Comeback Kid

  DEDICATION

  To Melaine . . . A thousand years.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  My name is Steve, and I am a benchwarmer.

  I’m a seventh grader at Spiro T. Agnew Middle School—Home of the Mighty Plumbers. That’s the nickname for our sports teams, and I’m not even making that up.

  A long time ago, way back in the ancient 1970s, a genius school official thought the image of a plumber in overalls holding a pipe wrench would strike fear in the hearts of Spiro’s opponents.

  Derp!

  If you’ve read any of my other books—No Fear! or Control Freak or Kicking & Screaming—then you already know that I love sports, but I rarely get to play.

  (And if you haven’t read any of the other books, then I am really embarrassed for you.)

  Don’t feel all sorry for me or anything, but the score’s got to be about a hundred to zip before a coach even thinks about putting me in a game.

  Either that, or a string of freak injuries to starters has to leave a coach no choice but to put me in. Like when a soccer player named Thunderfoot shredded the hands of the starting goalie and I was the only substitute available.

  In this book, I’m going to tell you about a basketball season when I alone was responsible for my rear end being planted on the pine, which is another way of saying I sat on the bench. But first, let me ask you a question:

  Have you ever been given a crummy chore and you did too good of a job at it?

  Like scooping dog poop or digging a putrid wad of hair out of a clogged shower drain or crawling into an attic to dispose of rat carcasses?

  It’s practically a rule that if you do too good of a job with a crummy chore, you will be stuck doing that crummy chore for the rest of your life. And there will be no one to blame but yourself.

  That’s what happened to me during the Mighty Plumbers basketball season. I got stuck sitting on the pine because I did way too good of a job as—

  Derp!

  I almost blew it.

  I can’t reveal any more details right now because—big, drooly duh—it’s pretty much a strict rule when writing a book that you don’t just blurt out all the juicy plot stuff in the first few pages.

  So I’ll tell you more later, like when I get in the mood or when you can’t stand the suspense for even a half second longer. Whichever comes first.

  All you need to know for now is that I’m not a drooling dweeb, okay? Even though I’m a benchwarmer, I do have some skills.

  For example, I have excellent leaping ability.

  That would be a huge advantage if I was to rob a batter of a home run by jumping up and catching the ball just before it sails over the right-field fence.

  Or if I was running with the football and I leaped over a linebacker and landed in the end zone for a touchdown.

  Or if I was swimming in the Amazon River and someone shouted, “Piranha!”

  So don’t feel sorry for me. I’m not all bitter and gloomy just because I sit on the bench. Besides, I’m probably better at it than anyone else my age in the entire city—maybe even the entire world.

  End of the pine or middle of the pine. Doesn’t matter

  I’m King of the Bench!

  No brag. It’s just a fact.

  CHAPTER 1

  Silence, random kid!

  I’m not in the mood to blurt out juicy plot stuff yet, so you’ll just have to wait.

  And wait.

  And wait.

  And . . .

  Ha! Just goofing.

  I’m in the mood now.

  In the first game of the Spiro T. Agnew basketball season, I literally stumbled upon a ritual that could change the momentum of a basketball game and result in an amazing comeback victory. And I’m not even exaggerating.

  But before I can tell you about the first game of the season, I have to back up a minute. Sorry. I guess you’ll have to wait a little bit longer after all.

  Twenty-three students had tried out for the Spiro team, but Coach Earwax had chosen only eight to be Mighty Plumbers—including my three best friends and me.

  Quick Time-Out about My Friends

  Becky O’Callahan is a hotshot athlete, but she doesn’t have that hotshot attitude my dad calls “entitlement.” That’s when someone expects to get a free ticket to a movie or the best seat on the team bus or a passing grade in math simply because they are a hotshot athlete.

  (My dad knows all about hotshot athletes because he was one before the ligaments in both of his knees snapped like rubber bands, ruining his chance to earn billions of dollars playing professional sports.)

  Becky is by far the best athlete at Spiro. Baseball, football, soccer, basketball, track, hockey, golf. Doesn’t matter. She’s the best.

  And she has Nature’s Near-Perfect Smile.

  My other two friends and I are not gifted athletes. Not even close. But we love everything about sports, except when Coach makes us do a million push-ups or run wind sprints until our lungs practically explode.

  Even sitting on the bench for hours at a time can be fun if you love being around sports. Joey, Carlos, and I kill time by cracking jokes or pulling pranks or seeing who can hold their breath the longest without blacking out and keeling over onto the floor.

  Joey is a small guy, and I’m talking teensy, but he can run faster than any other middle school student in our entire city. Maybe even the entire world. It’s a survival skill found in all tiny creatures. Joey is like a flea. If you blink, he’s gone.

  He’s also a psychic, and I’m not even making that up. Joey can predict stuff like if a basketball player is going to dribble to the left or the right or pass the ball to a teammate cutting to the hoop.

