Lay-ups and Long Shots

by David Lubar

  But sometimes Henry forgets he’s nine. He begins to run. Henry’s strong, so if I don’t want to fall over, I have to run with him. Then after a while he remembers he’s nine, and we go back to plodding.

  I don’t think walking your dog is considered exercise.

  Anyway, last Monday Ms. Sanchez told us the sixth grade had to have physical fitness tests. I wondered what Glenda was feeling. I at least have friends, like Beverly and Emily, to cheer me up. Even Maya waves to me once in a while. Maya is the star athlete of the sixth grade. I’ve never heard Maya make fun of me. And so when Maya waves, I wave back. But Glenda has no friends.

  Rope climbing was first. When my turn came, I grabbed the rope, hung on for dear life, and tried to get my feet off the floor. Instead, my hands slipped down the rope, and my palms burned.

  I heard a few giggles, and Ms. Sanchez wrote something down on a clipboard. Beverly waved from the bleachers, where she sat with a stuffy nose.

  Glenda was next, but couldn’t do it.

  Maya moved into place and scurried halfway to the ceiling before wriggling down.

  The somersaults came next. I couldn’t bear the thought of breaking my neck in two, so instead of pushing myself over, I fell to the side. When Ms. Sanchez pointed to Glenda, she just shook her head.

  We moved to the basketball hoop (my throw didn’t reach the hoop), then to the broad jump (I jumped two inches).

  The final test was running around the sides of the gym. Two girls ran at a time. They supposedly were running against the clock, but everyone felt like they were competing against each other.

  Glenda was paired with Emily. Emily came in first, but Glenda didn’t do so badly.

  I was paired with Maya, and our pair was last. Maya, star athlete, versus me.

  As we stepped up to the line, Maya gave me a thumbs up. I tried to smile.

  Ms. Sanchez blew the whistle, and we were off. The first side wasn’t so bad. Maya and I paced each other, and I almost enjoyed it.

  The first corner came up and we rounded it together. That’s when I started dropping back.

  Was the rest of the class laughing? Was I jiggling?

  The second corner went by. Maybe I should focus. I pictured Henry and me, and Henry breaking into a run. He was pulling me. My legs strained to keep up with him.

  Maya was in front of me, but not that far.

  As I rounded the third corner, I inched up on Maya and then went past her. Suddenly I felt the power of possibility, and it felt good. Could I win?

  Maya was a few steps behind me now. Down at the end of the gym, I could see Ms. Sanchez and her stopwatch. Beverly was jumping up and down, and the rest of the class—were they cheering?

  At that moment, I knew I really wanted to come in first. Maybe just once in my life I could win.

  I bet you think I’m going to tell you I won. Well, this isn’t that kind of a story. It wouldn’t be very realistic, would it? No, at that moment, Maya moved ahead.

  The next thing I knew, I was slamming into the wall. I put my hands on my knees and tried to breathe. Then I slumped down against the wall next to Maya. She was panting, too, and sweating, and laughing.

  “That was great,” she gasped.

  “Yeah, it was,” I said.

  I was surprised. I actually meant it. It had been great.

  I remembered the moment when I had moved ahead, and when I thought I might win. I felt a glow just thinking about it. I had run a good race. It felt wonderful.

  “I didn’t know you could run,” Maya said.

  “Neither did I,” I said.

  “We’re starting a girls track team,” Maya said. “Interested?”

  Was I? Definitely.

  Maybe it isn’t that fat girls can’t run. Maybe it’s that they don’t run. Because if they do run, they have to ignore the jokes and the giggles.

  But from now on, I would run. Because I wanted to.

  I wondered about Glenda. She had run a good race, too. Maybe she’d be interested in the track team.

  Beverly sat down next to us and gave me a hug.

  “Great race,” Beverly said. “I didn’t know you could run.”

  “I didn’t know, either,” I said.

  Then I laughed.

  “But Henry did.”

  David Lubar

  David Lubar grew up in Morristown, New Jersey. He’s written seventeen books and close to 200 short stories for teens and young readers. He has designed a lot of video games, including Home Alone and Frogger 2 for the GameBoy. His books include Punished!, Hidden Talents, and The Curse of the Campfire Weenies and Other Warped and Creepy Tales.

  He wrote “Bounce-back” because he played a lot of table tennis when he was young. Back then, everyone wanted to play against him, because he was so easy to beat. He still isn’t very good. You could probably beat him. So could your dog or little sister. If you want to learn which other sports he is especially bad at, check out his story “Two Left Hands, Two Left Feet, and Too Left on the Bench” in Darby Creek’s anthology, Sports Shorts.

  Bounce-Back

  by

  David Lubar

  “Wow, that’s huge.” Tyler stopped dead in his tracks and stared up at the gleaming gold trophy. It sat on a table in the lobby of the YMCA. A sign on the wall behind the table read, “Ping-Pong tournament next week.” Until that moment, Tyler hadn’t cared all that much about Ping-Pong, but the sight of the trophy made the game a whole lot more interesting. Tyler had never won a trophy—not even a tiny one.

