No Slam Dunk

by Mike Lupica

  ALSO BY #1 BESTSELLER MIKE LUPICA

  Travel Team

  Heat

  Miracle on 49th Street

  Summer Ball

  The Big Field

  Million-Dollar Throw

  The Batboy

  Hero

  The Underdogs

  True Legend

  QB 1

  Fantasy League

  Fast Break

  Last Man Out

  Lone Stars

  Philomel Books

  an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, NY 10014

  Copyright © 2018 by Mike Lupica

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Philomel Books is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Lupica, Mike, author.

  Title: No slam dunk / Mike Lupica.

  Description: New York, NY : Philomel, 2018.

  Summary: In Annapolis, Maryland, seventh-grader Wes is a good teammate but this basketball season has been challenging because of his ball hog teammate Dinero, who is determined to steal the spotlight, and Wes’s army veteran father, who is suffering from PTSD.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018006767 | ISBN 9780525514855 (hardback) | ISBN 9780525514862 (ebook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Basketball—Fiction. | Veterans—Fiction. | Post-traumatic stress disorder—Fiction. | Fathers—Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Sports & Recreation / Basketball. | JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Friendship. | JUVENILE FICTION / Family / Parents.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.L97914 No 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018006767

  Edited by Michael Green.

  Cover Art © 2018 by Adam Brown

  Cover Design by Maria Fazio

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  This book is for Taylor McKelvy Lupica,

  for whom the song remains the same.

  She walked into the room and changed everything.

  Contents

  Also by #1 Bestseller Mike Lupica

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  About the Author

  ONE

  EVERYBODY ALWAYS SAYS THERE’S ONLY one ball in basketball.

  Now one had just hit Wes in the side of the face, making him feel like somebody had slapped him.

  Hard.

  It was a basic three-on-two drill: Wes on the right wing; Emmanuel Pike over on the left; Dinero Rey, the one leading the break, in the middle. There were two defenders waiting for them as they crossed half-court, waiting for Dinero to make the first move, to decide whether to keep the ball or pass it.

  It was less than an hour into the Annapolis Hawks’ first practice together. Wes was now Dinero’s teammate, a year after they’d been the stars of opposing teams in the sixth grade. As Dinero made his way down the court, Wes knew the defenders were expecting him to give it up.

  They knew what Wes did: Dinero was even better passing a basketball than he was dribbling it with either hand or shooting it from the outside or driving it to the basket. There was a reason why he was called Dinero even though his real name was Danilo.

  He was money.

  He was the smallest kid on the court. But that didn’t matter. He was fast and smart and flashy, with a game as big as his smile. A lot of kids his age could shoot and handle and blow past you if you gave them an opening. But it was what he could do with the ball that set him apart, Wes knew, from other kids their age, not just in their town, Annapolis, but maybe northern Virginia, too, and from all the slick ballers in Washington, D.C. Even though Dinero was only twelve, you could look him up on YouTube and see for yourself.

  Now the first pass Dinero threw his way, very first one, had hit Wes flush in the side of the face.

  Wes knew it was nobody’s fault but his own.

  “When you don’t pay attention,” his dad had always told him, “what you generally do is pay.”

  Dinero Rey had basically told him the same thing before they started the drill. Be ready if you’re open, he’d said.

  “I might not be looking at you,” Dinero said, “but you better be looking at me.”

  Then he’d given him a quick high five and that smile.

  “We’re gonna do big things, you and me,” Dinero said. “Just you watch.”

  Then Wes hadn’t been watching, and the ball caught him right next to his ear, bouncing off his hard head and out of bounds. The drill came to a stop in that moment, even though the ball kept rolling.

  Wes could feel the heat of where the ball caught him, could almost feel the impression of the ball, on a night when he was no different from everybody else on the court at the new Annapolis Rec Center, and wanted to make the best possible impression, on his teammates, on his coach, everybody.

  With his pale skin, Wes knew his face had to be getting red, and not just because of the ball hitting him, but the humiliation he was feeling.

  Dinero got to him first.

  “Sorry, dude,” he said. “I thought for sure you were looking.”
He grinned, which only made Wes feel worse.

