Seconds Away, Page 8

  "Do you believe the legend?" I asked.

  "There is evidence backing up the story," she said a little too carefully, like she was reading from a script she didn't fully believe. "We do know that the children were indeed rescued. We know that most claimed that the leader was a young girl matching Lizzy's description. But on the other hand, none of the children actually met or spoke to Lizzy Sobek. If the story is to be believed, she rescued them, led them up the hill, and then went on her way."

  "Still," I said, "with so many witnesses . . ."

  "Yes, there's that," Mrs. Friedman said. "But there are other issues that cast doubt on the story."

  "Like?"

  She was still leafing through the illustrations. "Like the witnesses were all children. They were young. They were scared. They were hungry. It was dark out."

  "So it might not have been Lizzy Sobek that they saw."

  Mrs. Friedman nodded, but I could see a shadow cross her face. "But there was something more."

  "What?" I asked.

  "It was February. In Poland. There was snow on the ground."

  "So it was cold."

  "Freezing."

  "And you think that, what, affected their judgment?"

  Mrs. Friedman stopped on a page. She took off her reading glasses and I could see tears in her eyes. "This," she said, pointing to the page, "was drawn by one of the children rescued that day."

  She lifted the book and showed me the drawing. When I saw it, my heart stopped.

  There were children running up a hillside in the night. They were running away from a train and into the woods. The central figure in the drawing was a lone girl standing on a hill, waiting for them. And surrounding the lone girl were dozens and dozens of . . .

  "Butterflies," I said out loud.

  CHAPTER 18

  I stared at the drawing.

  "According to the children," Mrs. Friedman said, "the butterflies guided the children to safety. Butterflies. In the middle of winter."

  I stayed perfectly still.

  Abeona, I thought, though I knew that it was impossible.

  "Do you believe it, Mrs. Friedman?"

  "Which part? That there were butterflies? In Poland, during the middle of winter? No, that's impossible."

  "So the story about the rescue . . ."

  "I don't know." Mrs. Friedman tilted her head. "There are many cases through history of mass delusions via mass hysteria--especially when it comes to children in harm's way. Much of what we view as 'unexplained' is actually psychological trauma. And butterflies are common in such delusions. We do know that the train was stopped and that these children were rescued."

  "But we don't know about butterflies or Lizzy Sobek," I said.

  I stared at the drawing, thinking that maybe I did.

  "So the people who believe the legends," I began. "What do they think eventually happened to Lizzy Sobek?"

  "That Lizzy Sobek continued to fight for the resistance. That she was killed in a later raid"--she looked up from the drawing--"by the Butcher of Lodz."

  The same man who killed Lizzy's father. The same man who, what, never aged and bided his time for seventy years before wheeling away my father?

  I was missing something.

  "And what happened to the Butcher?"

  "That's one of the great mysteries of World War Two," Mrs. Friedman said. "Nobody knows."

  In the distance now I could hear students laughing, the sound echoing down the corridors. Here we were, discussing a man who'd murdered countless, and nearby, there was laughter.

  "Some say the Butcher died during the war. Some say he escaped Allied forces and ran far away. Simon Wiesenthal and the Nazi hunters searched for him after the war--there were rumors he was in Argentina--but they never found him."

  The bell rang, making me jump. We both stood there a moment, but it was time to stop this, to leave this dark horrible past and somehow return to our regular high school life.

  "You're okay, Mr. Bolitar?"

  Still in a daze, I said, "I'm fine, thank you, Mrs. Friedman."

  I stumbled out of the classroom and started down the hallway. When I got to the lunchroom, Ema could immediately see that something was wrong. Spoon, uh, couldn't. I filled them in on my conversation with Mrs. Friedman.

  "So what do you think it all means?" Ema asked.

  None of us had an answer. Spoon was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with the crust cut off so neatly and with such perfect right angles that I wondered whether someone had used a protractor. He nudged me and changed subjects. "Are you going out for the basketball team today?"

  Ema looked up and waited for my answer.

  "Yes."