  Carlos is the opposite of Joey. Carlos is slow and sort of big-boned. And he’s a grouch. He’s a good guy, but Carlos never stops complaining. He’s the official Mighty Plumbers team grouch.

  Carlos does have one amazing talent. He can burp and speak at the same time. I’m talking entire paragraphs in a single belch!

  Carlos’s belches are morale builders. Like if our team is getting creamed, he burp-speaks so loud the sound waves can shatter glass.

  With so many students trying out for the basketball team, it was miraculous that Joey, Carlos, and I made the cut. But Coach Earwax actually begged Becky to play on the team, which is a humiliating thing for any coach to do.

  Coach didn’t even have to beg, though, because Becky loves basketball and was looking forward to the season.

  Meanwhile, Coach Earwax didn’t even know that Joey, Carlos, and I wanted to try out, because we forgot to put our names on the sign-up sheet beforehand.

  Coach has a hearing problem due to a serious blockage.

  He frequently digs huge chunks of wax out
of his ears with his car key, then rolls them up and sticks the wads under the bench like spent chewing gum. If Coach didn’t dig the wax out of his ears, it would back way up into his brain and block his ability to make brilliant coaching decisions.

  After Coach finally heard our pathetic begging, he let Joey, Carlos, and I try out. Joey was quick as a flea, Carlos used his big-boned body to play good defense, and my leaping ability helped me block a few shots.

  And just like in every other sport, we barely made the cut for Spiro’s basketball team.

  But there was one guy who made the starting lineup without even showing up for tryouts.

  CHAPTER 2

  Jimmy Jimerino is Spiro’s BJOC—Big Jock on Campus in every sport. Jimmy was in the grip of that whole “entitlement” thing that my dad told me about.

  Jimmy skipped tryouts because he believed that he was the best basketball player at Spiro T. Agnew Middle School.

  I think Coach Earwax had some sort of a brain wreck, because he actually went along with Jimmy’s hotshot entitlement.

  Jimmy strolled into the Spiro gym on the first day of practice like God’s gift to basketball. He was fifteen minutes late. He was chewing gum. And he was talking on his cell phone.

  Meanwhile, the rest of us were doing the cruelest, most lung-exploding conditioning drill ever invented by a basketball coach.

  Here’s a brief description:

  Sprint from baseline to top of key, back to baseline, then to half-court line, back to baseline, then to top of key on other end of court, then back to baseline, then to baseline on other end of court, then back to the starting baseline.

  (Just describing the drill makes my lungs burn.)

  The drill was made even more difficult because the Spiro gymnasium is a dump.

  Quick Time-Out about the Spiro Gym

  First of all, the Spiro gym is really old.

  Historians say the gym was built along with the rest of the school back in the ancient 1970s, which makes it even older than my mom and dad.

  The floors, ceilings, walls, bleachers, and locker rooms are coated in many layers of sweat that gushed out of the pores of grimy middle schoolers during dodgeball, basketball, volleyball, and wrestling. Especially wrestling.

  In case you don’t already know, middle-schooler sweat has a huge corrosive effect on wood, paint, plaster, cement, and other building materials. It’s way worse than adult sweat, which mostly just stinks.

  The ceiling tiles in the gym are warped like bacon and tilted as if they might fall at any second. Lights flicker or shut off for no apparent reason. The floors are creaky. And the locker room plumbing is corroded and clogged with all kinds of gnarly bodily stuff that I don’t even want to talk about.

  The gym is also home to all kinds of vermin such as cockroaches, ants, flies, and rats.

  The so-called “climate-control system” is the worst problem in the Spiro gym. It never works correctly. Ever.

  If it’s cold outside, the system freaks out and pumps COLD air inside. If it’s hot outside, the system blows a gasket and pumps HOT air inside.

  Mr. Joseph, Spiro’s groundskeeper and building maintenance manager, works hard to fight the middle-school sweat corrosion and to keep the plumbing and electrical systems from total failure. But the entire gymnasium needs to be torn down and rebuilt.

  On the first day of basketball practice, the temperature outside was hot. So the climate-control system, of course, blasted hot air into the Spiro gym while we were doing the conditioning drill that practically exploded our lungs.

  When Jimmy arrived at practice, Coach Earwax pulled him aside.

  Everyone thought Jimmy would have to sprint up and down the court until his lungs practically exploded in order to make up for not bothering to try out and for being fifteen minutes late to the first practice and for chewing gum and talking on his cell phone.

  But that didn’t happen.

  Coach Earwax told Jimmy to do a few wimpy stretching exercises that any two-year-old could do without even soiling his diapers.

  And that was it. That was Jimmy’s consequence.

  Jimmy finished stretching in about ten seconds, then Coach blew his whistle and told us to break off into the positions we wanted to play: point guard, shooting guard, center, power forward, small forward.

  Jimmy claimed the point guard position, of course, because it’s like playing quarterback in football or center midfielder in soccer or pitcher in baseball.