  “My fault,” Wes said.

  “You okay?” The grin was still there.

  “Yes.”

  No! Wes thought.

  Anybody who’d ever seen Wes play, who’d seen the magic in his own game, always talked about what a great head for basketball he had.

  Only he wasn’t supposed to use it like this.

  Not on the first day of practice with the rest of the Annapolis Hawks, an elite team of seventh-graders that, in a year, would be playing in a new elite league. The other seventh-graders, the ones who hadn’t made the Hawks, would play in the same travel league in which they’d played last season. But the Hawks, they were moving on. And moving up.

  There were other stars from last year’s teams. But the two biggest were Dinero and Wes: the point guard and small forward who played big. The two guys who were going to do big things together.

  What had he been thinking about while the ball was busy finding his face?

  His dad.

  But mostly how he needed this team as much as he’d ever needed anything in his life.

  TWO

  THE DREAM FOR THEIR FAMILY had always been that they would move back to Annapolis, where Wes’s dad had graduated from the United States Naval Academy before he became a Navy SEAL.

  And that is what they’d finally done, at the start of sixth grade for Wes Davies, as his dad was about to set off on one last mission with the SEALs, in Afghanistan.

  Wes could still remember the day he and his mom had said good-bye to Lieutenant Michael Davies. To Wes, it wasn’t just like his dad was leaving. It was always more than that between them. His dad was his hero, his best friend, his first basketball coach, and still the one who had taught him the most. So much of what Wes already knew about the game, all the big stuff about teamwork and unselfishness and decision-making, he’d learned from his dad. Especially the part about making good decisions. Even at twelve, Wes knew that for a Navy SEAL, making good decisions could mean the difference between life and death.

  Before he’d left to get on the plane that day, Wes said, “Weren’t you supposed to be done after your last tour?”

  His dad put his arms around him. Wes had grown a lot between fifth and sixth grade, but he still felt like a little boy when his dad’s arms were around him.

  “Turns out the job wasn’t done,” his dad said. “And you know what I always tell you about jobs.”

  “They don’t finish themselves,” Wes said.

  Wes waited for his mom to say that the job was never going to be finished in Afghanistan. But she didn’t. Wes had heard them go back and forth about Afghanistan, not arguing, just talking about it in the kitchen when they thought he was asleep upstairs, their voices getting loud sometimes. When Wes would get up in the morning, he’d say, “Were you and Dad fighting last night?” And she’d smile and tell him that they weren’t fighting, just not giving in.

  There was none of that the day they said good-bye, his mom not wanting this particular good-bye to be any harder than it needed to be.

  “I’ll be back before you know it,” Michael Davies said to Wes, his strong arms still holding him tight. “And when I do come back, for good, I expect you to be twice the ballplayer you are now.”

  “I will be.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  Wes pulled away then, so he could look up at his dad, knowing there were tears in his eyes, but not caring.

  “You just promise you’ll come home.”

  “And I’ll be twice the dad I am now,” his dad had said.

  But when his dad returned, he wasn’t. Not even close.

  THREE

  NO ONE WAS QUITE SURE when the seventh-grade travel team in Annapolis had become the most glamorous one, at least before you started playing high school ball.

  But it always had been, even before the formation of the Tri-State League and the chance to compete out of the region and all the way to the National Travel Basketball Association tournament, in South Carolina.

  So there was that on the line for the Annapolis Hawks, along with the chance go on to play AAU ball, which was the first giant step toward getting a college scholarship someday.

  Wes knew AAU ball got you seen. It got you noticed. High school ball could do that, too. But Wes was still two years away from being a freshman, and AAU ball was next season. It was another reason why this season was so important.

  Just not the only reason.

  It was more than that with Wes, even though he’d never talked about why with his friends, or even his mom. And he told his mom almost everything.

  “You know,” she said at the dinner, “I’m almost positive you said something on the way home from practice. But I must have missed it.”

  “I was kind of bummed, is all.”

  “Wow,” she said, “I didn’t pick up on that at all!”

  He told her then about Dinero’s pass hitting him in the face and feeling like a complete idiot in front of the team.

