We waited a full five minutes before we dared to ease the bush aside and peer out of our hiding spot. There was no sign of Jesse, and the only sounds were the normal night rustles of the forest. Cautiously, we crept out, recrossed the stream and climbed back up to the track.
We couldn’t risk going back to the Marshalls’. For all we knew, Jesse was there waiting for us. So we picked our way down the mountain toward town. Silently at first, fearful that Jesse was still lurking somewhere, waiting for us to reveal ourselves. But as time moved on and nothing happened, we relaxed and made better progress.
It wasn’t an easy hike—at least a couple of miles of dense forest. We stuck to the track when we could, but at times Jenna deviated from it, cutting through the woods and, miraculously, finding another track on the other side. If it hadn’t been for her, I would have been hopelessly lost.
By the time we got close to town, fear had turned into exhaustion. I called Noah and asked him to pick us up on the highway. It felt good to be back in civilization, sitting in Noah’s Frontier, the heater on and a good solid vehicle around us. Safe, although I couldn’t help glancing behind us once in a while to make sure we weren’t being followed.
We filled Noah in on everything that had happened on the way to the police station. He wasn’t as shocked as we were about Jesse Derby.
“I never liked that guy,” he said. “Not since kindergarten, when he stole chips and candy bars out of everyone’s lunchboxes.” He laughed in a rueful way. “Not that anyone caught him doing it, but I was pretty sure it was him.”
I guess Jesse had a longer history of thieving than I’d thought.
It was after ten by the time we arrived at the police station. Jenna and I must have looked like we’d been in a gang war. Our faces were scratched, our clothes torn. Jenna had huge dark circles under her eyes. I was nervous and relieved at the same time as we finally walked through the glass doors and into the station. As luck would have it, the officer who had interviewed Jenna about the robbery was on duty when we arrived.
“What happened to you?” he said, looking from Jenna to me and back again.
“Can we sit down?” said Jenna. “It’s a long story.”
Chapter Fourteen
We didn’t see Jesse Derby at school again after that.
An hour after walking into the police station, Officer Keene sent someone out to bring both Jesse Derby and Nick Smith in for questioning. There was plenty of evidence. We had the photo of Jesse outside the 7-Eleven on the day and at the exact time of the robbery. We had the photo of the black pickup with damage to its rear bumper. We even had evidence to support our claim that Jesse had tried to run us off the road that night. The Marshalls had called in earlier to report two damaged vehicles in their yard, a silver Honda Civic and a black Ford F-150. Needless to say, the license-plate number of the pickup matched the one in the photo I’d taken in Vancouver. That, along with all the threatening messages Jenna had received, would make a convincing case against Jesse and Nick.
Word got around school that Jesse had been charged in the 7-Eleven robbery, and rumors were flying about why he had done it. Some people said he’d gotten mixed up with a gang. Others said the whole family was a bunch of thugs and thieves, and he was following the family business. A few even claimed that his dad was dying of cancer, and Jesse needed money to pay the hospital bills. Only Jesse knew the real truth. I did find out two things for sure—one, that Nick Smith was Jesse’s brother-in-law, who had moved here a year ago after some trouble in Detroit, and two, Jesse had been in trouble with the law before, and now that he was eighteen, he’d be tried in adult court. Which may have scared him enough to try to stop Jenna from giving her photo to the police. I didn’t envy him a prison sentence if he was convicted.
Coach Scott wasn’t happy about losing someone from the team, not with the regional semis only a few days away. It would be tough going with only one sub. Luckily, Stretch got the go-ahead from his doctor to start playing again. Not a full green light, but an amber, which meant I kept my spot on the starting five, and we had two more tall players in reserve. Not a bad outcome all around.
The weekend flew past faster than a fighter jet, and suddenly it was game day. With everything that had been happening, my mind hadn’t really been on basketball. I’d even missed a practice because Officer Keene stopped in at the school to ask Jenna and me a few more questions. But as the bus chugged down the road toward Vancouver, headed for Hudson’s Bay High, all I could think about was playoffs. We were in the regional semis, two steps away from the State Championship. My nerves were jumping.
