After basketball on Friday, I came out of the school buzzing with adrenaline. Adrenaline mixed with a little bit of meds, unfortunately, since I’d had to use my stupid inhaler once (or twice) during the tryout. Still, it had been a great practice. And not just for me. Trev, too.
I hustled toward the spot where Uncle Vic and I had agreed to meet. When I turned the corner and didn’t see the car, I slowed down. Planting one foot on the sidewalk, I jumped up and twisted midair, replaying a shot I’d taken over the head of my defender during the full-court scrimmage. I’d been matched against one of the better ninth-grade players — a guy I had pegged as a starter for the senior team. Had Coach Koniuk noticed how I’d beaten him at the line?
Crouching low to the ground, I pretended to dribble. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the feel of the leather ball on my hand. I faked a pass to the left and then pivoted right. With a pretend pass to my pretend teammate, I executed the perfect give-and-go. When the pretend ball came back to me, I did a spin turn and took one step toward the net for the perfect layup. I opened my eyes, planted my other foot, drove my knee up and was about to release the shot —
I stopped midmotion.
“Still pumped from practice, I see.” Willow stood in front of me, blocking the path.
I straightened up and crossed my arms over my chest, sticking my hands under my pits. I wondered how bad I smelled. I’d changed my shirt and added another layer of antiperspirant, but still … It’s not like our junior high had showers. Not the kind that anyone felt comfortable using, anyway. That would have to wait for the big league: high school.
“Yeah, you could say that, I guess.” I kicked at a rock with the new high-tops Mom had picked up for me. “It was an okay practice.”
“Okay? You look pretty happy.”
I smiled, just a little. Truthfully? I loved basketball more and more with every practice. A lot more than I thought I would, anyway. And a lot more than I wanted to with the risk of being cut hanging over me like a scoreboard over an NHL hockey arena. “What are you up to?”
Willow tilted her head in the direction of the gym entrance. “Late practice.”
“Oh, yeah, ’course,” I said, feeling like a total idiot. I’d seen the other girls warming up on the sidelines as we were cooling down. “Aren’t you late?”
Willow shrugged. “I still have a few minutes. Where’s Trev?” She took a step toward me and looked around as if Trev might be hiding behind my back or something.
“Walking home,” I mumbled as I lowered my head and sniffed, a pathetic effort at discreet underarm-odor detection. “I’m waiting for my uncle.”
“How’d Trev do in practice?”
“We spent most of our time on opposite sides of the gym, but I heard someone say that he won a foul shooting —”
HONK, HONK!
The blare of a car horn interrupted me. Willow covered her ears.
“That’d be my uncle.”
Willow looked sharply in the direction of Mom’s car. “Uh-huh?”
“Yeah …” I said, although for a moment, I thought about denying it. I didn’t want Willow to think he was a dork — sitting in the driver’s seat of our old beater, laying on the horn and grinning like Sammy the Banana Slug. On the other hand, I didn’t want her to think he was handsome either. What if she started wondering why I hadn’t inherited his blond hair and blue eyes?
“Okay, well, see ya,” she said.
“Later,” I said as she walked away.
“Oh, and you’d better be ready,” she called over her shoulder.
“Ready?”
She turned so she was facing me, but she kept walking backward toward the gym entrance. “Firefighting? Our interviews?”
“Oh, I’ll be ready …”
Willow pointed to herself, then to me and then back to herself. “I’m going to put you through the wringer.”
I waved her off. Thanks to E. O., I figured I was already well on my way to becoming an expert on firefighting.
Unfortunately, I still had a lot to learn.
•••
I got in the car, slamming the door extra hard behind me. “You’re late,” I said.
“I didn’t see you rushing to the car.” Uncle Vic turned the radio down and started the engine. He never let it idle. I’d heard him lecture Mom about it hundreds of times because she always let the car warm up for ages. She even had one of those remote starters — or environment destroyers, as Uncle Vic called them.
“You didn’t have to honk.”
“Oh, yes, I did,” Uncle Vic said as we cruised onto the main road in front of the school. “You were in pretty deep with that girl.”
“Her name is Willow.” As I said this, I could see her standing up to Aidan and hear her saying, His name is Hudson …
“She’s cute.”
“Whatever.” I shook my head, erasing the image of Willow’s confident smile. “And we weren’t in deep. We were talking about basketball practice.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I threw my gym bag onto the backseat, wondering what Uncle Vic would say about Willow’s questions about Trev. Why did she care where he was or how he’d done in practice? She hadn’t asked me how I did or where I was going.
This was something that an uncle — especially a single one with lots of dates — should be able to help out with. I might’ve asked him, too, if he’d expressed more interest. But he didn’t.
I glanced at him as he sped through the school zone. Even though it was a cool fall day, he wore a faded T-shirt — displaying the logo of some obscure band — and mirrored aviator shades. This style, which had always seemed so cool (especially compared to Mom), suddenly struck me as a disguise. What happened to my hip, rock-star uncle? The one I used to look up to?
When I was younger, we’d hung out a fair bit. But I hadn’t seen him much lately. He’d been too busy with his new band — and maybe other stuff as well.
