Break Point (5 page)

The provincial championships were coming up in two weeks' time, and even though I had other things on my mind, I needed to focus on getting ready. Going in, I would be one of the lowest-ranked players. I would need to pull off some major upsets to make it into the top eight and qualify for the junior nationals.

I started training harder than ever, adding push-ups, sit-ups, bench presses and Russian twists to my workout. I ran up and down hills. I practiced sprinting and stopping, exploding from a standstill into full-speed action. I played practice matches as often as I could, with Maddy and anyone else who would take me on. I spent my paycheck on extra lessons from Armand, the club pro.

The vandalism at the club still bugged me though. In training, I could take my mind off it. But afterward, as soon as I got into the hot shower or on the jog home, I would wonder about the other guys on the surveillance video. Who were they? What was their deal?

I had a couple of mornings off work that week, so I decided to follow Quinte around and see which kids he hung out with. It was easy to pretend I was out jogging while I spied on him.

Maddy had told me that Quinte went to a special school. They had small classes for kids they called “developmentally delayed.” The school also had classes for kids who had nothing wrong with their brains— they just had bad attitudes. They were the kids who got kicked out of regular school because the teachers couldn't control them. It was a group of those kids that Quinte hung out with.

They were mean. They picked on Quinte, but he didn't realize it. It was as if they kept him around just to make fun of him.

One day, I saw them goad Quinte into throwing a lit match into a Dumpster in the alley behind a Chinese food restaurant. When the restaurant owner ran out, shouting and waving a fire extinguisher, the other kids took off. Quinte was left standing there with a clueless grin on his face, probably thinking he had torched a bunch of Dumpster-dwelling aliens. Luckily for him, the restaurant owner didn't call the police. He was too busy putting out the fire.

Another day, the same kids got Quinte to shoplift a gold chain from a jewelry store. Quinte was so klutzy, the burly security guard caught him before he got to the door. “Nice try, kid,” he said, flinging Quinte outside.

The other guys, watching from around the corner, laughed when they saw him fly across the sidewalk and land facedown on the hood of a parked car.

I didn't have any hard evidence, but it was pretty obvious to me that these kids were the same ones who had trashed our club.

The only thing that stopped me from going straight to the cops was knowing Maddy would be against it. We couldn't rat out the other kids without also ratting out Quinte. Maddy would never agree to that. And although I hated to admit it, she had a point. Quinte obviously didn't understand what was going on. He would do anything to please his so-called friends.

One of the kids looked really familiar, but I didn't figure out who he was until the third day, when I spotted him wearing a Rideau Tennis Club T-shirt. Then it clicked. His name was Mike Baron, and he was a tennis player who trained at Rideau Club. I had faced him before in tournaments.

If Mike Baron was one of the guys who had trashed our club, things might make sense. Maybe it wasn't a random act of vandalism. Maybe it was Mike's dirty way of striking a blow against his crosstown rival.

I jogged back to the club, eager to tell Maddy what I'd found out. I was hoping to catch her alone, but when I arrived she was crammed into the small office with her mom, Rex and Rex's dad. She was updating the club's website with a picture of Rex hoisting the silver Donalda Club Tournament trophy over his head.

“Put it right at the top of the page, Madhavi,” her mother said as I squeezed into the office. “It's not every day one of our members wins the Donalda.”

“Top of the province!” said Mr. Hunter, thumping Rex on the shoulder. Rex smiled. He looked his usual preppy self, in a pale yellow Lacoste tennis shirt. His dad was wearing a business suit and gold cuff links. Cuff links! I thought those went out with the serve and volley.

Mrs. Sharma turned toward me as I approached.

“Oh, hello, Connor,” she said. “Connor did quite well at the tournament too. Didn't you?”

“I made the provincials,” I said, trying not to sound boastful or bitter about Rex.

“Great stuff!” Mr. Hunter boomed. “I saw your semifinal match against Rex. What a drubbing!”

I shut my mouth because I didn't want to appear unsportsmanlike. Who used the word
drubbing
anymore, anyway?

“Guess I'll see you at the provincials, then,” said Rex.

“Yeah,” I said. With any luck, I'd make him eat my dust.

“Oh, Madhavi,” Mrs. Sharma broke in. “We have to put something up on the website about the black-tie fundraiser.”