  It was only the two of them, as usual. His dad no longer even came over for dinner. Wes still didn’t understand why.

  His mom slapped the table but was smiling at him as she did.

  “Oh, the horror!” she said. “Well, that’s it, we’ll have to find you another sport. I forget, are you any good at skating? Of course, that would bring in the risk of getting hit in that adorable face by a puck.”

  “I’m glad you think this is funny,” Wes said.

  “You know I don’t,” she said. “And I would never make fun of you. But missing one pass doesn’t sound to me like the end of the world.”

  “It wasn’t just the pass!” Wes said. Now he was the one with the loud voice at the kitchen table. “It was that I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “And, knowing you, it won’t happen again,” she said. “How did you play after that?”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “With you,” his mom said, “that generally means a lot better than just okay.”

  They ate in silence for a few minutes. The quiet never seemed to bother either one of them. It was one more thing that he loved about her. She didn’t know as much about basketball as his dad did. Wes was pretty sure that his dad knew more about basketball than anybody not coaching a team in high school or college or the pros. But his mom tried. She understood his dreams about making it to the nationals in travel ball, about AAU and college ball someday. And maybe even dreams that took him beyond college. She just didn’t treat basketball like it was a matter of life and death.

  When Wes looked up at her again, he said, “He’s even better than I thought he was.”

  “Who?”

  “Dinero.”

  She smiled again. “I kind of love that he calls himself that,” she said.

  “No kidding, Mom,” Wes said. “When he makes a really good pass or play, he even rubs his fingers together the way that guy Johnny Football used to.”

  “And nobody thinks that’s just a tad egotistical?”

  “I think they would with anybody else,” Wes said. “But somehow he even makes being egotistical look smooth.”

  “That’s not you,” she said.

  “And never gonna be me.”

  “Do you get the feeling that the two of you are going to be a good team?” she said.

  “We have to be,” Wes said. “Or the Hawks will never be the team I think we can be.”

  “You know what your father always said,” she said. “The beauty of basketball is five guys, one ball.”

  “Sometimes it’s just two guys,” Wes said, “having to figure it out. Curry and Durant did with the Warriors.”

  “And Davies and Rey will with the Annapolis Hawks,” Christine Davies said.

  There was another silence now, the longest yet, until Wes looked at he
r and said, “You think he might show up tonight?”

  She slowly shook her head, the smile gone, almost as if it had never been there.

  “Didn’t he say he might?” Wes said.

  “Your father says a lot of things these days, at least when he’s around,” she said. “He came home wounded this time, just not in the way that people think of a wounded soldier. And to make the pain go away, he drinks. I know you know that. It’s another reason why we’re apart right now.”

  “It’s because he’s hurting so bad.”

  “We all are.”

  “It’s like we only see the damage,” Wes said. “But dad has to live with it.”

  “I know,” his mom said. “I know.”

  She asked if he would like some dessert; she’d bought his favorite: salted caramel ice cream. Wes said maybe later.

  For now, they both knew where he was going.

  Out to the basket his father had put up in the driveway, a driveway he’d expanded himself to give Wes more room to move around and work on his game. A driveway that had once been their place and now was just Wes’s.

  “I used to think it was some kind of joke when people would talk about kids who eat and sleep basketball,” his mom said. “Not with you. You don’t need ice cream. You’re having basketball for dessert.”

  He managed a small smile now, even though it took some work. He was still feeling the sting of that pass.

  FOUR

  IT WASN’T THE SAME WITHOUT him.

  None of it was.

  It was still basketball. Wes could even appreciate the peace he felt, just him and the ball and the hoop, out here alone in the night, in a splash of light from the floodlight his dad had installed at the highest point of the garage.

  Somehow the sounds were almost sweeter when he was out here. Sound of the ball on the dribble. Sound of the ball hitting the net. Even what the announcers called the “kiss” of the ball off the backboard when he’d bank one in.

  The only sound that was missing was the sound of his dad’s voice.

  “You’ve got to finish, Wesley Davies. Finish the pass. Finish the drive. Finish the shot. Finish the job.”