by Kobe Bryant
When he finally got home, soaked and exhausted, he managed a quick change of clothes and face-planted into bed. He lay there for a moment, then reached out and grabbed the old box.
He ran his fingers over the symbol, then retrieved the book as well. There was no doubting it: the symbol was the same. And if the book was about grana, then his box must have something to do with grana too. Which meant his parents might have known about grana. He felt his skin prickling. If they knew about grana, then it made even more sense that they were silenced . . . Had they experienced it too? Had they had visions like him? Had they met a Wizenard?
Reggie took a deep breath and started to read.
“The amplification of emotional strength,” he read aloud. “Part One. The Subject.”
He read the chapter three times, and at the end of it, he still had no idea what it meant. It was all vague words and cryptic illustrations. The labels and descriptions seemed to make no sense at all: the amalgamation of misery and super-succession and the bolded word Muse stamped into the collected center of a colorful petallike symbol that grew with every page. It was complete nonsense, and, more importantly, it gave no hint as to why his mother had given him the box.
Reggie lay back on the bed and sighed deeply. Maybe it was all just a coincidence.
He thought of the first line of the chapter: The subject is not always one who is expected. Greatness can be fostered from any source, if only they can bear the elements, if only they dare.
He wasn’t sure what the “subject” was, or what elements the writer was referring to, but his eyes naturally lingered on the second line: “Greatness can be fostered from any source.”
“I guess that could be me,” Reggie said hopefully.
But deep down, he knew it wasn’t. He thought of his parents, and how they might have known about grana. Maybe they were watching over him now, urging him to keep going, to figure it out. The thought was comforting for a moment, but as always, it soon trickled away, leaving only loneliness. He didn’t want to guess what amazing things they saw or didn’t see. He wanted to ask. He just wished that they were here.
Reggie put the book away and lay down, staring up at the stucco.
He had learned a long time ago that wishing didn’t work.
3
SLEEPLESS DREAMS
Every human is born to change the world. Unfortunately, some are changed by the world first.
WIZENARD PROVERB
REGGIE SPUN BACK, leaping off his right foot into a dramatic fadeaway jumper.
“Three . . . two . . . onnnnnnne . . .”
The sock hit the wastebasket’s lid and bounced out.
“And they miss the playoffs again,” Reggie finished, slouching. “The Badgers still stink.”
“Gran wants to know if you require a formal invitation to dinner.”
He sighed and glanced at P in the doorway. “Coming.”
Gran was seated at the head of the kitchen table, a squat wooden circle sandwiched between counter and couch. She was a small woman: five foot three and a hundred pounds, maybe, but she’d never seemed small—even now that he towered over her wispy shock of hair. She filled the room. She rarely got angry and never yelled, and she never needed to—one look was enough.
“Ready to eat, Your Majesty?” Gran asked dryly.
“Sorry,” Reggie mumbled.
It was chicken and grits today, with some precious spinach at the side. Vegetables were expensive in the Bottom, but Gran was diligent. She insisted that they eat right, as best they could.
“You’ve been moping since I got home,” Gran said. “Was practice that bad?”
“Yeah,” he said quietly.
“Well, that Rolabi knows what he is doing. P, eat, child.”
P groaned and took a bite.
“Is your homework done?” Gran asked, eyes flicking back and forth between them.
“It’s Saturday,” P said.
He could hear her rolling the soccer ball around beneath the table. She had a scavenged newspaper in front of her, open as always to the sports section and the soccer statistics of Dren’s professional league. She studied them constantly, and could recite every player’s season totals.
“And?” Gran said.
Reggie snorted. “Mine is done.”
“So is mine, obviously,” P said. “So . . . can I hang out at the park tomorrow?”
“Sunday is chore day,” Gran reminded her.
P groaned again. “Every day is chore day.”
“Right you are,” Gran said. “So, what was so bad about practice, Reggie?”
Reggie thought back to practice and felt his stomach turn. Where to even start? Why was Rolabi being so hard on him all of a sudden? And what did that weird story about the mountain mean? Why would it say “break” to a storm? Reggie put his fork down, his appetite firmly gone.
“It was fine,” he said.
Gran stared at him as she chewed, her small, dark eyes locked on his.
“You just keep practicing,” she said. “You’ll get there.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Gran.”
“It takes time—”
“It’s not about time,” Reggie said curtly. “I just don’t have it. Period. Can we drop it?”
“Well, I believe in you—”
“Then stop,” Reggie cut in, feeling the heat in his cheeks. “Can I be excused?”
She stared at him for a moment longer, the muscles twitching in her cheeks. “Fine.”
Reggie went to his room and lay down, dejected. He felt guilty for snapping at Gran, but even worse for disappointing her. He tried to push the thought away. He just had to get better. Of course, that was proving more difficult by the day. Why was grana against him?
And even more importantly: How could he fix it?
* * *
Reggie woke to darkness, as he often did. He slept little and slept well almost never. Sometimes dreams woke him. Sometimes dreams didn’t let him sleep at all.
