“What happened in there?”
“I can’t tell you,” she said.
“What do you mean, you can’t tell me?”
“I promised.”
She pushed past me and headed down the road. I caught up to her.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No.”
“This has to be a joke,” I said, which was dumb because I knew that she wasn’t kidding and that this was the furthest thing from a joke.
“Remember when you couldn’t tell me about who shot Rachel and her mother?”
“You’re still mad about that? I told you. It wasn’t my secret to tell.”
She held up a hand. “You have it wrong.”
“Oh?”
“I’m not mad about it at all. I understand now. I’m using your example so you’ll understand. I can’t tell you. I made a promise.”
I frowned. “To Buck?”
“It doesn’t matter, Mickey. I can’t tell you.”
I jumped in front of her again. “This isn’t the same thing. Buck isn’t Rachel. I came all this way with you. I’m a part of it. I want to know.”
Ema shook her head. “Sometimes you’re better off not knowing.”
“Really? You’re going to pull that line on me?”
She walked away from me.
My hands formed fists and I shouted, “I didn’t come here just for you.”
“I know.”
“I came to find Buck for myself.”
She nodded without slowing her pace. “To help Troy.”
“To find the truth.”
“You’ll find it soon enough,” she said.
“What does that mean?”
But Ema didn’t speak again. Not on the road. Not on the ferry or the bus. Not even a good-bye when we went our separate ways back in Kasselton.
CHAPTER 42
Spoon said, “Let it go.”
Rachel and I were back in his room. I was filling them in on what had happened on Adiona Island.
“How can I let it go?”
“Ema is, like, totally awesome, right?”
“Right.”
“And you trust her one hundred percent, right?”
“Right.”
“So why stop trusting her now?” Spoon asked. “She said it’s best if you don’t know. So guess what? It’s best that you don’t know.”
I looked at Rachel. She shrugged. I looked back at Spoon. He pushed his glasses up his nose and met my eye. Bat Lady had said that he was meant for great things. I started thinking back to the beginning of this, that first day when he introduced himself to me by asking if I wanted to use his spoon. It had been his idea how to get into that computer in the school office, his idea to get into Ashley’s locker, his idea even how to get into school the night he was shot. It was Spoon who had told us to go to the Farnsworth School and to Adiona Island twice.
I had always thought that I was the leader of this group.
But maybe it was Spoon.
As though reading my mind, Spoon gave a small nod and said, “Give her time.”
“So now what?” Rachel asked.
“Nothing,” Spoon said. “Ema said it’s over. It’s over.”
I shook my head. “I don’t buy it.”
“Neither do I,” Spoon said. “But we can’t force it. You want the egg to hatch on its own. You don’t want to break it open. Do you see?”
Everyone in my life was talking like a fortune cookie all of a sudden.
“You break it open if you’re hungry,” I said.
“Stop playing with my metaphors. You got basketball practice, right? Go.”
He was right.
“And,” Rachel said, “I heard about your good news, so it should be a fun time.”
I turned to her. “What good news?”
“You didn’t hear?”
“No, what?”
“They overturned Troy’s positive drug test. He’s back on the team.”
CHAPTER 43
I didn’t know what to make of that. I hurried over to practice and started to dress. Troy wasn’t there, but the mood was definitely buoyant. Guys slapped each other five. A few came over to me and slapped me five too. They thanked me. They gave me fist bumps.
I tried to think about what I might have done.
When I got out to the gym, I spotted Troy shooting under his familiar center basket. A bunch of guys surrounded him and threw him passes. Troy was a point guard, the shortest starter on the team, but he had deadly aim from three-point land. He knocked down four shots in a row. The guys all clapped and cheered.
When I started toward him, Troy broke into a smile. “Mickey!”
Troy and I fist-bumped. He passed me the ball. I took a quick shot and said, “You’re back?”
I guess that I could have said something more obvious, but that was what came out of my mouth first.
“You know it.”
He slapped me five again.
“What happened?” I asked. “I mean, how-?”
Coach Grady blew the whistle. “Three-man weave,” he shouted. “Come on. We have our first scrimmage next Tuesday. Let’s get moving.”
Troy gave me the full-wattage smile again and said, “Let’s talk later. You want a ride home?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, man, I’ll fill you in then. Let’s get to work.”
It was a great practice. We had a lot of skilled players, but Troy was the floor leader. He had the experience and the know-how. He was a natural-born leader on the court. No question about it: We were a better team with him back. Practice was more fun. Everything fell into place.
Except for one small thing.
Brandon Foley seemed unusually quiet.
“All okay?” I asked Brandon during a water break.
“Sure.”
“Great about Troy.”
“Yeah,” he said as though spitting out glass. “Great.”
I didn’t know what to make of him, so I let it go. Troy was back-and even though I didn’t seem to have anything to do with it, my teammates appreciated what I had done. Some even noted that I had been “wronged” in the past and they admired how I “stepped up” in spite of all that.
“Team first,” Danny Brown said to me.
“Team first,” I agreed.
As practice ended, Coach Grady shouted, “Okay, boys, gather around.”
We all took spots on the bleachers. We sucked down water and toweled ourselves off. Troy sat next to me.
“Tomorrow’s practice will be at four thirty,” Coach Grady said. “We’ll be in the other gym for the first half hour, then we move into this one.” Coach Grady continued his little spiel, hitting on a few more logistical points. We would be getting our uniforms on Monday, he said. We had the scrimmage in West Orange on Tuesday.
Then he paused and got to the heart of the matter.
“Drug tests for all Kasselton High School winter sports have been declared null and void. It doesn’t matter why. All you guys need to know is that we will be running new tests starting in two weeks. Okay, that’s it. Young guys, let’s get this place straightened up. The rest of you, do your homework and get some sleep.”
By “young guys,” Coach Grady meant the three juniors and me, the solo sophomore. We were supposed to do the team chores. Some might call it mild hazing, but it wasn’t really that. We pulled out the bleachers for the team meetings. We swept the floor at the end of practice. We put the balls back on the rack and locked them up.
Today Brandon helped out. He didn’t have to, but as captain, he was that kind of guy. He and I picked up the balls and put them on the rack. Again I couldn’t help but notice that he wasn’t himself.
“I figured you’d be happy,” I said.
“Why’s that?”
“You were the one who thought Troy got a raw deal.”
He nodded slowly. “I guess I did.” Then he looked at me. “Where were you last night?”
“What do you mean?”
“Before you came to my house. Where were you?”
There had been no reason last night to tell him about breaking into the shed. There was even less reason now. “Why?”