Author’s Note:  To spare myself and all of you the confusion of doing it later, I've gone ahead and changed the Boys' names in the story.  If you get confused, check out the Author's Note - I listed the names there.  Also, I have done some minor revisions on the first two chapters and reposted them, so if you notice any inconsistencies, it's probably because I've changed something earlier in the story.  I apologize for this, but this is definitely a work in progress, so thanks for understanding!  Please leave comments or ask questions in a review if there's something that doesn't seem right or is confusing to you.  Thanks!

Chapter 3

Nick’s sour mood didn’t last long.  By Monday, the whole school was buzzing with news that would set his spirits soaring.

“Did you hear?” Leah hissed when he met her at his locker Monday morning, her brown eyes dancing.

“Hear what?”

She looked at him like he’d grown a second head.  “Hear what?  Are you kidding?  Doug Richmond got busted by the cops on his way home from Kacey’s house Friday night.  DUI, underage drinking, and they found a bag of pot in his car!  Can you believe it?  He’ll be suspended at least three games, which might as well be the rest of the season if we don’t make the playoffs, and who knows how this will affect his college prospects.”  She shook her head, blonde hair flying.  “But that’s not important.  The big thing is, this means you’ll be starting forward tomorrow night!”

She said this all very rapidly, and for a moment, Nick could only blink, taking it all in.  At first, he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly.  Doug Richmond, off the team?  He, starting forward for the game tomorrow?

“Are you serious?”

“Of course I’m serious!  Be excited, Nicky!  This is awesome news!” Leah gushed.

“I am excited!  I’m… wow!  I’m starting forward?”

“You’re starting forward, baby!  I’m so proud of you.”  Beaming, Leah leaned forward and stood on her tip-toes to kiss his lips.  “And just wait till your parents hear,” she added, as she pulled away.

Nick felt a broad grin stretch across his face.  He couldn’t wait to tell them.

#

The news was confirmed at practice after school that day:  Nick would be taking Doug’s position as starting power forward for the away game the following night.

Nick felt sorry for Doug, who had messed up and was now paying the price, but sympathy for his teammate did not dampen his spirits.  In the thrill of knowing that he would be on the starting lineup tomorrow, Nick played exceptionally well in practice, making nearly every lay-up and free throw he attempted.  He felt in sync with his teammates when it came to running plays, and if the practice was any indicator of their performance in the game tomorrow, the Sanctuary Sharks were sure to give the Metacomet Cardinals some stiff competition.

By the time practice let out, Nick was exhausted.  His left leg, which normally held his weight while he pivoted, ached as he drove himself home, stopping at the drive-thru of the Dairy Queen on his way.  He knew his parents wouldn’t be home this early on a Monday night, with a whole week’s worth of work ahead of them, so he ordered himself a burger and fries for dinner.

At home, he fed Nala and limped upstairs with his crinkled bag of fast food to relax before starting on his homework.  He had just flopped onto his unmade bed when a pair of footsteps came storming up the hall, and his sister Lisi leaped into the room.

“I knew I smelled fries!” she hissed, her accusing eyes finding his Dairy Queen sack.  “Didn’t think to get any for me and Adam, by chance, did you?”

Nick immediately felt guilty; he hadn’t even thought of his sister and brother.  Offering a sheepish smile, he shrugged and said, “I didn’t have enough cash on me.  Sorry.  There’s stuff in the fridge.”

“Nothing good!” Lisi whined, stamping her foot.  “You suck!”  And she stormed away again.

Nick sighed, rolling his eyes after her.  Living with Lisi was like being in the midst of a tornado.  She was eleven years old, in the middle of a growth spurt, hormonal, dramatic.  Her moods were completely unpredictable, and he liked to stay out of her path.

Just as he heard her bedroom door slam, another door open, and a second pair of footsteps came down the hall.  These were lighter, less angry, and Nick wasn’t surprised to see his younger brother Adam standing in his doorway when he looked up.  He smiled.  “Hey, Adam.”

“You’re home!  Why’s Lisi yelling?”

Nick shrugged.  “Got me.  That’s just what girls her age do.  They yell.”  Grinning at his brother’s bemused expression, he patted a spot on the bed.  “C’mere, you want some fries?  Just don’t tell Lisi,” he added, as Adam scrambled onto the bed next to him.

