Chapter 8
PJ still had an hour before school started, so he decided to head home and have breakfast.
Then he’d go to school, find Coach T, and quit the basketball team.
“Back already?” PJ’s dad asked when PJ walked into their apartment. “You can’t have gotten much practicing done.”
“It was a waste of time,” PJ said.
He kept moving right through the living room, down the hall, and into his bedroom. There, he flopped onto his bed.
Dad followed him. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“I’m going to quit the basketball team,” PJ said. Then he picked up a stuffed mini basketball from his bed and shot it at the trashcan across the room. It went in.
“Quitting the team?” Dad repeated, shocked.
“Don’t get mad,” PJ said. “I can’t shoot a foul shot to save my life. All I’m good for is being tall.”
“That’s nonsense,” Dad said. “You’re great at getting those rebounds, and I’ve seen your shot. It’s good! And you love basketball!”
“My shot is good?” PJ said. “You should have seen me this morning at the courts. A brick and an airball. It was a really great show. Daniel Friedland is probably still down there, rolling on the cement with laughter.”
“I doubt that,” Dad replied. “What was he doing down there at this hour anyway?”
PJ explained how Daniel had gotten so much better this season by practicing early every morning.
As he talked, he got up from the bed and grabbed the stuffed basketball out of the trash. Then he sat down on the bed’s edge again and shot the ball again. Again, it went in.
“So maybe you should do the same as him,” Dad suggested.
“That was my plan,” PJ said, “but with Daniel right there, I got so nervous.”
“Because Daniel might be watching you?” Dad asked. He sat next to PJ on the edge of the bed.
PJ shrugged. “I guess,” he said. “I don’t know what to do about it. My heart races, I can’t take a deep breath, and my hands sweat. Plus, now the whole team hates me, which makes it even worse!”
“I get nervous too,” Dad said. “At the shop, I sometimes get so frustrated when I can’t get a cut just right, or when I start assembling pieces and the whole shop is noisy and I can’t concentrate.”
“Dad, basketball and carpentry have nothing to do with each other,” PJ said, rolling his eyes.
“Just hear me out,” Dad said. “When the shop is like that, and I just can’t think straight, and the piece isn’t coming together like I need it to, sometimes I just want to take whatever I’m working on and throw it at the wall. Just forget about it.”
“So do you?” PJ asked.
Dad smiled at PJ. “No way. I can’t do that,” Dad said.
“Why not?” PJ asked.
“Well,” Dad explained, “because this is for some customer who needs his new dining room table, or kitchen cabinets, or whatever. So I take a deep breath, and I close my eyes. And in my mind I picture the pieces going together perfectly. I go over the whole thing in my head, so everything fits just like I measured it.”
“And?” PJ said.
“And before you know it,” Dad said, smiling, “I can’t even hear the other guys in the shop. The machines are quiet, like they’re miles away. I take a deep, calm breath, and get back to work. Then it always works out.”
PJ lay back on the bed and thought about what his father had said. Maybe he was right.
Maybe they both got nervous. Maybe the same thing that worked for Dad would work for PJ.