Tournament of Champions

by Phil Bildner

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  For Wes and Andrew, captains of team Rip & Red

  —P.B.

  For Mom and Dad

  —T.P.

  One-on-One-on-One

  “Next basket wins,” I said, clapping for the ball.

  “No,” Diego said. “Win by two.”

  “Win by two, Mason Irving,” Red said as he spun around the pole under the basket.

  Diego, Red, and I were the only three in the Reese Jones Elementary schoolyard. All the other kids were waiting at the car pickup line or getting on the buses to go home.

  “Yo, it’s always win by two at RJE,” Diego said.

  “How do you know?” I said. “You never play.”

  I’d never seen Diego play hoops before, which is why I had no idea he could ball. Seriously ball.

  “Ten for Diego Vasquez, ten for Mason Irving.” Red pointed at me. “It’s always win by two at RJE.”

  “Whose friend are you?” I said.

  “Both!” Red let go of the pole and hopped from foot to foot.

  Red’s my best friend. He calls everyone by their first and last name. To him, I’m Mason Irving. To everyone else, I’m Rip. It’s a basketball nickname.

  I placed the ball on my hip and shook out my dreadlocks.

  Diego shook out his hair, too.

  “Here’s the scene,” Diego said, smiling. “You’re lying on your bed, and rhino dung is dripping from the ceiling. It’s all over you. It’s on your face. It’s even in your mouth.”

  All game long, Diego had been talking trash, mocking me, and saying nasty stuff.

  I cut right, got a half-step on him, and took a shot from inside the elbow. It clanked off the back of the rim.

  “You tried, son.” Diego grabbed the rebound and dribbled to the top of the key. He gestured with his chin at Red. “Time for me to finish off your little friend.”

  “I’m taller than you are,” I said.

  I lunged for the ball, but Diego blocked my hand with his shoulder. He then spun past me and drove in for a layup.

  “Boom! In your face!” he shouted.

  “Eleven for Diego Vasquez, ten for Mason Irving,” Red announced.

  Diego toe-flipped the ball off the cement and jogged to the top of the key. “You’re going down, son,” he said.

  “We’ll see.”

  “It’s next basket now.” He shook out his hair again. “Check.” He passed me the ball.

  I punched it back.

  Diego swung the ball back and forth by his shins. He wanted to go left—Diego was a lefty—so I gave him the right.

  He drove left, but instead of going lower-the-shoulder hard like he had been all game, he backed me down. A couple steps from the hoop, he put up a shot.

  It bounced off the front rim. I boxed him out for the rebound.

  “Who’s your daddy?” I said, dribbling out.

  “Go, Mason Irving!” Red shouted.

  “Time for me to stick a fork in your butt,” I said. “You’re done, son.”

  Diego wasn’t the only one chirping. I’d been dishing out the trash talk as much as he had.

  “It’s Irving’s turn,” I play-by-played. I love doing play-by-play. “Vasquez had a chance to put this one away, but he left the door open. Irving slides right and sizes up the court. He dribbles baseline … He shoots…”

  “No good!” Diego bodied me for the board. “Now it’s Vasquez’s turn,” he said, mocking my announcing. “Watch him stick a fork in Irving’s butt and show him who’s really done.”

  Diego lowered his shoulder and drove left. He put up a shot and banked it in.

  “Ballgame!” He pounded his chest and stomped across the paint. “Who’s your daddy now?”

  Red laughed along. “Who’s your daddy now?”

  Diego stepped to Red. “What are you laughing at?” he said. “Now it’s time for me to dispose of you.”

  “Me?” Red pointed to himself.

  “Yeah, you.” Diego gripped the pole under the basket and spun around. “Time for me to beat you at free throws.”

  “Ha!” I said. “This I’d like to see.”

  Red’s a free-throw-shooting beast. I’ve seen him hit twenty and thirty in a row tons of times. When Red’s locked in at the line, he’s money.

  “First one to miss loses,” Diego said, backpedaling to the line.

