height,” he said. “The point is, I don’t let that get me down. So what? I’m short and I’ll still outplay them all. You’re a beast, bro. Throw it down. Use it. And if people call you names, smile and ball ’em.”
Devon forced a smile. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right! You’ll figure that out soon—”
Peño stopped midsentence. No wonder Devon wasn’t talking—Peño hadn’t initiated him yet.
“Hey, you don’t have a nickname!”
“I . . . well, no. Not yet.”
“I’ve been neglecting my duties.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Peño waved him away, thinking. He needed something good. Something to get Devon fired up. He was clearly shy, so maybe something that had a bit of a bite. Something with attitude. He talked while he was thinking, listing all the other nicknames he’d invented, hoping one of them would spark an idea. “And you . . . well, you’re just huge. A brute. Beast. The Bull?”
Devon’s smile flickered, and Peño held his hand up, seeing his discomfort.
“Skip that.” He paused. “Big D?”
Devon looked even more downcast.
Nothing about size, you dimwit, Peño reprimanded himself. He needs confidence.
Then it hit him.
“Tell you what . . . let’s give you one you’re going to have to earn.”
“Like what?”
“Cash Money,” he said proudly. “Cash for short. Like every time you get the ball down low, you can just cash it in ’cause nobody can stop the big man.”
Devon laughed at that one . . . a deep, booming rumble.
“Cash it is!” Peño said. “Let’s get it, boy! Cash coming for the title!”
He gave him props and then headed for Rain, who had just popped back into Fairwood. He wanted to get some information out of him about the orb. About where it had taken him.
Peño heard a quiet voice behind him.
“Cash . . . yeah . . . that works for me.”
Peño smiled. He hoped that Cash would start feeling a little more at home with the Badgers. Now he just had to get him to throw down on the block and be the beast he was clearly meant to be. Peño could do that with time. He considered himself a fairly talented motivator.
“You all right?” he asked Rain.
Rain hesitated. “Yeah. I’m all right.”
Rain walked to the bench, looking a bit dazed, and Peño decided not to pester him. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to know.
He sighed and decided to go cheer up Rain.
Rain laughed and shook his head.
“You sure you’re good?” Peño said, putting his fist up.
Rain gave him props. “You know it.”
As Peño slipped on his shoes, quiet words played in his mind: In the place you are most afraid to be. He had no idea what that meant, but he suspected he wasn’t going to like it.
PEÑO DIDN’T SLEEP well. He kept dreaming of sinking boats, roads slipping into fog, and falling mountains. Maybe dinner disagreed with him. He had conjured up such a lackluster pasta that even Lab didn’t have the heart to insult it. Later, when he couldn’t sleep, Peño read his old books and spun his ball on his finger. He felt like he was missing something. He awoke late—Lab woke him up for the first time ever—and they hurried to practice.
When he got there, Peño decided to work on Cash’s game with him. The big kid was down on the post now, and Peño lobbed the ball to him. Cash turned sharply and laid it in with a grin.
“That’s it, my brother!” Peño said, opening an imaginary register. “Cash it in!”
Devon threw the ball back to Peño, who lifted a hand, freestyling:
Peño blanked, scratching at the back of his neck. He could still save it.
Peño frowned. “Definitely not my best work.”
“That’s an understatement,” Lab said. “But wait . . . do you have any best work?”
“Shut up.”
Peño dribbled to the sideline, imagining full bleachers. He couldn’t wait for actual games. The thrill of stepping out onto the court, the opposing team across the line. The shouts and applause. His pops cheering them on, when he could. Peño closed his eyes. He could alm
ost hear the voices.
“We have two days left of our training camp,” Rolabi said, walking onto the court. “And two left to catch the orb.”
But after just a few more words, he headed for the doors again, leaving the confused team at center court.
“There’s no practice today?” Peño asked.
“Oh yes. You just don’t need me,” the professor said.
“What should we do?” Rain called after him.
Rolabi glanced back. “I leave that to you.”
