Hey, Coach! ch. 13

"He stayed away until we were in the middle of our roast beef.  Then he came in carrying Dribble's bowl. He walked right up to Mrs. Yarby. He thought she was his new friend. 'See,' he said, holding Dribble under her nose. 'See Dribble.'" – Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing








Of course Little Brother and The Girl quickly became thick as thieves.  2:15 had come, father had been home no longer than 20 minutes, and mother had brought outside a small little bag of Chips Ahoy not realizing that a team full of kids where out on the court lined up stick straight as a military unit taking orders from an older girl she had never seen before. Scotty fell in line, what else could be done? "The first thing to think about, boys," The Girl emphasized boys, "is to be on time.  If we say 2:00, that is exactly the time that we mean." Matt and Tyler were the two tallest of the group and they stood in the middle of the line looking at one another with very large question marks in their eyes, eyelashes blinking.  Will, Trent and Henry stood down at the end of the line, weaving back and forth. Nobody knew The Girl except for Scotty and Little Brother, they hadn't even been told that they were here for anything other than a comfortable chair down in the basement accompanied by a new style of joystick that was supposed to be virtually intuitive, "like a second skin, you won't have to think at all!" was what the commercials said anyway.  Now they were being scolded by a tall girl who was describing to them the history of basketball.  Scotty grinned and looked her right inside the eyes and without blinking nodded in agreement with every word.  "The game of basketball came from a challenge to make physical education more interesting, more healthy than what kids had at the turn of the century." Little Brother stood behind her and handed her a cookie at intervals.  He took a picture here and there to record the first practice, to be choreographed later on and planted on the new team app.  That was if there was a team after this.  There were no questions being asked yet, but this would last only so long before the dream of it floated away and the boys started to lose concentration which was, usually, about 3.2 seconds and counting.  "Form two lines facing the basket.  The right side dribbles the ball with their right hand, when you get to the basket, you go off of your left foot." She sunk down in a stance and showed the boys the proper way to dribble.  "When dribbling, you keep your head up, always.  You are looking for somebody else to pass the ball to. This is not a head down and dribble sport." She looked over at Tyler, who had far surpassed his 3.2 seconds and now was in the quintuple digits of having to stand in one place thinking about the same thing, "why do we dribble with our head up?" She had come over and placed her hand on Tyler's shoulder.  Tyler was around 4 foot - nine and had the face of a choir boy singing alongside an organ being played by the elderly Ms. Moffit.  "Um, ah, you dribble the ball to the hoop to shoot it?"
"Second thing. First, we practice on time. The second, you listen when the coach talks." Now, nobody in the 10 years had really spoken to any of these boys quite like that.  Maybe an occasional shout up the stairs to "let's get moving," or maybe a "what in the world happened here?" but the utter surprise of The Girl standing there directly inside their personal space asking questions was life-altering.  "You dribble in order to pass, in order to get a high percentage shot!" She quickly looked over to Scotty in disbelief.  He stood forward, "Hey, Coach! should we give the guys here their positions?" It was at that moment, no time before, that the rest of them knew that they were now on a team. They had a court to play on.  And now, finally, they had a coach.