I was going to take the shot, but at the last instant, I spotted Joey. He and I made eye contact, and I think he read my mind.
In that split second, I remembered Joey’s amazing flea-like leap when he knocked the basketball that was stuck on the top of the hoop.
So instead of a bounce pass to Joey, I lobbed an alley-oop pass high above the rim. Joey leaped like a flea, caught the ball in midair, and then landed on the rim!
Joey didn’t dunk. He simply dropped the basketball into the hoop.
And I’m not even making that up!
The Mighty Plumbers defeated the Platypuses, 72–71. We were the league champions for the first time in the history of Spiro T. Agnew Middle School.
Our fans flowed out of the bleachers and onto the court. Joey jumped down off the hoop and was immediately mobbed by me and the other players. Jimmy Jimerino picked him up and placed him on his shoulders.
Joey and I exchanged high fives and fist bumps.
“Nice dunk!”
“Nice pass!”
During the celebration, Coach Earwax complimented Jimmy on his excellent Rally Slide.
I traded hugs with Stephanie and Becky, then broke off and went to search for Fido. I was worried that he might have wandered onto the court, where he would get squashed by the celebrating fans.
But Fido was safe. He’d slithered out from under the bleachers and crawled over to me. He was unharmed, but there was a big bulge in his belly. And it was about the size of a gym rat.
EPILOGUE
So I wasn’t exactly the hotshot athlete hero of the Big Game, but my hard work in the backyard paid off, and I got to be a lean, mean rebounding machine in the final minutes of the Big Game.
Anyway, I don’t even want to be a hotshot athlete hero. I’m okay with sitting on the pine.
I’m probably better at it than anyone else my age in the entire universe. End of the bench. Middle of the bench. Doesn’t matter.
No brag. It’s just a fact.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
When his rear end isn’t glued to the bench along with his two best friends, Joey Linguini and Carlos Diaz, Steve likes to spend time selling sports memorabilia at inflated prices and hanging out with his pets—especially Fido, a large snake who struggles with separation anxiety.
Steve does not like to spend time eating broccoli, running wind sprints until his lungs explode, or climbing into the attic to dispose of dead rats.
He lives with his former hotshot athlete dad and turbo-hyper-worrywart mom in the extraordinarily average city of Goodfellow, which may or may not show up on Google Maps.
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COPYRIGHT
KING OF THE BENCH: COMEBACK KID. Copyright © 2018 by Steve Moore. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Cover art © 2018 by Steve Moore
Cover design by Katie Klimowicz and Laura Eckes
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Digital Edition SEPTEMBER 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-220337-3
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-220336-6
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1819202122CG/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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