“HE’S OKAY TO DO THIS?” DANNY SAID WHEN HIS MOM CAME OVER.
They’d set his dad up with two folding chairs at the end of the bleachers, at the stage end. One for him to sit on, one to rest the cast on.
“Just don’t go diving for any loose balls over there,” his mom said.
“He’d said they were doing more stuff today.”
“He lied, except for the part about the new cast, which they put on yesterday,” she said. “If the doctors hadn’t said okay, I would have had to bust him out.”
“He can come over and coach, if he wants.”
“He said you’re the coach.”
The horn had sounded, meaning they were about to start. Danny huddled his teammates up, knelt down in the middle of the circle, took a deep breath, and just started rattling stuff off. Who was going to start. That he was going to bring Ty off the bench sometime in the first quarter, depending on how the game was going. Will and Oliver, almost at the same time, said Ty could start in place of them. Danny started to say something but Ty cut him off, saying they’d decided he should come off the bench, fit in that way.
And, he said, he could be a bench coach when he was on the bench.
Danny said, “I’m all out of pregame speeches. Anybody got any bright ideas?”
Will Stoddard, looking serious for a change, as if he’d left the class clown back in Mrs. Walker’s classroom, said, “I do.”
He looked down at Danny. “You’re the biggest kid here,” he said. “I just thought somebody needed to say that.”
The Warriors responded to that by jumping up and down and going woof woof woof, like somebody’d let the dogs out.
Danny remembered what his dad had said, and decided to steal the line for himself.
“You never know what day might turn out to be the best day of your whole life,” he said.
He gave them all a no-biggie shrug.
He said, “How about we make it today?”
The Vikings started Da-Rod, Jack Harty, Teddy Moran, Andy Mayne, and Daryll Mullins. Danny went with himself, Colby, Bren, Will, and Oliver Towne. Right before they had broken the huddle, Ty had said to Danny, “When you make it a triangle-and-two against Da-Rod, tell them to pack the triangle in tight.”
Danny smiled. “I was hoping they’d allow us to use a triangle-and-four.”
It was 8–4, Vikings, after four minutes.
Danny had made the first basket of the game, sneaking behind Da-Rod Rodriguez and breaking away for a layup. Then Da-Rod, who was already giving Oliver Towne fits—Danny having Oliver try to shadow him—made three straight for the Vikings.
Colby came back with a bomb from the corner, right near where Richie Walker was sitting, that made him pound one of his crutches on the floor.
Daryll Mullins came right back for the Vikings, streaking down the lane and going up so high over Colby that Danny pictured him actually dunking the sucker for a second.
They got a whistle when the ball went skipping through a door that wasn’t closed all the way. When they did, Danny motioned for Ty to go to the scorer’s table and come in for Oliver.
“You take the big guy,” Danny said.
Ty smiled, just because he was back in the game. “My pleasure,” he said.
“You get tired, you tell me,” Danny said.
Ty said, “I’m rested enough.”
They tapped fists.
Ty went over and stood with Will now, while the refs reset the clock, which had kept running when the ball had disappeared through the door.
Danny couldn’t help himself, he looked over at Mr. Ross, who was staring across the court to where Ty and Will were, Ty laughing now at something Will had just said.
Danny thought he’d look mad, but he didn’t. There was something else on his face, not a smile, just this curious kind of look.
Tony the ref blew his whistle, meaning they were finally ready to go.
Mr. Ross stood up then and said, “Could you wait a second, Tony?”
His voice sounded loud in the gym.
He leaned down and whispered something to Daryll Mullins’s dad, Daryll Senior, his assistant coach. Then he reached down next to his chair and handed Daryll Senior his clipboard.
Then he waved for the Vikings to come over real fast, and now he was the one kneeling in a circle of players, talking and pointing. Now he was smiling. Tony the ref came over and Mr. Ross put a hand on his shoulder and leaned close to his ear.
Then Mr. Ross folded up his folding chair and walked diagonally across the court toward the bleachers. And then Ty’s dad did something even more amazing than leaving the bench.
He went over to where Richie Walker was and reached down and shook his hand and unfolded his chair and got ready to watch the rest of the game from over there.
As great as Ty Ross was at basketball, as easy as he’d made it look from the time Danny first played with him in fifth-grade travel, he didn’t have superhuman powers. So he looked rusty on offense from the start, missing his first three shots, even turning the ball over a couple of times. He was giving Da-Rod Rodriguez all he wanted at the other end of the court, though, even keeping him off the boards, outsmarting him time after time when the ball was in the air and beating him to the right spot under the basket.
