More Than Meets The Eye **DISCONTINUED**

Chapter One

Fweeeeeet! Ryan covered his ears, the high school coach was a lot more generous with the volume of that whistle. She could play a tuba ,no sweat. "Get your head in the game Carter!" She yelled at me, it was too easy to see her temper in the veins of her neck. Every time she got mad, the veins would bulge and her face would turn into a tomato. It was bad enough that he couldn't tell a football from a badminton birdie, but this was outrageous. We called her little miss barracuda, even though she was not little, and that wasn't her name, it fit. She was a volcano on the brink of eruption. 

The whistle hooted it's one note song and the game began. Cole, our school's MVP, got the jump ball. He passed to Derek, who spun to the left and began his dance, dodging left and right, until he made it up to the net, passed to Cole and he went in for the dunk. Swish. The first lead on the game was ours, well, theirs, I just used my skills to get in the way, so I hung back and tried to avoid all contact. I was good at that. When I wanted to be, I could be a shadow, never being spotted until I reached into the cookie jar.

Suddenly, the unexpected happened before my eyes. Cole turned to me, winked, and passed the ball in my direction. It would have been such a simple action, no one would have given it much thought, except that he- the school popularity and team champion- had made the pass to me -the school joke, the outsider- immediately, my body reacted, I caught the ball and raced up the court, acing the dangles whenever someone dared to reach for the swipe. Before I could blink, I was going for a three pointer. The ball left my hands. It soared through the air, everyone just stopped and stared. I looked away, I couldn't watch. the ball went over the net, and into the hands of King Cole himself, who caught it and ran through the layup drill. The ball flew up, pushed by Cole, and hit the rim, went around once, twice, three times, and fell in. Score. We won. I couldn't believe it. I had set up the perfect pass and my failure turned into victory. And then the moment was over. The bell rang and it was time for math.

In the hallway, Cole came past me and surprised me again. "Way to go man! I didn't know you had it in you!" He paused and gave me a hesitant once over. Then he continued after I failed to break the silence. "Were you always this good?" He paused again, I could tell he was thinking. "You've been hiding this whole time! Only to surprise us when we least expect it." He turned on his heel and started for math class. He threw one last compliment over his shoulder. "Keep this up, and you'll be a star, Ryan. Don't let me down, Carter." And then he was gone.

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How was the first chapter? If you liked it, smash that vote button and continue on to the next chapter! I don't like interrupting your reading time, so I'll only put author's notes every five chapters or so. Keep reading! Tsumi out.