EllRay Jakes Stands Tall Page 3

  “For reals?” Alfie asks, her eyes wide.

  “Mom already told you,” I remind her. “Sorry, Alf.”

  “But don’t tell Mom about Suzette, okay?” she says. “Because that’s my secret—with you.”

  This, on top of my own problems.

  Lucky me!

  7

  GOSSIP

  “Guess what?” Cynthia Harbison says the next morning before school. We are all out by the picnic tables. “I heard some gossip,” she announces. Cynthia takes off her pink plastic headband, smoothes back her hair, then puts the toothy headband back on so tight that it looks like her hair hurts.

  As usual, the girls are at one of their own picnic tables, and us boys are at one of ours. But we can hear each other talk.

  “What’s gossip?” Major asks Marco.

  “It’s like when you tell a lie,” Marco says, keeping his voice low.

  “Naw,” Jared says, louder. He shakes his head. “Gossip is when you talk smack about someone.”

  “Talking smack” means putting someone down. Like, “He’s so little you gotta put rocks in his pocket when it’s windy out, or he’ll blow away.” Jared said that about me once, so I guess he’s the smack-talking expert around here.

  It was supposed to be a joke.

  “Yeah. It’s talkin’ smack,” his sidekick Stanley agrees. Big surprise.

  Jared is only eight years old, like the rest of us. And he lives in Oak Glen, in a very nice house. But one of his favorite things to do is talk like some tough guy in a rap video.

  “That’s not even right, boys,” Heather calls out from the girls’ table. Her skinny little decoration-braid swings across her face. “Gossip is when you tell a friend something about someone else,” she continues. “Even if you’re not all-the-way sure it’s true.”

  “Why say it, then?” Corey asks.

  “Because maybe it’s true,” Fiona says. Sticking up for gossip, I guess.

  “And this gossip is all-the-way true,” Cynthia says. “Because I heard my mom talking on the phone. Except it’s more boy-gossip than girl-gossip, so who really cares? I was just trying to be nice, telling you guys.”

  “Us guys don’t even care,” Jason says in a loud, bored voice.

  “Huh,” Cynthia scoffs. “Even when the gossip is about you getting your own special basketball coach? Starting today, Thursday? Pre-basketball, anyway.”

  “Probably because they’re so terrible at the real thing,” Heather says, shaking her head in pretend pity.

  “Okay. What does ‘pre’ mean?” Major asks Marco, like he’s about to give up on definitions for the day. Two of them already—and class hasn’t even started yet!

  But Marco is off in his own daydreamy world again, scraping gunk off the picnic table with a plastic spoon. I don’t know what he plans to do with it. Nothing, I hope.

  “‘Pre’ means ‘before,’” Diego Romero tells Major. “Like, ‘preschool’ happens before you go to regular school,” he explains. Diego reads a lot.

  And suddenly, it feels as though my head is spinning—like a basketball on a professional player’s giant finger. Because what in the world is pre-basketball? Anything could come before basketball! Or b-ball, as us guys call it.

  1. Getting out of the car in front of school could be “pre-basketball.”

  2. So could running–I mean walking–onto the playground.

  3. Or trying to grab one of the new balls.

  Why would a kid need lessons in any of those things?

  “Just the boys get to have a coach?” Kry asks Cynthia. “That’s not fair. I like basketball, too.” Her brown eyes look fierce behind her shiny, straight bangs.

  “And I’ll try it if Kry does it. I’m tired of yoga,” Emma McGraw says, even though she’s the shortest girl in our class. But she’s still taller than I am.

  See what I mean about “no fair” when it comes to height?

  Cynthia bites her lip for a second, because Kry is the only girl in our class who she’s a little bit afraid of. Not because Kry is mean. Just the opposite!

  Everyone likes Kry, so she’s a puzzle Cynthia cannot figure out.

  “I’m sure they might let you play if you want,” she finally says, shrugging.

  “Yeah, maybe. If you want,” Heather says, like it sounds pretty dumb to her.