But even if everybody else didn’t know how much he was pressing on offense, Danny could see it as clear as day.
It wasn’t until the last minute of the first quarter, a fast break, that Ty showed everybody in the gym just who it was they were watching, and reminded Danny—who really didn’t need much reminding—why he’d wanted to hoop with Ty Ross in the first place.
Will came up with a long rebound, beating Teddy Moran to the ball because Teddy had stood there waiting for it to come to him. The Vikings, sure Teddy was going to come up with the ball and keep them on offense, relaxed for just a second. By then, Will had passed the ball to Danny.
Ty, who could always see a play happening about five seconds before it happened, took off for the other end of the court.
Jack Harty had gotten back on defense, maybe because he’d never expected Teddy Moran to hustle after a ball.
Danny came from his right with the ball, Ty from Jack’s left.
Two-on-one.
Danny didn’t want to be coming down the left side of the court. His left shoulder was aching constantly now, the way a toothache ached, and he was afraid that if Jack backed off to cover Ty, Danny might have to shoot a left-handed layup.
He wasn’t sure at this point that he could even raise his arm high enough.
If he went with his right hand, he was begging Jack to try to block his shot, even if Jack had to get back on Danny in a flash to do it.
Danny was at full speed as he passed the free throw line. Jack backed off to cover Ty. Or so Danny thought.
Jack Harty had suckered him. He only head-faked toward Ty, waited until Danny went into the air, and then came at him with arms that looked as tall as trees and seemed to be everywhere at once.
Danny had already committed himself, was already in the air. But instead of putting up his shot anyway, instead of even trying to raise his left arm, he underhanded the ball—hard—underneath Jack Harty’s arms and off the backboard.
It was a pass, not a shot.
It was a pass that caromed perfectly off the top of the backboard, came right to Ty on the other side of the basket, Ty catching it and shooting it in the same motion, not even using the backboard himself, putting up a soft shot that was nothing but net.
Like this was a move they’d spent their whole lives practicing.
Vikings 12, Warriors 10.
Nobody scored from there to the end of the quarter. When they ran off the court after the horn, Danny said to Ty, “Okay, dude, you’re back.”
“I still can’t shoot.”
“They’ll start to fall.”
“How do you know?”
“I know the way I know we’re gonna win this game,” Danny said.
He stopped Ty, turned him around so he was facing where Richie Walker and Mr. Ross were sitting, Richie pointing toward the Vikings’ basket and talking a mile a minute, Mr. Ross nodding his head.
“If that’s possible,” Danny said, “anything’s possible.”
“Good point, point guard,” Ty said.
The good news was that they were still only down a basket at halftime.
The bad news—double dose of it—was this:
He had three fouls and so did Bren.
So did Colby.
Danny was going to take Ty out of the game after his second foul, but Ty told him not to worry, he could make it to halftime without picking up his third, there being only ninety seconds left, if they went into a straight zone. But the next time the Warriors had the ball, Ty made a move to the basket against Da-Rod, and Teddy Moran came over to help out. Ty didn’t see Teddy coming, and barely brushed him as he spun into his move against Da-Rod, but Teddy threw out his arms and flopped backward as if he’d been sideswiped by a truck.
Tony the ref gave him the call.
Offensive foul on Ty.
Third foul. Ten seconds left in the half.
The Vikings gave the ball right back when Andy Mayne got called for stepping over the line when he was trying to inbound the ball. So the Warriors would get the last shot of the half. The Vikings put a half-baked press on them, Teddy covering Danny. While they were waiting for Tony to hand the ball to Colby, Teddy slapped Danny on the back. Smiling again, like they were practically best buds.
But Teddy had caught him on the spot back there that hurt the most, the exact place where he’d landed last night. Danny couldn’t help himself, he yelled out in pain, even getting the attention of Tony the ref, who turned around to see what the problem was.
Danny waved him off.
Like they were just kidding.
“What have we here?” Teddy Moran said quietly.
Then clipped Danny again for good measure, right before Danny broke away so Colby could pass him the ball.
They went out into the hall for halftime the way they had at the Kirkland game, Danny’s first as coach. Richie Walker always said that when you had a good routine going, stay with it. So they all had Fruit Punch red Gatorade again. His mom brought the oranges.
There was even more excitement crackling around them now, one half in the books, than there had been before the game.
Because of this:
Because they’d showed they could play with the Vikings.
Danny hadn’t dominated Andy Mayne when Andy had been guarding him, not by a long shot. But Andy, despite having the size on Danny, and the strength, had only scored one basket. Danny, on the other hand, had at least six assists, probably more than that.
