Chapter 1
Daniel Friedland looked down at his sneakers. He inched up until his toes were close to the foul line, painted in white on the blacktop. He held his basketball in front of him and spun it between his palms. When he took a deep breath, the air was cold and his nose stung.
Slowly, he breathed out through his mouth. He looked at the basket through the cloud of vapor.
Then he pulled back the ball and shot.
Swish!
Daniel let himself smile. After months of coming down to the public courts every morning to practice his foul shot, he rarely missed.
Daniel pulled up the zipper of his hooded sweatshirt. It was still very cold this early in the morning. The bell to begin homeroom over at Westfield Middle School wouldn’t ring for another hour.
He jogged over to the basket and grabbed the ball before it rolled onto the grass. Then he quickly walked back to the foul line.
“I think I’m as good as Dwayne Illy now,” Daniel muttered to himself. “At least from the foul line.”
Dwayne Illy was the starting small forward and the top scorer on the team. Most of his points, though, were from the foul line.
Daniel lifted the ball to take another shot. “If I’m ever going to start at small forward,” he said to himself, “I need to be better from the line than Dwayne.”
Daniel released the ball.
Swish!
He jogged to the basket and grabbed the ball as it dropped from the hoop. Quickly, he jumped up and went for a layup.
The ball hit the corner of the rim and the backboard and fell back to the blacktop.
Daniel’s shoulders sagged.
“Aw, who am I kidding?” Daniel muttered. “Coach T will never start me, not with Dwayne Illy on the team.”
Dejected, he put the ball under his arm and headed home to shower before school.