Free Toby Wheeler by Thatcher Heldring Page B

they would build enough of a lead to get me in the game. Sure enough, the pace of the game accelerated. Both teams were trapping, stealing, and scoring off fast breaks.
    We stayed ahead. With three minutes left, Cedar Crest inbounded the ball on the baseline to their center. He looked like a pair of stilts with arms and a head. As soon as Stilts caught the pass, Ruben and Raj raced over, yelling, “Trap, trap, trap!” Stilts panicked. Unable to dribble, he threw the ball up in the air like a hot brick. Ruben scooped it up and dashed to the hoop for two.
    Ruben hopped sideways down the sideline, flapping his arms and nodding his head. He wasn’t showboating, exactly. He was playing to the crowd—to get them into the game.
    We had the crowd. We had momentum.
    The only things not going our way were the whistles.
    “I think the ref must have a kid who goes to Cedar Crest,” I said to Megan after JJ was called for a touch foul, his fourth.
    “One more and JJ is out of the game,” Megan said.
    A minute later Raj was leading another fast break with JJ trailing. A step inside the free-throw line, he tossed the ball over his back into JJ’s hands, then stepped aside. That was when the Cedar Crest center moved into JJ’s path. There was a collision. The whistle blew. Then came the call: offensive foul.
    Outrageous.
    JJ was out of the game.
    “Open your eyes, ref. You’re missing a great game,” I called.
    Megan lowered her eyes. “Oh no, Toby.”
    Suddenly the ref ran up to our bench, blew his whistle, and said, “Technical foul on Pilchuck, number…” He looked at me. I was still wearing my warm-up shirt. “What’s your number, son?” he asked.
    “I…”
    Malcolm lifted my shirt up. “Thirty-two,” he said.
    “Two shots!” said the ref.
    I couldn’t believe it. The first time my number had been called during a game and it was for this! Suddenly, I went from the invisible man to the man everyone wanted to pound into pulp.
    “Oh, man!” Roy cried. “You gotta be kidding me.”
    “That was not cool,” Khalil added.
    “Not cool,” Ruben said.
    Coach turned bright red so quickly, Megan had to run to him with a glass of water and tell him to sit until he caught his breath.
    JJ wouldn’t even look at me. He was on the court, staring at the scoreboard and shaking his head.
    Cedar Crest made the first free throw to pull within six. The second free throw was short. Khalil, who subbed in when JJ fouled out, got a hand on the rebound before the Cougars came up with possession. The Cedar Crest center pump-faked. Khalil leaned in, bumping him. The shot went up and fell in.
    The whistle blew.
    And one.
    The lead was down to four.
    After the free throw, the lead was down to three.
    What had I done?
    We never recovered. Cedar Crest seized the momentum. Ruben fought until the last second, but we ended up losing by four. The buzzer blew and the Cougars danced into the visitors’ locker room. The rest of my team stood near the court, dazed, before wandering away to change. I sat right where I had sat all night and would probably sit until the end of the season—on the end of the bench.
    Behind me, the stands were emptying. Mom tapped me on the shoulder to tell me she and Dad would be waiting for me in the parking lot. Megan sat next to me tapping her feet on the wood floor. I guess there wasn’t much to say to a guy who had blown the game without even taking off his warm-up shirt.
    JJ had just taken the seat on the other side of me when a voice tore through the half-empty gym. Across the court, JJ’s dad had cornered a man half his size: the ref who had whistled JJ for the fifth foul. “Don’t tell
me
the rules,” he growled. “I saw what was going on out there tonight.”
    The ref tried to wiggle free.
    “Are you blind?”
    Most of the people left in the gym had turned their attention to the altercation. Inches now separated the ref from JJ’s dad. I had never seen a grown man punch another in real