Point Guard Pride by Jake Maddox

Author:Jake Maddox [Maddox, Jake]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ages 9-12; books about basketball; character education; fiction books about sports; grit; Jake Maddox; kid sports; perseverance; racism; sports fiction; sports stories
Publisher: Capstone
Published: 2020-10-19T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

DEFEAT

The next away game was against Anderson Middle, which had one of the best teams in the region. Yasmin had been excited to play them. But as their team’s bus pulled into the Anderson parking lot, her palms wouldn’t stop sweating. She was more nervous than usual.

The one good thing, though, was that nothing else had happened—no more notes or confrontations from Kelly. Yasmin finally felt like she could focus on the game.

The team trooped into the school and went to put their stuff away. As Yasmin unzipped her gym bag to put her water bottle inside, she saw it: a crumpled pink Post-it note.

She hesitated for a moment, wishing it would disappear. Wishing it away.

Finally, she picked it up and said, “I can’t believe it. Another note. And right before a game.”

“What?!” Heidi stepped closer. “What does it say?” She looked over Yasmin’s shoulder.

Yasmin opened it slowly. Her hands were shaking. Holding the note so Heidi could see too, she read to herself.

Tell your whole family to take you back to where they came from.

For a second, Yasmin felt like she couldn’t breathe. She stood there in shock. Is this how it’s going to be? Am I always going to worry about racist notes appearing in my bag or locker? Am I always going to have to worry about some racist comment?

Finally, she crumpled the note and hurled it across the locker room.

Heidi ran to grab it. She smoothed out the note and stuck it back in Yasmin’s bag.

“That’s evidence and you need to hang on to it,” Heidi said. “Just like the other one. Don’t get rid of it! You’ve got to tell Coach.”

“He won’t believe me or care,” Yasmin said abruptly. “I already talked to him once and he didn’t do anything.”

Heidi raised her eyebrows. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“I don’t even know if Kelly’s the one who did this,” Yasmin said.

Coach blew the whistle to gather the team. Yasmin put her gym bag in the locker and shut it.

“I still think you should tell,” Heidi muttered as the girls headed out for the court.

Yasmin felt less steady on her feet than usual. Usually, she liked to bound out onto the court, but today she felt stiff and halting. She couldn’t focus. Who had written the note? When had they snuck it into her bag?

She tried to gather her thoughts and make herself focus. If she just kicked butt out there on the court—if she could be Three-Point Jones—she’d finally win the respect of her team.

It felt doomed from the start. As soon as Dexter got possession, Yasmin started trying get open to take a three-point shot. She tried all her old tricks: faking, getting the defender to jump, and then sidestepping with a dribble and trying again. For some reason, she came up short.

Her shot banged off the front of the rim. The next time she tried, she managed to get enough arc on the shot. But it rolled off her pointer finger— and she missed again.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.