Long Shot - Mike Lupica [17]
He sounded so sure. As sure as Sarah had sounded when she told Pedro he was better than Ned. As sure as Joe had sounded when he said that Pedro was the coolest kid in class, that Pedro was the one who should be class president.
Then his dad was clapping him on the back, telling him again, for what felt like the thousandth time in Pedro’s life, about what it was like when he first set foot on American soil as a teenager. That if you set your heart and your mind to something, nobody could beat you, and that when you got knocked down you got back up, because that was the real measure of someone’s talent and heart and character and spirit.
“Nobody can stop you,” his dad said.
Nobody except Ned Hancock, Pedro thought.
His dad was still talking when they got into the car and began to drive away from the school, like this was part of the same speech he had given that day about “President Morales.”
Only today, Pedro wasn’t listening.
NINE
Pedro wore No. 10.
It wasn’t because any of his favorite NBA players wore that number—Steve Nash, his main man, wore No. 13 for the Suns—but because his dad had worn No. 10 when he played soccer as a boy in Mexico, and wore it still in what he called his league of old men.
So Pedro was 10 this season the same as he had been on the fifth-grade team.
Back when he was still a starter.
But he wasn’t a starter today at Vernon High School. The gym looked exactly as it did for varsity games, with the bleachers pulled out from the side walls, new scoreboards brightly lit behind both baskets, and a scorers’ table set up at half-court, where one parent kept the official stat book and another one operated the clock.
Pedro’s mom and dad—and Sarah—were in the stands with the rest of the Vernon parents, behind the Knights’ bench. The Camden parents sat at the other end. Last season, Vernon had lost to the Camden Cavaliers in the league semi-finals, and Pedro recognized a lot of the kids on their team. The two best were Tim Barnicle, their starting point guard, and Alex Truba, a tall, skinny Cuban-American boy who played small forward the same as Ned did.
Alex didn’t have the all-around game that Ned did, but he was the best outside shooter Camden had, even from beyond the high school three-point line, and if you got up on him as a way of taking away his shot, he could put the ball on the floor with either hand and drive to the basket.
In the huddle right before the game, Coach Cory said to Ned, “You remember Truba’s philosophy about shooting. Guy thinks that the greatest tragedy in basketball is to be hot and not know it.”
Ned laughed along with everybody else. “I hear you, Coach,” Ned said. “If his hands are on the ball, his first thought is shooting.”
“And second,” Joe said. “And third.”
“Now as for my point guard . . . ” Coach Cory said.
For a second, almost like a reflex, Pedro thought Coach was talking to him.
He wasn’t.
“I’m here, Coach,” Dave said.
“You have to stay in front of that young man wearing number one for them,” Coach Cory said. That meant Tim Barnicle. “Because if he can break you down off the dribble, that’s gonna be the same as breaking us down.”
Dave nodded to let Coach know he understood. Then Coach Cory had them all put their hands together in the middle of the huddle, and told them the same thing he’d told them before every game last season.
“Before the ref throws the ball up, take a look in the stands, and know there isn’t an adult here who wouldn’t change places with you,” Coach said. “Who wouldn’t want to be eleven again and have a chance to be playing a game like this today? Now get out there and honor the opportunity.”
Pedro watched the starting five—Ned, Dave, Jeff, Jamal, and Joe—take the court, and thought: It’s a lot easier to honor that opportunity when you’re starting.
He took the last seat at the end of their bench, not wanting to sit next to Coach and look as if he were too eager to get in there. He felt a little bit like he’d been told to go sit by himself in