  Joey got in line behind Jimmy. He had no choice. If you’re a tiny guy who wants to play basketball, then it’s a strict rule that you play point guard.

  Stephanie Jennison chose the shooting guard position even though she can dribble and pass and shoot a basketball better than Jimmy. (But he’d never admit it.)

  Carlos chose the center position. He wasn’t the tallest player on the team, but a big-boned body comes in handy when you’re trying to shove your way under the hoop for a rebound or a dunk. Although in Carlos’s case, a dunk was unlikely.

  Unfortunately for Carlos, Skinny Dennis was locked in as the starting center because he had just gone through a freaky growth spurt.

  He wasn’t just taller than Carlos. Skinny was taller than Coach Earwax!

  He didn’t gain much weight with the extra height, though. Skinny just sort of got all stretched out like string cheese. He finally lived up to his name! (Which isn’t a nickname, by the way.)

  Becky O’Callahan chose small forward. That’s a position where you not only need to be good at scoring, but also rebounding and blocking shots. Becky can do all three.

  I chose power forward even though there is nothing powerful about me. I’m average height. Average weight. And my muscles are still waiting to receive that Magic Signal from my brain.

  I wanted to play power forward because I love grabbing rebounds. Like I said, I might be a benchwarmer, but I have excellent leaping ability. And if you want to grab rebounds, it’s a strict rule that you have to be able to jump.

  Rebounding isn’t the most glamorous skill in basketball, but it’s important. If no one grabbed rebounds, the basketball would ricochet off the backboard and bounce around the gym until a random kid in the bleachers picked it up and took the ball home as a souvenir.

  Dewey Taylor was my competition for starting power forward. Dewey is taller than me. A few of his muscles had received that Magic Signal from his brain to buff out. We’re both pretty good at scoring, but Dewey can’t jump as high as me.

  For the first time in my extraordinarily average athletic career, I thought there was a chance I could be a starter.

  In the first practice, we mostly worked on conditioning drills that were designed to whip our weak and useless bodies into fine-tuned athletic machines.

  We all were gulping for oxygen by the end of practice. Sweat was gushing out of our skin, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. In case you don’t already know, gushing sweat is a Badge of Honor in basketball. Unless it gets too out of control.

  We staggered toward the locker room. The climate-control system blasted hot air. My mouth was dry, and I tried to hack up some spit so that my tongue wouldn’t crumble into mummy dust. But all I got was a dirty taste like when you suck on a rock. (Not that I’ve ever done that.)

  While I was trying to hack up spit, I saw a scraggly gym rat beat cheeks across the basketball court and dart under the bleachers behind our team bench.

  I didn’t think much about it at the time because, like I said, the Spiro gym is a dump and home to all kinds of gnarly vermin.

  But the rat would turn out to play an important role in my discovery of the ritual that could create a rally, change the momentum of a basketball game, and result in an amazing comeback victory.

  CHAPTER 3

  I would love to tell you that Joey, Carlos, and I broke into the Mighty Plumbers’ starting lineup, but that would be a gigantic whopper. We were the team’s three subs—or “scrubs,” as Jimmy Jimerino called us.

  Once again, my fr
iends and I were the three Benchkateers!

  Our rear ends were glued to the bench when we opened the season at home against the Werewolves of Chaney Middle School.

  Chaney is one of the meanest schools in the entire world, and I’m not even exaggerating. The Werewolves had a reputation for poor sportsmanship. Just making direct eye contact with one of their players could provoke a shoving match that escalated into a bench-clearing brawl.

  The Spiro starters were Jimmy, Becky, Skinny, Stephanie, and Dewey. Skinny lined up for the tip-off against Chaney’s biggest player, a man-kid named Beast.

  Beast was middle-school age, but he looked like he was somewhere between twenty-seven and thirty-one years old. He was six feet tall and had beefy arms that were covered in hair all the way up to his shoulders. (And don’t even ask me about his armpits.)

  Skinny Dennis and Beast were the same height, but Beast outweighed Skinny by probably a hundred pounds. It looked like the Werewolves’ center could grab our center in one hand and snap him like a puny twig.

  But it turned out that Beast’s brawn and masses of body hair weighed him down.

  When the ref tossed up the basketball, Skinny jumped two feet higher than Beast and tipped the ball to Jimmy Jimerino.

  Jimmy dribbled through the weak and useless Werewolves, weaving like a soccer midfielder, and scored an easy layup.

  The entire Spiro crowd was on its feet cheering. Everyone except two people.

  The first was Mother T, our school principal. Mother T is tiny and frail and never shows emotion.

  Sitting directly in front of Mother T was Mr. Jimerino, Jimmy’s dad. He clapped politely but did not open his mouth, even though his son had just scored on an easy layup.

  Why? Because Jimmy’s dad was on “disciplinary probation.”

  Mr. Jimerino had been a loudmouth during the baseball and football seasons. He’d yelled at the umpires and the refs and even his own son if Jimmy did something wrong.