Hook Shot Hero Read Online Free PDF Page A

to single-handedly erase the point deficit. Whenever Tim did get in, it was as if he didn’t exist. Except for inbounding passes to Elijah, he barely touched the ball because no one passed to him.
    Not that it mattered, he thought. I probably would have botched the play or tossed up an air ball anyway.
    Despite the basketball players’ dismal showing, the mood in the Eagles Nest before dinner was celebratory. Several of the nonbasketball players had performed well in their events.
    Billy had been the top swimmer of both camps, Tim found out later. He congratulated his friend enthusiastically. But in the next breath, he began to pour out his frustration at how the game had gone.
    Billy stopped him after a moment. “Why don’t you talk to Dick about all this stuff? He might be able to help you better than me.”
    Tim glared at him from his bunk. Some friend he was; after Tim had put up with Billy’s complaints all last summer, Billy couldn’t even listen to one of his!
    “How am I supposed to talk to Dick?” he snapped. “He’s still in the hospital!”
    “No, he’s not,” Billy retorted. “He’s in the infirmary.”
    Tim sat bolt upright. “What? Since when?”
    “Since an hour ago,” Billy said. “I heard some of the waterfront guys talking about it.”
    Tim leaped to his feet and raced out the door.
    “No need to thank me!” Billy called after him.
    Tim took off at a run for the infirmary, his mind racing. How serious is Dick’s injury? Will he be sidelined for a few days or the rest of the summer, or —Tim gulped— will it mean the end of his career?
    He bounded up the steps of the infirmary two at a time and burst through the door.
    “Goodness, young man, what’s the problem? Is someone hurt?” the nurse on duty asked in alarm.
    “No! I’m looking for Dick Dunbar!” Tim gasped.
    “You found him.”
    Tim spun around to see Dick reclining in a hospital bed. His eyes widened as he took in the cast on Dick’s arm. “Oh, man,” he groaned. “How bad is it?”
    To his relief, Dick laughed. “I told you, I’ve had worse.”
    He shook his head when Tim asked about the operation. “Is that the rumor going around the camp? Don’t worry. I didn’t have an operation. It was a clean break, and a pretty minor one, too, from what I saw on the X-ray. I was about to check out of here, in fact. You can carry my bag. Come on.”
    Tim soon had Dick settled in a chair in his room.
    “That’s better,” Dick said with a sigh. “Now tell me: How are things going with you?”
    Tim hesitated. He wanted to tell Dick how everything—from his mentoring sessions to his playing to his relationships with the other Eagles—was falling apart. But he was ashamed to admit that he was having so many problems.
    Then Dick looked him straight in the eye and said, “Come on. Out with it. All of it.”
    So Tim launched into a review of the past two days. Dick listened attentively until Tim hung his head and wondered aloud if he should just pack up and go home. “Nobody wants me here anyway. Not my mentees, not my teammates, and maybe not even Billy.”
    “Funny,” Dick said then, “I didn’t peg you for a quitter. Last year, when your shot wasn’t falling, when Mike and the other boys were giving you grief, when Billy needed a boost, you didn’t run and hide. You found solutions!”
    He ticked off his fingers one by one. “You got my help with your shot. You turned the tables on the practical jokers. You handed Billy the biggest shot of the summer—and when he made it, you turned him into a hero, at least for the day. So my question to you is: Why are you shying away from these new challenges?”
    “I don’t know.” Tim looked up. “You ever feel overwhelmed by stuff?”
    “Sometimes,” Dick admitted.
    “What do you do about it?”
    Dick thought for a moment before answering. “You ever eat a whole pizza by yourself?”
    Tim frowned. “Yeah, but what does that—”
    “Did you eat it all at once or