Читать книгу Championship Ball - Clair Bee - Страница 8

THE big table was loaded with steaming food, and Mrs. Hilton was hovering over the boys, pretending to be worried about their appetites. Mary Hilton didn’t talk much, but Chip’s pals would have been amazed at her knowledge of their problems, habits, and ambitions.

Once or twice a week, usually on Friday evenings and sometimes on Sunday afternoons, Chip would invite some of the boys over for dinner. And what a dinner it would be! Mrs. Hilton was second to none when it came to cooking. Today Chip had invited the three basketball veterans—Speed, Red Schwartz, and Buzz Todd. Taps Browning and Soapy Smith didn’t need invitations—they had just barged in. Mrs. Browning declared that Taps was the star boarder at the Hilton home.

Table talk ranged from exams, term papers, notebooks, to teachers. After dinner and after dishes—here Taps and Soapy were the goats—everything centered on sports.

“How’s it feel to be through with football, Speed?” asked Taps.

“Plenty good!”

“Going out for basketball right away?”

“Sure!” Speed looked at Taps in surprise. “Why not?”

“Thought you might be tired—”

“I never get tired!” Speed was emphatic.

“Well, a week’s rest wouldn’t do you any harm,” interposed Soapy.

“Yes, and you might get stale,” ventured Taps.

“You gotta be good to be stale,” flashed Speed.

“Rock says staleness is due to a tired mind,” volunteered Red Schwartz.

“That lets Speed out.” Soapy grinned. “He doesn’t have to worry about brain fatigue.”

“What brain?” challenged Red.

Speed remained smilingly unperturbed by the laughter which accompanied the needling.

Buzz Todd changed the subject. “See the Rock yesterday, Chip?” he asked.

“Sure did!”

“Do any manager’s work?”

“No, but we looked at the pictures of last year’s Weston game and Coach gave me the low-down on my job. Looks tough!”

“You’ll soon find out!” Red Schwartz shook his head as he spoke. “Greg had to do everything—set up the tickets, the passes, take charge of the ticket money, wrap ankles, keep score, help Pop with rubdowns, check equipment, and a thousand other things—to say nothing of putting up with Rock when he went temperamental.”

“He gave me an outline,” continued Chip. “I think Greg must have been four other guys,” he added with a long sigh.

“Four other guys is right,” agreed Red. “Greg took a lot of punishment from Rock.”

“Rock isn’t so bad,” interrupted Speed. “He might bawl a guy out once in a while, but no one else better do it.”

“Yeah,” agreed Red. “When Coach is with you, he’s with you!”

“Speaking of that,” said Speed, “remember last year when Rock and Jenkins tangled? ’Member, Chip?”

“I saw that game,” said Soapy. “What was wrong with those guys?”

“It was all on account of Greg,” said Speed.

“What happened?” asked Taps.

“It’s a long story. Chip, you tell it.”

“No, you tell it,” protested Chip.

“Go ahead, Speed,” urged Buzz.

“You really want to hear it? Heck, you fellows were there!”

“I never did know the inside story,” said Soapy.

“Aw, let’s coax him, girls,” mimicked Red.

“Okay! Okay!” laughed Speed. “I’ll give.” The boys listened attentively. “Greg was keeping score, as you know,” he continued, “and it was a tough game. Delford’s high scorer was a guy by the name of Bartlett and he was ‘hot.’ Nobody could hold him. Coach knew Bartlett was weak on the defense and told Chip to keep cutting and to go under the basket and to use two-hand sweep shots to draw fouls.”

“That isn’t really fair, is it?” Taps was perplexed.

“Nothing wrong with it,” said Speed. “Look!” He imitated the underhand sweep shot. “It’s a shot that’s hard to guard and if it isn’t stopped it’s an easy two points.

“Chip murdered him. Five minutes after the second half started, Bartlett had four personal fouls.”

“Wonder why Coach Jenkins let Bartlett guard Chip?” asked Buzz. “Chip’s the best pivot player in the state.”

Chip laughed. “Thanks for the roses, pal.”

“Well, they did switch him to Tim Murphy,” continued Speed, “and then it was really bad. Right off the bat Timmy cut under the basket and scored. Bartlett left him alone a couple more times, and Timmy scored both times. Then he fouled him again, and that was curtains; he was out of the game.”

“Greg blew the scorekeeper’s horn, jumped to his feet, and held up five fingers.” Chip was excited by the memory.