It was right before halftime when Daryll Senior had decided to switch Teddy Moran over on Danny for a couple of minutes, which had to mean only one thing—he was worried that trying to stay in front of Danny was wearing Andy out.
In the hallway, Danny said, “Everybody on this team is a coach now. Anybody has anything to say, speak up now. On account of, now’s the time.”
Ty said, “I should sit at the start of the third.”
Danny said, “Maybe the whole third, if we can just hang in there.”
“Keep it close,” Bren Darcy said, “and then bring the big dog back.”
“Bad dog,” Will said.
Then the guys started with woof woof woof all over again, so loud Danny knew the people inside the gym could hear them. Maybe the Vikings, too.
Tess looked at them, shaking her head, this disappointed look on her face. “Boys,” she said.
Danny stood up.
“Here’s the deal, okay? I saw the Vikings play Piping Rock. Piping Rock may have gotten the top seed, but they aren’t better than these guys.”
“Your point being?” Will said.
“If we beat these guys, we’re going to win this tournament,” Danny said. “No question.”
Ty pointed to the front of his jersey.
“We’re number one,” he said.
After warm-ups, Ty took the chair closest to where Tess was sitting at the scorer’s table. With Robert O’Brien in Ty’s place, Danny moved Will to a forward position in the triangle, asking both him and Oliver Towne—asking them as nicely as possible—to somehow prevent Da-Rod from turning into Tim Duncan while Ty was out of the game.
There was another delay before the start of the quarter while the refs checked the clock again. Ali Walker came back from the ladies’ room and waved Danny over when she saw which players were on the court.
“Question,” she said.
“Shoot.”
“We did all this to get Ty to play for us, and now he’s not going to play for us?” she said. “Discuss.”
“It’s like this whole deal, Mom,” Danny said. “Don’t worry about how things are at the start. Just at the finish.”
“Check,” she said. “Now gimme five.”
He did.
“Hey,” Tess said from behind him.
For the first time since he’d known her, she looked nervous. Scared, almost. Looked extremely un-Tess-like.
“You okay?” he said.
“You didn’t tell me sports were this hard,” Tess said.
“Are you kidding?” he said. “We’re just getting to the good parts.”
Said the one-armed boy to the tall girl.
Halfway through the quarter, the Vikings had stretched their lead to ten points. Not good. Danny called his first time-out of the half at 28–18, thought hard about bringing Ty back right there, decided to stick to his guns. Telling himself that fourteen points was the cutoff point, if the lead got that big, Ty was coming back in.
He explained all that when they got to the huddle. When he finished, he looked over at Ty and said, “I’m right. Right?”
“Your call,” Ty said.
Danny said, “When you come back in—for good—I want you to play full out. We just need somebody to get hot until then.”
Will Stoddard and Colby Danes somehow got hot at the exact same time.
It’s a terrible thing, Will had always said, for a guy to be hot and not know it. He meant, to not be getting any shots at all. Daryll Mullins had been shutting him down the whole day in the Vikings’ man-to-man, but suddenly Will got open for two jumpers. Then another. The Vikings tried to double-team him a couple of times after that, and when they did, Will swung the ball to Danny like a champ, and he made two passes to Colby.
Great passes to Colby, if he did say so himself.
One was a bounce pass that went right through Teddy Moran’s fat legs, because that was the only way to make it. The other one was a no-looker to her in the corner.
Both Andy Mayne and Teddy kept trying to overplay him, make him go left, because they’d figured out that was the side bothering him. But he made the passes to Colby after going to his left. Then Will and Colby were both hot, and all the Vikings started paying more attention to them, trying to shut them down until Ty came back.
Missing the point, the way people did all the time about basketball.
He’d always known that everything started with the pass, because that’s how everything had started with his dad.
A good pass never cared how big you were.
Or how much your stinking shoulder hurt.
It came down to this:
Vikings 37, Warriors 33.
Three minutes left.
Ty had come back in at the start of the fourth quarter and as soon as he did, Danny set him up for three straight baskets. On the last one he drew Da-Rod over, floated the ball over him like he was putting a kite up in the air, knowing it probably looked like an air ball to everybody watching.
Danny didn’t care. He knew that Ty knew it was a pass.
Ty had read Danny’s eyes all the way, caught the ball when it came down over Da-Rod Rodriguez, faked Daryll Junior to the moon, put it up and in.
Now they had to find a way to make up those four points in three minutes.
The Warriors hadn’t been in the lead since Danny’s first basket had made it 2–0. Bren had fouled out by now, and so had Colby. Will was sucking so much wind Danny could hear him breathing every time there was a stop in play.
