Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Free Throws

  Josie walked farther down the aisle but kept her gaze on the mall hallway. "Just wait. Just wait until you like a guy, and then we'll see how you act."

  Five

  Josie

  Cami says I'm overly dramatic. I don't think so. I just think my life has an abundance of tragedy.

  Like the moment in the Kitchen Nook when Jack asked the woman standing next to us if she was wearing a bra.

  After I stopped gasping and could speak, I told the woman, "I'm so sorry." Then I pulled Jack farther down the aisle, and started giggling—which goes to show you Cami is right about me laughing when I'm not supposed to.

  "That is not a question you ask strangers," I told him.

  He pulled his arm away from me. "But Mom said everyone wears a bra."

  I tried to grab his arm again, but he turned away from me and bumped into a shelf. A pig-shaped cookie jar tumbled to the ground and broke into two pieces. That was another tragedy because I then had to pay $18.99 for something that now looked like a decapitated pig head.

  The cookie jar squealed when you opened the lid. Of course that part didn't break. Jack opened and closed it two hundred times while I stood in line at the cash register to pay for it.

  "Nineteen dollars for a cookie jar," I told Cami after we'd walked away from the salesclerk. "That is so overpriced. Now I won't have enough money to buy a shirt."

  Jack flipped open the lid for the two-hundred-and-first time. Squeeeal!

  I was ready to break the thing some more.

  "It could have been worse," Cami said. "He could have broken one of those two-hundred-dollar bread makers."

  I peered down the walkway. There was no sign of Ethan and Justin. They'd probably gone home.

  Another tragedy.

  "Can we go to the pet store now?" Jack asked.

  I shoved the receipt in my purse and continued to look down through the mall, as though Ethan and Justin would appear again. They could have gone anywhere while we'd been in line paying for the cookie jar. They could have walked right past us.

  Apparently Cami needed to brush up on her stalking skills quickly if she was going to help me through my school career of crushes.

  Jack tugged at my hand, and I let out a sigh. "All right. We'll go to the pet store, but on one condition. You've got to stop squealing that pig."

  He nodded solemnly, then went down the walkway with the broken cookie jar wrapped in his arms.

  I didn't hold his hand anymore because both of his hands were on the cookie jar, but I kept one eye on him. Jack had a tendency to dart off; and if I didn't pay attention, I would be brotherless before I could say, "Mom will kill me."

  I was keeping such a good eye on Jack, I didn't see Ethan until I ran into him.

  I mean, I didn't actually run into him. I just practically ran into him. He had to sidestep me, and so he dropped the shopping bag he was carrying. A pair of tennis shoes tumbled out onto the floor.

  "Oh. Sorry," I said, remembering Cami's advice to say something clever and witty to him.

  "That's okay." He bent down and picked up one shoe while I picked up the other.

  Clever and witty. Clever and witty.

  I handed the shoe back to him. "So you bought new shoes. I like them."

  He put the shoe back in the bag. "These are the old ones. I 'm wearing the new ones."

  "Right. That's what I meant. I like the ones you're wear­ing." I looked at his feet for the first time.

  He wore black tennis shoes. I nodded at them as though admiring his laces. "Very nice."

  "Are you here shoe shopping?" he asked.

  "No, we're just hanging out. Looking at stuff. . ." I noticed he was staring at Jack's cookie jar. "Breaking things," I added.

  Jack, apparently bored that we'd stopped walking again, opened the cookie jar. It let out a squeal.

  Justin raised an eyebrow. "I can see why you broke it."

  Jack clutched the pig head to his chest, then walked toward the railing that overlooked the ground floor. "The pet store is downstairs," he yelled to us, and took a few steps toward the escalator.

  Cami called, "Come back here." Then in a lower voice she said to Ethan, "Jack wants to see the animals. He's, um, my little brother."

  I smiled stiffly at Ethan and Justin. "He visits my house with Cami a lot." I turned to check on Jack and saw him sticking the pig head through the railing bars.

