Basketball Love

Doodle was an orphan with his brother Ken and they lived with their grandma. Their parents were killed in a car crash just off the highway. The doctor said that they died instantly at the scene of the crash. When Doodle and Ken found this out they knew that they would have to either live in an orphanage or with a relative. Their favorite person in the world was their grandma. Even though she was gaunt, she was still very cool. She was so cool that she had an alias for emergencies.

Doodle is twelve years old and is very athletic. He is basically good at everything he tries. The only problem is that he had eye surgery two years ago. The eye doctor said that he couldn’t play contact sports. If he played and got hit in the head, his retinas could detach. That meant no basketball. Doodle couldn’t just recede from basketball so he searched for other sports that he could play to get his mind off it. He looked at tennis, badminton, and ping pong but none of them felt right.

Even though Ken and Doodle were brothers, they were also best friends. They told each other everything and anything. Ken was kind of snobby and Doodle was ok with that most of the time.

“What should I do?” he asked his little brother.

“Well you can try to convince grandma to let you play. Duh!”

“She will never go along with it after losing mom and dad.”

“I don’t know then, I’m not a therapist!”

The next day Doodle’s friend Leon was handing out flyers that said he was going to have a DARE basketball team and everyone was invited to play. Doodle thought, I want to play. Maybe if I get a flyer and sign up grandma will say yes. He took one from Leon and didn’t show his grandma until after dinner when she was very tired.

“Grandma, can you sign this?” he asked.

“Sure what is it?” she answered.

“Oh it’s just for school.” Doodle replied.

“Oh it’s just for school.” Ken derided under his breath.

Granny signed it without taking a glance and Doodle thought, Yes, no questions! Score one for Doodle!

The next day, Doodle went to go find his brother, Ken and tell him his secret.

“Don’t tell anyone about this!” he exclaimed.

“Fine. I won’t, but what’s in it for me?” Ken asked, hoping he could get a kick out of knowing something that no one else knew. He was staring into space as he thought Blackmail!

“Ken! Hello? Earth to Ken?!”

“What… oh sorry yeah I’ll keep the secret if you do my chores and homework for a month.” Ken said while getting out of his trance. Ken was a typical older brother who was very selfish.

“Fine but I'm not doing a good job." Doodle said grudgingly.

That Wednesday was the first practice of the DARE team. No one knew that he had an eye problem so he would have to be very careful not to get injured. Doodle saw every one of his friends that played basketball, and allowed Ken to watch. The practice went okay but some of his teammates weren’t very good. At the end of practice they scrimmaged and Doodle’s team won!

When Doodle and Ken walked into the front door of the house they saw Granny sitting on the couch. As soon as they got in Doodle and Ken knew that they were in deep trouble.

“So how was your day?” Granny asked sternly.

“Um good.” They answered timidly.

“I was calling the school to find out where you were and they said at the gym. So might I ask what you were doing?”

Doodle gave Ken a look that said oops we forgot to make a cover story. Doodle thought that if they could embellish a cover story on the spot then they would be good. Suddenly Ken blurted, “We did it!”

“Did what?” asked Granny giving them a knowing countenance.

“Doodle is playing basketball on a team and neither of us wanted to tell you because we thought you would get mad.”

“Oh I’m not mad…I’m furious! You guys are very avarice self-centered people!” Granny reprimanded. In fact, Granny was so mad that she stormed up to her room and slammed the door.

“So what do we do now?” asked Ken.

“We just wait till she cools down.”

“Don’t hold your breath.”

The next morning Doodle and Ken had to get themselves ready for school because Granny wouldn’t help at all.

“Doodle, I wanted a PB&J sandwich not PB&F you buffoon!” Ken complained.

“Then make your own. Or just take two dollars and buy lunch!” Doodle yelled.

At school Doodle told Leon all about the fight with his granny and that he might not be able to play. At the end of the day everybody was giving Doodle death stares.

“Wow. Gossip travels fast!” said Ken.

“Tell me about it.” exclaimed Doodle with his head down so no one could see his shame.

They even heard people say, wow Doodle is so mean to his grandma. I can't believe he did that.

When Doodle and Ken got home Granny asked to speak to Doodle alone.

Granny had a sudden benevolence, “Doodle, I’ve been thinking… I think that I was a little too hard on you and Ken and we should compromise about you playing basketball.”

“Uh okay? So what did you have in mind?” This wasn’t at all what Doodle expected.

“I thought that I would observe the first half of your first game and at half time we would converse with each other. You could tell me how rough you thought the other team is and vice versa. Does that sound good to you?”

“Yeah sure.” Doodle sighed because he knew that if Granny saw just one minor thing that she didn’t like, that would be the end of his dream. He felt like he was being emancipated.

Saturday was their first game and everyone from school was there. Ken came too with some of his friends to see what happened. Doodle’s team was down by 15 at half time and they were really tired. It was affluent in skill. When the buzzer sounded, Doodle ran as fast he could over to the bleachers to see what Granny would say.

“So….?” He asked, feeling the excitement build up in him.

“Well…I think that they’re not that rough except for two big boys, number 11 and 15. They seem like they would give anything to get the ball so I don’t want you guarding them.” Granny stated loudly because the fans were shouting out loud blasphemous remarks.

“Yeah I thought that too.” Doodle rushed to say, feeling all the suspense rising up in him. “So can I play?

With a smile Granny said, “Sure. Why don’t you play for 5 minutes and then look at me. I’ll give you a thumbs-up or thumbs-down for the rest of the game.” Doodle was so excited he leaped off the bleachers and grafted to the rest of his team in the hallway.

“Guess what guys?” he didn’t wait for an answer. “I can play!!!!!!!” He gave him a short anecdote of his conversation with Granny.

The team was so excited and Leon gave him a huge bear hug. The coach didn’t let him go in right away but Doodle was one of the subs. Doodle would never forget the moment when his coach said that he would go in.

“Doodle, you’re up.” said his coach. Doodle was jumping out of his seat and almost tripped in all of his excitement.

“I am so ready coach! What am I playing?”

“Point guard.” his coach answered. That was Doodle’s favorite position and he was very good at it. Once Doodle was in the game, their team started pulling together. Doodle dribbled and ran deftly down the court. It turned out that he could play the rest of the game because when Doodle looked over at Granny, she had a huge grin on her face with two thumbs-up. His team got more points in the second half but still lost. Doodle was a little rusty because it was the first game that he had played in 2 years!

After the game Granny talked to the coach and they both agreed that Doodle could play in every game as long as he was careful and not guarding a huge person. In the car with Ken, Doodle asked, “Was I good?”

“You were great!” replied Granny and Ken.