At the Center

By Patrick Jones

Cody's basketball team, The Rebels, has an almost perfect record, thanks to the skills of his best friend Jayson "Dominator" Davis. Jayson is new to the team and to the nearly all-white high school. Tension between the coach and Jayson has simmered since he transferred from the inner city. When Coach kicks Jayson off the team, more than the school's record is at stake. A school-wide dispute falls along racial lines, and Cody finds himself at the center. Can Cody step up his game where it really counts?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lerner Publishing
• Release date: Aug 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512419245

Patrick Jones

Patrick Jones lives in Minneapolis and is the author of many novels including the Support and Defend series. A former librarian, Jones received lifetime achievement awards from the American Library Association and the Catholic Library Association.

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Copyright © 2016 by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

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Front cover: © istockphoto.com/MistikaS; Susan Rouleau-Fienhage (background).

Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std 12/17.5. Typeface provided by Adobe Systems.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Jones, Patrick, 1961– author.

Title: At the center / by Patrick Jones.

Description: Minneapolis : Darby Creek, [2016] | Series: Bounce | Summary: When an African American student transfers from an inner-city basketball team to the suburbs, tension among the players and the coach erupts along racial lines. To the anger of his teammates, the coach kicks him off the team after he gets into a fight. Can a social media movement get him back on the court?— Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015041821| ISBN 9781512411225 (lb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781512412062 (pb : alk. paper)

Subjects: | CYAC: Basketball—Fiction. | African Americans—Fiction. | Race relations—Fiction. | High schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction.

Classification: LCC PZ7.J7242 Atm 2016 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015041821

Manufactured in the United States of America

1 – SB – 7/15/16

Thanks to the real Lucy for reading and recommending an earlier version, and to Judith Klein for her copyediting skills.

1

Friday night

December 2

Vestavia Hills (Alabama) High School gym

Even sitting all comfy at the end of the bench, far away from the action, I hear the loud smack as Jayson’s fist smashes into the jaw of the big, white, doofus center from Mountain Brook High who’d been elbowing him all night. No doubt under Jayson’s number 45 uniform, his light brown skin is covered with dark blue bruises. The doofus gets not one, but two shots. Bam bam. So in addition to Jayson’s first-half triple-double, add another double: two fists to the face.

The home crowd goes wild. It’s huge because there’s not much else to do in Vestavia Hills on a Friday night. Players from both teams converge on the fight. Bench-sitters like me leap off the pine like it’s on fire. Everybody’s man-on-man except the doofus, who is man-on-floor. It’s a crazy scene, and I jump into it with enthusiasm, which I have more of than basketball skills. Being on the court, like I am now, is something I’ve only experienced once—and only for two minutes—in our team’s first two games. Games we won easily because of Jayson Dominator Davis.

Jayson stands over his fallen foe big as a house until our coach, blue eyes bulging and square jaw sticking out, grabs Jayson by the back of his jersey and spins him around. Coach gets in Jayson’s face, which means he needs to stand on his toes since Jayson is six ten and Coach isn’t even close. Coach gets up in his ears too. I can’t hear it, but I can see the pained expression on Jayson’s face. One part’s disappointment and the other part’s anger. Something you learn early in sports is that the coach is always right, even when he’s wrong. Jayson, my best friend on the team, has burned with anger toward Coach since transferring to Vestavia High at the start of the year. He’s a black barracuda in an ocean of whitefish.

The refs blow their whistles like steam engines to calm things down. The players retreat to their benches so we can continue the game to the inevitable conclusion: another Vestavia Hills victory. Or maybe not, because I hear the ref with gray hair eject Jayson, but not the downed doofus-tree. I wait for Coach to argue it. Instead he pushes Jayson away from the floor—two hands hard on the number 45—except Jayson’s not moving. It’s one on one: two hundred–plus pounds of young