Game by Walter Dean Myers

apart, making two passes as fast as we could before going for the layup without putting the ball on the floor. I was with Needham and Tomas. Needham couldn’t catch a cool breeze in an igloo, but Tomas had good hands. We worked on short passes for twenty minutes before House let us go.
    Most of the team started toward the shower,but I saw House stop Tomas and Abdul and point them back onto the court. Fletch was waiting with a basketball under the basket. I sat down to see what they were going to do.
    What was happening was that Fletch was working with Tomas. He was using Abdul as the defensive player. I watched as he pulled out the tape and made an X on the floor with it. Position play. For the next twenty minutes Fletch worked with Tomas, passing the ball in to him from the top of the key or from the sideline to either side of the X, making him move to the X in one dribble and then go for the shot.
    He did it over and over, with Fletch yelling at him, telling him when he was doing it wrong, telling him when his feet were too slow or he was bringing the ball too low.
    â€œMake them stop your strongest move!”
    I watched as Tomas moved his wide body through the lane, pivoting on the tape and going for the basket. Tomas did it over and over again. Pulling the ball closer to his chest when Fletch told him to chin it, extending his arms when Fletch told him to get bigger, shaking his head when Fletch asked him if he was getting tired.
    I felt sick. I felt angry. Not just anger, but a rage coming up in me. I wanted to stand up and walk away, but as tight as my arms felt, as huge as my chest felt, my legs were weak.
    I thought Fletch was supposed to be on my side. Why was he talking to me softly and then building up Tomas?
    I looked around, sure that I would find House gloating somewhere, leaning against the tiled walls, but he wasn’t anywhere in the gym. It was just Tomas and Abdul and Fletch, and me standing on the side feeling my guts ache.
    As they walked off the court, I saw that Abdul was dripping in sweat. Tomas’s legs, heavy and white and hairy, moved like tree stumps toward the locker room. Fletch stopped a few feet from me. I looked up at him. I didn’t have enough saliva in my mouth to spit.
    â€œHow you feeling, Drew?” he asked.
    â€œI see you’re working with the white boy,” I said.
    â€œWhat do you want, Drew?” Fletch looked at me. “You want to get over by having him fall down? That what you want?”
    â€œGet out my face!” I said.
    Fletch stepped closer to me. “What you going to do, Drew? You going to hit me? Is that what you want to do?” he asked. “Because if you want to give up your game altogether, that’s the way to do it. Raise your hands and see how far your anger gets you.”
    We glared at each other for a long time; then he pivoted on one foot and walked away
    Â 
    Game day. When Powell came to our gym, I was feeling down. What I wished was that I could jump up and hit somebody, just do a real beat down on the world and get it out of my system. I knew what Fletch had said was real, but I was feeling so frustrated, I didn’t know what to do with myself. Maybe for the first time in my life I didn’t want to play ball.
    Powell had Donald Hand and this tough-shooting Italian guy, Frankie Corsetto. If Donald brought his mind to the game, he’d be real good. What he does bring his mind to is being a thug. The word on the street is that he took money from shorties and did some boosting down on 1-2-5. You can stop Frankie if you foul him a lot because he doesn’t like to get hitand will throw up only treys if you bang him.
    I felt sluggish, and everything I did was wrong. The first time I got the ball, I traveled. The next time I got it, I threw up an air ball. Meanwhile, Frankie is going around me and I’m trying to hit him but he’s making me look bad and House sits me.
    At the end of the first quarter