by Mike Lupica
“That doesn’t sound good,” Ryan said to Lucas when English class ended.
It wasn’t.
* * *
They had passed in their papers the previous Friday along with everybody else in the class. Lucas had asked Ryan if he wanted him to look over Ryan’s paper one more time. Ryan said, no, it was as good as it was going to get.
His mom had once told him something an old writer had said, about how she hated to write but loved having written. But it didn’t work that way with Lucas. It would have been like saying that he loved winning a game but not having had to actually play it.
Writing wasn’t always easy. It was hard some nights, especially when he was still working on his basketball journal, and had to be honest about everything that had happened since the start of the Wolves’ season. Mr. C. was right, though. The more you worked at it, the better you got.
Now Lucas and Ryan sat in the front of Mr. C.’s classroom. He was at his desk. In front of him were two printouts, side by side. He still wasn’t smiling, or acting friendly. Clearly there was something bothering him.
He tapped one printout, then the other, then looked up at Lucas and Ryan.
“I’ve got both your papers here,” Mr. Collins said. “Yours, Lucas. And yours, Ryan.”
He paused, but they both could see that he wasn’t finished. And seemed even less happy than when they’d arrived.
“There’s a problem, I’m sorry to say,” he said. “A big problem.”
He blew out some air, sounding tired.
“The writing in them is too much alike,” he said. “As if they were both written by the same person.”
Now he looked directly at Lucas.
“As a matter of fact, they both read as if they were written by you, Lucas.”
Lucas cleared his throat, which suddenly felt as dry as the papers on the desk. But before he could speak, Mr. Collins did.
“Every writer has their own voice,” he said. “You’ve both heard me say that plenty of times in class. A writer’s voice, even now, can be as distinctive as your handwriting. Or even the way you shoot a basketball. But it’s their own. And needs to be their own.”
Lucas looked over at Ryan, whose eyes were pleading with him, though he wasn’t quite sure pleading for what. Maybe not to make things worse.
He was pretty certain he knew what had happened, that Ryan hadn’t changed what Lucas had written, that he’d just left it exactly the way it was. But Lucas felt that if he tried to explain that to Mr. Collins, he would make things worse.
Especially for Ryan.
“I was just trying to help Ryan out,” Lucas said. “I knew how important it was for him to get a good grade, so he wouldn’t get kicked off the basketball team.”
“Kicked off the team?” Mr. Collins said. “By your grandfather, Lucas? That doesn’t sound like the Gramps I know.”
Little do you know, Lucas thought.
Ryan jumped in now.
“I can’t get anything less than a B this semester,” Ryan said. “I think I’m okay in my other classes. But you said these papers are going to make up most of our grade in English. And I just flat-out stink at writing, even though I know you’d never say that.”
He cleared his throat.
“Anyway,” Ryan said, “if I get a C, I can’t play sports second semester. My mom was a serious basketball player. But she’s just as serious about school. And my dad is more serious than her.”
Mr. Collins held up one of the papers.
“That’s all well and good,” he said. “But it’s clear that this isn’t your work. It’s Lucas’s.”
He turned to Lucas again.
“Did you write this paper for Ryan so he could stay on the basketball team?” Mr. Collins said. “Because if you did, it’s not just Ryan who cheated. You both did.”
Lucas knew he hadn’t cheated. He knew he was just trying to help Ryan out. Get him started. He’d trusted Ryan to go home and take the words he’d spoken to Lucas and then write them out himself. In his own voice. That was all. Lucas knew he’d never cheated in anything in his life. He’d never copy off somebody else’s paper or let anybody copy his. It wasn’t who he was.
He hated any kind of cheating, even when it had involved someone he loved.
Somehow, though, he still felt caught. Ryan wasn’t just his teammate. He was Lucas’s best friend. The last thing Lucas wanted to do was get him—or them—in more trouble.
“I was just trying to help,” Lucas said.