  All this maybe-talk, gossip-talk has gone on long enough. “Who is gonna let them play? Let us play, I mean,” I say. “Who’s the coach gonna be? We don’t even have any coaches at Oak Glen Primary. We don’t have teams! So I think you’re just—”

  “It’s Mr. Havens,” Cynthia interrupts, triumphant. “He’s real good at basketball, it turns out. He was on a team in college. So ha-ha, EllRay Jakes. You’re wrong, wrong, wrong!”

  Mr. Havens.

  The second grade teacher, brand-new to Oak Glen this year.

  The man who substitutes for the recess monitor—more and more, lately.

  I’ve even gotten in trouble with him before. Accidentally, of course.

  “Huh,” my sometimes-friend Kevin snort-says. “Mr. Havens is always too busy passing out kickballs and taking care of nosebleeds and skinned knees to coach anyone.”

  “And he keeps kids from walking up the slide, too, which is perfectly safe and fun,” Jared complains, as if he’s had some personal experience with this.

  Which he has.

  “The regular playground monitor will take care of that stuff,” know-it-all Cynthia says. “And Mr. Havens is gonna coach the—the pre-basketball kids.”

  Ha! She almost said “the boys.”

  “He’s volunteering, even,” Cynthia adds, kind of mad at us now. “Because Mr. Havens told Principal James that he can’t stand seeing you guys just running around in circles with the new basketballs. Missing baskets, bouncing the balls wrong, and breaking official rules. And Principal James told my mother that, over the phone, because she’s in charge of making sure us Oak Glen kids get more exercise at school.”

  Oh, yeah? Who made fancy Mrs. Harbison the Queen of Exercise? She’s always wearing high heels! Let’s see her shoot some hoops.

  “And you were listening in on her,” Stanley says, triumphant.

  “Snoopy-snoopy-snoop,” Kevin jeers.

  “I’m pretty sure listening in on phone calls is against the law,” Diego says, his forehead wrinkling as he thinks.

  “Only if you get caught,” Heather snaps.

  “I heard what they said by accident,” Cynthia says, defending herself. “I just thought you guys would like to know, that’s all. You’re welcome,” she adds, her voice full of sarcasm.

  Sarcasm is a specialty of hers. Alfie could take lessons.

  “If you’re even right,” Kevin mumbles as the buzzer for class sounds.

  Hmm, I think, hauling my backpack onto my knobbly shoulder once more. I wonder if she is right?

  A basketball coach! That would be very, very cool. Even if it is Mr. Havens, who maybe already hates me.

  Cool, except for the part where I’m still the shortest kid in my class. Mr. Havens won’t even be interested in a shrimp like me.

  But on the other hand, he’s gotta help my pre-basketball skills a little, at least.

  It’s not like they can get any worse!

  And—I am smiling as I walk into Ms. Sanchez’s third grade class.

  8

  PRE-BASKETBALL

  “Mr. Havens will work with all third-graders interested in pre-basketball during recess on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings,” Ms. Sanchez tells us right before we go outside for morning recess. “And a few rare afternoons as well. It’s a good thing you and the second-graders have recess at the same time.”

  “What’s Mr. Havens doing on Tuesday and Friday?” Nate asks after Ms. Sanchez calls on him. “Because we wanna get really
good at pre-basketball. We should practice every day.”

  “Yeah,” Major says. “We want to get all the way to b-ball, without the pre.”

  “Mr. Havens will probably be busy lying down in the Teachers’ Lounge on Tuesdays and Fridays, with an ice pack on his aching back,” Ms. Sanchez says, laughing. “We’ll see how long he can keep this up.”

  If Ms. Sanchez weren’t already engaged to be married to her boyfriend, Mr. Timberlake, who runs a sporting goods store, I’m sure the girls in our class would already have paired her up with Mr. Havens. Mr. Havens is very tall, and he has one of those muscle-necks where the shirt barely buttons, and a head shaped like an almost-perfect rectangle. His hair is shaved into a fade at the sides, but there’s a squiggle of red-blond hair up top.

  He looks like a Canadian Mountie, the cartoon hero kind.

