Young Writers Society

A/n: image desc: Colin staring at a basketball with a pensive expression. (WAIT I LEFT OFF THE NOSE)

EDIT: Colin without a nose (OR EARS WHAT THE HECK)

EDIT EDIT: Colin without a nose or ears, staring at a basketball with a pensive expression.

Whatever possessed Dwayne to shout a crazed battle cry, he doesn't know, but he's proud of it.

To break the silence, Dwayne adds, "Yeah! You hear that? You guys will get crushed!"

The Pennel Creek Basketball Team chuckles as if Dwayne had made a hilariously funny joke. One of them bursts out in laughter.

"Do you kids know how to dribble a ball?" taunts one of them.

Another snickers, "Want us to teach you how to throw?"

"No, but we need to make sure you all know how to," replies Chris, who has been silent until now.

They growl, "You better watch that tongue, Noodles."

Despite the tense situation, Dwayne thinks, that guy has way too many nicknames.

Finally, Jacob comes to diffuse the situation, "Hey, do you guys want to start warming up? I'm sure you've had a rough trip."

Their team grumbles a bit, but finally takes off their jackets and starts warming up.

Jacob turns to Chris and Dwayne with a serious look, "Don't antagonize them."

"Why?" Dwayne sniffs, "They antagonized us first!"

Dwayne says that loud enough to earn a few glares from Pennel Creek.

"Just don't worry," says Jacob, turning to an older man who Dwayne assumes is the Pennel Creek coach.

They begin to chat like old friends and Dwayne scowls in confusion. How can those two adults talk to each other so pleasantly when they're clearly enemies?

Jacob waves Chris and Dwayne over to Alex, Spencer, and Colin, who have already started warming up.

"You can get back to warming up, Dwayne," Alex smiles.

Dwayne grins right back. With his own immense basketball ability, he would be able to crush Pennel Creek. Maybe Alex would be able to help a little bit, but Dwayne figures he will probably be the star of the game.

Dwayne begins his jumping jacks. Those weaklings should have never dared to challenge me! he sports a sinister smile, which causes Colin to look visibly concerned and terrified.

Moving on, Dwayne begins to do his squats. Dwayne hadn't ever played an official basketball game before! This would be great! His debut!

Dwayne finishes up with stretches. Although his warm-up order probably isn't very correct, at least he thinks he's covered the right stuff.

"Let's start!" says Jacob, right as Dwayne is finishing his lay-up drills.

The two team captains walk up to Jacob, who will referee the game. The captain of the other team looks extremely intimidating-- enough to make Dwayne grin wildly.

"What are you grinning about?" Chris whispers.

"That guy," Dwayne whispers back, "has a really weird haircut."

Dwayne feels a sharp pain on the back of his head as well as the vitriol coming from Chris, "Act like a normal human being and don't comment on people's hair during a game."

"I didn't say I would," pouts Dwayne, although he can tell that Chris also believes the Captain of Pennel Creek's half-spiked hair looks really stupid-- as if someone got a pair of scissors and sliced the hair completely off on only one side of his head, but then styled the other side in a fancy way.

Alex walks back to the team, "Who's going to do the tip-off?"

"Me!" Dwayne raises his hands like a kindergartner. Dwayne has always wanted to tip-off. This would be his chance!

Chris rolls his eyes, "You're not tall enough."

"Why does that matter?" Dwayne explodes at Chris. The one thing he refuses to hear from anyone is that he's 'not tall enough'. Who cares about height? Dwayne can wrench the rebound from that Stickman. He can jump higher than the Stickman. He can do everything better than that stupid, stupid Stickman!

"Relax," Spencer jumps in, "It's just a tip-off."

"No! I want to do the tip-off!" growls Dwayne.

Alex sighs and looks at both of them, "Fine then. If we can't decide, I'll do the tip-off."

"At least Dwayne won't be able to do it," says Chris dismissively, "I honestly don't care."

"At least Stickman won't be able to do it!" Dwayne shoots back, "Alex is WAY better than Sticks so I totally nominate Alex!"

"All right then," Alex sighs and walks to the center of the court, and goes into some kind of glare challenge with the weird-hair Captain, who is tipping-off for the other team. Dwayne swears that he can see the electricity appearing between the two captain's eyes just like in the movies. Alex's yellow scrimmage vest matches up with Weird-Hair's blue one.

"Yellow!" Jacob shouts, pointing the the side of the court Weird-Hair is on.

"Blue!" he shouts again, pointing to the side of the court that Alex is on. Dwayne assumes this is for telling the players which way they're going.

He throws the ball up, and everything erupts out of Dwayne's control.

He expected Alex to get the tip-off, but Weird-Hair gets it instead, sending it back to the other team's point guard.

"Defense!" Alex shouts, and everyone moves back.

Their point guard passes it over to another player, who passes it to Weird-Hair. Weird hair dribbles past Spencer, who seems frozen in fear, and sinks in a lay-up.

"Rule the court! Rule the court! Rule the court!" chants Pennel Creek's substitutes. Dwayne frowns in jealousy; if only Marble Creek had cheerleaders.

Alex grabs the basketball, walks out of bounds, and passes the ball to Colin. Colin looks terrified. He immediately dribbles at full speed towards the other team's defense.

"Colin! Wait!" Alex shouts, but it's too late. Colin yelps as the ball is instantly stolen from his charge.

The chants of 'Rule the court' rattles Dwayne, and the feet slamming on the ground seems to be louder, but Dwayne remains unfazed (At least, he tries to). He isn't going to mess up on his first game!

Finally, the ball ends up in Dwayne's hands. There's twenty seconds left on the clock, and Marble Creek hasn't even scored yet!

Dwayne supposes everyone expected that Alex would score. They were wrong. It looks like Alex is just too unreliable! Dwayne would be the one to bring this team to victory. Down by sixteen to zero, Dwayne steels his resolve and dribbles forward.

He quickly pushes past a defender and moves into the three point line. He is blocked by two huge players. One of them is Weird-Hair. Dwayne grins and dribbles around them, but they continue blocking him from reaching the goal. He just can't get around them.

And then the buzzer blares. The quarter ends sixteen to zero.

Alex is furious. Spencer is frozen. Colin is scared. Chris is haughty. Jacob is . . . surprisingly calm.

Dwayne smiles, "I told you I was better than you, Alex! You didn't even score a point!"

Alex stomps over in front of Dwayne, "If you said that on any normal day, I would have you kicked off the team, but we only have five players.

"I didn't score a point because Pennel Creek successfully saw me as a bigger threat than you all and put two defenders on me, double teaming me. Thats why I didn't score a point."

Dwayne, of course, didn't notice this.

"Now, we need to get a few points. Get your act up, guys!" Jacob tells them, "Colin, Spencer, and also Dwayne. You three need to calm down!"

"I'm always calm!" say the three of them at the same time. Chris, Alex, and Jacob exchange a 'Yup. They're totally not' look.

"We'll catch up in the second quarter, alright?" Alex says. The buzzer blares again, signaling for the game to continue.

"Let's do this," Dwayne says shakily, and corrects himself in a louder, more powerful tone, "LETS DO THIS!"

And the team trudges on the court, determined to make at least one point.