And finally, the unthinkable happened. One of the Patriots jabbed me with an elbow that brought me to my knees. I took a free throw shot—a lousy free throw—and missed!
I couldn’t rebound after that—not in any sense of the word. The Patriots scored six more points in the final quarter, and right at the end, Caroline got fouled. She looked calm and focused as she took her shot, and it swished through the net.
“Yay, Caroline! Yay!”
I turned to see Pete in the stands. I’d been so inside my own head for the game that I’d totally tuned out the spectators in the bleachers. It made me happy to see Pete cheering for Caroline, but at the same time, I wished he could have been cheering for me, too. But there was nothing to cheer for.
The buzzer sounded, and the game was over. We’d lost to the Patriots. I didn’t even bother looking at the scoreboard. We lined up to slap hands with them.
Right after I slapped the last hand, I could feel the tears forming in my eyes. I had just played my worst game ever. I didn’t want to face my parents. I didn’t want to face my team. So I ran.
I darted to an exit at the end of the gym and ran outside. I leaned back against the school wall, and then I started to cry. Not the movie kind of crying, where glistening tears glide down your face, but the nasty kind, where you’re gulping for air and snorting up snot and stuff.
I felt a hand on my elbow and jumped.
“Elle, are you okay?”
It was Avery, and she didn’t look mad or annoyed or frustrated. Her brown eyes had that look of concern that I had come to recognize. That look that only best friends can give each other.
“Avery, I am messing up everything!” I blurted, and the words came flowing out like my tears. “I can’t keep up with everything that’s happening! I can’t take care of Zobe, and go to practice and games, and study, and do homework, and volunteer, and spend time with my friends . . . like you! I want to spend time with you and I can’t! And it’s not like I like Amanda or Caroline better than you, it’s just . . . we have stuff in common, and I want to hang out with everybody, but I don’t have time! I just don’t have time! But it’s not fair, because I want to do everything!”
“Aw, Elle!” Avery said, and she hugged me. “I’m sorry I got salty with you. I could see that you have a lot going on, and I know all of it is important to you. I mean, I should have known. I’m your best friend.”
I sniffled and wiped some tears from my cheek. “And I’m your best friend.”
“Elle, you are an amazing person to try to do everything you do,” Avery remarked. “Don’t be so tough on yourself. Everyone goes through hard stuff.”
“Lately, it seems like I’m the only one with stuff,” I said. “Remember, a couple of weeks ago you were talking me down from a freak-out at the mall.”
I’d had a meltdown while clothes shopping with Avery and Mom to get a dress for the formal dance that the school throws every fall. I hate wearing dresses, especially fancy ones, so the meltdown was not a surprise to anyone. But Avery had gotten me through it.
Avery looked thoughtful for a moment. Then she raised her eyebrows.
“Give me your phone,” she said, holding out her palm.
“My phone?” I asked.
“I have an idea, but you have to trust me,” she said. “Do you trust me?”
“Of course,” I replied. “But my phone’s in my bag inside.”
“Then let’s get it.”
Avery and I went back into the gym, where our parents were frantically looking for us.
“Where did you girls get off to?” Mom asked us.
“Don’t be mad at Avery,” I said. “I ran off, and she followed me.”
“You okay?” Mom asked.
I nodded. “I think so,” I said. I took my bag from her, got my phone, and handed it to Avery.
“Excellent,” she said. “You coming for pizza?”
“No,” I replied. “I’ve got to study.”
On the ride home, Dad made the expected comment: “You played your best Elle, and there’s no shame in that.”
“I’m not so sure I played my best,” I admitted. “I think I psyched myself out.”
“And that happens to the best of players, Elle,” Dad said. “Don’t let this one bad game let you doubt yourself. You were born to play basketball.”
Born to play basketball. I had never wanted basketball to be my whole life, but at least I’d been having fun at it. I was good at it. Now . . . I wasn’t having fun. And I wasn’t so sure I was good at it anymore.
