Checked

  Then I snap back to attention and turn to the phone and read about chemo. It looks like if you don’t have a lot of money, you treat the dog with just one drug. But that’s not as effective. For seven thousand, we’re going to be able to get the full treatment. The drug doxorubicin is likely to be most effective when included in the mix, but it can be dangerous—heart toxicity and skin necrosis. I look up “necrosis,” and here’s what it means: a form of cell injury that results in the premature death of cells in living tissue. As many as 90 percent of dogs respond positively to chemo, but as many as 95 percent relapse. “As many” is a weird phrase, ’cause it can mean anything.

  Suddenly I don’t want to read any more about cancer. In fact, the thought of reading more about it makes me sick. I check my e-mail, and there are three—all from PETA. I gave them three dollars a couple of years ago, and now I get e-mails all the time from them. So I click through on one and read a really sad story about medical testing on dogs. This makes me sick too, but I scroll through the page to read about how in 2015 the United States became the last developed nation in the world to eliminate using chimpanzees in invasive research . . . which leads me to an amazing photograph of a bunch of chimps mourning the death of another chimp . . . and then I veer to photographs and stories of the ghettos in Hong Kong and Kowloon. I guess a lot of them have been torn down, but the poverty there was mind-blowing: totally dilapidated buildings where entire families lived in 150 square feet or less of subdivided apartment space. People so poor that even if lightning struck and you happened to be born with the most hockey talent in history, you might never know it, and if you knew it, you might not even be able to buy the worst pair of used skates. AWW, I just suddenly feel like the whole world SUCKS! I mean, there are good things, but there’s just so much that sucks. Except for my Sinbad, lying now behind me on the bed. I realize I forgot to put Sinbad’s cone back on, so even though it makes me feel really guilty, I wake him up and put it back on while he gives me gloom eyes—he hates the cone!

  I notice that it’s somehow midnight. I suddenly feel flooded with relief that I managed to pass several hours without obsessing about either Sinbad or tomorrow’s tryouts.

  The last thing I think before getting in bed is that I’d like to save the world, like my dad, but I just don’t know how.

  CHAPTER 11

  * * *

  JAE-WON AND I send each other about fifty texts during the day, not always about hockey. Like, he texts me, My cuz gave me some cool joggers. Should I wear them even tho it’s hot?

  Dude, it’s too hot for long pants, I text back, and he doesn’t reply. I can’t decide if I should walk Sinbad or not. I want to be totally fresh for tryouts tonight, but at the same time he loves his walks. I decide to take him on a short walk and then give him a bone while I stretch.

  When Dad gets home from work, he asks, “Did you eat?”

  “I forgot. What should I do? Is it too late to eat?”

  “Why not just have a peanut butter sandwich?”

  So I make myself a sandwich on whole wheat bread with this all-natural peanut butter and organic jelly we got at the store just for today. Dad read that NBA players almost all eat peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches before games, so that’s why I eat so many of them.

  When I’m finished, Dad puts out his fist, and I bump it. “You’re going to do great,” he says. “I can feel it.”

  “That’s what you said last year before I didn’t make AAA.”

  He thinks for a moment. “Yeah, I did say that. . . .”

  As I pick up my hockey bag, I get that barfy feeling I get sometimes before big games. I let my bag drop back to the floor and kneel next to Sinbad. “I just gotta go do something important, and then I’m gonna come back and give you another walk, okay?” I swear he understands me!

  Dad and I head to the car. I lie in the backseat. Just zone out and listen to hip-hop until Dad notices and says sharply, “Put on your seat belt.” When we reach the rink, I see Madden walking across the parking lot with his parents. He played AAA last year, so he’s a lock to make the team.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Hey.”

  I’m in the ninetieth percentile height-wise, and Madden’s probably lower ten percent. But his skating is half ballerina, half most powerful man on earth. “Good luck,” he says.

  “You too,” I say, even though the only way he won’t make the team is . . . actually, there’s no way he won’t make the team.

  There’s a little nervous chatter in the dungeon, but the guys are pretty quiet. Jae-won’s not around; it’s not like him to be late. I call him and hear a phone ring in the room. He must already be in the rink. I head in, really aware of the stomping noise my skates are making, which I’ve never even noticed before.

  Next to the ice, there’s a snack table set up. That’s not for us—someone says there’s a figure-skating performance going on after tryouts. The rink is crowded with parents, both figure-skating parents and hockey parents. The air is filled with electricity. I can feel the anticipation of the hockey players, the figure skaters, and the parents. Dad’s sitting in the stands.

  I know Coach Dusan will be watching me carefully at the tryout, ’cause Dad has heard he’s especially eager to find a second-year defenseman, which is what I am. A lot of last year’s peewee AAA team are returning, so there’re only a few true openings, though everybody has to go through the motions of trying out. There’re several other guys who are also second-year defensemen, so I’ll have some competition. And two of them are friends of mine. Pasha and Ethan. Actually, Ethan is my frenemy. We’re supercompetitive with each other, but off the ice we’re cool. He has a habit of checking me when he’s trying to take a puck away from me. You’re not allowed to check at the peewee level, so I don’t usually check him back unless I’m mad. Checking is when you bang your body into another player, especially on the boards. It’s where a lot of injuries happen in youth hockey. Anyway, I can see Ethan’s here, and he looks focused. I allow myself a moment to do a long-distance mind-meld with Sinbad, and then I need to push him out of my mind and slide onto the ice.