He turned to his alarm clock and groaned: 3:00 a.m. He’d slept right through the evening—nearly eight hours already. It was the longest he’d slept in months.
Reggie threw aside his blanket, fished around in his dresser, and pulled out an old, rolled-up sock. Easing his way across the room, he began to shoot, whispering the commentary this time.
“Reggie goes left,” he said softly, “eyes down the court. He pulls up and—”
“Goes to sleep.”
He turned and saw Gran standing in the open doorway, arms folded.
“No wonder you are awake after such an early bedtime.”
“Did I wake you?”
“You did. Winning championships past midnight again, I see?”
He flushed. “Maybe.”
She walked in and sat on his bed, looking at the old box. “You’ve been up in the night shooting socks as long as I can remember. Playing ball is all you’ve ever wanted to do.”
“Yeah.” He retrieved the sock and sat down beside her. “Too bad I’m better with a sock than a real ball.”
She snorted. “Lots of practice. Facing a little easier defense in here too.”
“I think it’s the dramatic commentary.”
“Maybe so.” She glanced at him. “I’m worried about you, Reggie.”
“I think a lot of kids talk to themselves, Gran—”
“Not about that,” she said, rolling her eyes. “In general. You’re getting worse.”
“At basketball?” Reggie asked, frowning.
“No. At isolating yourself. You don’t hang out with anyone outside of school or basketball. You space out every dinner. You lock yourself in your room. You cradle that box—”
“I think ‘cradle’ is a strong word,” Reggie muttered.
“And you don’t sleep. I know you miss t
hem. So do I. But you have to move on.”
Reggie followed her eyes to the wooden box. He had asked her about it many times, including the cryptic note, but she said she had no idea. “I have. They died almost seven years ago.”
“Not for you. For you it’s like it was yesterday. I know you want to blame Talin—”
Blood rushed to his cheeks. “I’m going to prove it—”
“And nothing I say seems to dissuade you,” she cut in gently. “But I will say it again . . . it is dangerous to go digging for information. Even here. You need to accept what happened, Reg.”
Reggie looked away. “I have. And I still think you’re not telling me everything.”
“Reggie . . .”
“Where did they die? What happened to the car? Where were they going?”
“Reggie, this doesn’t help you—”
“Neither does lying.” He caught himself and glanced at her. “Sorry.”
But Gran didn’t flash one of her infamous looks. She just sighed. “I have tried to help you move on. You insist on looking for more, and that’s what keeps the old wound open, Reggie. It is festering. And you grow sick with it.”
They were silent for a long moment. Reggie felt pressure behind his eyes, but he held it in. He didn’t want Gran to see the truth in her words. It did claw at him. But he couldn’t move on.
They deserved more. They deserved answers.
“I’m fine,” Reggie said.
“Saying that doesn’t make it so, Reggie. No matter how many times you say it.”
“I am fine,” he replied stubbornly.
Gran sighed deeply, patted his hand, and started for the door.
“Get some sleep, Reggie. You can win some more championships in the morning.”
That got a reluctant smile from him, and she returned it and gently closed the door.
Reggie climbed into bed. He lay there for hours, thinking of his parents and eventually, as always, of the man who had taken them. Reggie didn’t know for sure yet, of course, but he had the note, he had their old articles criticizing the government, and more than that, he just knew it in his gut. He knew Talin had ordered their deaths to silence them. And now, he knew that grana may have played a part in that too. Gran was wrong. He needed to uncover the truth.
Talin’s pale face seemed to hang in the darkness, smiling as if taunting him.
Reggie didn’t sleep until the first light of morning crept under his doorway.
--
GRANA GAMES
When the road grows hard, and your legs tire, know that greatness lies ahead.
WIZENARD PROVERB
ON THURSDAY EVENING, Reggie was out the door two hours before practice as always, galloping down seven stories of scuffed concrete steps and out into the evening sunlight. It was damp and cool, so he pulled his hoodie drawstrings tight and broke into a jog, duffel smacking off his back like a pendulum. He ran right past the bus stop. Reggie wanted to run, to feel the fire in his legs.
School had been uneventful the last few days. As usual, he put his head down in class and did his work. Most of his teammates went to his school, but he wasn’t overly close with anyone apart from Twig, who lived way up in the north end. Rain was often busy being fawned over, and Peño was usually in the thick of the crowd, with the rest of the team swirling around the two of them . . . all but Reggie. He kept quiet and still, and when he left school after the last bell, he wanted to move.
As he passed by the towering statue of President Talin, he stopped, staring up at the pointed nose and sallow cheeks and bronze eyes that captured the cold, dead stare in his twice-a-year addresses to the nation. Reggie could almost hear the rasping voice to accompany it.
He could have taken a different route and avoided the statue. But whenever he walked, he felt compelled to come this way. To remember what had happened to his parents, and who he believed had done it. It was likely as close to Talin as he would ever get. His minions might pass through, but Talin himself would never step foot in the Bottom. Reggie would never get to see his cruel smile in person.
Well, unless they got to nationals. He shook his head and kept walking. Not very likely.
