Free Toby Wheeler by Thatcher Heldring Page A

In fifth grade. We had to learn ballroom dancing and since there were too many boys I had to dance with Lester the Bulge. He broke two of my toes with his boots and dropped me on the dip. The PE teacher said I was the first person he ever had to send to the nurse with a dancing injury.”
    They all stared at me.
    Finally Roy waved his hand. “Oh, please, you know you wanna ask her.”
    “You like her.” Khalil nodded.
    “No doubt about it, baby,” Malcolm said. “Megan’s your girlfriend.”
    Suddenly, from behind us, we heard
shrieeeek
as Coach forced every molecule of oxygen from his lungs into his whistle. “Wheeler,” he barked as he handed me a basketball. “On the line.”
    Red in the face, I skulked to the free-throw line. As far as I could tell, the three smacks of the ball against the gym floor before I shot were the sound of a dead man dribbling.

          13
    O ur second game was that Friday against Cedar Crest. I had played better in practice that week, but it still seemed like I was always in the wrong place at the wrong time on the court or doing some little thing incorrectly—like using a chest pass when I should have used a bounce pass. And Coach never missed a chance to let me hear about it. For a benchwarmer, I sure was getting an awful lot of heat. I wished Malcolm had kept his mouth shut on Monday about Megan being my girlfriend. I was getting restless on the bench. I wanted to get in an actual game, but if Coach thought there
was
some funny business between me and his daughter, then Raj and his cousin were right: I had no hope of ever leaving the bench. Even worse, our game against Hamilton was a week away. One look at me on the bench and Vinny Pesto would humiliate me.
    The Cedar Crest game was close from the start. Both teams played physical basketball, and the refs were swallowing their whistles. The Cougars kept a hand in JJ’s face everywhere he went. He never saw a ray of daylight. He did his best to get off his shots, but with the slapping, the pulling, and the hand checks, most of them were off target. It didn’t help that Raj had four turnovers. “Where’s your head, Raj?” Coach shouted more than once.
    Luckily, Ruben was a monster in the paint, shaking off guys twice his size for second-chance points. Thanks to him, we were still in it with seven minutes left in the fourth quarter.
    “Coach,” said Roy during the next time-out, “they’re all over us. Can’t you say something to the refs?”
    Shaking his head, Coach shouted, “Nothing you or I say to the refs is going to change the way the game is called! Just play your game. Take what the refs give you. If the other team pushes, push back. Contest
every
shot. Fight for every loose ball.”
    “Their big men are too big. They’re like cedar trees,” Khalil gasped. “They’re shooting right over us.”
    Everybody began talking at once. Except me. Coach held up his hands for quiet.
    That was when I said, “They look tired.”
    Everybody stared at me.
    “Go on, Toby,” said Coach.
    “They look tired. They’ve got their hands on their knees.”
    “What are you saying?” Ruben asked.
    What
was
I saying? My brain raced to catch up with my mouth. What do you do to a tired team in a close game? “We should press,” I said. “We’ve been running all those wind sprints. We might as well use the stamina.”
    “He’s right,” said JJ. “We
should
press. Take them out of their half-court game. Force some turnovers.”
    “Good call,” said Ruben. Everyone else nodded. For the first time, I felt like I was more important to the team than the ball rack.
    Coach looked around the huddle. “Okay,” he said to everybody’s surprise, “let’s try a full-court press for three minutes. One-three-one. Raj at one point. Ruben, McKlusky, and Roy in the middle. Then JJ. Khalil, you take a breather.”
    Khalil covered his head with a towel. “Phew.”
    Who knows?
I thought as the team took the court again. Maybe