At the end of practice, I walk around the court with a big sack and put the balls away for the last time. The basketball office is next to the locker room, so I carry all the equipment through and dump it on the floor. The door swings shut behind me. Some of the boys come into the locker room. I can hear them talking.

“I don’t even know why he’s here,” somebody says.

“He’s always carrying that clipboard around.” It’s Pete’s voice. “It’s kind of creepy. I’m, like, get away from me. You’re not the coach.”

I wait for a minute, until they go off to the showers, before walking out again.

Mom is supposed to pick me up at the gym. There isn’t a school bus at six o’clock, so most kids need a ride. At first, I think she must have forgotten, but then I hear her saying, loud enough so everyone can hear, “Look at you. My basketball boy.” She’s been talking to Mr. Tomski.

Pete’s just coming out of the locker room with wet hair. His face looks pink and hot from the shower. “Hey,” he says to me, but quietly, so nobody can hear. “That’s a good name for you. Ball Boy.” He means like those kids at a tennis match who have to run around and get the balls for everybody else, who don’t even play. And then he calls out, “Hey, Mrs. Michaels. Ben did great,” and he says to me, so Mom can hear him, “See ya tomorrow, Ben.”

“You hear that?” Mom says to me as we walk to the parking lot. “You’re already making new friends. Pete Miller’s a real popular kid. Even I know that.”

When we get in the car, Mom’s still talking about it. “I told you that you’d have a good time. Didn’t I? And you didn’t want to go. Sometimes I’m right, sometimes I know even better than you do, what makes you happy.”

I don’t say anything. After our fight at lunchtime, I don’t want to pick another fight. I don’t want to tell her, Mom, I hate it here and I hate the basketball team. I hate everything. I want to go back to New York. Or London, or anywhere else. Mom looks happy for me, and I don’t have the heart to tell her, nobody likes me. Whenever I’m around other people, they all wish I wasn’t.

Sixteen

IN TEXAS IN JANUARY, there are warm days and cold days—wet days and dry days. You never can tell what you’re going to get. But it doesn’t matter to me. Every lunchtime, I take my brown paper bag to the basketball court behind Sam’s hut, sit on the bench, and eat my sandwiches.

Afterward, I like to shoot baskets. The ball is always where I’ve left it the day before: under the bench. Whenever a shot goes in, I imagine making a check by my name on the clipboard Mr. Tomski gives me during practice. Whenever I miss, I imagine an X.