Speed laughed and broke in. “The referee waved Bartlett out of the game—and then the fun began. Coach Jenkins rushed straight across the floor and began to pound the timekeeper’s table with his fist and yell that Greg was a crook; that Bartlett had only four fouls; that it was a put-up job; and that Valley Falls was stealing the game. Boy! Was he hot!”

“But how about the scorebooks?” broke in Soapy. “Don’t the home-team and visiting-team scorebooks have to check?”

“Sure, and they did. It wouldn’t have made any difference if they hadn’t, though—the home scorebook is the official book.”

“What did Jenkins say to that?” asked Taps.

“Why. believe it or not, he accused Greg of marking an extra foul against Bartlett when Greg checked the two books at half time. The Delford manager was too scared to say anything.

“That’s when Greg got sore. I can remember yet—Greg got up and said, ‘You can’t say that about me,’ and then,” Speed laughed at the memory, “Coach Jenkins shoved him, and Greg fell right over backward and lit on his back and there he was—feet sticking right up in the air back of the table.”

“What did the Rock do?” asked Taps.

“Plenty!” broke in Red. “I had a ringside seat for that one. Chip and Tim Murphy had to pull those two guys apart; they haven’t spoken since!”

“How about that!” marveled Taps. “How did it all end?”

“Oh, we finished the game—if you could call it that,” said Speed.

“What happened?”

“Well, after they lost Bartlett we got a big lead on ’em, and then they really started roughing it up.”

“That’s Delford every time,” someone said.

“The officials were calling fouls right and left,” continued Speed, “and pretty soon both teams were down to their last five men. Then, with about ten minutes to go, Delford lost their fifth man on personals and had only four players left. Rock offered to let the fifth man stay in the game, but Jenkins wouldn’t have any part of that. He was sore, and you could hear him ravin’ all over the place. Said he expected that kind of officiating at Valley Falls; that Delford couldn’t win if ten men played.”

“He’s a big crybaby,” Buzz grunted.

“He’s that all right,” nodded Red.

“Rock was too smart for Jenkins, though,” continued Speed. “He left only four of us in the game, too; four Valley Falls players against four Delford men! But that was nothing! About two minutes later Delford lost another man and that left them with only three players on the floor. Then Coach took me out, and that’s the way the game ended—Chip and Hal Bird and Tim Murphy against three of the Delford men—three against three.”

“Who won?” asked Taps.

“We did. The tip-off on the game was the fact that, for the first time I can remember, Rock didn’t give us a pep talk between halves. You see, Delford used the dressing room right next to ours, and Jenkins hollered and screamed at the Delford gang all through the intermission. Coach just sat down with the rest of us and listened—and then when Jenkins finished he said, ‘Well, boys, I can’t compete with that act. Let’s go!’”

“He didn’t give a pep talk at all?” asked Taps.

“Nope!”

“How bad’d you beat them?”

“Ten, fifteen points—something like that.”

“Jenkins sure hates the Rock,” said Chip. “Every time we play them he puts on a show.” He stood up and started out of the room.

“Where do you think you’re going?” asked Taps.

“Got to get down to the Sugar Bowl and clean up the joint. It’s pretty near eleven o’clock.”

“Reminds me,” said Red. “I’ve got two notebooks past due.”

Speed startled them all by crashing the piano keys. “Guess we all better do some studying,” he said.

An hour later, Chip’s chores at the Sugar Bowl having been completed with young Browning’s help, Taps closed the front door quietly and followed Chip through the dimly lit hall and up the stairs. Chip sat down at his study table and shuffled through some papers. “Here’s that English theme I was telling you about,” he said.

“All finished?”

“Just about. It’s terrible!”

Taps sat on the bed, reading the paper and unlacing his shoes. “Guess I might as well stay all night,” he muttered, “folks are all asleep.” He read in silence. After a few minutes he looked up and nodded his head enthusiastically.

“Say, this is good! Where’d you get all the dope?”

“From the book Coach Rockwell loaned me.”

“Well, you’ve sure got a lot of stuff here I never knew about basketball. It’s okay!” As he slipped under the covers, he added, “That oughta go in the Yellow Jacket!”

“I got a kick out of writing it,” said Chip.

Chip doused the lights and crawled into bed. A little later he heard his mother’s footsteps stop in the hall outside the door. She had come to see if he was all right. Even though she retired early, Mrs. Hilton could never rest until Chip was home safe in bed.