Table of Contents
Also by Mike Lupica
Comeback Kids novels:
Hot Hand
Two-Minute Drill
Safe at Home
Travel Team
Heat
Miracle on 49th Street
Summer Ball
The Big Field
Once more for Taylor and our four children:
Christopher, Alex, Zach and Hannah. They
make me look for the best in these stories, the
best in sports, the best in myself.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
For my friend Luis Alberto Lopez,
from Quetzaltenango, Guatemala.
His restaurant is known as Chef Luis.
His spirit infuses the pages of this book.
ONE
Pedro Morales loved playing basketball with Ned Hancock.
It didnt make Pedro different from any other sixth-grade basketball player at Vernon Middle School. Or in the whole town of Vernon for that matter. Ned made everybody around him better, every time he stepped on a court, whether it was for a real game or just scrimmaging.
But the thing Pedro liked best about playing with Ned is that Ned made him better.
Made him want to keep getting better at basketball.
And that meant every time Pedro stepped on a court.
Ned was doing that for him now, in the pickup game they were playing in the gym at the middle school. Which in their town, because the school district was so big, was for sixth-graders only. A school all their own is the way they looked at it, no seventh- or eighth-graders to bother them or bully them or bigtime them.
Today the kids had the gym all to themselves, school having been dismissed early because of teacher conferences. But Mr. Lucchino, the principal, had offered to stick around and let them use the gym, knowing that the first practice for the town team was the following Wednesday night, now that the players had been selected.
Last day of spring training, Mr. Lucchino had said before rolling out the cart with the balls on it.
Pedro, a point guard, was on Neds team today. Ned had picked him first even though he could have gone for a bigger guy. Ned liked playing with Pedro, too, because Pedro could pass. Not as well as Ned could. Nobody their age in Vernon could do anything in basketball as well as Ned could.
But Ned always wanted guys around him who knew how to pass. Even though he was only eleven years old, it was as if he already knew exactly how basketball was meant to be played. And that started with moving the ball.
Pedro felt the same way. Playing with Ned, going back to last year when they were old enough to play on their first town team together, reminded him why he loved basketball so much, loved it the way his father, who had been a star soccer player as a boy in Mexico, had always wanted him to love soccer.
Now the game Pedro and the rest of his friends were playingfirst to ten baskets, didnt have to win by twowas tied at 9-all. Pedros team had the ball. As they were taking it out under their basket, Ned said to Pedro, Lets do this.
Ned was serious. It wasnt a pickup game to him now. If they were keeping score, he wanted to win. Even though they all knew there would be another game after this, and another game after that, until Mr. Lucchino finally told them to go wait out front for their parents.
When it was game point, Ned Hancock always played like he was playing for the championship of something, even if it was just the next time down the court.
Ned was a small forward, even though he wasnt small. He was tall enough to play center and a good enough shooter to play shooting guard. If he wanted to play point guard, he would have been better at handling and distributing the ball than Pedro was.
But he played forward. Point forwardthats the way Pedro thought of him, like they had two point guards in the game at the same time when they were on the same team.
Ned was a point everything, really.
Mr. Everything, thats what he was in basketball, and in their school, where he was the best student among the boys. He was even about to get elected president of Vernon Middle.
Forget about president of Vernon Middle, it was as if Ned was the mayor of all the kids their age in Vernon.
Before Ned inbounded the ball, he bent down to tie his sneakers, just as a way of buying a little time. As he did, he said to Pedro, Lets run a high pick-and-roll. You and me. Just without the roll.
Could you try that again in plain English? Pedro said.
Ned did.
Pedro smiled as he began dribbling up the court.
Joe Sutter, the best rebounder in their grade and Pedros best bud, was also on their team. Pedro wasnt worried about Joe getting in the way, because even though Joe didnt say much, he also didnt miss much. Sometimes he had a way of reading Pedros mind, in a basketball game, a soccer game, or even in a video game.
Jeff HarmonNeds best budwas guarding Pedro.
Watch out for a trick play, Jeff called out. I saw them talking down there.
Pedro was past half-court now, holding up a fist, which everybody on both teams knew meant absolutely nothing.
Very funny, Jeff said.
No, Pedro thought, just plain fun.
This was always the best of it for him, in any sport, when he could see a play inside his head and was about to make it happen.
As soon as he began dribbling to his right, Joe cleared out of there and ran to the other side of the court. Like he just knew it was going to be a two-man game nowNed and Pedrothe same way it had been so many times last season on the fifth-grade town team.
As soon as Joe cleared out, Ned came running up to what the announcers on television liked to call the foul line extended, and set a monster pick on Jeff Harmon, who had been sliding to his left as he guarded Pedro. Jeff may have been Neds bud, but it didnt help him now on game point, because when he ran into Neds pick, nobody having called it out, Pedro could actually hear the air come out of him like it was coming out of a balloon.
Jeff was still sure he knew what was coming.
Pick-and-roll! he said, gasping for breath. Ive got Ned.
He stayed home on Ned. Bobby Murray left Ned now and picked up Pedro. And they would have had the play covered if Ned had kept going toward the basket, the way you were supposed to on the kind of pick-and-roll play they had been using all game long.
Only Ned, instead of cutting toward the basket, popped out a couple of steps away from it.
And instead of trying to beat Bobby Murray off the dribble, Pedro suddenly pulled up, too, spun and put the ball over his head and whipped a two-hand pass, hard, over to Ned.
The ball barely seemed to touch Neds hands before it changed direction and came right back at Pedro.
Like the ball was on a string.
Or had bounced back to Pedro off some kind of invisible wall.
It was just enough to make Jeff Harmon turn his head. As soon as he did, Ned was gone.
The only thing missing was that whoosh you got in a superhero movie when Spidey or the Silver Surfer or one of those guys was there and gone.
Pedro didnt even bother catching the ball, just tap-passed it back to Ned over Jeffs head and over the rest of the defense, a sweet little floater of a pass, almost like they were playing volleyball on the beach and he was setting Ned up for a spike.
Ned didnt spike it. He just caught the ball and laid it up in one motion.
