A Game Worth Watching by Samantha Gudger

his driveway
next to a portable basketball hoop, dribbling a basketball and putting up shots
like nothing else in the world mattered. She rode her bike, or rather one of
her brother’s bikes, back and forth in front of his house, checking out the new
kid before her brothers got to him and turned him against her. Her brothers had
never been keen on sharing their friends with their little sister, so the only
way Emma had a shot at befriending the boy was to reach him first.
    As
soon as he saw her, Riley gave her the head-to-toe look-over, assessing her
assessing him. She could only imagine what he must have seen: a girl with holey
jeans, hair askew, and dirt smeared across her face and caked under her chipped
fingernails. She expected him to insult her and shoo her away like a stray cat,
but he surprised her.
    He
looked at the basketball in his hands and then squinted back at her. “You
play?”
    Did
watching her brothers count? Rather than answer verbally, she shrugged.
    “Well,
do you wanna play?” he asked tentatively.
    She
shrugged again, not wanting to appear desperate for his friendship. “Sure.”
    Emma
hopped off her bike and joined him in his driveway.
    He
passed her the ball. “I’m Riley, by the way.”
    “I’m
Emma.”
    They
took turns shooting—Riley making all of his shots and Emma missing all of
hers. A few minutes later they heard a deep chuckle behind them.
    “I’m
gone for five minutes, and you’ve already found yourself a girlfriend?”
    “Dad,”
Riley groaned. “Emma’s not my girlfriend. She’s a basketball player.”
    “Emma,
is it?” Mr. Ledger looked into her eyes, like she was a real person, and
extended his hand to shake hers. “Nice to meet you.”
    Riley
could have told his dad she was Superman , and it would have had the same effect
on her. It made her stand a little taller, raise her chin a little higher, and
feel like she could take on the world. For the first time in her life, she
wasn’t a stupid girl or a little sister or a brat. She was a basketball player;
she had a purpose. She liked the way it sounded. Right then and there, Emma
decided she would do whatever it took to be a basketball player. It didn’t hurt
that Riley’s dad wanted Riley to be the best, and for him to be the best, he
had to play against the best. So that’s what Riley and his dad did—they
made Emma into the best basketball player they could.
    Whether
it was their shared love of basketball, an only child’s desire for a sibling,
or a lonely girl’s need for a friend, Riley and Emma had been inseparable ever
since.
    Now,
trying to figure out how to teach the game she only knew how to play, she tried
to remember how Mr. Ledger had taught her. Patience, humor, and the loving
touch of a father. He’d shown her how to hold the ball for a shot, how to
absorb the ball into her hands to dribble rather than slap at it, how to face
an opponent without fear. Mr. Ledger showed her all the things her dad never
had time to teach her.
    Somehow,
during those basketball lessons, Emma learned to trust the Ledgers more than
her own family. Maybe it was because the Ledgers gave her cherry popsicles and
warm-baked cookies; reassuring smiles and high-fives. Maybe it was because
Riley made her laugh, and his parents always seemed happy to see her. Sometimes
it felt wrong to go to Mr. and Mrs. Ledger when she had a question or problem
only a parent could answer rather than to her own dad; sometimes it felt wrong
that she felt safer with Riley than her own brothers. After all, families were
supposed to stick together. Maybe her parents saw how she sometimes wished she
were a Ledger rather than a Wrangton; maybe that’s why her mom left and her dad
pushed her away.
    Emma
shook her head. The past was the past. What she needed to do now was figure out
a way to teach the freshman how to play basketball.
    The
school day passed and she still hadn’t formulated a plan. Ashley, attaching
herself to Emma’s side throughout