In some ways, Adam was like a tornado too, but only because he was a typical nine-year-old boy--messy and full of boundless energy.  He could be loud and destructive, but Nick much preferred hanging out with him to Lisi.  Lisi didn’t like to shoot hoops or play video games; she spent most of her time alone in her room, singing along to her CDs and messing around on her computer.  Adam, though, was always up for playing with his big brother.

“You owe me a rematch!” he shouted once they’d polished off the fries, jumping off the bed to put one of Nick’s racing games into the video game console.  “You’re gonna eat my dust this time!”

Nick laughed.  “Oh, we’ll see about that.”  Picking up his controller, he got into position in front of the TV.  “Just one game, though, okay?  I’ve got a lot of homework, and I can’t afford to slack… not if I wanna start in the game tomorrow.”

Adam turned his eyes away from the video game to look at him.  “You’re starting tomorrow?”

“Yep.  The usual starter, Richmond, got himself into some trouble this weekend and can’t play for at least three games, so I get to take his spot.”

“Awesome, dude!” Adam whooped, bouncing on the bed.  Once he’d calmed himself down, he asked, “What’d Doug Richmond do, anyway?”

Nick smiled; Adam had taken it upon himself to memorize the whole Sanctuary High basketball roster.  “Nothing you need to know about.  C’mon, let’s play.”

They played their race, and because his life seemed so perfect that night, Nick showed mercy and let Adam win the rematch.  It was a close race; he tried not to make it obvious.  Adam bought it and boasted the whole way back to his own room.  “We’re gonna have a re-re-match, buddy, on Wednesday!  You and me!” Nick shouted after him, trying to sound as threatening as possible.  He heard Adam’s cackling laughter, and he smiled, as he reached for his backpack to get out his homework.

He had a lot of studying to do for chemistry – Mr. Lutz had hinted there would be a pop quiz on balancing equations tomorrow – but he wasn’t going to let it overwhelm him tonight.

Life was too good.

#

Tuesday’s chemistry class did indeed contain a quiz, and fifty minutes later, Nick stumbled out of the lab with his head swimming.  He really had tried to study the night before, but had awoken around midnight with an imprint of the periodic table on his right cheek.  Not that it would have made much difference--he just didn’t understand chemistry.

“Man, that was a rough quiz, wasn’t it?” a raspy voice said behind him, and Nick turned to find that he was being followed by JD Cleman.  “That balancing equations stuff makes my head just kill.”

Nick offered a wry smile at JD.  “Yeah, I know; I don’t get it either.”

It suddenly struck him as odd that even though he and JD walked the same path everyday, from chemistry to their next period, choir, they never usually talked.  JD was a sophomore, like him, but he associated with a completely different crowd, a strange mix of theater geeks, music freaks, artsy-farts, and emo kids.  He and his friends were the kind of people who dressed in black and wore sunglasses even indoors, who wrote angsty poetry and played in garage bands and worked on the plays at school.  They were “too cool” for team sports; usually, they stuck their noses up at jocks like Nick.

“Don’t forget, we’re meeting in the auditorium today,” said JD, as Nick’s feet carried him automatically towards the choir room.  “Got a concert Thursday, remember?”

“Oh yeah.”  Nick pivoted, following JD down a different hall, one that led to the auditorium and gymnasium.

Most of the choir was already assembled on the risers onstage when Nick and JD walked into the auditorium.  They found their places, Nick squeezing into the baritone section, which stretched across the middle of the third row, while JD, whose singing range went higher than his gravely speaking voice, stopped right in front of Nick with the other tenors.  Logan, also a tenor, stood to JD’s right, and Calvin, a bass, stood behind Nick.  They were the only two basketball players in choir, besides Nick, and they both started talking to him at once.

“Ya nervous about tonight?” Logan asked with an elfin grin, at the same time Calvin said, in his calm, even tone, “I hope you’re not freaking yourself out thinking about tonight.  You’ll play great if you just keep your head clear and leave your nerves at the door.”

Nick chuckled.  “I’m alright.  I just can’t wait to get out there.  I wish it was a home game; that bus ride is gonna be torture.”

“Eh, Metacomet’s not that far.  It’s just on the other side of Riverstead,” Calvin pointed out.  “I don’t mind the bus; it’s a chance to collect your thoughts… you know, get in the zone.”

