Basketball Disasters Read online

  “I’m well aware that Dog didn’t do anything. I invited the Taylors for four o’clock,” Mason’s mother said. She left Mason’s room and closed the door firmly behind her.

  The roasting turkey smelled wonderful the next day, but Mason couldn’t enjoy sniffing its savory aroma. Even though his mother had bought comforting canned cranberry sauce for him—the rest of them were going to have spiced cranberry-raisin chutney—Mason couldn’t look forward to any of it.

  At four o’clock Dog would be banished to the basement.

  At four o’clock Mason would have to make his in-person apology to a mean old dog-hating lady who might die any minute.

  Ten minutes before the hour, Mason led poor Dog down the basement stairs. He gave Dog a huge, smothering hug, together with a nice, fresh dog bone from the butcher.

  “Oh, Dog, don’t be too sad.”

  At least, distracted by the bone, Dog didn’t pad back up the basement stairs after Mason, so Mason didn’t have to shut the basement door right in Dog’s sweet face.

  Five minutes past the hour, the doorbell rang.

  Mason’s father answered it. “Come in, come in!”

  Mason followed his mother from the kitchen into the living room to greet the Taylors. He knew he had no choice.

  His first surprise was that Mrs. Taylor wasn’t ugly. She was obviously old, with white hair and finely wrinkled skin, but her hair was attractively styled, and her cheeks were rosy. Her nose was normal-shaped, not hooked or beaked; her eyes were sparkling, not beady.

  Mr. Taylor helped her off with her coat and handed it to Mason’s dad, along with a bouquet of yellow and orange flowers.

  “These are lovely!” Mason’s mother said. She carried the flowers into the kitchen to put in a vase as Mason’s father hung the coats in the front-hall closet.

  “And this is our son, Mason,” Mason’s father said. “Mason Dixon.”

  Mrs. Taylor smiled at Mason—smiled at him! “An unusual name,” she said.

  “Well, my last name is Dixon,” Mason’s father explained, “and my wife’s maiden name is Mason, so we thought it would be fun to combine the two.”

  At least Mrs. Taylor didn’t say, “Oh, Mason Dixon! Like the Mason-Dixon Line!” This was apparently a famous line drawn between the North and the South before the Civil War. Grown-ups often tried to explain to Mason about the Mason-Dixon Line, as if a boy named Mason Dixon could have lived almost ten years and never heard this fact about his name.

  This was the moment for Mason to make his apology, even though his mother was still in the kitchen. His father could vouch for him afterward.

  “I’m sorry,” Mason said in a low voice. “About my dog. Well, not about my dog, but the dog yesterday. His name is Wolf, and he’s a really bad dog. I know what a bad dog he is because he attacked my dog once and almost killed him.”

  Mrs. Taylor shuddered. “I could tell he was a very bad dog,” she said. “And I have to confess I’ve always been deathly afraid of dogs. I was bitten once, savagely bitten, when I was a little girl, and I never got over it.”

  That made some sense. At least there was a reason why Mrs. Taylor felt the way she did.

  “Dog—I mean, my dog—would never bite anyone,” Mason said.

  “He certainly is a better-behaved creature than that other one.” Mrs. Taylor shuddered again.

  “I was glad Wolf got a ticket,” Mason told Mrs. Taylor. “He deserved one. And his owner, Dunk, deserved one, too.”

  Now Mrs. Taylor’s eyes were twinkling, as if she and Mason shared a funny secret.

  “You don’t care for this boy, I take it? He’s not a good friend of yours like the other one. The short boy with the big smile. The one who’s so enthusiastic about basketball.”

  Mason was a bit taken aback by all Mrs. Taylor knew about Brody. She really was a talented spy.

  Mason’s father led the Taylors over to the couch and offered them a seat. Mason sat down, too. He knew it would be impolite to go downstairs to the basement to be with poor Dog, who had yet to give a single yelp of protest.

  “What’s your friend’s name?” Mrs. Taylor asked.

  “Brody. Brody Baxter. We’ve been best friends since preschool.”

  He found himself telling Mrs. Taylor about Brody, and how they shared Dog, and how they were on the same basketball team, and how awful Dunk had acted after their disastrous first game.

