Growing boy-1

After school that day Eric went to the school gym. He was going to try out for the basketball team. There was almost no chance that a sixth-grader could make the junior varsity team, but he was tall for his age and besides, it was one of the few after school activities that met his mother’s approval.

Eric was sitting on the bleachers with thirty other boys when Coach Cane came into the gym. “OK, listen up,” she barked above the noise of the students’ talk and horseplay, “Coach Jones has had a family emergency, so tryouts are postponed.” A murmur of disappointment ran through the crowd. “Let’s move down to the locker rooms. You can call for your rides there and wait until someone comes to pick you up.”

The coach led the way down stairs out if the gym. “You boys keep things down to a loud roar. I don’t want to have to come in here,” she said as the boys passed by her and into the locker room. Eric knew that his mom wouldn’t pick him up for more than an hour. He sought out an area on one of the benches to wait. The dreaded Jose Williams wasn’t around – someone had said that he had been expelled. So he didn’t have to contend with that asshole. He decided that he might as well start on his homework, so he opened his math book and tried to study.