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  “You should be glad you’re not on a line with Cody,” said Talal. “He’s all out of deodorant.”

  Talal poked Cody in the ribs and the others all laughed. But Cody didn’t hear. He was thinking. Nick was right. Was his mother arranging the lines so that he was never out there with Nick? Was she favouring him? Protecting him? Trying to make him look good?

  In the car on the way home, Cody confronted his mom. “Why aren’t you putting me and Nick out at the same time?”

  His mother sighed. “You heard what I said about how I choose a line-up.”

  “I don’t want any special treatment.”

  “I’m not giving you any.”

  “You said you’d do your thing and I could do mine. That was our deal.”

  “I am doing my thing. I’m waiting for you to

  do yours.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. Don’t you think the lines are working?”

  “I can do things myself, you know. I don’t need your help.”

  She looked over at him. “I know. But if you do, all you have to do is ask.”

  * * *

  Cody played more and more ball at home. He’d show everyone he could play as well as anyone, on his own terms. He delivered his newspapers early so he could get in practice shots before school. On no-practice days, he played through the afternoons until the light began to fade and his mother told him to come in before he got frostbite. He felt a little bad about ignoring Charlie, but he didn’t have time for any games of Twenty-one. He began to feel very tired, but he wouldn’t stop.

  He couldn’t.

  At the end of their last practice before the Christmas break, Coach Evans called the team to

  the bench. “I’m not scheduling any practices during your time off, guys. Just remember we have a game the first week back. Stay in shape! Have a great holiday, everyone.”

  Something inside Cody tingled. All the ball he wanted at home, and no Nick for two whole weeks? That sounded great. As he and Talal put everything back in the equipment room, Coach Evans poked his head around the corner. “Is it safe? No slithery, slimy things on the loose in here?”

  The boys laughed. “All clear.”

  “Mr. Kahla, Mr. Mendoza tells me that you have an overdue assignment, some sort of speech you

  have to write. I’m sorry to sound like the Grinch, but I can’t let you play basketball until it’s handed in.”

  Cody looked at Talal. “The speech? You haven’t handed that in yet?”

  “It’s all good. I’m just finishing my research. I’m almost done.”

  “All right,” said Coach Evans. “See you in both in January then, I hope.”

  “Research?” Cody asked Talal when Coach was gone.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re on top of this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Cuz he said no basketball. No basketball!” Cody couldn’t picture life without basketball. And he couldn’t picture the team without Talal.

  “No worries.”

  But Cody was worried. He was quiet on the ride home.

  “Something the matter?” asked his mom.

  “I hope Talal gets that assignment done. Basketball won’t be nearly as much fun if he’s not there.”

  His mother took a deep breath. “Speaking of fun, Cody, I want you to have some. So I don’t want you playing any basketball either for the next little while.”

  “What do you mean?” Cody gaped at her in

  disbelief. “How is that fun?”

  “I’m calling a hoops-free week,” she said.

  “What? Why?”

  “You can have too much of a good thing, you know. You’ve been playing too much ball. It’s just for the first week of the break. You can have your ball back for the second one.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “I am. Very.”

  “But what am I going to do?”

  “It’s December. We’ll get some snow. You can go sledding. You can build a snowman.”

  “A snowman?”

  “Or have snowball fights. You’ll think of something.”

  12

  The Box in the Garage

  It didn’t snow. The weather stayed mild and it was wet. The first day of the Christmas break, Cody stood at the window and watched the rain slide down the glass.

  He stomped and paced and stood outside his mom’s

  office door, sighing loudly. He thought if he was grumpy enough, his mom might give his basketball back. He could see it, sitting on top of the envelopes in the outbox on her desk. She didn’t give it back to him. She just closed the door.

  She let Cody use her laptop to check for messages,

  but she wouldn’t let him play basketball games or look up basketball sites. He emailed Talal, reminding him not to do anything or go anywhere until he had the speech done. But Cody didn’t hear anything back.

  All he got was an “urgent” message from Yeo-Jin

  reminding anyone who had NOT brought in the five dollars YET for Mr. Mendoza’s Christmas present to PLEASE do so the first day back. The five dollars each was for gift certificates to a teachers’ supply store.

  Boring, thought Cody. She also wanted everyone to PLEASE reply that they had received her message. Cody sighed. He hadn’t handed in his money yet

  because he didn’t want to ask his mom for it. In the last month, she’d already paid for a field trip to the Cultural Centre and a pizza lunch. The five dollars would have to come out of his newspaper earnings.

  When it poured buckets again the next day, Cody sat down to watch TV. There was a little kids’ show featuring the letter b. B for basketball. He changed the channel. On a cooking show preview, a chef said he was going to cook a turkey as big as a basketball. Grrr. Cody finally found a sports channel. But all that was on it was darts. He got a good nap in then.

  The day after that it rained again. Cody’s mother said she was going out to do some last-minute shopping. “Want to come along?”

  Shopping? “No thanks.”

