The only way I could do my homework was if I shut myself up in my room and turned on my music. Even then I could still hear Mom arguing with Wills about not doing his work, about complaints from school, about staying out, about swearing, about having the television on too loud, about dribbling and slamming and dunking anything he could lay his hands on. You’d think I would be used to it, but you try blocking out a hurricane, especially if you’re worried someone is getting hurt in it, or if you’re expecting your door to come crashing in at any moment.
During the night before the tournament, Wills came into my room and woke me up.
“You don’t like me, do you?” he said.
“Not when you wake me up in the middle of the night, I don’t,” I muttered.
“No, but you don’t anyway, do you?”
“Why do you expect me to like you when you’re horrible to me,” I said.
“What if I was nice to you, then?”
“Try it,” I sighed. “What’s this all about, Wills?”
“I don’t mean all the things I do.” He sounded sort of defeated.
“What, like you didn’t mean to send me all those nasty text messages?”
“It was just a bit of fun.”
Surely even Wills couldn’t believe that!
“Only for you and your stupid friends,” I said.
“They’re not stupid,” Wills mumbled.
“They’re stupid and ugly and horrible and you know it,” I growled.
“Just cuz they caught you being a dork in the library,” Wills said.
“I knew you’d say that. Why don’t you just leave me alone?”
“I really need you to be there for me tomorrow,” Wills said quietly. “I mean, will you shout at me if I start to mess up? I need you to be on my side, Chris, because some of them other kids are waiting for me to mess up big time, I know it. They’re gonna try and make me mess up so that I get kicked out of the team, like last time. I promise I’ll listen to you.”
I couldn’t understand why Wills was so sure that the other kids were out to get him, and why he didn’t think that Clingon would deal with it. But then I didn’t understand half of what went on in Wills’s head.
“I need you to be on my side too,” I said. “It’s your fault your friends won’t leave me alone.”
“I didn’t know you went to the library. That wasn’t my fault,” protested Wills.
“I won’t go there anymore,” I said.
“I’ll tell them to leave you alone, then,” said Wills. “I’ll tell them to leave you alone or, they’ll have me to answer to.”
“Scary,” I scoffed.
“You can laugh,” said Wills huffily, “but what I say goes with them. They respect me, and they’ll do whatever I tell them.”
I stared at Wills and could see that he really believed what he was saying. I didn’t believe it for a minute, not even for a second.
“You never ever pass to me when I’m playing at the same time as you,” I said accusingly.
“I promise I’ll pass to you, all the time,” Wills said.
“Even when I’m on the bench?” I grinned. I wanted to lighten the mood now.
“On the bench?” bellowed Wills. “I won’t let them leave you on the bench! You’re my brother. Where I go, you go!”
“Together we stand!” I shouted.
“Divided—we fall!” shouted Wills, and he dropped like a pillar of stone onto my bed.
“Ow, you fool, that hurt,” I yelled, “and you’ve woken Muffin up.”
“Sorry, Muffin,” chuckled Wills. “Sorry, bro.”
He giddy-upped back to his bedroom, leaving me to rub my elbowed chest to the rattle of Muffin on his wheel.
I felt lousy the next morning, tired and knotted up with nerves. It had taken me ages to get to sleep after Wills’s nighttime visit, and I sat at the breakfast table, yawning my head off. Wills was subdued too. I wondered if it was because he was tired, or because he was nervous, or both. Mom was excited. She chatted away about how much she was looking forward to watching us. She wanted us to teach her the rules of basketball, because she had never even seen a game before. I tried to explain, with Wills interrupting me to tell me when I’d got it wrong, and I think we left her totally confused.
“I expect I will pick it up,” she said.
Wills snorted. “It’s a well-known fact that women are bad at anything to do with sports,” he said.
“It’s a well-known fact that teenagers are incredibly patronizing and think they know everything,” retorted Mom. “You keep your generalizations to yourself, young man.”
“Keep your hair on, Momsy-womsy, I was only joking,” Wills grinned. “But you are the weaker sex, aren’t you?”
Mom tried to swat him across the kitchen table and knocked over her cup of coffee.
“Now look what you’ve made me do,” she groaned.
“Clumsy-Mumsy,” Wills scolded. Then, for the hundredth time he asked, “How long is it till we go?”
The tournament was being held in the local community center. Dad was coming to collect us all at half past twelve and we were due to have practice at the center before the tournament started at half past one. It was a relief when at last he arrived. “How’s the dream team, then?” he asked, standing on the doorstep, freshly shaved, bowling pin body crammed into a tracksuit and sneakers. “All fit and raring to go?”
“Jeez, Dad,” said Wills. “Anyone would think you were our coach.”
“Just like