  And suddenly I could see the headlines of tomorrow's newspaper:

  MALL SHOPPER KILLED BY FALLING PIG HEAD.

  OLDER SISTER CHARGED WITH NEGLIGENCE

  "Jack, come here right now and give me that cookie jar!" I yelled.

  He didn't move. "I won't drop it."

  I snapped my fingers at him and raised my voice louder. "If you want to live to see six candles on your next birthday cake, you'll come here this second and give me that pig!"

  Ethan and Justin exchanged a look—probably wondering why I was shouting at Cami's little brother—but what else could I do when Jack wasn't listening to me?

  Jack trotted back to us and with an exaggerated sigh handed me the cookie jar.

  "Thanks, Jack," Cami said sweetly. She apparently was a nice sister who didn't yell at her little brother after he nearly killed shoppers.

  Jack looked back toward the banister and the bottom floor of the mall. "I think they have hamsters down there. I want to get one and train it."

  Ethan grinned. "You can't train a hamster."

  "Uh-huh," Jack said. "You can train anything. Even a bra."

  I laughed because I could think of nothing else to do, except for bolting away from everyone, which in the long run would have been even more awkward than standing there laughing.

  "Oh, really?" Justin said. "What do you train them to do?"

  Jack shrugged. "I don't know. My sister won't tell me, but she's getting a training bra."

  Both Justin and Ethan turned and looked at Cami. She held up one hand and shook her head. "He's not really my brother."

  "I think it has something to do with rats," Jack said. "Because Mom said her bra was ratty."

  "Not my bra," Cami said, "Jack's mother's bra. She said her bra was ratty."

  Justin nodded, eyebrows raised. Ethan smirked.

  "I'm absolutely no relation to this child," Cami said. "He's Josie's brother."

  Ethan and Justin simultaneously turned and looked at me.

  I clutched the pig head harder. "No, he's not." Not as long as he was telling the guy I liked that his sister had a ratty training bra. I sent a stiff smile to Cami. "Cami always tries to disown him when he misbehaves."

  I turned to give Jack a neighborly I'm-so-glad-I'm-not your-sister-now pat on the head, but he wasn't there. My gaze swung from one side of shops to the other, trying to find him. "Where did he—" I asked, then located him just as he went down the escalator.

  "Jack!" I called.

  He didn't answer.

  I rushed over to the escalator, my purse flapping against my side, and the pig head tucked under one arm. Not only had Jack gone down the escalator, but he'd gone down the up escalator.

  For a moment I waited at the top to see if the upward motion of the stairs would be faster than his determination to get down them. If he wasn't quick enough, the stairs would just carry him back up to me, where I would grab him and immediately drag him back to my mother.

  He was making progress; his little legs jiggled on the stairs as he wove around a group of teenagers coming up. In a few more moments he'd be down on the ground floor, where I might lose him for good.

  Which meant I had to go after him.

  I took a breath and plunged down the stairs. The pig head was still tucked under my arm like a football, and I wished I had given it to Cami before I'd dashed after Jack. I held on to it tightly so as not to drop the thing as I attempted to outrace my brother. It felt as though I was hardly moving, like one of those dreams where you run but don't go anywhere. I was hurrying as quickly as I could and making slow progress. The pe
ople coming up, however, were traveling fast. I could see their disapproving faces as I stepped down past them.

  "Hey, this is the up escalator," one guy told me.

  Oh, really? And here I thought someone had installed Stairmaster exercise equipment in the middle of the mall.

  I was almost to Jack. I tried to move around a woman who was trying to move around me at the same time. Caught off balance, I grabbed hold of the handrailing for support.

  Which might have helped if I were going the same direction as the handrailing.

  Instead, the rising motion of the railing nearly jerked my arm out of my socket. I was pulled backward, and as I struggled to regain my balance, I lost my footing and stumbled forward.

  From there, my trip down the escalator was a blur of people gasping and trying not to step on me. I heard the pig head squealing somewhere ahead of me.

  Thunk. Squeal. Thunk. Squeal. Thunk. Squeal. Crash.

