She helped Dunk rip out what he had done so far and start again.
“No, Dunk. You need to keep your stitches small. And neat. Like this.”
Brody’s heart was almost done. Nora had completed her heart several minutes ago.
“Don’t jab with the needle,” Mrs. Taylor told Dunk. “Just pull the thread through gently.”
Mason had only finished six x’s on his heart; he was spending too much time watching Dunk with Mrs. Taylor.
“Dunk, if you keep jabbing your needle that way, you’re going to stab your—”
A wail went up from Dunk’s table.
“—finger,” Mrs. Taylor said.
“It’s bleeding! My finger’s bleeding!”
“Who are you going to give your heart to?” Brody asked Mason. “I’m going to frame mine and give it to Albert.” Albert was Brody’s pet goldfish. “I’m going to hang it in my room right over his bowl.”
“I don’t think anyone’s going to want mine,” Mason said. His thread kept bunching and tangling, and he couldn’t make his stitches small and neat like Brody’s and Nora’s.
“Now there’s blood in my heart!” Dunk bellowed.
As the end of the sewing session drew near, Mason’s heart still had a long way to go.
“You can finish these up at home, if you need to,” Mrs. Taylor said. “You may keep the needle and take it with you.”
“Do finish them,” Coach Joe said. “Remember, we’re having our Colonial School Day next week. We’ll want to have all your crafts on display.”
However bad Mason’s botched heart looked, Mason was sure Dunk’s bloodstained heart looked even worse.
“No, Dunk,” Mrs. Taylor said. “Here, put your needle in your sampler this way, so you don’t lose it.”
Again.
“Or stab yourself.”
Again.
“Oh, and Dunk?” Mason heard her say, in a lower voice this time, so low that he could only hear it because he was straining his ears to listen.
“What?” Dunk asked sullenly.
“Keep your dog off my lawn. Do you hear?”
Then, with a warm smile at the class, Mrs. Taylor gathered up her sewing supplies and sailed out the door, followed by Mason’s mother, who turned and gave Mason one last smile before she went.
12
The second Saturday in December, from eleven a.m. to noon, was the hour when Mason officially learned how to cheer. Loudly. Embarrassingly. With all his heart. Stuck in his folding chair at the edge of the basketball court, it was the only thing he could do to help the Fighting Bulldogs win.
“Aw!” he moaned in disgust when Jonah called a foul against Kevin.
“Yes!” he shouted in triumph when Brody sank a great three-point shot to give the Bulldogs a 17–14 lead at the half. Despite his bandaged ankle, Mason couldn’t stop himself from jumping to his feet and doing his own version of a happy dance.
Mason hobbled out to join the halftime huddle. Injured or non-injured, playing or not playing, he was still part of the team.
Coach Dad gave his best pep talk yet. Mason had noticed that his dad wasn’t relying on the coaching book so much anymore; he had even gone back to struggling with sudoku puzzles at the breakfast table.
“We can win this one,” Coach Dad said, “but only if we go out there not as Kevin, Jeremy, Matt, Brody, Dylan, Nora, Elise, Amy, and Tamara—and Mason—but as the Fighting Bulldogs.”
Mason was glad that his father had remembered to add his name to the list.
And the Bulldogs did win, 26–24.
Mason was hoarse from screaming.
But why, oh why, couldn’t he have been out there playing, too? It was a Bulldogs victory, yes, the team’s first win, but despite his dad’s great speech, it hadn’t been Mason’s victory. Unless yelling until you had a sore throat counted.
Which it sort of did.
But sort of didn’t.
Wednesday evening was the Plainfield Platters’ winter holiday concert: songs about dreidels and Santa and snowmen and sleigh rides, even though it hadn’t snowed since that early snow at the end of October, when the new-fallen snow in the Taylors’ yard had been marred by Dog’s footprints.
Nowadays, when Mason saw Mrs. Taylor looking out from her upstairs window, he waved. He thought he could see her waving back.
But he still kept Dog out of her yard.
