Slam Dunk by Matt Christopher, Robert Hirschfeld

there, waiting to visit Barry.
    “Hey,” Mick said. “The coach and Barry’s folks went out for a while. How’s Barry doing?”
    “Pretty good,” said Grady. “He’ll be glad to see you.” As Len and Mick got up, Julian said, “Uh, after you see him, do you guys feel like getting something to eat before practice?”
    Mick looked surprised, and then pleased. “Yeah, that’d be great.”
    Grady said, “We’ll wait for you and talk about it when you’re done.”
    Len nodded. “Sounds good.”
    After Mick and Len left, Grady turned to Julian. “Wow. You were actually nice to them. You feeling okay?”
    Julian sat down on a couch and looked up at Grady. “Sure. I’m just being a team leader and making sure that my teammates eat their lunch.”
    From the hospital, the four boys went to a nearby fast-food place for burgers. As they unwrapped their food, Len said, “What does he have to do for physical therapy, does anybody know?”
    “I don’t have a clue,” said Grady, picking up his shake.
    Julian nibbled on a French fry. “All I know is it sounds like it won’t be fun.”
    “My cousin hurt his leg skiing,” said Mick. “He was in PT for three months. He said it was really tough, especially for the first month or so. And the therapist was, like,
really
in his face about not letting up, working through the pain and all that stuff. Cousin Donny says that for a while he didn’t think it was worth going through it, but he kept at it, and later he was happy the therapist wouldn’t let him quit.”
    “What kinds of things did he have to do?” Julian asked.
    “Exercises to build up his leg muscles and keep the joints from getting all tight. Stretching for flexibility, leg lifts, exercises for his hip and his knee, a lot of stuff. Even with light weights, it was really bad at first, but the therapist made him stay with it, and his leg is normal now.”
    Len whistled. “Man.”
    “Barry’ll do it,” Grady said. “He’s tough enough.” Julian wondered how he’d manage if it happened to him. He hoped he’d be tough enough, too. Barry’s situation was giving him some food for thought.
    They arrived at the gym early for practice. Julian changed quickly and went out on the court to work on his free throws. Last year, he’d spent a half hour every day shooting from the free-throw line, but he hadn’t felt like doing it yet this year. Shooting free throws can be pretty monotonous, after all. But Julian decided that he would put in half an hour a day from now on.
    The other three joined him and worked on different phases of their own game. Grady was trying to improve his left-handed dribbling. Len practiced outside jump shots from different spots around the key. Mick started throwing up hook shots, launching himself off his left foot, extending his left arm to ward off defenders, and releasing the ball from his outstretched right hand.
    “Pretty smooth shot,” Julian said after watching Mick sink one.
    Mick smiled. “Thanks; sometimes it’s on, and sometimes it’s off. You ever shoot hook shots? You’d be tough to stop. You have the hands for it, too.”
    “I should work on it more,” admitted Julian. “Last year, I mostly shot jumpers and layups.”
    Other players had drifted in and were loosening up as practice time got closer.
    Mick handed Julian a ball. “Try a hook shot. Let’s see how it looks.”
    Julian took the ball and looked up at the basket. He was just to the left of the key, about ten feet from the hoop. He dribbled once and took a step to his right, turning to bring his left shoulder toward the basket. Jumping off his left foot, he extended his left arm for balance and threw up a shot. The ball hit the front rim and caromed off.
    “Great,” he said. “That was pretty bad.”
    “You need to loft the ball more, get more arch into the shot,” Mick said, flipping the ball back to Julian.
    Coach Valenti’s whistle echoed through the gym, and the players got ready to work.
    The