He wasn’t going to lie. But he didn’t know how he could help things by telling the whole story.
“Lucas knows what a bad writer I am,” Ryan said.
“You’re not a bad writer,” Mr. Collins said. “You just don’t love it. And let’s be honest, you don’t work nearly hard enough at it.”
“I guess I tried a little too hard,” Lucas said.
“In the process,” Mr. Collins said, “it appears that your work became Ryan’s.”
They all sat there in silence. Lucas felt his brain spinning, as if there were a hundred thoughts inside it at once. Everything that had happened, and was happening, with Gramps had started because of this paper. He’d wanted Gramps to be his subject. Gramps had said no. Then he’d found out who Gramps really was, found out Gramps had been part of a cheating scandal that involved his college basketball team, even though he was still saying he hadn’t actually cheated himself.
Now here he sat in front of Mr. Collins, who had become the subject of his paper, in trouble because of somebody else’s paper.
He didn’t just feel dizzy. He felt a little bit sick.
“I’m not a cheater,” Lucas said.
“I’m not either,” Ryan said.
Mr. Collins got up and came around his desk. He placed Ryan’s paper on the desk in front of him.
“Maybe neither one of you thought you were doing anything wrong,” he said. “Or thought you were being dishonest. I understand the pressure you’re obviously feeling about your grade, Ryan. I do. It’s why I’m going to give you a second chance.”
“You’re not going to fail me?” Ryan said.
Lucas could never remember seeing his friend as scared as he was right now. Not in sports. Not anywhere. He watched Ryan swallow hard, as if his throat had now gone totally dry.
“For now,” Mr. Collins said, “I’m not going to give you any grade at all.”
“But this is my paper,” Ryan said. “Friday was the deadline.”
“Well,” Mr. Collins said, “there’s a new deadline for you. Next Wednesday, before Christmas break.”
“I have to do the whole paper over?” Ryan said.
“You can start this one over, and actually put it in your own words and your own voice this time,” he said. “Or you can pick another subject and start from scratch. Your call.”
“I can’t, Mr. C.!” Ryan said. “I could barely finish this one on time, even with Lucas helping me!”
“Yes, you can,” Mr. Collins said. “I’m not looking for the students I think you should be. I want you to be the best student you can be. And that’s going to start with you writing the best paper you can write. Alone.”
Mr. Collins was leaning against the front of his desk now, hands behind him, the way he did in class sometimes.
“I know you’re his friend, Lucas,” Mr. Collins said. “But the right way for you to be his friend now is to let Ryan do his own work.”
Here was somebody else, Lucas thought, talking about doing things the right way, even now that things had gone this wrong.
“You both clear on this?” Mr. Collins said.
“Yes, sir,” Lucas said.
“Yes, sir,” Ryan said.
Lucas thought his friend might cry. Lucas felt as if he’d just finished a pop quiz he hadn’t known was coming. And wasn’t sure he’d gotten all the answers right.
“If I were you, Ryan,” Mr. Collins said, “I’d get out of here and get to work. “Lucas? You hang around for a mi
nute, I want to have another word with you.”
What now?
After Ryan had shut the door behind him, it was just Mr. C. and Lucas.
“I believe you were just trying to help out a friend you thought was in a bad spot,” Mr. Collins said. “Except you do him no good if you do his work for him, even if you didn’t see it that way, or even intend it that way. He really does have to do this himself, whatever kind of paper he turns in now, and whatever happens after we all get back from Christmas break.”
“Okay,” Lucas said.
“I know you were just trying to do a teammate a solid,” Mr. Collins said. “But sometimes that can lead you to a bad decision, no matter how good your intentions were.”
He wanted to tell Mr. Collins that it was Ryan who had really made the bad decision, by not putting in the extra work. But he didn’t. Trying to be a solid teammate to the end.
“Glad you gave both of us a second chance,” Lucas said.
For the first time, Mr. Collins smiled.
“If I didn’t,” he said, “I wouldn’t be the guy you wrote about in your own paper.”
