After school, Jake and Kojo suited up with the rest of the Riverview Pirates for a basketball game against the Sunny Brook Cougars.

“Is that what you’re wearing?” Kojo said when he saw Jake’s baggy shorts. Actually, they were sweatpants with the legs cut off at the knees. Jake was also wearing a T-shirt that read, MATH: THE ONLY PLACE WHERE PEOPLE CAN BUY 87 WATERMELONS AND NOBODY WONDERS WHY.

“Yeah,” said Jake with a shrug. “Everything else is in my dirty-clothes bag.”

“Your mother ever teach you how to do laundry?”

“She’s tried. I’m a slow learner. Especially when it comes to household chores. I can almost set the table. Almost.”

Kojo shook his head and put on his official black-and-gold Pirates uniform.

“Jake?” said Mr. Lyons in his after-school role as the basketball coach. “Why can’t you remember to bring your uniform on game days?”

“Because it’s hard?” offered Jake.

“Hard? How hard can it be? ‘I have a basketball game today. I should bring my basketball uniform to school.’ What’s hard about that?”

“Well, sir, first you need a calendar, to know what day it is. And then you have to remember to write down all the games in the little boxes on that calendar. Then you have to remember to look at that calendar on game days. That’s a lotta work, sir. A lotta, lotta work.”

Mr. Lyons closed his eyes and mumbled something to himself. It could’ve been Why do I even bother? Jake wasn’t sure.

“Okay, guys,” Mr. Lyons said right before it was time to leave the locker room and hit the floor. “Sunny Brook is tough. Their center is a six-foot giant named Hubert Huxley. The boy is humongous. But I outlined a play that I think will allow us to get into the paint and score on their big man….”

He drew a play with a marker on a whiteboard. There were a lot of circles and arrows. Some dots and dashes, too. Jake had no idea what any of it meant. He figured he’d just run the play he always ran: Toss the ball around. Take random shots. See if anybody could hit the basket. Or the backboard. Odds were something would eventually bounce the right way and drop through the hoop.

That was not what happened.

Riverview lost to Sunny Brook, 120–12. (Kojo scored six times.) After the game, Mr. Lyons called a team meeting in the locker room.

“Winning isn’t everything,” he said. “But you guys aren’t even trying. You aren’t playing up to your potential.”

“Yes, we are,” said Jake. “We lost. It’s what we do best.”

Mr. Lyons sighed one of his deep sighs and walked away.

“I wouldn’t mind winning,” Kojo muttered after Mr. Lyons was gone.

“Nah,” said Jake. “We’re better off losing. There’s a ton less stress.”

“Well,” said Kojo, “we’re just gonna have to agree to disagree.”

And for the first time in a long time, Kojo didn’t want to walk home with Jake.