The Basket Counts (3 page)

But what about Ruth, Cindy, and Robby? He shouldn’t leave without them. They’d worry about him if they didn’t see him.

“Ruth!” he called out over the noise in the pitch darkness. “Ruth!”

He started after his coat, then paused. He would never find it. It was in the coatroom, hanging among a bunch of other coats.
And the coatroom was behind that crowd of kids seated on the floor, hidden in the blackness of the huge room.

Glumly, he sat down, crossing his legs in scissor fashion. He’d have to wait just like the rest. There was nothing else to
do.

Several students began singing. Others joined in, including Mel. Suddenly another flashlight beam appeared. It shifted around
on the students, then focused on Mr. Thompson. The person holding the flashlight approached the teacher. The singing stopped.
The rink hushed as the two persons had a brief conversation.

Then Mr. Thompson announced in a clear, loud voice, “It’ll be another half hour before the power is restored. Please rest
as comfortably as you can. As soon as the lights come on you can continue skating.”

“Hooray!” someone shouted. Others took up the cry.

Half an hour later the lights came on. It seemed like an hour to Mel. The room was getting cold, and the cold was gnawing
through Mel’s clothing to his skin.

Everyone put their skates back on and started to skate again. The blades whispered on the ice. The music started to play.
Smiles once again lit up the children’s faces.

A boy, much smaller than Mel, lost his balance
and fell. Mel quickly switched direction and scooted for the boy. He heard someone skate up behind him as he reached the boy
and lifted him to his feet.

“You okay?” Mel asked.

“Yes! Thanks!” The boy smiled at him and skated away.

Then Mel saw the skater behind him sweep by and look back. It was Stoney. Was Caskie Bennett here, too? Mel looked for him
but didn’t see him.

Skating time was extended for an extra half hour to make up for the time the power was off. Mel wanted to stay till the last
minute, but Ruth insisted they had better go home. Robby and Cindy would have trouble getting up in the morning, and snow
was piling up outside. They put on their coats and trudged through the snow that was already above their ankles.

They were almost home when a soft, tender cry broke the night’s stillness.

“A kitten!” cried Ruth. “The poor little thing! Can you see it, Mel?”

The faint, ever-so-soft crying came from near a bush in front of a house. Mel plowed through the
snow and saw what looked like a black and white ball almost buried there. He gathered it up and cuddled it against him.

“You nutty kitten,” he said. “What are you doing out in this crazy weather?”

“Let me take him!” pleaded Cindy. “Please!”

“Not now. Wait’ll we get inside,” said Mel.

As soon as they entered the kitchen of their home where the light shone on them, Cindy exclaimed, “That kitten looks like
Florie’s! It is! It’s Florie Bennett’s!”

Mel’s heart sank. Of all the people in Trexton, this kitten would have to belong to Caskie Bennett’s sister.

M
el carried the kitten to the Bennetts’ early the next morning. He was wondering what the Bennetts would say. Caskie met him
at the door.

“Cindy said this kitten belongs to Florie,” said Mel, holding up the kitten. ’We found it last night huddled in the snow near
our house.”

Caskie took the kitten. “Thanks,” he said. “We were wondering where she was. Thanks a lot.”

“We kept her in the house all night by the stove. Mom fed her milk, too.”

“That’s good,” said Caskie. “I’ll tell Florie. S’long.”

“S’long,” said Mel.

He was relieved and glad he had taken the kitten to the Bennetts’ himself. And glad it was Caskie who had come to the door.

On the basketball court, though, things hadn’t changed a bit between Caskie and Mel. It was December 6 and the Titans were
playing the Addison Comets. The Comets, wearing blue suits with crimson stripes, were as flashy as they looked. They led going
into the second quarter by seven points.

“Toots Kinney’s scoring most of the points, Coach,” said Caskie Bennett irritably. “He’s running circles around Mel.”

Mel tried to hide his resentment. Toots was taller and a real fast man with the ball. But he wasn’t running circles around
anybody. He was taking long shots and making them.

