by Casey Lyall
“You’re supposed to catch it,” Miles said. “I guess I’m up next.”
“Don’t tell me how to run my investigation,” I said, kicking the ball back at him. Miles stopped it with his foot, picking it up to spin it neatly in the air. “I can’t even cooperate without getting my head bitten off.”
“This is cooperating?” I scoffed.
“I’ll make it easy for you,” he said. “I had nothing to do with it, I don’t know who did. End of story.”
The rhythmic pounding of the basketballs in the gym mixed with my rising aggravation at Miles. I felt the words snapping out before I registered them. “Enjoying your bench time lately? Having a nice, relaxing season?”
“It’s great, the new guys are fine,” Miles shot the ball back to me with a hard bounce. “Don’t mind it at all.”
I narrowly avoided catching the ball with my chin. “No reason to be mad at Coach?” Bouncing the ball a few times to get the weight of it, I slammed it back to Miles with a final dig. “Take a little payback?”
He barely flinched as he caught the ball and returned fire. I caught a glimpse of Ivy watching us from the other end of the gym. A voice in my head yelled at me to stop, but it was drowned out by memories of Miles—stuffing me in a locker, throwing my lunch on the ground, telling me we were never friends. I whipped the basketball back as hard as I could. “You’re not above a nasty trick?”
“I don’t mess with innocent animals,” Miles said, squeezing the ball between his hands. “Only jerks.”
“Howard!” Ivy called out. I turned to see her speed-walking over to us with a look of concern on her face. A scathing reply for Miles was on the tip of my tongue when I looked back to see the ball flying toward my face. All my instincts deserted me, leaving my cheek and nose to step up to the plate. They managed to catch the sucker in one go.
Pain, bright and furious, clouded my vision. I fell backward onto the floor, the thump of my landing broken by a gasp from Ivy and Miles calling for Mr. Williams. A light flashed, and there was the telltale click as someone snapped a picture.
Like I’d need help remembering this moment.
Chapter Eleven
“What do you think?” I lifted the ice pack from my face, leaning back in Mr. Williams’s desk chair. “I think it makes me look tough. Don’t you think it makes me look tough?”
Ivy examined the darkening bruise on my cheek. “I think it makes you look like you caught a basketball with your face.”
“Thanks,” I grimaced—and then fought the urge to grimace over the grimace. Almost any facial expression brought a new level of pain.
“On the bright side,” Ivy said, “it stopped bleeding. And no broken nose, no concussion.”
Mr. Williams had checked me out, pronouncing me mostly fine, if not coordinated, but insisted I take some time icing my wounds. He’d called my folks, who wanted to come pick me up, but I needed some fresh air and time to debrief with Ivy. The team was long gone, putting a pin in our interrogations for now. I tossed the ice pack back on the coach’s desk. “Let’s get out of here.” We walked out into the hallway.
“Howard.”
Apparently not all of the team had gone home. Miles straightened up from his post holding up the wall. “You okay?”
“What are you doing here?” I staggered closer to him. “Waiting for round two of Hit Howard with Blunt Objects?”
“It was an accident.”
“As far as games go, I give it zero stars. Ten out of ten would not play again—wait, what?” My battered brain sluggishly computed the quiet words Miles had uttered.
“It was an accident,” he said again, slowly and deliberately. “I thought you’d catch it. Not my fault you have zero coordination.”
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead as Miles and I stared at each other in silence.
“Right. Of course. It was completely my fault.” I chuckled, and Miles shifted uncomfortably. My face was screaming at me, but I couldn’t stop the streams of laughter bursting out of my mouth.
“Howard,” Ivy murmured, tugging at my arm.
“Why are you here?” I asked Miles as I shrugged off her hand.
“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I was worried.”
“Over a year,” I said, walking up to Miles until he backed into a wall. “Over a year of you making fun of me, shoving me, ignoring me. Now you’re concerned?”
“You were bleeding,” Miles said. “I almost knocked you out.”
“Trust me, you’ve done worse.”
