Toby Wheeler

by Thatcher Heldring

  I was running out of time! “Aren’t you forgetting something?” I asked.

  “Um, no. I don’t think so,” JJ said.

  Valerie said, “JJ, what is he talking about?”

  Ignoring her, I turned to JJ. “You know…” I held my hands out like I was holding a bag. “Ding-dong.”

  They stared at me. Man, did I have to spell it out for these people?

  “Ding-dong,” I repeated. I waved my hands around. “OOOHHOOOO.”

  This was getting awkward.

  “Trick-or-treat?” I whispered.

  “Wait,” said Valerie, rubbing her forehead and putting it together, “you want to go trick-or-treating?”

  “Is there something wrong with that?” I asked. “JJ, you want to go too, right? You just told your dad you were coming out with me.” Of course, JJ had not told his dad he was going trick-or-treating with me—he’d just told him he was going out. It hit me like the basketball had hit Valerie. JJ was embarrassed to go trick-or-treating. I could see it in the way he was looking at his shoes. He didn’t want to face his new friends.

  Stephen spoke next. “Valerie, why do you have to talk like that to people? If Toby wants to go, he should go.”

  “I was just clarifying that he wanted to go trick-or-treating. I wasn’t judging, Stephen. Why do you always have to stand up for people?”

  “Maybe because you’re always putting them down.”

  “That’s just my voice. I can’t help it.” Valerie flipped her head around to face me. “Have fun trick-or-treating, Toby,” she said. “I think it’s great you still want to do that stuff.”

  As Valerie took JJ’s hand to lead him away, he turned and said, “Sorry, man. I wish I could.”

  “Save us some candy,” Stephen added.

  “So, is that a no?” I called to their backs.

  Down the street, Valerie laughed at something JJ said.

  “Call me if you change your mind!” I shouted.

  But they were gone.

  Watching them disappear up the street, I felt very small. All around me now were ghosts and witches—all of them much shorter than me. Was that how JJ and his friends saw me? As a little ghost who still wanted to dress up on Halloween? Well, so what if I did? I bet part of JJ wanted the same thing, even if he was too ashamed to admit it.

  The wind picked up, blowing cold air down from the mountains. I stuck my hands in my pockets. The crumpled-up schedule was there. I pulled it out and looked it over. Ten games. Two months of practices. Every one of those nights and days was another hour when JJ would be doing something else without me—and now his free time was all about the band, and the girl. Shaggy and Snotty. What could I do about it? I didn’t play an instrument. I didn’t know the first thing about girls. All I had was basketball.

  3

  When I came into the kitchen, Dad was fixing a tinfoil axe head to a broom handle. He was wearing a red flannel shirt, wool pants with suspenders, and work boots. Across the room, Mom was standing with her arms crossed. She had antlers. Her nose was painted brown.

  “Nice costume, Dad,” I said. “Where’s your ox?”

  “I don’t have an ox tonight,” he said. “Just a grouchy deer.”

  Mom smiled at me, adjusted her antlers, and said to Dad, “I just don’t see why you have to wear that costume every year.”

  “I do work for a lumber company, Maureen.” It was true. Except Dad didn’t cut down trees. Dad’s job was to sell the wood chips left on the mill floor to home improvement stores, where people bought them for garden mulch and playgrounds. When he and Mom agreed to leave Seattle, part of the reason was that Dad thought he had a bright future with Landover Lumber. Dad was kind of a dreamer, but I didn’t think selling wood chips was the stuff of his dreams.

  Dad stomped over to the middle of the room and leaned his giant axe against the island. “What do you have against Paul Bunyan, Maureen?” he asked.

  “Paul Bunyan is a symbol of reckless deforestation,” Mom said as the doorbell rang. Before she left the kitchen to hand out candy, she added, “I don’t think we should be celebrating the destruction of natural habitats.”