During the Platters concert, Mason was one of the kids who rang a handbell for “Silver Bells,” which he knew was a big thrill for his mother. Brody wore an elf costume for “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” which Mason knew was a big thrill for Brody. Puff the Plainfield Dragon was at the concert, looking festive in a Santa cap, which was a big thrill for the little kids in the audience. Mason got through the concert without any disastrous moments; that wasn’t exactly a big thrill for him, but it was definitely a relief.
Then it was Thursday, another day to gladden the heart of Brody: Colonial School Day for Coach Joe’s class.
Mason wore his regular clothes—jeans and a plain, solid-colored T-shirt. At least it was more colonial than a T-shirt from Disney World, not that Mason owned such a thing. Brody wore jeans, too, with a button-down shirt and his three-cornered hat from Philadelphia.
Nora wore a long, old-fashioned-looking cotton dress and a sunbonnet, her straight dark hair fashioned in two neat braids, tied with hair ribbons.
“I didn’t think you’d wear a dress,” Mason said.
“You didn’t think I’d be on your basketball team, either,” Nora said.
To begin the school day, Coach Joe clanged a large bell set on his desk. He was dressed in a full eighteenth-century outfit, complete with breeches that fastened under his knees, long stockings, buckled shoes, and a ruffled shirt.
“Good morning, boys and girls,” Coach Joe said in a formal-sounding way.
“Good morning, Master Joseph!” the class chorused.
On each desk sat a small wooden-edged slate, a stick of chalk, and a scrap of rag for an eraser.
For math, the pupils wrote their sums on their slates. Master Joseph called on each student to stand up in turn by the side of his or her desk to recite. Everyone recited correctly, for in the corner of the room now stood a wooden stool crowned by a tall paper cone: the dreaded dunce cap.
Then Dunk, dressed in his ordinary clothes, got an easy answer wrong. Mason knew he had done it on purpose, to see if Master Joseph would really send him into the corner. Besides, Colonial School Day wouldn’t be fun if no one sat in the corner playing the role of the dunce.
“Master Duncan, did you study your sums last night?” Master Joseph asked with mock sternness.
“No,” Dunk said. For good measure, he stuck out his tongue.
“Master Duncan, I’m afraid I must punish you. I will not rap your knuckles with my ruler—today—but I will send you to the corner to sit on the dunce stool in disgrace.”
Laughing, Dunk swaggered over to the stool and hopped up on it so energetically that the stool tipped over, with Dunk upon it, sending Dunk sprawling onto the floor.
“Master Duncan,” Master Joseph said, “pray be more careful.”
Dunk rubbed his elbow, righted the stool, and climbed back onto it, less cheerfully this time.
“The cap, Master Duncan,” Master Joseph instructed. He didn’t chuckle as he said it. He made it sound like a real punishment in a real colonial school.
Scowling now, Dunk jerked the cap onto his head. The class started laughing. Dunk did look ridiculous sitting there perched on the stool with his peaked paper cap like a white witch’s hat without a brim.
Master Joseph called on the next student. “Emma Averill, what is seven times forty-three?”
“Three hundred and one,” Emma answered correctly, but the sound of her answer was drowned out by Brody’s friend Sheng, calling out, “Master Joseph, Dunk took off his dunce’s cap.”
The whole class turned toward Dunk. Dunk had not only taken off the dunce cap, he had t
hrown it onto the floor.
“Master Duncan,” Master Joseph said, his voice gentle now, “you may go back to your seat.”
“Make someone else wear the dunce cap!” Dunk burst out as he jumped down from the tall stool. He looked around the room wildly, but everyone else was sitting properly in place, backs erect, slates at the ready.
Dunk’s glance fell on Mason.
“Make him wear the dunce cap. Mason Dixon. He got me and Wolf in trouble with that cross-stitch lady, and we got a ticket, and it was for fifty dollars, and I told my mother but now my father found out, and he might make me quit basketball, and the last game of the season is this Saturday, and it’s against his team, and I think he did it just to get even for the first game, but it wasn’t my fault that he stinks!”