  Mrs. Taylor clucked sympathetically.

  “He sounds like a very poor sport,” she commented. “A good sport is a good winner as well as a good loser.”

  “Win with grace, lose with dignity,” Mason said.

  “Yes! I’m sure you’re a very good sport.”

  Mason thought about how he had accused Dunk’s team of bribing Jonah-the-referee. And how mad he had gotten at Brody sometimes for hustling so hard during their one-on-one games. And how he didn’t let his fingers actually touch the fingers of anyone on the opposing team for the postgame handshake.

  “Not really,” he admitted.

  “No? Well, I never enjoyed losing myself, I have to say.”

  “Did you play a team sport?”

  Mason tried to imagine Mrs. Taylor dribbling down the basketball court to score. He couldn’t do it.

  “I did. No need to look so astonished. I was a most capable pitcher for a girls’ softball team when I was in college. I had a special fastball that the other girls called Kathy’s Killerball.”

  She couldn’t be serious.

  “Jerry,” Mrs. Taylor said to her son. “Look at the boy. He doesn’t believe me.”

  “Kathy’s Killerball?” Mason asked.

  “Batters feared it all over New England,” Mrs. Taylor said.

  She picked up the hand-knit duck-shaped pillow next to her on the couch. Mason’s mother liked to knit odd-shaped objects.

  “This is darling!” she exclaimed to Mason’s mother. “Did you make it?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  Then the two of them were deep into a conversation about knitting and crocheting and cross-stitch. When were they ever going to get to the dining room and start eating turkey?

  “Do you know how many embroidered samplers I’ve made in my life?” Mrs. Taylor suddenly asked Mason, who had tuned out of the conversation.

  From her tone Mason assumed it was a lot.

  “Hundreds. You’ll have to come over someday and see a few of them. You know, Mason, once upon a time, all children learned how to do cross-stitch, even little boys. Back in colonial times.”

  “Mason’s class at school is studying colonial crafts,” Mason’s mother said. Her face lit up with a new idea. “Mason, maybe Mrs. Taylor can come in to Coach Joe’s class some Thursday afternoon and show you all how to do cross-stitch.”

  “Cool,” Mason said in a strangled voice. Knowing his mom as he did, he was certain she was going to take steps to make sure this really happened.

  “I’d love to.” Mrs. Taylor beamed at Mason. “I really do like children. I just don’t like—”

  “Dogs.” Mason helped her finish the sentence.

  Mrs. Taylor had definitely turned out to be a nicer dog hater than Mason had expected.

  11

  The first game after Thanksgiving break was against an orange-shirted team that also had girl players on it. Mason named the two girls Braids and Ponytail. Right away he could tell that they were extremely good at basketball. Girls who chose to play on a boys’ team obviously were girls to be reckoned with.

  Braids had as much hustle as Brody, and in addition she towered over all the other players on both teams. Ponytail was less impressive as a player, but she was plenty good. Plus she was mean. Instead of leaving Dylan alone and pretending he didn’t exist, as everyone else had done thus far all season, she called him names.

  “Hey, Dork,” Mason heard her taunt Dylan. “Why don’t you give up and go home?”

  Dylan’s pale freckled face turned pink.

  It was the same thought Mason had had
himself a hundred times, but unlike Ponytail, he had never said it out loud.

  Mason found himself with a burning desire that the orange team would lose in some particularly horrific and humiliating way, the kind of loss with which he was all too familiar.

  Guarding Ponytail, Mason stayed on her so fiercely that she got called for traveling.

  Take that, Dorkette!

  At the half, the Fighting Bulldogs were behind, but just by one basket.

  “I hate them,” Mason told Nora, standing behind her in line for the water fountain. “All of them. But especially Ponytail.”

  “Oh, Mason, it’s just a game.”

  Had Mason himself really ever once thought that games didn’t matter? Mason didn’t know how Nora could play so intently—half of the Bulldog baskets in the first half were hers—and yet walk off the court with no hard feelings, so calm, so cool, so unflustered. Didn’t Nora ever get upset about anything?

  “Did you hear how mean she was to Dylan?” Mason persisted.

