I moved in the middle of the winter, so gym classes were now playing basketball. From what I've gathered, gym classes are full of try hards, good athletes, average athletes, terrible athletes, and people who didn't even move at all during the games. I always hated when people around me didn't even attempt to try at least a little in life. So, when I befriended the laziest person I had ever met, I for one was shocked.
My class broken into groups of five students for a mini-tournament. There were two games going on at a time, one game per court. Since that meant only twenty students were playing at a time two teams had to sit out. I was on one of those teams. Knowing the game of basketball made it more interesting to watch. I hadn't really made any good friends by my second day at this school, so I wasn't one of the people gossiping.
I directed my eyes to court B where a game was in full swing. Team one had four boys and one girl. The girl was pretty and the guys accepted her openly, and eye candy for their game. She wasn't really going to do much, but she also wasn't going to do nothing. Team two had three boys and two girls. The one girl looked like she would be good at another sport like soccer. I assumed she would put in a little effort, for gym class anyway.
Then, there was the last girl of court B. She struck me as odd, with her messily long blonde hair covering her face and twisted gym clothes. At first she would run maybe half the way that everyone else was. Somewhere in the second quarter she gave up and just sat down, in the middle of the court!
“Ugh! Come on! Aren't you going to do anything?!” One of the try hards of team two yelled down at her as he had the ball. At that moment I thought he looked familiar. He was shorter than me and had strawberry blonde hair that fell more towards the orange side. It took me a minute, but I realized that he was one of the boys that was in the gymnasium the night before. Yeah, he was on the boys basketball team.
“Meh…” The girl mumbled.
“Get up and at least pretend to do something!” He rolled his eyes.
“Nuf,” was the sound that made it out of the girl’s mouth. I would say she reminded me off a toddler, but it was something less mannered and educated than that. Her long hair touched the filthy ground and she rested her arms against her knees. I was pretty sure that her eyes were closed under there too. She had no care for what was going on around her at all. Even the teacher started yelling at her, but she stayed unchanged.
“Jeez,” The strawberry blonde boy was beyond done with her. “Just do something!” He chucked the basketball at her.
Right before it collided with her head she moved her arm and punched the ball upwards. The strange girl stood back on her feet and the ball bounced beside her. Around the third bounce she picked it up. “Ouch,” She muttered out loud.
A boy from the other team came on to guard her, “You have to dribble or pass it, or you will lose the ball.” He gave her a second before he did anything, fairly giving a lesser player a change. Still, she showed no interest. “God, you really do suck!” He exclaimed turning heads from the other game and on the sidelines with me. They stopped what they were doing to watch and laugh at her.
The boy jumped at her to take the ball away. In an almost inhuman manner, she moved the ball behind her back and away from him. He leaned around her side to get it, but again she moved it out of his grasp. This time the girl decided the hold the ball under her little legs. Everytime he would try, she would find a new place to keep the ball away from him. He became frustrated, “You seriously suck! Here’s a hint, move you feet.”
The girl knew that as long as she stood there she could keep possession of the ball. It seemed to me that his words were annoying her so much that she couldn't do what she naturally wanted to do, which was nothing. “You suck!” He repeated.
She flared her head up and made eye contact with the boy for a split second, “Do I now?” She made the first coherent sentence that I would hear from her. With anger she bounced the basketball on the ground once and passed by him. Bending her small, skinny legs she pushed herself off of the ground. Even though her height was rather short, she managed to dunk the ball straight into the net. Her pure anger was powering her.
She fell back to the ground and sat down right after her feet touched the court. The whole class was utterly confused, but wrote it off as something weird. Meanwhile, I was enjoying the single move that girl made the whole game. She felt no desire to play or even watch the game. She sat near the sidelines with her hair covering her eyes.
I looked around at my peers that were around me in groups. It seemed as if I didn’t fit in any of those groups. I shrugged and stood up. When I tapped on the girl’s shoulder she didn't even turn back to look at me, “Meh?” she moaned.
“Hey,” I bent down. “What you did before, are you capable of that all the time?” I got no response, so I laughed. “Okay, so… What’s your name then? Mine’s Jade Green.”
“Hannah.”
I sat down behind her, because I couldn't go on to the court next to her. “You know, that boy said that you sucked Hannah, but I don’t agree at all. There is absolutely no way some with that kind of prude power could suck.”
“Ye.”
“I’m playing my game soon. Could you do me a favor and watch? I wanna show you what I’m capable of.”
“Why?” She questioned lowly.
