✅ My Sister's Problem

132. Game On

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There were a lot of people playing basketball that afternoon. The courts in the park were packed, and I wondered what was going on. I didn't think I'd seen so many people wanting to show off their skills before; but I quickly realised that could have been because until the last couple of months, I hadn't paid much attention to anyone on these courts if it wasn't Hugo.

"Wow, seems like everybody wants to play," Nadine gasped, clearly as surprised as I was by the crowds.

"Back at school," Hugo said with a shrug. "Both local high schools and two out of three middle schools go back tomorrow, and everybody wants a win to end the summer. It's a tradition, as long as I've been playing in the parks. Everybody brings their best game the last day of summer, and everybody gets a match. There's a couple of nerds who are probably keeping an eye on who arrives, and putting brackets together."

I nodded, and looked around in amazement. Every court was in use now, and they were surrounded by spectators. I saw enough familiar faces around here that I guessed a good proportion of the people here were hoping to play at some point. It was like everybody in the area who enjoyed basketball was coming together to see how they compared to the other locals, and I found that a little scary.

"Maybe I better leave it for some other day," Nadine mumbled.

"You'll be fine," Hugo reassured her. "There's a lot of people around, but some of them are serious, some less so. There's some rivals I want to face off against, but there's all kinds of matches going down. And if you can get into the sport at all, you'll feel great to have a chance with people watching. If you're just starting out, the end of summer is your best chance to have spectators cheering for you. Right?"

"Hey dude!" Some guy tapped Hugo on the shoulder, and I tried to remember who he was. I'd probably seen him in school, but I couldn't remember his name. "You playing today? Threes or fives?"

"If we can find Chains, I was hoping for a rematch against Georgie Lafayette and his crew," Hugo answered with a shrug. Was this guy one of the people organising matches and controlling the queue for the courts? "Is he around? If not, Sally can join us. Might be able to make a five if anybody wants to play us..." he hesitated and turned to me and Jaycen. "You up for a game, Sally? I assume Meghan's around somewhere, too, so we could make five."

"You know you're going to end up playing idiot jocks, right?" the guy answered him. "Two girls on a team, you'll end up kicking the ass of every clown who can't accept that girls can beat him in sport."

"We can do that," Hugo said with a shrug. "Nadine might want to play too... I'd be interested to see how she does against Sally. I taught her about as long as I've been teaching Sally, and it would be interesting to see how they compare. But feels kind of cruel to put relative newbies in a direct contest, so we were thinking some teams together."

The other guy thought about it for a second, and then they went into a debate in more depth than I could follow. It seemed they knew the names of everyone who played locally, and they could find good teams to tack us onto. I was a little embarrassed by what I had said earlier, and I hoped that today would be fun, without any kind of public humiliation.

It wasn't long before we met some more of Hugo's friends. Chains appeared, smiling more than I'd seen him before. I guess for some people, this chance to show off their skills was really important. And then I was pulled into a game against some rival team I didn't even know. Meghan didn't join us in the end, but Hugo had plenty of friends who could make up the numbers when we were going up against some team with five members.