  We do drills for five minutes, and then Coach Dusan sets us loose to scrimmage. Half the players get red knit caps, signaling they’re on the same team. We put the caps over our helmets. Pasha and Ethan are on the other team. For my first shift, it’s like my legs are asleep. I let a guy whiz by me, and I bang my stick on the ice in frustration. Then I remember hearing that Coach Dusan hates it when guys act out their frustration.

  So I go to a trick I have. I try to remember the time when my dad let me drink half a cup of coffee, just to see what it’s like. I was so revved up I couldn’t fall asleep until two in the morning. Now I try to channel that energy inside me. I focus on expressing that energy. Focus. Coaches love focus. I forget my fear that maybe I’m having a bad day. My next shift nobody gets by me, and every time I go to the boards with another player, I come up with the puck. I feel like my feet are flying, and I try to push off even harder. I bang a slap shot toward the net, and it just misses the opening. But it was a good, hard shot, and it was a good decision to take that shot.

  Coach Dusan keeps me and the other defenseman on the ice for what seems like a long time, and I hope it’s ’cause he’s looking at me. Suddenly Jae-won’s on the ice. That floods me with confidence—we’ve been playing together for years. He skates hard down the ice, and it’s like I know just when he’s going to turn his head. I flick a saucer pass to him, and he scores with a soft shot in exactly the right place, through a tiny crevice in the upper right. By the time Coach calls me off the ice, my mind is totally in the scrimmage. I sit on the bench feeling really good about that shift.

  Coach Dusan goes to the scorer’s table, and then Coach Andy, who was my coach on the peewee AAs, pulls me off the bench and says Coach Dusan wants to talk to me. I go over to the scorer’s table, and Dusan says, “Do you want to be on this team?”

  “Yeah!” I say. Sweat falls into my eyes, pl
us everything’s feeling surreal, so I take off my helmet and wipe my eyes. “I mean yes!” I add.

  “Are your parents here?”

  “My dad.”

  “Go ask him if you can commit to the team now. If you can’t, I’m going to take Pasha.”

  I feel a moment of guilt—I don’t know Pasha well, since he’s from another club, but he’s one of my favorite people. But then excitement takes over. “I’ll be right back!” I practically scream before running clumsily in my skates to the stands.

  My heart is pounding. Dad has noticed me running, so he jogs over.

  “Coach Dusan wants to know if I can commit to the team now! Otherwise he’s taking Pasha!”

  “What? Tell him yes!” Dad half shouts.

  This time, I walk back like I’m completely cool. I knock on the scorer’s door, and Coach Andy opens it. I tell Coach Dusan cool-like, “My dad says yes.”

  Coach Dusan nods and puts his fist out. “Just warning you I’m a perfectionist,” he says as we bump fists. I head giddily back to the bench. I don’t tell anyone I’m on the team now, ’cause I’m thinking, Who knows what can happen between now and actually signing up? Maybe Coach will change his mind!

  Jae-won’s out on the ice. His skating’s not as good as last year’s AAAs, so I hope he scores again just to show Coach Dusan what he can do. Instead he threads a hard pass between two players, a pass so awesome it’s just as good as scoring. “YEAH, JAE-WON!” I scream. “YEAH!” He just made the team, I know it! He returns to the bench with a big smile on his face.

  After that, the shifts go quickly. Nobody gets by me for the rest of the scrimmage. I’m trying to get out of the habit of dangling opposing players, ’cause I know that at the AAA level it’s a lot harder to dangle your way out of a crowd. Dangling’s the same as deking, which is using fancy stick-handling to get through a crowd. I try to flick a few choice passes, to show Coach that he hasn’t made a mistake by signing me.

  The scrimmage lasts just thirty minutes. Then Coach Andy hands out envelopes to everyone who tried out. I take my envelope to my dad and watch over his shoulder as he opens it. There’s the player name on top and three typed lines with blanks in front. The first line, which is checked, says, Congratulations, you’ve been offered a spot on the Team. The second line says, Thank you for trying out for the Team, but we are unable to offer you a spot at this time. The third line says, Please see the coach. I see Ethan walking off, his shoulders drooping. I also see Pasha just standing, his head slightly tilted, staring into space. I feel bad that I took his spot, but at the same time I’m a supercompetitive person, so I feel good, too. But I wipe the smile off my face and tell Pasha, “You played great, man. You deserved to make the team.” Which actually he did.

  “Thanks, man. You made it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Congrats, I’m happy for you. You played better than me,” he says. Then he hits himself in the head and says, “STUPID. STUPID.”

  “No, you weren’t stupid,” I say, shocked at how hard he hit himself. “You—”

  “I was STUPID!” He curls his hand into a fist and knocks it hard against his forehead one more time. Pasha’s a great hockey player—he’ll make AAA somewhere else—but now he drops his chin toward his chest and just stares at the floor.