“How’d I do?” Lucas said.
“You’ll find out your grade along with everybody else after break,” Mr. C. said.
“I feel a little bit like I got an F in here today,” Lucas said.
“Let’s call it an incomplete grade for now,” Mr. Collins said.
“But if Ryan messes up on this paper now and gets a lousy grade, I feel like that’s partially going to be on me,” Lucas said.
“You know that commercial on TV where they say that life comes at you fast?” Mr. Collins said. “It happens all the time in our own lives when other people’s choices affect ours.”
Do they ever, Lucas thought.
Man, do they ever.
“You look like you want to say something,” Mr. Collins said.
There was a lot Lucas wanted to say. But he felt as if everybody had said enough today. He just stood up, shook Mr. C.’s hand, thanked him again for giving Ryan a do-over, and walked out of the classroom.
Ryan was waiting for him in the hall.
“You still have to help me,” he whispered to Lucas.
As low as Ryan had kept his voice, Lucas’s head still whipped around, afraid that Mr. Collins had followed him out of the classroom and had somehow heard.
But it was just the two of them.
“I can’t,” Lucas said. “You just heard Mr. C. tell me not to.”
“He doesn’t have to know,” Ryan said. “No one has to know.”
“I’d know,” Lucas said.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Ryan, who loved to eat, ate quickly at lunch the next day, telling Lucas and Maria that he had to get to the library and do some work.
“Ryan?” Maria said. “Ryan Moretti? Bolting from the cafeteria to do schoolwork?” She smiled at Lucas. It was one of those smiles that made it difficult for Lucas to focus on what she was saying. “Who was that?”
“Turned out Mr. C. gave him a little extra time to work on his paper,” Lucas said.
“I thought he passed his in along with the rest of us,” she said.
“He thought he was done,” Lucas said. “It just turned out he wasn’t done done.”
He quickly changed the subject back to basketball. Even when he was with Maria, basketball always made him feel as if he was on safe, and solid, ground.
“I can’t believe we only have one more game before Christmas,” he said. “And the way we’re playing, I’m worried that even taking one Saturday off will slow our roll.”
Maria giggled.
“Did you actually just say ‘slow our roll’?” she said.
“I heard Stephen Curry say it after a Thunder game the other night,” Lucas said, suddenly feeling sheepish. It happened a lot in her presence, even though being with her was another way of being on safe, solid ground.
“Stephen Curry is allowed to say it,” she said. “You are not.”
“Now you’re the one slowing my roll,” Lucas said.
She laughed. So did Lucas. It felt good. When they were walking back to class, it occurred to him that he hadn’t thought about Gramps once during lunch.
It still happened that way sometimes.
Just not very often.
* * *
The last game before Christmas was against the Jefferson Jazz at Claremont Middle.
Even Christmas felt different this year. He was still excited about it. He still loved this time of year. But it was different, the way a lot of things were.
Gramps still wasn’t having dinner with them. He never stopped by the house. He didn’t pick up Lucas for practice or drop him off after.
He was Lucas’s coach. He was the coach and Lucas was one of his players. That was their relationship, in the gym and at these games, which were starting to feel bigger and bigger as the Wolves kept winning.
No game felt bigger, at least so far, than the one against the Jazz. They were undefeated too. They had a great point guard, a kid tall enough to play center named Corey Tanner. Lucas remembered Corey—all too well—from sixth-grade ball. The Jazz had just missed making the playoffs last year. So the Wolves had only played them once. It hadn’t been pretty for Lucas, even though the Wolves had ended up winning by a point. It was the one time last season when he’d felt totally dominated by the guy he was matched up against.
“He’s a bigger version of me,” Lucas was saying to Billy while they warmed up. “Taller and better.”
“No,” Billy said. “He’s just taller.”
“I still can’t get last year’s game out of my brain,” Lucas said. “He shot over me every time he wanted to. I couldn’t get my shot over him.”
