Chapter 4: Sweet Akua

One day after school, the kids were around, so I started a football game. Desmond, the geekiest person, accidentally tackled Steve. Steve was excellent in every sport. Everyone laughed at him, and he was pissed. I was the quarterback, so my skills came into play. Every time I threw the ball, they would catch it. Shawn started to have money signs in his eyes, and I got scared.

After the game, Shawn came to me and asked, "Hey Eazy, you wanna play for my team? I saw what you did out there on the field today. You'll be really good for us." He was smiling eagerly. I knew he didn't want me for my skills. He wanted to make money off of me. I said, "No. My passion is basketball, not football." I explained quickly. I didn't want to play for Shawn. I ran away from him and accidentally tripped and fell face-first into a puddle of mud. I experienced mud tasting for the first time, so I immediately ran home to take a shower.

The last person I wanted to see when I got home met me at the front door. It was Opal. Opal's immediate reaction to seeing me covered in mud was one of her huge guffaws. I was already embarrassed, but she made it even worse. "Give me a break, Opal!" I exclaimed, and I ran past her and headed straight for the shower. I could still hear her laughing even though I was in the bathroom. When I was done showing, I headed to bed. I was exhausted.

Nothing happened for the rest of the months until the end of November. That's when tryouts for the middle school basketball team began.

I was so excited and met a lot of people there. During tryouts, they made us run suicides to see if we could last long on the court during games. Fortunately with my endurance skill, it was a walk in the park for me. Then they tested us on our passes, which I was ok with since I played the point in my previous life. I was more of a passer than a scorer. Next was shooting, which I dominated since I couldn't miss a single shot even when I tried to lose. After training my strength these past weeks, I was able to shoot from almost everywhere. I was proud. My training finally paid off.

Everyone there was shocked a middle schooler could score like that. The coach was totally impressed. "Hey, Eazy, right?" He asked, "Yeah, that's me," I responded with a proud smile. "I would like for you to be my point guard." I thought for a second. "Coach, I got other things in mind. Let me play shooting guard, or else I'm gonna look for another team." The coach raised his brows. I tried not to laugh because he looked scared. "Oh! Yeah, sure Eazy. You can play any position you want." He tapped his pen slightly on his clipboard and began to write as he asked me, "You wanna be team captain too?" I shook my head and said, "No thank you." I didn't need that stress of setting up plays because all I want to do is shoot the ball. "Alright then, Eazy. See you soon."

We finished the try out successfully, and I went home to tell my family the good news.

My sister Opal didn't care much. When I told her, she shrugged and turned on the TV. My mother just smiled and said, "Good job!" I wasn't entirely convinced about my mom's congratulations. It seemed like they still didn't take me all that seriously, which I didn't mind. Time will tell when I prove them wrong. I wish I had a system so I could get it to do my homework because I had a lot to do that night.

The next day after school, we had our first team practice. The coach was called K, the point guard was Darrel, me at the shooting guard, Tom was small forward, Hack was a power forward, and Momba was our center. Our team was called BobCats, which I thought was pretty lame, but what can I do about it?

We had a bench, but I honestly couldn't remember their names, so I called them by numbers 1 for point guard, 2 for shooting guard, and so on; hopefully, you get the point. Coach K had us play a game against the bench to see how well we play together. We started the game with Momba winning the jump ball and passing it to Darrel to run the point. I quickly faked out #2 and got open behind the three-point line and asked for the ball. Darrel ignored me and started dribbling the ball like a mad man and trying to show off some skills. #1 quickly steals the ball from him and runs to the other end with high speed and makes the layup. Now they got the first point because this idiot decided to show off.

Tom gets the inbound and passes to me instead of Darrel because of the dumb play he had just made. I dribble to the half court and just take the shot from there because no one was near me, and I made it. The whole gym got shocked. Even Coach K was smiling like SpongeBob at this point. I tell Darrel to pass it to me next time I ask for it or when I'm open, and he simply says, "yes sir." After telling Darrel off, we start to get into a smooth rotation of score and defend.