  “Make him shoot underhanded,” I said to Red.

  “Oh, yeah.” Red shook his fists by his shoulders. “You have to shoot underhanded, Diego Vasquez.”

  That’s how Red shoots his free throws. He goes through this whole routine and then shoots the ball underhanded.

  “Underhand, overhand, behind the back, whatever.” Diego bobbed his head.

  I tossed him the ball. “No pressure.”

  Diego glanced at Red and then placed his toes on the line. He power-dribbled a few times and spun the ball in his hands like Red does before he takes his foul shots.

  “No pressure,” I said again.

  Diego shot the underhanded free throw. It banged off the backboard without hitting the rim.

  “Ha!” I laughed. I pounded my chest and stomped across the lane like Diego had a minute ago. “Ballgame!”

  “Yo, Red still has to make his,” Diego said.

  “Put him away,” I said to Red, and then spun back to Diego. “Watch how it’s done, son.”

  Red set himself on the line and trapped the ball under his left foot soccer-style. He took several breaths, picked up the ball, and squared his shoulders.

  “I could say some wack things right now,” Diego said, leaning in. “You want to hear some wack things?”

  It didn’t matter what Diego said. Red wasn’t hearing any of it. He was locked in.

  Red dribbled three times low and hard and stood back up. Then he spun the ball until his fingers were right and looked at the rim. He extended his arms and took the shot.

  Underhanded.

  Swish!

  “Boo-yah!” I hammer-fisted the air.

  “Bam!” Red cheered. He smiled his super-wide basketball smile. “Who’s your daddy now, Diego Vasquez?”

  Road Trip

  “The free-throw-shooting machine strikes again!” someone said.

  We all turned.

  Our teacher, Mr. Acevedo, was jogging onto the court.

  “Well done.” He gave Red a pound.

  “Thanks, Mr. Acevedo.”

  Mr. Acevedo’s the coolest and best teacher we’ve ever had. All the fifth graders think so.

  Mr. Acevedo had asked Diego, Red, and me to wait for him until after Thunder Dome. That’s what he calls the car pickup line during dismissal. Mr. Acevedo has Thunder Dome duty every afternoon.

  We walked over to the Amp, the amphitheater at the far end of the playground. The Amp’s where Mr. Acevedo sometimes holds Teacher’s Theater Time. That’s
when he reads to the class. Mr. Acevedo tries to read to the class every day. Right now, he’s reading us The Fourteenth Goldfish.

  “Let’s get right down to business,” he said. He sat on the front bench and faced the three of us. “So I spoke to all your—”

  “Wait for me!”

  We all turned again.

  A girl was running toward us.

  “It’s Maya Wade!” Red waved his arms like a football referee at the end of a play. “Maya Wade’s here.”

  Maya played with us on our basketball team, Clifton United, but because she didn’t go to RJE, I hadn’t seen her since the season ended back in the fall. I couldn’t believe how tall she was. We used to be the same size, but now she had five or six inches on me, like almost all the other fifth-grade girls.

  “Hey, boys.” She straddled the seat next to Mr. Acevedo. “Did I miss anything?”

  “Not at all,” he said. “Perfect timing.”

  “Long time no see,” Diego said to her.

  She smiled. “Very.”

  I checked Diego. I didn’t know he and Maya knew each other.

  “How was school?” Mr. Acevedo asked Maya.

  “The same,” she answered. “I brought Carolina to Makerspace.” Carolina was Maya’s little sister. “Someone will drop her at the house afterward.”

  “I’ll let Aisha know.”

  Aisha was Mr. Acevedo’s girlfriend. Sometimes she met Mr. Acevedo at school. I didn’t know they knew Maya outside of basketball.

  “I asked Maya to join us,” Mr. Acevedo said. He strummed his legs. “Let’s get back down to business. So I spoke to all your moms.”

  “That’s never a good sign,” I said.

