Second-String Center Read Online Free PDF Page B

as he spoke. “Before you got there, I played almost the whole first quarter. Jared was late, so I started.”
    “Isn’t that something?” Mom said. “Sorry we weren’t there.”
    “No problem.”
    “I’ll get off early for one of the games and be there for the beginning,” Mom said.
    Dunk shrugged. “Today’ll probably be the only time I start. But yeah, I may see some early playing time. I had four points and I think three rebounds. Plus that steal.”
    “Well,” said Dad, “I promised myself I’d watch the Rutgers game tonight, and I have just enough time to shower first. You’ll clear the table, Cornell.”
    “No problem.”
    “You have homework to do?”
    “A little. I’ll catch the second half of the Rutgers game with you.”
    “And I have to run over to my sister’s,” Mom said. “Can you believe that girl doesn’t know how to sew on a button ?”
    “Why doesn’t she bring it over here?” Dunk asked.
    “Lots of studying, she says. I don’t mind. I like to get a look at her place once in a while . . . make sure she’s not keeping it a pigsty.”
    Dunk held back a smile. Krystal was in for it, just as Dunk would be if he kept his room a mess.
    So Dunk ate the rest of his dinner alone, which suited him fine. He had mixed emotions about the game, but he was barely thinking about that. Jared’s news about his parents had him worried.
    Everything seemed cool here—his parents almost never raised their voices, and they seemed like best friends. So he couldn’t see them ever breaking up. But he definitely felt bad for Jared.
    Dunk did the dishes and climbed the stairs to his room. The house was small—just the kitchen, living room, and a bathroom downstairs, and two bedrooms, an office, and a bathroom upstairs. He shut his door and turned the CD player on softly to an old Tracy Chapman song. Aunt Krystal had loaned him the CD. Then he lay back on the bed and looked around the room.
    The third-place medal from last summer’s state YMCA tournament sat on his desk. Should have been gold, he thought. The coach had unexpectedly put Dunk in the game in the closing minute of the semifinal against Camden, knowing that Camden needed to foul somebody if they had any chance of getting the ball back. Dunk had a reputation for always making his free throws, but he came up empty that time and the game slipped away.
    Next to the medal was his only other sports award—a second-place Little League trophy from a few years before. On the wall above his bed was a Yankees poster from two seasons ago.
    Eventually he took his history book out of his knapsack, but after reading the same sentence three times he realized that he wasn’t ready to concentrate. So he grabbed last week’s Sports Illustrated from his bedside table and leafed through that.
    Dunk had his window open a few inches despite the cold weather, so he heard his mom’s car pull into the driveway a little while later. When he went downstairs, she was sitting on her husband’s lap in the big lumpy armchair. Dunk flopped onto the couch. There was a commercial for an insurance company playing on the screen.
    “Rutgers up?” Dunk asked.
    “Yeah,” Dad said. “Second half just started. You finish your homework?”
    “Mostly. Not quite. Couldn’t concentrate.”
    “Maybe because you had music on.”
    “That ain’t it.” Dunk spread out even more, propping a pillow under his chin. “I was just thinking.”
    “Well, that’s new.”
    “Real funny.”
    They watched the game for a few minutes. During the next break, Mom said, “You are quiet, Cornell. You upset about the loss?”
    “Not so much. Just . . . Jared told me something. . . . He said his parents are getting a divorce.”
    “That’s a real shame.” She turned to look at her husband square-on. “Do we know them?”
    Dad shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
    “Does he have to move away?”
    “Not now,” Dunk said. “They’re working that out.”
    “It’s too bad,”