Bad-Luck Basketball by Thomas Kingsley Troupe

CHAPTER 1
NOT A CHANCE
    Brandon Whitler and the rest of the Chesterfield Clovers basketball team had less than fifteen minutes before their second-to-last game started. No one on the team was expecting to win. After all, their record wasn’t very impressive.
    Even so, Coach Hanson insisted they warm up and treat it like they were championship-bound. They practiced free throws and passing drills to loosen up. At one point, Brandon went for a lay-up and wedged the basketball between the hoop and the backboard. It stuck there, nice and tight.
    â€œNice work, Whitler!” hollered Jeff Stuckey, Brandon’s best friend.
    â€œYeah, yeah,” Brandon muttered. He felt like an idiot as Coach Hanson pointed out to a maintenance guy what had happened. The game couldn’t start with the ball stuck up there.
    The rest of the Clovers watched as the maintenance man set up a ladder, climbed up, and poked the ball loose with a broom handle. The ball bounced and rolled under the ladder. Brandon quickly ran forward, ducked under the ladder, and scooped up the ball.
    â€œDude!” cried Kevin Yang, one of Brandon’s teammates. “You just went under a ladder! That’s bad luck!”
    â€œCome on,” Brandon said. He bounced the ball easily back and forth between his hands and shook his head. “Who believes in that stuff? It’s totally made up.”
    â€œI don’t know,” Kevin said. “Me?”
    â€œYou still believe in the Tooth Fairy, too?” Brandon asked with a smirk.
    Kevin shook his head. “Whatever, man. Just don’t blame me when you’re stuck with bad luck.”
    At the other end of the gym, the Arrow Lake Archers finished their warm up. The Clovers stood around and watched as the maintenance guy climbed off the ladder, folded it up, and hauled it off the court. Suddenly the referee blew his whistle to signal the start of the game. The Clovers had lost any extra warm-up time. But as it turned out, it didn’t matter.
    * * *
    The entire game went terribly. Brandon knew it and so did the rest of the team. Everything that could possibly go wrong did. It was like the Clovers were cursed.
    It started when Jeff, their star center, went to center court to take the tip-off. But instead of knocking the ball into Clover territory, he fell hard on his rear end. Jeff stood up, looking confused. He didn’t seem to understand how he’d ended up on the ground. It wasn’t like the Archers’ center had shoved him. He just sort of . . . fell.
    As if that weren’t bad enough, Tony Gustard, another one of the Clovers’ best players, sprained his ankle in the third quarter. One second he was driving the ball toward the Archers’ territory and the next his ankle rolled sideways, and he cried out in pain.
    Brandon’s luck wasn’t much better. As one of the team’s forwards, he should have been taking shots and making baskets. But every shot he took was either a complete air ball or toilet-bowled around the rim, only to drop into a defending player’s hands.
    By the end of the game, the Clovers were worn out, beat up, and felt as defeated as they had the rest of their season. And the score showed that. They’d lost to the Archers 44-79.
    After slapping hands with the Archers players to congratulate them on their good game, the team headed to the locker room.
    â€œQuick talk before you hit the showers, guys,” Coach Hanson said as he followed them in.
    Brandon wasn’t sure if it was the constant losing seasons the Clovers had endured over the past few years or their most recent defeat, but the coach looked exhausted. It was never easy for small schools to compete against some of the bigger ones, but the Clovers were struggling more than usual.
    Once everyone had taken a seat on the locker room bench, Coach Hanson took off his baseball cap and ran his hands through his hair. “I’m really not sure what to say about