Read Online Long Shot by Eric Walters - Free Book Online

mouth are my legs and my ears.”
    â€œHe’s getting louder each week,” Kia agreed. “By the way, where’s your Dad?”
    â€œI don’t know … it’s not like him to be late,” I said, scanning the parking lot for his car.
    Instantly my mind started to whirl around all the possibilities from car crashes to alien abductions.
    â€œHe’s okay, Nick,” Kia said reassuringly. “Besides you’re probably lucky he isn’t here.”
    â€œHow do you figure that?”
    â€œBecause if he were he might have been standing by the gym door waiting to get the coach’s autograph.”
    For the second week in a row my father had been going on about wanting to get Coach Barkley’s autograph and talk to him.
    â€œYou got a point there. That would be reallyembarrassing … although I can’t really blame him.”
    â€œYou can’t?”
    I shook my head. “If Julius the Jewel Johnson was inside that gym right now where would you be?”
    Kia smiled. “Standing right by the door ready to throw myself in front of him until I got his autograph.”
    â€œSo you
do
understand.”
    â€œI guess so.”
    â€œSpeaking of guesses,” I said. “Any guess as to how well we did today?”
    â€œWell … I did well,” she joked. “And you didn’t do badly yourself either. I think he even likes you.”
    â€œYou do?” I asked in amazement.
    â€œThink about it. He asked you to lead the warmups again, didn’t he?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œAnd he didn’t yell at you that much.”
    â€œNot that much,” I admitted.
    â€œNot as much as he yelled at almost everybody else. He really gave some people a hard time,” Kia said.
    He ripped a strip off half a dozen kids, the biggest strip coming off L.B.
    â€œSo you don’t think we have anything to be worried about?” I asked hesitantly.
    â€œNot a thing.” She paused. “Not that that will stop you from worrying.”
    Of course she was right. Kia knew me really well — sometimes a lot better than I liked. But then again if you hang around with somebody every day for almost your entire life you’d have to expect that.
    My mother had once said jokingly that the two of us were like an ‘old married couple’ who can complete each other’s thoughts and sentences. I think she could tell by the look on my face that I wasn’t very happy when she said that because she never repeated it.
    It’s hard enough having a girl as your best friend without your mother making cracks about it too. We got too much of that from other people already.
    It was interesting that Coach Barkley hadn’t said a word about Kia being a girl … at least I hadn’t heard him say anything. I wondered if he’d said something to Kia and she just hadn’t mentioned it to me or—
    â€œI do know some people who
should
be worried,” Kia said, jarring me out of my thoughts.
    I knew the kids she was talking about. It wasn’t as if Coach Barkley was subtle when he wasn’t happy about something.
    â€œI think a couple of guys from last year’s team are on thin ice,” Kia continued.
    I nodded my head in agreement. Both Greg and Ryan had looked lost out there. Unfortunately forthem Coach Barkley had noticed and announced it repeatedly.
    â€œDo you think he’s going to cut Greg or Ryan?” Kia asked.
    â€œI don’t know anything for sure except that he sure does like to yell,” I said.
    â€œI don’t think he could be quiet even if he wanted to,” Kia continued.
    â€œCan you imagine him in a library?” I asked.
    â€œSure,” Kia said. “It would be something like this …
Do you have any books?
” she bellowed. “
You know, tough books, hustling books, books that aren’t afraid to hurl themselves off the shelves!
”
    I started to laugh.
    â€œOr