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
“Maybe to you,” she said. “Just not to your grandfather.”
THIRTEEN
After changing his mind a few times, Ryan at least came up with his subject for the paper:
His tennis coach, Mr. Nichols.
There was no tennis team at Claremont Middle School. But there was a summer team at Claremont Country Club, where his family had a membership. And from the time Ryan had joined, he really had been better at tennis than basketball. He was a great natural athlete and, because he was so long, had a powerful serve that seemed to explode down out of the sky at his opponents.
He’d never loved baseball, or lacrosse, the sport Lucas played in the spring and then into the summer with his travel team. But he needed a sport to keep him occupied in the summer. What he did love to do was compete.
The problem was, when he’d started playing matches, he competed way too hard. As intense as he was when he was playing on a team, it was worse when he was alone on a tennis court, when it was just him and his opponent. He’d even broken a racket one time, and gotten defaulted out of the semifinals of a tournament it looked like he was about to win.
Mr. Nichols taught Ryan to channel his emotions in a positive way. He got him playing tennis all year round, and to appreciate what it was like in sports when the only teammate on whom you could rely was yourself. So Ryan would play tournaments in the area in the fall, and then in the spring, and all the way into the summer. He also came to love working with Mr. Nichols, the way Lucas loved working with Gramps.
Ryan was in Lucas’s room on Sunday afternoon when he told him he’d decided on Mr. Nichols as a subject. He asked how it was going with Lucas and Gramps, and Lucas told him he’d decided to move on to a new subject himself, and would probably end up writing about Mr. Collins.
“I’d still rather do one on Gramps,” Lucas said, “but not if he doesn’t want me to. And he really doesn’t want me to.”
“I know Mr. Collins isn’t as important in your life as your Gramps is,” Ryan said. “But I’m sure you’ll write a great paper.” He grinned. “But before you do that, you have to help me at least write a good one, because I feel like it’s match point against me if I don’t.”
Ryan suddenly grabbed his head with his hands. “I just can’t get a C!” he said. “That’s the deal. I keep thinking I could get my mom to slide a little bit on this, because she was a player once. But my dad isn’t budging.”