Lay-ups and Long Shots (2 page)

Lynea Bowdish

Lynea Bowdish grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where the most common sports were stick ball (played in the street), and stoop ball (played against the front stoop). No one seemed to mind not having uniforms, or teams, or regularly scheduled games with parents on the sidelines. The game started when someone came outside with a ball. It ended when most of the kids had been called home to dinner.

That doesn’t mean Lynea doesn’t like organized sports. She loves swimming and enjoys watching hockey (except for the fighting). Having grown up as one of the “large” kids, she also firmly believes that bird watching and computer games should qualify as sports when it comes to school fitness tests.

Lynea now lives in Maryland with her husband, David Roberts, and their two dogs, Zephyr and Cody.

by

Lynea Bowdish

You’re not supposed to call people “fat” anymore. Instead, you’re supposed to use words like “large,” and “big.” As in, “wow, does she look large in those jeans.” Or “no one will ever date a girl that big.”

You’re not supposed to make fun of them, either.
The Tonight Show
’s Jay Leno doesn’t know that. Neither does the sixth grade class of Brookhaven Middle School. They both make fun of fat people.

I’m “large.” I’m also in sixth grade at Brookhaven Middle. Those two things don’t go together.

“You’re not really fat,” Beverly says. “You’ll grow out of it.”

Beverly is my best friend, and when she says it, I almost believe her. Everyone believes Beverly. Even Ms. Sanchez, the gym teacher.

“I have a headache,” Beverly tells Ms. Sanchez.

And because Beverly doesn’t lie, she gets an excused absence.

When you’re fat, everyone thinks you’re making up excuses. And I do. So far this year I’ve tried a stomachache, blurry vision, a sick dog at home (his name is Henry), and a cold.

Nothing.

I really do try in gym. I grab the climbing rope and pull, but no matter how much Ms. Sanchez yells “Climb, Carla, climb,” I can’t.

That’s me. Carla Anders.

I can’t climb, and I can’t sink a basketball. And I can’t turn somersaults. My neck wasn’t made to bend under my body. Not unless it were severely broken.

I’m not the only fat girl in sixth grade. But it’s a question of degree.

Some are just slightly rounded, like Emily. But she’s rounded in all the important places.

Some are thick and hard. They can pick up a desk with one hand, and would beat up anyone who called them fat.

And then there’s Glenda and me.

Glenda and I don’t talk, of course. That’s one of the rules for being fat.

Fat kids don’t talk to each other. Some of their weight might rub off on you and make you more noticeable. And the point is to stay as invisible as possible.

Which is why gym is so bad. It’s impossible to be invisible in gym. Especially when you’re trying to climb into gym shorts in the locker room.

No, I don’t diet. When I was ten I tried a diet and gained five pounds. I gave up dieting forever.

And I don’t exercise. The closest I get to exercise is Henry. I walk Henry every day after school. I love that dog. He’s nine years old, and big and hairy, and he plods along and sniffs everything.

But sometimes Henry forgets he’s nine. He begins to run. Henry’s strong, so if I don’t want to fall over, I have to run with him. Then after a while he remembers he’s nine, and we go back to plodding.

I don’t think walking your dog is considered exercise.

Anyway, last Monday Ms. Sanchez told us the sixth grade had to have physical fitness tests. I wondered what Glenda was feeling. I at least have friends, like Beverly and Emily, to cheer me up. Even Maya waves to me once in a while. Maya is the star athlete of the sixth grade. I’ve never heard Maya make fun of me. And so when Maya waves, I wave back. But Glenda has no friends.

Rope climbing was first. When my turn came, I grabbed the rope, hung on for dear life, and tried to get my feet off the floor. Instead, my hands slipped down the rope, and my palms burned.

I heard a few giggles, and Ms. Sanchez wrote something down on a clipboard. Beverly waved from the bleachers, where she sat with a stuffy nose.

Glenda was next, but couldn’t do it.

Maya moved into place and scurried halfway to the ceiling before wriggling down.

The somersaults came next. I couldn’t bear the thought of breaking my neck in two, so instead of pushing myself over, I fell to the side. When Ms. Sanchez pointed to Glenda, she just shook her head.

We moved to the basketball hoop (my throw didn’t reach the hoop), then to the broad jump (I jumped two inches).

