“Five fighting to prevent another basket,” Hazel told herself, “and four fighting just as hard to make it—no, five! Five! He is trying! I know he is! Oh, he must be!” But she could not be quite sure.
She saw Captain Murphy whisper something to him. Vern nodded. Then, so suddenly that she could hardly follow the play, the Bloss team scattered. The ball catapulted to the side of the court, where the whacking arm of Felber drove it back and toward the other end. Murphy caught it, whirled completely around to throw off the guard hovering near him, started a dribble, and finally made the pass straight toward the Landon goal.
Hazel raised her eyes in wonderment. Nearly halfway down the court Vern was sprinting. A warning cry from the captain made him turn on his heel and throw up his hands. But he was an instant too late. Clean and hard, with the crack of a gun, the ball caught him full in the face, staggering him backward.
He stood there, blinking like one who has suddenly lost his sight. The ball was in his hands. From all angles the Landon five rushed toward him. His own players shouted for the ball. His test had come, Hazel told herself breathlessly. Then, as he made no move, she stopped breathing altogether.
Her eyes were blurring with tears. She lifted her handkerchief to dry them, and saw that it was the square of Irish lace he had rescued the day they first met.
“Vern!” she called, putting all the breath of her full lungs into the cry. “Vern!”
He lifted his head. His eyes were winking rapidly, and he had difficulty in seeing her at all.
“Vern!” she called again. Leaning far out over the protecting rail of the balcony, she allowed her handkerchief to flutter down toward the basket below. It settled on the little ledge where the bracket of the iron rim met the wall.
There must have come to Vernon Judd the memory of that other time when he had arched a ball up and over and down upon Hazel Wayne’s Irish lace handkerchief. Perhaps the recollection brought confidence in his ability to do it again. Now, with a swinging, overhand-loop shot, he hurled the yellow basket-ball at the white target.
Like a winging swallow it rose till it reached the apex of its arc; then it sped downward to the backing board just behind the basket. The rebound drove it against the front rim. It bounded back again, brushed the handkerchief caressingly, and finally toppled gently into the netting for a goal. Almost on the instant, the final whistle shrilled.