  “Hey, wait up,” his friend Bobby called as he came out of the locker room.

  Tyler dashed over and started talking, hoping to distract Bobby so he wouldn’t notice the trophy. Tyler didn’t want any extra competition. But before Tyler could speak five words, Bobby stopped dead in his tracks, stared at the trophy, and said, “Wow, that’s huge.”

  “It’s not that big,” Tyler said, trying to move between Bobby and the sign.

  “Cool—check out the sign,” Bobby said. “There’s a tournament. I’m going to enter. How about you?”

  Tyler shrugged, but didn’t say anything.

  “I’ve got a Ping-Pong table,” Bobby said. “Why don’t you come over? We can practice together.”

  Tyler almost said yes. Then he realized something. If we practice, I’ll get better. But so will Bobby.

  “Well?” Bobby asked.

  “Maybe tomorrow,” Tyler said. He headed home and went right to the basement. There it was, shoved against the back wall under a dozen cardboard boxes filled with old clothes, two boxes of empty pickle jars, three ancient computers that didn’t work, and countless back issues of National Geographic. There it was— a Ping-Pong table.

  A sweaty hour later, Tyler had cleared off the boxes and pulled the table away from the wall. Bobby’s in for a surprise. Tyler grinned at the thought of winning the tournament.

  He ran upstairs and asked his big brother, “Will you play Ping-Pong with me?”

  “Can’t,” his brother said. “I have to write a paper for school.”

  He asked his mom when she got home from her office. “I’d love to,” she said, “but I have a lot of extra work to take care of this week.”

  He asked his dad when he got home from his job. “I’d really like to, but I need to pack for my business trip.”

  As Tyler sighed and walked away, his dad said, “Why don’t you set it up to play against yourself?”

  “I can do that?” Tyler asked.

  “Sure.” His dad headed for the basement steps. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

  When they got downstairs, Tyler’s dad folded one side of the table so it stuck straight up, meeting the other half like a wall meets a floor. “There you go. Hit the ball into that and it will bounce back so you can hit it again.”

  “Thanks.” Tyler grabbed a paddle and walked over to the side that wasn’t folded up. He hit the ball against the upright side. It bounced back and flew past him before he could take a sw
ing at it. He chased after the ball and tried again, with exactly the same results.

  For the next two hours, Tyler mostly got practice in bending down and picking the ball up from the floor. But he kept trying. After a while, he was able to hit the ball as it shot back at him, though it didn’t always go where he wanted. Then he started hitting it two or three times in a row. Finally, he was able to keep it going, hitting the ball hard and fast, smashing it again and again into the upright half of the table as he dreamed about how nice the trophy would look in his bedroom.

  The next day, after their basketball league, Bobby asked Tyler, “So, want to come practice Ping-Pong today?”

  “No thanks,” Tyler said.

  “Come on. The only person who will play with me is my big sister. And she keeps beating me.”

  “Maybe tomorrow,” Tyler said. But he had no plans to practice with anyone else—not now that he’d found such a great way to turn himself into an awesome Ping-Pong champ. For the rest of the week, he spent hours every day slamming the ball against the bounce-back, getting faster and faster with his paddle.

  “I am unbeatable,” he said as he finished his last session the morning of the tournament.

  Tyler headed for the YMCA.

  “Hey, are you playing?” Bobby asked when Tyler walked into the gym. “I thought you weren’t interested.”

  “I figured I’d give it a shot,” Tyler said. He looked across the gym. The trophy had been brought in from the lobby. It glistened in the light, as if it were winking at him. “Are you playing?”

  Bobby shrugged. “Sure. Why not. I’ve gotten a bit better. I’m still not too good, but it should be fun.”

  “Yeah,” Tyler said, “it should be lots of fun.”

  Tyler was delighted to learn that his first opponent was Bobby. It would be nice to start the tournament with an easy win. “Go ahead,” Tyler said. “You can serve.” It didn’t matter who served first. Either way, Tyler knew it would be a quick game.

  Bobby picked up the ball. “Ready.”

  Tyler nodded. “You bet.” He could already taste his stunning victory. He hoped Bobby would be a good sport about losing.

  “Watch out. I’ve been practicing,” Bobby said.

  “Thanks for the warning,” Tyler said.

  Clack. Bobby served the ball. Tyler, feeling fast and loose, swung his paddle in a lightning-quick smashing return stroke, just like he’d done all week in his basement.

  He swung so hard, his whole body spun around. When he finished his spin, he looked back at the table. Bobby’s slow serve was just coming over the net. Plink. It bounced once. Plink. It bounced a second time.

  “My point,” Bobby said. He served again. Tyler swung hard and fast again. And way too soon again.

  After Tyler lost the first five points, it was his turn to serve. That didn’t help. He kept hitting the ball too hard and missing the table. Five more lost points, and it was Bobby’s serve.

  The game was over before Tyler knew what had happened. Bobby won a stunning victory, twenty-one to three. Tyler was just too fast.

