Sticks by Joan Bauer

Author:Joan Bauer [Bauer, Joan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101657928
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2005-06-02T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

It’s Sunday. At church I prayed that Mom would get happy about seeing Joseph Alvarez and that Buck would go to military school. After lunch I went to the hall to play nine ball with Marcus Denny, who’s thirteen years old and makes big-time stupid mistakes. I’m beating him, too. Joseph Alvarez said he wanted to just watch me play. Part of me wishes he wasn’t watching.

This isn’t my best game.

I’ve missed two bank shots and I almost blew an easy tip in the corner. My hands are sweaty and I keep glancing over at Buck, who’s looking like a tank. The red shirt’s hanging in the window right by the Knights of Columbus dinner dance poster; the dance was last week. Poppy’s slow in taking things down.

I want it so bad.

I take a big breath, wipe my hands on my jeans, and bank the eight ball at a forty-five-degree angle; it just makes it into the side pocket. I look up at Joseph Alvarez, who’s sitting on the bench against the wall, stroking his beard, not frowning, not smiling. I shoot the nine ball at the side pocket and miss, but Marcus misses too. I tap it in the corner.

Yes! That’s a win.

“Good game,” I say to Marcus, and shake his hand, looking up at Joseph Alvarez, who stands up and leans against the table with his hands in his pockets. Marcus walks off.

Joseph Alvarez says, “You could have played that cleaner.”

“I won . . . .”

“You did,” he agrees, “but you almost didn’t.”

I kick at the floor because I just won and I’m used to grown-ups falling all over themselves about how good I play. He throws the balls back on the table.

“Shoot something,” he says.

I bend over to hit the three ball.

“Shoulders and neck can’t move when you stroke,” he says. “It messes up your aim. Try again.”

I freeze my neck and shoulders, bend over—

“No.” Joseph Alvarez gives me a light push against my shoulders and I crash forward. “Tighter,” he says. I squeeze my shoulder blades until they hurt. “Tighter.”

“I can’t breathe!”

“You’ve got to break those bad habits before they become a part of you. Shoot.”

I shoot and miss the three.

“Follow through,” he says. “Don’t hurry it, just let it come natural.”

I’m standing here suffocating, pinching my shoulder blades together, and he says be natural. I try it again, follow through, and nick the three.

“Better. Do it again.”

I do it again and again and again.

“Feel the difference?” he asks.

I’m rubbing my neck and shoulders. I feel the difference—pain.

Joseph Alvarez turns to me and puts a quarter on the rail of the table. “On bank shots,” he says, “you’re getting the angles pretty well. You’ve got to focus on hitting the ball clean. Shoot the quarter.”

“What?”

“Aim at it. Shoot it medium hard. Like this.” He rams the cue ball into the rail and the quarter jumps off.

I try. The quarter doesn’t move.

“You’ll get it.”

I try harder and don’t get it.

“Focus on exactly where you want the cue ball to hit,” he says.

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