Boot Camp by Eric Walters Read Free Book Online Page A

better than us, but we were amongst the best. Our
buddy
Jamal was actually one of the few people I thought had more skill than us. The only thing more remarkable than his skill was his trash talking. It wasn’t just Kia and me hegave attitude to. He seemed to tick off a lot of the other kids.
    â€œYou’re probably wondering how we’re going to choose up teams?” Jerome said.
    There were nods and mumbles from along the line as people agreed. That certainly was in my mind. The biggest thing I hoped was that Kia and I would be on the same team. It was hard enough knowing only one person. It would be really hard not knowing anybody on my team. It wasn’t that people weren’t friendly—lots of people had talked to us—but it was different than knowing somebody.
    â€œWe were watching all of you yesterday. This morning before you all arrived the coaches sat down and figured out how to divide you into teams,” Jerome said. “We want teams that will be competitive and evenly talented. It wouldn’t be fair to any of you if one team was much better than all the rest.”
    â€œNot fair at all,” Johnnie added, “and no fun for the team that would be so much better. There would be no competition, and they wouldn’t learn and grow as players.”
    â€œSo, listen up as I call out the names!” Sergeant Push-up said.
    He was wearing that serious, almost scary face, but I knew better now. Underneath that serious surface was a nice gentle man—a father, a grandfather and a great Scrabble player.
    He started to call out names. I watched as people responded to their names being called.
    â€œThat’s the first team,” Sergeant Push-up said.
    There were a couple of good players on that team, a couple I hadn’t noticed—which meant they were probably not too good or too bad—and one guy who was just plain awful.
    Sergeant Push-up continued to call out names. A second team was assembled. Again, I could tell they had balanced out the team with kids of different skill levels on it.
    â€œNick!” Sergeant Push-up called out.
    I startled out of my thoughts and trotted over to his side. He looked directly at me and gave me a little wink—he knew that I knew his secret—and I was keeping it. I winked back, and I caught the slight shimmer of a smile start to form before he swallowed it back inside and scowled a little bit harder.
    He called out a second name. I spun around to see who it was. I didn’t know his name, butI’d seen him play—he was okay. He walked over and we exchanged a low five. He seemed like a pretty good guy.
    Unfortunately that meant one less chance that Sergeant Push-up was going to call out Kia’s name. Who was I kidding? They weren’t going to put Kia and me in the same group. They’d probably separate people who knew each other so that we’d get to know other people.
    â€œJamal!” he called out.
    I startled in shock. Jamal! No, anybody but him!
    Jamal and another kid stepped forward, looked at each other and stopped.
    â€œThat’s right,” Sergeant Push-up said. “There are
two
Jamals in this camp.”
    Maybe it wasn’t going to be him. I looked at the other Jamal. I didn’t know anything about him, didn’t remember him playing, but he had to be nicer than the Jamal I knew.
    Sergeant Push-up looked down at his list. “Jamal
Johnson
,” he called out.
    â€œThat’s me,” Jamal—the Jamal I knew—said, and the other guy retreated into the line.
    Just my luck.
    Jamal swaggered over. He didn’t look at me orthe other kid as he went to the end of the line.
    Sergeant Push-up called out a fourth name, and the guy came forward. He gave everybody else on the team—including me—some props as he walked over to join us. We were going to have a pretty good team. He called out a fifth and sixth name and the next two people joined