Free Front Court Hex by Matt Christopher

1
    H OW COULD LAST YEAR’S basketball star have played two games this year so far and not have scored a point?
    Jerry Steele looked up at the ceiling. Had he really played those two games so badly? Perhaps it was only a dream. But the
     longer he stared the more certain he was that the games really had been played.
    His mother’s voice boomed from the kitchen for the third time. “Jerry! Will you
please
get up? It’s getting late!”

    Grumbling an unintelligible answer, he rolled out of bed, yanked out clean underclothes from the dresser drawer and began
     to dress.
    Five minutes later he was sitting at the kitchen table eating his breakfast. His mother, whose light brown hair lay in soft
     curls across her shoulders, shook her head and sighed.
    “Jerry,” she said, “sometimes you amaze me how quickly you can get ready.”
    He grinned. “The secret word is ‘late,’ Mom. The minute I heard that —
zap!
— I moved like Batman.”
    “I wish you’d move with half that speed when I ask you to take out the garbage, or shovel snow off the sidewalk,” she said.
     “Your Dad had to do both of those chores yesterday, and it was your job.”
    “Aw, Ma! I just forgot!” He chompedon his toast without looking at her, knowing that she was right. But there was something about small jobs around the house
     that made him ignore them, even though he knew they had to be done. His father did the bigger jobs, like repairing leaks in
     the plumbing or fixing the roof; Jerry was expected to help with the smaller ones.

    “Well, make sure you don’t forget again, young man,” said his mother as she stacked the breakfast dishes in the sink.
    Jerry nodded. After he finished breakfast he put on his jacket, gathered up his books, and headed for the door. “See ya later,
     Mom,” he said. He kissed her on the cheek and left.
    The air was nippy, biting at Jerry’s face as he headed for school four blocks away. It was December, and a soft white blanketof snow covered the roofs, the streets, and the sidewalks in the small town of Spit-ford, huddled at the foot of the Catskill
     Mountains.
    A new thought suddenly troubled him. He remembered the book report he had asked Ronnie Malone to do for him because he hadn’t
     had time to do it himself. Well,
time
wasn’t quite the word. He had as much time as anyone else in the class. He just didn’t want to
take
it, that was all. And he assumed, Ronnie, being his best friend would do it.
    “Don’t expect me to do it all the time, Jerry,” Ronnie had said. “If Miss Clarey finds out she’ll never trust either one of
     us again.”
    “Don’t worry, she won’t find out,” Jerry had answered.
    He met Ronnie in the locker room. Thetall, red-headed boy, in blue pants and white pullover, passed a couple of folded sheets of paper to Jerry and said, “Make
     sure you copy it over.”
    “Don’t worry,” Jerry replied. “Think I’m stupid? Don’t answer that!”
    He thanked Ronnie. Later, in study hall, he copied over the report. With every word he wrote he felt a sense of guilt. He
     was tempted to throw the paper away and start one of his own, but the thought that the report was already completed won him
     over. His forehead beaded with sweat, he finished copying it, tore up the original, and tossed the pieces into a wastebasket.
    That afternoon he handed the report in, hoping that Miss Clarey didn’t notice his shaking hand.
    That night the game against the Foxfires started at 6:30 in the school gym. All the players were there at 6:00 warming up. The Chariots, for whom Jerry played
     guard, wore maroon, white-trimmed uniforms. The Foxfires wore scarlet.
    “How many shots are you going to miss tonight, Jerry?” somebody asked.
    Jerry looked around at the tall, blond boy behind him. Freddie Pearse was the Chariots’ center. Although he was never a close
     friend of Jerry’s, that wisecrack made him less a friend now. The fact that Jerry had played two games without scoring a