Tall Story - Candy Gourlay [40]
One thing was for sure: Rocky wasn’t worried about height. One of the boys was my size – maybe shorter. He had a tiny moustache. Maybe he wanted to make sure nobody mistook him for a kid from the primary school. He took the ball down the court, doing all sorts of fancy dribbling, his legs flashing in and out like a pair of scissors.
But he couldn’t shoot either.
Where did Rocky get these guys?
‘Hey.’
‘Rocky!’ I jumped to my feet.
Rocky loped up to the bench where I sat. He wasn’t wearing his Chicago Bulls kit today either. Instead, he wore a grey tracksuit that had gone slightly pink. It must have got into a hot wash with some red socks.
The tempo on the court slowed down as the boys began to eye us with interest.
‘So.’ He gestured at the team. ‘What do you think?’
I sucked some oxygen in between my teeth. ‘Well …’
‘They may not shoot but they sure can handle the ball,’ Rocky said. ‘We’re bottom of the tournament but you know what they say, it’s not the winning that counts.’
If it’s not the winning that counts, then what’s the point of playing at all? But I didn’t say that aloud. I just nodded and followed Rocky into the court.
‘We’re playing our last game of the league next week,’ Rocky said. ‘And we’re gonna go out with a bang.’
The Souls nodded politely and mumbled, ‘Hey,’ as Rocky introduced me.
‘Louie here is our point guard,’ Rocky said, indicating the short boy with the tiny moustache.
Louie held out his hand and I reluctantly shook it. He didn’t let go when we’d finished. He winked at Rocky. I glared, but Louie just grinned. The other Souls giggled.
They thought Rocky was only letting me play because he liked me.
The realization curdled any pleasure of getting a game. My cheeks heated up.
We played a practice match. Rocky called himself for the Reds and called me for the Blues. As we slipped numbered bibs over our heads, Louie, who was going to point guard for my side, gave me a smarmy smile. Idiot.
The Reds won the toss. Instead of taking the ball down to their basket as quickly as possible, they strolled across the court. The Blues stood around sniggering. OK. They were having fun with the girlfriend. Rocky glanced at me with an embarrassed smile.
‘Quit mucking about, guys,’ he yelled. But Louie just blew him a kiss. The Blues fell over themselves laughing.
Instead of getting serious with them, Rocky giggled.
That did it.
I stole the ball off the Reds’ point man and raced to the opposite end of the court. I stopped at the three-point line and jumped. Swish.
You would have needed a poop scoop to scrape their jaws off the asphalt. Louie rubbed his eyes with his fists like he couldn’t believe it.
Rocky collected the ball and passed it down the court. This time the Reds put some muscle into their passes as they ran to their goal.
But snatching the ball off them was not hard. I raced to my three-point line. Swish.
I turned. All eyes were on me now.
The ball rolled swiftly across the court.
‘Red ball!’ Rocky yelled.
One of the Reds picked the ball up. But he just stood there as if he didn’t know what to do.
Louie gently took the ball from him and began to run towards our side of the court, his eyes seeking mine.
I hung back to see if he could sink it.
But as he passed me on the three-point line, he palmed the ball into my hands, jogging backwards to see what I would do.
I raised it in the air, aimed, and released. Swish.
Louie grinned and swung towards me, his hand raised high.
We high-fived.
Suddenly we were running and passing and stealing. Whenever the Blues stole the ball, they passed it down to Louie, who delivered it to me at the three-point line. Then I scored.
Swish. Swish. Swish.
No more ‘Oh, bad luck!’ and ‘Good shot, otherwise’.
Louie was grinning so hard his moustache looked like it was about to fall off.
After a few minutes, the score was telling.
Reds: 0, Blues: 30.
Note: all thirty points were mine.
We were playing basketball.
Then Rocky, bless