EllRay Jakes Stands Tall (8 page)

16

MR. YEAH BUT

“Hey, EllRay,” Marco says, catching up to me as we scuff our way back to class. “Do you like b-ball?”

“Yeah,” I say, slowing down a little. “Except no one will ever pass me the ball, I'm so short. Why?” I ask. “Don't you like it?”

“Basketball's too noisy,” he says after looking around to make sure no one else can hear. “There's too much yelling and stuff. It gives me a headache
and
a stomachache.”

“Really?” I say, trying to imagine it.

I think Marco's problem is that he's a kid who needs a lot of peace and quiet. I guess that's why he likes to play olden days on the grass with his plastic dragons and knights.

But peace and quiet are like endangered species at Oak Glen Primary School.

“Then don't play it,” I say, shrugging. “You don't
have
to play, Marco.”

“Yeah, but that's being a baby,” Marco says. “I'd be eating fruit leather on the teeter-totters before you know it,” he says, quoting Coach. “Kids would laugh at me. And anyway,” he adds, “I like hanging with everyone—when they're not shouting and stuff, anyway.”

He really looks miserable. I have a horrible feeling that he's about to cry.

And crying at school is every boy's worst nightmare.

“Maybe you could wear earplugs,” I suggest. “We could make some out of clay.”

“Yeah, but then I wouldn't be able to hear it if someone said, ‘Heads up!' when they passed me the ball,” Marco says. “And I'd still feel like I was gonna hurl.”

“Maybe you should try yoga,” I say. “That's supposed to make you feel all relaxed, Ms. Sanchez says. Then the noise and stuff wouldn't bother you so much.”

“Yeah, but yoga's just for
girls
,” Marco says. “At Oak Glen, anyway.”

Marco Adair is turning into the type of guy my Dad calls
“Mr. Yeah But.”

“Well, maybe you should ask Coach not to yell so much?” I suggest, starting to run out of ideas.

“Yeah, right,” Marco says with a bitter laugh. He shakes his head.

“What about if you ask Ms. Sanchez to ask Coach to play b-ball quieter?” I say as we plod down the shiny hall toward class. We're gonna be late!

“Yeah, but that would be like tattling,” Marco says, sounding as if all hope is lost. “Anyway, I don't think she's the boss of him.
But thanks for listening
,
EllRay
,” he adds in a whisper. Quietly.

“Quietly” and “Shortly.” That's Marco and me, I guess.

But—poor Marco!

17

FOUL!

At Monday lunch, it is like we have taken a strange but silent vote:
“No b-ball.”
Instead, we stuff our faces with food, hang by numb arms and burning hands from the cold overhead ladder, and watch the girls compare fancy Japanese erasers from their collections.

That's a thing, I guess. This week, anyway.

Emma has a panda eraser. Annie Pat's is a tiny dolphin. And Cynthia has a butterfly, which Heather says is the best eraser, because of all the colors. The girls are holding their erasers in the palms of their hands, whispering to them like they are little pets.

Sometimes, girls are just strange. No offense.

I would like to have that dolphin eraser, though. I wouldn't use it, either—even though I am a kid who needs erasers.

Who needs them a
lot
.

But it is now afternoon recess, and basketball is creeping back into our brains. The playground monitor—not Mr. Havens today—is busy keeping little kids from walking in front of moving swings and getting clobbered. So “the coast is clear,” as my mom sometimes says.

That means we third-graders can do what we want.

Jared is already practice-dribbling a ball.

“Where's Coach?” Corey asks, looking around.

“Probably in the Teachers' Lounge, with an ice pack on his back. Like Ms. Sanchez said that time,” I tell him. But I can't really picture it. Coach looks too strong for that.

“We don't need Coach to play basketball,” Jared says, dribbling away.

“Well, we don't need him for practice drills, anyway,” Diego says. “But Coach hasn't shown us how to shoot baskets yet.”

“
Duh
,” Kevin says, making a face at Diego. “You just throw the ball and hope for the best.” He crouches and then shoots an imaginary ball,
demonstrating. He is probably pretending he is a pro player tossing the winning throw as an invisible crowd cheers.

Marco is playing with his olden days figures on the grass near the picnic table. He's probably just glad no one is yelling. Major is standing next to him, like he can't decide whether to join in Marco's game or grab a kickball and start dribbling.

Annie Pat has wandered over to where we are standing. “I don't know,” she says, twirling a red pigtail as she watches Kevin leap around. “I think there's probably an official way to shoot baskets, Kevin. A way you can practice. We should wait for Coach to teach us.”

“Be quiet,
girl
,” Jared tells her. “Just because you caught the ball
one time
this morning. By accident, probably.”

Uh-oh.

Foul!

“Her name is Annie Pat, and you know it,” Emma pipes up. She's a little scared of Jared, I think. But for some reason, she always stands up to him anyway.

I start to get the feeling that things are about to go seriously wrong with this afternoon recess. And
we have waited for it ever since lunch! But Jared would never dare say something mean to Annie Pat if Coach was around. If he did, Coach would send Jared over to the teeter-totters to eat fruit leather with the little kids. Or make him run laps around the playground.

But Jared's the type of kid who acts up when there are no grown-ups nearby. It's his specialty.

“Ooh, she's gonna tell on Jared. Just like a widdle baby,” Stanley jeers, using baby talk as he points at Annie Pat. He wipes his grimy fists in his eyes. “
Wah, wah
,” he pretend-cries.

“I'm not going to tell,” Annie Pat says, protesting. “I never said I was, either.”

