Hoop Crazy (6 page)

“You feeling any better?” I asked.

“A little bit,” Ned said. He was still clutching an ice bag to his face.

“I'm so sorry,” Kia said. “Especially about your glasses.”

They had split in two, right down the middle on the bridge.

“That's okay,” Ned said. “They were already broken and I had them held together with Crazy Glue.”

“We have some of that,” I said. “Maybe we can fix them.”

Even better, maybe we could fix them and get the ice bag off his face before our mothers came back from their walk. I hadn't thrown the ball, and it certainly wasn't my fault that he was such a nerd that he couldn't catch a ball, but I knew that somehow this would be my fault.

I looked anxiously at my watch. They'd left just a few minutes before he'd gotten hurt and were sup
posed to be gone for a walk through the neighborhood and that was about twenty minutes ago … so …

“Here, let me take the ice away,” I said as I pulled away the bag. “It's not good to keep cold on it too long,” I offered as an excuse.

I took the bag into the kitchen and dumped it in the sink. I pulled over a chair and pushed it over to the fridge so I could get up into the cupboards above it. That was where we kept all the different types of glues in the house. I rummaged around until I found the little vial that contained the super-stick glue — the stuff that can hold back a charging elephant.

My hope was that Ned's glasses would be back on his face and we'd all be on the driveway bouncing a ball before our mothers got back. Not that I wouldn't tell them about what happened — later on — but it would be a lot better if they were told about it rather than seeing it themselves.

“I'm so sorry about hitting you in the face like that,” Kia said for about the tenth time.

“I think he gets the idea,” I said. “Besides it wasn't like you were trying to hurt him. Why didn't you put your hands up?”

“I did. But I thought it was going to be a chest pass,” he said.

“It was.”

“But it hit me in the face. I had my hands at my
chest to catch it,” he said.

I shook my head. “It's called a chest pass because you
throw
it from your chest.”

“Oh, I didn't understand.”

“Maybe that part was in the two pages you didn't get to finish before you played.”

“Let me see if I can fix your glasses,” Kia said, taking the glue from my hands.

“Maybe I should do it,” Ned offered. “I've had lots of practice. I'm always bumping into something and knocking my glasses off. I've broken them four times already this summer.”

Kia handed him the glue.

“Where's Mark?” I asked.

“He went out to practice shooting,” Kia said. “He mumbled something about how we're really going to need his shots to drop.”

“No doubt there.” I turned to Ned. “Are you going to come back outside to play?”

“I don't know. Maybe I should stay in here and read some more about basketball.”

“I think playing would be better,” Kia said encouragingly. “You can't let one ball in the face hold you back. Right, Nick?”

“Yeah, sure, whatever.”

“Remember two seasons ago during the playoffs when Julius Johnson played when he was so sick with the flu that he could hardly walk?”

“Who's Julius Johnson?” Ned asked.
Kia and I looked each other in total shock.

“Is he some sort of basketball player?” Ned asked.

“Some sort of basketball player?” I echoed back. “No, he's not
some sort
of player. He's the best player in the game.”

“One of the best players in the
history
of the game,” Kia added.

“Oh,” Ned said. “I guess maybe I have heard of him.”

“How could you not have heard of him? He's amazing. He's on the highlight reel on ‘Sports Desk' every night.”

“Sports desk?”

“It's a TV show. Haven't you ever seen it?”

He shook his head.

“What sort of shows do you watch?” I asked. He probably only watched The Learning Channel.

“I don't,” he said, shaking his head. “We don't have a TV.”

“You don't have a TV?” I asked in amazement. I didn't think anything in the whole world could be more shocking than him not knowing who Julius Johnson was. I was obviously wrong.

“Why don't you have a television?” Kia asked.

“We're too far out to get any signals.”

“What about satellite TV?” Kia questioned.

He shook his head. “That doesn't work either be-cause of how close we are to the mountains.”

While all of this was unbelievably strange, it at least helped explain Ned. Who he was and why he was that way now made more sense to me.

“Ned, have you ever seen a basketball game? Either in real life or on TV?” I asked.

“Maybe once … a long time ago … I think it would be an interesting game to watch. I bet there's lots of action.”

I didn't know what to say. Kia and I just looked at each other. If he'd just said he was an alien life form visiting from another planet, we couldn't have been any more shocked or surprised than we already were.

“Ned, you should come back outside. Even if you're nervous about playing, you should at least watch us play,” Kia said.

“I guess that would be okay.”

“And if I do throw you another pass,” she said,

“it's okay to move your hands to try and catch it.”

“Do you think you can memorize that?” I asked.

“I'll try … I'll really try.”

