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Show school yard and it's broken basketball hoops with no nets. Some boy was always trying to be smart and chin himself on a hoop and would end up yanking down the hoop so that it sagged all year long. The inside of the gym smelled of dusty floors, which were never quite swept clean by the janitor, and the basketball court was in the same pathetic condition, maybe a little worse-as when she had been there last year. It was poorly lit by only six bare light bulbs in the ceiling, and as usual, one was burned out. There were three small windows running along the top of the gym, reinforced by chicken wire, but the windows didn't seem to give much light either. The room seemed doomed to permenant dimness. The floor was rough and needed a coat of shellac, and the ball hardly bounced on the rough floorboards. Kim tossed the ball towards the basketball standard and retrieved it in slow motion to give her cold muscles a chance to warm up. Being in the empty gym, even with its was the nicest thing that had happened to her all vacation. She was taking a shot from the foul line when she heard a thumping ball in back of her. At first, she froze, knowing it couldn't be her mother, and wondering who else could be in the gym the day after Christmas. Then she heard laughing and low, masculine voices. She spun around to see T.J. and four of his friends sauntering towards the hoop she was playing on. T. J. was about a foot taller than the last time she'd seen him and he had on a yellow basketball undershirt that 172 |