The Half-Court Hero

by Mike Lupica

  FOUR

  When they arrived at the court at Wesley Park the next morning, there were new benches.

  No more jagged edges. The missing slats had been replaced. Everything looked brand-new.

  The wood on the benches now looked so polished, it was as if somebody had brought it straight from Wade’s to the park. Wade’s was the only hardware and lumber store in Middletown.

  “Whoa. The wood is so shiny, I can see my reflection in it!” Zach exclaimed.

  “See,” Zoe said. “Told you we have a mystery on our hands.”

  “We sure do,” Zach said. “I don’t think a professional carpenter could have done any better.”

  “Maybe it’s what Mom calls an ‘omen’ for our team,” Zoe said. “Like it’s a sign that everything is going to go great for us this weekend.”

  Each tournament game would be played in eight-minute quarters. They placed a small scoreboard on a table on the sideline near half-court, not so far from where Malik had stumbled and fallen the day before.

  Their team was called the Warriors. It wasn’t because of the Golden State Warriors from the NBA. It was in honor of Danny Walker’s old travel team, the one he’d played on when he was twelve. It was the team that won the national championship of travel basketball for kids his age.

  Calling the team the Warriors had been Zach and Zoe’s idea. Their dad always told them he had enough of his own sports memories. Now he was more interested in the ones they were making.

  For their first game, they were playing against the Wizards. Just like Zach and Zoe, the guards on the Wizards—David Morton and Sarah Winslow—were the best players on their team.

  But as they all warmed up with some practice shots, Zoe still couldn’t stop thinking about the new benches.

  “First the nets,” she said. “Now the benches. I want to know who our basketball guardian angel is more than ever.”

  “So do I,” Zach said. “But what I really want to do right now is beat the Wizards.”

  “I’m able to concentrate on two things at once,” Zoe said.

  Zach grinned at his sister. “I’ve noticed!”

  Right before the game was about to start, Zach ran over to Grandpa Richie, who was seated at the end of the new bench. Zach noticed a Band-Aid on his finger but wasn’t surprised. Every time their grandpa played a pickup game at the rec center, he always came back with some kind of bump or bruise.

  “Okay, Grandpa, what happened this time?” Zach said, pointing at the Band-Aid.

  Grandpa Richie looked over and shrugged. “Wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing,” he said.

  Zach and Zoe knew their grandfather always joked about how clumsy he was getting in his old age. Sometimes he called himself Mr. Clumsy.

  “So what’s your advice today?” Zach said.

  “Same as always,” Grandpa Richie said. “Hit the open man or be the open man.”

  “Can I do both on the same play?” Zach asked.

  “Only if you’re lucky,” Grandpa Richie said, and patted Zach on the shoulder. “Now go get your pre-game instructions from Coach Dad.”

  That’s what Zach and Zoe called him: Coach Dad. The last piece of advice Coach Dad gave Zach and Zoe before the game started was this:

  “Keep moving yourselves and keep moving the ball. The more space you can fill on the court, the better chance you have to fill the basket.”

  After the huddle, Zach, Zoe, and their teammates ran out onto the court and the game began.

  The game went on for the next half hour. By the fourth quarter, the score was 18–16. The Warriors were losing by one basket. Sarah Winslow had just snuck in behind Mateo and stolen the ball from him. She drove the length of the court for an easy layup to give her team the two-point lead.

  Zach looked over at his dad, who didn’t seem bothered by what had happened at all. He just smiled at Zach and Zoe and waved them up the court. It was his way of telling them to just continue playing. Zach and Zoe couldn’t tell who was having more fun: their dad or the players.

  Now Zoe was the one bringing the ball up the court for the Warriors. As Zach ran past her he whispered, “Give-and-Go.”

  Zoe nodded.

  She dribbled to her right as she crossed half-court, then threw the ball to Zach over near the sideline. As soon as she did, she took off for the basket, catching Sarah by surprise. Zach threw her a perfect bounce pass, right in stride. Now his sister was the one making an easy layup.

  The game was tied 18–18.

  With less than a minute to go, the scoreboard showed 20–20. The Wizards’ David Morton missed a short jump shot and Mateo got the rebound. Now there were only twelve short seconds left in the game. If the Warriors could score here, they would move on to the second round and play another game on Saturday. If not, they’d be eliminated from the tournament.

  So they were playing to keep playing.

  Danny Walker called a time-out. When the players huddled around him, he said, “What could be better than this? We’ve got the last shot in a tie game.”

  “Wouldn’t making the last shot be even better?” Zoe offered.

  Her dad patted her on the shoulder. “My daughter’s a genius,” he said.

  The play he gave them wasn’t a Give-and-Go. It was more like a Fake-and-Go. This time he wanted Zach to fake a pass to Zoe and then drive to the basket himself.

  It’s exactly what he did. David fell for the fake, just as Zach hoped he would. Zach drove hard to the basket, finally hitting the ball softly off the backboard and through the net. His shot won the game for the Warriors, 22–20, just as the buzzer sounded from the clock.

  Their dad had taught them to always show good sportsmanship, win or lose. So the Warriors quickly got in line to shake hands with the Wizards.