“I brought out something for you boys … and girl, to drink,” Debbie said as she came out carrying a tray with a pitcher and glasses on it.

“Thanks,” Kia said, tossing me the ball.

“Could we show my mom a play before we stop?” Ned asked.

“Sure, why not,” Kia said. “I'll sit out while you three run the play.”

I knew Kia's offer wasn't so much about being nice as about being the first one to the drinks. We'd been working all day. Ned had made some progress. For one thing he managed to go the entire day without once catching the ball with his face. Actually in the beginning he found it difficult to catch the ball with any part of his body,
including his hands, but he had improved a little. He'd learned most of the plays, or at least could tell us what they were and what he was supposed to do. He had a lot of trouble doing anything once he got there, but he had thrown the ball up a couple of times and made a basket. The first time I thought it was just an accident or fluke. When he missed the next six — failing to even hit the backboard — I knew I was right. But at least he was trying.

Actually I found Ned very trying. He was trying my patience, and trying my ability to remain even remotely polite. It wasn't just that he couldn't play — and he couldn't — as much as the things that kept on coming out of his mouth. He kept rambling on and on about insects, and dinosaurs, and ‘interesting' facts about nature that nobody but him seemed to find interesting.

I had to hand that to him though. Despite the fact that he stunk, he just kept on trying. He was terrible, but he wasn't giving up. If I was that bad I would have gone inside the house and just quit. Maybe he wasn't smart enough to realize just how bad he was.

There was no question about how much playing time he was going to get in the tournament. Unless the other team totally sucked or we were up by ten baskets, he was going to sit on the sidelines.

Kia had been bugging me, saying we could play him a little. I figured the ‘littler' the better.

“Can we do one where I get to shoot?” Ned asked.

“Okay. Sure,” I answered. What difference did it make?

Ned gave me a big, goofy smile — which went along perfectly with his big, goofy everything. His hair was sticking up into the air in a million directions, and he had this T-shirt that read ‘Science is happening here!' and wore hiking shorts and canvas hiking shoes. He couldn't have looked goofier if he sat down and planned it out.

“Let's do loosy-goosy,” I said.

Mark started with the ball. “Loosy-goosy,” Mark called out in his quiet way.

We'd been asking him to yell out the plays, but yelling just wasn't part of Mark. My father said that Mark was so polite and quiet that if you hit him in the face with a shovel, he wouldn't yell ‘ouch.'

“What play was that?” I asked.

Mark shot me a little smile. He knew what I meant.

“Loosy-goosy!” he called out a little louder.

I broke to the ball and Mark bounced a pass to me. He cut toward the hoop and brushed past Ned who was in the high post, heading for low post. I took the ball and lobbed it up in the air to Ned. I had vi
sions of the ball hitting him in the face in front of his mother so I tossed it as lightly as possible. Ned caught the ball, turned and threw it up at the basket. It clunked off the backboard.

“Rebound!” I yelled out.

Ned jumped up in the air, grabbed the ball and —

“AAAAAHHHHH!” Mark screamed as Ned came down on top of him, tumbling over backwards as he landed.

“Mark, are you okay?” I yelled.

“Of course, I'm not okay!” he screamed.

I'd never heard Mark yell like that before — heck I'd never even heard him raise his voice. He was definitely not okay. He rolled around on the ground, holding onto his left ankle.

“Let me look at him,” Debbie said. “I'm trained in first aid.”

She kneeled down beside Mark. Gently she removed his shoe. As she started to take off his sock, he grimaced in pain.

I wanted to look away, like I was afraid that when she removed his sock there'd be a bone sticking out or something. Instead I kept looking. There wasn't a bone, but it looked like he'd swallowed a balloon and it had sunk down to his foot. It was swollen and getting bigger before my eyes. She continued to examine Mark's foot, feeling it with her hands, moving it around and
asking Mark questions.

“I don't think it's broken, but it's definitely sprained,” Debbie said as she held his foot in her hands.

“It hurts like crazy!” Mark exclaimed. “Like crazy!”

“You'll have to go to the hospital to be checked out, but I'm certain it's only a sprain,” she said. “I've had training, not to mention all the practice I've had treating Ned for his falls, bumps and sprains and strains.”

Ned was now standing by the pole holding up the backboard. He was craning his neck to see around his mother without getting too close. In his hands were his glasses. They were in two pieces again. When he'd landed on Mark, they'd flown off and hit the pavement. He looked both worried and confused.

“Let me help you up,” Debbie said.

Mark got up hesitantly. He tried to put a little weight on his injured ankle, but couldn't.

“We need some ice,” Debbie said. “Can somebody come and hold Mark's foot and keep it elevated.”