“What do I do?” I asked while climbing onto the other one.
“Same as last time. Think of a place you want to be, and that’s where we’ll go.”
“But the Reality Bug is going to make it different?”
Aja chuckled. “Oh yeah.”
I didn’t like that. I wanted to know exactly how much different it was going to be, but I didn’t get the chance to ask. A second later Aja hit a few buttons on her wrist controller and our tables slid into the tube.
“You know what you’re doing, right?” was all I could get out before my head went inside.
Aja answered with a laugh. I hoped that meant yes. A second later I was all the way into the tube, and the door closed behind me.
I was in the dark again. In more ways than one. Where was Lifelight going to send me this time?
(CONTINUED)
VEELOX
My body started to feel heavy, like I was being pushed into the table. I felt a little sleepy too. This was pretty much what happened the last time I was in here, so I wasn’t worried. But my heart was starting to beat faster with anticipation.
I felt something dry and scratchy brush against my face. It didn’t scare me or anything because even though I didn’t know what it was, it somehow felt… right. I reached up to find out what it was, and discovered there was something covering my face. It felt like a towel. How did a towel end up on my face? I grabbed hold of it and pulled it away as…
The roar of the gymnasium crowd came flooding back like someone had just swung open a soundproof door. I pulled the towel away to find myself sitting on the bench between Petey Boy and Jimmy Jag. I was back at the basketball game at the exact same moment where I’d left it. Yes! It looked like I was going to get my extra twenty minutes after all.
It took a few seconds for me to get my head back into the situation. I glanced up at the scoreboard. It was all tied up at fifty-eight and we were headed for overtime. I had just sunk two free throws and the crowd was going ape. Coach
Darula came over and knelt down in front of us.
“We’ve been here before!” he shouted over the noise of the crowd. “Five minutes of OT. We’ve got the experience, we’ve got the conditioning, and now we’ve got them scared. All we have to do is keep our poise and the game is ours. Bring it in.”
We all brought our hands together and Coach shouted, “One, two, three…”
We all answered with “Win!” then dropped our hands and jumped up to take the court. I was back up to speed, warmed up, and ready to go. Oddly, I even felt a little tired and sweaty, as if I had just played a full regulation game of basketball… which I had, in my fantasy. As we trotted out onto the court I heard a lone voice calling from the stands. Though it wasn’t very loud, it cut right through the noisy crowd.
“Good luck.”
I turned back and saw Aja sitting in the stands behind the bench, dressed like a high school kid with jeans and a sweatshirt. She was holding a red pennant that said “Cardinals” and waved it with absolutely no enthusiasm. She really stood out against the rest of the crowd that was going totally nuts.
There was something about the way she said “good luck” that gave me an uneasy feeling. There was more. I looked up into the stands where I remembered you guys, Mark and Courtney, were sitting. But you weren’t there. Odd. Everything was the same as when I left the fantasy before, except that the two of you were gone. Another look told me my family wasn’t there either. I figured this was the kind of thing Aja was talking about when she said the Reality Bug made the jumper’s experience less than perfect.
As soon as I got to the center of the court for the tip-off, I noticed something else had changed. The players from Easthill High seemed bigger than before. It wasn’t like they were sundenly giants or anything, but they definitely had more muscle and a few inches of height. They didn’t look all that tired, either. I wasn’t sure of what was going on, but there was one thing I felt certain about.
This was going to be a long overtime period.
The ref threw the ball up, it got tipped away from us, and the fun began. It was horrible. This was an entirely different game. I’m not sure if it was because these guys were suddenly better, or we had gotten a lot worse. Didn’t matter. The result would have been the same.
They ate us for lunch.
Skill-wise, they dribbled around us, passed behind their backs, and alley-ooped for a bunch of slam dunks. Physically, they pushed us around like we were little kids. I’d dribble to the top of the key with my back to the basket, and the guy guarding me would put a hand on my back so I couldn’t move. If I tried to pass, he’d swat the ball away and steal it for a fast break, followed by an easy layup on the other side of the court.
Three minutes into the overtime period and they had outscored us twelve to one. It was worse than embarrassing. The only reason we got a point was because I took a jump-shot and the center hammered the ball back into my face so hard that it bounced off my head and landed two rows deep in the stands.
To be honest, the rejection was clean. No foul. But the ref took pity and called it. Unlike the last time I stepped up to the foul line, the crowd had grown deathly silent. I didn’t think it was possible to have so many people in one place make so little noise.
I sank the first free throw, which was our one point. But I missed the second. It was a costly miss in more ways than one.
The ball bounced off the rim and rebounded back toward me. I jumped for it. So did their big center. He grabbed the ball and came down hard… elbow first.
Yeow! He nailed me right in the nose. Man, I saw stars! I landed on my butt with the gym swirling around me. This might have been a fantasy, but that shot to the nose felt totally real. They had to stop the game and Coach Darula ran over to help me up. Blood was spurting from my nose like a lawn sprinkler. My head was spinning. I wasn’t sure if I could make it back to the bench. Crutch and Joe Zip had to help me get there.
The crowd gave me a decent ovation. At least that proved they were still alive. Then, just before I sat down, I caught a glimpse of Aja. She had a big smile on her face like she was all sorts of happy that I had gotten nailed. All I could do was give her a dirty look. She shrugged. I sat down on the bench with my nose bleeding and my head swirling. I was done for the day.
But the day wasn’t done with me.
Even though we were getting our butts kicked. Coach Darula was still coaching like crazy. He was running up and down the court, shouting encouragement, calling plays, crying foul when the other team got too rough (which was pretty much all the time). I had never seen him so excited. His face was all sorts of red. It worried me that he was overdoing it. As it turned out, I was right.
There were thirty seconds left in OT. We were down by fifteen with no hope of making a comeback. At this point our guys were only trying to survive. I had a moment of guilt, thinking that it was my fault they were getting beat up like this. I had to keep reminding myself that it was all a fantasy. But at that moment, it didn’t feel like one. I know my aching nose felt all too real. Easthill had just scored, again, and Coach Darula wanted a time-out. He jumped up from the bench, shouting at the ref, making the T symbol with his hands… and that’s when it happened. Coach Darula clutched his left arm, his face went blank, and he fell to his knees. I’m no doctor, but I was pretty sure of what was happening.
He was having a heart attack. The game was stopped. The referee ran over and laid him on his back. He then motioned for the timekeeper to get the paramedics. Seconds later two guys in uniform hurried over to the coach to take care of him. I didn’t think it was possible, but the crowd was even more quiet than before. Within minutes Coach Darula was on a stretcher, being wheeled out as the crowd applauded nervously.
Nobody wanted to play after that. There was no pointy Everybody just kind of wandered away in shock. Even the Easthill guys didn’t celebrate their victory. It was all so very strange. I looked around for Aja, but she was gone too. Not knowing what else to do, I followed my team into the locker room and took a shower. My nose had finally stopped bleeding and the warm water felt good. I stood alone in the shower with my sore nose, washing the dried
