Get Real by Betty Hicks Page A

back to screaming, “Go, Heels!”
    The game is incredible. All of it. With only five minutes left, the lead has switched twenty times. It’s been tied twelve times. There have been at least eight awesome slam dunks, ten astounding where-did-he-come-from blocked shots, and so many bad calls from the short ref with slick hair that I’ve lost count.
    Foul on number 34, signals the other referee, holding up three fingers on one hand, four on the other.
    â€œWhat!” screams Jil. “He never touched him!”
    â€œBooooo!” I circle my fingers around my mouth and roar my disgust.
    â€œGet new glasses!” shouts Jane.
    â€œGet a new job!” shouts the man behind me.
    â€œGo to—”
    The crowd noise swallows the rest of it, but I know what he said.
    I turn to see if Penny knows what he said. Penny is asleep! Curled up in Jil’s and my shirt, sleeping like a baby, with people screaming their heads off all around her.
    Then I remember. It is late. And a school night. And she is only ten. But still … this is the Duke–Carolina game! And the score is tied!
    Jane leans across Penny and shouts something into Jil’s ear. Jil’s face drains completely of color. She stares at Jane as if she’s lost her mind. Frantically, Jil shakes her head. Then she points at Penny and says something I can’t hear. Jane answers something back.
    Jil returns to watching the game, cheering loudly with the crowd.
    â€œWhat?” I shout at her, grabbing her arm and shaking it. “What’d she say?”
    Jil faces me. Clearly embarrassed. “Jane wants to go home. It’s past Penny’s bedtime.”
    â€œWhat!” I scream. “But … but…” I search for words that will express my complete and utter amazement. Finally, I settle on, “What difference does it make? Penny’s already asleep!”
    â€œExactly,” shouts Jil. “I pointed that out.”
    So, apparently, we get to stay to the end of the game. I go back to stomping my feet and shouting support to the players, to the rafters, to anyone, to everyone.
    With only two seconds left on the game clock, Carolina is up by three points. Duke has the ball, and their point guard is flying downcourt as fast as his feet will carry him. The crowd noise is deafening. Pandemonium is the only way to describe it.
    Just over the midcourt line, the Duke player pulls up and fires a desperation three-pointer.
    Twenty-three thousand people all hold the same breath.
    The ball soars through the air forever, then arcs, drops, and swishes through the net. Clean. Like a dagger in my heart.
    We’re going to overtime.
    The crowd sound switches from thunder to nothing. No sound at all. Not even a gasp.
    Penny wakes up.
    Jane says, “Sorry, girls. But we’ll have to go now.”

Chapter Twelve
    â€œCan an you believe it?” whispers Jil.
    We’re both lying in the dark, in my bedroom. Jil under the covers of one twin bed. Me in the other. Supposedly falling asleep.
    â€œNo,” I grumble. “I can’t.”
    As a matter of fact, I will never believe it. But I don’t want Jil to feel any worse than she already does, so I try to find a bright side. “We could make it into the Guinness Book of World Records, you know.”
    â€œHuh? For what?”
    â€œFor being the only four people in the history of the universe who ever left a Duke–Carolina game at the beginning of overtime.”
    â€œWhat? Oh.” Jil makes a nervous little rapid-fire noise that sounds chillingly like Mom-2’s laugh—the laugh I thought was cute, but now I’m not so sure.
    â€œNo,” says Jil, “what I meant was, can you believe we won the game?”
    â€œWon it? I can’t believe we missed it!” I hiss across the dark space between our beds.
    â€œOh, come on,” says Jil. “You got to hear it on the radio.”
    Is she for real? The