Piling off the bus in front of the school, we made a lot of noise and tried to swagger in like this was just another game, that we’d been to playoffs tons of times before. I don’t think anyone was fooled. We were all nervous, and you could see it, even during the warm-up. We’d never played Hudson’s Bay before, and though Coach had assured us they were beatable, it was the unknown that was unnerving us.
Our squad of supporters and cheerleaders was a drop in the ocean of Hudson’s Bay fans. Hudson’s Bay was a big school, and it looked like the whole student body had turned out to cheer them on. I gave Jenna a nervous smile as we ran on for the jump ball and saw her yell, “Go, Dylan!” but her voice was lost in the crowd. All I could hear was “Eagles! Eagles! Eagles!” Then the whistle blew for the start of the game.
It started off badly. I missed the tip-off, and Hudson’s Bay scored in the first ten seconds. From there it went downhill, if that’s even possible. Yeah, we made a few baskets, got a few rebounds and stole the ball off them a couple of times, but compared to the fouls and missed shots and bad passes, it wasn’t nearly enough. The fact is, we pretty much stunk in the first half.
Coach Scott was tearing his hair out, and we didn’t get the usual “you can do it” speech at halftime. We all sat around, glum and discouraged, waiting for him to say something, to pump us up and get us going again. We got nothing. He paced the floor of the locker room, shaking his head for so long I thought maybe he’d just given up on us.
Finally, he looked up and said, “Chelseas. Think of them as Chelseas. No better, no worse. Now go out there and stop playing like a bunch of freshmen.”
We looked at each other and laughed nervously.
“Go on. Move it!” he said.
We jumped up. We all knew what he meant. And he was right. We were letting the pressure of playoffs get to us. This was just another game, and if we didn’t treat it like that, we were going to lose for sure.
As I headed for the door, Coach pulled me aside. “One day you’re going to have to explain that to me, Lane.”
I grinned and ran after the team.
Coach’s words seemed to have sunk in with everyone. Suddenly, we were a team again, anticipating moves, reading the ball handler, following through on the plays that Coach called. Isaiah was on fire in the paint, and Matt’s three-pointers were hitting the mark as well. Even Noah seemed to come alive. Slowly, the score started creeping up.
And then, with seven minutes left on the clock, the most amazing thing happened. I was playing point guard, and Noah was center. I brought the ball down the court, passed it to Matt and headed for the outside corner. The Eagles defense wasn’t letting anyone into the key, and we passed the ball around the perimeter, looking for an opening. I’d just taken a pass from Spence when Isaiah ducked into an open spot in the lane. I fired it in to him, and he drove in for the layup. Hudson’s Bay was having none of that, though, and Isaiah pulled up and shot the ball back out to Matt. Matt went for the outside shot, but it bounced off the rim. Noah grabbed the rebound and, with only two seconds left on the shot clock, popped it back up for a second try at the basket.
It went in.
“Yeah!” I yelled, jumping up and down.
Noah’s grin took over his whole face. I thumped him on the back as we ran to take our positions at the other end of the court, and all the guys high-fived him. Even Coach was smiling.
That was
the high point of the game. Despite our effort, it wasn’t enough. We’d fallen so far behind in the first half, we would have had to stop Hudson’s Bay from scoring completely to win. And that was impossible. They were good. There was no denying that. If we’d gotten our act together from the first whistle, it would have been a contest. As it was, we lost by fifteen points.
You would have thought the mood on the bus going back to school would have been pretty somber. We’d lost, after all. But we knew we’d played damn good basketball in the second half, and a score of 75–90 was nothing to be ashamed of. We’d put Mountview High on the basketball scoreboard for the first time in ten years.
Jenna and I were pretty quiet amid the chatter and back slapping and rehashing of game plays going on around us. The tension of the last few weeks was catching up with me, and it must have been even worse for her.
Carlos weaved his way down the aisle and thumped into the seat in front of us, next to Noah.
