Heart of a Champion by Carl Deuker

Author:Carl Deuker [DEUKER, CARL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780316073493
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2009-05-29T16:00:00+00:00

16

In the locker room after the game, Todd invited Jimmy and me to a party at his house that Saturday. “I don’t know,” Jimmy said. “I’m not much for parties.”

Todd looked disgusted. “Listen, Jimmy. I’ve done things your way, haven’t I? Now the season’s over. Time to try things my way. Okay?”

Jimmy laughed. “Okay.”

Saturday night Jimmy and I caught a bus up the Alameda to Atherton. Todd had drawn us a map, but it was still hard to find his house. Atherton is real ritzy, and all the streets wind around.

When we finally found the number, we thought we had the wrong night or something. No music, hardly any lights — the big house looked deserted. Jimmy knocked on the door; we waited; he knocked again.

“There’s no party,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Just then Todd’s father opened the front door. He had jet black hair and was wearing a coat and tie. He introduced himself, asked us how we were doing, and then pointed to a path that led around back. “Todd’s room is around there,” he said. “Follow the walkway.”

Todd’s room turned out to be more like a small house. He had a bedroom, and then next to it a rec room with a pool table and refrigerator and a sink and a big-screen TV and an unbelievable stereo system.

Two other guys were there, Devon Maxwell and Junior Tupo. Both of them were drinking beer. “You guys want a brew?” Todd asked, opening up the refrigerator.

“No,” Jimmy said. I shook my head, too.

We shot pool for a while, and watched the Giants play the Mets on the tube. Todd kept asking Jimmy if he wanted a beer. The more Jimmy said no, the more Todd pushed.

“Listen,” he finally said. “I’ll play you a game of eight ball. You win, I stop drinking. I win, you loosen up a little. Okay?”

Jimmy could never turn down competition.

Only it wasn’t competition. Todd creamed him, which shouldn’t have been a surprise. It was his pool table, and I don’t think Jimmy had played pool more than two or three times in his life.

When the match was over, Todd popped open a beer and handed it to Jimmy. I got myself one, too.

I figured on drinking one beer and no more. But it didn’t work that way. When Jimmy finished his first, Todd challenged him again. Jimmy lost again, and I found myself drinking a second. After that second beer went down, I didn’t think twice about taking a third, a fourth, a fifth. And neither did Jimmy.

I could lie and say I had a miserable time, but the truth is I had fun. We all did. We shot pool and talked about baseball and about girls. I’m not going to write down any of the stuff we said because what I remember seems really stupid, though it didn’t seem stupid then.

I didn’t pay attention to the time. Neither did Jimmy. When I finally looked at my watch, it was after eleven-thirty. The bus stopped running at midnight, so we had to hustle to catch it.

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