by G L Rathweg
I looked up, the voice snapping me out of my thoughts. Julius was standing above me a look of pure unadulterated joy plastered across his face. He was literally bouncing up and down. I could tell that he had a whole lot of things to say to me and was barely restraining himself. Oh well, might as well get it over with.
“Go ahead man…” I said, resigned to the haranguing.
TRACK 3 –
After my ball busting session by Julius we walked to class and joked about my earlier trials, I was already exhausted by the day’s events and it wasn’t even first period yet. Luckily, Julius and I were in the same class, 1-A.
High schools were still four grades; 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th. Each of these grades were divided into ten sections; 1 through 10. Then, each of these sections were further divided into fifteen classes; A - O. Every class contained ten students. The classes contained ten students because that was how many players it took to form two basketball teams. Classes were further divided into specializations by position and skill level. All students learned core subject requirements, science, mathematics, literature, etc… all the usual subjects. But the main focus was basketball.
We arrived at the doors to our class and Julius motioned for me to go ahead, Shrugging I grabbed the door handle and opened the door. Julius entered and I followed right after. As soon as I entered, I bumped into my friend who had stopped moving.
“What the hell…” I started to say.
I looked around and froze just like Julius had. Class 1-A was huge. It was literally the size of a basketball court, because it was a basketball court. There were monitors all along the walls. In the far left-hand corner was a classroom area with ten desks and a desk and Holo-Board for the teacher. Two doors in the middle-rear of the room were marked boys, girls. I then focused my attention on the most amazing part, the court itself.
The court was an intergalactic sized regulation court. Two pristine energy hoops were on either side. I walked in a daze to the courts middle. I knelt down and touched the lines on center court. This was my church this was where I prayed. This is where I communed with my god, the basketball god. Ever since I could remember it was all I wanted.
Basketball and only basketball, morning, noon, and night, it’s all I wanted to do. It was the only thing I could take with me everywhere I went. I kept me warm at night and gave me the ability to go on when life was tough. Something thumped into my foot. I looked down and saw a ball resting against my right foot.
I picked the ball up and grinned. Looking up I saw Julius standing a few feet away with the same grin on his face. He loved basketball just as much as I did. Oh yeah, game on. I dropped the ball and started dribbling.
Left, right, back, forth, left, right…
We were at half court Julius immediately went on the defensive. He dropped his center of gravity and threw his arms out spreading his feet out. He knew me too well. He started bouncing and matching my movements.
Left, right, fake left, under the legs, spin right, back left, stutter step...
Every move was timed right, the ball barely kissing my fingertips. I shot to the right, Jules following me every step of the way. I hesitated, bounce through the legs, break left, Julius was there.
Spin move right, stutter step, spin right again, through the legs, behind the back, fake left, stutter step again, go right…
We were twenty feet from the basket. Julius was on me like glue, we had played together to so long he knew my moves, but it didn’t matter.
Behind the back, spin right, step back, fake jumper.
He took the bait and leapt into the air. Julius was at full extension by the time I was jumping for real. I barely noticed his frown as I raised my arms up for the shot as I jumped up and backwards pulling a fall away jumper that was almost impossible to guard.
Extend the knees, jump, full extension on the arms, goose neck, follow through with your hand, elbow straight at the basket, release.
I landed a second behind Julius, my eyes already leaving the perfectly rotating sphere and locking eyes with my friend I smiled.
Swish…
“Dammit!” Julius swore.
“Gotcha.” I said.
“I’ll get you next time.” He replied. Then we bumped fists.
“Not bad.” A voice said.
We both turned to see nine people standing by the entrance door. The rest of our class and our teacher had arrived. The teacher was the Principal! I swallowed audibly at the giant man.
“Ok, since you two are on the court, you can be captains. Let’s start this off right with a pick-up game. You,” he said pointing at Julius, “pick first.”
Julius and I grinned at each other. The thing was Julius was my best friend. We had known each other our whole lives, both lost our parents and were orphans from birth, for all intents and purposes he was my brother. We had been in and out of homes together and separately.
We had been the only other constant in each other’s lives except for basketball. None of that mattered, we were super, I mean super competitive. Even more so with each other, everything was a competition between us. We were pretty much evenly matched in everything, so our battles were always fun.
Turning to look at the other students I noticed, oh no… It was her, the girl from earlier the one I fell on. I immediately turned bright red and looked away. This was becoming a thing. Ok, Hiro get it together, I took a deep breath and looked up again not meeting the girl’s eyes and scanning the rest of the class.
The two monsters from earlier were there as well, they both smiled and waved at me. I shook my head and kept looking. There were two tall, what looked to be brother and sister, dark as night, they both had long arms and legs, but seemed strong too, that kind of hidden wiry strength. The sister had vivid blue eyes and high cheek bones she caught me staring and smiled. I blushed again and looked on.
An extremely pale person in contrast stood next to the beautiful sister. He was my height with golden blonde hair and light grey eyes and a medium athletic build. He returned my gaze and smirked back at me.
Next to him was a huge man, he was at least eight feet tall and all of it muscle, muscles seemed to bulge off his muscles. He was tan and bald. His eyes were a piercing green which he narrowed at me in thought. I kept looking. Next up was a tall pretty girl that had yellow eyes that matched with her light blonde hair in pigtails.
The next person my view settled on was a cousin to the monster I saw earlier, except this one was a girl. She had a short bob and a really pretty face with light purple eyes, and muscles on muscles on muscles. She was maybe a few inches shorter than the other guy. Honestly, without seeing any of them play I wouldn’t know who was good and who wasn’t.
Jules had finished sizing up the players as well, he pointed a finger at the huge guy.
