FIRST: THE FIGHT.
He and Will had gone to the new Jackie Chan movie at the Middletown Theater, the one with the old-fashioned marquee out front, somehow hanging in there against all the multiplexes in the area, including the new one outside Twin Forks, in the factory-outlet mall that was roughly the same size as Texas.
Danny’s mom had brought him and Will, and Will’s mom was supposed to pick them up at the Candy Kitchen afterward.
That’s where they ran into Teddy Moran and Jack Harty and fat Eric Buford.
Will saw them come in, scoping out the room with his back to the wall in their back booth. He always sat facing the room, afraid he was going to miss something, even if it was only who’d just come through the door.
“Check it out,” Will said. “Terrible Teddy actually found two people who wanted to go to the movies with him.”
He said it in his boom-box voice, as if everybody in the Candy Kitchen had suddenly gone deaf.
“You better repeat that,” Danny said, “I think a couple of guys in the kitchen might have missed it.”
“C’mon,” Will said, “you’re the one who always says that calling Moran a snake is insulting to a lot of innocent water moccasins.”
There may have been less popular twelve-year-olds in Middletown than Teddy Moran, whose father hosted his own show on the town’s AM radio station. But if there were, Teddy was trying his hardest to take the crown.
Somehow Teddy thought his father’s celebrity made him one, too. He went through life with even more mouth than Will, as if doing the play-by-play for himself and everybody else. He liked to think he had a lot of friends, but really didn’t. In fact, if there was one enduring mystery in Middletown, at least among guys their age, it was this: Why Ty Ross had anything to do with him.
Danny just wrote it off to the fact that Ty would find good qualities in a guard dog.
He even managed to do it with a punk-face like Teddy, with those pig eyes, with a mouth set in a smirky way that made it look as if he were always on the verge of getting a flu shot. Teddy Moran: Who always got a lot braver when he had somebody as big as Jack Harty with him, even though Jack usually seemed to be embarrassed to be in the same area code.
Danny was hoping that if he and Will ignored them, they’d go away. No such luck. Will hadn’t just talked too loudly, he’d made the fatal mistake of eye contact.
So the three of them came over and stood near the booth, Teddy in front of the other two. Danny thinking: Yeah, Moran, you’re a born leader.
“Hey, Walker,” Teddy said, “is it true you’re playing with girls now?”
Looking over one shoulder, then the other, at Jack and fat Buford, like he’d gotten off a good one.
Will said, “It’s easier for us with girls than it is for you, just because they don’t run the other way when they see us coming. Or, in your case, smell us coming.”
Teddy ignored him, saying to Danny, “What color are your uniforms going to be—pink?”
Will said, “Did somebody say punk?”
Danny leaned forward and sipped his root beer float, then looked up at Teddy. “Is there some point you’re getting to, dude? Or are you planning to go from booth to booth busting chops, and just happened to start with us?”
Jack and fat Buford turned and went to the counter to order, somehow bored by the sparkling conversation.
Teddy stayed. “Hear you’re spending a lot of time with Ross,” he said.
“Jealous?” Will said.
Teddy shot him a sideways glance. “Nice hair,” he said. “Come home with me later, you can scrub some of our dinner pots with your head.”
“Holy crap, that’s a good one,” Will said. “I’ve got to get a pencil from one of the waitresses and write that one down.”
To Danny, Teddy said, “One of these days, you and your pals have to get over not making the grade.”
“You’re absolutely right, Moran,” Danny said, feeling himself starting to get hot now. “The other thing I’ve got to do is get my dad to sponsor the team next year, just to guarantee me a spot.”
Garland Moran’s station, WMID, was the Vikings’ sponsor this season.
“Your dad?” Teddy said. “Sponsor a team? With what, his bar tips?”
Will got up first. “Shut up,” he said. “Now.”
Teddy Moran started to turn away from them, on his way to the counter, but decided to say one more thing.
“Loser coach,” he said, “for a loser team.”
Danny, in a quiet voice, said, “Hey, Moran,” to get his attention.
So he’d turn.
So Danny wasn’t technically blindsiding him with what Will would describe later as a blinding first step, coming out of the booth and up into Teddy Moran, grabbing two fists’ worth of Teddy’s stupid F.U.B.U. sweatshirt as he did, Teddy thinking F.U.B.U. made him a cool-black white kid, driving him back into the swivel chairs at the counter.
Teddy was bigger and heavier than Danny the way everybody was bigger and heavier, but his lack of guts made it a fair fight.
The two of them went down in the opening at the counter where the waitresses brought out the food, Teddy hitting the floor hard as Danny heard people start to yell all around them, heard Teddy himself yelling, “Get off me.”
