Hero by Mike Lupica Page A

from a trip—no e-mail, no call, no warning—there he’d be, waiting in front of the building when Zach got home from a practice, opening the door with a flourish like he was Lenny the doorman. And whatever age Zach Harriman was at the time, he’d drop his backpack like it was a bad habit and hug his father for all he was worth.
    It was as if his dad had some kind of sixth sense, would know exactly when Zach was walking home from Parker, the precise moment when he’d be coming down the street.
    Like there was this weird radar between them. And the next morning, without fail, no matter how jet-lagged his dad should have been, no matter where he’d flown in from, he’d walk Zach—and Kate—to school.
    Saying at the front door of Parker: “See you after school, kiddo.”
    “Swear?” Zach would say.
    “On more honor than a whole Boy Scout troop,” his dad would say. Before he’d add: “Where else would I be?”
    Though they both knew the answer to that one. The correct answer was he could end up almost anywhere, at a moment’s notice.
    There hadn’t been any notice when his dad was finally taken away from him forever. When he was just gone.
    The way the old Zach Harriman was gone for good, the one who never wanted to fight back.
    His dad used to go off and save the world?
    Lately his son just wanted to beat it up.

    Spence Warren wasn’t in love with the idea of having Zach Harriman as a teammate on the eighth-grade basketball team at the Parker School.
    But then Spence wasn’t in love with the idea of Zach sharing the same oxygen he breathed.
    Spence played center for Parker, not because he was all that much taller than the rest of the team, but because he was the strongest guy they had. He was also the best athlete on the team and he had a center’s mentality.
    As much of a total jamoke—another Dad word—as Spence could be everywhere else at Parker, he was a total jock once he got on the court or the playing field. That meant he wanted to win the game. And he knew that for their eighth-grade team to win, Zach’s outside shooting needed to be a part of it.
    It didn’t mean he ever gave Zach a total pass on the court. He’d still make his snarky comments when Zach screwed up a play or missed an open shot, make sure he’d do it in a way that ensured Zach would hear the insult and Coach Piowarski would not. But for the most part, the place where Spence had always tortured Zach the least was on a basketball court.
    Until today.
    Today Spence was messing with Zach’s head every chance he got, to the point where Zach thought it was ridiculous to even think about this in terms of practice. Because when it came to this kind of chop-busting, Spence didn’t need practice, he was practically in the Hall of Fame.
    Today he was showing Zach up every chance he could in front of the team, picking his spots like a champ, always managing to do it when Coach P. was looking the other way or talking to somebody else. As usual, Spence had this way of boring in on Zach at his lowest moments, and there had been plenty of those today, because he was totally off his game.
    He wasn’t off by a lot. But you didn’t have to be off by a lot to look like a complete scrub in basketball. He was just a step slow on defense, which meant giving up too many easy baskets and running into one screen after another, ending up on the floor. He ran the wrong way twice on one of their basic offensive plays, a play designed to get him an open shot from the corner. Instead of Spence hitting him with a quick pass out of the post, he wound up throwing the ball out of bounds, right past the spot where Zach was supposed to be. After the second time, he glared Zach all the way into the East River for causing another turnover.
    Coach P. had seen enough. He blew his whistle, told them to get a drink of water and then come back and see if they could run the play correctly. As Spence ran past Zach, he got into his ear and said, “Hey, is there any