  Something crossed her face. I wasn't sure what. She had known the answer. She knew how important basketball was to me. I had waited my whole life to stay in one place long enough to be on a team. It was one of the main reasons my family had returned to the United States. My parents wanted me to have a normal life for a little while, play on a high school basketball team, maybe get a scholarship to college. That had been the plan.

  "You realize," Spoon said, swallowing down a bite of his sandwich, "that some of your games may interfere with your duties as our club's new vice president. There may be conflicts."

  "Yeah, Spoon, that's a chance I'll just have to take."

  That answer did not make him happy. "Are you implying that basketball is more important to you than the MILF club?"

  Ema dropped her fork. "The what club?"

  "We're changing the name," I explained.

  The "luxury box" lunch table seemed in better spirits today. You could keep those guys down for only so long, I guess. Troy Taylor was showing off by spinning a basketball on his finger. He curled his arm behind his back and kept the ball spinning and then let it roll from one hand, across his chest, to the other. When he was done, everyone applauded. He bowed and looked across at me as if to gauge my reaction. I gave him nothing.

  "Hey," Spoon said, "either one of you going to audition for that new Angelica Wyatt movie?"

  "Pass," I said.

  Ema frowned hard. "Of course not."

  "I might," Spoon said, "except . . ."

  "Except what?"

  "Well, suppose Angelica Wyatt falls hard for me. How do I explain to her that I'm still underage?"

  That was enough for Ema. She got up and left.

  I managed to make it through the rest of the day and headed into the boys' locker room to get dressed for tryouts. The place was packed. When I entered, Troy and Buck spotted me and started up with the death glares.

  Boy, this was going to be fun.

  I would again note that I had butterflies in my stomach, but after hearing about Lizzy Sobek, I figured that I better come up with a different metaphor. Let's just say I was nervous. Really, really nervous.

  I threw on shorts and laced up my basketball shoes.

  "Lame," I heard a voice say.

  I turned. It was Buck. "Excuse me?"

  "Your sneakers." He pointed at them. "Did you get them out of, like, some sales bin?"

  Snort. Laugh. Snort.

  "Um, yeah," I said.

  While I didn't think that my reply was particularly clever, Buck seemed lost by it. "Well, they suck."

  "Thanks." I pointed at his feet. "Yours are very pretty."

  Buck bent in close to me, his mouth inches from mine. "Why don't you do everyone here a favor and go home?"

  I leaned away. "And why don't you do everyone here a favor and carry breath mints?"

  I hurried out to the gym before he could react. Dozens of kids were warming up, stretching, shooting around. I made my way to the basket farthest from the locker room. I stretched and took a few shots. But I was nervous. The shots clanged off the rim.

  From across the court, I heard snickering. Then Buck yelled, "Nice bricks!"

  Man, I had to relax.

  A whistle blew. Someone shouted, "Everyone grab a seat on the bleachers." So we did. Troy an
d Buck sat in the first row, so I made my way to the back. Coach Grady came out, and the gym fell silent.

  "Welcome, gentlemen, to basketball. My name is Coach Grady. I'm the head coach here at Kasselton. Next to me is Coach Stashower. He'll run JV."

  Coach Grady wore gray sweatpants with elastic leg cuffs and a black hoodie with a hands-warmer pouch. His hair was thinning and the few remaining strands had been grown long and plastered down to his scalp.

  "In a few minutes," he continued, "we are going to divide you up. The sophomores and freshmen are going to Gym Two." He pointed to the smaller gym adjacent to this one. "The seniors and juniors will stay here."

  Coach Grady's voice echoed the way a voice always does in a high school gym. They are all the same. They all have that thick brick and wooden pullout benches and smell like old socks and disinfectant. I glanced around this place I so much wanted to call home. A big poster that read 1,000 POINT SCORERS snagged my eye. Eleven students in the history of this school had achieved that goal. Nine boys, two girls.

  One player had even scored more than two thousand points.

  Guess who?