The ride home was quiet after that. It was only one o’clock, so I knew I’d have plenty of time to get work done after lunch. It was kind of a relief not to have to worry about running around.
Mom had already made some tuna salad before we went to the game, and I quickly washed up so I could eat. When I came into the kitchen, Beth was sitting at the kitchen table. I went over to her and let her sniff my head. She shook her head in a happy greeting.
Beth knew we had gone to a game, so when we get back I usually sign “happy” to her if we win, or “sad” if we lose. For the first time that season, I signed “sad” into her hand.
Beth signed back to me: love.
Beth loved me. She didn’t want me to be sad.
“Love,” I signed back to her.
And then, like magic, I didn’t feel so sad anymore.
13
My Team of Friends
Are the Monday blues getting you down? Cheer up! It’s pizza day in the cafeterias today!” Principal Lubin announced during homeroom the next morning.
One of the boys in class, Alex, cheered “Yes!” I knew that pizza wouldn’t cure my Monday blues, though.
At practice after school, I’d have to watch my horrible performance at Sunday’s game all over again. And I still had to take my science makeup test.
There were two things keeping me from total despair. One was that I had caught up on all of my homework the day before. I’d studied, finished all of my reading and journal entries, and gotten a lot of work done on my World History project.
The other thing giving me hope was knowing that Avery had some mysterious plan to help me.
“Can I have my phone back now?” I asked her when the announcements were done.
“Not yet,” she said. “At lunchtime.”
“Why can’t you tell me now?” I asked.
Avery shook her head. “ ‘Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.’ My mom says that. Actually, some Greek philosopher said it first, but she has a poster of it in her yoga studio.”
“Fine. I’ll be patient,” I said.
I expected the morning to drag on while I waited for Avery to spring her surprise, but instead, it went quickly. Ms. Ebear told us some traditional African myths, and she’s a great storyteller so class went quickly. Then I took my science test, and this time, I felt a lot more confident writing the answers. Maybe I didn’t get an A, but I knew for sure that I had gotten rid of my D.
That confidence boost carried over to gym, where I was back in my volleyball groove, spiking balls over the net like an animal. At one point, Bianca and I were facing each other across the net.
“Too bad you didn’t play this good on Saturday, Elle,” she said.
“Yeah, too bad,” I replied, and then I jumped up to hit the ball across the net. It landed squarely in the middle of the six players on Bianca’s team, who all missed it.
“Point!” I yelled, and Blake high-fived me.
So my Monday blues were almost gone by the time I got to the cafeteria for lunch. But I was still extremely curious to find out what Avery had done with my phone. I found her sitting at my table with my phone placed in front of her, next to her lunch bag.
I sat down. “Now?” I asked, reaching for it.
“Wait,” Avery said, holding up her hand. “We’ve got to wait for the others.”
She nodded toward the lunch line, where our usual lunch mates were waiting on line for pizza. I was fe
eling pretty impatient, but I opened my lunch bag and took out the yogurt, banana, and sandwich that Mom had packed for me. Avery smiled at me.
“Please! I can’t stand the suspense!” I pleaded.
Then Hannah, Natalie, Caroline, and Patrice walked up with their trays of pizza. Amanda was with them too, which was unusual. She normally sits with her other friends in concert band.
“You guys seriously brought lunch on Pizza Monday?” Caroline asked.
“My mom doesn’t believe cafeteria food is healthy. Neither does Avery’s,” I replied. “What is going on?”
“Okay, fine,” Avery said, handing me the phone. “Tap the screen.”
I tapped it, and a program popped up: U-Plan. The screen swirled to reveal a calendar for the week.
“U-Plan is the best scheduling program,” Avery said. “My mom uses it for her yoga studio and she showed me how to use it when school started this year. So I downloaded it onto your phone, and I scheduled your activities for the next four weeks. You can see, it’s color-coded. Blue is school. Green is study time. Orange is basketball. Pink is volunteering, purple is Zobe, and yellow is free time.”