“Yeah, just a sec,” said Maddy.

While she fiddled with the website, her mom explained her new idea for generating the money she'd hoped to raise at the tennis auction. It was going to be a high-class thing with men in tuxes and women in long gowns, cocktails served at the bar and live music by a jazz quartet. It didn't sound like anything I would go to in a million years.

“A black-tie event? Sounds like fun,” said Mr. Hunter. “Who's your celebrity guest?”

“Uh…” Mrs. Sharma hesitated. “Well, the deputy mayor is a member. And I thought we'd ask the host of the HOT 89.9 morning show—”

“No, no, you need an A-list celebrity,” Rex's dad said. “You need…let me think…” He tapped his fingers on his chin, then flicked his index at her. “You need Alanis Morissette.”

“Alanis Morissette?” Mrs. Sharma sounded stunned, as though Mr. Hunter had suggested we ring up Justin Bieber and ask him to drop by and play a little gig between his million-dollar engagements.

“Sure. Nice girl. Known her family for ages,” Mr. Hunter said. “She's in town this summer. Laying low at her family's cottage on the lake.”

“Can you get her?” Mrs. Sharma's voice was a mixture of hope and doubt.

“Sure. She won't want a big production though. How about an intimate acoustic concert? A couple hundred people? At a hundred dollars a ticket?”

“Sounds wonderful,” Mrs. Sharma said. “We could set up a stage by the pool. We'll put out floating candles, patio lanterns.”

“I'll get right on it,” Mr. Hunter said. He turned to his son. “You'll get the younger generation on board, Rex?”

“Sure thing, Dad,” said Rex. “It'll be like a retro-nineties thing.” Mr. Hunter looked at his watch. “Well, gotta get back to the office,” he said. In a flash of gold cuff links he was gone, leaving Mrs. Sharma to chatter on about how marvelous he was, and what a great benefactor to the club.

Maddy finished working on the website, unplugged a camera from the computer and handed it back to Rex.

“Thanks.” Rex flashed a smile at her. “Hey, I know you're working, but it's lunchtime. Want to take a spin on my Harley?”

“Cool,” said Maddy. She glanced at me but then looked away so quickly, I wasn't sure what to read into it. “Can I go, Mom?”

“I need you back in half an hour,” Mrs. Sharma said.

She smiled while Maddy and Rex went out the door together, but I just stood there, feeling sucker-punched. I had hoped to impress Maddy with my detective work.

Instead, she was going off with Rex.

“I thought you weren't working until this evening, Connor,” Mrs. Sharma said.

“Yeah, I came to get the ball machine,” I said.

For the next two hours, the machine whipped balls at me, and I slammed them back as though I were slamming them into Rex Hunter's face.

chapter eight

Two days before the U16 championships, my mom broke the news that she couldn't drive me to Toronto. Her fight to save the Tree wasn't going well, so she was ramping up her plan of action. She was going to hold a sit-in.

When I got up at 5:00 am Friday to catch the 6:00 am Greyhound, the only sign of Mom was a note on the kitchen table wishing me good luck beside a brown-bag breakfast of muffins and fruit. I guzzled some oj, mowed down a couple of muffins and headed for the bus station.

The street was empty except for the squirrels—until I came to the big corner lot where the Tree stood. There, sitting in a fork of the massive trunk, was my mother. She was wearing a navy-blue tracksuit, drinking tea from a thermos and reading a report titled “Guidelines for Planning Sustainable Neighborhoods.”

“Good luck, Connor!” Mom waved.

“Thanks, Mom,” I muttered.

At least I'd be getting out of town before the entire street woke up and discovered my mother perched in the Tree like the Lorax, except less cute and fuzzy.

I got off the Greyhound in suburban Toronto and took a city bus to the Ontario Racquet Club. It was a far cry from the Donalda. The club had about the same level of elegance as your average Walmart store. But what it lacked in ritziness, it made up for in size. The echoing concrete hallways stretched for miles, branching off into massive gyms where rows of sweaty people worked out on exercise machines. Outside, acres of tennis courts lay splayed under the baking sun.

I played my first elimination round on Friday afternoon. It was a tough match that went to three sets and left me dripping with sweat and tasting salt every time I licked my lips. I beat my opponent, though, and then I checked the board to see which player I would face in the second elimination round, on Saturday morning.