  “Good call on the Fake-and-Go,” Zach said to his dad.

  “Only because you made the play,” his dad said. “Never forget that it’s a players’ game.”

  Then he put out his hand, palm up. Zach slapped his dad a quick low five. When he looked around for his twin sister, he saw her kneeling near the Warriors’ bench, holding something in her hands: a newspaper.

  Zach walked over to where she was kneeling, and Zoe showed him the paper. He noticed right away that it wasn’t the whole paper.

  “Somebody left a sports section,” she said.

  “And you think this is important . . . why?” Zach asked.

  “Maybe the person who fixed up these benches accidentally left it behind,” Zoe said.

  “Is it today’s paper?” Zach asked, curious.

  Zoe shook her head. “Yesterday’s,” she answered.

  “Great,” Zach said, grinning at his sister. “No problem. Now all we have to do is find the one person in the whole town missing a sports section.”

  “It doesn’t have to be the whole town, silly,” Zoe said. “It’s somebody who comes to this court. And who wants to make the court better for us.”

  “It would figure that it’s yesterday’s paper,” Zach said. “Because whoever fixed up these benches had to do it sometime at night. Otherwise, somebody would have seen them.”

  “Grandpa Richie loves his sports section,” Zoe said.

  Zach couldn’t help himself. He laughed. “You think Mr. Clumsy fixed these benches?” he said. “On what planet?”

  They talked a little more and decided that whoever was fixing up the court obviously didn’t want any credit for it.

  “Maybe it was Malik’s parents,” Zoe said. “They were pretty upset about the benches yesterday. Or maybe it really is our parents. They may have wanted to do something nice for us without anybody knowing it was them.”

  “All I know is that the mystery of our basketball court keeps getting bigger,” Zach said.

  “At least we have our first clue,” Zoe said.

&nb
sp; “A win and a clue,” Zach said. “That’s a good day.”

  “No,” his sister corrected him. “That’s a great day.”

  FIVE

  When Zach and Zoe got home, they looked in the drawer where their mom kept old newspapers. She stored them there until it was time to bundle them up every week for recycling.

  “We need to see if the sports section is missing from our paper,” Zoe said.

  “If it is, then we might have more than a suspect,” Zach said.

  Zoe nodded. “We might have our guardian angel.”

  Zach could see the excitement on his sister’s face. But just as quickly, it disappeared. Because the sports section from their paper wasn’t gone. So they knew the one they’d found under the park bench didn’t belong to them.

  When Tess came into the kitchen and saw them with yesterday’s paper spread out on the counter, she asked what they were doing. Zoe explained about the sports section they’d found under the new bench.

  “We just wanted to eliminate you as a ‘suspect,’” Zach said.

  But he put air quotes around “suspect” to let her know he was joking.

  “Well, it’s nice that you both think I’d go to those lengths to be your guardian angel,” their mom said.

  “We know you, Mom,” Zach said. “You love our town, you love basketball, and you love our family.”

  Their dad walked into the room then, only hearing the last part of the conversation. He laughed and said, “But not in that order, I hope!”

  “What about Malik’s parents?” their mom said. “I don’t know of two parents from your grade any nicer than they are.”

  “Even nicer than you and Dad?” Zoe said.

  “Nobody’s that nice,” Zach said.

  “Your mom’s right,” their dad said. “Mr. and Mrs. Jones seem like just the kind of people who would do something like this.”

  “So you might as well put them on your list of suspects,” their mom said.

  “We don’t need more suspects,” Zoe said. “We need more clues.”

  “But look on the bright side,” Zach said. “We usually find them.”

  After dinner, Zach and Zoe went to Zoe’s room, where they’d left the sports section they’d found at the park. Zoe was staring at it, searching for a clue.

  “I keep thinking we might have missed something,” she said, her eyes glued to the paper.

  Zach reached over and opened the part of yesterday’s paper sitting between them on the floor.

  “I know I missed something,” he said. “I forgot to check the baseball box scores yesterday.”

  Zach loved looking at the box scores in the paper to see how his favorite players had done the day before. But when he opened the newspaper now, he noticed something.

  The page with the box scores was missing. As soon as he pointed it out to Zoe, she was on her way back downstairs. When she came back up, she was holding their copy of the sports section from yesterday’s Middletown Dispatch. This one did have the page with the box scores on it.

  “Check this out,” Zoe said.

  Zach did and grinned. “Will Hanley got two hits yesterday!” he said.

  Will Hanley was Zach’s favorite Major League Baseball player. Their last mystery had involved a baseball he’d autographed for Zach.

  “Not the box scores, silly,” his sister said. “Look at what’s next to them.”

  Right next to the box scores was an ad for Wade’s Lumber and Hardware and a coupon that offered a discount on your next purchase at the store.

  “Since this page was missing from the sports section we found at the park,” Zoe said, “that could mean the person who left behind that part of the paper used the coupon.”

  “To buy new slats to fix a couple of benches,” Zach finished the thought for her. It was something that happened a lot between the twins.

