Young Writers Society

A/n: pRRrrrRRrRRReeviously on King of the Court . . . Alex has some memories. Then he gets attacked by Thea. Then Alex and Dwayne decide to have a showdown in which Alex brutally destroys Dwayne. Then the coach appears, too. He isn't that funny, though. And also Dwayne declares he's center. 

[Chapter 2]

[Conditioning]

Spencer frowns, inwardly thinking, He is kind of short. Didn’t the coach say that centers are tall players?

Colin begins to ask, “Wait, but isn’t Dwayne-”

“If he wants to play center and he can play center, then I don’t see why he shouldn’t,” Coach Jacob interrupts Colin adamantly, “I personally don’t see any problem with it.”

“But Spencer could-”

Coach Jacob pats Colin on the shoulder, “Quiet down for a second. Consider this my first lesson for you guys.”

Spencer perks up, along with everyone else.

“Basketball, like basically every sport, has a strong foundation of rules,” Jacob says, “But there's a difference between following the rules, and following the random common things that most people do.”

“What do you mean?” asks Alex. Clearly, Alex is intrigued, because Spencer can see wide eyes on Alex’s face that hadn't been there before.

“Just because centers are usually tall doesn’t mean that they have to be. Just because small teams are usually weak ones doesn’t mean they have to be. That’s just the norm. Sure, centers could be better if they’re tall, and a bigger team means more substitutes, and less energy expended. But are you going to let that beat you up? A few inches and some extra stamina?”

Dwayne laughs, “No way! Anyways, let's play some basketball! Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on!”

Chris narrows his eyes at Dwayne, and Dwayne noticeably shrinks a bit, still whispering: ‘Come on, come on, come on’.

“We’ve first gotta hold the tryouts, though,” says Jacob, putting down his stuff and grabbing a ball from the rack, “So first thing’s first. Before we do anything basketball related, we have to do something really important.”

“What is it?” asks Spencer, mystified that a basketball coach is saying that something unrelated to basketball is more important than basketball itself.

Jacob smiles, not warmly, but in a passively sinister way, “Run laps until I tell you to stop.”

. . .

“. . . conditioning,” Chris growls, breathing heavily. After nine laps, it still doesn’t look like Jacob is anywhere near stopping them. Every single part of Chris’s body is screaming at him.

“Huh?” Colin asks, while gasping for air.

“It’s such a . . . nice . . . sounding word,” Chris says, speaking between gasps, “But in . . . reality . . . it’s such a . . . painful . . . thing!”

“Keep going!” he hears Jacob yell, “Or we’ll never get to practice!”

Chris notices that Dwayne begins to run considerably faster. Is that kid insane? Chris thinks disdainfully. Chris’s legs are sore, and his clothes are beginning to moisten from the sweat. His lungs feel as if they’re collapsing inward, squeezing all the oxygen out of Chris’s body.

Finally, after twelve interminable laps, Chris hears the Fweeeeet! of Jacob’s whistle.

In relief, Chris collapses onto the floor. He isn’t sure when was the last time he felt so amazing.

“Get off the ground,” calls Jacob, “Come over here.”

All five players struggle off the ground and crawl/walk over to Jacob.

“Have you ever heard that joke?” Jacob asks cheerfully. Chris is almost one-hundred-percent sure that his older brother is enjoying watching his players feel pain. That’s essentially what siblings are, after all. Monsters that torture you and happen to have the same last name.

“What joke?” Chris asks, “It doesn’t matter what it is, though, because nothing you say is funny.”

This time, Jacob actually ignores him, “It goes like this: A man is banging his head on a wall. Another man comes over and asks him why he’s banging his head on the wall. ‘So that it’ll feel good when I stop’, he replies.”

Alex raises his hand, “I don’t think that was very funny.”

“Me neither,” Colin adds, and Chris smirks despite himself.

“The point wasn’t to make you laugh!” roars Jacob. He throws his hands up, finally giving up.

“When are we going to play basketball?” Dwayne asks, “It better be now!”

“Go and play. I’ll just watch. By the way, we’ll be practicing right after school every day until five. If you don't like that schedule then screw you,” Jacob says, grabbing his whistle and sitting down on a chair near the wall. Everyone pauses for a moment, unsure what to do.

“I- . . . I made it onto the basketball team!” Spencer says, breaking the silence. Chris can see his eyes start to moisten.

“Did you think you weren’t?” Chris says dryly, “There are only five of us. If you didn’t make the team we wouldn’t even be able to play.”

“Shut up,” Alex whispers from behind him.

Chris isn’t amused, “I’m just being realistic.”

“How about this!” Dwayne shouts, suddenly appearing very smug, as if he knows a deadly secret, “Me and Alex versus the rest of you!”