“Behemoth.” He said.
“My name is Iverson O’Neal. You can call me Iver.” The first pick said.
We all looked at him skeptically. The large man-boy looked embarrassed. He turned beet red and looked down at his feet.
“I was smaller than normal when I was born so that’s why I’m named Iverson. I had a growth spurt…” He said, his voice trailing away.
Everyone just looked at Iver. This was awkward. I decided to make my pick to take the spotlight off of the big man. He was awfully shy for such a giant dude. I looked back at the girl I had fallen on earlier.
Might as well bit the bullet, besides, she had long limbs and good muscle tone. She looked like she was built to play basketball. I pointed at her. She looked askance at me then snorted.
“Hope you’re better at basketball then you are at walking twinkle toes.” She said, as she came over.
The class laughed at that. Julius pointed to one of the twin brothers, I think it was Anthony.
I could see Julius was going for height first. I pointed at the other twin, Kevin, he was just as tall as the other twin but a bit thinner, hopefully he was faster than his brother. Besides, I couldn’t let him have
all the giants.
Jules started to point at the huge woman, but Iver whispered something I couldn’t make out then pointed to the blonde smirking guy. Blondie stared at me as he walked over to Julius. I got the feeling we weren’t going to get along.
I turned my attention back to my remaining new classmates. I had already decided and pointed to the huge girl. She walked over with her head held high. She walked like she owned the world confidence didn’t seem lacking there. Julius took a moment then pointed at the shorter girl. I pointed at the brother and Jules pointed to the sister.
“Ok, take five minutes to game plan then meet me at half court.” The teacher said.
Both teams broke and met up at opposing ends of the court. My team gathered around me and we all looked at each other. We naturally formed a circle. I looked at the four faces around me, trying to gauge each person’s emotional state. I’ve always been good at reading people’s emotions and it had been one of the reasons I was good at basketball, IMHO. I opened my mouth to talk.
“Why are you captain?” The girl who I fell on said.
“I don’t know, right place right time? Maybe we should introduce ourselves first we only have five minutes?” I replied.
“Fine,” she snorted, “This isn’t over yet. I’m Diana L. Curry, I play point, or two guard, I can play small forward if I have too, oh, I can shoot 3’s or midrange or take it too the hole. My friends call me Di, you can call me Diana.” She said the last pointedly at me.
“Cool, an all-a-rounder then,” I said, then looked at Kevin.
“I’m Kevin Green Davis, my friends call me KD” the big man started, “I play power forward, center, and small forward if need be. I handle the post, shoot mid, and not a bad three ball as well. I’m also single and ready to mingle ladies.”
Both women snorted and we all laughed, the ice was broken.
“Guess I’m next,” The tall black man said, “I’m Scottie Barkley, I play the 3, 4, 5, and can play 2 guard in an emergency. Call me Scott.”
“My name is Sheryl Duncan Miller,” the large girl said, “I play center or power forward. I play defense, can dunk, and can shoot, my threes suck. My friends call me Sher.”
“Nice to meet you Sher,” I said, “it’s my turn now.
I better get this over with, ok, here goes.
“My parents named me Hiro Michael Stephen Lebron Jones.” I said.
The four of them just stared at me for what seemed like an eternity.
“Seriously?” Lisa asked.
“Yeah,” I sighed, “They really loved basketball and ancient samurai stuff.”
“Dude, have you told them how crazy that name is? They literally put a target on your back.” KD said.
“My parents died when I was a baby, never had the chance to ask.” I said, awkwardly.
“Oh…” Sher said.
Everyone sat in silence for a moment.
“My mom died in a shuttle crash when I was ten.” She said quietly.
We all stared at Sher for a few seconds.
“Thank you, Sher,” I said, “Now that that’s out of the way, as I was saying it’s my turn. Please call me Hiro, or MJ if you want.”
“That’s not cocky.” Di said under her breath.
We all laughed a little.
“Yeah, I know. I play point guard, shooting guard, or small forward. I can shoot anywhere, dunk, and play defense, whatever we need.” I stated matter of fact.
“Ok, MJ you’re in charge, for now,” Di said, “what’s the plan.”
I nodded my thanks to the pretty girl. Then looked around at my team, I can definitely work with this.
“Right, KD you’re the four, Sher five, Scottie you run small at the three, and Di you’re two guard works?” I asked the team.
Everyone nodded their heads in affirmation. I continued.
“We will start with a man to man defense. Pick up whoever matches at your position.
“We will use eye gestures and call out rotation everyone with basic play calling, lets rock!” I said.
“Time, let’s do this.” The Principal said. “Full court, regulation quarters, I’m ref. DBD ladies and gentlemen, game on.”
Both teams looked at each other quizzically, DBD?
“Don’t be a dick and play dirty.” The Principal clarified.
Collectively everyone shrugged it off and headed to half court and set up. We lined up as I had called. I studied the match ups.
Iver – Sher = Center
Anthony – KD = Power Forward
Scotties Sister – Scottie – Small Forward
Blondie – Di = Shooting Guard
Jules – MJ = Point Guard
“You ready for this brotha? You’re going down.” Jules said.
I just shook my head and got ready.
“I’m Coach Jackson, you call me Coach. Is everyone ready?” Coach asked.
Everyone nodded that they were ready.
“Game on!” Coach shouted.
Thank you again for taking the time to read my books. I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart.
I also created a new Facebook Group, YouTube Channel, and Podcast. It’s called GLIT as a play on the genre and my name. I will only be inviting a few authors to start and all members who join have to click from one of our books. The group just started so it’s small, but intimate here is the link. Here is the link.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2305071189719538/?ref=br_rs