Miles studied the floor. “I don’t know what to say,” he muttered. “I just—”
“Need to go,” I said. “Please go away.” I rubbed at my temple where a headache was beating at a furious tempo.
“I wanted to talk about the case,” Miles said, shocking my eyes back open.
“The professionals are handling it.” Ivy stepped between us. “He asked you to go away, and he asked nicely,” she said. “I wouldn’t bet on me doing the same.”
Miles’s jaw twitched as he set his teeth. He opened his mouth, clicked it shut, then gave his head a small shake and walked away.
Ivy tugged on my arm. “Howard, come on. Let’s get you home.”
“ ‘The professionals are handling it.’ ” I snorted. “That was good.” Ivy smiled as I bumped my shoulder against hers. “I could have taken him,” I said.
“For sure.” She nodded.
“But for the record, basketballs aren’t my usual weapon of choice.”
“I’m afraid to ask what is.”
“Deductive reasoning, quick wit, running away.” I counted off on my fingers and lost track. “I have a wide variety of skills.”
“I know,” she said, patting my back as we left the school. Puddles still dotted the sidewalk down Maple Street. I weaved around them, feeling a bit sick. Walking might not have been the best plan.
“You sure you’re okay?” Ivy asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Kind of a headache, that’s about it.”
“Good,” she said, planting herself in front of me, taking a deep breath. “Then we can talk about how you lost your flipping mind in there. What were you thinking?”
“Be nice to me, I’m wounded.”
“You’re fine.” She brushed off my moaning. “But that bizarro stand-off with Miles? Not cool.”
I didn’t expect her to understand. My history with Miles was dark and tangled long before Ivy came along.
“Our case involves the team,” she said. “He is on the team. We’re going to run into him a lot, so you’re going to have to learn to deal with it.”
The most annoying part of having a partner was when she was right. “It won’t happen again,” I muttered.
“Nobody’s perfect, Howard Wallace. I’d have been tempted to get in a basketball-flinging match with him, too.” Ivy slung an arm over my shoulder. “Did you find out anything useful before the testosterone started flying?”
I filled her in on Scotty’s tip concerning Oscar’s possible move.
“Interesting,” she said. “The little dude I was talking to said Oscar’s best friend is the captain of the Stoverton team.”
“We need to check out Oscar,” I said.
“Agreed.” Ivy and I spun around at the unfamiliar voice. The blue-haired girl from the gym was standing behind us. Now that we were face to face, recognition clicked in.
I recognized we were in trouble.
“Howard?” Ivy looked back and forth between me and the newcomer, picking up on the tense vibe. Seemed it was up to me to make the proper introductions.
“Ivy, this is Leyla Bashir, the editor of the Grantleyville Middle School Blog,” I said. Holding out a hand to Leyla, I aimed for a charming grin. “We’ve never met, but I’ve enjoyed your work.”
“Funny you should bring that up,” she said.
“Funny, ha-ha, or funny, uh-oh?” Ivy asked.
“You tell me.” Leyla’s smile wen
t sharp and flinty, ready to strike. “How is it that you enjoy my work, we’ve never met, but apparently you’re also reporters for the blog?”
The problem with a good cover story is that if you use it too many times, eventually you get burned. “There’s been a misunderstanding,” I said. “The other day, Ivy and I were talking about how great the blog is and how we’d like to work on it. Someone told you different, they got the wrong end of the stick.”
“That is odd,” Leyla said, tapping her chin. “I heard Mr. Williams say you were working on a story about the basketball team. Which is why I was there. Does he know something I don’t?”
“Weird,” Ivy said. “I think this Grudge Game has him pretty stressed out.”
“Now we’re getting to it.” Leyla crossed her arms. “I’m a reporter, Wallace. I know stall tactics when I hear them,” she said. “More importantly, I know a story. Let’s cut to the chase. Tell me what you’ve got on the missing mascot case.”
