Ben scans his team—which no longer includes me. When Leroy showed up with his younger brother, Jahmal, they both refused to play on Girls. “Don’t make me hurl, I ain’t no girl,” said Leroy, doing his idiot rapper rhyming thing.
So Jemmie pointed to me. “Come on, Big. You’ve been promoted to Girls.”
I’ll admit it, I got flustered—first because she noticed me specifically, and second because I sometimes think her nickname for me is code for “fat.” When I didn’t answer fast, she took it as a yes.
I’ve been a Girl now for, like, an hour, and I’m so hot I wish someone would kill me. Ben’s sweating too. His hair is plastered to his face, but he doesn’t notice. His head’s in the game.
Deciding which of his two guys to hand off to, Ben holds the ball high. I’m white as school paste, but Ben’s arms are tan from mowing lawns, almost as dark as Jemmie’s. Being African American, she’s tan year-round.
Jemmie gets all up in Ben’s face, waving her arms. “You don’t get points for hoggin’ the ball, you know.”
“Leroy!” Ben calls.
Of course, Leroy. Leroy’s six foot fourteen and decked out in a blue satin basketball uniform like a pro—if a pro got his threads at Goodwill. But as he goes up for the catch, Jemmie cuts in front of him, snatches the ball, dribbles once as she pivots around him, then drives hard down the street.
I’m just thinking that being a Girl isn’t half bad when Jemmie bounce-passes the ball to me. I reach, but it rolls off my fingertips.
Leroy lopes after the loose ball.
Cass snatches it on the run. She swings around, but when she jumps to take her shot, Ben steps right into her. She goes down so hard, her ponytail jolts straight out.
She hugs the ball and blinks up at him.
Geez. He knocked his girlfriend on her butt over a stupid ball?
“Foul!” Jemmie yells. “Free throw.” She drags Cass to her feet.
Cass stands behind the chalk line we drew on the road. She’s usually solid when it comes to free throws, but this time she misses. Guess being set down hard by Ben shook her up.
Leroy snags the ball as it rolls off the rim, then he sinks a turnaround jumper. He pumps his fist in the air, the rubber bracelets jiggling down his arm, and he grabs the ball. “Nothing but net!”
“What net? All we have is a rusty hoop.” That’s me talking—but not real loud.
Leroy rolls the ball down his arm and pops it in the air with his biceps. “It grows every hour, I got Leroy Power!”
Jemmie taps a foot. “Could you be any more in love with yourself?”
Hoping he keeps getting on her bad side with his showing off and the lame-o rhyming thing, I fade back to the safe zone, near the curb where the ball hardly ever goes, and watch Jemmie guard Leroy. He zigs, she zags—it’s like they’re dancing, they get so close.
Ben says on a scale of one to ten, one being “not a chance” and ten being “done deal,” getting Jemmie to like me is a high three. But as my best friend, sometimes he overestimates.
Leroy bumps Jemmie with his shoulder. She bumps back.
I’d put my chances with her at negative fourteen. Leroy has blue eyes like you never see on a black guy, and no zits—while I have one on my chin that deserves its own zip code. Leroy’s all slick moves, and here I am hiding out at the curb, my hands in the pockets of my plaid shorts.
I mean, who shoots hoops with their hands in their pockets?
Who wears plaid shorts?
“Give it!” Jemmie’s gold hoop earrings flash as she slaps at the ball. To Jemmie, life is a contact sport. To me, it’s more like a rerun of a bad old TV show—without snacks.
Leroy twists, keeping the ball away from her. “The girl can’t steal, ‘cause I’m the real deal!”
I sit down on the curb. This time Jemmie’s glare is for me, but it’s stinkin’ hot, and I’m not really in the game anyway.
Leroy passes to his kid brother—and Jahmal scores. Jahmal. A kid not much older than Cody.
Girls is ahead by eighteen points when a little kid comes poking down the road wearing a Humphrey Bogart fedora. (If you don’t know about HB or fedoras, you probably don’t watch old movies with your mom.) Everyone else is too busy grunting and sweating to notice him as he bumps along the curb.
I shade my eyes. “Cody?” The hat covers his whole head and makes the scrawny neck sticking out of it look like a pencil. “Can you see where you’re going?”
“I can see the ground.” He stops. “And what makes you think I’m Cody?”
“I recognize the shoes.”
“And the T-shirt.” Ben rests his palms on his thighs, gasping. “Which used to be mine.”
“Doesn’t prove it,” Cody says.
Leroy revs up. “Oh, you can’t disguise, ‘cause I reck-o-nize your skinny little thighs.” He bounces the ball, swatting it from one hand to the other. “You are Cody.”
“Am not.”
Leroy spins the ball on one finger. “Who are you, then?”
“Dobbs.”
Leroy tosses the ball up in the air. Still spinning, it lands on his finger again. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Dobbs.”
