Copyright
Copyright © 2003 by Matt Christopher Royalties, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com
www.twitter.com/littlebrown
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
First eBook Edition: December 2009
Matt Christopher® is a registered trademark of Matt Christopher Royalties, Inc.
ISBN: 978-0-316-09384-2
Contents
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Matt Christopher®
The #1 Sports Series for Kids: MATT CHRISTOPHER®
1
Malik Edwards sat on the fire escape, his legs dangling off the edge. Down in the street below, his friends Curtis, Luis, and Sean were playing stickball with some kids from the other side of Fourth Avenue. Manhole covers served as home plate and second base, while first and third were a pair of empty trash cans.
Normally, Malik would have been down there with the others, playing stickball on these last, slow days of summer. He would have been busy having some fun before the reading assignments and homework started to pile up, before the days started getting rainy and cold again. But today, somehow, he just didn’t feel like it.
It was hot and muggy, and the air hung over the city like a yellow-brown curtain. Off to the west, Malik could see high-topped clouds gathering. Good, he thought. A thunderstorm’s coming. It would clear the air out, so folks could breathe easy again.
All summer, Malik and his friends had played stoopball and stickball, shot hoops at the playground, and cooled off in the water jets from the fire hydrants. It had been pretty good, as summers went — although he wished his mother could have afforded to send him to camp. Malik knew a lot of kids who screamed and cried about being sent away for two months, but when they came back, they were always bragging about all the cool stuff they’d done. He wished he could go, just once. He wouldn’t scream and cry about it. Green grass and trees, and birds singing all the time…
“Yo, Edwards, come on down here and play shortstop!” Luis yelled up to him. “Curtis has to go home and baby-sit his little sister!”
“No, man.” Malik waved him off. “Later for that, all right?”
“What’s up?” Luis asked. “You sick or something?”
“Nah. Just tired. And it’s too hot, anyway.”
“Then why you sittin’ out there?”
“You know what? You’re right,” Malik said. “Later, man.”
He got up and went inside, into the cool, dark living room. He stood in front of the air conditioner for a couple minutes, so the sweat on his T-shirt would dry out and cool him off. Then, grabbing the remote, he flopped down on the sofa, turned on the TV, and started channel surfing.
This time on a Thursday, there weren’t any baseball games on. There was soccer with Spanish narration, but Malik didn’t speak Spanish. There was an extreme snowboarding contest. Malik wondered where you could snowboard in August — probably New Zealand or someplace like that. And then there was golf.
Malik had never really watched much golf. It seemed totally lame, watching some fat old guys hitting a white ball into a white sky so the camera couldn’t even pick it up until it landed on a grassy green and people clapped politely. Bo-ring.
But something about this broadcast grabbed his attention. The man swinging the clubs wasn’t old and fat. He wasn’t even white — he was a young African-American guy, just like Malik, swinging his club so hard that the ball rocketed straight into space. Instead of polite clapping, the crowd whooped and yelled like they’d seen something totally incredible. Malik leaned forward on the couch and turned up the volume.
“The number-one golfer in the world is showing once again why he is number one,” said the announcer. As the golfer strode down the course, people ran along the sidelines to keep up with him, falling all over themselves as they struggled to take his picture. Young girls held up signs saying “Marry me!” as he passed them. Suddenly, golf seemed a lot more interesting to Malik than it ever had before.
Not that he’d ever played, of course. He lived in Brooklyn, for goodness’ sake! How was he going to play golf? Besides, he knew what the other kids would say — the same thing he’d say if Curtis or Luis suddenly put on orange pants and a hat with a pom-pom on it and went off with a golf bag over his shoulder.
“Well, Bob,” the announcer was saying, “this sure isn’t your father’s golf game anymore!”
“I’ll say,” Bob agreed. “With a score of sixty-one today, we have a new record for this golf course. The other players are going to have a rough time catching up.”
Sixty-one. Sounded good, Malik thought. He’d heard somewhere that in golf, the lower your score was, the better, since it counted how many times you had to hit the ball to get it in the hole. He also knew there were eighteen holes on a golf course. So let’s see… sixty-one divided by eighteen…
The heat must have been frying Malik’s brain, because he couldn’t do the math, at least not right then. The leader of the tournament, done with his round for the day, waved to the crowd and smiled before disappearing into the clubhouse.
Malik turned off the TV and got up. Golf, huh? He’d only watched for about ten minutes, but it had actually been kind of cool.…
He went down to the street in the elevator, to see if the guys were still playing stickball. They weren’t, but Luis was still there, throwing the pink rubber ball at the nearest stoop, then running to catch it, over and over again. “Yo!” Malik hailed him. “Whatcha doing?”
“Nothin’,” Luis replied, sounding bored. “Everybody went home. You wanna play stoopball?”
“Okay,” Malik said.
“I’m up first,” Luis said.
“What!?”
“My ball.”
“Okay.” Malik let Luis get in front of him. Luis threw the ball against the steps, and Malik caught it on the fly. “One out.”
Luis whacked the ball down again. This time, he got two bounces out of it before Malik, at the curb, scooped it up. “Man on second,” Luis said.
