Basketball Disasters by Claudia Mills

Albert was Brody’s pet goldfish. “I’m going to hang it in my room right over his bowl.”
    “I don’t think anyone’s going to want mine,” Mason said. His thread kept bunching and tangling, and he couldn’t make his stitches small and neat like Brody’s and Nora’s.
    “Now there’s blood in my heart!” Dunk bellowed.
    As the end of the sewing session drew near, Mason’s heart still had a long way to go.
    “You can finish these up at home, if you need to,” Mrs. Taylor said. “You may keep the needle and take it with you.”
    “Do finish them,” Coach Joe said. “Remember, we’re having our Colonial School Day next week. We’ll want to have all your crafts on display.”
    However bad Mason’s botched heart looked, Mason was sure Dunk’s bloodstained heart looked even worse.
    “No, Dunk,” Mrs. Taylor said. “Here, put your needle in your sampler
this
way, so you don’t lose it.”
    Again
.
    “Or stab yourself.”
    Again
.
    “Oh, and Dunk?” Mason heard her say, in a lower voice this time, so low that he could only hear it because he was straining his ears to listen.
    “What?” Dunk asked sullenly.
    “Keep your dog off my lawn. Do you hear?”
    Then, with a warm smile at the class, Mrs. Taylor gathered up her sewing supplies and sailed out the door, followed by Mason’s mother, who turned and gave Mason one last smile before she went.

12
    The second Saturday in December, from eleven a.m. to noon, was the hour when Mason officially learned how to cheer. Loudly. Embarrassingly. With all his heart. Stuck in his folding chair at the edge of the basketball court, it was the only thing he could do to help the Fighting Bulldogs win.
    “Aw!” he moaned in disgust when Jonah called a foul against Kevin.
    “Yes!” he shouted in triumph when Brody sank a great three-point shot to give the Bulldogs a 17–14 lead at the half. Despite his bandaged ankle, Mason couldn’t stop himself from jumping to his feet and doing his own version of a happy dance.
    Mason hobbled out to join the halftime huddle.Injured or non-injured, playing or not playing, he was still part of the team.
    Coach Dad gave his best pep talk yet. Mason had noticed that his dad wasn’t relying on the coaching book so much anymore; he had even gone back to struggling with sudoku puzzles at the breakfast table.
    “We can win this one,” Coach Dad said, “but only if we go out there not as Kevin, Jeremy, Matt, Brody, Dylan, Nora, Elise, Amy, and Tamara—and Mason—but as the Fighting Bulldogs.”
    Mason was glad that his father had remembered to add his name to the list.
    And the Bulldogs did win, 26–24.
    Mason was hoarse from screaming.
    But why, oh why, couldn’t he have been out there playing, too? It was a Bulldogs victory, yes, the team’s first win, but despite his dad’s great speech, it hadn’t been
Mason’s
victory. Unless yelling until you had a sore throat counted.
    Which it sort of did.
    But sort of didn’t.
    Wednesday evening was the Plainfield Platters’ winter holiday concert: songs about dreidels and Santaand snowmen and sleigh rides, even though it hadn’t snowed since that early snow at the end of October, when the new-fallen snow in the Taylors’ yard had been marred by Dog’s footprints.
    Nowadays, when Mason saw Mrs. Taylor looking out from her upstairs window, he waved. He thought he could see her waving back.
    But he still kept Dog out of her yard.
    During the Platters concert, Mason was one of the kids who rang a handbell for “Silver Bells,” which he knew was a big thrill for his mother. Brody wore an elf costume for “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” which Mason knew was a big thrill for Brody. Puff the Plainfield Dragon was at the concert, looking festive in a Santa cap, which was a big thrill for the little kids in the audience. Mason got through the concert without any disastrous moments; that wasn’t exactly a big thrill for him, but it was definitely a relief.
    Then it was