“Team,” Coach Joe said, using his Coach Joe voice and not his Master Joseph voice. “I think maybe we’re finding out why modern-day schools don’t use a dunce cap anymore. It doesn’t make the person wearing it feel very good, does it, even when it’s done in fun, as it was supposed to be today. So I, Master Joseph”—Coach Joe used his colonial teacher voice again—“hereby decree: no more dunce caps in Master Joseph’s school.”
Dunk stood sulking, looking almost as upset as when he had smashed his finger with the hammer on punched-tin-lantern day or stuck his finger with the needle on cross-stitch-sampler day.
“Master Duncan,” Master Joseph said, “will you do us the honor of taking our dunce cap and ripping it up for us?”
This was plainly an invitation Dunk couldn’t resist.
Still glaring at Mason, Dunk grabbed the paper cap off the floor where he had hurled it and began tearing it into pieces, until the floor was littered with torn scraps of dunce cap.
Mason knew that this was what Dunk wanted the Killer Whales to do to the Fighting Bulldogs on Saturday. And Saturday was just two days away.
* * *
When it was time for recess, Coach Joe asked Mason and Dunk to wait for a minute.
Uh-oh.
“Boys,” Coach Joe said when the two of them were standing in front of his desk. “I thought we agreed that what happens on the basketball court stays on the basketball court.”
Mason felt his own face reflecting Dunk’s scowl. Dunk was the one who kept on gloating about his team; he, Mason, hadn’t said anything more against the Killer Whales, though he had to admit that he thought things all the time.
“Boys. Don’t you think I care about sports? Don’t you think I love just about every game that there is?”
Mason was willing to concede that a teacher who called himself Coach Joe was fond of sports.
“But—I want you to repeat this after me—sports are not everything,” Coach Joe said.
“Sports are not everything,” Mason and Dunk muttered.
“Basketball is just a game,” Coach Joe said.
“Basketball is just a game,” Mason and Dunk repeated.
“Play your best. Play to win. Then shake hands and be friends again.”
But we aren’t friends, Mason wanted to say. We’ll never be friends.
“Okay, now let’s see you shake hands,” Coach Joe instructed.
With Coach Joe watching so closely, Mason couldn’t do his usual handshake-without-touching-hands trick. He shook Dunk’s hand.
But then, on his way to recess, he stopped in the boys’ room and washed his hand where Dunk had touched it.
13
“Are you sure you don’t want scrambled eggs this morning?” Mason’s mother asked as Mason and his dad came to the breakfast table Saturday morning. “Some protein? Before the big game?”
Mason rolled his eyes at his dad as he poured his plain Cheerios into his plain white bowl.
The coaching book was back on the breakfast table again—not open to be read, but apparently just there as a good-luck charm.
Mason could use all the luck he could get. At least his ankle was healed enough that he could play; he had had to miss practice again on Tuesday night.
Mason’s family arrived at the Y so early that the previous game was only at halftime: Ponytail’s team playing against the team that the Bulldogs, without Mason, had beaten last weekend. Mason hoped Ponytail’s team would lose, but he couldn’t spend time thinking about it. His mind was full of other things.
Would Dunk be there? It wouldn’t be the same beating the Killer Whales if Dunk’s dad made good on his threat to make Dunk quit the team. This last game had to be a showdown between the two of them.
Last night Mason’s mother had read him the scene of Peter Pan’s final showdown with Captain Hook, where Peter swore his terrible oath, “Hook or me this time,” and sent Captain Hook to his death at the jaws of the waiting crocodile.
Then Mason saw a familiar, swaggering, blue-shirted form across the gym. His heart swelled with mingled dread and relief.
Dunk or me this time.
The other game ended: Ponytail’s team lost 20–18.
A good omen?
In the few minutes between the two games, Jonah, wearing his referee’s shirt, came up to Mason and his dad.
“Ankle okay?” Jonah asked.
Mason was too surprised to answer. He hadn’t thought of Jonah as a person who might ask him a friendly question, but as a corrupt gum chewer paid off by the other team.
“Much better,” Mason’s dad answered for him. “Thanks for asking.”
Jonah gave Mason a friendly smile.
Mason found himself smiling back.
The game began. Mason didn’t start; he saw that Dunk didn’t start either. Mason had decided that he liked going in later, anyway, when the stakes were higher and every basket counted more.