Word about Spartacus was bound to get around, but I’d been hoping it wouldn’t travel quite so fast. “Missing mascot?” Best not to contribute to the gossip mill. “First we’re hearing about it,” I said.
“You expect me to believe you were heading into basketball practice for kicks?” Leyla shook her head. “Bit of a stretch, given your history with a good portion of the team.”
She dug through her bag and pulled out her phone. “Let me refresh your memory,” she said, scrolling through her notes. “Spartacus the pug was stolen from the yard of one Carl Dean last Tuesday evening. Carl has since been suspended from the team, and Coach Williams hired the two of you to track down his beloved mascot. How am I doing so far?”
“How’d you find all that out?” Ivy craned her neck to sneak a peek at Leyla’s screen.
“I hear things.” Leyla dropped her phone back in her bag and snapped it shut. “Things like Carl’s maintaining his innocence, so who’ve you got your eye on?”
Cards-on-the-table time. “We’re working the case,” I said. “But we can’t risk the investigation by talking about it.”
“What about a little cooperation?” Leyla leaned in, a spark in her brown eyes. “Think about it. You let me in on the details; I pass along anything I find out. I get huge headlines and make us all famous.”
Getting our names out there would mean bigger cases and more money. But I couldn’t jeopardize an active case. “We’re gonna pass,” I said. “If we put information out there before everything’s locked away, we risk tipping off whoever’s behind this. Finding Spartacus is the priority.”
Leyla shrugged. “I’ll hold the story until you solve it.”
Ivy motioned me over to the side. “Hang on,” I said to Leyla. My partner and I took a few steps back to confer.
“I don’t like this,” Ivy said. “It feels wrong. Like we’re trading in Marvin and Spartacus for bigger jobs.”
“Jobs that would pay,” I said.
Ivy gave me a hard look. “Howard. What happened to worrying about our reputations?”
“Let me put it another way,” Leyla said, stepping toward our huddle. “Work with me and I’ll let the fake reporter thing go. Don’t let me in, I rat you out for misusing the blog’s name. Make it our top story. Blow your cover. You’ll look completely incompetent. What do you think that’ll do to your reputation?”
She had us up against the wall. If it was happening to anyone else, I’d be impressed. Instead I was stuck with a last-resort pity card. “You’d put a story ahead of the safety of a poor little dog?”
“Either way, I’m getting a great story,” Leyla said.
My partner’s jaw dropped. “That’s cold.”
“That’s the news,” Leyla fired back. “We have a deal?”
“No press until the case is done,” I said. “And if anyone asks about us being reporters, you’ll back up the story. We’ll share as much as we can in the meantime.”
Leyla held out a hand. “And then I get to print the full deal.”
“Agreed,” I said as we shook. Leyla walked with us, and we filled her in on everything we’d learned so far, which took a frustratingly short amount of time.
“Focusing on the team first makes a lot of sense,” she said. “Odds are pretty good for an inside job.”
“Looks that way. Here’s our card.” I pulled a business card out of my pocket and stuck it to her palm. “Keep in touch.”
“That’s a—”
“We know,” Ivy said. “Makes ’em harder to lose.”
Our business with Leyla all sorted, Ivy and I made plans to meet early in the morning and went our separate ways. Midway up the drive, I decided to stop by the office before heading inside. I checked on Blue in her corner, adjusting her blanket and wiping the dust off her headlamp. Her handlebars swung to the side with a creak and I rolled my eyes. “Don’t start,” I said, shielding my cheek from her reproving glare. “It’s a bruise. It’ll be fine.”
Sitting at my desk, I started a file on our new friend Leyla and wrote up everything we’d learned today. Not much. I rested my pounding head on my notebook. Missing dog. Disgruntled team. Possible inside job. Frankly, I still wasn’t entirely convinced our client wasn’t the culprit. Great start, all in all. I stuffed the notes into the filing cabinet and headed inside.
Pops was waiting for me in the kitchen. “Lemme see.” He tilted my chin back to examine my cheek under the kitchen lights. “You got clocked real good,” he said, shaking his head. “Put some more ice on it before dinner.” I could see a hundred questions swimming in his eyes, but Pops did me a favor and rolled them all into one. “Miles?”
