Split Decision Read Online Free PDF Page A

doesn’t mean anything! I was just going with Dad and Beth, and Beth suggested I invite Robyn. Just as a friend, that’s all.”
    “If you say so,” Chop repeated.
    Cody balled up his napkin and bounced it off Chop’s forehead. “You kill me sometimes. Can you give me a ride home now?”
    Chop glanced at Cody’s half-eaten bratwurst. “But you haven’t finished your dog, dawg.”
    “I’m full.”
    “Yeah,” Chop said, sliding out of the booth, “if you claim you don’t have it bad for Ms. Hart, you’re fulla something.”

    Cody finished his fourth bench press rep of 130 pounds with a hearty grunt. He sat up on the bench and listened. From the low roar of the cheers, he figured that the Grant High varsity hoops squad was continuing its dismantling of Holy Family in the regular-season finale. He glanced at his watch, which read 8:30. Better hit the showers now if I want to clear out of the locker room before the team gets there , he thought. He smiled as he dabbed his sweaty forehead with a towel. The JV team had put a serious beat-down on the Saints, 80 to 24. Chop had scored twenty-four points and amassed a truckload of rebounds: twenty-two, according to the official stats, twenty-four, if you believed Pork Chop.
    At one point in the game, Holy Family’s center tried to grab the ball away from Chop, and the Grant big man twisted away with such force that he spun his opponent into a group of Saints’ cheerleaders who were sitting behind the south backboard. “A little present from me to you,” Chop said to the cheerleaders, adding, with a sly wink, “Don’t say I never gave you nothin’.”
    Chop was bummed that he hadn’t been asked to suit up for the varsity game, but Cody sensed that his friend would make the postseason tournament squad. The coaches probably wanted to give JV cocaptain Matt Parker, a rangy but uncoordinated six feet four inch sophomore, one last look, but from what Cody had seen, Parker had failed his audition.
    After a long, steamy shower, Cody lumbered out of the locker room, muscles loose with fatigue. He walked through a small alcove near the gymnasium’s south end and pushed open the door.
    He stood a moment, letting the cool February-evening air caress him.
    “Hey, Martin,” a voice called to him from the darkness of the parking lot.
    “Phelps?” he said, squinting. “That you?”
    With near-silent strides, Drew Phelps bounded up from Cody’s right. “Dude,” Cody said, “where did you come from? You’re like a ghost or something.”
    Drew stood before him, chest heaving from exertion.
    “I can’t believe you’re out running in the dark,” Cody said. “You could step in a pothole—or run into a parked car.”
    Drew spit elegantly through his front teeth. “Just doing some laps around the parking lot. It’s lit pretty well—in most places anyway. I watched the game longer than you did, but I got bored. You know, they should have a mercy rule or something. Granger was tearing it up. He had thirty-four at the end of the third quarter, but he got pulled out of the game. I bet he’s ticked. He coulda gotten fifty points if he’d stayed in.”
    Cody nodded. “Yeah, but they were right to yank him. Why risk him turning an ankle or something right before the play-offs? And, I know what you’re sayin’ about a boring game! It’s hard enough as it is, being a spectator and not part of the action. Besides, I don’t have the stomach for that kinda carnage. And on top of all that, my body was achin’ for a workout, know what I mean?”
    Drew laughed. “You’re asking me that?”
    Cody studied his friend. He had been completely gassed only moments ago, but now he was breathing as easily as if he’d spent the evening lounging on the couch and watching ESPN. He laughed sheepishly. “Sorry, Phelps. I know you’re a workout machine. You should have a pretty good season. You tore it up in cross-country. Number-one runner as a freshman. You’re a hoss.”
    Drew