“Hey, Luis,” Malik said as Luis wound up again. “You ever watch golf on TV?”
“Yeah, man. I hate that stuff. It’s so stupid.”
“I don’t know. I watched one guy today, and it was kind of cool. He hits it so far — like a mile past all the other guys!”
Luis turned and gave him a look. “Malik, man, don’t go weird on me, okay? Golf is for old guys and losers.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Malik backed up, getting ready for the next bounce of the rubber ball. But his mind was still on the picture of the young guy — the one who looked a little like him, only a lot taller — swinging that club and hitting the ball way out of sight.
The rubber ball hit Malik right in the forehead and bounced away. “Ha-ha!” Luis laughed. “Wake up, man! You sleeping? Two–nothing, my favor. Still only one out.”
Malik checked for traffic, then trotted across the street to get the ball. When he returned, he tossed it back to Luis. “I don’t really feel like playing,” he said.
“What’s up with you, man?” Luis asked.
“Just tired, I guess. Too hot. And school next week.
”
“Shut up!” Luis ordered, plopping down on the curb next to Malik. “Don’t talk about it. I’m not ready for that stuff.”
“Sorry.”
“Hey, speaking of shutting up — did you hear Old Man Quigley died?”
“No way!”
“Yep.”
Old Man Quigley was otherwise known as the “Shut-Up Man,” because he was always yelling at the local boys to shut up whenever they played ball in front of his apartment.
So… the old guy had died. Malik had never really known him. He was surprised to find that he felt sad about it.
“Yeah,” Luis said. “There’s a big Dumpster in front of the building now. His family’s there, throwing his stuff out. And there’s this bag full of golf clubs lying right on top. I guess the old guy played golf when he was younger or something.”
Malik jerked to attention. Golf clubs? In the trash? “Did you check them out?” he asked Luis.
“Nah. What, are you kidding?”
“Hey, you want to go over there?” Malik asked, getting to his feet. “Maybe there’s some other cool stuff.”
“Waste of time. It’s all junk. It’s like the Shut-Up Man never threw anything out.”
That sounded cool to Malik. He liked going through old stuff, even if it was junk. To him, it was like looking at something that came out of a time machine. A piece of the past. Junk that once was new.
“I’m gonna go over there,” Malik said. “You can come if you want.” He was hoping Luis would turn him down. That way, he could check out those golf clubs in peace.
“Ah, okay,” Luis said. He hoisted himself up and followed Malik as they headed for Mr. Quigley’s building. “But I’m telling you, it’s a total waste of time.”
The houses on Old Man Quigley’s block were mostly apartment buildings, with occasional rows of attached private houses — or at least, they used to be private. These days, there were usually three or four families living in each of them, one family to a floor. Mr. Quigley’s house had been one of these. He’d lived on the first floor, with a window facing the tiny front garden and the sidewalk beyond. As long as Malik could remember, Mr. Quigley had been sitting by that window, watching the world go by. Other than “Shut up, you boys!” he’d never heard him say very much.
Malik wondered about Mr. Quigley as they approached the building. Had the old man really played golf? It seemed impossible.
There were the clubs, right on top of the big, full Dumpster that sat out front by the curb. So obviously Luis had not been lying — Mr. Quigley had played golf once. It was hard to imagine. The old Mr. Quigley Malik had known was bent over and walked with a cane all the time.
Malik wanted to check out the clubs more closely, but there was Luis, waiting to make fun of him if he did. He’d call Malik a weirdo and a loser. So instead, Malik checked out an old, broken radio that would have been cool if it were in one piece. Then he pushed aside a stained tablecloth and some chipped dishes to look at some furniture that had been junky even when it was new. All the stuff of the Shut-Up Man’s life, now piled up in a Dumpster.
Malik felt sad again. He wished he could have seen Mr. Quigley swing a golf club, just once. It amazed him that the Shut-Up Man had ever been young. But he knew it was true. Long, long ago, he’d been the same age as Malik!
“Didn’t I tell you?” Luis said. “It’s all garbage. That guy was crazy. Look at all this stuff he kept!”
Malik found a pair of glasses he’d seen on the old man. One lens was cracked, but Malik kept the glasses, anyway. He stuffed them in the pocket of his baggy shorts — a souvenir to remember Mr. Quigley by. But he didn’t take the thing he really wanted — the bag full of golf clubs.
Not right then, anyway.
It was only after supper that Malik returned to the Dumpster. He’d loaded the dishes into the dishwasher and set it going. His mom was watching TV in the living room, resting up after a hard day at the office. She didn’t notice when Malik silently slipped out of the apartment.
The sun had set, and the street lights had come on. The sky was dark purple, going to black. Malik had to climb up onto the Dumpster to reach the clubs. He grabbed the shoulder strap on the side of the bag —
“Hey!” someone shouted behind him.
Malik’s heart gave one big thwack inside his chest. “Huh?”
“What are you doing up there?”
It was a woman’s voice. Malik turned to look at her. She was standing in the doorway of Mr. Quigley’s building — a tall, slim woman about his mother’s age who looked like a younger, pretty version of the Shut-Up Man.
