Sasquatch in the Paint by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Page B

finger. “Then I go here, check again. You bring the rook in to threaten my knight, but I go here and…checkmate. In six.” He knocked over Daryl’s king. “Warned ya. Now, answer my question.”
    Daryl sighed in defeat. “‘Algebra’ comes from the Arabic al-jebr , meaning ‘reunion of broken parts.’”
    Mr. J shrugged. “Correct, but too late. You let yourself get distracted by personal thoughts of glory and forgot about the goal: answering the question.”
    â€œYo, Mr. J,” Brian said. “I think I’ve got you this time.”
    â€œYo, Brian,” Mr. J said, walking to his chessboard. “‘No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.’ Author and work?”
    Brian absently chewed on a captured pawn. “Uh, John Donne. ‘Meditation,’ uh…‘Ten’?”
    â€œSeventeen,” Mr. J corrected. “And what famous novel takes its title from this poem?”
    â€œErnest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls .”
    â€œâ€˜And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.’” Mr. J slid a pawn forward one space and said, “Checkmate in eight moves.”
    â€œCrap!” Brian said, and started gnawing on the pawn again.
    Mr. J clapped his hands loudly. “Anyone here order an extra-large can of whup-ass? ’Cuz that’s exactly what Lansing Middle School is going to deliver to you five sitting in front of me. Any of you pretenders to the throne going to prove them wrong?”
    No one said anything. Lansing had beaten Orangetree every year for the past eight years. They’d won the gold medal in the state Aca-lympics for the past three years. Theo had heard all kinds of stories about the effects Lansing had on their competitors. Opposing teams would get so intimidated that they’d forget even basic information. Some kids burst into tears during matches. One guy peed himself when he forgot who’d assassinated Lincoln. All the members of the Turtle Rock Middle School team quit after getting stomped by Lansing, and one of them had started seeing a therapist. Another kid had stopped speaking altogether and only communicated through writing with purple crayons on yellow sticky notes. Theo didn’t believe that one.
    Mr. J shook his head at their silence. “Not exactly the rousing cheer of enthusiasm I had hoped for. Or is this a case of ‘Men of few words are the best men’? What’s that from, Brian?”
    â€œShakespeare’s Henry V ,” Brian announced proudly, happy to redeem himself.
    Mr. J opened the grocery bag on his desk and removed the contents: a six-pack of Coke and a bag of Snickers bars. “I smuggled in this contraband against state nutritional guidelines, common sense, and every rule of dental hygiene, because you guys are going to need a morning caffeine-and-sugar jolt to get through the next hour of practice.” He handed out the Cokes and Snickers bars. “Let me assure you, lady and gentlemen, there will be blood!”
    Everyone ripped into their snack. Even Brooke.
    Clinton Jacobson was Orangetree’s STEM teacher (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) as well as the Brain Train’s faculty adviser. On the wall behind his desk was a poster of Albert Einstein sticking out his tongue. That kind of summed up Mr. J: he didn’t seem to take much seriously, and he was the smartest person any of them had ever met. He was so smart, in fact, that everyone wondered why he was teaching middle school when he could’ve had a much better job. Rumor was that he had taught at a famous university, but he’d accidentally killed a student during a failed time-travel experiment. Blew up half the classroom. Someone else heard he’d shot a man in Reno just to watch him die, but Tunes said that was a line from a country song,