Table of Contents
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
EPIGRAPH
PROLOGUE
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
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30
31
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43
EPILOGUE
AFTERWORD
ONE ON ONE
Tabitha King
This is for my home team
who coached me and ran the plays with me
and for
my sister Marcella Spruce.
Several people made huge contributions to the published form of this novel. They include my agent, Chuck Verrill, and my editor, Audrey LaFehr. I had terrific copyediting from Barbara Ferris. My first readers, Stephen, Naomi, Joe Hill, and Owen, did more than offer editorial advice; their commentary in the margins of the original manuscript constitute a conversation I cherish. My sister Marcella shared observations and memories of her experiences as a teacher. And the prank on the roof really did happen on Penneseewasee Lake in Norway, Maine, some years ago, but since I do not know the identities of the mischief-makers, I can only gratefully acknowledge their inspiration.
What’sa matter, buddy, ain’t you hearda my school? It’s number one in the state…
—“Be True to Your School”, Brian Wilson
I wanna shoot one in from downtown to end the double overtime… I wanna do the Victory Dance…
—“Victory Dance” John Cafferty
PROLOGUE
An iridescent confetti of snow tarnished by sodium arc light sifts from the void over the glowing horizontal bulk of Greenspark Academy. It is 1:40 a.m. of a Sunday morning in early March. On the school’s front lawn, the letterboard spells out:
1990
STATE CLASS A CHAMPS
WESTERN MAINE CHAMPS
1990
Underneath, smaller type declares Winter Carnival Week.
A garden of ice sculpture enlivens the school grounds. One is a rendition of the bust of the warrior chief on the Indian head penny, wearing Walkman headphones. There is a rampant bear, a Big Bird, a Bart Simpson. Monumental sports gear—a football helmet big enough for a small child to hide inside, a hockey mask accessorized with a chain saw, and a baseball and Louisville Slugger—is strewn about as if some giant high school jock has emptied his closet. In their midst stands a ten-foot-tall hoops trophy—a basketball on a plinth—inscribed Western Maine Champions ‘90. The smooth surfaces of the various sculptures are frosted by the precipitation. It filigrees the diamonds of the hurricane fence enclosing the basketball courts near the gym and the bare rims of the hoops.
Despite the day and hour, Greenspark Academy is burning every light and the parking lot is full. The gymnasium currently holds more people than actually live within the limits of the small town of Greenspark. A live-TV van with an enormous thick pole antenna erect on its roof idles between the parking lot and the double doors of the gym.
The noise of the mob inside the gym resembles a distant rumorous surf. With a rain of sighs, the needle snow isolates the thud of a basketball on one of the outdoor courts. The shuddering beat of the cold ball on snow-streaked pavement is driven by the rubbery creak of a pair of high-tops, the snap of a loose lace and the open-mouthed breathing of slightly congested lungs. Snow glistens wetly in eyelash, in the arc of eyebrow and a cockscomb of spiked hair. It gleams on the taut skin of a narrow, raised face and silvers the curve of gold in the lobe of the nose.
Momentum claws back the flapping skirts of an unbuttoned man’s overcoat on the scarecrow figure. From the tips of chapped fingers the ball flies in a long, sweet hook. The whicker of its fall through the rim is lost in the whisper of wind-driven precipitate. Catching the ball as it bounces up, the shooter stops to knuckle a wet upper lip and snorkle back mucus.
With an exhuberant whoop and burble, police sirens implode the silvery hush and red and blue lights pulse on the main road. The gym doors are thrown open explosively and a cheering crowd spills into the net of the blinding TV lights. Manic and colorful as a troop of Shriner clowns, Greenspark’s five police cruisers sweep up the school’s curving drive, leading two yellow school buses and behind them, a parade of honking vehicles.
The kids on the buses begin to hoot and bellow from every window at the first sight of the school. Some of them jam head and shoulders through the opened windows and are held back from falling out by others clutching them at hip and waist.
“Check it out,” one of the celebrants of the first bus calls out. “Look who’s getting the edge on next season.”
The ripple of laughter at the lone shooter on the snow-riven court is immediately drowned by crowd-roar greeting the buses.
A gauntlet of students forms to welcome the Greenspark Academy Indians, for almost five hours now the Class A Schoolboy Basketball Champions of the State of Maine—and for the third consecutive year. First to emerge from the bus into camera flash and TV spotlight is Coach, with a looted net around his neck. He is followed by the two assistant coaches and the team managers. They trot the short parade line to the open doors of the gym, to be taken up by welcoming dignitaries. The second bus empties simultaneously and its passengers—cheerleaders and band members—are absorbed into the crowd.
As Coach disappears into the gym, there is a sudden blossom of bottles and cans from under jackets and out of pockets into the hands of the impromptu honor guard. The team members descend from the bus into a popping fusillade of tabs and caps and duck through sprays of beer and sparkling cider. Each of the boys who exits the bus receives a rousing welcome but the last boy off, the biggest one, is greeted longest and loudest. Someone thrusts a bottle of beer into his hand. Sam Styles upends it, aiming it at his mouth, and manages to get most of it down in one swallow—an act that raises another cheer.
Sam blinks sticky cider from his lashes and shakes his head. His ponytail whips from left to right, scattering droplets that halo in the saturated air. At the edge of his vision he glimpses the solitary shooter on