He used to take me on these awesome road trips. Once, we’d made the four-hour drive to Philly to watch the Flyers play the Sabres. Uncle Vic’s not much of a hockey fan, but he’d jumped on the Flyers bandwagon that season, and we’d had a great rivalry — until his Flyers beat out my Sabres in the first round of the playoffs.
Uncle Vic had been flush with cash then, and he’d done a few gigs in Wilkes-Barre and Elmira on our way back home. The best part had been camping out at the side of the road, next to a lake. We’d attempted some fishing and then stayed up late telling ghost stories by a crackling fire. Mom would have freaked (and still would) if she’d found out we’d slept under the stars, surrounded by the bears and cougars that lived in the woods. Not to mention the sketchy guys who’d decided to camp there, too, and joined Uncle Vic for a beer. But we’d survived (obviously), and it had been one of the best trips ever.
I reached forward, about to turn the radio up — Uncle Vic had found a classic rock station that was better than Mom’s country, but not much — when his phone beeped.
“Is that a text?” he asked.
“Dunno.” I glanced at the phone lying on the console between us. “You need to change the settings so it makes different tones for different functions. Sounds like you still have it on start-up mode. You can program it to make different tunes, you know, for each caller. You can even record your own riffs —”
“Just check it for me, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, picking it up. “I can program it for you. You don’t even have this password protected. Dude, that’s just asking for trouble.”
“Is it a text or not?” snapped Uncle Vic. “I’m expecting a text.”
Without answering, I held up the phone so Uncle Vic could see the text.
CALL ME NOW
Uncle Vic squinted at the phone.
“It’s from Sage,” I said, remembering the name from Uncle Vic’s interview with E. O. “Either it’s urgent, or she doesn’t know how to take it off caps lock.” I laughed a little at my own joke, but Uncle Vic was not amused.
“Sh —” He hit the steering wheel with both hands and then swiveled his head to the left side — the quickest shoulder check in the history of driving. “Shoot. I need to find a place to pull over.”
The last of my post-practice buzz drained from my body as I twisted the phone in my hand. “Just call her on the speakerphone.”
“I can’t afford a ticket,” growled Uncle Vic.
“You won’t get a ticket using hands-free —”
“What?”
“Just call her when we get there,” I said, deciding it was easier to simplify things. How did Uncle Vic, who promoted all his gigs on social media, know so little about technology?
Uncle Vic put his foot on the gas. “Doesn’t it say call now?” His voice dripped with sarcasm — Mom’s specialty, not Uncle Vic’s. “Not call later?”
“If you pull over to call, we’ll be late,” I insisted.
The phone beeped. Another text from Sage.
NOW! PKG ARRIVED … GOOD STUFF
“What is it?” Uncle Vic swerved into the bike lane to pass a truck in front of us.
“Nothing,” I lied. “Just a reminder about the first text. No big deal.” I crossed my fingers and hoped we’d make it there in one piece. And on time, so E. O. wouldn’t give up on us. Uncle Vic was worried about getting caught for using his phone while driving, but not for speeding? What about reckless driving? Or arson?
“Do you want me to text back?” I asked. “Tell her you’ll call in five?”
“No.” Uncle Vic turned onto a side street, tires squealing.
I put my finger over the speaker, hoping to muffle the next beep, and turned the radio up high. A second later, there was another text. I looked anxiously at Uncle Vic, who either didn’t hear it or chose to ignore it. Driving along a residential road at high speed — narrowed to one lane because of all the pickups parked along the sides — obviously required a lot of attention. What kind of ticket would you get for hitting a cat or dog? What about a kid?
I took my eyes off the road, even though it made my stomach flip with motion sickness, and read the message.
BUT NO DEX FOR ROX
Package? Stuff? Dex? Rocks? Sage was either really bad at typing or she was using code. Or both.
I gripped the door handle as Uncle Vic peeled around another corner, almost fast enough to make the car go up on two wheels, like a stunt driver.
Sage’s texts were suspicious. Was the “stuff” drugs? I once again considered the possibility that Uncle Vic was messed up with something. Addiction could explain a lot. And if he were a user, could he also be a dealer?
We were getting close to his house. I could see blue tarps covering the roof, the edges blowing in the wind ahead of us. “Slow down!” I hissed. “You don’t want E. O. to see you driving like this!”
“Chill, kid,” Uncle Vic said as he eased off the gas pedal and signaled right, even though there was no one behind us. “It’s not like he’s a cop. Remember what he said?”
My stomach burned with a toxic mixture of motion sickness and suspicion as Uncle Vic pulled up to the house and then slammed on the brakes to parallel park. “But he knows!”
“Knows what?” Uncle Vic demanded as he threw the car into reverse. “I don’t have anything to hide. Not from him!”
The words sliced through me, and I fought to stay calm. Uncle Vic — a druggie? The more defensive he got, the more possible it seemed. The minute he cut the engine, I jumped out of the car, dropping his phone on the seat behind me.
I could hear him muttering into it through the open car window as I rushed up the sidewalk, but I couldn’t make out the words. Not many, anyway.
Okay, I did hear a few: hook-up, Dex and money.
With each one, a sharp pain dug deeper and deeper into my side.
If it wasn’t drugs, what the heck could it be?