Nothin But Net Page 3

  What worried Tim most of all was that they would think he hated it, too. And if they did, what would they do about it?

  4

  The afternoon was hot, and Tim was just as glad as everyone else that they had swimming scheduled next. The campers all dove into the lake to cool off, and were splashing around having a good time when a big, beefcakey guy with a shaved head blew his whistle, and they all stopped where they were.

  “Okay,” he said. “Hi, everybody. I’m Max. And it’s time for you to get certified. Everybody out of the water and onto the dock.”

  They spent the next hour doing laps, treading water, and hauling their fellow campers out of the lake in rescue exercises.

  Tim was tired from the morning of basketball. Midway through his third lap of three, he began to panic, thinking he might go under. He’d never been a great swimmer — sank like a stone if he didn’t work really hard to stay afloat — and he thought his arms and legs would give out before he reached the dock. Only through sheer determination did he fight through it and make it to the end of the swimming lane to earn his Shark certification. This meant he was permitted to take out canoes and rowboats and to swim in the deep-water area.

  As for Billy, he was deemed a good enough swimmer to earn Whale certification. That meant he could swim anywhere in the lake, as long as he was with a fellow Whale. Tim was glad for his friend. At least Billy was good at something athletic. Maybe he could spend the whole four weeks in the water and avoid the other sports altogether.

  After swimming, they had a pickup softball game, just for fun, and then they were given an hour of free time before dinner. “I’m totally exhausted,” Tim said, sitting on his bed. “How ’bout you?”

  “They’d better give us double portions at dinner,” Billy replied, hauling his Camp Wickasaukee T-shirt over his head and throwing it into a corner that would become his laundry pile. “I feel like I’ve lost ten pounds already.”

  “Well, there’s worse things than getting into shape,” Tim pointed out as gently as he could. He thought Billy could stand to lose at least twenty, maybe thirty pounds.

  “Are you saying I’m fat?”

  “No, I just said there are worse things than getting in shape.”

  “Like what?” Billy asked, collapsing onto his bed. He lay back on his pillow — and let out a howl. “Aaaahhh!” He sprang upright. “What the —?”

  He swiped at his head and came up with a handful of shaving cream. “Okay, whose idea of a joke was this?”

  Tim had never seen his friend so angry. For a minute, he thought he could see smoke coming out of Billy’s ears.

  When Billy wasn’t looking, Tim felt his own pillow. It was dry — shaving cream–free. Apparently, whoever had it in for Billy was not focusing on Tim. He felt relieved, and ashamed, all at the same time.

  “You gonna report it to Jody?” he asked Billy.

  “What for?” he asked, wiping his head with a towel. “A lot of good that’d do. He’s probably laughing about it with the rest of them right now.”

  Tim wanted to tell Billy it wasn’t true — but what if he was wrong and Billy was right?

  Four more days went by — days of nonstop sports and activities. Tim could feel the difference in his stamina, the hardness of the muscles in his legs and stomach, and he knew he was getting into the best shape of his life.

  Even Billy was looking less out of shape. His latest problem was sunburned skin — mostly from being on the Skins three times in a row at scrimmages. On the fourth day, Tim noticed that Billy had ducked out of morning drills and snuck down to the lake for extra swimming — with a T-shirt on for sun protection.

  The other kids had noticed this, too. They must have thought Billy was too scared to play b-ball anymore, because later that day, when they passed by him, they all started clucking like chickens. Billy didn’t do much of anything about it — what could he do except complain? And what good would that have done? It would only have brought more humiliation down on him.

  Still, Tim felt he had to do something to help his friend get over the hump. So when he spotted Jody shaving in the bathroom, he approached him.

  “Hey,” Jody greeted him, his face half covered in shaving cream. “How’s it going?”

  Tim wondered if it was the same shaving cream that had wound up on Billy’s pillow. Not many of the kids were old enough to be shaving yet. “Okay, I guess,” Tim said. “The thing is … I’m kind of worried about Billy.”

