Chapters (41)
- Cover
- Dedication
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- Also by Mike Lupica
As soon as Ryan had set the pick on Matt, he was gone, reverse-pivoting, on his way back to the low blocks on the left. Instead of driving, Lucas pulled up at the free-throw line, went into his shooting motion as if about to take a jump shot. Travis Brady was in front of Lucas in the lane now, long arms in the air.
They just weren’t long enough.
Lucas elevated as much as he could, which wasn’t a whole lot, and without even looking, passed the ball to Ryan. Ryan caught the ball with the softest hands on the team, chest high, and seemed to shoot it all in one motion. Easy layup, off the backboard, through the net. Practice game over. Ryan came over and gave Lucas a quick high five. They went to get water. If a practice game like this hadn’t gotten them ready for the season, nothing would.
Gramps came over, sat next to Lucas on the bottom row of the bleachers, and put his arm around him.
“I know how hard you work at this, son,” he said. “But I know you’ve got a gift for this game too. And you’ve got to make sure you always honor it.”
“I will,” Lucas said.
The old man pulled him closer.
“Promise me,” he said, his voice suddenly husky.
“Promise,” Lucas said.
“If you don’t,” Gramps said, “you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
Lucas looked up at him. For a moment he thought his tough old grandfather might cry. That was the thing about Gramps, he thought. He could always surprise you, sometimes when you least expected it.
FOUR
Lucas wasn’t a huge fan of all his seventh-grade classes. He loved reading and writing, though. which is the reason Mr. Collins’s English class was his favorite. Nothing else was even close.
Mr. Collins had told them on the first day of class in September that the first rule of being a good writer was being a good reader. And in his conferences with Lucas, he constantly reminded him that being a good writer was a lot like being a good basketball player, or a good athlete in any sport:
The harder you worked at it, the better you got.
It was why, at one of their after-school conferences, Mr. Collins suggested that Lucas start keeping a journal.
“Like one of those ‘Dear Diary’ things?” Lucas said. “No way.”
Mr. Collins grinned.