  Cynthia says Mr. Havens is already married, even though he doesn’t wear a wedding ring.

  Girls know stuff like that. They can just tell.

  Us boys don’t care if he’s married or not. We just want him to be a good coach.

  “Move it,” Jared says a few minutes later, elbowing Corey aside as he speed-walks down Oak Glen Primary School’s crowded main hall. We are eager to get outside for our first pre-basketball coaching session. Even the kids who don’t want to play are making tracks—because they want to watch. This is something new.

  And how often does something new happen at school on a Thursday?

  In February?

  I am so excited! I have forgotten all my worries about negative numbers, and about how my little sister Alfie—who, face it, is kind of my responsibility—is turning into a Kreative Learning and Daycare monster, and about me still being the shortest kid in my class. Even though it’s a brand new year, and Dad promised I would grow.

  Well, I’ve almost forgotten all those things.

  Because now it’s time to meet Mr. Havens in person! I’ve met him before, of course—on the playground. And it hasn’t always been in the best way. It’s usually after some scuffle I accidentally got trapped in. Nothing serious, though.

  But I’ve never met Mr. Havens as an official pre-basketball coach. Maybe he can teach me some crazy-good skills that will help make up for how short I am!

  This is so different.

  “Yay!” a bunch of us yell as we erupt onto the playground for our first pre-basketball coaching session.

  This is gonna be awesome.

  9

  COACH

  Fwe-e-e-et! Mr. Havens’s silver whistle blows, as we churn our way over to him like a school of third grade fish. A big net bag full of balls—basketballs and kickballs—is at his feet.

  “Line up for your drills, boys and girls,” Mr. Havens shouts, clapping his big hands twice. Not that he doesn’t already have our attention. “We only have twenty minutes together,” he says. “So, two straight lines—facing each other. Now!”

  We form our lines. It’s mostly boys, but Kry, Emma, and Annie Pat are in the group, too. I think Kry’s the one who will stick it out. She’s good at sports.

  “Eyes on me, everyone,” Mr. Havens says. “You probably know me as Mr. Havens, but during these training sessions, you will call me Coach. Say ‘Coach.’”

  “Coach,” a few of us mumble.

  “Louder,” he says.

  “Coach!” we all shout.

  “That’s better,” he says. “Remember, this isn’t a tea party. Now, here’s your go-to stance,” Coach tells us. “I want your legs a shoulders’ width apart, one foot forward for balance. And your knees are a little bent at all times. Your weight should be on the front of your feet—the part up by your toes—so you can move fast and jump. Like this,” he says, demonstrating. “Take the stance!” he shouts.

  And we do it. We try, anyway. But Corey crouches down so low that he looks like he’s about to dive off a board at the Aquatics Center. Jason goes up so far on his toes that he looks as if he’s gonna fall over. And Jared’s feet are way too far apart. It looks more like a movie monster’s stance than a basketball player’s.

  Marco looks like he wishes he were someplace else. Is he gonna hurl? He shoots me a glance that says “Help,” but I don’t know what to do about it.

  Instead, I correct my own stance, looking at other kids’ mistakes. And Mr. Havens—“Coach”—prowls up and down the middle of our two lines, making adjustments here and there.

  “Okay, good,” he finally says. “Remember, that’s your go-to stance. As in always. And now for a ball-handling drill. Fingertips on the ball, players. Fingertips! Not your hands. Got that?”

  “Fingertips,” we robot-repeat as he scoops a ball out of the net bag and demonstrates how to hold it. “Like your hand is a spider,” he tells us. “Practice this at home, if you can—with both hands. It’ll get easier as you grow.”

  And I’m thinking, They do this? Because on TV, you don’t notice b-ball players holding the ball that way. They’re moving around so fast, or dribbling, which I already know is another word for bouncing the ball—not slobbering on the floor. You have to dribble the ball to move it around on the court. You can’t just grab the ball and run.

  But the fingertips thing is good, because my fingertips are as big as any other third grade kid’s. Fingertips don’t care how tall you stand.

