Edenville Owls

Chapter 39

It was Saturday. We had our final game of the regular season against a junior high school team from Fall River. Our record was fourteen and oh. So was theirs. One of us would go on to be in the state tourney. Changing in the high school locker room I was so nervous, my stomach was rolling. These guys were good. They were part of a feeder program for Durfee High, which was a basketball powerhouse in the whole state, not just eastern Mass.

Warming up before the game I felt stiff and awkward. The ball felt heavy. We were all nervous. Even Manny looked a little pale. Russell kept swallowing, his Adam’s apple moving every time he did. Their coach was one of the high school assistants, and the Durfee coach himself had come to watch. He was so famous, I recognized him from his picture. The Fall River guys gathered around their coach before the tip-off and he talked to them. The five of us kind of stood together, but none of us knew what to say really. If we won, we were in the tourney. And all of us were so tight that it was hard to talk.

There were even a few spectators. We never had spectators. I glanced up at them. Joanie! It felt like I’d stuck my finger in a light socket. She was there, sitting by herself in the first row. Big tan skirt, pink sweater, a small round white collar showing. She saw me see her and she smiled and waved. I nodded.

Usually when a game starts the nervousness goes away and you are playing. This time it didn’t. We threw the ball away. We missed layups. I lost my dribble twice. The guy from Fall River just took it away from me. Russell was taller than their center, but the Fall River center was heavier and was pushing Russell around like Russell was made of straw. Billy was missing badly from the outside, Nick lost the ball when he drove to the basket, and, at least twice, put up air balls while trying to shoot a layup. Only Manny seemed normal. He did what he does. He rebounded. He put back some of the rebounds for layups. He set screens for Billy and Nick. He kept his man from scoring. He dropped off his own guy sometimes to help Russell with the Fall River center.

Fall River must have been more nervous than they looked, because at halftime they were only five points ahead of us. They should have been up thirty. In the locker room we sat around looking at each other.

“We’re blowing this,” Nick said.

Russell was unusually quiet. He still looked pale, as if he had stomach flu or something.

“You see Joanie Gibson is here?” Billy said.

“She brought four friends,” Nick said. “They could probably beat us.”

“We got another half,” Manny said.

Everyone was quiet. All of them looked at me. What the hell was I supposed to do? Win one for the Gipper? I thought about Joanie. I thought about Miss Delaney. All of them kept looking at me. We had a half a game to make it or break it. Win one for the Gipper.

“They’re not that good,” I said.

“Better than us,” Nick said.

“But they’re not,” I said. “We’re just playing awful.”

“Awful,” Billy agreed.

“Because we’re choking,” I said. “Because this is the biggest thing we’ve ever had happen to us.”

“You’re nervous too,” Russell said.

“Yeah,” I said. “I am. But we’re thinking about this wrong. This is a big deal to us because we’re all fourteen years old, and we don’t know much.”

They didn’t like what I was saying, but nobody had much to say about it.

“Lemme tell you about somebody who has a real problem,” I said. “Not some basketball game.”

“It gonna help me make a layup?” Nick said.

“Might help you relax a little,” I said. “You know I told you about a guy bothering Miss Delaney?”

“Yeah,” Nick said.

“Here’s the story,” I said, and told them everything I knew about Miss Delaney and Richard Krauss, and Oswald Tupper and Miss Delaney’s little kid. At first they looked a little annoyed, and then they looked interested, and then they began to look mad.

“He might kill her?” Billy said.

I shrugged.

“She thinks he could,” I said.

“God,” Manny said.

“We gotta do something,” Russell said.

“We will,” I said. “After we beat the ass off these guys in the second half, I’ll tell you what we’re going to do about Miss Delaney.”

“Joanie’s been in this with you,” Nick said.

“Yes.”

Nick nodded.

“You see her in the stands?” Nick said.

“Yes.”

It was time for the second half. I walked to the locker room door. I grinned at the other Owls and opened the door.

“Let’s go, girls,” I said.

“Screw you and Knute Rockne,” Russell said as he went out to the court. But he didn’t look so pale anymore.

As the second half developed, Russell stopped trying to push back against their center and was now rolling off him and cutting for the basket. Nick sank two outside shots behind Manny’s screen, and when his man started playing up on him, Nick would dribble past him for a layup. He even hit one layup left-handed. Looseness was contagious. By the middle of the fourth quarter we were ahead by twelve points, loose and happy, and having fun. Fall River didn’t know what to do with us. We won by fifteen points.

In the locker room afterward we kept walking around saying how we’d won, saying how we were going to the tournament, saying how good we were. Then Russell stood up on one of the benches.

“Okay, we won!” he yelled. “We’re good. We’re going to the tourney. Now, what are we gonna do about Miss Delaney?”

“Lemme tell you,” I said.