“Everybody should know these things by now. Still, it can’t hurt to be reminded.”

But somehow the players keep making mistakes. Mr. Tomski loses his temper. Eventually, he calls over to me—I’ve been sitting on one of the bleachers by the side of the court, just watching.

“Get on out here, Ben. Do you know the plays?”

“Yes, sir. I think I do.”

“Thinking’s got nothing to do with it. You know or you don’t. Okay, now, show these people where they need to be.”

And for the next half hour, I run through the plays with Pete and everybody else. Almost like I’m part of the team. Nobody bounces the basketball or takes a shot, but we pass it to each other, back and forth, and move around the court as Mr. Tomski tells us to.

I’m wearing long trousers and my heavy school shoes. Usually I don’t need to get changed after practice, but by the time we finish I’m in a real sweat.

Mom drives me home afterward. It’s still light enough that she lets me play in the backyard for a few minutes before dinner. I can hear Mabley jumping on the trampoline next door. It makes a kind of thump and twanging sound when she’s out there. So I walk over to the bamboo hedge and crawl into my little hiding place between the leaves.

I can watch Mabley flying through the air, twisting and spinning and turning somersaults. She isn’t smiling—she has to concentrate too hard for that—but somehow she looks happy anyway. She looks like she’s showing off.

Then she slows down, bouncing more and more gently each time, and somebody else climbs on to the trampoline. It’s Pete Miller. I hear him say, “You’re going to get yourself killed, jumping like that,” and then they both start trampolining together. Pete isn’t bad, but Mabley can make him fall over whenever she wants, which makes her laugh. He doesn’t seem to mind.

For a while I just sit there, hoping that Mabley will notice me and ask me to come over. And then I hope that she won’t, and that Pete won’t either, that nobody will see me. The sun is going down, it’s a warm evening, and everything glows a little and looks strange, and I feel like, I don’t belong here, this isn’t my place, nobody really wants me around. I watch them until Granma calls me in to supper. Mom has gone out with “the girls” again—it’s just another Wednesday night.

Twenty-Three

ON FRIDAY MORNING, Mom takes my arm on the way to the bus stop, like she’s an old lady and I’m helping her along. “Now, I don’t want you to get excited. But your father has a conference in Houston—he flew in last night. I told him about your game.”

“Wait, what? Dad’s here? But it’s not my game. I’m not playing.”

“I told him about your game,” she goes on, ignoring me, “but I don’t know if he can make it, I don’t know what his schedule is. Anyway, you’ll see him sometime this weekend.”