I’M IN MY ROOM TRYING TO READ The Merchant of Venice for English class, which is proving to be pretty hard, when something hits my bedroom window. The splat remains of a snowball are sliding down the glass. I open up the window and cold air rushes into my room just before I get blasted in the face with another snowball.
“Snowball fight!” Erin yells from across the street.
I throw on my jacket and shoes and race downstairs.
“Where’s the fire?” Dad says as I pass him in the living room.
Erin drills me in the chest just as soon as I exit through the door.
The flakes are falling huge and fast and the whole neighborhood is coated in white. Something pretty magical happens whenever it snows around here. The neighborhood gets very quiet and all the trash, broken glass, and graffiti are hidden under the white, at least for a little while. It seems too early for snow, which makes this night even more beautiful—like an unexpected present.
While I scoop up some snow and pack it, Erin hits me three times, which is when I realize that she has stockpiled snowballs. Once I have one packed, I charge Erin and take aim. She ducks and I miss, so I decide to tackle her, but not too hard, because there isn’t all that much snow on the ground. She doesn’t put up much of a fight at first, but then she tries to wrestle me, so I grab her wrists and pin her arms with my elbows, and we kiss.
Our mouths are the warmest things in the world right now.
“Isn’t it amazing?” she says as the snow falls past my ears and lands all around her head.
“It is.”
“Let’s sit on the roof and watch it fall all night.”
“Okay.”
We see two headlights approaching, which seems weird because most people around here are afraid to drive in the snow.
We stand, and I recognize the Ford truck as Coach’s.
“Why is Coach here?” Erin asks.
“Dunno.”
Coach pulls up slowly, rolls down his window, and says, “Finley, take a ride around the block with me?”
I look at Erin and shrug.
“I’ll go hit Pop with a snowball,” Erin says. She actually picks one up from her pile and then jogs to my home. I wonder if she’ll really throw it at the old man, which she could get away with, because Pop loves Erin as much as I do.
I get into the truck and the heat streaming from the vents burns my fingers when I try to warm my hands.
Coach doesn’t drive around the block. He says, “How’s Russ doing?”
“Fine.”
“Have you talked to him about playing basketball?”
“Yep,” I lie. Ever since his birthday he’s been extra quiet, and I get the sense that he doesn’t really want to talk about basketball or anything else, so I let him be. But Coach doesn’t want to hear that.
“What does he say?”
“Nothing really.”
“Nothing?”
“No.”
“What does he say about basketball?”
“I don’t think he wants to play basketball.”
“Russ said that, or you think it?”
“He’s not really stable.”
“Are you a psychiatrist now, Finley?”
Coach has never talked to me like this before. There’s sarcasm in his voice and I can tell he’s annoyed with me, which makes me angry, because I have walked to school with Boy21 every day, eaten every school lunch with him, and allowed him to be my shadow for more than two months now. And tonight I was having a nice private moment with Erin before Coach interrupted us.
“No, sir,” I say.
“I expect you to make sure Russ gets his physical tomorrow after school in the nurse’s office and that he shows up to the team meeting on Friday. Understood?”
“Yeah.”
“When you see the boy play, you’ll understand why this is so important. Trust me.”
“Okay.”
Coach reaches through the darkness and squeezes my shoulder. “Thank you, Finley. This is about more than basketball. More than the team. Russ likes you. You’re helping him.”
I don’t know what to say to that, because it sure doesn’t seem like I’m helping Russ, and he really isn’t getting better, as far as I can tell.
“Tell your family I said hello,” Coach says.
I nod and then run through the falling snow toward the house.
Erin’s watching the Sixers game with Dad, and Pop’s shirt is all wet, which lets me know that she really threw a snowball at the old man.
“This is one feisty broad,” Pop says to me.
Dad laughs. “She ran in here and blasted Pop in the chest!”
“If I had legs…”
“Sure,” Erin says, “the old no-legs excuse.”
There aren’t many people who could get away with talking this way to Pop, but Erin’s special to us. She’s put her time in. She’s family.
“Come on, Finley,” Erin says.
And then we’re on the roof again, watching Bellmont turn white—one snowflake at a time.
“What did Coach want?” Erin asks.
“He thinks I should encourage Russ to play basketball,” I say.
“Cool,” Erin says as she climbs on top of me.
By morning almost all the snow has melted, so no snow day.
As we walk to school Erin says, “Russ, you interested in playing basketball?”
“Don’t know,” Russ says.
I glance at his face and he’s sucking his lips in between his teeth. He catches my eye and it’s almost like he’s asking for permission. I know I’m supposed to encourage him to play, but for some reason I don’t.
“Physicals are after school today in the nurse’s office,” Erin says. “Best get one just in case. You can go with Finley.”
Russ nods.
I don’t say anything.
We both pass our physicals later that afternoon, but we don’t talk about basketball.
On the day of the preseason meeting, Mr. Allen calls to let us know that Russ will be out sick. This is the first day of school he has missed, and I wonder if it has anything to do with the meeting.
After school our team meets in the lunchroom and Coach quickly hands out permission forms and a practice schedule that begins the day after Thanksgiving. Just tucking the papers into my backpack gives me a rush, because this moment is the first official basketball experience of the year.
After the meeting, as my teammates hustle off to football practice, Coach says, “Finley, can we talk?”
I stay behind and, once we’re alone, Coach says, “What’s Russ been saying to you about basketball?”
This again? Why won’t Coach lay off it?
“We got our physicals,” I say.
“That’s good. But the boy refused to come to school today—the day of the basketball meeting. His grandparents told me he’s talking about outer space again, saying his parents are coming to get him in a spaceship.”
I watch the janitor empty the trash cans on the other side of the cafeteria.
“Did you tell him that he should play ball? Have you been encouraging him, Finley?”
“He doesn’t want to talk about basketball,” I say. “We don’t talk about much at all.”
Coach sighs and gets this disgusted look on his face. “Listen. Just make sure he’s at the first practice. Let’s just see how he reacts to being part of the team, running drills, getting back to normal for him. He needs the routine. Even if he never plays in a game. Just being part of something can help. You, of all people, should know that.”
I have to admit, I’m getting a little pissed at Coach. Why isn’t he hassling Terrell or Wes or any of the other starters, asking them to help Boy21? Why is this my mission alone? I just want to play basketball.
“I know you won’t let me down,” Coach says, and then lightly slaps my right cheek twice.