  Yep, Uncle Myron--the all-time leading scorer. My eyes traveled down the list. I stopped when I saw the name EDWARD TAYLOR--that was Troy's dad and, well, Chief Taylor. He was the second-leading scorer of all time with 1,758 points in his career. I looked down a few more names. There was TROY TAYLOR, the most recent entry, with 1,322 points and an asterisk, noting that Troy was still an active player and so that number would rise.

  I sighed. It was like a list of my enemies. I was surprised the Butcher of Lodz hadn't scored a thousand points!

  "As most of you know, we have a stellar group of seniors returning to this team. Last year, we even won the county championship for the first time in a decade." Coach Grady gestured toward the new COUNTY CHAMPIONS banner on the far wall. I counted six other county championships, the first in 1968.

  "All five starters from that team are back with us this year," Coach Grady went on, "and when the season is over, we want to finally hang another state championship banner up on that wall."

  Now he gestured to the two large STATE CHAMPIONSHIP banners that humbled the county ones. That's right--Kasselton High had won only two state championships in their history, both dating back about twenty-five years. I did the math, but I already knew what the answer was going to be. Guess who'd been on both teams? Come on, you'll never guess.

  Dang, how did you know?

  Uncle Myron. Long shadow much?

  "That's our goal," Coach said. "A state championship. We will settle for nothing less."

  That got applause, the most enthusiastic of which came from Troy and Buck and the rest of the returning players sitting in the front. The rest of us, now suddenly feeling like interlopers on the "chosen" seniors, were a tad more restrained.

  "Now, before we break down and start tryouts, team captain Troy Taylor would like to address all of you. This is important stuff, so listen up. Troy?"

  Troy rose slowly. He turned and stood in front of us and lowered his head, as though in prayer. For a few moments, he didn't move. What the heck was this? Troy seemed to be trying to summon some inner strength.

  Or maybe he was working up to shouting "Ema! Moooo!" again.

  Man, I did not like this guy.

  Finally, Troy broke the silence. "As you know, this is a very hard time for Kasselton High and especially for me personally. A beautiful girl was shot and nearly killed."

  Oh no, I thought. He isn't going there . . .

  "A girl I care so much for. A girl who cheered for this team and, well, her lucky boyfriend . . ."

  He was going there!

  "A girl who has been such a big part of Troy Taylor's life . . ."

  Wait, did he just refer to himself in the third person? I wanted to slap the side of his head. What a pompous gasbag. I looked at the faces of my fellow tryout-ees, figuring that they'd be bored or sneering. But that wasn't the case at all. They sat in rapt attention.

  "Well, that special girl who stole my heart is lying in a hospital bed, clinging to life."

  Troy paused now and I wondered when he'd hired an acting coach. I rolled my eyes at one of the other guys in the bleachers, but he just glared at me.

  They were buying it!

  "Despite her condition, Rachel and I have, of course, been in touch."

  Huh? What a liar. Or . . . wait, hold up a sec . . .

  "So I want you all to know. Rachel will pull through. She has promised me that. She has promised me that she will come back and put on her cheerleader uniform and cheer when Troy Taylor sinks his patented three-pointer . . ."

  I wondered whether I had ever wanted to punch someone so badly in my entire life.

  "So I want us all to keep Rachel in our thoughts. We are dedicating this season to her. All of our uniforms will have this on it."

  Troy pointed to the right side of his chest where the initials RC--Rachel Caldwell--had been sewn onto his practice jersey.

  You have to be kidding me.

  "And I want you to wear these initials with pride. I want you to think of Rachel, in that hospital bed, and I want that to make you play even better, even harder . . ." Troy started to bite his lips as though fighting back tears. Buck rose to comfort him, but Troy shook him off and pointed to the sky.

  "Take care of my Rachel, Big Guy. Bring her back to me."

  There was a moment of silence--and then the guys sitting with me broke into thunderous applause. They start hooting and hollering and then they started up a "Troy! Troy! Troy!" chant. Troy actually raised his hand to acknowledge the ovation, like he'd just been introduced to present an Oscar. I sat there, thinking I might just vomit on the first day of tryouts.

  Coach Grady blew his whistle. "Okay, that's enough," he said in a tone that maybe gave me hope he wasn't buying it. "Everyone take five laps. Then JV to Gym Two and let's start with layup drills."