“Those long sinkers are pretty hard to be stopped by anybody,” said the coach. “We’ll just have to make him hurry up his shots
if he wants to keep taking those chances and hope that it shakes him up a little. Okay, Mel?”

Mel nodded. “Okay.”

He guarded Toots Kinney closer in the second quarter, and Toots didn’t take as many shots. The score at the end of the half
read 28–21 on the electric scoreboard.

Pedro Dorigez started the second half in place of
Mel. He guarded the hot-handed Comet, but Toots Kinney was too fast for him. Twice in half a minute Toots feinted Pedro out
of the way and drove in for layups. Then Andy Head, substituting for Stoney at right forward, passed to Pedro. Pedro threw
to Caskie, only to see the ball intercepted and sunk for another two points. Almost everyone in the gym could hear Caskie’s
angry shout at Pedro.

“You crazy spic! Watch where you’re throwing!”

The words were hardly out of Caskie’s mouth when Pedro Dorigez rushed at him, both fists clenched, jaw squared. He swung at
Caskie. Caskie took the blow on his right shoulder, staring at the enraged boy as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. Caskie
swung back, but Pedro’s blows were nearly three to his one.

Phreeeeet! Phreeeeet!
blasted the whistle. The referee rushed forward and Coach Thorpe jumped up from the bench.

“Stop it!” he yelled.

The boys stopped fighting and stood glaring at each other, Pedro much angrier and breathing harder than Caskie. Neither one
said a word.

“You’re both out of the game,” said the referee.

Coach Thorpe took them both by their arms. “Sit down,” he said disgustedly. “Caskie, I’ve warned you.”

“I didn’t say anything!” snarled Caskie.

“No, I guess not,” said the coach. “Pedro sailed into you for saying nothing.”

They reached the bench. “Darryl … Mel, get in there. Report to the scorekeeper.”

Mel kept a hawklike watch on the Comets’ star, Toots Kinney, keeping him down to six points. It was a tight game when it ended,
the Titans squeezing out a 51–50 victory.

On Thursday the Titans played the Lansing Red Jackets. The Red Jackets wore red satin uniforms with white stripes, but their
uniforms were much flashier than their performance on the court. Skeet scored on two hook shots in the first quarter and another
in the second, besides his three layups and two foul shots, netting him fourteen points for the half. Mel had four field goals
and a foul shot for nine.

The second half started with the Titans leading
39–19. Andy and Darryl went in at the forward positions, Pedro and Rick at guard, and Kim Nemeth at center. The Red Jackets’
center, an inch taller than Kim, tapped the ball to a teammate who passed it quickly to another teammate running toward the
sideline. A pass to the corner … an attempted shot …

Darryl jumped, blocked the shot, stole the ball, and started to dribble it upcourt. The ball struck his foot and skidded across
the floor into an opponent’s hands. The Red Jacket passed to a player at the right sideline. The player feinted Andy out of
position, dribbled toward the basket, and leaped with the ball. A perfect layup.

Mel saw Darryl smacking his fist into a palm in disgust. It sure was tough luck.

Pedro took out the ball and passed to Darryl. Darryl bounced it to Kim, who dribbled across the center line, passed to Pedro,
then raced across the keyhole. Pedro returned the pass to him and Kim laid it up for another two points. “Okay, Mel,” said
the coach. “Take Pedro’s place.”

Mel had the ball for only a moment before the
horn blew for the end of the third quarter. He played half of the final quarter, scoring two more field goals and a foul shot
for a total of fourteen points, his best scoring so far. The Titans walked off with a 68–41 score.

Mel noticed one thing that had not happened in the last two games: in neither one had Stoney or Caskie yelled dirty remarks
at him, Darryl, or Pedro. Was Coach Thorpe’s warning paying off after all?

The game against the Putnam Crusaders was a different one altogether. The Crusaders, coming from the smallest school in the
league, played as if they had been born and bred on the basketball court. Mel played the first quarter without scoring a point.
He had two chances on fouls, but neither time did the ball cooperate for him.