Reggie jogged the entire way to Fairwood, shoes pounding over the cracked concrete parking lot last of all, where weeds ringed the curbs and the West Bottom’s last tree stood sentry.
As always, Reggie tentatively reached for the door, hoping it would be unlocked, and then grinned when it swung open. He recalled when Fairwood used to drape visitors with a muggy blanket of dust on entry. Now the air was cool and dry, and it smelled like fresh wax instead of a hundred years of accumulated sock sweat. Reggie laughed when the panels flicked on.
“Thanks,” he said. “Does this mean we’re going to be friends today?”
Reggie pulled on his sneakers and began to dribble between his legs for a warm-up, letting blood flow to his muscles like oil to a piston. He went to shoot from the free-throw line, hoping to get a few buckets and build a little confidence. He needed it after Friday. But, of course, the gym still wouldn’t allow it. The hoop appeared only when he traipsed back into the corner.
“Guess not,” he muttered.
As he began to shoot around, he noticed it wasn’t just the corner today—he could also see the hoop from the dreaded mid-range two as well. But those were the only spots. Five hundred makes, and he had to hit them all from his worst spots on the floor. Sighing, Reggie got to work, watching glumly as one shot after another clanked off iron, or worse, missed altogether.
“Still not sure how this is helping me,” he said.
At one point, Reggie glanced at the far hoop and saw that it was still there. Desperate, he decided to try for some layups. Reggie sprinted for the hoop, but with every step, the court seemed to expand by ten feet. By half-court, the hoop was a mile away and receding ever farther.
“Can I just play basketball?” Reggie shouted.
Reggie turned back the way he had come and cried out in frustration. Now the first hoop was a mile off too.
“Fine!” he said. “You want me to run? I can run.”
Reggie started his dribble again, heading back for the original hoop. The minutes stretched as he ran. Soon, it felt like hours.
Halfway there, the floor tilted upward at a 45-degree angle, until he was struggling for every step, his thighs and quads burning. To add to the misery, the floor became sticky like fresh concrete, pulling at his soles. Even the heat seemed to build, until he felt like he was more sweat than skin. Reggie’s feet began to drag along the clinging hardwood, and soon, he was shuffling and grimacing and stepping on his own tired, clumsy feet.
Finally, Reggie stepped on a dangling lace and toppled forward, face-first.
Reggie lay there for a long moment, exhausted. Then he slowly pushed himself up onto his knees. He saw that the gym was back to normal, and that his ball had rolled out of his grasp when he fell and stopped right beside the bench. Reggie pushed himself up, nodding.
“Yeah, I belong on the bench,” he said. “You don’t have to rub it in.”
He sat on the bench, wiped his forehead with his sleeve, and stared forlornly at the empty court. The hoops had returned, of course. Grana was definitely mocking him.
He tried to wait for the others, but eventually, his need to play won out. The urge was always there. It was waiting when he woke up, tugging at him when he went to sleep. Some nameless, faceless desire that lived deep down in his bones. It brought him here early. It made him leave late.
A natural need without natural talent. A combination good only for heartbreak.
Reggie stood up again, dribbled toward the rim, and allowed a smile when it didn’t blink out of existence as he approached. Maybe grana was finally going to cut him some slack.
“Reggie Mathers coming off the high screen. The clock is running.” Reggie picked up
his pace, crossing over to his left hand and heading for the paint. “He’s around another defender now. Whoa, does this kid have handles. Three, two—he drives for the hoop—”
Reggie leapt from the foul line, stretching out for the one-handed floater, grinning right until a night-black shadow swept across his path and swatted the ball straight into the stands. Reggie landed awkwardly, barely staying on his feet. The shadow gestured for him to retrieve the ball.
“I want to play alone today,” Reggie said, annoyed. “I just want to play period.”
The shadow stared at him.
“Right. No mouth, no talking.”
Reggie scooped up the ball and dribbled to the top of the key, eyeing the waiting shadow. He had seen the shadow many times after its first appearance back in training camp. It was a perfect three-dimensional silhouette of himself, with much more substance than an ordinary shadow. Its hits and blocks were as solid as anybody’s—or harder, as if it was defending the hoop with liquid concrete rather than flesh and muscle. As Reggie approached, the shadow beckoned him with an upraised hand.
Reggie began to dribble, weighing his options, then charged to his right. Before he could even try a shot, his shadow leapt forward and collided with his chest, knocking him back.
“Really?” Reggie said. “You don’t think that was a foul?”
Reggie grabbed the ball and charged again, sidestepping the defender and trying to force it down the lane. Once again, he didn’t make it. His shadow smacked his wrist, and the ball rolled free. Reggie whirled on his opponent, glaring, but the faceless shadow held its ground, apparently unmoved.
“Fine,” Reggie snarled. “That’s fine. I can take a few fouls.”
Reggie grabbed the ball and faked another direct drive. But halfway into the lane, he stopped, pulled up for a jumper . . . and was promptly elbowed in the sternum. He doubled over.