“It was mostly an accident.” I shrugged.
“It’s the not mostly part that concerns me,” he said. “What were you doing at the practice, anyway?”
“Helping Ivy with a story for the blog,” I said, grabbing an ice pack out of the freezer.
Pops paused his stirring of the chili on the stove and tossed me a tea towel. “The school blog? Ivy’s writing for them now? And she needed your help?”
I wrapped the ice pack in the towel and held it over my face. “That’s what friends are for,” I said.
“Right.” He stared at me before resuming the stirring. “Go set the table.”
Eileen sauntered into the kitchen “I heard you’re into sports now, Howeird,” she said, trying to poke at my face. I fended her off with the ice pack. “The shiner’s a mild improvement.” She grabbed the pack and smacked me on the arm with it. “Makes you look tough.”
Well, at least there was that.
Chapter Twelve
It was 8 a.m. and I’d been waiting at the corner for fifteen minutes before realizing my partner had stood me up. In another five I’d be concerned. Considering my phone privileges were in a constant state of revocation, I had no way to check on her. Looked like I was hoofing it solo.
As the wind pierced my coat and I dodged around poorly plowed sidewalks, I began mentally calculating how many days until spring. The number was obnoxiously high. “Blue’s got the right idea,” I muttered.
“Talking to yourself, Howard?”
I stuck a finger in my ear and wiggled it, squinching up my eyes. “I seem to be hearing things.”
Miles fell into step beside me and snorted. “Very funny.”
“Apparently it was more wishful thinking than joke.” I quickened my pace and Miles’s long legs easily matched my stride.
“Look,” he held up his hands, “we need to talk.”
“Did the basketball ricochet off my face and hit you, too? Why this sudden need to communicate?” Annoyance, indignation, and too many coats brought my temperature to the boiling point. I halted in the middle of the sidewalk to unzip my top layer and let the steam out. Miles stood beside me, cool as a cucumber.
“Go away,” I said between a huff and a puff.
“Listen, I know things have been bad between us,” he said, eyeing my admittedly spectacular shiner. “Hear me out. Please.”
&n
bsp; Every instinct was telling me to keep on walking. Every one except for the little voice that said, “Wait a minute.” It was one little voice that apparently had a direct line to my mouth. “You have thirty seconds.” Curiosity always seemed to outweigh self-preservation.
“I already talked to Ivy, but I should have come to you. I shouldn’t have gone behind your back. Carl’s my friend, and he’s in trouble. I want to help with his case.”
“Since when are you and Carl such good friends?”
“He’s a good guy. We get along. We talk a lot.”
“Carl . . .” I raised an eyebrow. “Talking?”
“He doesn’t just like me because I’m good at basketball,” Miles said, kicking at the snowbank.
“Some people liked you despite that fact,” I said, zipping up my coat against the chilly air that had finally cooled
me down.
“Yeah, well, he doesn’t hold it against me either,” Miles said.
“There are so many other things to hold against you, I can see why it wouldn’t be high on his list.”
Miles clenched his fists and stared at his shoes. When he looked back up, all signs of fight had cleared away. “He’s my friend,” he repeated. “And I want to help.”
“Because you were so helpful yesterday.” I started back down the sidewalk. His thirty seconds had been up for a while.
“I lost my temper.” Miles loped alongside me. “You were pushing my buttons, but that’s no excuse. Look, I’ll hire you.” He pulled some worn bills and coins out of his pocket and held them out.
“You clean the couch out for all of that?” I shoved his hand back. “Can’t buy your way onto the case, Miles.”
He ran a hand over his shaved scalp and growled. “Why do you have to twist everything?” Miles pulled a knitted Gladiators hat out of his pocket. Jammed it on his head. “Is it so hard to believe that I could be trying to do something good?”
For the second time that morning, I found myself wishing for Ivy to show up. I was in serious need of backup.