  “For the record,” Diego said, holding up his hands, “I had nothing to do with sticking the juice box straws up the first graders’ noses. Not this time.”

  “I’ll make a note of it,” Mr. Acevedo said. “Relax, Diego. No one here’s in any trouble.”

  To be perfectly honest, when Mr. Acevedo said he spoke to all our moms, I did get a little tingly, because I didn’t exactly have a squeaky-clean record this year. Back in the fall, I got into this thing with Avery Goodman, this girl in my class who uses a wheelchair and sometimes gets an attitude (but now we’re friends). Then a bunch of us—including Diego, Red, and Avery—got in trouble for Operation Food Fight (which was actually pretty cool and creative). Then I got into this other thing with Tiki Eid, the new girl on the basketball team (but she’s no longer here).

  “Clifton United is taking a road trip,” Mr. Acevedo said. Mr. Acevedo is also coach of our Clifton United basketball team. “We’ve been invited to play in a tournament of champions.”

  “Ballin’!” Maya banged her hands like cymbals.

  “Outstanding!” I said.

  “Oh, yeah!” Red said. “Outstanding.”

  “So why am I here?” Diego rested his arm on my shoulder. “I’m not on Clifton United.”

  “Well, Diego, that’s what I spoke to your mom and uncle about,” Mr. Acevedo said. “They both said you could join the team.”

  “Don’t play, Mr. Acevedo,” Diego said.

  “I’m not playing.”

  “I’m not well, you know.”

  “Actually, you are well, Diego.” Mr. Acevedo tucked his hair behind his ears. “That’s why you can play, if you want to.”

  “I want to, I want to, I want to!” Diego pounded the bench with both fists. “Yes, yes, yes!” He jumped up and danced in circles on the bench. “It’s about time they let me off my leash!”

  For a while, Diego was sick, really sick. He missed the whole second half of third grade and the beginning of fourth. When he came back to school, he always wore hats, goofy ones with earflaps and tie strings, because his medicines made his hair fall out.

  “I got to shoot around with Diego over the weekend,” Mr. Acevedo said to me. “So did Maya. We ran into his family at the park. I had no idea he could ball.”

  “Neither did Rip,” Diego said, pretending to tomahawk-dunk on me. He sat back down. “I schooled him!”

  I ruffled Diego’s hair. Red ruffled his hair, too.

  Diego had hair now. Even though he stopped wearing his hats a few months ago, I’m still not used to seeing him without them. Every time I look his way, I expect to see a black-and-white dog with huge brown eyes peering into my soul or a one-eyed blue-and-yellow Minion staring a hole into my brain.

  “Yes, yes, yes!” Diego pounded the bench again. “I can’t believe my uncle’s down with this. He never lets me do anything.”

  “Both your mom and your uncle are on board,” Mr. Acevedo said.

  “But how am I allowed to play?” Diego asked. “I wasn’t on the team in the fall.”

  “We got you a health waiver,” Mr. Acevedo said.

  “Sweet,” Diego said.

  My basketball brain started to churn. I couldn’t wait to play in the same backcourt as Diego. I loved playing with lefties, especially lefties who knew what to do. Diego was also nonstop movement. Just like me. If Diego had been on Clifton United during fall ball, we wouldn’t have just made the playoffs, we would’ve won the whole thing.

  “Let me tell you about the tournament,” Mr. Acevedo said. He crossed his legs and grabbed his ankles. “It’s called the Jack Twyman Spring Showdown, and it takes place at the Hoops Haven Sports Complex. Sixteen teams have been invited. It’s two rounds of pool play followed by a single-elimination knockout stage. Every team plays a minimum of three games.”

  “This is going to be sick,” Diego said, bobbing his head.

  “Who else is on the team?” Maya asked.

  “From fall ball, it’s the four of you, plus Mehdi Karmoune. The rest of the roster is kids from teams we played against.”

  “Are they trying out?” I said.