  I didn't see its ultimate demise. My face was planted downward, so all I could see were the metal slats that made up the stairs.

  As I lay there spread out on the escalator like some furless bear rug, the stairs took me back up to the second floor. Once I reached the top, I twisted around, trying to peel myself away from the escalator, while the people behind me kept stepping backward down the stairs so they didn't run into me.

  Suddenly I saw Justin's face hovering over me, and then he half yanked, half pulled me away from the stairs. "Are you all right?"

  I stumbled to my feet, trying to shake off the pain. I probably had slat imprints on my face. "Where's Jack?"

  "Cami went around to the down escalator to get him. She nabbed him about the time you were coming back up."

  "Great." I took a few small steps to see if I could still walk. I could. Nothing appeared to be broken. I mean, I didn't see any bones sticking out of my skin or anything.

  Ethan shook his head at me, trying not to laugh. "Man, Josie, I should start carrying a camcorder when I'm around you. The last five minutes could have won me prize money on America's Funniest Home Videos."

  I rubbed my hands together to relieve the stinging. "Anything to bring a little humor into your life, Ethan."

  "Are you all right?" Justin asked again.

  Oh, sure. This was the second time I'd fallen on my face in front of Ethan, and the only saving grace was that it had driven all thoughts of bras from his mind.

  "I will be in a minute," I said.

  Ethan chuckled some more, which made me wonder if my hair was sticking up or something. I ran a hand over it just in case.

  "You shouldn't have followed Jack down the escalator," Justin said. "You should have just let his sister get him."

  It was about that time that Jack and Cami stepped off the up escalator.

  "But I want to get a new hamster!" Jack insisted.

  "And instead you got a broken cookie jar that squeals. Be happy."

  "I don't think it's squealing anymore." Justin nodded toward the escalator, where little pink ceramic fragments were spinning on the grate with every stair that came up.

  "That's my pig?" Jack wailed. "You broke my pig?"

  I took Jack's hand. "We'd better go, Cami."

  "He's really not my brother," Cami said.

  Jack's face crumpled. His eyes blinked at the pig shards. "You broke my pig?"

  I pulled Jack away from Ethan and Justin without saying good-bye to them. I just wanted to get away, and fast. When I was sure we were out of earshot, I said, "That was definitely the most uncool I've ever been."

  "It could have been worse," Cami said.

  I held on to Jack's hand tightly, pulling him beside me, "Right. My little brother has become a bra commentator. I spent all my money on ceramic pig debris, and I fell down an escalator in front of dozens of mall shoppers and the guy I like. From here on out he will remember me only as that-strange-girl-who-spends-most-of-her-time-facedown-onthe-ground. It could not have been worse."

  Cami pursed her lips together. "You're right," she said, then giggled all the way back to Sears. Which just goes to prove she's no better about laughing at the wrong times than I am.

  Cami

  On the car trip home, Jack whined and complained about his broken pig until Josie promised to give him one of her Beanie Babies when they got back home. Then Josie whined and complained about why she couldn't go to the mall—just once—as an only child. "I'll never be 'in,'" she said sullenly. "Unless you count 'msane,' which is what I must have been to agree to go to the mall with my family."

  I didn't complain about the event, even though it was just as humiliating for me as it was for Josie. I mean, anyone can trip; it takes someone truly unlucky to be labeled as the girl with the ratty training bra.

  I knew I would hear about that from now until graduation.

  Besides, Josie would probably stop liking Ethan next week and could avoid him for the rest of her life. I'd be stuck seeing him at my locker all year.

  On Friday morning, sure enough, as I was getting math stuff out of my locker, Ethan came by. He twirled the combination of his locker, then looked over at me and chuckled.

  "Shut up," I told him.

  "I can't help it. I'm imagining trained rats wearing little bras."

  I glared at him over the top of my locker. "Jack is five years old. He gets a lot of things wrong. Until recently he thought Ronald McDonald personally made his Happy Meals."

  Ethan pulled a notebook from his locker, then waved a pencil at me. "I want to have another conversation with Jack.