  Cody went to the garage and half-heartedly

  rummaged around. The place where his basketball usually sat looked very empty. He found lots of regular garage stuff: a set of tires, tools that Kenny had collected, some tomato cages. In the dim light, Cody could see a big cardboard

  box sitting high up in the rafters. It was probably just some old Christmas decorations. He pictured a tired old Santa and a couple of faded reindeer. Cody sighed and went to see how the dart tournament was going. It turned out to be bowling instead. He took another nap.

  Two mornings later it was still drizzling. His only email message was another urgent reminder from Yeo-Jin. Cody cleaned his room. He found the model kit of the Millennium Falcon his grandparents had given him one year for his birthday but that he’d never started. He sliced open the box. There were a lot of pieces and the glue had hardened. “Sorry,” he said to Han Solo. “I’m going to have to leave you frozen in carbonite a little longer, until I can get a new tube of glue from the hobby store.”

  Cody put the box back in his closet and went downstairs for a snack. He was actually thinking about cleaning the fridge when Charlie arrived on his bike. The bottoms of Charlie’s jeans were covered in mud and he had a skunk line up his back from riding through puddles.

  “Wanna play some b-ball now that it’s not pouring anymore?” he asked.

  “Can’t.” Cody explained the hoops-free idea. The two of them sat miserably on the damp picnic table.

  “Did you get the email from Yeo-Jin?”

  “Yep.” Charlie nodded.

  “If it wasn’t so wet, I bet she’d walk out here to collect her five dollars.”

  “She’s not home,” said Charlie. “The whole family went to Florida for the break.”

  “But she’s sending emails.”

/>   “You can send emails from Florida.”

  “I know, but why would you? Why wouldn’t you be at the beach or at Disney World or something?”

  Charlie shrugged. “I wish I was there.” His cheeks went pink. “Not with Yeo-Jin. With my family. All we’re doing is going to my uncle’s for New Year’s.”

  “Maybe it’s raining in Florida too.”

  “Not a chance. Yeo-Jin would have someone’s head. But if she’s got time for email, maybe she’ll put together the piece for the school newspaper about the worm farm. I can’t understand why that hasn’t

  run yet.”

  Cody thought he could guess why. Yeo-Jin was editor of the paper. He remembered her shivering when they talked about taking pictures of the worm farm.

  Charlie sighed. “Guess I’ll go home then.” It came out like a question. Cody thought of Charlie in his apartment. Charlie’s alternative was probably fridge cleaning as well.

  “Hang on.” Cody stood up and stretched. “Come and help me with something in the garage.”

  Cody leaned the extension ladder up against the rafters next to the big box. Charlie set up the stepladder on the other side of it.

  “What’s in it?” asked Charlie.

  “Don’t know yet.”

  The box was awkward, but they managed to wrestle it off the rafters. They were just starting to carry the box down between them when a bike came streaking through the door and skidded right up to the stepladder. Charlie jumped. Cody jumped. The box tipped. It landed with a thud on the dirt floor.

  “I just came over to see if anybody wanted to shoot some hoops,” said Talal.

  Cody gripped the rung of the ladder hard. “I thought you were serving time trying to get that speech done. You promised. How did you escape?”

  “It’s done, dude.”

  Cody looked at him, eyebrows raised. “No way. Impossible.”

  “Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done,” said Charlie. “That’s a quote hanging above my dad’s desk. Robert Heinlein said it.”

  “Who?” asked Talal. “What’s in the box?”

  Cody and Charlie scrambled down to have a look. It was a rubber dinghy. Where they wiped off the thick layer of dust, the inflatable boat was deep yellow like a fisherman’s raincoat and had bright blue markings. The parts for two plastic paddles had spilled out too.

  “Are the paddles broken?” asked Charlie.

  “No, look, they screw together in middle,” said Cody.

  As Charlie and Cody grabbed the paddle pieces and put them together, Talal unfolded the dinghy and spread it out across the floor. “Are you going to fill it up?” The eager look on his face made him seem like a puppy waiting for someone to throw a ball.

  “What do you mean?” asked Charlie.

  “Fill the boat up with air, of course.”

  “Shouldn’t we ask before we use it?”

  Cody looked back and forth between his two friends. “It’s in my garage. And it doesn’t look like it’s been used for ages.”

  “Squatter’s rights.” Talal grinned.

  On a shelf above the tool bench, the boys found the foot pump Cody’s family used to inflate air

  mattresses. They took turns pumping. The boat was no air

  mattress. It took forever. But while they were pumping, Cody got an idea. There was a creek that ran behind his house. Most of the time it was thin and slow and lazy.

  But Cody thought that after all the rain it would be

  pretty swollen.

  It was like Talal could read Cody’s mind. “Let’s run it down the creek,” he said, eyes gleaming with excitement.

  “Won’t we need lifejackets?” asked Charlie.

  Cody peered into the box to look. Charlie and Talal scanned the walls of the garage in case some might be hanging there.

  “Nah,” answered Cody when their search came up empty. “We’re not going out on the ocean. And it’s an inflatable boat. We’ll just hang onto it if we need to. It’s like a huge lifejacket itself.”

  “Yeah!” said Talal.

  When the raft was pumped up good and hard, the boys tossed the paddles inside.

  “Wait,” said Charlie. “How do we know it doesn’t leak?”

