Airball Read Online Free

Brett McGrew is your father, but let’s feed your delusional fantasy for a minute and say he is. Why didn’t your mother ever mention it? Why would she dump you on Grandma here in Nowhere, Kansas, if you had a perfectly good father out in Phoenix, Arizona? If you could be lounging around his mansion, swimming in his pool, driving his Porsche, and getting free tickets to the play-offs? Why?”
    â€œI wondered that very thing,” I said. “Because it doesn’t seem to make sense.”
    â€œNot a lick of sense, Kirby. Not a lick of sense. ”
    â€œBut here’s my theory. Think what it must’ve been like back then, when Brett McGrew was in high school. He’s fielding scholarship offers from all over the country. He’s traveling to KU and Duke and Kentucky and who knows where else to check out college programs. He’s going to be a big-time basketball star, and everybody knows it. Everybody in town’s helping him get there the best way they can. Everybody. Including my mother. You really think she’s going to saddle him with a baby? Hold him back from everything he always wanted?”
    â€œOr here’s another theory. Maybe she didn’t saddle him with a baby because he’s not your father. ” Bragger gave me a sympathetic poke in the ribs with his elbow. “Look, Kirby. It totally bites that you don’t have a mom or a dad. But hallucinating about Brett McGrew isn’t going to fix anything.”
    I didn’t say anything. I slid the bottom drawer of my mother’s dresser open and pulled out a flat, tissue-wrapped bundle. I folded the tissue back and held it up so Bragger could see. It was the clincher I’d saved for last: a red basketball jersey, neatly folded so the white satin letters that spelled out S TUCKEY were perfectly centered above a huge number 5.
    â€œWhoa.” Bragger touched the jersey. Gently. With the very tips of his fingers, as if the fabric might disintegrate beneath his hands if he pressed too hard. He leaned down and sniffed.
    â€œDoesn’t smell like sweat.”
    â€œNo. It smells like old dresser drawer.”
    He pulled his nose from the fabric. “You been holding out on me, Kirbster. You didn’t tell me you had a real live Brett McGrew jersey.”
    â€œI don’t,” I said. “My mother did. Know where I found it?”
    Bragger shrugged. “In her dresser?”
    â€œIn the bottom drawer of her dresser.”
    Bragger wrinkled his forehead, obviously not getting it.
    â€œThe same drawer where she stored my baby footprints.”
    Forehead still wrinkled. Still not comprehending.
    â€œSame drawer,” I said, “where she stashed my coming-home-from-the-hospital clothes.”
    Bragger looked at me. Forehead still wrinkled. But he nodded.
    â€œSame drawer,” I said, “where she kept the flowers she wore to the Sweetheart Dance. The flowers she was wearing when she danced with Brett McGrew. The flowers she saved by pressing them between the pages of my baby book, which”—I unfolded the jersey and pulled out a satin-covered book with my squalling newborn picture on the front—“I found wrapped up inside.”
    Bragger’s gaze flickered to the baby book, then back to me. “Same drawer?”
    I nodded. “Same drawer.”
    He ran his fingers over the jersey again.
    â€œOkay,” he said. “I’m convinced. Number five is your father.”

Five
    â€œYou don’t really look like him.” Bragger studied Brett McGrew’s senior picture. We’d smuggled my mother’s yearbook back across the hall to my room, and Bragger was lounging on his stomach on my bottom bunk with the yearbook spread open on the pillow.
    â€œI know,” I said. “I keep thinking there has to be a resemblance, but I can’t find it.”
    â€œMaybe it’s not so much in the face. Maybe it’s in your build. Maybe