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Hey, you were asking me for some help with getting the Raptors to your school, right? Have they responded yet?

Well, I gotta go now. Our bus is about to leave and I have to pay for my computer time before they leave me behind.

Just remember, when asking the Raptors to do something for you, try to show that you and your classmates care about others, just like the NBA cares about its fans. That will separate your request from all the others. Good luck.

I'll email you later if I can,

JYD

Well, that explained why I hadn't heard from him. It was so amazing that he was in Africa. Of course, that also meant that he wasn't really able to help us out at this time.

“Nick, you should be asleep. And I hope that computer is off,” shouted my mom from the other room.

I quickly pushed the button to turn the computer off. “It's off…good night,” I replied.

Chapter Eleven

The gym was alive with the sound of squeaking shoes and bouncing balls. I loved those sounds. We had started playing basketball in gym class, so it was like getting double the practice. I really did love basketball.

Lailah was at the far end of the gym. She was coming to all our games now. It was good to have fans, but having her there made me a little nervous.

Lailah put up a shot. It dropped—nothing but net. Nice shot. Or lucky shot.

“Pretty unbelievable, huh?” Kia asked.

I was jolted out of my thoughts. I felt so embarrassed that Kia had caught me looking.

“What?” I asked.

“Her.”

Lailah put up a second shot and it dropped. “Lucky,” I said.

“What are you talking about?” Kia asked.

“What are
you
talking about?”

“Isn't it obvious? The fancy clothing, the strange, thinks-she's-
so-
cool hairstyle, those super-long, ridiculous nails, and now she's
trying
to play basketball.”

Lailah put up a third shot and it dropped as well.

“Lucky shot,” Kia said.

“That's what I meant, but that's three in a row so maybe it's more than luck.”

“Even you've made three in a row.”

“Funny.” But semi-true. I could take Kia one-on-one, but in a straight shooting match, especially free throws, she was hard to beat.

Lailah dropped in her fourth shot. If that was luck, she was very lucky. But honestly, her shooting form was really good…almost perfect.

“You better not get into a game of horse against her. If you lose, it might be even
more
embarrassing for you to be around her,” Kia said.

“I can take her…what do you mean
more
embarrassing?”

“Nothing. She just made her fifth shot in a row,” Kia replied.

“Maybe it should be you who's afraid to play against her…or…Come with me.”

I led Kia over to where Lailah was shooting. She put up another shot and made her sixth in a row.

“Nice shot,” I said.

“I'm more than a pretty face, you know.”

She was definitely a pretty face. I felt myself starting to blush. “You can shoot the ball. Do you play basketball?”

“I used to.”

“You used to?” I asked.

“I like watching it on tv, and playing it is okay, I guess. And I do like coming to
your
games.”

She smiled sweetly and I started blushing harder. I couldn't let anybody notice that— I snapped myself back to reality.

As she was talking, she was dribbling the ball and looking at
me
and not the ball. Then she crossed it over through her legs! She had crazy ball control. That put her ahead of almost everybody on the school team. I thought about going away and talking to Kia first about what I was going to say next, but I knew she'd object and get mad. So I just went for it. “You know, we still have a spot open on the basketball team.”

Kia's eyes widened in shock. She obviously hadn't seen that one coming, but she quickly recovered. “That's Greg's spot. He'll be back in a game or two.”

“Even with him we still have one spot open. We can carry twelve.”

“Do you really think I'm good enough?” Lailah asked.

“You shoot better than most of the guys on the team.”

She hesitated. “I know, but…it just seems so strange—a girl playing on the boys' team.”

Kia made a huffing sound.

“I was thinking about trying out for the girls' team, maybe.”

“You can play for both,” I said. “The girls' season starts when our season ends.”

“Does she do that?” Lailah asked, pointing at Kia.

“She does not,” Kia answered.

“But she could,” I said. “You could too. I don't see any reason why you couldn't try out for—”

“Except for those nails,” Kia said, cutting me off. “There's no way you'd be allowed to play with those nails because you could scratch somebody.”

“They're fake,” she said. “I could easily take them off and get them replaced after the season.”

“So you're going to try out?” I asked.

“Maybe.”

“You could talk to Mr. Roberts, or I could talk to him for you, if you want.”

“That would be so sweet of you.” She paused.

“And Nicky, thanks for thinking about me.”

I felt my whole body blush.

Chapter Twelve

Mr. Wills appeared at the classroom door, holding a large box. He knocked and walked in. Mrs. Orr stopped teaching and we all turned toward him.

“Second delivery for Nick,” he said.

For a split second I had the terrible thought that it was the box we'd sent to the Raptors and they'd just sent it back to us. But I could see it was a different box. It was a little bit smaller and a slightly different color cardboard.

“It's from the Raptors,” he said as he put it down on my desk.

“What is it?” I gasped.

“Only one way to find out. Open it.”

I stood up and started to try to undo the tape sealing it shut, but it was pretty strong.

“Let me,” Mr. Wills said. He pulled out a box cutter and ran it along the top of the box, splitting the tape in two.

I opened the flaps. It was filled with those little white packing noodles. I pushed some aside and there was a basketball peeking up at me. I pulled it out. It was a beautiful, leather, official NBA ball with the Spalding emblem on it!

I held it up high for the whole class to see.

“And look, it's signed!”

The class reacted with cheers.

I rotated it slowly to look at all the signatures. I quickly found Wayne's, and beside his signature he'd written
#4
, his jersey number.

“Is there a letter?” Mrs. Orr asked.

I looked into the box and rustled around in the noodles. “I don't see one.”

Mr. Wills tapped the side of the box. “It's right here.”

I spun the box around. There was an envelope attached to the side. I pulled it off, opened it up and unfolded the page.

“Read it out loud,” Kia suggested.