“I was just… um… looking.…” Malik felt totally lame lying about it.
“If you want those clubs, you can have them,” the woman said. “They were my dad’s, but he won’t be needing them anymore.”
“You Mr. Quigley’s daughter?” Malik asked.
“Yes.”
“Sorry about your father.”
“Thank you. He’d been very sick for a long time. It’s a mercy.” She sighed. “Anyway, go on and take the clubs. I’m sure he’d be glad someone wanted them.”
Not if he knew who it was, Malik figured. One of the boys he was always yelling at. “Thanks,” he said.
“They’re in terrible shape, I’m afraid,” said Mr. Quigley’s daughter. “Do you play golf?”
“Um, I played miniature golf once or twice.”
She laughed. “Well, you’ll find real golf is quite different. Anyway, enjoy them.”
“I will. Thanks again.” Malik waved as he headed home, the bag of clubs slung over his shoulder. Every few feet, he glanced around nervously to make sure no one was watching.
When he got home, he snuck past the living room and into his own bedroom. Shutting the door behind him, he hid the clubs way, way in the back of his closet, behind his winter clothes.
It was the best hiding place he could think of. No one would find them there unless they were looking for them — or unless he was dumb enough to take them out.
2
Malik didn’t think about the clubs again till the Tuesday after Labor Day — the day before school started. The time in between was taken up with family visits. First he and his mom went up to the Bronx to visit Uncle Dwight and Aunt Letisha. Then they went over to Ozone Park, way out by Kennedy Airport, to see their Edwards cousins, who lived with their eight kids in a big, old house on a street with giant trees. On Labor Day, Grandma Johnson came over with a ham she’d made, and Malik’s little sister, Keisha, pulled the tablecloth and dropped that ham right onto the floor. What a commotion!
So it was only on Tuesday that Malik remembered about the clubs. He was at home, baby-sitting Keisha while his mom was at work. Keisha went down for her nap at two o’clock — she was only four and still took naps, thank goodness! By three o’clock, Malik got tired of channel surfing. There was nothing on at three in the afternoon during the week, even with a hundred channels.
Then he thought of the clubs. They were still there in the back of the closet, where he’d stashed them. As he took out the filthy, old canvas bag, he thought he could smell the Shut-Up Man’s stink of mothballs and moldiness.
Taking the bag into the living room, Malik drew out a long club. It had a big wooden head and a metal shaft. The wood of the head was splintered and broken where it met the shaft, but it didn’t look like it would come clean off anytime soon. Malik took hold of the rotting leather grip at the top of the shaft and felt the weight of the club in his hand. Spotting a crumpled-up piece of paper on the floor, he stood next to it, lined up his shot, and swung.
Crash! Malik ducked and covered his head as shards of glass from the ceiling-lamp globe sprayed all over the place.
Malik cursed himself for being so stupid. Why hadn’t he checked first to see that he had a clear shot?
Oh, well, it was too late now. He’d have to clean it up, then figure out some good story to tell his mother, so she wouldn’t know about the golf clubs. She migh
t get mad and make him throw them out, and then where would he be?
“Malik?”
Oh, no — now he’d gone and woken up his sister!
“Go back to sleepy-time, Keisha,” he called to her.
“What was that noise?” she asked, stifling a yawn as she came to the open doorway. “Oooo… you break something?”
“No,” Malik lied. “It was just an accident. Nothing happened. Go back to nappy-bye, Keisha.”
“Mama’s gonna be mad.”
“Shush,” Malik ordered. “Do what I told you, Keisha, or I’m gonna tell Mama you were bad. I’ve gotta clean this mess up. You stay out of here, understand?”
He brushed past his sleepy-eyed little sister and made for the hall closet to get a broom and dustpan. He was on his way back when he heard Keisha’s scream of pain.
“Mamaaaaaa!!!! I’m bleeding!”
“Rats!” Malik muttered, dropping everything and racing to Keisha, who was standing in the center of the room screaming, her left foot bleeding in two separate places. “Keisha, what did I tell you?”
But she just kept screaming, making him deaf as he carried her to the bathroom and sat her down on the edge of the tub. “Here, let me clean you off.”
The cuts weren’t too bad, and, luckily, there didn’t seem to be any shards of glass in Keisha’s foot. Malik cleaned off the wounds, Keisha screaming as he applied the alcohol. Then he bandaged them up and carried Keisha back to bed. He gave her a lollipop to suck on, so she’d quiet down and maybe even go back to sleep.
Malik needed to think. His mom would be back from work soon, and he knew his story was going to have to be extra good this time. Forget about any baby-sitting money she might have given him. No matter what, this was his fault, and he knew his mama would see it that way, too.
Those stupid golf clubs — it was the Shut-Up Man’s ghost getting revenge on him, he just knew it! Those clubs had a whammy on them. He told himself he ought to get rid of them before something else bad happened.
But he didn’t. Not just then. He decided to stuff them back in their hiding place till later, when he could figure out what to do. Then he went back into the living room and started sweeping up the mess.
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