The final test was running around the sides of the gym. Two girls ran at a time. They supposedly were running against the clock, but everyone felt like they were competing against each other.

Glenda was paired with Emily. Emily came in first, but Glenda didn’t do so badly.

I was paired with Maya, and our pair was last. Maya, star athlete, versus me.

As we stepped up to the line, Maya gave me a thumbs up. I tried to smile.

Ms. Sanchez blew the whistle, and we were off. The first side wasn’t so bad. Maya and I paced each other, and I almost enjoyed it.

The first corner came up and we rounded it together. That’s when I started dropping back.

Was the rest of the class laughing? Was I jiggling?

The second corner went by. Maybe I should focus. I pictured Henry and me, and Henry breaking into a run. He was pulling me. My legs strained to keep up with him.

Maya was in front of me, but not that far.

As I rounded the third corner, I inched up on Maya and then went past her. Suddenly I felt the power of possibility, and it felt good. Could I win?

Maya was a few steps behind me now. Down at the end of the gym, I could see Ms. Sanchez and her stopwatch. Beverly was jumping up and down, and the rest of the class—were they cheering?

At that moment, I knew I really wanted to come in first. Maybe just once in my life I could win.

I bet you think I’m going to tell you I won. Well, this isn’t that kind of a story. It wouldn’t be very realistic, would it? No, at that moment, Maya moved ahead.

The next thing I knew, I was slamming into the wall. I put my hands on my knees and tried to breathe. Then I slumped down against the wall next to Maya. She was panting, too, and sweating, and laughing.

“That was great,” she gasped.

“Yeah, it was,” I said.

I was surprised. I actually meant it. It
had
been great.

I remembered the moment when I had moved ahead, and when I thought I might win. I felt a glow just thinking about it. I had run a good race. It felt wonderful.

“I didn’t know you could run,” Maya said.

“Neither did I,” I said.

“We’re starting a girls track team,” Maya said. “Interested?”

Was I? Definitely.

Maybe it isn’t that fat girls can’t run. Maybe it’s that they
don’t
run. Because if they do run, they have to ignore the jokes and the giggles.

But from now on, I would run. Because I wanted to.

I wondered about Glenda. She had run a good race, too. Maybe she’d be interested in the track team.

Beverly sat down next to us and gave me a hug.

“Great race,” Beverly said. “I didn’t know you could run.”

“I didn’t know, either,” I said.

Then I laughed.

“But Henry did.”

David Lubar

David Lubar grew up in Morristown, New Jersey. He’s written seventeen books and close to 200 short stories for teens and young readers. He has designed a lot of video games, including
Home Alone
and
Frogger 2
for the GameBoy. His books include
Punished!
,
Hidden Talents
, and
The Curse of the Campfire Weenies and Other Warped and Creepy Tales
.

He wrote “Bounce-back” because he played a lot of table tennis when he was young. Back then, everyone wanted to play against him, because he was so easy to beat. He still isn’t very good. You could probably beat him. So could your dog or little sister. If you want to learn which other sports he is especially bad at, check out his story “Two Left Hands, Two Left Feet, and Too Left on the Bench” in Darby Creek’s anthology,
Sports Shorts
.

by

David Lubar

“Wow, that’s huge.” Tyler stopped dead in his tracks and stared up at the gleaming gold trophy. It sat on a table in the lobby of the YMCA. A sign on the wall behind the table read, “Ping-Pong tournament next week.” Until that moment, Tyler hadn’t cared all that much about Ping-Pong, but the sight of the trophy made the game a whole lot more interesting. Tyler had never won a trophy—not even a tiny one.

“Hey, wait up,” his friend Bobby called as he came out of the locker room.

Tyler dashed over and started talking, hoping to distract Bobby so he wouldn’t notice the trophy. Tyler didn’t want any extra competition. But before Tyler could speak five words, Bobby stopped dead in his tracks, stared at the trophy, and said, “Wow, that’s huge.”

“It’s not that big,” Tyler said, trying to move between Bobby and the sign.

“Cool—check out the sign,” Bobby said. “There’s a tournament. I’m going to enter. How about you?”

Tyler shrugged, but didn’t say anything.

“I’ve got a Ping-Pong table,” Bobby said. “Why don’t you come over? We can practice together.”

Tyler almost said yes. Then he realized something.
If we practice, I’ll get better. But so will Bobby.

“Well?” Bobby asked.

