Chapter 9

“I JUST WANT to know that you had nothing to do with it,” Ardith said.

“Nothing to do with what, Coach?”

“Nothing to do with Lee Smith landing in the hospital this weekend.”

Dennis blanched. He hadn’t heard anything about it. “Why is he in the hospital?”

“Someone decided to clobber him, apparently with a baseball bat. Never mind. It’s obvious you didn’t even know about it,” Ardith said. “While I understand the perpetrator going that far, it’s not something we could condone on our team. Or even in the school at all.”

“I try to stay as far away from Lee and his gang as I can, Coach. You know I wouldn’t be safe if I was within reach,” Dennis said. Even the mention of Lee Smith made his stomach hurt.

“You should continue to stay away from him. I’ll take you home tonight after practice. I want to talk to your mother and let her know we’re still doing everything we can to keep you safe. But if someone on the team was responsible for this, she won’t be on the team any longer.” Ardith absolutely hated laying down the law like this, but she was just practicing on Dennis for what she needed to tell the rest of the team.

It bothered Dennis, too. He wanted to be safe. He wanted Lee and his gang brought to justice, but he didn’t want any of his friends to be involved. It still bothered him that they were protecting him each night on the way home. On the other hand, he really liked riding with Diane and Judith, or with Brenda. Of course, nothing compared to riding with Natalie and her sisters. He just liked being near her. And even though Leanne hadn’t kissed him again, the nights he walked home with her and Rosie were great. He never got to walk home with Amy. She let him know that it wasn’t because of him, but her brother had been one of the three boys disciplined for bullying Dennis last year. She didn’t think they’d either one be safe if she walked him home and encountered the gang. Sometimes she sat next to him at lunch, though.

Of course, Carol didn’t spend time with anyone on the team except in practice. She dated some guy who went to college in Ames—that Tom Perkins guy—and thought she was too mature to ‘play with the children.’

Coach put it right on the line to the team. She went through the standard of behavior she expected from everyone.

“I’m not going to come down on you if you get caught in a situation where you need to defend yourselves, or someone else. But no matter what injustice you feel has occurred, you are not the law, judge, or jury. Restrain yourselves.”

Dennis remembered that she’d attempted to run down the boys when she found them beating on him so, he wasn’t too worried about anyone getting into trouble for protecting him. For the millionth time he wished he was bigger, stronger, and could see better than he did. As it was, he was a little uncomfortable sitting in the girls’ locker room while the coach lectured them. Some of the girls didn’t have their shoes on yet and Coach had held him back when they went to the locker room while someone put on her shirt.

“Does anyone have any questions?”

“Who’d bother?” Carol asked. “We know it couldn’t have been little Denny. He couldn’t even reach the back of Lee’s head.” She laughed but none of the other girls did.

“Let’s get some practice in,” Ardith said. “Let me introduce you to our new official. I want to be able to coach you and correct you but I want you to play by the rules. Dennis and I went to an officiating clinic on Friday and I’m confident that he’ll be able to call the game. If his whistle blows, it’s just like the ref at any game you play. You stop immediately and pay attention. Grab both your practice jerseys, I’ll be moving you around.”

Once they were in the gym it was all basketball. Dennis led them through warmups and then Ardith assigned teams. Their practice jerseys were bright red and powder blue. Coach read off the assignments as she walked down the line.

“Amy, red. Brenda, blue. Rosie, red. Natalie, blue. Daniella, red. Roberta, blue. Judith, red. Diane, blue. Carol, red. Leanne, blue. Take a minute to sort yourselves out and make sure you’re clear about who is playing what position. Ref, the game’s yours.”

“Two lines at the side of the key. Red on my left and blue on my right. Each person gets one shot. When one team is ahead after an even number of shots, they get the ball,” Dennis said. It was one of the ways listed in the officials’ manual for determining who was the home team and who was away during tournament play. It worked and on the third shot red led by one. Dennis blew the whistle and held the ball under the basket to give to the red team to inbound. He blew the whistle and the game was on.

Dennis wasn’t as fast as some of the girls, but he could last longer than any of them. Coach was holding a stopwatch and would call a timeout in eight minutes. By the time her whistle blew, they all needed a break and got a drink of water. Everyone had her own refillable water bottle and was responsible for it during practice. During games, Dennis would have bottles open for them when they needed them.

“Carol, switch to blue. Natalie, switch to red,” Ardith said. The two girls put on their alternate practice jerseys and headed back to the floor. Dennis held the ball and called, “Blue ball!” Diane took the ball and tossed it in to Brenda. The game was underway again. Coach made two more switches shuffling the team around. At the end of thirty-two minutes of playing time, they all came off the floor and sat on the bench.

“Who won?” Amy asked.

“Who knows?” Dennis answered. “We weren’t keeping score.”

“That makes sense,” Natalie said. “Most of us played on both teams.”

“This isn’t about keeping score. Yet,” Ardith said. “It’s about seeing how you work with your teammates, and how you would defend against them. You all did pretty well. Some of you need to be more diligent in getting to the weight room and doing your routines. You should never airball. At least be able to shoot the ball to the backboard, even if you can’t make a basket yet. That means lift, girls. You need the muscle.”

“Are we going to get shooting practice?” Daniella asked. “We’ve been doing almost all conditioning practice through October. I feel like I need to learn where the basket is all over again.”

“Yes, we’ll do shooting practice tomorrow. I need to be on the phone when practice starts tomorrow, so Dennis will lead shooting practice. Follow his advice. He knows where the basket is.”

“How can he know that?” Carol asked. “He can’t even see the basket.”

“I can see okay with my glasses,” Dennis defended himself.

“All right. I’m getting pretty sick of this. Dennis, Carol, on the court. Twenty foul shots each. Natalie and Brenda, feed them balls. The rest of you chase,” Ardith said. They all headed back for the court. Carol stepped up to the foul line and started tossing her shots up. She didn’t do too badly, sinking half of the twenty shots. Dennis stepped up to the line. He missed his first shot, bouncing off the front of the rim. Carol snorted. Dennis calmed himself and thought about how he practiced in the back yard. The important thing was to do it exactly the same every time. He bounced the ball twice, took his grip on it, and launched it toward the net. Swish. He followed the same routine eighteen more times and had eighteen more baskets. He wasn’t as fast as Carol, but his accuracy was outstanding.

“Holy cow! That was amazing!” Rosie said. “Teach me to shoot like that!”

“Why did you miss the first one?” Brenda asked, genuinely curious. Dennis shrugged.

“Nobody’s perfect,” he shrugged.

“I did some investigating,” Ardith said. “Dennis, I hope you don’t think I’m invading your privacy. This is what I want to talk to your parents about this evening.” She turned to the team. “Without his glasses, Dennis is legally blind. He’d have to walk around with a cane or a seeing eye dog. With his glasses his vision is corrected to 20/50 vision, but with a narrower focal range. That means that what you can see at fifty feet, he needs to be twenty feet from in order to see as clearly. It’s fifteen feet from the foul line to the backboard. Dennis can see that fine.”

“So, he can see anything that’s within twenty feet of him?” Diane asked, still not quite certain what the lesson was.