John Brandon - Citrus County

Mrs. Conner had looked down her nose at Mr. Hibma, using the lower part of her bifocals, keeping her composure.

The tryout. Twenty-one girls. Mr. Hibma started them out with stretching, putting them in a circle and having each choose one body part. He backed off and watched the unsteady things roll their necks, bend at the waist, perform jumping jacks. He was more an impostor in the gym than in the classroom. He didn’t even know where the locker rooms or the weight room or the coaches’ offices were. He’d never, as far as he knew, blown a whistle. He’d never yelled at anyone for that person’s own good.

Mr. Hibma closed his eyes and controlled his breathing. He would fake his way through this. If he possessed a talent for anything, it was faking his way through things. This was his gym. He was a natural component of this environment. He had boundless energy. Weeks would pass; they had no choice but to pass. The games would come and go and no one would notice that Mr. Hibma wasn’t really a coach. As far as these stretching girls were concerned, he was the supreme sultan of basketball.

He held their athletic futures in his hands. Mr. Hibma strode over and stared at the girls and they quit giggling and whispering. They eyed one another.

Mr. Hibma guided himself through a lecture about boxing out. He set up a drill in which he launched errant shots and made the girls slam into each other trying to claim the rebounds. He tried his whistle and rapidly grew fond of it. Mr. Hibma could’ve picked the team already. It was obvious which girls were afraid of the ball and which weren’t. He would keep fifteen; he could keep the three cute girls and never have to play them in a real game. They’d be third-string, morale-boosters, something for the fans to look at.

It occurred to Mr. Hibma to sit all the girls down and speak about the importance of their appearances. In middle school, he reminded them, ugly girls were intimidated by pretty girls. Hell, it was that way with adult women. A team could gain an advantage by keeping tan and having their nails done.

“Do you know what active-length nails are?” he asked. “Spend your allowances on a good haircut, down in Pinellas County. Stop at Macy’s and learn a little about makeup.”

Eventually Mr. Hibma had to let the girls scrimmage. The short twins with the big teeth could shoot three-pointers. A girl with muscular legs and no eyebrows beat everyone down court each time but was too jittery to complete a layup. One girl, extremely skinny with a bowl cut, could handle the ball. She dribbled between her legs and behind her back and whipped passes here and there. Scoring was at a premium, but the scrimmage had the look of a basketball game.

Afterward, the girls huddled again. The twins looked at each other. “Coach?” one said.

“Don’t call me coach. Call me Mr. Hibma.”

“Mr. Himba?”

“Not Him-ba. Hib ma.”

“Do we really have to get our hair and nails done?”

“If you want to start.”

There was a murmur and then it died down.

“Now,” said Mr. Hibma. “Important business.”

He explained that it was all of the girls’ personal responsibilities to get the two huge girls who threw the shot and the discus to try out for the team. Rosa, the Mexican one, and Sherrie, the other one, had to try out. This was vital.

“Befriend them,” ordered Mr. Hibma. “Pressure them. Bribe them. Just get them the hell out here.”

Walking onto the school grounds, right up the main drag near the sign that said CITRUS MIDDLE SCHOOL in concrete letters, Toby was called over by two women in a shiny blue car. They were the FBI agents. Their car looked like it had been washed about five minutes ago. The hood was dazzling in the morning sun. They didn’t bother to get out. The one talking to Toby was in the driver’s seat. She had very short hair.

She said, “Don’t worry, sport, we won’t make you late. We won’t make you tardy.”

Toby felt hot. He didn’t know if it was because of the agents or because the sun had found him. Toby did not feel worried, in general, about the cops or these agents, but maybe he was just telling himself that. He stood there and partook of quiet deep breaths while the woman asked him questions, mostly about Shelby. Toby answered them honestly. He told them Shelby had come to see him during PE class a couple times before she officially returned to school. He told her they had geography class together. The other agent, the one in the passenger seat, didn’t even look over. She squinted out her window.

“Want a bagel?” the agent in the driver’s seat said. “Apparently my partner’s lost her appetite.”

Toby shook his head. He didn’t fidget. This FBI agent had no accusation in her eyes. She wasn’t trying to make Toby nervous. She was underestimating him, like everyone did. She was questioning him only because she didn’t have any good leads, only because he was a friend of Shelby’s and she was casting a wide net.

She adjusted her mirror and put on some lip balm. “Is it fair to say you’re in tight with all the troublemakers around here?”

“No,” said Toby.

“Don’t you all run together?”

“I don’t run with anyone.”

“A lone wolf, huh?” said the agent. “Here’s the thing. A lot of these cases crack because people can’t keep secrets. There’s certain secrets that get heavy and people can’t take it anymore and they tell someone. Then that person tells someone.”

The agent stopped talking. She didn’t start again until Toby nodded.

“I want you to be my ears. If any of your buddies say anything I’d be interested in, you let me know.”

Toby told her he would and she gave him a staged smile.

“What do you kids do for fun around here?” she asked.

“Fun?” Toby said.

“You’ve heard of it, right?”

Toby took a broad look around the parking lot, at all the kids getting dropped off by their parents, bags being jerked out of trunks. “I don’t know what they do,” Toby said. “I walk around. I get the lay of the land.”

Toby’s eyes had adjusted to the gleaming of the car’s paint job. He could see into the back seat. There weren’t any guns or high-tech equipment. There was a case of bottled water.

“Is she your girlfriend?” The agent leaned out the window. Now there was something in her eyes. “Is Shelby your girlfriend?”

“No,” said Toby.

“How about this: Are you her boyfriend?”

Toby took a step back.

“I can see it, the whole goody-goody with the bad boy thing. It’s a time-honored tradition.”

“Shelby’s not a goody-goody,” Toby said.

“It’s okay to be a goody-goody. I’m a goody-goody and I do all right.”

The agent grinned like she’d made a joke, but no one was going to laugh. Especially not her partner. She handed Toby a business card.

“Okay, sport,” she said. “I’m going to roll up the window now.”

The afternoon hours were the flattest. They were like Citrus County itself, fit only for ambush. Shelby wanted to get higher or lower. There were no basements, no second stories. Her house had no attic. Shelby didn’t want to keep walking on the same ground. She was on a dumb plank of land where nothing would roll away. Everything stayed right where it was and festered. Shelby had been reduced to silly fantasies — visions of her and her dad moving off and working a farm somewhere, visions of going to stay with her Aunt Dale in Iceland, of having Aunt Dale show her how to be a rigid, invulnerable woman. Shelby wanted something more dramatic, more honest. She wanted a crashing ocean instead of the wash of the Gulf. She wanted weather that could kill you. She wanted respect from someone who actually knew how to judge.