“Maybe tomorrow,” Tyler said. He headed home and went right to the basement. There it was, shoved against the back wall under a dozen cardboard boxes filled with old clothes, two boxes of empty pickle jars, three ancient computers that didn’t work, and countless back issues of
National Geographic
. There it was— a Ping-Pong table.

A sweaty hour later, Tyler had cleared off the boxes and pulled the table away from the wall.
Bobby’s in for a surprise.
Tyler grinned at the thought of winning the tournament.

He ran upstairs and asked his big brother, “Will you play Ping-Pong with me?”

“Can’t,” his brother said. “I have to write a paper for school.”

He asked his mom when she got home from her office. “I’d love to,” she said, “but I have a lot of extra work to take care of this week.”

He asked his dad when he got home from his job. “I’d really like to, but I need to pack for my business trip.”

As Tyler sighed and walked away, his dad said, “Why don’t you set it up to play against yourself?”

“I can do that?” Tyler asked.

“Sure.” His dad headed for the basement steps. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

When they got downstairs, Tyler’s dad folded one side of the table so it stuck straight up, meeting the other half like a wall meets a floor. “There you go. Hit the ball into that and it will bounce back so you can hit it again.”

“Thanks.” Tyler grabbed a paddle and walked over to the side that wasn’t folded up. He hit the ball against the upright side. It bounced back and flew past him before he could take a swing at it. He chased after the ball and tried again, with exactly the same results.

For the next two hours, Tyler mostly got practice in bending down and picking the ball up from the floor. But he kept trying. After a while, he was able to hit the ball as it shot back at him, though it didn’t always go where he wanted. Then he started hitting it two or three times in a row. Finally, he was able to keep it going, hitting the ball hard and fast, smashing it again and again into the upright half of the table as he dreamed about how nice the trophy would look in his bedroom.

The next day, after their basketball league, Bobby asked Tyler, “So, want to come practice Ping-Pong today?”

“No thanks,” Tyler said.

“Come on. The only person who will play with me is my big sister. And she keeps beating me.”

“Maybe tomorrow,” Tyler said. But he had no plans to practice with anyone else—not now that he’d found such a great way to turn himself into an awesome Ping-Pong champ. For the rest of the week, he spent hours every day slamming the ball against the bounce-back, getting faster and faster with his paddle.

“I am unbeatable,” he said as he finished his last session the morning of the tournament.

Tyler headed for the YMCA.

“Hey, are you playing?” Bobby asked when Tyler walked into the gym. “I thought you weren’t interested.”

“I figured I’d give it a shot,” Tyler said. He looked across the gym. The trophy had been brought in from the lobby. It glistened in the light, as if it were winking at him. “Are you playing?”

Bobby shrugged. “Sure. Why not. I’ve gotten a bit better. I’m still not too good, but it should be fun.”

“Yeah,” Tyler said, “it should be lots of fun.”

Tyler was delighted to learn that his first opponent was Bobby. It would be nice to start the tournament with an easy win. “Go ahead,” Tyler said. “You can serve.” It didn’t matter who served first. Either way, Tyler knew it would be a quick game.

Bobby picked up the ball. “Ready.”

Tyler nodded. “You bet.” He could already taste his stunning victory. He hoped Bobby would be a good sport about losing.

“Watch out. I’ve been practicing,” Bobby said.

“Thanks for the warning,” Tyler said.

Clack.
Bobby served the ball. Tyler, feeling fast and loose, swung his paddle in a lightning-quick smashing return stroke, just like he’d done all week in his basement.

He swung so hard, his whole body spun around. When he finished his spin, he looked back at the table. Bobby’s slow serve was just coming over the net.
Plink
. It bounced once.
Plink
. It bounced a second time.

“My point,” Bobby said. He served again. Tyler swung hard and fast again. And way too soon again.

After Tyler lost the first five points, it was his turn to serve. That didn’t help. He kept hitting the ball too hard and missing the table. Five more lost points, and it was Bobby’s serve.

The game was over before Tyler knew what had happened. Bobby won a stunning victory, twenty-one to three. Tyler was just too fast.

“Nice try,” Bobby said as Tyler was leaving the gym. “But can I give you some advice?”

“What?” Tyler asked as he glanced over his shoulder for one last look at the golden trophy that would never be his.

“Maybe next time you should practice. It might help.”