  “Here are the balls we have to work with,” Coach says, tossing them to us fast. “Here! Here! Here! Basketballs, kickballs. Doesn’t matter. Catch them with your fingertips, and then throw them to the kid facing you. Now! Now!”

  This guy is not fooling around.

  10

  LIKE BIG KIDS

  I somehow nab a partly deflated kickball with my spider fingertips. I look across from me. “Kevin,” I say. “Heads up.” And I toss him the ball. He catches it.

  So far, so good, even though all that means is that I haven’t made a fool of myself. Yet.

  “Fingertips, people,” Coach reminds us again. “And use both hands, Marco! The ball’s not gonna bite you. Keep those balls moving, guys. Now! Now! Now!”

  “When do we get to shoot baskets?” Nate asks.

  “When you’re ready,” Coach says. “Which is not now. Next, some dribble drills. You’re going to start bouncing that ball waist-high, then work it down to the ground. Like this,” he says.

  And he starts bouncing his demonstration basketball, moving around the whole time, knees bent. “Watch my footwork,” he says. He’s fast!

  Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce.

  Bounce-bounce-bounce-bounce.

  Bouncebouncebouncebouncebounce.

  At the end, his basketball is about two inches off the blacktop as he dribbles it. He even moves in a complete circle around the ball. He’s bouncing the ball so fast that it looks like it’s glued to the bottom of his hand.

  Whoa.

  “Okay. Go!” Coach says, and a bunch of us start dribbling our balls.

  Bounce. Bounce. Bounce.

  “Hey. I don’t even have a ball,” Stanley says, hands on his hips. He’s mad!

  “Only half of you do,” Coach says, pointing out the obvious. “I want the rest of you to run in place—on the balls of your feet. But keep your stance. Then you’ll swap places with the dribblers.”

  And a little bit of running in place starts to happen. But not a lot.

  “I’m not doin’ that,” Jared mutters, watching Major and even the reluctant Marco spring from foot to foot, real fast. “It looks dumb, yo.”

  It’s like Coach has superpower hearing. “Bad attitudes get to run laps around the playground,” he announces, not even looking at Jared. “Or they can forget the whole thing and go play on the teeter-totters and eat fruit leathers with the little kids. Good times.”

  And—Jared starts to run in place.

  I think we are all starting to like Coach. He’s tough, but that’s
because he’s treating us like big kids, not babies.

  “Now switch,” Coach says. “Dribblers, pass the balls—and start running in place. But keep your stance! And bend your knees. No Frankenstein clomping on my watch.”

  And I run, even though a fruit leather is sounding pretty good to me right now.

  So far, the three best dribblers are Corey, Diego, and Kry. But Emma’s having trouble bouncing the ball waist-high more than three or four times without it boing-ing off in some weird direction.

  Wow! I’m better than someone at dribbling!

  I feel bad for Emma, but I can’t help but feel a little happy for me.

  “Now slow it down,” Coach says after a few more switches. “Slower, slower, slower. And dribblers, bring that ball back up-p-p to your waist, if you can. Runners, shake out those crazy legs. Time to cool down.”

  “I’m already freezing,” Stanley complains.

  “That’s probably because you weren’t running fast enough,” Coach tells him. “‘Cooling down’ means slowly getting your muscles back to normal—like by walking around a little. Now listen, boys and girls,” he says. “We’re not meeting again until Monday morning. Any of you have basketballs at home? Or kickballs? Or even beach balls? Just about anything this size,” he says, holding his own basketball up high on one finger while it spins.

  Whoa!

  Most hands go up in the air, including mine.

  “That ball is your new best friend,” Coach informs us. “You play with it over the weekend—with your fingertips, remember. Even when you watch TV, but carefully. Just toss that sucker from hand to hand. Because you guys are two-handed players, am I right?”

  “You’re right,” we chorus, trying to picture what he means.

  “You are not gonna say, ‘Oh, wait a minute, other team. Throw the ball to my good hand, okay?’ Are you?” he asks, using a funny voice when he’s pretending to be the goofy, one-handed player.

  “No way,” we shout.