  “Yeah? Why’s that? Something wrong with him?”

  “I … well, yeah, he’s having a pretty hard time.”

  “This wouldn’t have anything to do with what happened that first night, would it?”

  “Uh, yeah, sort of — and he got shaving cream on his pillow, too. Plus, I think he’s homesick.”

  Jody finished shaving with a few quick strokes, toweled off his face, and turned to Tim. “You sure this is about Billy, and not about you?”

  Tim was taken aback. “Uh, yeah. Why?”

  “Just wondering. You’re sure?”

  “Sure I’m sure!”

  “So everything’s cool with you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. Look, Tim,” he said, putting an arm around Tim’s shoulders, “sometimes kids have a tough time when they go away from home for the first time, you know? And I know the kids here like to have fun with the ‘newbies,’ but you’ve gotta have a sense of humor about it. Your friend Billy’ll be okay. Most everybody gets used to camp life after a while — once they decide they’re not gonna run home to their mommy and daddy.”

  “But —”

  “If I were you? Just a piece of friendly advice — I’d concentrate on myself. You know, make some new friends here and stop hanging around with just your old friend. He’ll be all right — question is, will you?”

  “I already told you —”

  “Okay, okay,” Jody said, backing off. “Just trying to be helpful. Billy needs to get tough a little, if you ask me. I’ll keep an eye on him and make sure nothing really serious happens. And you concentrate on you. Deal?”

  Jody put his hand out, and Tim reluctantly shook it. “Deal,” he said, forcing a smile.

  “Good. I’m glad we had this little talk. Hey, once we really get into the swing of things, I’m sure both of you’ll forget all about this.”

  “I thought we already were in the swing of things.”

  “Oh yeah?” Jody chuckled. “Wait till intercamp games get started.”

  “Intercamp games?”

  “Geez, didn’t they tell you anything? We’ve got our first matchup on Saturday against Camp Weequahic. It’ll give you a chance to show everybody what you can do on the court. You look like you can bust some moves, am I right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I thought so. You work hard, you’re gonna be a player. Just concentrate on your game and let Billy fend for himself.”

  “Okay.”

  “Trust me, he’ll be fine.”

  Tim wanted to say, “You don’t know him like I do,” but he didn’t. He knew it wasn’t what Jody wanted to hear, so what was the point? Anyway, Jody was right about one thing — whatever Tim did, when push came to shove, Billy was going to have to make his own way.

  5

  The campers spent the entire next day preparing for the big intercamp match. “Wickasaukee hasn’t lost an intercamp games in ten years!” thundered Coach Gabe at morning flag-raising. “And we’re not going to lose one this year either!” This was the signal for a rousing cheer and the singing of “Dear Old Wickasaukee.”

  “This makes me want to puke,” Billy murmured under his breath to Tim, who was standing next to him. But Tim made no response. He didn’t want to get drawn any further into Billy’s war with the camp.

  Jody was right, Tim had decided. The problem was in Billy’s head, and as long as he kept up the bellyaching, he’d be a natural target for pranks.

  They practiced hard for the competition against Camp Weequah
ic. At basketball, instead of the usual scrimmage, there was no dividing up into teams. The campers were all on the same side, from now till after the games were over. Instead, they mapped out plays for tomorrow’s game.

  Dick Dunbar was in charge, showing them how it was done down at North Carolina. “This is a pick-and-roll option we call the Brooklyn. In this play, the point guard passes the ball to the center at the top of the key. The center passes to the shooting guard, and at the same time, the point guard makes for the basket without the ball. The shooting guard bounce-passes it down the lane to him, and the point guard goes for the layup. If he misses, both forwards are at the low post, ready for the rebound.”

  They learned the Chicago, the Miami, and the Buffalo, too. They practiced give-and-gos, pick-and-rolls, five-man weaves, and all kinds of other maneuvers that were new to Tim, let alone to Billy — who was certainly good at setting a pick. Billy pretty much flattened Mike Gruber when he tried to get through him on defense.

