Hoops

0 1 / Snip Snip

"OH MY GOSH, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, this is such a bad idea. You guys can't do this, for real, you can't do this."

"Oh we can," Calum swung himself over to Jo's bed where Tess sat in a panicking mess. The rest of their friends stood around Jo, who was placed on a chair in the middle of her room as Riley carefully lined up his scissors with Jo's long brown hair.

The group had decided to chop off Jo's hair in her room, instead of the bathroom, so they could all watch as the girl with the hair to her waist got it hacked off. The door to the bedroom was securely closed so that neither of the parentals could walk in on their daughter's make-over, which they would both be opposed to.

"Geez, chillax Tess, it's only hair," Tyler rolled his eyes at his over dramatic friend while standing on the paper bags they had spread all over the floor to catch any runaway hair.

Tess removed her hands from her face and glared at Tyler, "that's not what I'm talking about and you know it." In one fluent motion, she smacked both Calum and Tyler on the back of their heads before crouching down in front of her friend, "you don't have to do this."

Josephine Perry, the girl sitting and waiting for her locks to be cut, let out a hearty laugh, "if I'm going to practice at an all boys camp this summer, I sure as hell better look the part, but I definitely appreciate your concern." Tess's hazel eyes pleaded to her friend but Jo was too far gone.

The girls basketball camp had been cancelled due to low faculty numbers, so Jo made it her mission to find a new one to attend. After a thorough search yielding only camps that were too full or too expensive, she decided on the next best thing: enroll as a guy and practice at the same camp her friends were going to this summer.

Because that was always a realistic solution.

"Hey, hey!" Calum laughed, "are we gonna cut this hair or not?" He smacked his hand on Riley's back.

"Ready?" Riley asked Jo.

With a nervous but excited smile on her face, Jo nodded. I'm doing this for basketball, she repeated over and over in her head. And she really was. Just because it was the summer before her first year in college didn't mean she could let herself go. If she wanted to play on a college basketball team, she'd need to put her all into practicing. While deliberating over whether to join the boys camp or not Jo had come to the reasoning that if anything, it would help her become a more aggressive player: especially when up against people larger than her.

"I'm ready."

Snip

"Oh no," Tess whispered.

"Oh YES! There we go! Let's get this Gabe train MOVING!" Calum cheered. Gabe was the name they had decided on for Jo's "male" name. She was adamant on not using the name Joe for her cover, 'I just don't look like a Joe. Jo, yes. Joe, no.' So after an hour of name searching, pizza, and arguing whether Calum was a spring or a summer... for some reason..., the name they finally settled on was Gabe.

The three of them watched in excitement as the ponytails that gathered Jo's hair fell to the ground. Even Tyler, the least animated of the group, was interested to see what his childhood friend would look like with her hair chopped short.

He didn't particularly condone what Jo was doing, but he understood it. Since kindergarten the two of them had been the basketball duo. Summers meant sweating on the court and school months meant working with the team. It was their life, and Tyler always believed that commitment was an integral part to any sport and what Jo was doing was definitely commitment.

He also felt better about her plan because she was going to attend the same camp as him, which meant he could look out for her. (Calum was also going but Tyler knew he would be no help with anything.)