The name I saw made me burn.

It was Mike Baron.

Mike had a fighting look in his eye and a cocky sneer on his lips when I met him in the locker room the next morning before our match.

“You trashed my club. I'm gonna trash you,” I said.

“Fat chance, loser,” Mike snarled back.

Out on the court, Mike played my style of tennis. He hit big, hard serves and power strokes from the baseline. He was a tough kid, full of grit and anger.

We played long, grinding rallies, driving the ball at each other full-force, grunting like animals, with the sweat flying off our faces and the hot, smoggy air burning our lungs. It was hand-to-hand combat, down in the trenches, fighting for every inch of ground. When we came up for air, we were tied 6-6 in the first set. Neither of us had broken the other's serve. Neither was anywhere near conceding defeat.

We traded points in a grueling tiebreaker, then Mike took the lead at 12-11, with my turn to serve. I went on the attack with a monster serve that should have left Mike reeling, but he stuck out his racket for a block shot and put the ball in play. Another jaw-clenching rally followed.

With every hit, I imagined ramming the ball down Mike's throat. We stayed deadlocked for eight hits, ten hits, twelve hits, until finally he powered it past me for the point and won the tiebreaker 13-11.

We both knew it could have gone either way. We both knew that we would grind each other into the ground before one of us came out victorious.

The next set was a replay of the first, except this time I came out on top, half through luck and half through stubborn bloody-mindedness. Now we stood tied at one set apiece. On the break before the third set, I sat in my courtside chair, guzzling water, feeling the burning in my lungs and my legs and wondering how I would dig deep enough to win the final bout against Mike.

Then someone called my name. I looked around and saw Maddy's face pressed up against the fence.

“Let's go, Connor!” she shouted.

The sight of her sent a jolt of energy through my body. What was she doing here? What was she doing watching me? Wasn't Rex playing an elimination match on some other court? Wouldn't she rather be watching him, the winner of the Donalda tournament, the top-ranked junior in the province?

I waved at Maddy, then jerked my thumb across the net toward Mike. Earlier in the week, I'd filled her in on my suspicions about him.

She nodded. “Cream him, Connor! Take him down!”

Take him down. Yeah, I'd take him down, for Maddy's sake
and
to get justice for what he'd done to my club.

I opened the final set with a screaming serve. Then I followed up with a series of punishing forehands that Mike beat back with grim aggression. On and on we fought as the scorching sun inched toward its high point in the noonday sky. I felt the burning in my skin, muscles, throat and lungs. Every point was a battle, and we held each other in a death grip, each of us straining to bring the other down. In between points, I looked at Maddy, her fingers gripping the chain-link fence, and energy surged through me again.

At last we were tied at four games apiece on the final set. Mike was serving. The score stood at deuce when Mike double-faulted, giving me the advantage. Break point. It was my chance to pull ahead.

Mike served. I blocked it back. He hit a whopper to my backhand. I returned it crosscourt. He blasted it to my backhand. I slammed it down the line. This wouldn't be just another brutal baseline rally, I decided. This time, I was watching for an opportunity to surprise him. We exchanged blows twice more, and then I blasted the ball crosscourt to the corner. Mike reached it, but just barely. Here was my chance. I rushed the net. The ball soared toward me. I gave it a touch of underspin and dropped it dead into Mike's forecourt. He pivoted, lunged, but he was too far away to reach it. The ball dribbled away, so soft and yet so deadly. Game, Connor.

Maddy whistled. Mike slammed his racket on the ground. It was 5-4, and I was up a break. All I had to do now was hold serve to take the match.

I faulted on my first serve out of sheer nervousness but whipped a hard second serve to Mike's backhand. He hammered it back, hard and deep. Another baseline rally began. But things had changed. I had shown him I was willing to take a risk. I had a feeling he might be willing to take a risk too.

I tried to keep him back at the baseline, but I could see he was trying to come up. He was cheating a few steps forward, looking for his chance to rush the net. Finally, he did. He tried a drop volley like I had played on him, but he couldn't finesse it. He got too much power on the shot, and it landed midcourt. I scooped it up and sent it to an unprotected back corner. 15-0. Mike was seeing blood.