“So, you win,” he said to Jenna. “I guess it’s my round of sodas after all.” He punched Noah in the shoulder. “I really didn’t think you had it in you.”
Jenna gave Carlos a furious look. We’d never told Noah about the bet. We didn’t think he’d ever have agreed to train with us if he knew, and now that we’d gotten to know him…well, it all seemed rather callous.
“What do you mean?” said Jenna, flustered. “Why would you want to buy us a round of sodas?”
“Don’t worry,” said Noah. “I know about the bet.”
Jenna’s face went red. I hadn’t seen that happen very often.
“And you’re not mad?” she said.
“Why would I be mad?” he said. “This is the first time in four years I’ve actually felt like part of the team. No more Noah Stumblefoot.”
We laughed awkwardly. We’d all been guilty of calling him that, if not to his face, then behind his back.
Jenna turned to Carlos. “But the bet was for last week’s game. I lost.”
Carlos elbowed Noah in the ribs. “The big man here went double or nothing. It’s sodas for the girls’ team too.” He high-fived Noah. “Nice shot.”
A ball of paper hit Carlos in the back of the head, and he jumped up to fire it back.
“Double or nothing?” Jenna said to Noah.
Noah shrugged. “Why not? I had nothing to lose,” he said and turned to face the front of the bus again.
I found out later that Noah had been at the rec center practicing his shooting all weekend. You had to hand it to the guy—when he put his mind to something, he didn’t do it halfway.
Jenna’s phone vibrated in her pocket, and she pulled it out to check the message.
“Everything okay?” I said when her expression didn’t change. “It’s not another message from Nick Smith, is it?” The messages had stopped after we went to the police, but we were a bit nervous now that Jesse Derby and Nick Smith were out on bail.
“No,” she said. “It’s an email from Officer Keene. The court date has been set.”
She put the phone back in her pocket and stared out the window, and I slid my hand over hers. It was over, but it wasn’t. As the key witness, Jenna had a lot to do before she’d be allowed to forget about the last couple of months. If she ever could.
The ball of paper flew over us, then suddenly whizzed past my ear and hit Jenna on the side of the head.
With mock indignation, she snatched it off the seat and fired it up the bus. It hit Coach Scott in the back. Jenna looked at me, then swore softly and ducked down in her seat, giggling.
“Lane?” said Coach, holding up the ball of paper. “Did this come from you?”
“No, sir,” I said, trying to keep a straight face.
He glared at everyone, then turned back toward the front of the bus.
I slunk down next to Jenna. “No, sir,” she mimicked silently, and we burst into laughter. We kept our heads down as we watched Noah tear a sheet of paper out of his notebook, crumple it into a ball and send it out over our heads.
Things were changing, there was no denying it. It suddenly hit me that this was our last bus ride back to school as a team. This time next year, with Stretch at UCLA, Noah out on the east coast somewhere and Carlos at flight school, we’d be spread across the country. I didn’t even know if Jenna and I would still be together. She was smart. She’d probably have her pick of colleges.
I gave her hand a squeeze and she smiled at me, a smile that turned into a laugh as my stomach growled louder than a German shepherd in attack mode.
I laughed with her. One thing I did know—the whole team was probably famished. And there was a booth at Jo’s Diner with our name on it.
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to my husband, Russell, for his help while I was writing this novel, not only for his support, which is unending, but for reading the manuscript and providing suggestions on the technicalities of basketball. Research can only go so far, and without his expertise this book would not have come to a happy conclusion. Thanks also to my editor, Amy Collins, for fielding my many questions regarding basketball in North American high schools, as my experience with the sport has been in Australian schools only. Lastly, I would also like to acknowledge my daughters, whose involvement in basketball gave me the idea for the story, with special thanks to Claudia for reading the manuscript and providing a teen perspective.
Sonya Spreen Bates is a Canadian writer living in South Australia. She writes for children and adults, and her stories have been published in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Off the Rim i s her second book in the Orca Sports series.
Orca Sports
For more information on all the books in the Orca Sports series, please visit
www.orcabook.com.
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