  “Nice try,” Bobby said as Tyler was leaving the gym. “But can I give you some advice?”

  “What?” Tyler asked as he glanced over his shoulder for one last look at the golden trophy that would never be his.

  “Maybe next time you should practice. It might help.”

  Terry Trueman

  As a preteen, Terry Trueman considered himself a tremendous athlete, playing sports constantly in his neighborhood in the northern suburbs of Seattle, Washington. Only as he got into high school did he discover that his calling in life was not professional sports but typing poems, short stories, and novels in his basement with two fingers (he never took a typing or keyboarding class). Trueman does not regret the change in career directions, but his fanatical love of sports morphed into an almost psychotic ‘fanhood’ of all Seattle/Pacific Northwest teams (the Mariners, Seahawks, UW Huskies football, and Gonzaga hoops). Terry Trueman lives in Spokane, Washington, and travels the world extensively, talking about writing and watching ESPN every night in his hotel room. His wife, Patti, can usually handle his sports TV addiction . . . usually.

  H-O-R-S-E

  by

  Terry Trueman

  I’m twelve years old, and Brad Slater and I have played . . . I don’t know . . . maybe ten million games of HORSE in our lives. We’re playing right now. If you don’t know, HORSE is a basketball game, usually played between two players, where player 1 makes a shot and player 2 has to make that same shot. If you make the shot, whatever shot you like, a lay-in or a long shot, then it’s your turn to shoot first again and your opponent has to make the same shot as you. If player 2 misses he gets a letter, first miss an H, second miss an O and so on until you’ve spelled out HORSE, at which time the game is over and you’ve lost. If you don’t have much time you can play PIG; if you’re vulgar you can play the game by spelling out some obscene or profane swear word. Unlike regular basketball, HORSE doesn’t require dry pavement to dribble on or sidelines to keep you in bounds, no rebounding or assists, steals or traveling violations; it doesn’t demand anything other than a ball, a hoop and two or more players.

  I’ve never beat Brad before,

  never,

  ever,

  E-V-E-R

  at HORSE,

  at PIG

  or any other

  version of the game with

  any other word.

  Truthfully,

  come to think of it,

  I’ve never beaten Brad

  at anything athletic.

  But today

  I’m up over

  Brad’s

  H-O-R-S

  with my

  H-O.

  It’s like a

  good poem,

  no

  it’s

  a great poem

  a perfect poem,

  a rare and nearly impossible and

  utterly

  unimaginably, divine poem.

  I’m beating

  Brad Slater—

  I never, ever

  thought

  this could

  happen.

  Dry leaves skitter along

  the asphalt;

  the breeze

  blows in my face.

  My feet

  tingle in my

  athletic shoes

  H-O-R-S

  to

  H-O . . .

  “Your shot,” Brad says

  tossing me the ball.

  I catch it,

  smile, set up

  fifteen feet away,

  and

  launch my

  fade-away

  jumper . . .

  Swish.

  Brad grabs the rebound

  walks to my

  spot,

  takes a few deep

  breaths,

  judges distance,

  wind,

  humidity,

  takes another

  deep breath

  and finally

  lets fly—

  the ball

  almost goes through

  but circles the hoop and

  rims out.

  That’s E for Brad

  H-O-R-S-E.

  The way we play, after the final letter in HORSE, the loser gets to choose whether to take the shot again or make the winner repeat the shot, making it a second time; it’s like having to win by two points in Ping-Pong or volleyball or tennis—a confident player usually tries the shot a second time, and Brad is nothing if not confident, but today, now, a fifteen foot fade-away jumper is not an easy shot—Brad eyes the distance again and then . . .

  “Prove it,” he says

  throwing me the ball.

  I stand

  fifteen feet

  from the hoop. . .

  This length of jumper,

  much less a fade-away jumper,

  is a hard shot;

 
he thinks I’ll miss.

  But

  suddenly

  a Robin flies

  over our heads

  twittering,

  his eye

  staring

  straight into my eyes

  I think he’s

  smiling,

  and the grey clouds

  move

  so slowly

  that I’m sure

  the sky,

  silent,

  watches us—

  I

  grab the ball

  and

  don’t let myself think

  about . . .

  You have to make it

  You have to win

  Nothing

  in the world

  can stop you now

  for once

  in this single moment

  you

  can’t lose,

  not this time . . .

  No,

  all these thoughts

  may come later,

  if I make it,

  But for now

  I grab the ball,

  hold it

  lightly

  in my skinny fingers,

  glance at the hoop

  and

  I leap,

  rising high

  into the air

  raising my arms above

  my head

  as though offering

  this shot to

  God,

  and I fade away

  like a man falling

  from a high cliff,

  like a song’s last refrains

  like

  the way one’s

  breath must

  finally seize

  at the hour of one’s

  death—

  And from this fading

  falling, flying

  I

  shoot—

  A tiny click

  as the ball nicks the

  metal hoop

  yet slams

  through!

  All the universe is

  silence

  except for the ball

  bouncing

  once,

  twice, a third time

  and a fourth

  each bounce smaller than