EllRay Jakes Stands Tall by Sally Warner

1
    ALMOST LIKE B-BALL
    â€œGive it here,” I shout to Jared Matthews. He is hogging the basketball, as usual—not that he really knows how to play.
    It is Tuesday afternoon recess on a cool-warm February day that is perfect for running around. Sunshine, wind, and freedom!
    My name is EllRay Jakes, and I am eight years old. I am in Ms. Sanchez’s third grade class at Oak Glen Primary School, in Oak Glen, California.
    And I’m the shortest kid in class.
    All I want is respect, but to get respect you have to be good at something. At home, with neighbor kids and friends, it could be video games and memorizing lists of anime names. But at school, it pretty much has to be sports. For us boys, anyway. And sports means doing stuff.
    But running around is about all we’re doing thisrecess, because we don’t really know how to play basketball—or “b-ball,” as a couple of the guys in my class call it. Instead, we play something
almost like
b-ball.
    Because with Jared, b-ball is more like a game of keep-away.
    For Kevin McKinley and Nate Marshall, b-ball always ends up turning into soccer. They either bounce the ball off their heads, or they zig-zag kick it across the playground toward an imaginary goal. They make their own crowd-cheering sounds as they run.
    When Kry Rodriguez gets hold of the ball, she stares at the hoop for so long before she shoots that some kids get bored and wander away. It’s like Kry is doing yoga, something the girls in our third grade class are obsessed with lately.
    Don’t ask. I think yoga is mostly just holding still or lying around. In other words, it is the exact opposite of anything boy.
    Jason Leffer just tucks the basketball under his arm like a football, ducks his head, and starts running.
    Wrong game, dude!

    My friend Corey Robinson is probably the best athlete in our whole school. He is a prize-winning swimmer. But he doesn’t even try to get the ball. He’s just glad to be outside, away from math, the white board, and reading out loud in class.
    My new friend Marco Adair is the only other boy in class who is as bad at b-ball as I am. But Marco is too busy in his secret world of dragons and knights to care.
    Me, I’d just like to get my hands on the ball for once! I can almost smell its weird rubbery sweetness and feel its goose bumps under my fingertips.
    Huh. I wish!
    â€œGive it here,” I yell again, darting around Nate and Major Donaldson, who are shoving each other in a friendly way that could turn rough, just like that.
    â€œCome and get it, wuss,” Jared shouts back, like he just won a prize. The prize for embarrassing me, I guess. He doesn’t even care about breaking our school’s no-name-calling rule.
    â€œYou guys are so lame,” Cynthia Harbison shouts from over by the fence. “You don’t even know what you’re doing!”
    â€œShe’s right,” her personal assistant Fiona McNulty says. “I’ve seen real basketball on TV, you guys. With my
daddy
. And that’s not it.”
    By now, we have three balls going at the same time, one basketball and two kickballs. So Fiona’s at least a little right.
    Jared tosses the real basketball up in the air, then spikes it down hard—volleyball style—in Cynthia and Fiona’s direction.
    Bam!
    â€œHere! Throw it here,” I shout to Fiona. But she is cringing against the chain link fence like she’s still under attack.
    â€œCynthia,” I yell. “Grab the ball and throw it here!”
    â€œGet it yourself, if you want it so much, EllRay,” Cynthia says, tossing back her hair and grabbing hold of Fiona’s hand so they can storm away better.
    â€œYeah, you baby,” Fiona says, mad at me instead of Jared, for some reason.
    Me! And I didn’t do anything.
    I guess I’m not as scary as Jared, that’s all—so Fiona can be braver against me.
    I’m just EllRay Jakes, b-ball loser,