  Mom wasn’t just talking. She worked at this place called the Cascade Group. When you lived where we did, there was always some marsh or stretch of woods about to be cut for lumber or to make room for a housing development. The Cascade Group was supposed to protect those areas by making a lot of noise in the newspapers and on television. Right now, Mom was fighting to save the south slope of Butte Peak from being harvested by Landover Lumber. It had something to do with salmon. I wouldn’t want to be Landover Lumber with Maureen Wheeler on the case. Mom’s really the competitive one in the family, even if it has nothing to do with sports.

  “Destruction of natural habitats,” Dad muttered when we were alone in the kitchen. Then he snapped his suspenders and said to me, “I don’t care what she says. I think I look great.” He clapped his hands excitedly. “Did I tell you Warren Goodman at work recommended me for a promotion?”

  I looked Dad in the eye. It wasn’t hard. He was barely taller than me, meaning he had about a half inch on the average eighth grader. He wasn’t carrying much in the middle, either. His belt was cinched in to the last hole. If a tree had fallen in the woods and Dad had been standing nearby, I think the breeze would have blown him over.

  “What kind of promotion?”

  “In the main office, Toby. Working with the big boys. No more wood chips.” Dad pulled a soda out of the refrigerator. When the can was open, he caught his reflection in the mirror. He stood there for a moment admiring the image before looking at me. “No costume for you tonight?” he said.

  “No,” I sighed.

  Dad sat at the kitchen table. “You’re not going out with JJ?”

  “He’s with his other friends,” I said, sitting opposite Dad as Mom came back from the front door. We were all at the kitchen table now—the gym rat, the deer, and Paul Bunyan. “He said he thinks we’re too old to trick-or-treat. Can you believe that? All of a sudden he just decides he doesn’t want to do it anymore. He’d rather play his guitar and stand around doing nothing with Valerie. How can that be more fun than trick-or-treating?” I tore open a candy bar. “It’s all their fault.”

  “Whose fault?” Dad asked.

  “Valerie and Stephen. If they hadn’t come along, JJ would be out there with me, just like every other year.”

  Dad squeezed my shoulder. “If you’re not spending as much time with JJ as you used to, maybe you should find something you both like to do.”

  “Like what?”

  “You can work at the mill,” said Dad. “We’ll pay you to bag wood chips after school. You can do it together.”

  “JJ has basketball after school,” I said.

  Dad tried again. “Then why don’t you join the basketball team?”

  “I met the new coach today,” I told them. “He said I could come to practice on Monday.”

  “What did you say?” Mom asked.

  “That I would think about it.”

  Dad was quiet for a while. “You know, I never played on sports teams when I was in school,” he said. “I always felt I was missing out on something. The football team seemed like an army unit to me. It made me jealous. You just don’t find that kind of camaraderie in the Latin club.”

  “I play sports, Dad. Just not on the team.”

  “There’s a difference, Toby,” he replied. “I’m not sure you’re really giving yourself a chance to be what you can be by avoiding real basketball.”

  That made my neck burn. “Pickup ball is real basketball. We play with ten guys, two hoops, and one ball. Just because we don’t wear uniforms or have a coach doesn’t mean it’s not basketball.”

  Mom stared me down. “Don’t speak like that to your father,” she said. “He has a good point. If you want to spend more time with JJ and you want to prove yourself as a basketball player, then you have no reason not to give the team a shot.”

&nb
sp; “You didn’t even want the school to hire a basketball coach,” I said. Coach Applewhite was the first full-time basketball coach Pilchuck had ever had. Before him, a teacher or parent had always run the team. After a string of losing seasons, though, the school board had decided enough was enough. I thought it was great, but some people, like Mom, thought the town had better things to spend its money on—like saving the south slope of Butte Peak.

  Mom popped an M&M into her mouth. “Well, now that we’ve got one, we might as well use him.”

  That night I lay awake in bed. I was thinking about what Dad had said about missing out on something. I didn’t know exactly what he meant, but from the look in his eye, there was no doubt he was telling me something real. I remembered a night less than a year before. It was a home game. JJ hit the winning shot at the buzzer. The crowd went wild, of course. But what stuck with me was watching his eleven teammates carry him off to the locker room, while I stood halfway up the bleachers, wondering what it would feel like to be one of those twelve. JJ and I were best friends. It should have been my arm around him after that game. If we were on the same team, maybe he would see me as an equal, and not as his friend from across the street who still wanted to go trick-or-treating. By the time I faded to sleep, I was still confused. It was the next day, at the rec center, when Vinny Pesto cleared everything up.

