Flying Lessons & Other Stories(43)

Baseline plays were even harder. Dad wanted us to get guys wheeling for position under and slightly behind the basket.

“There are four feet of space behind the backboard,” Dad said. “If you can use those four feet, you have an advantage.”

We tried wheeling plays along the baseline but just kept getting in each other’s way.

“That’s the point,” Dad said. “When you learn to move without running into each other you’re going to have a big advantage over a team that’s trying to keep up with you.”

Okay, so most of the guys are pretty good wheeling their chairs up and down the court. But our baseline plays looked more like a collision derby. Dad shook his head and Mr. Evans laughed.

We practiced all week. Dad came again and said we were improving.

“I thought you were terrible at first,” he said, smiling. I didn’t believe he actually smiled. “Now you’re just pretty bad. But I think you can play with that Madison team.”

Madison had agreed to come to our school to play, and when they arrived they were wearing jackets with their school colors and CLIPPERS across the back.

We started the game and Madison got the tip-off. The guy I was holding blocked me off so their guard, once he got past Nicky G, had a clear path to the basket. The first score against us came with only ten seconds off the clock.

I looked up in the stands to see where Mom was. I found her and saw Dad sitting next to her. I waved and she waved back, and Dad just sat there with his arms folded.

Madison stopped us cold on the next play, and when Bobby and Lou bumped their chairs at the top of the key, there was a man open. A quick pass inside and Madison was up by four.

We settled down a little, but nothing worked that well. We made a lot of wild passes for turnovers, and once, when I was actually leading a fast break, I got called for traveling when the ball got ahead of me, and I touched the wheels twice before dribbling. The guys from Madison were having a good time, and we were feeling miserable. At halftime, we rolled into the locker room feeling dejected. When Dad showed up, I felt bad. He was used to winning, not losing.

“Our kids looked a little overmatched in the first half,” Mr. Evans said.

“I think they played okay,” Dad said, “just a little nervous. But look at the score. It’s twenty-two to fourteen. With all their shooting, Madison is just eight points ahead. We can catch up.”

I looked at Dad to see if he was kidding. He wasn’t. He wasn’t kidding, and he had said “we.” I liked that.

We came out in the second half all fired up. We ran a few plays along the baseline, but it still seemed more like bumper cars than basketball with all the congestion. Madison took twenty-three shots in the second half and made eight of them plus three foul shots for a total score of forty-one points. We took seventeen shots and made eleven of them, all layups off the backboard, and two foul shots for a total of thirty-eight points. We had lost the game, but everyone felt great about how we had played. We lined up our chairs, gave Madison high fives before they left, and waited until we got to the locker room to give ourselves high fives.

Afterward, the team voted, and the Hartsdale Posse all agreed that we wanted to play in the league. Dad had shown us that we could play, and even though we had lost we knew we would be ready for the next season.

Dad only comes to practice once in a while, but he comes to the games when they’re on the weekend. At practice he shows us fundamentals, stuff like how to line your wrist up for a shot, and how the ball should touch your hand when you’re ready to shoot. That made me feel good even if he would never talk about the games when he wasn’t in the gym. I didn’t want to push it too much because I liked him coming to practice. I didn’t want to push him, but Mom didn’t mind at all.

“Jim, if you were in a wheelchair,” she asked, “do you think you could play as well as Chris?”

Dad was on his laptop and looked over the screen at Mom, then looked over at me. Then he looked back down at the screen and grumbled something. I figured he was saying that there was no way he could play as well as me in a chair, but I didn’t ask him to repeat it.





Acknowledgments


Two years ago, Ellen Oh was sitting at breakfast with Soman Chainani and Phoebe Yeh when she mentioned an idea she had for a WNDB anthology. Phoebe, as VP/Publisher at Crown Books for Young Readers, was immediately intrigued, and after Soman promised he’d write a story for it, the deal was struck and the rest was history.

WNDB is grateful to the dedicated and brilliant team at Crown/Random House, especially our wonderful editor, Phoebe Yeh, who brought this book to life, and our publisher, Barbara Marcus, who championed it from the very start. This anthology could not have happened without this amazing duo.

And our deepest gratitude to Barry Goldblatt, our extraordinary agent who takes such great care of us. WNDB couldn’t have a better advocate.

And finally…We Need Diverse Books wouldn’t exist without the incredible passion, energy, and hard work of our all-volunteer members. We are grateful to each author who contributed a story to this anthology, and to the special committee of WNDB members who read hundreds of entries to our short-story contest and selected a winner unanimously. Thank you, Elsie Chapman, Karen Sandler, Danette Vigilante, and Nicola Yoon.





About the Authors


Kwame Alexander’s middle-grade debut, The Crossover, which the New York Times called “a beautifully measured novel,” was a Newbery Medal winner, Coretta Scott King Honor, and Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year. Alexander has written twenty-one books, including He Said, She Said, a Junior Library Guild selection; Surf’s Up; and the award-winning children’s book Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band. His most recent middle-grade novel, Booked, is a New York Times bestseller. Kwame lives in Northern Virginia. Learn more about his work online at kwamealexander.com.