  “That’s trash talk. Lots of players do it.”

  But not to Dylan. It was cruel overkill to point out that Dylan was terrible at basketball.

  Mason sat out the third quarter, so he was back in for the fourth, with Brody, Nora, Dylan, and Jeremy. Ponytail was back, too.

  “Hey, Midget,” she sneered at Brody. “I’m surprised you can even see the ball from down there.”

  “It’s better to have a small body than to have a small brain,” Mason shot back.

  Nora shot and missed. Both Mason and Ponytail leaped for the rebound, Mason willing his legs to have springs in them so he could soar over the top of her dumb ponytail head.

  He did it! He snatched the ball out of the air—yay! Then he landed, hard, on Ponytail’s sneaker.

  “Ow!” Ponytail yelled. “He fouled me!”

  Mason didn’t have the strength to yell “Ow!” himself before he crumpled to the hard gymnasium floor.

  Fwee! Jonah, back as ref, blew his whistle.

  Was it a foul? On him, for landing on Ponytail’s big foot? Or on Ponytail, for having her big dumb foot in his way? Right then, with his ankle throbbing, it didn’t really matter. Mason lay on the floor, clutching his ankle, moaning.

  The rest of the Bulldogs crowded around him. He saw Brody’s worried face, Nora’s steady eyes. The orange shirts stayed a short distance away, but also stared at him with the fascination people seemed to feel in the face of any hideous disaster—a tornado, a hurricane, an earthquake, an injury to Mason Dixon on the basketball court.

  Then Mason’s dad was there.

  “Are you all right?” he asked Mason, crouching down on the floor and feeling Mason’s ankle with his probing fingers.

  “No,” Mason said.

  “I don’t feel anything that seems broken. I think you probably rolled it. We’ll help you up. But don’t put any weight on it until we can get it checked out, okay?”

  Jonah assisted Mason’s dad in getting Mason to his feet. Mason smelled the sickly sweetness of Jonah’s bubblegum breath. Together the two of them half carried Mason to the sidelines. The audience of assembled parents, grandparents, and siblings cheered.

  If it had been Brody who had been injured, Brody would have given them a valiant wave and flashed them a brave, hopeful smile.

  If it had been Nora who had been injured—but Nora would probably never let herself get injured.

  Mason lowered himself onto one of the folding chairs at the edge of the court and buried his head in his hands.

  The Bulldogs tied the orange shirts, which was better than losing to them, but not much better.

  Mason’s mother came to sit beside him. She had gone looking for an ice pack and gotten one from the information desk at the Y. Mason laid it against his swollen ankle, which was propped up on another chair. She put her arm around his shoulder.

  “I’m so proud of you,” she said.

  Proud of him for having a sprained—maybe broken—ankle? If it was broken, maybe he could sue Ponytail for a million dollars.

  “For working so hard all season,” she said. “For giving your best every game. And for being willing to give basketball a try in the first place.”

  Mason wished he could blame her for making him sign up for basketball, but this time he really had only himself to blame. Anyway, it felt good to have her arm around his shoulder.

  As soon as the team handshake was over—at least Mason didn’t have to pretend to shake hands with Ponytail—his parents assisted him to the car and drove to a drop-in medical center out on the highway that was open on Saturdays. The doctor who examined him was a small, slim woman who looked like the twin sister of Dog’s veterinarian. She sent him down the hall for an X-ray and then agreed with his father in pronouncing it a rolled ankle—sprained, not broken.

  “Put ice on it to keep the swelling down, but not for more than fifteen minutes at a time. Take ibuprofen every four hours for pain. And stay off it for a few days,” she told Mason and his parents.

  “Can he still go to school?” Mason’s mother asked after the doctor had finished bandaging the ankle.

  “Yes, but no P.E. I’ll send a note for his teacher. And no basketball for a while, until it’s completely healed.”

  “How long is a while?” his dad asked. “We have practice on Tuesday, and a game on Saturday, and then the last practice and game of the season the week after that.”

  The doctor considered this for a minute. “Skip the next practice and the next game. Call me then and let me know how the ankle is doing. If you can walk on it without pain, you can try going to the next practice. But if it gets worse at any time, come back and see me.”

