Роберт Паркер - Edenville Owls

“Promise me,” she said, “that you’ll stay out of this.”

I nodded.

“And that you won’t tell anyone,” she said, “including Mr. Welch.”

I nodded.

“I have your word?”

I nodded.

“Okay,” she said. “I trust you to keep your word.”

I nodded again. Nodding didn’t count. If you didn’t actually say the promise, I always figured you didn’t have to keep it. Miss Delaney put her hand on my shoulder for a moment as she looked at me. Then she stood and smoothed her skirt, and walked back toward her desk.

“That’s all, Bobby,” she said. “Thank you.”

I stood and walked out of the classroom. I felt a little funny, like my head was disconnected. The corridor was empty. At the end of the school day people didn’t hang around. It was worse than she said. I could still hear the sound of broken glass in that man’s voice. There was something going on here that I didn’t get. But I would. I was smart.

I could too figure it out.

“I thought you’d be here,” Joanie said.

“What made you think so?” I asked.

Joanie stepped up onto the bandstand and sat on the bench beside me.

“Because the weather is terrible and everybody else is inside,” she said.

“I like bad weather,” I said.

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s kind of exciting, I guess.”

“Do you come here to think?” Joanie said.

“Sometimes.”

“What are you thinking about now?” she asked.

“You,” I said.

“I mean before I came,” Joanie said. “Were you thinking about a problem?”

“Yeah.”

“What?”

“Can’t tell you now,” I said.

“Oh.”

We were quiet.

“It’s not you,” I said to Joanie. “I gave my word I wouldn’t tell.”

“You’re making me die to know what it is,” she said.

“I can’t,” I said. “I gave my word.”

She nodded.

“Stuff like that matters to you,” she said. “Keeping your word and stuff.”

“Yes.”

There was no wind this time. Just a hard rain coming straight down on the calm water of the harbor.

“It’s hard being a kid,” Joanie said. “Grown-ups tell you how easy it is. But it’s not.”

“Kids problems don’t seem serious to grown-ups,” I said.

“But they are serious to kids,” Joanie said. “Getting grades. Being popular. Having friends.”

“Making a team,” I said. “Being brave.”

“Being brave?” Joanie asked.

“Yeah. Boys are supposed to be brave.”

“You think about that?”

“Sure,” I said. “I want to be brave and, uh, you know...” I rolled my hands, trying to find the right word. “Like a knight... honorable.”

“Honorable?” Joanie said.

I nodded. The rain sound was steady on the roof of the bandstand. It made a sort of hushed sound around us as it fell. And the wet smell mixed with the salt smell and everything seemed very exciting.

“You know,” I said, “like Philip Marlowe.”

“Who?”

“Guy in a book,” I said.

Joanie nodded.

“You read a lot of books, Bobby.”

“I like to read,” I said.

“What about your problem that you promised not to tell?”

“I promised not to,” I said.

“Is one of your friends mad at you?”

“No.”

“I hate when one of my friends gets mad at me,” Joanie said.

“I know,” I said. “I always say it doesn’t matter. But it does.”

“It makes me feel scared,” Joanie said.

I nodded.

“Are you ever scared, Bobby?” she said.

I wanted to say no in the worst way, but I opened my mouth and heard myself say, “Yes.”

“What of?”

“People being mad at me, I guess. Not being, you know, nobody liking me.”

I couldn’t believe it. I never even talked to myself about stuff like this.

“Let’s make a promise,” Joanie said.

“What?”

“Let’s promise we’ll never be mad at each other.”

“No matter what?” I said.

“No matter what,” Joanie said. “We will always be each other’s friend.”

“I never had a friend, except you, who was a girl,” I said.

“And I never had a friend, except you, who was a boy,” Joanie said. “Promise?”

Sitting in the bandstand with the weather all around us, I looked at her for a long time.

Then I said, “Promise.”

Billy sat beside me in the back row in homeroom.

“Was it him?” Billy whispered to me.

“Yeah.”

“He recognize you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“I said I liked his car.”

“What are you going to do now?” Billy whispered.

“Billy,” Miss Delaney said. “Will you swap seats with Manny, please, for the rest of class?”

Miss Delaney knew that Manny rarely said anything, and putting him between me and Billy would quiet us all down. But she didn’t break the Owls up, just shuffled us around a little.

“Thank you,” Miss Delaney said when the swap was completed.

When school was out, we went to the basketball court in the yard.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do that weave again to warm up.”

“Okay, Coach,” Russell said.

“You been over to the high school again this week?” Nick asked.

“I got some new stuff,” I said. “After we warm up.”

“They warm up at the high school?” Manny said.

I was always a little startled when he spoke, he was so silent so much of the time.

“Course,” I said.

Manny smiled and loped into the corner with the basketball and started the weave.

“Inside,” I said to Russell. “Inside the guy you’re handing off to.”

“Screw you,” Russell said. “I started this team. I’ll go where I want.”

“You want to go to the tourney or not?” I said.

“We got to get better, Russell,” Nick said. “We stunk up the gym when we played the JVs that time.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Russell said.

And the weave continued.

“Now,” I said when we were done weaving, “we’re going to work on screens.”

“We don’t need screens,” Russell said. “Until spring.”

“Very funny,” I said. “Manny, say you got the ball over there. Now you pass it to me and run over here and stop. You got to be set to screen for me. A moving screen is a foul. Okay, come on... pass me the ball... and run over... stop... Now I got the ball, I can either dribble past the screen and lose the guy guarding me... or if I can’t lose him, or they switch, I can pull up behind Manny and hit the set shot.”

I put up a one-hand shot, which hit the front of the rim and bounced away.

“Work even better,” Russell said, “if you hit the shot.”

“You’ll get your chance,” I told him.

We practiced screens for the rest of the afternoon. I noticed that a lot of the plays the JVs ran had people moving without the ball and getting the ball passed to them when they were behind the screen. And I’d heard Coach talk about a double screen, but I didn’t quite see what that was. Today we’d just keep it simple. Pass the ball and set the screen.

After practice when I was walking home with Manny, I saw the car again, parked on Church Street this time, in front of the school. I kept my head down and didn’t look at it as we went by.

Joanie invited Nick to go to a party with her at the Boat Club. I was glad I didn’t have to go. I couldn’t dance.

We’d all gone to dancing class except Manny, and we all liked pressing against the girls. What we weren’t interested in was all the crap about who led who, and how you asked a young lady to dance and la di da. But if Joanie had asked me to the party and I’d had to dance, I would have been embarrassed.