Blue Star Rapture by JAMES W. BENNETT

Author:JAMES W. BENNETT
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781497683969
Publisher: Open Road Media Teen & Tween

EIGHT

The first game was easy, but everyone knew it would be. T.J. blended in without exerting himself. When Evans’s asthma began acting up again, he needed to play more but it didn’t matter—he was pacing himself. Ishmael Greene was his usual splendid self, but since the game was so lopsided, he spent most of the last quarter on the bench. Buddy wanted to rest him for the championship game, which came later.

Tyron had a monster game, even if the opposition was inferior. He had four dunks and a host of rebounds. When he was seated on the bench, and during time-outs, T.J. kept to himself; he took no part in the high-fiving or the yukking it up.

During the one-hour break before the championship game, T.J. went to the first aid building to get his ankle taped. The camp doctor was there, examining Evans. T.J. sat on the table while Bridget taped his ankle tight with one careful layer after another.

From this position, he could see—just barely—to the far bluff and the west end of the footbridge. There was a commotion that looked like sheriff’s cars and an ambulance, but it was hard to tell for sure. It looked as if sheriffs’ deputies were putting a barricade at the entrance to the bridge.

It was all too far away to determine exactly what might be occurring, but what he could make out gave him a queasy feeling. It could be anything, though. Most likely, the queasy feeling was only the by-product he often felt when there was information he thought he needed but couldn’t get.

When she was done taping him, Bridget said, “By the way, I looked up the word feckless. There is such a word.”

“So what’s it mean?”

“You wanta know, you can look it up like I did.”

“Thanks a lot.”

Before he left the building, T.J. heard the doctor tell Evans, “I think you need to sit this one out, son. I’m sorry.”

The Blue Stars won the championship game by more than ten points. One reason why—a big one—was the way T.J. played. He wasn’t the star of the game by any stretch; he scored only nine points. But he understood what he needed to provide to give his own team an advantage—defense.

Guarding Ronnie Streets was like chasing butterflies without a net, but T.J. found himself at a level of focused intensity as consuming as it was unfamiliar. He refused to let Streets break him down. He refused to let fatigue undermine his concentration, which was footwork. If he could force Streets to shoot perimeter jump shots, where he was only average, then he could check him.

It worked even better than he dared to hope. As soon as Streets missed some jump shots, he began trying to do too much. He shot too much. He forced plays that weren’t there, throwing the ball away. His too-aggressive defense got him in foul trouble. Wherever he went on the court, with or without the ball, there was T.J., dogging him as tenaciously as a shadow.

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