Speechless, I scrolled through the week ahead. Avery had scheduled out my week to the minute.
“What’s this on Saturday at nine a.m.? Zobe training?” I asked.
Avery grinned. “That’s the cool thing. I talked to your parents and told them what I was doing, to see if they wanted me to add anything to it. Your dad told me he had just signed Zobe up for obedience training, so he said I could add it to your schedule and surprise you. You and him are going to do it together. But if you have schoolwork to do, he’ll take Zobe by himself.”
“No way!” I said. That was the best news.
Then I noticed something, and frowned.
“I don’t see a lot of pink,” I said. “Did you cut down my volunteering?”
“Sort of,” Avery replied. “I’ve got you down for two Tuesdays every month. Your friends have got you covered for the days you can’t go.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, confused.
Natalie spoke up. “Well, we all had fun that day we volunteered,” she said. “But I didn’t think I had time to do it.”
“So Avery figured out that we could take turns volunteering one day a month,” Hannah chimed in. “And everybody on the team took a day.”
“Everybody?” I asked. I glanced over at the table where Bianca sat with Tiff and Dina.
“Everybody,” Avery said. “Oh, and Tiff said she’ll help you study for your next science test, if you need it.”
I felt like crying, but happy tears this time. I hugged Avery.
“This is perfect!” I said. “Thank you so much!”
“It is,” Avery said, and her dark eyes twinkled. “I scheduled a time for me to come over and meet Zobe on Saturday.”
“Of course!” I said, and then I looked at my friends. “Thank you. You guys are the best.”
I was totally amazed that Avery had figured everything out for me, and that all my friends had helped me. I realized I didn’t have to be Wonder Woman. That I could ask for help sometimes, instead of trying to do everything by myself.
The best thing about my new schedule was that I could still do other things besides just school and basketball. And I realized that I was glad to see basketball on the schedule. I still wanted to play, even though I’d just had the worst game of my life. And I knew why I felt that way.
I loved the discipline of basketball, and the feeling you get when you make a basket, and the satisfaction of winning. But that wasn’t the best thing about playing basketball.
The best thing? All of my teammates. Because when things get tough, and things go wrong, we were always there for each other. On and off the court.
I love my Nighthawks!
About the Author
Photo by Todd Rosenberg/The Players’ Tribune
Elena Delle Donne has been a professional women’s basketball player since 2013, when she was selected by the Chicago Sky second overall in the WNBA draft. She was the 2015 WNBA MVP and won a gold medal with the USA’s women’s basketball team in the 2016 Olympics. She is the global ambassador for the Special Olympics and became the first national ambassador for the Global Lyme Alliance. Elena also plays host to Delle Donne Academy, a basketball camp that runs throughout the year, where she mentors and coaches girls ages seven to eighteen. She now plays for the Washington Mystics.
Visit us at simonandschuster.com/kids
Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Elena-Delle-Donne
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Simon & Schuster · New York
Also by Elena Delle Donne
Hoops: Elle of the Ball
My Shot
SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2018 by Elena Delle Donne
Jacket illustrations copyright © 2018 by Cassey Kuo
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Delle Donne, Elena, author.
Title: Full-court press / Elena Delle Donne.
Description: First edition. | New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, [2018] | Series: Hoops ; 2 | Summary: When Elle begins to volunteer two days a week working with children with special needs, she has trouble juggling her new passion, basketball obligations, and schoolwork.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017051752 | ISBN 9781534412347 (hardback) | ISBN 9781534412361 (eBook)
Subjects: | CYAC: Basketball—Fiction. | People with disabilities—Fiction. | Voluntarism—Fiction. | Middle schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. |
BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Sports & Recreation / Basketball. | JUVENILE FICTION / Girls & Women. | JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.D64814 Ful 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017051752
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