  4

  It wasn’t the first time I had ever seen a girl at the rec center, but it was the first time I had ever seen her. She said her name was Megan. She had long brown hair; a lean, freckled face; and skinny arms. She wore a light blue T-shirt and baggy red shorts, and whenever she shot, she glared at the ball while it was in midair like she was daring it not to go in, which it usually did. Although we had been on the same team all afternoon, “Good game” and “Nice shot” were all we had said.

  After three hours of full-court five-on-five, everyone was breathing hard. Sweat hung in the air like storm clouds. It was so humid inside the rec center, the tag-board signs advertising KARATE! and AEROBICS! were peeling off the brick walls. One was hanging by a single corner.

  At the moment, I had the ball at the top of the arc. The game was tied 9–9. I dribbled in place and considered my options. On my right was Goggles. As usual, Goggles was calling for the ball even though he was guarded. I looked inside. Old Dude and Blue Shirt were setting screens for each other on the baseline.

  Megan was playing on the perimeter with me. She had a smooth motion and a high-arcing jump shot that floated through the net. On this possession, though, I wanted the ball. I wanted to take it myself. After all, standing between me and the hoop was Vinny Pesto. Ball in hand, I stared him down, hoping to psych him out. Fat chance. Vinny glared back at me. He raised one arm, bent his knees, and tapped his chest.

  “You should save your energy and give me the ball now, gym rat.”

  “You can’t stop me, Pesto,” I said, showing him a crossover.

  Vinny swiped at the ball. “Bring it on.”

  Switching the ball from my right hand to my weaker left hand, I drove. Backpedaling, Vinny kept between me and the basket. When I was within six feet of the hoop, I went airborne. I figured I would either get off a shot or dump the ball off to Old Dude for a layin. But as soon as I left the floor, the lane was clogged with bodies, leaving me no room to shoot and nowhere to pass. The ball squirted free. Vinny grabbed it, ran the other way, and laid it in, giving his team the lead, 10–9.

  If there was an award for cherry-picking, Vinny Pesto would win the trophy every year.

  Old Dude came up to me at midcourt. “Don’t ever leave your feet without a plan,” he said, adjusting one of his knee braces.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I usually make that.”

  Vinny checked the ball to me. I called out the score and passed the ball in to Goggles, who instantly shot. Miraculously, the ball rattled in and we were tied again.

  10–10.

  Scowling, Vinny took the inbounds pass and set up the offense. He had a man wide open under the basket—the guy Goggles was supposed to be guarding. But Goggles was cherry-picking under the other basket. Sure enough, Vinny ignored the open man and, with my hand in his face, fired a jump shot from eighteen feet. The ball fell off the rim and into Old Dude’s hands. Old Dude airmailed a pass to Goggles, who caught the ball, missed, gathered his own rebound, and put it up again. This time, the ball fell through the net.

  11–10.

  Then Vinny’s big man turned the ball over, dribbling upcourt.

  I’ve been there, Big Man.

  It was our ball. I nodded at Megan.

  She nodded back. Let’s get it done.

  Then I looked at Vinny. “One more and it’s over, Pesto.” There was no way he was wriggling off the hook this time.

  Vinny smiled. I had to give him credit. He was sweating, but he was cool. “Hey, gym rat,” he said, “where’s your so-called friend? Did he ditch you for the basketball team again?”

  “He couldn’t make it today,” I shot back, hoping nobody could see Vinny was getting to me. “He’s got a date with your sister.”

  But Vinny brushed the comeback aside. He smelled blood. “If he was really your friend,” he taunted, “he’d be here now. Not off with his real teammates.”

  I was choking the basketball. My teeth were grinding. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Pesto.”

  That was when Vinny went for the kill.

  “Why don’t you just face it, gym rat?” he said, letting the words hang in the air. “JJ’s too good for you.”