Ryan came by and heard them. “Today’s a do-over,” he said. “Like my paper.”
“Thought we weren’t going to talk about that,” Lucas said.
“We’re not,” Ryan said.
They actually hadn’t been talking about the paper, once Lucas had told Ryan that he couldn’t help him this time around. Lucas didn’t even know if Ryan had stayed with his tennis coach as his subject, or picked another one. He’d have to wait to find out.
“All I want to talk about today,” Lucas said, “is acing this test against the Jazz.”
It turned out to be one of those great days. Everybody brought their A games. Corey was as good as Lucas remembered, and just as long and athletic. But Lucas and Ryan were running their pick-and-rolls so well that Ryan kept getting open, either to drive the ball to the basket or on what Gramps liked to call the pick-and-pop. When Corey would switch on Ryan and Max Barrett, who had been guarding Ryan, would end up on Lucas, Lucas would make him pay. Max was just as long as Corey, but not nearly as quick. Lucas stepped back for a couple long jumpers, and drove by him a couple times in the first half.
At the other end, Ryan was helping Lucas out on Corey every chance he got. Corey was still knocking down shots. Just not the way he had last season. The Wolves ran every chance they got. The Jazz did the same. At halftime the score was 30–30, the most total points in a Wolves game all year. Going into the fourth quarter, the game was still tied at 42.
The Jazz finally went to a zone as a way of trying to attack the way the Wolves were moving the ball and spacing the court and making their shots, especially inside. The zone worked. Suddenly the Wolves weren’t getting as many easy points, because of the way the Jazz were packing the middle.
At the other end, Corey began to dominate Lucas the way he had when they were in the sixth grade.
The Jazz coach kept isolating Corey on Lucas, on one side of the court or the other. Corey kept backing Lucas in, backing him in a little more, getting to where he wanted on the court, then shooting over him.
Just like last year.
Lucas tried to overplay. He took chances on steals. Corey kept scoring. The Jazz got up six points with four minutes to play. Corey stepped back on Lucas and made a three-pointer. They were up nine.
Gramps called time.
“We’re fine,” he said.
“We’re not fine!” Lucas said, louder than he meant. He wasn’t mad at Gramps today. He was mad at himself. “I can’t guard that guy,” he said.
“You did pretty well until the last few minutes,” Gramps said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Lucas said. “He’s killing us. Please put somebody else on him.”
Gramps ignored him. He turned to Ryan and Richard and Billy and Sharif. “Let’s try our half-court trap on D,” he said. “Ryan and Billy, you run at the guy with the ball as soon as he’s over the line.”
The ref blew his whistle. The other four Wolves players in the game headed back on the court. Lucas started to follow them.
Gramps gently put a hand on his arm.
“Sam,” the ref said. “Time-out’s over.”
“One second,” he said. “Talking to my grandson.”
He knelt down in front of Lucas. Lucas could see it took some effort, and could see the pain on his face. He kept his voice low.
“You may not like it,” he said, “but you’ve still got a lot of me in you. A big part of it better be that you’re not a quitter, because I sure as heck never was. Only, you sounded like a quitter just now.” He held up a finger, as a way of letting the ref know that the conference with Lucas was ending. “I’ll take you off that big kid, if that’s what you want. But if I do, I’m taking you out of this game. Is that what you want?”
“No,” Lucas said.
“You’re the one getting knocked down right now,” he said. “Now it’s your turn to show some rope and get yourself back up.”
Lucas didn’t say another word. He just nodded. He went back to join his teammates. It was Wolves ball. Lucas got away from Corey, looked as if he might drive to the right, but whirled suddenly and threw a bullet of a crosscourt pass to Ryan.
Ryan didn’t hesitate, just stepped back from Max and made a three.
The Wolves were down six.
Corey threw the ball ahead to Max, but Ryan and Billy swallowed him up on a trap. Ryan took the ball away, cleanly, drove the court, laid the ball in.
