I lead her past the old bike rack and behind the tree and put my lunch bag down on the bench by the side of the court. “This is where I come.”

She sees the basketball underneath the bench and picks it up. “I never knew about this place,” she says, and starts bouncing the ball. Then she walks slowly up to the basket and takes a shot, pushing the ball with two hands. It hits the front of the rim and rolls away.

“Not like that . . .” I start to say.

“It doesn’t matter,” she tells me. “I’m hungry.”

I get my lunch bag from my satchel and sit next to her on the bench. She has the tray on her lap; it wobbles a little on her knees when she cuts her food.

“How do you know Pete?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer for a minute; she’s busy eating, and I can see her jaw move under her cheek as she chews. Eventually she says, “I guess I’ve always known him. Our moms are friends. They used to . . . when we were babies, they used to put us in the bath together—that’s the kind of story they like to tell, to embarrass us. But I don’t care. He’s like a brother.”

When I don’t say anything, she says, “Is Pete the reason you don’t come to lunch with us anymore?”

“I don’t think he likes me.”

“Pete’s just . . . His dad is one of those real yes-sir, no-sir types of dads. When I’m at his house, Pete has to, like, open the door for me, that kind of thing. I guess he feels like, at school . . .” But then she looks away. “He says to me sometimes, You’re always nice to everybody. It drives him crazy. He gets a little jealous.”

The sun comes through the trees and makes little patches on the bench. I’ve stopped eating my sandwich, but I take a drink of milk from the carton. It sounds like the milk in my throat must make a noise like a bowling ball going down, but really all we can hear is Sam’s lawn mower, the John Deere tractor, driving across the football field about a hundred feet away, and some birds in the trees.

“Come on,” Mabley says. “Let’s shoot around. This chicken’s disgusting.”

“All right,” I tell her, putting my sandwich away. She passes me the ball and I take a shot from the free throw line. It rattles in, and she catches the ball and tries to throw it at the hoop. She sort of throws it like a football, and the ball bounces right back at her off the bottom of the rim.

“You have to give me my change,” I say.

“What?”

“That’s what the kids on the team say during warm-ups. My change—if somebody makes a shot, you have to pass it back to them.”

“Why?”

She stands under the basket, holding the ball like a sack of groceries, and blowing the hair out of her face.