  “Not enough time.” Mr. Acevedo shook his head. “The Showdown’s Easter weekend. Less than two weeks from now.” He tapped my knee. “We’re counting on you big-time, Rip. We need you to pick up where you left off at the end of fall ball. You’re Clifton United’s floor leader, our team general. I’m going to be pushing you hard, real hard.”

  “Bring it,” I said.

  Mr. Acevedo faced Red. “Suzanne and I had a long conversation about the tournament,” he said. Suzanne is Red’s mom. “I know she spoke to you about it.”

  Red shook his fists by his ears and nodded.

  “You know about the tournament?” I nudged Red. “How come you didn’t say anything?”

  Red shrugged.

  “I gave Red and Suzanne a heads-up,” Mr. Acevedo said. “I’ve learned not to spring things on Red out of nowhere, right?”

  Red turtled his neck.

  “Suzanne’s okay with you going,” Mr. Acevedo said. “Ms. Yvonne is going to be one of the chaperones. She’ll be there the whole time.”

  Ms. Yvonne is the special ed teacher who’s worked with Red ever since pre-K. All the fifth graders know Ms. Yvonne. Whenever she pushes in during class, she helps all the kids.

  “It’s about a two-hour bus ride,” Mr. Acevedo said. He adjusted a hoop at the top of his ear. “We’ll be taking a real bus and staying overnight in a hotel.”

  “This is going to be sick!” Diego said.

  Red bounced his knees and pressed his elbows to his sides.

  “You don’t have to make up your mind about it now.” Mr. Acevedo tapped Red’s leg. “And even if you decide not to come, you’re still Clifton United.”

  “For real,” I said.

  “No matter what you decide, you’ll still practice with the team,” Mr. Acevedo said. “Just know that we want you to come. Clifton United wants you there.”

  Red plays for Clifton United, but he doesn’t play for Clifton United. Not in games. Though the two times he did see action this year, he was clutch city!

  Red’s quirky. Not just with basketball—with everything. He needs things to be a certain way, and when they’re not he has a bad time. But compared to how he was a
t the beginning of school, Red’s gotten so much better. And compared to how he was last year and the year before, he’s like a different kid.

  “We still need to find a third chaperone,” Mr. Acevedo said. “Hopefully, that won’t be a problem.”

  “What about Mehdi’s dad?” I said.

  Mehdi’s father came to almost every Clifton United game. Even away games.

  “Unfortunately, he has a prior work commitment,” Mr. Acevedo said. “This evening, I’ll send out the email with all the rules, forms, practice schedules, and everything. You’ll have to wait until practice tomorrow to find out about your new teammates.” He drew a circle with his finger around the four of us. “You in?”

  I hammer-fisted the air. “Boo-yah!”

  No More Earplugs

  Whenever Red and I walk to and from RJE, we always talk about school or YouTube or Xbox or the NBA. But heading to my house this afternoon, Red barely said a word. He kept his head down and patted the sides of his legs with his fists.

  He’d been that way ever since Mr. Acevedo mentioned the hotel. Up until fourth grade, Red never stayed anywhere without Suzanne. But last summer, he began sleeping at my house. Now he does a lot.

  This trip would be his first time somewhere else without Suzanne.

  Across the street, a man was walking his dog. The dog had an orange Frisbee in its mouth.

  “The puppy’s got a purse,” I said.

  Red didn’t look up.

  “When I get my dog,” I said, “I’m teaching it all kinds of cool tricks.”

  Nothing.

  “I’m going to teach it to poop in the toilet.”

  Red glanced my way.

  “Ha!” I pointed. “Just checking to make sure you’re listening.”

  “I’m listening, Mason Irving,” he said softly.

  “My mom’s friend taught her dog to pee in the shower,” I said. “She lives in an apartment building and doesn’t have a backyard. So sometimes, instead of taking the dog for a walk, she lets it pee in the shower and then rinses it down the drain.” I bumped his shoulder. “Maybe if I teach my dog to pee in the shower, my mom will let me pee in the shower.”