The front doors burst open, and Rolabi walked outside. When the doors slammed shut again, they dissolved into the cinder-block wall. Peño stared at the blank wall apprehensively. The only entrance and exit in Fairwood Community Center had vanished. The team was trapped inside.
“Perfect,” Peño said. “I guess he’s making sure we don’t go home early.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Twig said.
As soon as Twig said it, a terrible grinding filled the air. Peño covered his ears and watched in horror as the two walls that ran the length of the court began to push forward.
“Impossible,” Vin breathed.
“Possibility is subjective,” Lab muttered. “Any ideas?”
Peño dropped his ball, watching as one wall began to push the bleachers forward.
“Maybe we need to score the ball again?” Vin suggested.
They grabbed their balls and started shooting. Peño hit a free throw and even a three—though with the noise and the encroaching walls, it took several attempts. They all seemed to make at least one basket. And still the two walls continued on, getting closer and closer now.
“This is useless,” Lab said. “We did shooting two days ago. He wouldn’t repeat it.”
Peño tried to think. What else did they need? What else was there? Cash sprinted for the bleachers and grabbed one end, trying to heave it off the wall.
“Help!” he shouted.
The team scrambled into action, and it took all of them together to swing the bleachers out. Peño’s dad had once told him that they were welded together inside the gym, and judging by the deep ruts in the hardwood, they had probably never moved since. When the bleachers were far enough off the wall, Peño ran to the other side and pushed, driving his legs forward like tank treads.
“Turn it sideways!” Rain shouted. “On three. One . . . two . . . pull!”
They were just in time. They slid the bleachers between the two walls, and Peño slumped, exhausted. No one spoke as the walls steadily closed in on the bleachers like huge, gaping jaws.
The bleachers are made of solid steel, he thought. It could work.
Once again, he was wrong. With an awful screech of metal, the bleachers began to fold under the pressure—driving the ends downward and buckling the middle into an inverted U.
Peño’s heart raced. He ran to where the front doors once stood, feeling desperately to see if they were just invisible. But he felt only the dappled surface of the concrete.
He beat his fists against the wall.
“Rolabi!” he cried. “Help us! Someone!”
No one answered.
“Look!” Cash shouted.
Peño turned and saw the orb floating twenty or thirty feet overhead, as if mocking them. He could feel the chill in his bones that the orb always brought, but today it was too late, too far away.
“Great timing,” Peño said.
“Someone can get out of here!” Twig said. “You vanish, remember?”
“Only for people that haven’t gotten the orb yet,” Reggie said. “It will only work for them.”
Peño knew that was him and Lab, and, without thinking, he turned to his little brother. Lab stared back at him numbly. What if only one of them could escape? Peño narrowed his eyes.
It was going to be Lab.
“Get up on the bleachers!” Lab said.
There was nothing else to do. Peño scrambled onto the bleachers, pulling himself up the folding steel toward the arch-shaped bend that was being pushed steadily upward by the walls. The steel was sticky with old soda stains, and Peño grabbed and pulled and pushed the players ahead of him to help them up. When he reached the top of the buckling steel structure, Lab stretched for the orb.
They were still well short—it was some fifteen or twenty feet overhead.
Peño turned to the walls. They signified the end of the Badgers, and they were coming quickly. He started shaking. It had all been for nothing. The mountain. The shadows. They had worked so hard, and, in the end, it was just to be killed. He felt defeated, and he turned to Lab.
Their eyes met, but they said nothing.
Then Devon made one last move. He dropped onto all fours, bracing his feet against a buckling steel bench and gripping another bench with his strong fingers.
“Come on!” he shouted. “Make a pyramid!”
There was no time to argue. Twig, A-Wall, Big John, and Reggie dropped down beside him, forming an uneven base. Rain, Jerome, and Vin climbed on next, wavering and clutching onto shoulders. Only Lab and Peño were left, and they climbed to the top, grabbing each other’s hands from either side to pull themselves up. Peño dug his sneakers into the backs of his teammates, having no other choice, but no one cried out or even complained. Peño and Lab finally reached the top, holding on to each other’s arms for balance.