Danny was on top of him now, had him by the front of the sweatshirt, had his face close enough to smell movie popcorn on Teddy’s breath.
He could feel people trying to pull him off, but he wasn’t ready to let go.
Still wasn’t sure whether he was going to bust him in the face and knock the smirk off it.
“Take it back,” he said.
He knew how lame it sounded as soon as he said it, but it was the best he could do, he could barely breathe, much less think clearly.
Even now, Teddy was still all mouth.
“About him being a drunk, or a loser?”
Now Danny pulled back his right hand, ready to pop him, see if that would finally shut his fat mouth. But Gus, the owner of the Candy Kitchen, the guy that kids considered the real mayor of Middletown, caught his hand like he was wearing a catcher’s mitt and said, “How’s about we don’t make this worse than it already is?”
Will finished the job of pulling Danny off Teddy Moran.
Teddy was already on his feet, safely behind Jack and fat Buford, a complete phony to the end, trying to make it look as if he were trying to get around them and back at Danny, and they were holding him back.
“Truth hurts, huh, Walker?” he said.
Will was moving Danny slowly toward the door.
“You’re the one who’s going to get hurt,” Danny said. “When it’s just you and me, next time.”
“You talk tough for a midget,” Teddy said. “Everybody in town knows the real truth about your old man except you.”
Danny tried to turn around, but Will had him in a bear hug, saying, “You’re probably only grounded right now. Let’s not shoot for life without parole.”
They stood on the corner, Danny breathing like crazy now, gulping in air like he’d just run a hundred-yard dash, Will saying they ought to get out of there, he’d call his mom and tell her to pick them up at Fierro’s.
“I should have kicked his ass,” Danny said.
“Everybody in there thinks you already did.”
They walked down the street. When they passed Runyon’s, they saw Richie Walker at his usual corner stool, his face fixed on the television set. Danny didn’t know what he was watching, but he recognized the look on his dad’s face, the one where it looked as if he was staring hard at nothing, all the way into outer space.
Danny staring hard at him.
What had Teddy meant?
The real truth?
Danny was grounded for the next week, not even allowed to attend practices. He pleaded his case to his mom as soon as Mrs. Stoddard dropped him off at home that night, telling her what Teddy Moran had said, explaining that Teddy had lied when he told his mom that Danny had jumped him from behind.
He knew it wasn’t going to help his case even a little bit, but he finished by telling her that if anybody in town deserved to catch a good beating, it was Teddy Moran.
“Are you finished now?” Ali Walker said.
“Pretty much. Yeah.”
“You’re right. He is a jerk. He happens to come from a long line of jerks, the biggest being his father. And having told you that? You’re still busted, kiddo. You know my position on fighting.”
He did, reciting it to her now the way he would have the Pledge of Allegiance. “The only thing fighting ever proves is who’s the better fighter,” he said. “And you usually know that before you start.”
No phone privileges after dinner for a week. No after-homework television.
No computer of any kind unless it involved homework, which meant no instant-messaging.
“No IM!” Will said at school on Monday. Mock horror. “No tube? She’s turned you into the Count of Monte Cristo.”
What felt like one of the longest school weeks ever—no computer privileges always made him feel like he was stranded at night on some kind of desert island—finally came to an end. His dad stopped by Friday afternoon, telling him that he’d scheduled six games so far, the first one on the first weekend in December, the last of the six the Sunday before the Christmas holidays began. He also said that despite a lot of bitching and moaning—his dad’s words—from Middletown Basketball, Colby Danes was leaving the seventh-grade girls’ team and joining them.
He was at the front door when he turned and said, “Oh, by the way, one other thing? We’re scrimmaging the Vikings tomorrow afternoon at St. Pat’s.”
“We’ll get killed!” Danny said.
“I figure.”
“You don’t care?”
“Listen,” he said. “I know they’ll care, even though I’m not letting them use the scoreboard. They’re not even supposed to keep score in a scorebook, though I figure they’ll find a way. They’re going to rub your faces in it. I just want to see what we’ve got, and who I should be scheduling, especially if it turns out we don’t get into the league.”
“The league hasn’t told you yet?”
“They say they’re still quote, considering my request, unquote.”
“While they do, the Vikings get to use us as tackling dummies.”
“It’s just a scrimmage, not the Final Four.”
Danny said, “More like a car wreck, if you ask me.”
He felt like a jerk, talking about car accidents in front of his dad, as soon as the words were out of his mouth.
The stupid jerk of all jerks.
Inside his stupid head, he pictured himself using both hands trying to grab the words out of the air and stuff them back inside his mouth.
“What I meant…”
“Relax,” Richie said. “I know you didn’t mean anything. But it’s not a car wreck, kiddo. It’s just basketball. I used to think it was a matter of life and death, too. I found out the hard way that it wasn’t.”