“Go play with your stupid eraser, or do some stretchy, bendy yoga,” Jared tells her, turning away. “
So lame
,” he adds under his breath.

“Yoga's not lame,” Annie Pat says.

“Us guys should divide up into teams,” Kevin says, after Annie Pat and Emma have joined a nearby group of girls: Kry, Fiona, Heather. They're already laughing together, playing some other game. Tagging and chasing, it looks like.

“Yeah,” Stanley chimes in. “Let's divide up, and
then try to get past each other.” He rams his shoulder into Marco, demonstrating his bashing skills, I guess.

“I'll choose the first team, because I've got the ball,” Jared announces. He really means that he'll be the
boss
of that team. The boss of all of us, if he can pull it off.

Not. Gonna. Happen.

“And I'll choose the other team,” Jason says. Like I said before, Jason's kind of chunky. But as I also mentioned before, he always says it's pure muscle, even when nobody asks.

But—
choosing teams!

I hate it when us guys choose teams, mostly because of how short I am. I'm usually picked last for sports things, never first. Or second. Or even third. I liked it better when we were all on the same team during our training sessions, with Coach as our leader.

But what can I do about this whole choosing-teams thing? Nothing!

I'm not the boss of recess. I'm not the boss of
anything.

18

THE CHOOSING

It is as if a dark cloud has appeared over our section of the playground as the choosing begins. My part of the playground, anyway.

“I choose Kevin and Stanley,” Jared shouts.

“Hey! One at a time,” Jason objects. “Or else I get to choose Corey and Nate and Marco,” he says. “And then I want Major and Diego.”

“That's five, loser,” Jared tells him.

We aren't allowed to say “loser” at Oak Glen Primary School. But that doesn't mean kids don't say the word. Especially when there are no grown-ups around.

World, meet Jared Matthews.

“Give back a couple of your guys,” Jared tells Jason. “Or else you have to take EllRay, too,” he says, smirking.

A smirk is a nasty little smile, by the way. My mom told me that once.

But—wait. What? I'm like
last prize
now?

I mean, okay. I'm not super good at basketball—
yet
. I don't deserve any respect. But I'm not bad at it. I'm as good a dribbler as anyone here, aren't I? So far? And didn't Coach give me a shout-out just this morning? That's more than Jared got!

So why pick on me?

“Hey,” Corey objects, taking my side. “EllRay's got skills, and you know it.”

It's true. I have
small
skills, the kind that kids don't notice.

1. I'm a pretty fast runner, for example.

2. And I'm quick. I learn stuff fast, too.

3. Also, like I said, Coach thinks I'm good at bounce pass drills.

4. And Dad says I'm a good hiker and climber.

But nobody notices the skills I have. They like the big, splashy sports skills.

“I know he can't
dunk
,” Jared says, like he just
won a bet. “Just look at him. And scoring is the whole point of b-ball, isn't it?”

“Yeah,” Stanley says, piling on. “EllRay would need a ladder or a trampoline to get the ball anywhere near the basket.” He looks around for approval of this lame joke, but he doesn't get any.

Everyone's too eager to get started with this bogus game, probably.

“Form two lines, yo,” Jared says when he has finished picking his team. He barks out the words like he's trying to copy Coach. “
Hup, hup!
”

“Don't ‘
hup, hup
' me, ball hog,” I mutter.

“Come on, you guys,” Jared says to us, starting to get mad. “The buzzer's gonna sound. Two lines! Then I'll start dribbling, and our side will bust through your side while you try to tackle us.”

“Dude,” Diego says, like he's trying to keep Jared from embarrassing himself. “I think tackling is for football, not basketball. I'm pretty sure it is.”

Diego's right, of course. He reads a lot. He knows stuff.

“Fingertips,” Jared shouts for absolutely no reason at all. “
Hup, hup!
Charge!”

And his wobbly line of pretend basketball players chugs toward the rest of us. But our side is still just wandering around, wondering what we're gonna do next.

So fair, right?

Over on the grass, Marco has scooped up his plastic figures and is cradling them in the bottom of his T-shirt like it's a kangaroo pouch. I can tell he is looking for a nice, quiet escape to the land of peace and quiet. His face is pale.

“Now! Now!” Jared yells at his so-called team as bodies crash together. He is still doing his Coach impersonation. He is crouched pretty low as he dribbles the ball.

But I'm even
lower
to the ground, of course! And so from out of nowhere, I snag the ball, pivot, and then start dribbling it through Jared's broken line of players—who are mostly busy shoving the guys on my team to the ground. Or trying to.

Jason. Nate. Major.

Corey is a superhero, of course. He is dodging left and right like a pinball, and he makes it through Jared's line. “Over here,” he calls to me.

I bounce pass the ball to Corey. He is one of our three best dribblers, remember? And—he catches it!

Away he goes toward the invisible basket.

He would
totally make this shot
if this were a real game.

Corey stops, then spikes the ball in the air like a winner. Which he is.

But—
bzz-z-z!

Recess is over.

“You guys cheated,” Jared bellows over the wriggling pile of players at his feet.

“How did we cheat?” I yell back. “Because we played the game right? Better than you?”

“EllRay and Corey won,” Diego shouts, fist-pumping the air. “Yes-s-s!”

“Not for long,” Jared mutters as we head back to class. “Payback, dude,” he says.

“Payback” means “revenge.” In this case, revenge for nothing! But having someone say it to you is like getting handed an extra backpack to lug around for an unknown period of time.

The “why” part of payback doesn't even matter. Once some kid has threatened it, the arguing
is over. It's just a matter or when, where, and how much.

And somehow, I know Jared was talking to me when he said it.

So heads-up, self.