  I bet for a Snickers bar he'd spill all of your secrets."

  "I'm sure he'd try, but he really is Josie's brother, not mine."

  Ethan tilted his head at me. "Then why did you say he was yours?"

  "You wouldn't understand."

  He leaned around with a grin. "Sure I would. I'm very understanding. It's one of my better qualities."

  Ashley walked by us from her locker a few feet down. She smiled pointedly at Ethan. "He knows all about his better qualities because there are so few to keep track of."

  Ethan shut his locker with a thud. "Good to see you too, Ash."

  "If you ever want to know about his other qualities," she told me, "I'd be happy to fill you in."

  Ethan's eyes narrowed. "And we could talk about your other qualities, but there isn't enough time in one day to cover them all."

  Ashley tossed her hair off her shoulder and walked forward as though she'd never seen either of us.

  Ethan watched her go. His eyes were still narrow, and for a moment I thought he'd completely forgotten about me. Then he leaned up against his locker and smiled at me again. "Where were we?"

  "I'm not sure, but there were no rats involved."

  He laughed and ran a hand through his hair. His eyes twinkled.

  I reminded myself that I was Josie's good friend, and loyal, and something else. I suddenly couldn't remember what, with Ethan smiling at me.

  "So do you really have a brother?" Ethan asked.

  "Yep."

  "Would he spill all your secrets for a Snickers bar?"

  "Maybe."

  "Can I have your phone number so I can talk to him?"

  It actually took me several seconds to process his question. Ethan had just asked me for my phone number. Ethan. Gorgeous, available Ethan.

  And then, although I hadn't planned to, although I wasn't even done thinking about the implications of this question, my lips said my phone number.

  He wrote it down on his notebook. "What's his name?"

  "Who?"

  "Your brother—what's his name?"

  "Kevin."

  "Great. Maybe I'll give Kevin a call tonight."

  He walked away. I held my books against my chest, rooted to the spot, and watched him disappear into the throng of students in the hallway.

  He was going to call me. What would he say? What would I say?

  If I was a good friend, I ought to talk about Josie, tell him what a great person she was. A
nd after all, maybe that was the real reason he wanted to talk to me. Maybe he wanted me to act as a go-between for Josie and him.

  I didn't need to feel guilty about him asking for my phone number.

  But as I thought of his smile, I felt guilty anyway.

  Six

  Josie

  During English class I tried to toss my hair from my shoulder in the same sophisticated way Ashley did. But I don't know whether I looked sophisticated or as though I had neck spasms.

  Sophistication obviously took practice.

  While I was shooting warm-ups at basketball practice Frederick walked into the gym, a bulging backpack slung over his shoulders.

  From beside me Erica shot her ball into the net. "What's he doing in here?"

  Ashley stopped dribbling and stared at him. "He's probably here to critique our technique and tell us algorithms that would increase our accuracy."

  I aimed and threw. My ball arched toward the basket, but fell short. "He's my science fair partner. He probably came in to talk to me."

  "Oh." Ashley blew me a kiss. "Frederick and Josie. How romantic. We'll be sure to let everyone know you're a couple."

  "Yeah, and I'd let everyone know you're a couple of idiots," I said as I walked up court, "but most people already know."

  I picked up my ball and went over to the sidelines, where Frederick was waiting for me.

  He didn't say hi or make small talk. As soon as I got within earshot, he told me, "I've attached lead tape to the nose and fins of the rockets. We need to measure their center of gravity and weigh them before they're launched. When are you through in here?"

  "Four fifteen."

  "I've got the rockets with me. Mr. Parkinson said we could use the scales in the biology room. I'll be waiting for you there."

  After practice I'm hot, sweaty, and starving. Nobody from the team showers in the locker because the locker-room towels are tiny, the water takes forever to get hot, and given the choice, we'd all rather go home and use our own bathrooms than stand around naked in front of each other. The last thing I wanted to do after practice was hang out with Frederick in the biology room. "You've already started our project—two days after Mrs. Parkinson gave us the assignment?"