Rise Above the Problems

"Hi, I'm Nick, what's your name?"

"Hollister."

"Do you have any hobbies?"

"Yeah."

He nodded for me to go on.

"Baseball, basketball, and soccer."

"Oh, so you're the jock. I was afraid, they all reminded me of nerds."

"Yeah, well..."

He pated me on th back. I flinched.

"See you around Hollister."

"See you."

In all my years at George Washington prep, no one had ever come up to me and done that. Other people, maybe, but not me. And especially while I was shooting.

Nick was a black kid. I had never had one in our grade before. He was small and skinny and dressed in clothing about five sizes too big for him.

He seemed to think that we were best friends, starting that very first day of middle school. I had my own friends. We were the basketball stars, not to mention the ones that got first dibs on girls. But Nick was neither. He was clumsy, annoying, loud and all together obnoxious. No one really liked him, which I guess is why he chose to follow me all day. He never let me out of his site.

I tried finding ways to take advantage of him. Nothing. Then, one day he did turn out to come in pretty handy.

In all my life I had never been to a baseball game. His parents had gotten tickets to a Yankees game. They said he could take one friends along. He chose me. But at the same time I was also invited to a basketball game by Austin. Nick asked me first, and I had already said yes. Besides, I had been to basketball games before.

"Sorry, I've got other plans that day," I told him.

"Doing what?"

"The Yankees."

"You're going to see the Yankees?"

"Yeah."

"Can I, like, come with you?"

"Sorry man."

For once Nick was out of site. I was afraid he was going to pop up from behind my back and reveal the truth. Which is what he did the second after Austin asked me who I was going with.

"Cousins," I lied.

"NO!" Nick squealed, "No, he's going with me." He was jumping up and down, excitedly.

"You're going with Nick?" Austin laughed, "Have fun." He turned and walked over to Jared. Lovely, now the entire school would think I chose Nick over Austin.

So I ended up going to the baseball game with Nick, and had the time of my life. I knew that getting back to school would be a problem. I had a feeling that my social status would drop significantly. But surprisingly it didn't. It didn't because Courtney, my girl-friend, still went out with me, and I was still able to beat everyone at basketball. I just didn't have Austin as a friend any more...or Jared. I had Nick instead. And shortly after the game I figured out what to with him.

"Do you want to learn how to play basketball?"

He looked puzzled, "I already know."

"No, I mean do you want to learn how to play it well?"

"Yeah!"

So, I taught him how to play basketball. The next time he saw me shooting he ran over to me. But unlike every other time, he didn't interrupt me. Instead he stole the ball from me and shot.

Crap, I thought, he's better than me now.