The Secret Life of a Ping-Pong Wizard by Henry Winkler Page A

tomorrow.”
    As we walked down Broadway toward home, I was careful to hop over all the cracks in the sidewalk. I was making a wish, the same wish over and over, and I wanted it to come true.
    I wished that I would win a Ping-Pong tournament and become the Ping-Pong Wizard of New York City. In my mind, I could already see the trophy. It was big. I mean, really big. It was so big that I could use it for a jungle gym if I wanted.
    I couldn’t wait to get home and start practicing.

CHAPTER 16
    I MUST HAVE HIT THAT Ping-Pong ball against my bedroom wall twenty thousand times that night. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I became a Ping-Pong wizard or anything. I was able to get a second hit only about nine times, if that. But hey, that’s nine more times than I ever did before.
    I couldn’t wait to tell Dr. Berger about this. She knows that I have difficulties with hand-eye coordination. When Dr. Berger first explained hand-eye coordination to me, I really didn’t pay that much attention. What she was talking about seemed really complicated. But when I started to practice hitting the Ping-Pong ball against the wall, it became crystal clear that this hand-eye coordination thing was a problem for me.
    â€œThere’s the ball,” my brain said as the ball bounced off the wall.
    â€œWhere?” my eyes said.
    â€œRight there.”
    â€œWhoops, we missed it,” my eyes answered.
    My other problem was that it was really hard to keep track of the ball. I’d start seeing it, and then it would magically disappear. The next thing I knew, I’d hear it hit the leg of my desk and roll under my bed with the dust bunnies.
    â€œJust keep watching the ball, Hank,” I said to myself. “How hard is that?”
    Apparently, really hard for my particular brain.
    I remember when I was in kindergarten and went to David Platt’s birthday party. The party favor was one of those wooden paddles with the rubber ball on a rubber band. Everyone else grabbed their paddle from the party-favor bag and started hitting the ball. They smashed that ball up and down, back and forth on the paddle. Not me. When I tried, my ball went in every direction—hit me in forehead, even. I could never get it, so I made up an excuse and told everyone that I wasn’t in the mood to play with paddles and I was going to do it at home. When I got home, I put that paddle in the party bag, where it stayed pretty much forever. I can admit it to you now: I hate that toy.
    As I practiced hitting the Ping-Pong ball, though, I was determined to get it right. I just planted my feet in my room, sunk my toes into my carpet, and hit that little white ball against the wall over and over and over.
    â€œHank,” Emily shouted from her room. “That sound is driving Katherine nuts.”
    â€œShe’s already nuts. How would you know the difference?”
    â€œKathy and I do not appreciate your sarcasm. And, just for your information, she’s trying to hide behind the twig in her cage and her eyes are blinking up a storm.”
    â€œMaybe her eyelids are sending you a message in Morse code: ‘You are weird, and everyone knows it.’ ”
    â€œIguanas blink when they’re stressed!” Emily shouted. “If you knew even the slightest bit about reptiles, you’d know that.”
    â€œHere’s a news flash for you. My brain rejects all reptile knowledge.”
    Our voices must have gotten very loud, because my dad appeared at my bedroom door. I could tell he had been working on a crossword puzzle because he was wearing two pairs of glasses, one on his forehead and one on his eyes, and his blue mechanical pencil was shoved behind his ear.
    â€œHey, hey, what’s going on in here?”
    â€œHank keeps hitting that stupid ball against the wall,” Emily said, coming to the door of my room. “It’s driving Katherine and me crazy.”
    â€œDon’t annoy your