“Hah-ummmmmmmm…”  Logan pretended to meditate, closing his eyes and humming loudly.  After a few seconds, he opened one eye just a crack to see if Calvin was glaring at him yet.

“Perfect--the humming tells me we’re ready to start warming up!” a clear voice projected above all of the talking (and Logan’s “meditating”), and Nick looked up to see their choir director, Mr. Keyes, standing at his podium.  Logan whipped around to face forward, and instantly, the stage fell silent.  “Excellent,” said Mr. Keyes.  “Let’s begin with a few simple arpeggios.  Do, mi, sol, mi, do.”  He sang a demonstration, moving his hand up and down to follow the progression of notes.  Their pianist accompanied him, and the choir instantly joined in.  “Do, mi, sol, mi, do…”

“Up a half step.”

“Do, mi, sol, mi, do…”

Nick felt his voice clear out and warm up as he repeated the progression.  Though he didn’t readily admit it, he liked choir.  Whenever one of the guys on the JV team gave him a hard time about it, he told them he was only taking it for a fine arts credit on his transcript--“You know, for college and stuff”--but really, it was because of his elementary school music teacher.

Miss MacAndrew.  She was young and pretty, fresh and enthusiastic.  She sang like a bird, her voice trilling across the music room as she taught her students about rhythm and pitch, dead composers and old styles of music.  She’d taught him how to play the recorder in fourth grade and told him in fifth that he had a great voice and a natural flair for music.  “You should definitely join chorus next year,” she’d advised, and so he had.  Until then, no one had ever told Nick he was good at anything, besides sports.

Sometimes he felt out of place in choir, but at least he had Logan, and even Calvin.  And if Calvin Scott, captain of the varsity basketball team, could sing in choir without shame, then Nick didn’t think anyone had a right to get on his case about it.

He could hear Calvin’s deep, mellow voice in his ear as they completed the warm-up runs, Mr. Keyes cutting them off neatly.

“Now, as you know, we have a concert on Thursday night, seven p.m.  I need you to be here, in your robes, at six-thirty.  We’ll meet in the choir room.  Please be on time, so that…”

As Mr. Keyes went on with his speech, Nick started to tune him out.  Mr. Keyes was known for being long-winded and saying things more often than they needed to be said.  Still, he was a great choir director.  He liked to joke about his name, “Keyes,” which was pronounced like the keys of a piano.  It was rumored that he had changed his last name to fit his profession, but Nick didn’t think that was true.  If it was, why wouldn’t he have spelled it the right way?

“… from the top.”  Nick’s mind was yanked back to the auditorium, as Mr. Keyes’ started conducting, his crisp arm motions setting the tempo for Mrs. Hall, the pianist, who started beating out the accompaniment for their first song, an African spiritual.  This one had choreography, complete with swaying and clapping, and Nick found it amusing because the town of Sanctuary was about as diverse as a bowl of white jelly beans.  A bunch of white kids with no rhythm, trying to clap and stomp along to an old slave song?  He hoped no one from Riverstead’s west side came to the concert on Thursday--it would be a disgrace to their heritage.

Then again, it didn’t look too bad from Nick’s vantage point.  In front of him, JD Cleman moved pretty well for a guy who loathed sports.  At least he had rhythm.  And he was flanked by two of the biggest cornballs in the whole choir:  Logan on his right, who sang music like this every Sunday in his church choir, and Ozzie O’Donnell on his left, who was just… well, a cornball.  But at least they, like JD, could sway in the right direction and clap on the right beat.

That was not true of everyone, even after months of practice, and just looking at some of them watch their feet instead of Mr. Keyes threw Nick off as well.  He stumbled a little, as the choir swayed right, trying to get back on the beat.  Then, as the choir swayed left, his knee buckled.

There was no room on the riser to catch himself and nothing but shoulders to break his fall.  He toppled forward, right onto Ozzie O’Donnell, who was about half his size.  Like a Domino, Ozzie was pushed off his riser onto the stage, where there was a gap.  Normally, Amy Robinson stood there, but she had gone upstage to sing her solo, and so Ozzie fell face-first onto the floor, and Nick landed practically on top of him.

