Travel Team by Mike Lupica Page A

dad. Danny was always struck first by how tall somebody was, was always playing off this adult’s height against somebody else’s. He did the same with kids, like he was comparison shopping, never really knowing how tall other kids were in feet and inches, even if he knew exactly what he was on a daily basis, exactly fifty-five inches—no sneakers—by his last check in the door frame of his room.
    Fifty-five.
    The speed limit.
    He kept looking through the narrow space, feeling as if he were on the wrong side of a fence.
    â€œOne ball,” Mr. Ross said, taking a single ball, brand-new, out of the bag. “Three lines at the other end. Big guys—and there’s more size on this team than ever, and not by accident—in the middle. I want you to bounce the ball off the backboard, grab it like it’s a rebound, make an outlet pass to the guard on your right. Then guards, you pass it to the guy cutting to the middle from the other wing. Cut behind your passes. And make sure to get the lead out of those Hefty-bag shorts you all like to wear.”
    He threw the ball to the other end of the court and blew the whistle he was wearing around his neck.
    Some of these guys love their whistles as much as they do their clipboards, Danny thought.
    â€œI don’t want to see that ball touching the floor,” Mr. Ross said from underneath the basket closest to the stage, giving another quick blast to his whistle, as if he were using it like punctuation marks. “This is going to be a team that passes the ball, not a team that dribbles the ball.”
    The first three-man fast break came right at Danny.
    Jack Harty started the play at the other end, wheeling around after he came down with his fake rebound, throwing a hard two-hand chest pass to Teddy, who got it to Ty, cutting toward the middle of the court from the other wing.
    Ty gave it back to Jack Harty with so little effort, so quickly, it was as if the ball had never passed through his hands at all.
    Jack passed it back to Teddy, who waited a couple of beats too long, hesitated just enough when he fed Ty near the basket—Ty needs me passing him the ball, Danny told himself, even in a boring drill like this—that Ty had to go underneath the rim and then twist his body around in the air to make a neat reverse layup.
    As soon as those three got out of the way, here came the next three players on the break, Alex and Daryll so fast filling their lanes that they left fat Eric Buford behind, Eric’s face already the color of one of the fat tomatoes Ali Walker grew in her backyard garden.
    Danny Walker, his hands pressing against the wall above him, watching like he had a hidden camera, felt his knees buckle suddenly, without warning, the way they’d buckle when one of your buddies snuck up behind you and gave them a little karate chop.
    Felt his heart sink at the same time.
    He slid the board back in place, placed his forehead against it, stayed like that for a minute, listening to the basketball sounds from the other side of the wall, seeing it all with his hole closed up, with his eyes closed.
    His gym.
    Their team.
    Hey little guy, he thought to himself, using the refrain he’d heard his whole life.
    You’re right back where you started, little guy.
    You’re with the wrong group again.

6
    D ANNY W ALKER DIDN ’ T PICK UP A BASKETBALL FOR A WEEK , F RIDAY TO F RIDAY , a personal best.
    Or worst.
    He didn’t play the weekend after that first Vikings practice at St. Pat’s. Or after dinner the first couple of nights of the next week. When his mom finally asked him about it on Tuesday, he shrugged and said, “My knee’s been bothering me a little bit, is all.”
    â€œAn injury?” she said, giving him that raised-eyebrow deal that Danny figured girls must master at, like, the age of ten and then always have in their bag of tricks after that. “To my six-million-dollar bionic