YOURS TRULY,
DOUGLAS FRASIER.
“Hope you got him in one shot, Doug,” Mr. Kalman says as he starts to write back.
One of those letters was addressed to me.
Dear Sam,
You and your headstrong sister brought an old man back to life. Thank you for changing me to a better channel.
Your neighbor and friend,
Avi Kalman
That night, as I’m getting ready for bed, I tap the meditation app on my phone. Tap and hold, that is. Then I drag it up to the trashcan.
“Are you sure you want to delete?” the Guided Meditation Lady asks.
I tap “yes.”
On March 14, Catalina stuns the school by reciting 947 digits of pi. Her nearest challenger is an eighth-grade boy who makes it all the way to 207.
A week later, Sean travels to Sacramento for the state Academic Decathlon championship. We watch online as the final question in the varsity, or C-student category, is read aloud: “This Latin legal term meaning ‘a formal order asking to be more informed or be made certain’ is what the Supreme Court grants when it agrees to take a lower court’s case on appeal.
“(a) habeas corpus
“(b) de minimis non curat lex
“(c) caveat emptor
“(d) writ of certiorari
“(e) none of the above.
“Ten seconds.”
Mr. Kalman grins. Sadie laughs. Alistair and Jaesang elbow me from either side. Catalina swings her braid.
When the ten seconds are up, the announcer asks for the answer cards.
Sean is the only one holding up (d) writ of certiorari.
Our cheer is holding up the sky.
One day at the end of the month, while sitting with Dad on the couch and checking her email, Sadie screams really loud: “I got into Harvard? Princeton? Yale? I didn’t even apply to those schools!”
Turns out she had some letters of recommendation she didn’t know about.
From nine men and women in a very high place.
In June we have our stepping-up ceremony at school. Mr. Trotter brings the orchestra onstage, and we play a jazz combo with the wooden xylophones and some African drums. He asked me if I wanted to do a piano solo, but I said no, thanks. I just wanted to play with everyone else.
Afterward we all go back to Mr. Kalman’s house for lunch. The path to his front door is sunny now. The doorbell doesn’t stick.
“Hey, Alistair,” I say when he gets there with his mom and dad, “I got you an end-of-the-year present.”
“For me? For real?”
“Go ahead. Open it.”
He’s expecting a pack of Post-its or a planner, but what he unwraps is—
“The panda! Seriously?”
“I even signed the tag for you.”
“But I went back for it. It wasn’t there.”
“It was there. You forgot where you hid it.”
“Behind the cooking magazine, I thought.”
“Fishing.”
“Man, I should’ve written that down. Thanks, Sam. I hope we can spend lots of time together this summer.”
“Me too,” I tell him.
“That is, if you’re not sick of seeing me on TV.”
“TV? You’re going to be on TV?”
“Yup. I tried out for the next season of MasterChef Junior. Made it onto the show.”
“You’re kidding! Wow, Alistair. That’s amazing! I’m so happy for you.”
“Know what convinced the judges? I whipped up some of Mr. Kalman’s tuna salad. I’m forever indebted to that man.”
Aren’t we all?
Mr. Kalman tells Jaesang it’s time for them to conduct business. He calls him over to the dining room table, where we all worked so hard to plan our case. The legal papers are gone now; it’s just a big buffet of food. But there’s enough room on one corner for Jaesang to set his three-ring binder full of basketball cards.
Mr. Kalman offers the terms.
“Oldest for youngest.”
“What do you mean?”
“You give me the current Lakers starting lineup.”
“For?”
“The 1972 NBA champs—if I can find them all in this drawer.”
Mr. Kalman slides open the bottom drawer of his antique wooden hutch. He doesn’t just slide it open; he pulls it all the way out and carries it over to the dining room table, sets it down, and starts poking through it with his finger. Pretty soon he’s pulling out basketball cards that are more than forty years old. They’d be worth thousands on Ebay.
Jaesang can’t help leaning closer and closer to each card.
Gail Goodrich, number 25.
Happy Hairston, number 52.
Elgin Baylor, 22.
Jerry West, 44.
Jaesang’s eyes are getting as big as basketballs. To him, collecting all five of the starting Lakers from 1972 would be like winning the lottery.
He’s got four out of five. He needs one more card.
“Say, Mr. Kalman,” he says, trying to sound all casual, “you don’t happen to have a Wilt Chamberlain in the bunch, do you?”
Wilt the Stilt Chamberlain, lucky number 13, one of the all-time greats in the NBA. He led the Lakers to a thirty-three-game winning streak in the 1971–72 season. And he once scored over 100 points in a single game!
Jaesang has been searching all his life for a 1972 Wilt Chamberlain. That’s the year the Lakers beat Boston four games to one in the NBA finals.
Mr. Kalman’s finger fishes around some more. He turns over the faces of NBA greats from the last century. John Havlicek . . . Walt Frazier . . . Julius Erving.
“Chamberlain, you say?”
“It would sort of complete the squad.”
His bony finger flicks aside more cards. Then he picks one up and holds it close to his cloudy eyes.
“Here’s one, but you can’t see his jersey too well.”
“Why not?”
Mr. Kalman drops the card face-up onto the table.
It’s signed!
Jaesang drops face-up onto the floor. It takes Alistair’s homemade cheesecake to revive him.
We’re halfway through dessert when the doorbell rings. Mr. Kalman is busy brewing more coffee, so Dad answers for him.
Guess who walks in a second later?
Our teacher, Mr. Powell. He doesn’t say hello. Just stands in the entryway, a little awkward, until he can catch Mr. Kalman’s eye.
“I want to sue the school board,” he says.
“On what grounds?”
“On the grounds that standardized testing is unconstitutional.”
“Where’s the violation?”
“Teaching to the test deprives students of their right to a real education. And publishing the results violates teachers’ privacy.”
Mr. Kalman