The singing stopped; a buzz of concerned voices took its place.  Mr. Keyes cut off the piano and hurried over.  “Gentlemen, are you okay?” he asked, bending down.  “What happened?”

Nick scrambled up, mortified.  He tested his weight on his left knee, which had given out on him just moments ago.  It seemed alright now, although it was throbbing.  His whole body was throbbing.  Red-faced, he shook his head and mumbled, “I don’t know.  My knee just sort of… buckled.  I’m sorry, dude--are you okay?”

Ozzie was sitting up, holding his face.  Nick could see blood squeezing between his fingers, which were cupped over his nose.  Great, I probably broke his nose, he thought miserably.  Way to go, Harper.  He hoped this wasn’t any indication of how the game was going to play out later.

“I’ll be alright,” Ozzie attempted to say, his voice shaky and higher-pitched than usual, but Mr. Keyes shook his head.

“You need to go to the nurse, Mr. O’Donnell; she’ll get you cleaned up.  Can you stand?”  When Ozzie got to his feet, the choir director looked right at Nick and said, “Why don’t you walk him down, Mr. Harper?  It might do you some good to lie down for a few minutes.”

As Nick led Ozzie off the stage, he could hear Mr. Keyes lecturing the choir about not locking their knees when they were on the risers.  “Great… he thinks I fainted,” he muttered on the way out of the auditorium, feeling his face flush even redder.

“Are you sure you didn’t?”  Ozzie’s voice sounded funny; he was now pinching his nose to keep the blood from spattering.

“I didn’t faint,” Nick snapped, sounding more defensive than he had intended.  Softening his tone, he added, “I dunno what happened.  Like I said, my knee just gave out on me.  I didn’t have it locked either.”

Ozzie attempted to nod, keeping his head tipped back.  Nick felt a fresh wave of guilt wash over him.  “I’m really sorry for falling on you,” he added.

“It’s okay.  I’ll be fine.”

They reached the nurse’s office.  Ms. Chambley was taking a girl’s temperature, but when she looked up and saw Ozzie’s face, she said, “Oh my!” and pulled the thermometer out of the girl’s ear.  “I’ll be right back, hon,” she promised, as she grabbed some gauze and ushered Ozzie into a chair.  “Here… tip your head back, and hold this gauze to it for right now.  I’ll get you some ice,” she instructed in her soothing voice.  To Nick, she asked, “You boys weren’t fighting, were you?”  He saw her eyes pan down his body and knew what she was thinking:  wouldn’t be much of a fair fight, Nick Harper beating up Ozzie O’Donnell.

He shook his head.  “We fell off the risers in choir,” was his brief explanation.  He found that he didn’t want to stick around for any more questions about his knee, so he glanced over at Ozzie and said, “Hope your nose is okay, man.”  Then he turned and left the nurse’s office, acting as if he’d only been there as Ozzie’s escort.

His knee felt okay on the walk back to the auditorium, just a little sore, a little shaky.  He would wrap it for the game tonight if he had to, and it would be fine.  It had to be, because nothing was going to mess up his chance to shine.

#

“So is O’Donnell’s nose okay?” Nick asked Logan on the bus later.  “He never did make it back to choir.”

“Yeah, it’s fine.  Not broken.  He showed up for American Lit.”

“Oh, good.  I woulda felt bad if I’d broken the guy’s nose, ya know?”

Logan offered a brief smile.  “So what happened, anyway?  Did ya miss the riser?”  His tone was teasing.

“I dunno,” muttered Nick.  “It doesn’t matter now.  I mean, as long as O’Donnell’s okay.”  He ran his hand over his knee, feeling the wrap he’d borrowed from Rob beneath his jeans.  He’d looked his knee over before he’d put the wrap on it, and it appeared to be okay.  A little swollen, maybe, but that wouldn’t keep him from playing tonight.  He figured he had just twisted it falling off the risers.  No big deal.

“As long as you’re okay too, Mr. Starting Forward.”  Logan gave Nick a playful jab in the ribs.  “Wouldn’t want a simple choir mishap to end your varsity career before it even started.”

Nick laughed, his spirits lightening.  He looked out the window as they crossed the Illinois River, its gray waters sparkling in the evening sunlight.  Jutting above the horizon was the city skyline of downtown Riverstead, and to the west lay the small suburb of Metacomet, where the sun was sure to set on a Sanctuary victory.