It turned out to be a train wreck.
Mr. Ross hired a couple of refs Danny recognized from sixth-grade travel. Mr. Harden worked the clock. The Vikings wore black practice jerseys Danny didn’t even know they had, with their own numbers on the backs and everything. Danny’s team wore white T-shirts.
No spectators, not even parents. Just the players, the two coaches, the two refs.
In the huddle, Will said, “The refs want to know what our team is called.”
They all looked at each other.
Will said, “I never really thought Rugrats was all that catchy, to tell you the truth.”
Danny said, “How about the Warriors?” He looked up at his dad. “As in the Golden State Warriors.”
For a moment, a blink of an eye, it was as if it were just the two of them, getting ready to play one-on-one in the driveway. His dad looked back at him, and winked. “Works for me,” he said. “Warriors okay with the rest of you guys?”
“Why not?” Will said. “We’ll be like the real Warriors. Just much, much smaller.”
Richie had them put their hands in the middle, told them not to worry about who was winning or by how much, to play hard, have fun, work on their stuff.
When they broke the huddle and lined up to start, Danny looked around at the five starters for the Vikings, seeing how much bigger they were, knowing how much better they were. Then he leaned next to Will’s ear and said, “Holy crap. Who picked these teams?”
The Vikings went with Ty, Jack Harty, Andy Mayne, Daryll Mullins, Teddy Moran.
Against: Danny, Bren, Matt, Oliver. And Colby Danes.
The only place where the Warriors had a height advantage of any kind was Matt against Jack, but that didn’t mean squat, Jack Harty was a better player in just about every way.
Richie had Bren guard Teddy Moran. Danny took Andy Mayne, Colorado boy. As they all took their positions before the older ref, Tony, threw the ball up, Teddy walked close enough to Danny to say, “I was wrong. This team needs more girls.”
Somehow Matt got the opening tip from Jack, back-tapping it to Danny, who immediately put one finger in the air and yelled “Syracuse.”
It wasn’t just the number one play in their offense, it was pretty much the only play, even if Richie had given them some options they could run, depending on how the defense reacted to it.
Danny passed to Bren, then cut away from the ball and set a pick for Colby on the right wing. She was supposed to cut toward the free throw line if the pick worked, and Bren was supposed to pass it to her if she was open. If she wasn’t open, Danny was Bren’s second option, cutting right behind Colby.
The Vikings switched on her, so Danny got the ball back. He was supposed to look for Matt underneath the way Colby would have. Because while they were doing their pick thing out top, Oliver Towne was supposed to be flashing across the baseline and picking Matt’s man—Jack—and seeing if they could free Matt up for an easy layup.
It happened just that way, exactly the way Richie Walker had drawn it up for them, the way it happened when he had walked them through it the first time they’d practiced together.
Jack turned his head to see where Colby was after the first pick, even though Colby was covered. Oliver set a perfect screen, and Danny whipped the ball to Matt who, amazingly, did two things that qualified him for his own personal Book of World Records:
Even without a scoreboard, Danny had always been pretty good at keeping score in his head. Not just keeping score, but knowing how many points every player on the court had. He didn’t know how he could do that, but he could, almost from the first time he started playing organized ball.
Just another part of having a head for the game.
But even he lost track now, as the Vikings scored either the next thirty, or thirty-two, points of the scrimmage.
That meant between Matt’s basket and the two free throws Danny made with four seconds left in the first half.
Ty scored at least half of them, maybe more. The Vikings were doing fine just using their regular man-to-man, but then Mr. Ross had them put on their full-court press halfway through the first quarter, at which point they seemed to score ten baskets in the next twenty seconds.
The Vikings started double-teaming Danny in the backcourt as soon as he touched the ball. Instead of coming to help him out, the rest of the Warriors, with the exception of Colby, kept running away from the ball. When Danny would find somebody to pass it to, they hurried so much trying to get it right back to him, they usually threw it away, which usually meant another layup for the Vikings.
When by some miracle the Warriors did manage to get the ball over half-court, the Vikings would double-team Danny there, daring anybody else on his team to make a stinking basket.
While all this was going on, Teddy Moran was holding a nonstop, trash-talking festival, as if he were winning the game single-handedly. It was all Danny could do to keep his cool. But he did, knowing that you couldn’t pick a fight when you were getting your doors blown off this way.
His dad tried calling a couple of time-outs.
They didn’t help.
It was basically like trying to call a time-out right after somebody had yelled “Fire!” at a school assembly.
At halftime, Richie told them for what felt like the hundredth time to relax, telling them they knew how to play a lot better than this.
Will raised a hand and said, “You absolutely sure about that, Coach?”