  A few weeks ago Mason would have been thrilled at the thought of missing a whole week of basketball. He would have been glad to miss the whole season, to miss out on basketball completely for the rest of his life. But now it felt strange to think of the Fighting Bulldogs—his team—playing without him.

  He hoped he would be better in time for the final game, the rematch against Dunk and the Killer Whales—in time to beat Dunk and the Killer Whales.

  On Tuesday evening, Mason’s ankle hurt enough from limping on it all day at school that he stayed home with Dog while his dad and Brody headed off to basketball practice. He could picture Brody’s skip of enthusiasm as they neared the school; Brody was the only fourth-grade boy Mason knew who was actually capable of skipping. Mason could picture the arrival of the others, the warm-up stretches, the passing and shooting drills, the three-on-three.

  At least his mother read to him as he lay on the couch with his throbbing ankle and Dog on the floor listening, too. She liked to read him all the old-fashioned books she had loved when she was a little girl. Right now they were reading Peter Pan, the original book, not the Disney version, so that helped pass the time, even though Mason found his thoughts straying from Peter and Wendy to Brody and Nora.

  “So how was it?” Mason asked as soon as his dad came through the door at eight-thirty.

  “Great! We’re going to win a game one of these days, mark my words.”

  Mason was glad for his dad’s report, though he wondered if the team should have moped a bit over the absence of their injured comrade.

  “But everyone missed you,” his dad said then.

  Was his dad saying it just to be nice?

  “Did they?”

  “Every time Brody made a good shot, he dedicated it to you. Really. He said, ‘That one was for Mason.’ ”

  Mason felt himself beaming as broadly as Brody himself would have done.

  Thursday was the day that Mrs. Taylor appeared in Coach Joe’s class to show the students how to make cross-stitch samplers. Mason’s mother came in with Mrs. Taylor, to help her find the room and to serve as her cross-stitch-teaching assistant.

  The previous week had been candle dipping. The custodian hadn’t yet gotten out all of the wax that Dunk had dripped onto the carpet.

  “Hello, Mason! Hello, Brody!” Mrs.
Taylor greeted the two of them by name, even though she had never met Brody before. Brody’s eyes widened with surprise, even though Mason had told him all about Thanksgiving dinner.

  Mason noticed that Mrs. Taylor didn’t say, “Hi, Dunk,” even though she had to have been able to pick him out after her fateful spying that day. So Mrs. Taylor knew who Dunk was. But Dunk didn’t know who Mrs. Taylor was.

  Each student was given a square of plain white fabric printed with a heart made out of little x’s.

  “I don’t want to sew a heart,” Dunk said. “Hearts are for girls.”

  Then Dunk apparently remembered that he didn’t want to sew anything.

  “Sewing is for girls,” he added.

  “Dunk,” Coach Joe said pleasantly.

  “It’s true that in colonial times the women of the house did most of the sewing and cooking,” Mrs. Taylor said. “But a man would have been embarrassed indeed at not being able to do some simple sewing, at least enough to fasten on a button to keep his britches from falling down.”

  The class laughed. Mason felt proud of Mrs. Taylor. Every student was then given a needle.

  Mason wondered if this craft was going to turn out to be a bad idea. Needles were sharp. What if Dunk decided to test the sharpness of his needle on the hand of the boy sitting next to him?

  Instead, Dunk promptly lost his needle. It rolled off his desk and onto the floor, and the gray carpet was needle-colored enough that Dunk couldn’t find it. The boy sitting next to him couldn’t find it either, although why that boy wanted to find it Mason wasn’t quite sure.

  Just as Mrs. Taylor was about to hand Dunk a new needle, Nora spied the first one and gave it back to Dunk.

  Threading the needles with a special kind of thread called embroidery floss took a few more minutes, and then learning how to tie a knot at the end of the thread. Mason marveled at the patience of colonial people.

  Finally the students started sewing, making one little stitch on each printed x, then another stitch to complete the x.

  “No, Dunk,” Mason heard Mrs. Taylor say, “you need to have your knot on the back of your sampler. You want the messy side of your sampler to be the back.”