  “Man, what are you, an oak tree?” Gruber complained. And for today, at least, Billy’s nickname was Oak Man. It was a welcome change, and Tim even thought he saw Billy smile once or twice.

  When Saturday morning came, the green Weequahic buses pulled up for the games. “Man, they look like a buncha wusses!” Brian Kelly snorted as the visitors piled out of the buses and were organized in the parking lot by age groups.

  “This is gonna be cake,” said Bobby Last, high fiving his best friend, Derek Chang. “No sweat.”

  Tim felt his heart swell with confidence. It was nice to be part of a team that felt like a winner — even if they hadn’t done anything yet to deserve it.

  The games commenced. Since there were sixteen kids in the Eagles group, and only two hours before lunch and three after, not everyone could play in every sport. Each camper got to be in three events. Tim looked over his assignments and was pleased to see that he was on the team for the big afternoon basketball game. He was also set for softball and the 100-yard dash. “What’d you get?” he asked Billy.

  “Swimming.”

  “Cool. That’s good, Billy.”

  Billy shot him a look. “Yeah, I guess. I also got tennis and softball.”

  “Hey, we’re on a team together!” Tim said, patting his friend on the back.

  “Yay,” Billy said, a little overenthusiastically. “We can warm the bench together. Whoopee!”

  There were several events going on at once, all around the camp. Basketball, being the featured sport, counted for twice as many points as anything else. The first events of the morning got under way. Billy went down to the lake while Tim got set for his 100-yard dash.

  He took his position at the starting line alongside several other runners. The pistol sounded, and Tim took off in a blur of motion. His legs fired like pistons, and he carried his momentum forward until he broke the string at the finish line. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that he had beaten the others by a good six feet — a wide margin for such a short race. He heard cheers all around him, and his name was shouted in triumph. He raised a fist in the air as he trotted back to the sidelines and accepted the hearty backslaps and high-fives of his campmates.

  At lunch, the kids shared stories of their morning exploits. While there had been no official announcement of the score, Tito quietly let it be known that Wickasaukee had a comfortable lead. Feelings were warm and comradely in the mess hall. Outside, they could see the Weequahic campers picnicking glumly on the grass, with the hot sun beating mercilessly down on them.

  “How’d you do in swimming?” Tim asked Billy, who actually smiled — beamed, in fact — as he answered by holding up his index finger.

  “First place?” Tim asked.

  “In three separate races,” Billy confirmed.

  “Dude, that’s awesome. You rule!” Tim said, slapping his friend on the back.

  “Yeah, right. I’m the king of Wickasaukee,” Billy said sarcastically.

  “Didn’t anybody congratulate you?” Tim asked.

  “Yeah, man,” Billy said. “I’m okay with them for now, but you’ll see — soon it’ll be ‘What have you done for me lately?’”

  Tim shook his head and sighed. Jody was right, he decided. Billy was just taking it all the wrong way.

  After lunch, they had their softball game. Billy actually started the game at catcher but came out after three error-prone innings. Tim went in during the fourth inning and had a walk and a double while scoring two runs in a 6–4 Wickasaukee victory.

  “This is too easy, man,” Tim heard Brian Kelly say to Mike Gruber. “Let’s have some fun with these losers on the basketball court.”

  The game started at 4 P.M., right after a 46–32 victory for the Wickasaukee Condors. All the other events of the day were now completed, so the entire boys camp was in the bleacher seats on each side of the gym to watch the Eagles complete the day’s triumph. Apparently, the girls were having a similar event over on their side of the camp — although they didn’t have a ten-year string of victories to defend.

  The ref blew his whistle, and Jody, their coach for the game, gathered the team members around him. “Donnie and Derek, you start at forward. Gruber and Cue Ball, you’re the guards. Last at center. The rest of you, I’ll get you in there, don’t worry. Soon as we build up a cushion.”