“Mr. Harden talked to Mr. Ross,” Richie said. “They’re gonna take the press off for the whole second half. And that one’s on me, we didn’t work enough on breaking the press. For now, try to stay with your man, and do the best you can running the offense.”
Danny said, “What offense?”
Richie gave him a look. “Hey.” That’s all it took, Danny felt like he’d gotten a good swat.
“Sorry.”
“You knew these guys were better. And bigger. They’ve had a lot more practice time than we’ve had and most of them have been playing together a long time. Like I said: Don’t worry about what they’re doing, let’s just work on our sh…stuff.”
He almost used another s-word, didn’t.
The real s-word happened with about five minutes left in the game, as it turned out.
There was 5:25 showing on the clock. Danny would remember the exact time when Mr. Ross called a time-out and put Ty and Teddy back into the game, after he’d sat the two of them for most of the second half. Danny had been out of the game since the middle of the third quarter, and had started to wonder if his dad was going to put him back in, or if he might be done for the day.
But now his dad poked him and said, “Why don’t you go guard your buddy.”
“Ty?”
“I was being sarcastic,” Richie said. “Take the mouth.”
“You heard what he’s been saying the whole game?”
“I don’t need to hear it, I can tell just by looking at his face,” Richie said. “I’ve been playing against guys like that my whole life. The only way to shut them up is to shut them down. So go do that.”
After the substitutions, the Vikings took the ball out. Danny picked up Teddy as soon as he got the ball in the backcourt.
Teddy put the ball on his hip and said, “Look, it’s Stuart Little.”
But as soon as he put the ball on the floor, Danny took it from him, picking him clean off the dribble, and taking it to the basket for a layup. Teddy didn’t even try to catch him, whining to the second ref, DeWayne, the one who looked like a dead ringer for Snoop Dogg, that Danny had fouled him.
Teddy let Ty bring the ball up next time. Ty started the Viking offense on the left side, while Teddy ran to the right. He waited until Ty passed to Daryll Mullins in the left corner, figuring everybody was following the ball. Including Danny, who was between his man and the ball the way he’d been taught.
As soon as he turned his head, Teddy stepped up and hit him in the neck with an elbow.
It felt like Teddy had hit him with a bat.
He couldn’t catch his breath for a second, dropping to his knees and holding both hands to his throat while everybody else ran up the court after Daryll Mullins made his jumper.
“Hey!” Richie yelled to Tony, the ref closest to the play. “What was that?”
Tony saw Danny on his knees then, but made a quick gesture with his hands over his eyes; it was his way of telling Richie he hadn’t seen what had happened. Then he blew his whistle, stopping play.
Richie knelt down next to Danny.
“You okay?”
He swallowed hard, the inside of his throat feeling as if he were swallowing tacks. “I’m okay.”
“I’m taking you out.”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Hey,” Richie said, putting both hands on his shoulders, looking him straight in the eye. “Just play, okay? No payback, at least for now.”
Danny nodded.
Two minutes to go. Vikings’ ball. Everybody on their team except Ty was goofing around now, doing whatever they wanted on offense, shooting from wherever they wanted to, making showboat passes, even though Mr. Ross kept making a show out of being pissed and telling them to run their stuff.
Danny noticed Ty giving warning looks to Teddy a couple of times. Like he was saying, Cut the crap. But Teddy ignored him.
Jack Harty, who hardly ever took a long outside shot, decided to fire one up from twenty feet. Danny and Teddy ended up underneath, each trying to get position to get the rebound. Ty was there, too, already having the inside position on Will.
While everybody was looking up for the ball, Teddy gave Danny another elbow, this one in the side.
Enough, Danny decided.
More than enough.
The ball had hit the back of the rim and bounced straight up in the air, as high as the top of the backboard.
As it did, Danny got a leg in front of Teddy Moran, planted it good and solid, and, as he did, used perfect rebounding position, elbows out, to shove Teddy hard to the side, his left elbow like a roundhouse punch into Teddy’s rib cage.
It knocked Teddy off balance, made him stumble to his left, just as Ty Ross, who had gone high up in the air when the ball had finally stopped bouncing around on the rim, was coming down with the rebound.
Danny saw it all happening like it was super slo-mo on television.
Or in a video game.
Only this wasn’t fantasy ball.
This was Ty landing on Teddy instead of the basketball floor at St. Pat’s.
This was Ty Ross, not just the best twelve-year-old player in town but the most graceful, the one who never made a false move on the court, rolling over Teddy’s back, the ball flying out of his hands, nothing to break his fall as he landed hard on his right wrist—his shooting wrist—with a crack on the floor that sounded like a firecracker going off.
Then Ty was rolling on the floor at St. Pat’s, cradling his right arm to his stomach, screaming in pain.