I took a deep breath. Here we go again with all this reading. I really liked reading but not necessarily out loud and in front of a whole audience.

“‘Hello, Nick and everybody else at Clark Boulevard Public School. Thank you for all the wonderful paintings, poems, posters, drawings and stories, not to mention the great song. In all my years in this job I have never seen a school so committed to the Raptors, and it's great that your school teams will be called the Raptors next year. We would like you to use this signed basketball as your official school ball and place it in your school's trophy case.' ”

That's right, the ball wasn't just for me, even though the box was addressed to me—and everybody else really. It was a school ball.

“‘Since you have shown that you are really a one-in-a-million school—well, let's make that a one-in-a-thousand—I would like to offer a visit by a Raptor—' ”

Everybody jumped to their feet and burst into screams and cheers before I could read the rest of the sentence. Right now they were all excited and happy, but I knew different. I'd read a few words ahead.

Kia looked at me questioningly. She knew something was wrong.

“‘…by a Raptor sometime in the future!' ” I yelled out. “Sometime in the future!” I yelled louder, and the cheering suddenly stopped and the room got quieter again—deadly quiet.

“‘I would like to offer a visit by a Raptor
sometime in the future
. We might even be able to send the mascot this year. I just wish there was a spot available for a Raptors player, but we can't schedule any more visits this year and we don't pre-schedule visits for next year. We encourage your school to contact us again in June, when we start to schedule visits for next year. While there are no guarantees, Clark Boulevard will certainly be considered. If we're able to fit you into the schedule, I'd like you to save me a big piece of pizza! Go Raptors Go! Christina.' ”

“That is wonderful news!” Mrs. Orr beamed. “It sounds like somebody from the Raptors will be coming next year or even this year!”

“This year would only be the mascot, not a Raptor,” Kia said.

“That's still exciting,” Mrs. Orr said. “And he is a very good mascot, isn't he?”

“Yeah, I really like him,” I admitted. “He does lots of cool things…but it's not like having a Raptor.”

“They did say there was the possibility of a player coming to the school.”

“
Next
year, when none of us are going to be at this school,” Kia added.

Mrs. Orr looked surprised. “I'm sorry, I didn't even think about that. You'll all be in middle school…but it is wonderful news for the rest of the school.”

“But not for us,” Kia added. “We'll all be gone.”

“Perhaps we can arrange for you all to come back that day to visit,” Mrs. Orr suggested.

“Seventy-five of us?” Kia asked.

“I'm sure we can work it out.”

“That is if they even come,” Greg said. “She was saying maybe, no guarantees.”

He was right.

“Regardless, you all should still be proud of yourselves. You not only wrote to a business but kept on writing and doing things until you achieved your goal,” Mrs. Orr said.

She was right—we had sort of achieved our goal. The Raptors mascot was coming. Maybe.

The whole room was quiet. We'd tried everything, but we'd still lost. Or had we tried everything? Maybe we could…could…I had nothing left. We'd already done everything, and I was out of ideas. I looked over at Kia. She held up her hands and shrugged.

Chapter Thirteen

“Okay, everybody, let's settle down!” Mr. Roberts yelled, and the change room became quiet.

“Congratulations on our sixth win of the season,” he said to accompanying hoots and hollers.

“That was a real team effort. We kept clawing our way back like cougars.”

“Or like Raptors!” Kia said.

“Or like Raptors,” Mr. Roberts said. “Either way, there was no quit in anybody, and we won the way we've won all year. Never quitting, never giving up and coming from behind to win at the end.”

It had been another nail-biter. A three-point win at the end after being down by ten points when there was less than ten minutes left. Somehow it was relaxing playing on a team where we weren't supposed to win but kept winning. This win made us six and two for the season. Not a perfect year but way beyond where we should have been.

“This was a real team effort,” Mr. Roberts said again, “with efforts from every member of the team, including our newest member, Lailah.”

She got up and bowed, and people clapped and cheered. Lailah had scored four points, and since we won by three, it was really her points that won it for us.

“It was also great to have Greg playing his second game of the season!” Mr. Roberts said.

More cheers erupted and Greg waved. He was still a little rusty after being gone so long, but he'd played more minutes and better than he had the first game. He'd chipped in a couple of points and some rebounds, and, more importantly, having him back let Kia and me take a little more rest during the game. That meant at the end we still had something in the tank, and that was a big part of why we'd come back.

“And that was another outstanding performance from our co-captains. Nick, with sixteen points, and our leading scorer, Kia, with eighteen.”

Again there was more cheering.

“Between the play of Kia and Lailah, it looks like what this team really needs is more girls,” Mr. Roberts said. “It must be nice for you, Kia, to finally have another girl on the team.”

“Yeah, sure,” she said. She didn't sound that enthusiastic.

The two of them had learned to sort of get along together. At least they weren't openly fighting anymore. It was all more subtle now—a look or expression, or things that they
didn't
say. Like the way Kia didn't say how wonderful it was to have Lailah play.

“I'm so proud of this team,” Mr. Roberts said.

“Proud enough to give us the morning off?” Greg asked.

“The reason this team keeps winning is that we don't take any time off. Not a minute off, and not a practice off. I'll see you all tomorrow at seven thirty sharp. Great game and go home!”

I picked up my bag and followed everybody out of the change room, down the hall and out into the schoolyard. Parents were waiting to pick up kids at the door, and others were going to walk home.

I looked at my watch. My mother would be here in ten minutes to pick up Kia and me. She'd only been to one of my games all year. Her new job meant that she wasn't as available to come to games. Before this she'd basically been at every game I'd ever played, and it was strange not to have her there. And most of the time, even if she couldn't come, my father would have been there. But he had hardly even been home in the last month—his job had him traveling all over the place.