Summer Ball by Mike Lupica

already dribbling up a storm, and Danny could see right away how amazing he was with the ball, even as small as his hands looked on what Danny’s eyes knew was a regulation-size ball. He went to the far end and shot a layup, collected the ball, came back the other way, pulled up for about a twenty-footer, what looked to be a little outside his range.
    Air ball.
    It made Danny smile, not because Zach missed, just because of his form, launching the shot off his shoulder as if he were launching a shot put.
    The way Danny had always launched it until his dad made him change.
    â€œYo,” Danny called out. “You want some company?”
    â€œWhatever,” Zach said when he turned around to see Danny standing there.
    â€œHey, don’t sound so excited.”
    â€œYou want to play?”
    â€œI do.”
    â€œWell, okay, if you feel like it,” Zach said. “But you don’t have to just because you’re feeling sorry for me.”
    â€œI never have to play basketball,” Danny said. “I always want to play.” Then he made a sudden cut to the basket. As soon as he did, Zach hit him with a pass, right in stride, money. Then Zach broke toward the opposite basket, like he was trying to sneak away in a game, and Danny hit him with a football pass.
    Zach caught it and, without even dribbling one time, laid the ball in left-handed.
    And smiled for the first time.
    Had to, Danny knew from his own experience.
    If you were righty, a left-handed layup always made you smile.
    Danny asked if he wanted to play some one-on-one. Zach, as if suddenly remembering he was supposed to be in a bad mood, went back to his punk voice, the one with the attitude. “Whatever.”
    â€œOh, you are definitely going down, sucker,” Danny said.
    How did things possibly work out this way? Danny thought. Me having to cheer up somebody else after the crappy first day I had at camp?
    He decided to stop worrying about it and just play.
    He didn’t play his hardest, just hard enough so that Zach wouldn’t bust him for not playing his hardest. Danny basically wanted it to be a good, close game, so that Zach’s own even crappier first day wouldn’t become something for the summer camp record books.
    They played until the horn sounded from the main building, the one that meant back to the bunkhouses for lights-out. Zach actually ended the game laughing when Danny made a fadeaway, hold-the-pose shot to beat him 10–9.
    Zach laughed so hard that it made Danny laugh, until the two of them realized a couple of guys had been watching them.
    One was Rasheed Hill.
    The other was a kid Danny didn’t recognize, taller than Rasheed. He was wearing a yellow Kobe number 8. His face and short hair even reminded Danny a little bit of Kobe.
    â€œCheck it out,” the other kid said to Rasheed. “These two musta got lost looking for the jungle gym.”
    Then he laughed at his own joke and got Rasheed to give him five.
    Rasheed said to Danny, “What is this, the JV area?”
    Before Danny could say anything back, the two of them walked away.
    â€œWho’re those jerks?” Zach said.
    â€œI don’t know the one who was doing the talking,” Danny said. “The other one is this guy I played against once. Don’t worry about it.”
    â€œYou can probably kick his butt,” Zach said, like Danny was his hero all of a sudden.
    â€œI did once,” Danny said.
    Thinking to himself, Yeah, but can you still?

6
    M ONDAY AFTERNOON. F IRST FULL DAY OF REAL CAMP AT THE R IGHT Way Basketball Camp.
    They’d worked their butts off all morning in ninety-degree heat, occasionally getting short water breaks—but not nearly enough of them to suit Danny, and he never got thirsty or worn out playing ball. The older guys were separated strictly by age today, thirteens with thirteens, fourteens with fourteens, like that, and went from a shooting clinic to a passing clinic