Lay-ups and Long Shots Read Online Free PDF Page A

onto the shore. I was happy not moving a muscle. I even liked the rotting fish smell of the seaweed strewn along the shore.
    Chris threw his surfboard in the sand next to me and plopped himself down in the middle of it. “It’ll be fun,” he said, picking up my suntan lotion and squirting it on my leg.
    I sat up and scowled at him. “What’s wrong? No surfing buddies to hang out with?” Although he was thirteen and I was fourteen, we had little in common and rarely spent time together. Even when we were at the beach, we hardly crossed each other’s paths. He was usually out in the water paddling around, while I was on the beach reading or sunbathing. I figured he must have been really bored.
    He picked up a handful of sand and let it sift slowly through his fingers. “Everyone must be out of town or something.”
    I rubbed the suntan lotion onto my leg and squirted some on the other one, savoring the coconut scent. “They’ve probably all been carted off to the home for annoying adolescent boys—I can’t believe they missed you.”
    “Very funny,” Chris said, “you should do stand-up comedy, except that you’d probably be too lazy to stand up.”
    I rolled my eyes. “I told you; I’m not lazy. I just don’t see the fun in spending your time battling against the waves to paddle out, and then sitting there for who-knows-how-long until a good enough wave comes by. Then for about one second you get to ride on the stupid board before you fall into the ocean, possibly inhaling enough saltwater to boil a pot of spaghetti.”
    My brother ignored my rant. He had apparently forgotten the previous time he tried to teach me to surf. I’d hoisted my bottom-heavy body onto the board and struggled to paddle out. I was one of those girls with a pear-shaped figure and no arm strength at all.
    In PE when we had to hang with our chin above the bar for the fitness test, I usually lasted about half a second. When I tried to surf, I couldn’t even paddle hard enough with the waves in order to catch one and ride it to the shore. I was about to decline my brother’s invitation one more time when something caught my eye behind him.
    It was a guy who looked a little older than we were, someone I’d never seen before. He carried his surfboard under his arm like every other surfer, but in between the board and his body was a metal crutch. He had a second crutch on the other side. The muscles in his arms rippled as he struggled against the sand that threatened to swallow the bottoms of the crutches. Between the metal, one good leg hopped toward the water while the other dangled in the air, withered and gnarled into a permanently twisted position.
    My brother turned to see what I was looking at.
    “Dude,” the guy said, “how are the waves?”
    “Goin’ off,” Chris answered, as the guy passed us.
    “Who’s that?” I asked.
    “His name’s Sammy,” Chris said. “He usually surfs on the other side of the pier.”
    “How can he surf?”
    Chris smiled. “You’d be surprised.”
    I watched as Sammy threw his crutches onto the shore and hopped a few feet to the water’s edge. He threw the board into the water and gently belly flopped onto it. Slicing the surface of the water, his massive arms propelled him as he battled against the waves. His crutches glinted in the sunlight as he moved farther and farther away from them.
    I continued to study him as he maneuvered the board around and straddled it, facing the shore. He turned his head back, watching and waiting patiently for a wave to catch. After a few minutes, he spun forward and slammed his stomach down onto the board for take-off. He paddled furiously.
    “Watch his moves,” Chris said.
    But I was barely listening, mesmerized by the elegance of the surfboard and Sammy working together as one. Suddenly he was riding the wave, rising on one leg, the other mangled one wafting in the wind. The white foam curled behind him as he stood with his arms outstretched to the