The phone rang and I picked it up on the first ring.
“Turn on TSN,” Kia said.
“I’m watching Sports Desk.”
We had an ongoing argument about which was the better station for sports.
“Good for you, but my guess is that you’re not the next story up on Sports Desk,” she said.
“What?”
“They just went to commercial but they said that they’re coming back with a story about us.”
“Us? They mentioned us?”
“Not us, like Nick and Kia, but us as in what we did.”
“Are you sure it’s about us?”
“Just turn it on.”
“Of course I will.”
“And Nick, which station is the best again?” Kia asked.
She started laughing and I hung up the phone. I grabbed the converter and punched in the numbers. It was still on commercial for a fancy car, which quickly drove off, and then the commercial ended and we were back to the show. The two hosts—both former professional athletes—were wearing suits and ties and sitting behind a big desk.
“Welcome back. I’m Frankie Horton and with me is my good buddy, Will Strickland.”
“It’s great to be here.” He turned directly into the camera. “You’re going to love this next story,” Frankie said.
“It certainly brought a smile to my face,” Will agreed. “Today support for our hometown Raptors reached new heights.”
The screen changed to show the view of our schoolyard as seen from an airplane. My mouth dropped open—it was perfect!
“Passengers flying into Toronto today were greeted by a gigantic sign cheering on our Raptors,” Will said. “ Those letters that you’re seeing on the screen, are over twenty feet high, and the whole thing is one hundred and twenty feet long.”
There it was on the tv screen for everybody watching the show to see—GO RAPTORS GO in giant grass letters, brilliant green against the brown of the dirt. It looked like it slanted a little bit to the side, and the O in the word Raptors was slightly smaller than the rest of the letters, but other than that it was perfect. I’d been so worried that I’d done it wrong, even though I’d used a measuring tape when I’d drawn the outline of the letters in the dirt—but there it was, almost letter-perfect!
“This scene was created in the schoolyard of Clark Boulevard Public School, where the grass on the field is being replaced with new sod.
“At first we thought we had some workers from the sod company to thank—”
“No, no, it’s us!” I screamed at the tv.
“But we’ve subsequently found out the true story,” one of them said.
I could only hope it was the true story.
“In an exclusive TSN story, we take you live to the Air Canada Centre, where our reporter, Julia Elizabeth, is standing by.”
There were two women standing, one of them—I guess Julia—holding a microphone.
“Hello, I’m here at the ACC with Christina Allison, Director of Community and Public Relations with the Raptors.”
So that’s what she looked like. She was a lot younger than I’d thought.
“So, Christina, you told us that you might have some insights about the creation of what we’re calling the Stonehenge of Raptors signs.”
“Yes, Julia. At first we had no more of an idea than anybody else about who created this sign,” she said. “But when we found out the location—the schoolyard of Clark Boulevard Public School—then I knew immediately.”
“And?” Julia asked.
“We’ve had a lot of contact with the students of that school.”
“What sort of contact?”
“They have sent us letters, emails, posters, paintings, drawings and written songs, and they have even changed the name of the school teams. They are probably the biggest Raptors fans in the city. And now they have created the biggest Raptors sign in history.”
“It certainly is the biggest one any of us have ever seen. Maybe the Guinness World Records people should be contacted.”
I hadn’t even thought of that—that would be so cool.
“So, Christina, who do we have to thank for this wonderful Raptors sign?” Julia asked.
“The whole effort has been led by one of the captains of the basketball team, a young man in grade six named Nick.”
Part of me wanted to cheer and part of me wanted to climb under the bed and hide. It was unbelievable that I was being mentioned on TSN, but also terrible that I was being mentioned. Now, for better or worse, everybody knew or was soon going to know. Everybody, including my parents, teachers, the principal and the guys who were in charge of the sod, would know. Boy, could there ever be trouble.
“Of course, I’m sure he didn’t do it by himself,” Christina went on. “This was probably the effort of the entire basketball team.”
That was so good she’d mentioned everybody. We all deserved the credit…and we could all share the blame as well.
“They sound like tremendous fans of the Raptors,” Julia said.
“That school is one in a thousand. And because of that I’m going to make a special offer to them.”
I jumped out of my seat. It had worked! They were coming to our school!
“I will be contacting their school tomorrow to offer them an invitation for the entire Clark Boulevard basketball team to attend this weekend’s game. They will be our very special guests and will watch the game from the owners’ private box!”
I screamed out in excitement. This was incredible! Not just a game but seeing it from the owners’ box! Unbelievable!
“So, we hope that the captain of the team, Nick, and the rest of the members of the Clark Boulevard team are out there watching,” Julia said. “And now, back to Will and Frankie.”
I slumped back onto my bed and the phone rang. I reached for it and then hesitated. It could be Kia. It could be somebody else who wasn’t so happy about what we did. I looked at the call display before I decided to answer. It was Kia. I picked up the phone.