“I don’t mind,” Chris shrugs. Alex is probably pretty good at basketball, considering that Dwayne chose him over everyone else, but it’s nothing Chris can’t handle.

He grabs one of the basketballs off the ground and starts to dribble. Chris doesn’t particularly like basketball. He doesn’t hate it either, but he knows he definitely won’t pursue it seriously after middle school. After all, he knows that real talent is required to play in college and professional level basketball.

“Are you going to start?” Dwayne asks, hopping up and down. Chris picks up the ball and immediately passes it left, to Colin, since the other option, Spencer is clearly a beginner. Alex reacts faster than Chris expected, and manages to cut off a drive to the hoop. Colin dribbles around a bit, but Alex adamantly shuts him down.

Distressed, Colin throws the ball over to Chris, who dashes to the left to catch it. Dwayne is fast too, rushing up right in front of Chris as fast as possible. Luckily, Chris has a few tricks.

He raises the ball up, as if he’s going to shoot, and Dwayne jumps to block him. Chris, however, ducks back down and dribbles past Dwayne, and takes a shot before Alex can get to him.

Swish.

The ball falls straight in.

Everyone is silent.

“Woah!” Spencer cries, breaking the silence again, “That was so cool! I really hope I can do something like that someday!”

“Hey!” Dwayne says, furious, “Stickman! That was a travel!”

. . .

Alex watches in annoyance as the two of them start to yell at each other. Chris may seem calm, but he’s as stubborn as the rest of us, Alex thinks, crossing his arms.

“It was not a travel.”

“Yes it was!”

“No it wasn’t.”

“Yes it was!”

“What’s a travel?” Spencer shouts, shutting up both Dwayne and Chris.

“It’s when you move around without dribbling,” Colin says a-matter-of-factly, but quickly backing up. Alex can tell that he’s definitely scared of the two hotheads now.

Dwayne nods, “Exactly! That’s exactly what this guy did! He jumped and didn’t shoot!”

“That looked like a pump fake to me,” Alex adds, earning a glare from Dwayne.

“Right? I didn’t jump at all,” Chris smirks.

Dwayne crouches and growls, as if to attack Chris.

“Dwayne, wait,” Alex looks at Chris’s feet, “I think I know why you mistook Chris’s pump fake as a jump.”

“I have no idea what you mean! If he jumps then it’s not a pump fake anymore! The point of a pump fake is that it’s faking a shot!” Dwayne says, fuming.

“Chris, stand on your toes,” Alex says, and Chris complies. He suddenly seems at least a foot taller. 

As if he jumped.

“Dwayne, look at how big Chris’s feet are. If he raises his heels off the ground, he can appear as if he’s jumping to anyone directly in front of him,” Alex explains.

“That’s cheating!” Dwayne points at Chris accusingly, “You cheater!”

“Shut up already,” Chris says in a monotone voice, then glancing at Alex, “Your ball. We’ll play defense.”

“I wouldn’t use that in a game though. Recreational basketball and official basketball are different. You probably would be penalized for traveling if you did that,” Alex says, then adds, “Ready?”

Chris nods.

Alex grabs the ball from Chris and immediately takes a shot from outside of the three-point line.

It hits the backboard once, then goes straight into the basket.

“Just do that instead.”

. . .

“You’re amazing, dude!” Dwayne grins, elbowing Alex in the side playfully. As much as Alex doesn’t want to admit it, it actually hurts.

“For what?” Alex asks.

“The Chris-Spray! Spray away your troubles for the rest of your life!” Dwayne says, laughing giddily and uncontrollably. Alex sighs. After shooting the three-pointer, Chris started moping and just left the gym. Shortly afterward, everyone else left, too.

Even with the awkwardness, Alex is glad that he can play on a basketball team again. Even if they lose in the tournament’s first round, Alex can still be satisfied.

A white SUV rolls into the parking lot.

“Shoot, my ride’s here,” Alex gets up and waves at Dwayne, “See you later!”

“You bet! I’ll beat you next time, so don’t worry!” Dwayne shouts, just as Alex is about to get into the car.

“So how were tryouts?” his mother asks, again narrowly slipping past a traffic light. Alex has a feeling that his mom has never stopped at a traffic light. Ever.

“Basketball tryouts? Yeah, it was pretty fun,” Alex smiles, although, since he's sitting in the backseat, she can't see. Funny, thinks Alex, I never used to do that before.

“Great! How were the players?”

“They were nice.”

“What about the coach?”

“The coach?”

Alex snickers inwardly, remembering the conversation between Jacob and Chris. “You’re not funny, Jacob. You’re not funny, Jacob. You’re not funny, Jacob.”

He struggles to keep his composure, but manages to say it.

“Oh, the coach? He was really funny!”