Dear Sister by Francine Pascal

Author:Francine Pascal
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Eight

Todd stalked into the gym for basketball practice feeling frustrated and angry. There was no longer any doubt about it. Elizabeth was through with him. She hardly paid any attention to him, even when he was speaking directly to her, and she was making plays for every guy at Sweet Valley High. They weren’t exactly running away from her, either.

OK, then! Who needed Elizabeth Wakefield? He did, Todd knew without a doubt. He knew he couldn’t blame her for hating him. How could she help but hate him after what he had done to her? He couldn’t even blame her if she turned to someone else. But that’s what bothered him most. Elizabeth hadn’t turned to someone else. She had turned to everyone else, all at the same time. It didn’t make sense.

Todd stepped up to the foul line to practice his free throws and missed four in a row. He cursed and bounced the ball roughly into the corner.

Everybody had told Todd how lucky he was to have come out of the motorcycle crash without serious injuries. It was a miracle, Coach Horner said, that his hands hadn’t been hurt at all. So after the accident Todd continued to be old reliable at the foul line for the basketball team. “Whizzer” Wilkins they called him, for his sure shooting eye and control under pressure. That’s why he was the star of the team.

Nobody noticed anything until the game against Big Mesa, when Todd couldn’t hit a basket to save his life.

Elizabeth was there, sitting next to Ken Matthews. Susan Stewart had gotten stuck babysitting for her little brother, so she wasn’t there to keep an eye on them. But Todd held an all too watchful gaze, especially when he should have been looking at the basketball.

It was awful. Todd couldn’t pass the ball or catch or shoot it.

“Come on, Wilkins,” Coach Horner yelled in bewilderment. “Look alive out there.”

But it was hopeless. Todd Wilkins, the star of the team, was falling all over his feet like a champion klutz. His eyes were glued on Elizabeth, and after a while even the Big Mesa players noticed it.

On a jump ball in the second half, the Big Mesa center lined up next to Todd and whispered, “Hey, Wilkins, got girl trouble?”

Todd was so shaken he stood there flat-footed while the Big Mesa center grabbed the ball and scored.

“Wilkins,” shouted Coach Horner, “are you OK?”

“Sure, coach.”

But he wasn’t. The game went down the drain in the second half. The Gladiators’ whole attack was built around Todd, and when he came apart, so did the team. A strange buzz started after a while, and then it got louder and louder.

Finally, when Todd missed an easy lay-up, the buzzing exploded into a sound he had never heard before while playing at home in the Sweet Valley High gym.

“Booooooo!”

Todd heard it and stopped dead.

“Booooooooo!”

Todd Wilkins was being booed by his own fans. He tried to shake it off, and as he turned to head back up the court, he bumped into the Big Mesa center.

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