  “It doesn’t,” said Talal.

  “But how do you know for sure? And if it’s supposed to be our lifejacket . . .”

  “Okay,” said Cody. “We’ll wait ten minutes and see what happens.”

  Ten minutes later, the boat was still firm. The boys picked it up and carried it down the hill toward the water.

  “Shouldn’t we tell your mom where we’re going?” asked Charlie. He glanced back at the house.

  “She’s busy with a client. I don’t want to bother her.”

  “We could leave a note.”

  Talal laughed and clapped Charlie on the back. “Don’t think so much, amigo. Take some advice from the Coca-Cola company and Just do it.”

  “Pretty sure that’s Nike,” said Cody.

  “Right.”

  13

  Secret Admirer

  There was nothing slow and lazy about the creek anymore. The boys could hear the water rushing as they hurried upstream looking for a place to launch their craft. At last they found an opening in the thick bushes. As Cody steadied the dinghy on the brown, swirling water, Charlie got in. Next went Talal.

  “Are you sure this is going to work?” asked Charlie.

  “Everything is impossible until it isn’t,” said Talal. “Or whatever Captain Highliner said.”

  “Heinlein, Robert Heinlein. He’s a writer.”

  As Cody got ready to jump in, the boat began pulling away from the edge.

  Charlie leaned over and grabbed some of the long grass along the bank to hold the boat. “Hurry up, will you?”

  Cody tried to step into the raft, but he caught one foot on the rope and ended up diving in headfirst. Most of him was sprawled across the bottom of the boat. His shins were bouncing up and down on the back end.

  “I can’t hang on!” yelled Charlie. “And Talal’s laughing so hard he’s going to fall overboard.”

  Cody straightened up quickly and grabbed a paddle. Talal already had the other one. “Let go, Charlie!” he shouted, grinning.

  It was a wild ride. They were moving really fast.

  “Whoo-hoo!” yelled Cody.

  “Yeah!” shouted Talal.

  “Where does this creek go?” asked Charlie. “Does it connect to something bigger? Does it end up in a big drain somewhere? We need to watch where the water’s taking us because there’s no way we can paddle back against this current!”

  “I know, I know,” answered Cody. “Calm down.”

  Before they got too far down the creek, they were able to grab a branch that hung out low over the water. They used it to pull themselves to the bank. “There,” said Cody, looking at Charlie. “Happy now?”

  “Yes.” Charlie smiled.

  They crawled out, carried the boat back to their entry spot, and launched it again. And again. And again.

  It had started pouring again, but it didn’t matter. They were already soaked. Cody shook his hair in wet dog fashion and droplets flew everywhere. Charlie had spots on his glasses and muddy water streaming from his cheeks. It was cold, but nobody wanted to quit. Hooting and hollering, they came around the final bend once more. Just before they reached the branch that marked their pull-out spot, Cody saw Talal squinting

  and pointing with his paddle to something ahead of them. Someone was standing on the bank, waving at them. A policeman. Joon Lee, Yeo-Jin’s brother. Uh-oh.

  They caught the branch and turned the dinghy toward the shore. Joon helped them pull it in.

  Cody’s heart was thumping. “I thought your whole family went to Florida.”

  “We did. We’re
back. Duty calls, you know. Looks like fun,” Joon said. He patted the dinghy. “Your boat, Cody?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “A little dangerous with the water so high and moving so fast, don’t you think? Someone called in and said there were some boys out on the creek with no lifejackets. They were afraid you’d get hurt.”

  “No way,” Cody exclaimed. He avoided looking at Charlie. “Who called it in?”

  “You must have a secret admirer.”

  Secret admirer. Right.

  “Did we do something wrong?” asked Charlie.

  “No, maybe just not real safe. Give the good citizens of Chatham some peace of mind, will you? Come on up out of the water.”

  * * *

  When Cody told his mom the story at dinner, she laughed. “I’d forgotten we had that thing,” she said. “I’m glad you and your friends could have some fun with it.”

  “Charlie didn’t want to go at first. He thought it could be dangerous.”

  “He was right.”

  “But Talal was all for it. He knew it would be great.”

  “He was right too.”

  Cody looked at his mother, confused.

  She smiled. “Sometimes it’s good to play it safe. But sometimes nothing happens if you sit tight and don’t take a risk. It’s always good to weigh the pros and cons.”

  “Even Charlie was having a good time. But then Joon and some mystery caller had to wreck it all.”

  “I’m sure they just didn’t want to see anyone get hurt. You know, Freddy Flameout would have worn a lifejacket.”

  “Who?”

  “Freddy Flameout.”

  “Who in the world is Freddy Flameout?”

  “You are,” laughed his mother. “Or at least you were. When you were four or five years old you were a regular Mr. Safety. You never went anywhere without that red plastic fire hat of yours. You were always on the lookout for icicles that could poke your eye out or runaway oranges or spills you could slip on in the grocery store. I think you reminded Miss Patel every single day of kindergarten to make sure no pushpins had fallen off the bulletin board. You didn’t want

  anyone to step on one. Don’t you remember? I’m pretty sure it was Kenny who gave you the name.”