“Let me be proud of you if I want to be,” she says.

We have a week to prepare for the first round of the playoffs. From that point on, if we lose, that’s it—we can all go home. No more practice after school. No more games on Friday night. But if we win the next game, we have to play another; and if we win that game, too, we have to play another game after that. Five straight wins will make us the state champions.

For the first time all year, Mr. Tomski makes us show up for practice on Saturday—we’ve got the gym all day. It feels weird coming to school with nobody there. The parking lot is empty, the corridors echo. Even the gym feels different. The light coming in the big windows behind the basket is weekend light—you can feel the whole afternoon slipping by outside, while we’re stuck in here. But it’s not a bad feeling, everybody has a job to do, and nothing else matters.

Mr. Tomski decides that we need to get in better shape. We have one star player, Pete Miller, and a lot of average players. But even average players, if they run hard, can cause trouble for a short amount of time. Mr. Tomski plans to use plenty of substitutions. There are kids like Blake and Steve who have hardly played all year, but Mr. Tomski warns them, you better be ready. “A basketball game is two hundred minutes long—that’s how I think about it. You need to put five kids on the court for forty minutes of game time. I need minutes from everybody. That means everybody. Run your hearts out.”

We’re standing at half court. Dust rises in a shaft of sunshine over our heads; everything looks faded, like a black-and-white movie. I’ve got the balls ready, and kids are waiting to hit the layup lines, but Mr. Tomski keeps talking. His voice sounds different in the empty gym, it bounces off the hardwood floors. “Every team we play from here on in is going to be bigger and better and stronger than us. What we have to do is try harder. But don’t worry, we’ve also got a secret weapon. The best player in the city. Maybe the best player I have ever coached.”

I notice that whenever Mr. Tomski says things like this, Pete smiles but also ducks his head and looks away. Like he doesn’t want to think about it.

We have lunch outside on the picnic benches—everybody eats their sandwiches, but Pete sits in a corner and doesn’t talk much. People leave him alone. Around three o’clock, Mr. Tomski lets us out, and we wait in the parking lot for our parents to pick us up. Pete’s mom comes before mine, and I see her get out of the car—she’s wearing heels and wobbles a little when she walks. She calls him honey. “I’m not going to touch you, honey,” she says. “You’re kind of gross right now.”