  “I think we need Mom or Dad to take us over to Wade’s before our game tomorrow,” Zoe said. “I’ll bet they’ll know if somebody used a coupon like that.”

  “Maybe they could even find out what that person used their coupon to buy,” Zach said. “And who that person is.”

  “And maybe what we’ve found,” Zoe said, “is our best clue yet.”

  Somebody who loved basketball in their town had a secret. Now Zach and Zoe just had to find out who it was.

  SIX

  Zach and Zoe’s semifinal game against the Bulls was scheduled for 11:30 on Saturday morning. Wade’s opened at nine o’clock, which left them plenty of time to go there before they had to be at the park. That way they could do some investigating about the coupon.

  Zoe thought somebody at the store might know who had come in on Thursday afternoon. She hoped they’d remember if that person bought wooden slats to fix a bench.

  As they were preparing to leave the house, Zach said, “Maybe there’s even some kind of record that shows if somebody used a coupon.”

  They looked over and saw their mom smiling at them.

  “Are you sure the two of you are only eight years old?” she said. “You always seem a lot older to me.”

  “We get our curiosity about stuff from you,” Zoe said, beaming.

  “Hey,” their dad said, coming down the stairs, “what about me?”

  “We get our stubbornness from you,” Zach said.

  Their dad looked at their mom. “I’m going to take that as a compliment,” he said.

  “Sure,” their mom said, kissing him on the cheek. “Go with that.”

  Their dad said he actually needed to stop at Wade’s himself. He wanted to buy some fencing to put next to the driveway where Zach and Zoe played basketball. A fence would keep the ball from rolling into the bushes.

  So he drove them over to the lumber and hardware store a few minutes after nine o’clock. Zach and Zoe went looking for Ralph, the store manager. Their dad headed over to the section in the back where they sold wood fencing.

  Zach and Zoe had been at Wade’s plenty of times before with their parents. So they knew Ralph, and he knew them. Ralph was a tall, kind guy with a beard who’d worked at the store for as long as Zach and Zoe could remember.

  “Well, if it isn’t my friends the Walker twins,” Ralph said when he saw them. “How can I help you?”

  “Hi, Ralph,” Zoe started, then got straight to it. “Do you remember anybody coming into the store to buy wooden slats? It would have been in the past couple of days.”

  “I was actually out with a bad cold the last few days,” he responded. “But give me a few minutes to do some checking. You know I’d do anything for the Walkers.” With that, Ralph turned and headed back into the stock room behind the register.

  In the meantime, Zach and Zoe wandered over to where their dad was browsing for different kinds of fencing. He said being at Wade’s on a Saturday morning brought back memories of when Grandpa Richie used to bring him here as a kid.

  After about ten minutes, Ralph came walking back to them. He held a small piece of paper in his hand.

  “It turns out somebody was in here the day before yesterday to buy the kind of slats you’re talking about. Some paint, too,” Ralph said.

  “Paint?” Zoe said to her brother. She could see he was just as confused as she was.

  “Who bought all that stuff?” Zach said to Ralph.

  “Unfortunately,” Ralph said, “there’s no name attached to the receipt because they paid cash.”

  “Can you tell if they used a coupon?” Zoe asked.

  Ralph looked down. “Since the price is lower than it usually would be, I’d say they probably did.”

  Zach and Zoe looked at each other. “Yes!” Zoe said, pumping her fist.

  “Would anybody here remember who might have bought the slats?” Zach said.

  Ralph looked down at the receipt again. “From the time stamp
on this, it would probably have been one of the kids I hired for the summer, Mark. But he’s away for the weekend with his family. He’ll be back on Monday, though.”

  “No worries,” Danny Walker said. “You’ve helped us plenty already.”

  Both Zach and Zoe politely thanked Ralph for his help. But they were having trouble hiding their disappointment. They’d both been so sure they could solve the mystery today, before their game.

  By then, their dad had decided on the fencing he needed and was ready to pay for it. After he did, they started walking toward the exit when Zoe turned and said, “Wait!”

  Then she ran back to ask Ralph one more question.

  “What was all that about?” their dad asked when she came back.

  “He said there was a time stamp on that receipt,” Zoe said. “I asked him to check. It was about a half hour after our practice the other day. Which means not too long after Malik fell into the bench and scratched his hand.”

  “So maybe it was Malik’s parents after all,” Zach said. “Remember, they were really upset after he got hurt. And Dad did say they’re the type of people who would do something like this.”

  “But why wouldn’t they just admit they’d fixed up the court?” Zach said.

  “Because,” Zoe said, “maybe they’re like Mom and Dad. You know they’re always telling us a good deed is its own reward.”

  “But you still want to find out who did it, right?” their dad said.

  Zach and Zoe looked at him and nodded.

  “No surprise there,” he said.

  But it wasn’t nearly as big a surprise as the one waiting for them when they got to the park for their game.

  SEVEN

  The entire court had been painted.

  The lines were a bright white. The three-point line had a fresh coat of red paint. Everything about the court looked brand-new. Just like the benches had yesterday, and the nets the day before.

  “How did this happen?” Zoe said, staring at the court.

  “And when did it happen?” Zach added.