  That did it. I hurled the ball at Vinny’s feet. He timed his jump well and it bounced away. My fists clenched. We were nose to nose now. Too close to punch—lucky for him. “For your information, chump, JJ is not too good for me. And I could play on that team anytime I wanted to. I have a personal invitation from the coach.”

  That seemed to surprise Megan. Her eyebrows went up.

  Vinny tilted his head back and stepped out of range. “Then why don’t you?” he said.

  He meant play on the team.

  “Maybe I will,” I said, surprising myself.

  “What?” Vinny laughed as though he hadn’t heard me right. “You?”

  “Yeah, me,” I said. “Is that funny?”

  “It’s more than funny,” he said. “It’s impossible! You’re a gym rat. You don’t know the first thing about real basketball. You probably think a pick-and-roll comes with butter.” Vinny paused. Everyone was watching, and he was really enjoying it. He made a big deal out of scratching his head. “On the other hand,” he said as my fingers dug into my palms and my forehead burned like an iron, “we are talking about Pil-suck, so maybe you do belong on the team. Maybe this is the year you and the other Pil-chumps finally get out of the basement.”

  “Just wait, Vinny. We’re not gonna be anywhere near the basement. As a matter of fact, we’re gonna be in the championship game.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. And I’m gonna hit the winning shot.”

  “In your dreams, gym rat.”

  “Not in my dreams, Pesto. In your face.”

  That was when Megan pulled me aside.

  “That’s right, gym rat,” Vinny called. “Talk it over with Mrs. Gym Rat.”

  We walked a few steps away. Well, Megan walked. I bounced backward, ready to swat back anything else Vinny had to send my way.

  I was still fired up. “That’s the last time Vinny Pesto tells me a gym rat can’t play real basketball.”

  “Yeah,” Megan said, drawing out her words, “you really showed him.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Toby, do you realize what you’ve done?”

  “I scored one for all the gym rats, that’s what I did.”

  “No, you just joined the basketball team. That’s what you did.”

  “Good. Bring it on. I’ll show everyone what real basketball is.”

  “Toby,” Megan started to say, “there’s something you sho
uld know—”

  “I know what’s coming for Vinny,” I said.

  Megan rolled her eyes. “Okay, you’re right. One thing at a time. First, you know he’d do anything to stop you from beating him.”

  “Is that supposed to be good news?”

  “It means if you set a screen for me, he won’t switch. He’d rather leave me open than risk letting you out of his sight for a second. Trust me.”

  “So what do I do?”

  I listened as Megan used her palm and fingers to draw up the play.

  A moment later, I was checking the ball with Vinny.

  It happened almost exactly like Megan said it would. I passed the ball in to her, then set a screen on her defender. She dribbled around me, leaving her man stuck behind the screen. And Vinny, instead of switching to guard Megan, stayed on me. Curling off the screen, Megan pulled up at the elbow, the spot on the court where the free-throw line meets the side of the key. Suddenly, the man guarding Blue Shirt rushed toward her, his long arms raised high. Megan never blinked. She lifted a soft jumper over the outstretched arm of the charging defender. The shot went up like a rainbow, then splashed down through the net.

  12–10.

  I threw my arms up in the air like we had just won a championship. Maybe it was a little over the top, but at that moment I was going a hundred miles an hour on pure emotion. Not far off, Vinny was barking at his teammates for not playing defense. When he saw me, he said, “Don’t get a big head over this, gym rat. You still needed someone else to win the game for you.”

  “Pilchuck plays Hamilton in three weeks, Pesto. And I’ll be there.”

  “I’ll be sure to wave to you on the bench, scrub.”

  But nothing Vinny could say would dampen my mood that day. I had won. It was now Vinny Pesto: 8,497,330; Toby Wheeler: 1.

  5

  Twenty minutes later, Megan and I were standing on the corner where Verlot Street begins. We’d stuck around the rec center after open gym, reliving the game, until the assistant director, Alberto, kicked us out so he could mop the floors before the aerobics ladies came in with their mats. Outside in the damp breeze, Megan had suggested we go for pizza.