“Because you are capable of a lot, with one move I can tell.” I patted her on the back and stood up again. The whistle blew and her game ended. Hannah didn't get off the court until I was already in the middle ready to play my game. That girl sure was strange. Maybe it was just luck that helped her on that one dunk, but maybe she was as talented as I saw she was. I kept that thought in the back of my head for the rest of the day.
~~~~~
"What can you?" One of the boys on the team I ended up on asked me. There were three other girls who were all friends with each other. The boy and I were the outsiders here.
"Well, I have a lot of control over my speed and stuff. Plus, I'm not that bad at shooting either."
He nodded, "Okay, I'll pass it to you if I get it."
I gave him a pity smile, "Thanks." The boy was quite a few inches shorter than me. He had shaggy jet black hair and a smaller build for a boy. He also seemed very out of his element when he talked to me. My team definitely did not look the strongest. I reminded myself that this is was gym basketball, and it didn't really matter. I just couldn't pass up the chance to play basketball, so I was most likely going to take it seriously. I couldn't help it.
"Hey!" I called out the group of girls. "Can you guys spread out? If I hit the ball get it, okay?"
"Yeah, whatever." One of the girls flashed me a dirty look and slid over about a centimeter. I assumed that was the best I was going to get.
I went into the center for the face off, because I was the tallest person on my team. I was aware at the time, but feet and legs were shaking from excitement. "Hi," I said to the gym teacher as he held the ball in front of me and the boy I as against.
He looked at me and rolled his eyes. The teacher put the whistle in his mouth, blew it, and threw the basketball up in the air.
I jumped as high as I could, "Ha!" I let out and tipped the ball down. It bounced once on the floor without anyone touching. It spun towards one of the girls on my team, but she didn't move to get it. It bounced in front of her, and someone from the other team was able to slip in and get it. "Bah-" I felt like crying, but I had to go guard.
I ran after the boy who had picked up the ball, and just barely caught up. Once I got to him, he passed it off to a girl on his team, "Carly, shoot!" He instructed her and she did. It was sloppy, but since I was pretty much the only one guarding, she made it in.
"Darn," I mumbled to myself and went to get the basketball.
"Hey," The boy from before called out to me in a quiet voice.
"Yeah?" I asked setting myself up at the end of the court.
"Get open," He instructed me and held his hands up for the pass. I was caught a little off guard, but the boy appeared to know something about basketball. I threw the ball to him and ran to the opposite side of the court. We were on the offensive now, and I wasn't holding back.
"Here!" I called out as I made a cut away from, uh- Carly, the girl who was guarding me. The boy faked left like he was passing to the other girl on our team, but then threw it perfectly into my hands.
"Nice," I started dribbling, which meant I couldn't go full speed. I run so fast that it's hard for me to dribble at the speed needed to avoid double stepping. As a player tried to guard my drive, I switched the ball through my hands and rolled around him. With my right hand I jumped up for a clean layup, and made it in off the backboard.
I waited for some kind of praise from my assist, but it never came. Even though he said some words to me, I could already this boy was much for talking. We went back on defense and continued playing the best we could without actually getting tired.
At the end of our little game, the score was fourteen to six. We were the winners. Some day soon we are going to play the victors of the game on court A.
"..." The boy stood in my path towards the girls locker room. I wondered if he was going to say something to me. It took him a second, "You're that girl right? The one joined the basketball team?"
"Yeah, you heard about that? I didn't think basketball was popular in this school... Considering there's no team for girls. But I guess word get around."
He stared at me, "I'm on the basketball team."
"What?!" I was genuinely surprised, "But I didn't see you yesterday, at least I don't think I did. Well, I'll see you later then..." I slipped passed him, "Wait, what was your name?" He mumbled something back, but I couldn't hear him at all.
I started changing back into my school clothes near the back corner of the locker room. Hannah came up next to me. Even when she was standing up her hair blocked her eyes. I don't know how she could walk at all. "Hey," I stated after realizing she was there.
"Hm."
"Did you watch me play? Whatcha think?" I asked excitedly. "I'm on the basketball team now."
"Oh," she pulled up the jeans she was wearing for the rest of the day. She rolled them over at the top, and they were still big on her.
"Yeah," I sighed, "It's an all boys team, so it would be nice to have another girl."
She paused, "Not me."
I laughed with a smirk, "Now I wasn't suggesting you. But, clearly you want to play."
"No."
"Since you insist, I might talk to my coach about it." I put a hoodie on over my shirt as the bell rang. I widened my eyes, "Bye Hannah."
"Meh."
ns 15.158.61.8da2