Momba was good at defending and scoring in the post due to his height sitting at 6'4, the tallest person I've seen since coming back to this time. #2 started defending me hard even from the half-court line because I made a couple more shots from there. We won the game by a landslide thanks to my balls, and the bench team didn't even look down. Although, they got excited at the thought of being on the same side as me and winning the cup for the season. Coach K called me over after the game and asked me, "Yo, Eazy, do you wanna replace anyone from the starting line with any of the guys on the bench?" I thought for a moment and told him, "Let's have our first game and see how the starters will do before I make a decision." Coach K nodded in understanding. "Also coach, you better get ready for this season 'cause all we're gonna do is win-win-win." I told him with excitement. With my skills and powers, all of this was going to be easy.

When I got home from practice, I went to do my homework and eat and then went to hang out with John. As I'm walking to John's house, a girl called Akua comes out of her house. I was in love with this girl from West Africa. Even now, as a ten-year-old, she was still a beauty. She is a ten out of ten from my previous life and I always wanted to get with her. I immediately stop to have a quick chat with her. "Hi, Akua, you look mighty fine today in your skirt." She gets surprised because I've never been this bold around her, so she says, "oh, you are not going to run off today after seeing me."

I laughed it off because the former me was shy and would always run as fast as I can when I saw her. I responded, "no I'm not the same person from yesterday" I teased with a smile. She burst out laughing and said, "how cute... but I don't date boys around my age!" I immediately cut her off and exclaimed, "you date!? Wait, but-- you're only ten! Who could you be dating?" She then tells me, "the greatest and sexiest man to walk this Earth Jesus of the Christ." My face sinks, and I laugh and say, "I guess I still have a chance since he's no longer on this Earth... and isn't he a little too old for you? Unless you like sugar daddies like that." She laughs and says, "I'll see you later, Eazy." I leave happy because I was able to impress her today, unlike my old self. I was a loser to her even until high school.

When I got to John's place, we played some Dreamcast and left for the court to play some ball. When we got there, it was crowded with some grown men playing games. We asked for a game to play, and they told us that they just started so we can split up and join them. We started playing, and they didn't want to pass it to me since they thought I couldn't play, so the person watching me just left me alone most of the time outside the 3pt line. After going back and forth they finally decided to pass it to me, and I made the shot. They thought I got lucky. When they did it the second time, I made it and caused us to win the game. All of them cheered since they couldn't believe a ten year could make such an outside shot. "Hey, kid, you should join my league," One of the older guys said. "I'm part of my middle school team already," I responded. Another guy told me, "I got a granddaughter, maybe I can set both of y'all up." I almost choked and told him "Dude! I don't even have hair down there yet!" Which makes him laugh. "Hey-- I'm just saying, kid, you might end up in the NBA and I'll miss my chance to miss a family dinner for a free meal." I shook my head and left the group to go home. After a few weeks of practicing with the team, we had a practice match with a nearby school. Their team is the Sharks, and they have a key player named Kon who is a center.

We start the game, and Kon wins the jump ball and passes to their PG. Kon gets in the post and gets the ball back and quickly does work. He tricks Momba into jumping and steps to the sides to make a layup. Darrel starts the run on our site and quickly gives it to me, and I see it in Momba's eyes that he wants revenge. I pass it to him in the post, and he quickly jerks and does a step back and makes the mid-range shot to tie it up. By half time, they were up by 4 points. It's practically Momba vs. Kon because they keep going back and forth with each other in points. Bill is annoyed by this point and asks me when I'm going to him in the final minutes as an icing on the cake. The score was 56 to 62 with 2 minutes left of the game. We were losing, so I told Darrel to give me the ball from now on because Momba and the others were tired and out of breath.

I quickly received the ball and took a step back three to bring us behind by 3. The Sharks were a little shocked because they didn't see me score the whole game, and the first shot I took went in. The coach immediately told the team to double me. There was only a minute left, and they had the ball but lucky for me they were all tired so they weren't paying attention and the PG tried to pass it to Kon, but I read it and intercepted it. I ran off and stopped at the three-point line and made the shot to tie it up with 20 seconds left.They quickly made a run and Kon made a dunk over Momba to get the lead up by two they started to celebrate because there were only 2 seconds left.

I told momba to inbound the ball to me and let me take the shot. They didn't even bother playing defense, because I was on the other side of the court. As soon as I got the ball, I turned around and threw the ball as hard as I could.The bell sounded for the game over, and the Sharks started hugging each other until they heard the net making noise, and the scoreboard changed. The place erupted with cheers, and everyone came running to me because I made that shot at winning the game for us. The Sharks were feeling all kinds of emotions at this point, and some were even crying, I laughed at this scene and shook my head. Another win for me.

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