  By halftime, the Eagles had a 20-point lead, and Tim was sent out for the second half, along with the other subs. He felt kind of off, going in like this with a big lead. It was kind of a no-win situation. If they piled it on, it was no big deal — the game had already essentially been won. If they blew the lead even a little bit, they’d look like scrubs. And as the point guard, and Mike Gruber’s replacement, that went double for him. Gruber had been the big star of the first half, sinking four 3-pointers and setting the tone for the game.

  Tim started out by running the plays Dick Dunbar had shown them — the Brooklyn, the Chicago, the Buffalo — but the guys on the court with him weren’t nearly as good as the starters Gruber had. They dropped his passes, or mistimed their moves so that he looked like he was passing to nowhere. Then, when Tim decided to scrap the plays and get back to play-ground ball — meaning taking over the game — he blew his dribble twice and threw three bricks that clanged off the backboard without even hitting the rim. Man, did he ever need to work on his jumper.

  The Weequahic team closed to within 12 points, and Jody called for a time-out to switch back to his starters. Tim rode the bench for the rest of the game, which ended in a 32-point victory for the Eagles. He sat there, glum, throughout the celebration afterward. Even when Coach Gabe took the microphone to announce that Wickasaukee had won the games by a score of 105–35, Tim couldn’t muster up more than a halfhearted cheer, while everyone around him exploded in shouts of victory.

  Sure, he’d done well in track and softball. But everyone had done well all day long. And when he’d gotten his first big chance to show what he could do on the basketball court, he’d blown it big-time.

  Would he even get a second chance to prove himself?

  6

  A few more days went by, and all anyone was talking about was the upcoming social — the first dance of the summer. For the new campers, like Tim, it was their first chance to get a look at the girls up close. Girls had always made Tim nervous. He had had all kinds of crushes, since he was in second grade, but he’d never really asked a girl to dance. And with camp socials, it turned out, that was pretty much the whole trick.

  The campers who had been here year after year, of course, already had a pretty good idea of how things went. They knew which girls were going with which boys the summer before, and a lot of the talk was to sound each other out about whom it was okay to ask to dance. “What about Rise Lawrence?” Brian Kelly was asking the group of boys sitting on the front steps of Eagles Nest. “Who’s she with?”

  “I heard she likes Donnie,” said Bobby Last. “She’s tall, y’know? Tall girls like tall guys.”

  “Like you?” teased Mike Grub
er. “When did you ever go with her?”

  “I didn’t say I did,” Bobby said defensively.

  “‘Tall girls like tall guys,’” Gruber mocked.

  “Shut up, shorty,” Bobby said, and gave Gruber a halfhearted shove. All the boys laughed. Tim noticed that Mike didn’t seem to mind being called shorty. If it had been him, he wouldn’t have been able to take it so well. That was what made Mike Gruber so cool. He seemed not to care about anything — except basketball, of course.

  They talked about Rise Lawrence and Joanie Kim and Stephanie Krause. Rating them against each other. Tim felt awful when they did that, especially when they dissed kids because of their looks, or the way they walked, or their weird voice, or whatever it was. It was the same way they ragged on the new campers — although Tim doubted they’d have had the guts to say those things to the girls’ faces the way they did with the other boys.

  He wanted to hang with these kids, to feel free and easy with them. He guessed it would come with time, but he didn’t want to force it — didn’t want to sit down there with them and talk people down just to feel bigger.

  So he went back inside and upstairs to his and Billy’s room. Billy was lying on his bed, reading a long letter from Europe. “So how’re your mom and dad liking their trip?” Tim asked him.

  “A lot better than I’m liking it here,” Billy said miserably. “You should read this — they’ve been to about six hundred places already, and all my mom does is rave about how great it all is. I can’t believe they didn’t take me!”

  “You really like going to old churches and stuff?” Tim asked.

  “It sure beats getting made fun of, being bitten by a million bugs, getting your head covered with shaving cream, and peeling the skin off your back in huge sheets,” Billy replied. “I’m gonna look ridiculous tonight.”

  “Nobody will notice that you’re peeling,” Tim said. “Just wear a shirt.”