The tournament final between St. George and Bryan was scheduled for a two o’clock tip off, and the first half-dozen Lady Stallion fans showed up at one-ten. They were carrying posters that read “Crusader Basketball - Boy, Oh Boy!”, “(Fe)Male Athletics” and a third with a pair of innocently bouncing basketballs drawn obscenely below a shaft of block text that said “Bryan Christian? Academy”.
“Six tickets, please,” the lead man said, drawing out his wallet.
“I’ll get it, Bill.”
“Naw, let me. You paid for dinner last night.”
The girl behind the folding table counted off a half dozen tickets for the consolation bracket game between a team from Dallas and one from Abilene.
“Not those! We’re here for the St. George-Bryan game.”
She looked up at them. “I’m sorry, but the tournament final is sold out.”
“What do you mean, ‘sold out’? That gym seats a couple of hundred and it’s just two small private school girls’ basketball teams from out of town.”
“I’m very sorry sir, but fire code allows a maximum of two hundred and thirty-one people in the gym, and we’ve sold two hundred and fifty tickets, plus the two teams and all the officials. We absolutely can’t let anyone else in.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I can let one of you go down and look in the door and see for yourself, but that game is sold out.”
One of the men took her up on the offer and headed down the hall. “Does this have something to do with that little cross-dressing transvestite on the Bryan team?” one of the other parents asked.
“Tim, language!” one of the women said.
“I don’t know anything about that, sir,” the girl answered politely.
The man returned from the gym with a puzzled look. “It’s like a sardine can down there.”
“Wait. How early would we have needed to get here to see our daughters play?” one mother asked.
“That game was sold out by ten-twenty this morning, ma’am.”
“There’s something fishy about this. We saw a TV station van being turned away, too.”
The girl behind the folding table shrugged. A security guard wandered over, smiling at the parents. Not knowing what else to do, they returned to their cars.
Miss Larson walked out into the gym, looking with wonder and apprehension at the crowd. She spotted the small group of Bryan parents sitting down close at half court and walked over to them. “Who are all these people?” she asked.
The other parents all pointed to Amani’s mom, who deferred to Judge Johnson sitting next to her. “Most of the guys are here working off some community service hours.”
“There’s not a single St. George supporter in the building,” Cindy said smugly. She was holding a poster that read, ‘BCA Crusaders! We Love You!’
Dr. Brooks leaned out from his seat. “Judge, are you sure about these men?”
“Oh, yeah. I explained the rules about whom to cheer for and what was acceptable behavior very carefully before we came in. That, plus I told them it would be a parole violation to misbehave. An experience of having to control their behavior in a raucous, exciting public setting will be good for them. And…we got two dozen constables here, too.” He looked across the court at twelve of the guys holding letter boards that spelled out ‘ORCAS SURGED’. He laughed. “A few minutes ago they spelled out ‘GRAD COURSES’. You know, some of those guys are incredibly intelligent.” He waved at one of the constables and pointed, and after adjustment, the signs once again read ‘GO CRUSADERS’.
YOU ARE READING
A Piece to a Different Puzzle
Teen FictionWhat can one say about Amani? Amani is fifteen and fourteen years old with two names, two genders, two families, two nationalities, two life histories and two birthdays documented on two birth certificates - plus one certificate of death. (Except, n...