  His mother comes up and puts an arm around him, and they walk off together.

  You can see who’s happy and who’s not. My dad’s face is pure excitement. Other parents are saying “Congratulations” to him, and a couple of them congratulate me as well. He messes up my hair roughly, and I smile.

  “I did it!” I say.

  “You played amazing,” he says. Then, just ’cause it’s the way hockey parents are, he adds, “That first shift you were asleep, though.”

  I just laugh. “Did you like my slap shot?” I ask eagerly.

  “Hardest shot you ever took!”

  He messes my hair again, and I feel so proud! He’s got a hundred-mile-an-hour shot, so if he says mine was hard, it must have been hard.

  Someone lays a hand on my shoulder, and it’s Jae-won. He looks teary-eyed. “What?!” I say. “Didn’t you make it?”

  “Yeah, I made it,” he says, fighting back tears.

  “Aw, cut it out, man, that’s just embarrassing.”

  He smiles, then laughs. “I know.”

  Then I spot Rocko. He’s listening to his dad, and his dad looks mad.

  Rocko quickly approaches me and says, “You didn’t play so great.”

  I ignore that and just walk away. Then everyone who made the team goes into a room, and the players get fitted for uniforms and socks. I see Lucas is there. He’s from my AA team too. I like Lucas. He’s all business. He doesn’t mess around in the locker room, he doesn’t throw your gear across the room or spray you with water. He doesn’t take other players’ sticks and bang them on the ground. He doesn’t swear and trash-talk. He doesn’t lock anyone in the bathroom. He just plays good hockey, gets dressed, and leaves. I don’t know him well, but I’m a Lucas fanboy.

  The parents pay, sign letters of intent, fill out a few papers, and if they’re from other clubs, they show proof their sons are up-to-date on their tetanus shots. I had my tetanus shot last year, so they already have that on file. The players all sign a paper pledging to do their best and listen to the coaches. Aleksei texts me and asks how the tryout went. I text him back that I made the team. He asks me whether my dad signed the letter of intent. I say yes. He says that it’s all because of his lessons, but he includes a smiley face. You’re the man, I text back.

  CHAPTER 12

  * * *

  IN THE CAR I start reliving the whole scrimmage. I remember every moment, not just every time I had the puck. Jae-won’s magnificent pass. Lucas, Mr. Efficiency. Jesus Acosta, the fastest skater at the club’s peewee level. Madden, who scored twice. The league requires that at least half a team needs to be kids who played with the club the previous season. I guess that’s just to make sure that clubs develop their own players instead of constantly try to create all-star teams by recruiting guys from other clubs. I go through everybody who made the team. We have fifteen out of seventeen who played for the Grizzlies last season: twelve who were on the AAA team last year, and then Jae-won, Lucas, and me from the AAs. The other two guys are from the Racers.

  “How many Racers did we have trying out?” I ask Dad. “It seems like it was a lot.”

  “I counted seven.”

  “How come?”

  “I heard their peewee AAA coach got fired at the last minute, so their team is in disarray. They hired a new guy, but nobody likes him.”

  “Like fired fired?” Coaches are let go all the time, but I’ve never heard of one fired.

  “Yeah, and he’s one of the best peewee coaches in California. We watched his team play our AAAs once last year, remember? Those kids really understood the fundamentals. But he showed up falling-down drunk to a team function.”

  “Oh, wow . . .” I think that over, feel kind of sorry for the guy. “I would be okay with a coach making one mistake.”

  “Yeah, second chances. Absolutely, I agree.”

  Dad’s pretty chill for a cop. I mean, I’m sure he can be tough on the streets, but he’s chill, too.

  He looks worried for some reason. “Is everything okay?” I ask.

  “Yeah, are you kidding? Everything’s great! I’ve never been so proud of you!”

  Aunt Mo texts me. Your dad says you made the team, congratulations!!!!! I knew you would!!!!!

  Thanks, I text back. It was a lot of fun.

  She sends back a bunch of emojis and exclamation marks.

  Dad’s face seems sad, though, so while I glance at him curiously, I let him have his space.

  When we get home, Sinbad’s standing right at the door, his stubby tail wagging, totally oblivious to his cone. The cone is kind of like a goofy halo. I kneel down. “I made it!” I say. I feel a clench of worry inside my stomach as I remember that he may still be
going through treatment when the team has its first out-of-town tournament. I give my head a quick couple of jerks, just to shake the thought out of my brain.

  Dad goes right to his room, kind of determined, like he’s got something to do. After I take out my gear to air it, I put plastic wrap around Sinbad’s leg, take off his cone, then bring him into the shower with me. I know that’s weird, but I do it sometimes. I soap myself from head to toe while he stands with his mouth open as water falls into it. After turning off the water, I get out and quickly grab a towel and dry off Sinbad really well before he shakes all over. Then I dry myself and decide to blow off brushing my teeth ’cause I’m suddenly exhausted.

  In bed, I push Sinbad away so I don’t get wet. He keeps scooting closer, and I keep pushing him away. We do that three times before I give up. Then I close my eyes and I’m gone.