Once again Derek was the first kid to arrive in the gym. Coach Nelson looked up and grinned. “I shouldn’t be surprised,” he said, coming over to shake hands. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Jeter. Mrs. Jeter, good to see you again. And you are… ?”

“Sharlee! I’m Derek’s sister!”

“Well, nice to meet you, too, Sharlee.”

“I can play basketball too!”

“I’ll bet you can,” said the coach with a smile. Then he turned to Derek. “You ready?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How’s the neck?”

Derek had to laugh. “It’s good! Thanks for asking.”

“Well, make yourselves comfortable. Here, Derek. Take this ball and put up a few shots while you’re waiting.”

Once the other kids arrived, the coaches formed them up into two teams for the scrimmage. The traveling team season was due to begin the following week, and this would serve as their final preparation.

So it was a surprise to them—and an unpleasant surprise to several—that some kid who wasn’t even on the team was going to play in their scrimmage. A younger kid—an under-12!

There were several murmured comments and hard looks that Derek noticed. He hadn’t even thought about that part of being here.

On the other hand, it didn’t change a thing for him. He wasn’t here to impress them—he was here to outwork them!

The scrimmage began with Derek on the bench. He watched as his team—in the yellow pinnies—took the jump ball from the blue pinnies and moved upcourt.

His team was just that—a team. The players knew exactly where to position themselves. They were executing a play they must have drilled in practice.

Now Derek had something else to worry about—how was he going to run the offense at point guard without knowing any of the plays?

Coach Nelson hadn’t said a word to Derek about it. Yet the starting point guard had shouted out “Duke! Duke!” and right away, the forwards had set picks at either side of the foul line, and the center had moved under the basket. It was like clockwork.

The blueshirts did the same on offense. Both teams were using man-on-man defenses, so the game had a slow pace. There was no time clock, of course, so the guards did a lot of dribbling, looking for the open man to pass to—or else driving and dishing off when the double-team came.

Derek sat there, observing all this as the game went on. It was an intense scrimmage with plenty of personal fouls. Derek saw that ten minutes had run off the clock. Yet he’d been sitting on the bench for almost twenty.

He began to wonder when he would ever get his chance. Already, there had been a few substitutions by each team. Derek found himself nervously tapping his toes, drumming on his knees with his hands, getting antsier by the minute.