Their eyes met again, and they both looked up at the orb. It was still ten feet up. Even Lab couldn’t reach it—at least, not without a little help. Luckily, his big brother was there.
Peño crouched and linked his hands for a foothold. “On my count.”
Lab scowled. “Peño, we didn’t even talk about it—”
Peño shook his head. “Don’t argue with me. Don’t even think for a moment I’m leaving you. Now . . .”
Lab’s eyes filled with tears. Peño wanted to hug him. But there was no time. Whatever else happened now, he was going to save his little brother.
“I can’t just leave you either,” Lab choked out.
“I’ll be fine! Now, use those extra three inches and jump!”
“Peño—”
“One . . . two . . . three!” Peño shouted. “Go!”
Lab put his shoe on Peño’s hands and jumped. Peño pushed through his knees with all his strength, straightening his legs and heaving his brother into the air. Time seemed to slow again. Then Lab’s fingers closed on the orb, and he was gone. Peño smiled, not even looking around. The walls didn’t matter now. At least Lab was safe. And with that, the walls began to slide backward.
“Badgerssssss!” Peño cried, pumping his fist overhead.
“Badgers!” the others shouted with him.
Peño climbed off and helped the others up. Laughs and cheers rose from the group as the walls pushed back, revealing the devastation they had wrought. But Fairwood wasn’t devastated for long.
The bleachers straightened back in place. The shattered backboards reformed in brilliant swirls of glass like little galaxies. The pulp that was the two benches became whole again, as did the tattered banners, and even the team’s bags. The gym wasn’t just remade. It was all new. Polished. Fresh.
It was like the Fairwood of old, the one he imagined, when West Bottom teams weren’t stuck in disrepair. He wondered if they could fill this gym with new banners. He imagined putting one on the north wall and smiled.
“Nice toss,” Rain said, walking over.
Peño gave him props. “It’s the giant muscles. Where do you think my bro is?”
Just then Lab reappeared, and Peño checked him over and wrapped him in a hug.
“What did you see?” Rain asked.
Lab glanced at him. “The future.”
“And?” Peño asked quietly.
“We’ll face it together,” Lab whispered.
Peño hugged him again,
and he felt his eyes well with unexpected tears. The orb returned, smaller now, waiting for one more. Peño finally pulled back, gripping his little brother’s face.
“Is the boat floating?” he asked.
Lab’s eyes widened. Then he just nodded. “It’s floating.”
Peño felt a great weight lifting . . . one he hadn’t even known was there.
Now you are ready. The road awaits.
The road to what? he thought.
Does it matter?
Peño thought about that. “No,” he murmured. “I guess it doesn’t.”
PEÑO TOOK OUT his ball the next morning, staring at it thoughtfully. He was sitting on the home bench with Lab, watching Reggie and Twig warm up. No one else had arrived at practice yet.
“Last one,” Peño said, strangely sad to realize his morning routine was about to change. “Been a nutty ten days.”
“Went by fast,” Lab agreed.
Peño tried to remember the first day, before Rolabi had walked in. “Everything seemed a lot simpler ten days ago.”
“Yeah. But I don’t miss it,” Lab said.
Peño glanced at his little brother. He had decided not to press him on anything else. He simply told Lab that he was available to talk anytime—no judgments, no consequences. But Lab had helped with dinner last night for the first time ever, and Peño had caught him holding their mother’s photo by the mantel. Something had changed for him. A wall had come down.
“I miss Mama,” Lab said suddenly.
Peño smiled. “You said the word.”
“Yeah. Think it’s about time. What do you think she’d say about all this?” Lab gestured vaguely to the gym.
Peño thought about that. “She’d say we should go out and kick some butt this year.”
“That doesn’t sound like her at all,” Lab said.
“I know. But that’s what I’m saying. And I’m the boss now.”