Brody was in, out-hustling all his past hustle, which was saying a lot. He was a little yellow whirlwind—grabbing the ball right out of a befuddled Whale’s grip, taking it down the court, passing it to Kevin, who passed it to Amy, who passed it back to Brody, who shot a perfect layup and scored.
Maybe it was good in basketball to be short.
Mason went in for the second quarter, with Nora and Dylan. Sometime between the previous game and this one, Dylan seemed to have gotten a clue. He waved his hands in a Whale’s face as if he finally understood that the point of guarding was to keep the other kid from scoring, as opposed to making random motions in the air. Dylan even caught the ball once, from a well-timed pass by Nora, and passed it on to Mason—the first successful pass of Dylan’s life.
Was Mason within scoring range? He took a chance and sent the ball flying toward the backboard; it fell through the hoop with a sweet, satisfying swish of success, his first basket in a real game.
His ankle still hurt some when he landed on it. He didn’t care.
At the half, the score was tied 13–13.
Sweat trickled down Mason’s forehead as he listened to Coach Dad’s halftime speech in the huddle.
“We have two quarters left,” his dad said. “Twelve minutes left of our first season playing together as a team. I want us to win. But more than that, I want us to play like winners. And that means playing with respect for one another and for the other team. Playing with sportsmanship. That’s what I care about more than anything. And, team, that’s how you have been playing. And I’m proud of all of you.”
Mason felt his dad’s eyes fall on him.
And he knew his dad was proud of him, Mason.
When Mason went in for the final quarter, with Nora, Brody, Amy, and Jeremy, the score was 17–15, with the Bulldogs in the lead—too close for comfort. Dunk was back in as well.
Dunk or me this time.
Dunk had the ball and was dribbling fiercely down the court. Brody leaped in front of Dunk. Brody went down.
Fwee! Jonah blew his whistle.
Mason knew the foul was Brody’s, and that Dunk had been going so fast he really had no choice but to mow Brody down. But Brody was the one on the floor, whimpering with pain, clutching not his ankle but his left arm, which had taken the brunt of the
impact from his fall.
Once again, Mason’s dad was there, feeling Brody’s arm for a possible fracture. Fleetingly, Mason wondered how his dad had learned how to do this with so much calm authority. Did the coaching book have a chapter on first aid?
“I think it’s okay,” Coach Dad said, “but you need to catch your breath, Brody. That was a hard fall you took just now.”
Dylan went in for Brody.
Great.
Jonah called a blocking foul against Brody, even though Mason thought that trading Brody for Dylan was already punishment enough for the Bulldogs.
“He should have called a charging foul against Dunk!” Jeremy complained to Mason. “Dunk knocked Brody down!”
Mason didn’t want to point out that Brody had actually been the one in the wrong, blocking Dunk’s way.
“Is that ref blind?” Jeremy went on. “Or was he bribed?”
Oh, get over it, Mason thought.
Did he use to sound that way?
Dunk was given a free throw. The players on both teams lined up on each side of the key as Dunk took his place.
Looking nervous, Dunk bounced the ball twice.
“Dunk the Dunce!” Jeremy whispered as Dunk readied himself to shoot, loud enough for Dunk to hear, but not loud enough for Jonah-the-ref to hear.
Dunk reddened.
Apparently pleased with this insult, Jeremy used it again: “Dunk the Dunce!”
“Stop it,” Mason hissed to Jeremy, loudly.
After all, if what happened on the basketball court should stay on the basketball court, what happened at school should stay at school.
Jeremy stared at Mason, but fell silent.
Dunk gave Mason a look he couldn’t quite read—was it gratitude? Then Dunk shot and scored.
17–16.
Nora scored next: 19–16, Fighting Bulldogs.
The Killer Whales scored: 19–18, Fighting Bulldogs. Again just one point ahead.
Twenty seconds.
The Bulldogs had the ball now. Amy was dribbling down the court when Dylan fell, for no reason that Mason could see. Maybe now someone else could go in for Dylan?
Basketball Disasters Page 8