Darryl did a little better. Two points better. A hook shot after a pass from Mel. The Putnam Crusaders, with their best man,
Eddie Frish, heading-the attack, led 29–20 at the end of the half.

Coach Thorpe put Mel on Eddie to slow up the hustling little player. Mel couldn’t. The coach then put Caskie on him. Caskie
slowed him up a little. Darryl tried it, too, but failed. Caskie seemed to be
the best player to hold the purple-uniformed player down. But the entire Titan defense wasn’t enough against the battling
Crusaders, who won the game, 42–39.

A cold took hold of Mel on Wednesday night and kept him in bed all day Thursday. The Titans were playing the Beetles that
afternoon and Robby stayed to see the game.

“We beat the Beetles,” he said when he came home from school.

“What was the score?” asked Mel.

“Forty-eight to forty-one,” answered Robby. “Caskie got nineteen points.”

“I don’t care what he got,” grumbled Mel. “How many points did Skeet and Darryl get?”

“I don’t know.”

Mel didn’t go to school on Friday either. His cold was better, but not much.

At ten-thirty, after the mail carrier had come, Mom brought in a letter to Mel. “Funny,” she said. “It’s got your name on
it, but that’s all. It doesn’t even have a stamp.”

Mel ripped open the envelope. The letter, dated
that day and addressed to him, was printed in pencil.

The Titans beat the Beetles 48 to 41. Why don’t you stay home more often?

There was no signature.

A
fter lunch Mel told his mother he felt much better and wanted to go outside for a few minutes. She was reluctant to let him
at first, but finally agreed. He put on his boots, winter coat, and hat, and went out the back door.

The unstamped, unsigned letter he had received bothered him. He had a hunch who had put it in the mailbox. Only one person
he knew would have the nerve to do a thing like that.

He stood on the porch awhile, the sun shining bright and warm against his face, touching high spots on the snow. He heard
a door bang across the yard and saw Mrs. Bennett leaving the house. He watched her as she went to the garage and backed out
the car.

Then he spotted the snowman in Caskie’s yard.
He had seen Caskie and his sister Florie making it a couple of evenings ago, right after they had come home from school. It
was a tall, fat snowman with extended arms and a dark hat on its large, round head. Mel guessed that it had eyes, nose, and
a mouth, too, but he couldn’t see them from where he was.

Looking at it reminded him of Caskie and the note, and anger smoldered again inside of him. He stepped down to the sidewalk
Dad had shoveled clean, and trudged through the knee-high snow to the rear of the garage where he had a better view of the
snowman.

He would tear it down, that’s what he’d do. With Mrs. Bennett gone, no one was home. Mr. Bennett worked at a factory, and
Caskie and Florie were in school.

Mel took a few more steps through the deep snow. Then he realized how foolish it was to walk through it to the Bennetts’ backyard.
Anybody could see instantly who had torn down the snowman if he continued to leave a trail through the backyard that way.

He walked down his driveway to the street and
around the block to the Bennetts’ backyard. The snowman had eyes and a nose and a mouth all right. But he wasn’t going to
have them long. He wasn’t even going to
be
there long.

Mel pulled out the two small red rubber balls that were the eyes and threw them aside. Then he yanked out the tin can that
was the nose and the piece of three-inch-wide wood with teeth drawn on it and flung those aside. The snowman had no face at
all now.

Mel stood peering at it. A horrible feeling suddenly came over him. He would regret this. He knew he would. Caskie would figure
out easily that it was Mel who had torn down his snowman. There was no telling what Mr. and Mrs. Bennett would do then.

Mel picked up the rubber balls, the tin can, and the piece of wood and put them back on the snowman. Then he stood back and
looked at it with satisfaction and returned home the same way he had come.

T
he next morning Mel and Darryl walked over to Pedro Dorigez’s house where they found Pedro and Skeet Robinson playing with
Pedro’s small pool table in the basement. The cue balls were small and the cue sticks short. Mel had played with them before.