“Detective Dobbs.”
I like the hat. I’d wear it to high school next fall if it was mine. It would make me either cool or weird. “Where’d you get the hat, Detective Dobbs?” I ask.
“Closet.”
Leroy dribbles a fast circle around Cody. “Detect this, Detective Dobbs.” He pops the ball straight at Cody’s chest.
Cody can barely catch a ball when he’s looking right at it—but this time his hands whip up and he grabs it.
“Hey! You saw that coming!” says Leroy.
“Nuh-uh! I felt it. I have new detection powers.”
“For real? Let’s see if you can feel that ball into the basket, Mr. Detection Powers,” Leroy says.
Cody holds the ball in both hands and turns slowly.
“That’s it, that’s it,” Leroy coaxes as Cody turns away from the hoop.
“Leroy?” Jemmie pops him on the shoulder with her fist. “Quit being a butt.”
“Not tryin’ to be rude, just messin’ with the dude.”
“Is anyone else getting tired of shooting hoops with Dr. Seuss?” I ask.
Leroy points to Cody. “And the Cat in the Hat.”
Which I have to admit is a decent comeback.
Leroy snaps the elastic waist of his satin shorts and struts over to Cody. “Let me help you out there, Detective Dobbs.” But halfway to Cody he stops and rests his knuckles on his hips.
Like a compass needle finding north, Cody is slowly turning toward the basket. When the basket is dead ahead, he plants his feet wide and swings the ball back and forth between his legs.
Leroy blows out his breath. “You still have that broom handy, Ben?”
If this was a movie, Cody would nail it and everyone would cheer, but it isn’t. It’s just life.
“Take your time, Cody,” I say under my breath as he swings the ball between his skinny legs. Not a chance he’ll hit the hoop, but why not stretch the moment when it still seems possible?
“Hey, bop-a-loo-bop!” After one last crazy swing, the ball flies.
Jemmie lets out a whoop. Cass does a perky cheerleader jump. Ben slaps Cody’s shoulder. Jahmal gapes, like he won’t believe what just happened unless he sees the instant replay.
“Nothing but net!” I pump my fist in the air. Luckily no one notices the move.
Leroy’s so impressed, he forgets to rhyme. “You da man, little dude!”
Detective Dobbs pushes the hat up and sees everyone celebrating, then grins. “Told you. I have powers!”
Leroy runs the ball down, then shoves it into Cody’s hands. “Again!” He jams the hat down on Cody’s head, then leans over and looks up under the brim. “You sure you can’t see?”
“Just the ground.” Leaving out the “hey, bop-a-loo-bop,” Cody flings the ball two-handed over his head and puts it through the hoop a second time.
We all go wild.
Leroy scoops up the ball. “Let’s see you go three for three.”
Don’t try it, I coach Cody silently. Three for three? Nothing that sweet ever happens.
I guess Cody knows it too. He ambles toward the curb. “The hat says maybe later.”
“Let me take a shot wearing it.” Leroy snatches the hat.
“Hey!” Cody throws his arms over his bare head. “Give it back!”
“One shot to see what it’s got.”
“The power only works for the hat-finder—and that’s me.”
Leroy trots back, cocks the hat so it covers his eyes, and shoots, but it goes long and…splat, it’s back in the rotten leaves on Mr. B’s carport roof.
“Told you,” says Cody, staring up at the ball.
Leroy shrugs. “Don’t need that old hat anyway. Hooping in a hat ain’t where it’s at.”
Leroy starts basketball camp—and summer school—on Monday. The first because he’s so good, and the other because he’s so bad. I just hope he’ll be too busy to hang out with us.
Without bothering to get permission, he scrambles up onto the truck hood and long-arms the ball. He jumps down, plops the hat on Cody’s head, and pushes the ball into the kid’s chest. “Come on. Show me that hat trick one more time.”
But Ben hangs an arm around his brother’s shoulders. “You getting hungry, Detective Dobbs?” Ben asks.
The hat nods.
“Me too. Let’s go check out what Mom’s doing with tofu and sprouts today.”
Cody skips backwards a step and says, “See you guys!”
“Sure you don’t want to join Girls?” I call after him.
He stops. “Can I?”
“No.” Ben turns him toward home. “Catch you guys later.”
In the split second it takes Ben to look back and wave at us, Cody runs smack into a recycling bin.
Ben slaps the hat brim. “Take off the stupid hat.” When Cody doesn’t, Ben puts a hand on his shoulder.
“Bye, Ben!” Cass leans toward him like he’s magnetic. He lifts a hand, but doesn’t turn around.
If I had a girlfriend I would turn around. Heck, I’d walk backwards until she disappeared over the horizon. I glance at Jemmie, but she’s taking free throws, nailing them one after another. That girl doesn’t need a magic hat.
I sure could use one, though.