Hey, Coach! ch. 4

You always want to head off to school with something to look forward to.  If lunch was subs from Silio's, well, that was something.  If it was badminton instead of indoor archery, this was a good thing as well.  Toby and Randall were fun to play with on wednesdays, Wes and Henry were fun on thursdays because it was art and they were so bad at clay and painting it was like a regular comedy skit on TV.  But to head off to school with the greatest disappointment in your life up this point was something else and the hours already seemed to melt into one another, dragging out until the very end, when Scotty would have to go find Little Brother down in the Spanish room and head into after school.  Basketball sign up was a week away. Scotty was stuck in a room with a bunch of loud kids watching very unusual stuff on their phones and then acting it out, taking pictures of it all, then giggling about that on top of everything.  Most of all the other kids at after school knew Scotty as the basketball player.  There wasn't much he could do about this, he found himself at recess, when the weather was good, out shooting and creating new moves for himself, picturing, as always, defenders much taller than himself trying to guard him.  Inside, he'd carry a ball around, wondering if he could slip over to the Dome to play for a few minutes in between the end of school and pick up.  The other kids didn't exactly make fun of him for this, none of them could really play anything, but they also didn't understand why that's all he did.  Lunch was two chicken tenders and mashed potatoes.  The parent volunteer for the day tried to scoop some mandarin oranges on the little side slot of his throw away tray, but he said no and skipped the cookies too.  As he sat down Scotty could hear the squeaking of shoes from over the side of the rail and heard the familiar sound of the basketball net swoosh, a few dribbles around, another swoosh, then another, no misses.  Must be a high schooler down there at this time of day.  There was kid by the name of Todd Seager who was practically famous city-wide, leading the entire conference with 16 points per game and could dribble like a machine.  Scotty dipped his chicken tender in the ketchup one more time, took his last bite and walked over to the side of the rail overlooking the court.  It wasn't a high school boy down there, that was for sure, it was a girl, and she wasn't in high school.