The whole game, Danny had been telling himself—and the Warriors—they’d find a way to win.
Now he wasn’t so sure.
No matter what they did, they couldn’t catch up.
Ty scored off a steal from Teddy Moran, who stood and cried to the ref he’d been fouled instead of chasing after Ty, who got a bunny layup.
They were only down a basket. But Jack Harty muscled his way in and scored for the Vikings. Will answered by throwing up a prayer from the corner after he got double-teamed, then acting as if he knew he had it all along.
He ran by Danny, still wheezing a little, and said, “I still got it.”
Danny called his second-to-last time-out with a minute and thirty showing on the clock. He wasn’t even trying to hide how much his arm hurt by then; when he came running over to the sideline he must have looked like he was carrying some kind of imaginary load on his left shoulder.
He was also tired enough to take a nap.
He told everybody to get a drink. Then they all stood around him. Nobody spoke. All he could hear now was everybody’s breathing in what was suddenly a fairly quiet gym at St. Pat’s.
Vikings 39, Warriors 37.
Tess handed Danny a Gatorade. Gave him a quick squeeze on his good shoulder. Smiled one of her best smiles at him, just because she seemed to have an endless supply of those.
Ali Walker said, “Just exactly how bad is that shoulder you failed to mention to your sainted mother before the game?”
“I just need to rub some dirt on it, is all.”
Tess said, “Rub some dirt on it?”
“Baseball expression,” he said. He was too tired to smile. “I know, I know, one sport at a time.”
To the Warriors he said, “Just don’t let them get another score.” He pointed to the scoreboard and said, “Forty points wins the game.”
Then he told them, no screwing around, what they were going to run.
When they broke the huddle, Danny passed by Teddy Moran, heard Teddy say, “You’re going down, little man.”
Danny stopped.
“Ask you a question, Teddy?” Danny said.
“What, squirt?”
“You ever, like, run out of saliva?”
The Vikings were still in a man-to-man, and Danny and Ty ran a perfect pick-and-roll. Or so it looked until Jack Harty came racing over and jumped in front of Ty, blocking his path to the basket.
Ty didn’t hesitate, gave the ball right back to Danny.
Now he was the one with a clear path to the basket.
Until Teddy Moran grabbed him from behind with two arms before Danny could even bring the ball up, knocking Danny down like it was a football tackle, falling on top of him, planting Danny’s left shoulder into the floor.
Ty got to him first as Danny rolled from side to side on the ground, Ty probably remembering the fall he’d taken in the scrimmage. Then he pulled Danny carefully up into a sitting position.
“Deep breaths,” Ty said.
Danny finally managed to get his breathing under control, saw his mom start to run out on the court as he did, froze her where she was with a shake of the head, even though his shoulder now felt like Teddy Moran had set fire to it.
Tony the ref had already thrown Teddy out of the game for his flagrant foul. Danny could see Teddy’s dad and Teddy yelling at Tony from behind the Vikings’ bench. Tony turned and told them that the next thing he was going to do was throw them both out of the gym.
That finally shut up the whole Moran family.
A flagrant foul in their league meant two shots for Danny, and also meant the Warriors got to keep the ball. Tony asked if Danny could shoot his free throws. If not, Danny knew, there was this dumb rule that the Vikings were allowed to pick a shooter off the Warriors’ bench. Which would mean one of the O’Brien twins.
NC.
No chance.
“I’m good to go,” Danny said.
He stood up, got what he thought might be the loudest cheer he’d ever gotten, took the ball from Tony, went through his little four-bounce routine. Made the first free throw. Missed the second.
Vikings 39, Warriors 38.
Still Warriors’ ball.
Jack Harty was waving his arms in front of Oliver Towne when he tried to inbound the ball to Ty. Oliver forgot you couldn’t run the baseline after a made free throw the way you could after a made basket. As soon as he took two steps away from Jack, Tony the ref called him for traveling.
Vikings’ ball.
They called their last time-out, came out of it, tried to run out the clock. But when they finally swung the ball to Da-Rod in the corner, Danny and Ty ran at him at the same time, trapping him. In desperation, he tried to bounce the ball off Danny’s leg. Danny jumped out of the way. Da-Rod threw it out of bounds instead.
Warriors’ ball.
One minute left.
Danny called his last time-out.
Instead of going back to his bench, he walked all the way across the court to where his dad was.
When he got there, he crouched down in front of him.
“Got a play for me, Coach?” he said.
Richie Walker looked at Mr. Ross, then back at Danny.
“Yeah,” he said. “Mine.”