  CHAPTER 19

  There is plenty I don't love about sports. I don't love how athletes are worshipped because they can, say, hurl a sphere with greater velocity or jam a ball through a metallic hoop with more proficiency than most. I don't love how important we make the games, comparing them to real battles and even wars. I don't love how it is all anyone in towns like Kasselton talks about. I don't love (hate, in fact) trash talk and excessive celebrating (as my father used to say, "Act like you've been there before"). I don't like the way spectators scream at referees and whine about coaches. I don't like the single-mindedness and selfishness that is inherent in all competitors, including me. And in a town like this, I don't like all the babble about becoming a pro athlete when your odds are eight times better of falling and dying in your bathroom (true!).

  But there is plenty I do love. I love sportsmanship, as corny as that sounds. I love shaking hands after the game and giving an opponent a knowing nod. I love sharing a great moment with my teammates, the joy in that singular connection. I love the sweat. I love making the effort, even if it doesn't go my way. I love how you can be surrounded by a frenzy of activity--and yet still be completely alone. I love the sound of a ball dribbling off the gym floor. I love the escape you find only on a playing field. I love the purity of the game itself. I love the competition--and by that I mean "winning," not "beating," "besting," or "belittling" your opponent, though I get how that can all get confused. I love the randomness of the breaks. I love how you really don't know how that ball is going to bounce. And I love the honesty. I love the fact that even if your dad is your Little League coach and makes you pitcher or quarterback, eventually, if you don't have the talent, that fact will win out.

  My point?

  It took a while. I was nervous at first. I missed more shots than I normally do. My new potential teammates froze me out at first, because I was the new kid, an interloper, and I had already made enemies with guys like Troy and Buck. But once we started to scrimmage, once we began to sprint up and down and shed our nervous energy, once I moved into tha
t magical "zone" where the rest of the world disappears--that place I love like no other--I began to make passes and shots that drew gasps.

  Coach Stashower, a younger English teacher, said nothing for a while, but about an hour into practice, I saw him go into Gym 1 and talk to Coach Grady. Coach Grady stood in the doorway and watched for a while, his arms folded. I upped my game. I made two straight three-pointers and then I drove hard to the hoop and dished off to one of my teammates, who made the easy layup. I grabbed rebounds. I shut down my man on defense. I focused on the game and for a while I even forgot that the varsity coach was watching me.

  But I knew.

  That was what I meant by the honesty of the game. On the court, you can run but you can't hide. In that same vein, you can try to hold someone back but if he's got the goods, he will eventually break free. Coach Grady might have wanted it neat and simple and expected. He had his returning seniors all ready to go. But sports in general never fits into the neat and simple and expected. If it did, we wouldn't need to watch or even play, would we?

  "Okay," Coach Stashower shouted, "that's it for today. Go shower up. Tryouts tomorrow are at five P.M. See you then."

  As we began to disperse, lots of the guys came over and congratulated me. They asked me questions about where I'd learned to play, where I was from, what classes I was taking. I know I said I loved the postgame handshake. I do. I like the respect you give an opponent or a teammate. But I don't like the fact that because you happen to leap high or demonstrate above-average coordination that people suddenly want to be your friend.

  But, hey, that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the attention.

  Some people might call that hypocritical. I would probably agree.

  The JV was finished before the varsity, so I was able to shower and get dressed without running into Troy and Buck. As I calmed down, I start thinking back on Troy's speech. Maybe, awful as this sounded, he was being somewhat legit. Maybe he and Rachel still had a relationship. They had dated, right? So maybe they had started up again. Maybe her brush with death had brought them back together.

  I wished that the thought didn't turn my stomach so much.

  I dried off and let myself catch my breath for a second. When I checked my phone, my heart sped up all over again. There was a short text from Rachel: Hey

  I smirked. Rachel must have gone to the Mickey Bolitar School of Big Opening Lines. I checked the time on the text. She had sent it an hour ago. I quickly typed a killer response: Hey, you still there?