Read Colin Fischer for Free Online Page B

will.”
    Mr. Turrentine leaned in slightly for emphasis, looming. For the first time, Colin noticed a small constellation of raised moles on his teacher’s right cheek. He tried to imagine how the man shaved around them without cutting himself, but left the thought experiment inconclusive as Mr. Turrentine snapped his fingers to regain Colin’s full attention. “Step up to that line.”
    “Sir?”
    “Did I misspeak, Fischer? Did I mumble, cough, or otherwise fail to articulate the fullness of my meaning? Step up to the line.”
    Colin appreciated the concreteness of the clarification. He obediently stepped up to the faded white line before him, then turned to face Mr. Turrentine.
    “There is one and only one thing to understand about the game of basketball,” Turrentine said. “God is a busy man. He doesn’t have the time in His ineffable schedule to appear on my court and miracle your balls into a basket nine feet in the air.”
    “Mr. Turrentine?”
    “Yes, Fischer?”
    “I don’t believe in God.”
    Colin waited for what he believed was the inevitable response. His lack of belief in a Supreme Being was longstanding, extrapolated from his third-grade deconstructions of Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, but he often encountered hostility when it came up in conversation.
    Mr. Turrentine, however, remained impressively blank-faced. “Well, that’s just fine, Fischer. Because I believe in you.” He took a step to the side, observing Colin’s stance. “Now, square your shoulders. Relax your elbows,” he said. “Let them swing.”
    His words were crisp and clear. Not simply loud, but commanding. In fact, they weren’t really
loud
at all—simply loud
enough
. Colin hypothesized Mr. Turrentine never shouted, though he allowed that future encounters could prove him wrong.
    Mr. Turrentine reached to touch Colin’s elbow to correct him. Instinctively, Colin drew back with a cringe.
    “Please don’t do that,” Colin said in a small voice.His teacher gave no indication of having heard him, but didn’t try to touch Colin again. Instead, he demonstrated the free throw stance himself, letting Colin observe and then try to model the posture himself.
    “Like this?” asked Colin. His positioning was an exact mirror of Turrentine’s own. Eight years of occupational therapy had prepared him well to follow instructions on where and how to move.
    “Just like that,” Mr. Turrentine replied. Colin detected a new tone in his voice and tried to identify it. IMPRESSED , Colin decided. Perhaps AMUSED . He couldn’t be entirely certain without a recording to review and further comparative study.
    “Now, close your eyes.” Mr. Turrentine waited a moment for Colin to comply. “Now visualize the basket, and the distance between your hands and the hoop. Then visualize throwing your ball into the basket. Are you seeing it?”
    Colin stood with his brows furrowed and eyes darting rapidly back and forth beneath closed lids, almost as if he were dreaming. “No, I missed that one.”
    Mr. Turrentine watched Colin as he slowly dribbled the ball, his eyes closed, occasionally muttering phrases like “No” or “Not quite” and “Failure.”
    Colin wrinkled his face in consternation, wishing he had his Notebook to draw the picture first. But he didn’t have his Notebook and doubted Mr. Turrentine would allow him to retrieve it. So he did thenext best thing: He imagined he had his Notebook. In his Imaginary Notebook, Colin drew a schematic of the asphalt court, overlaid with a complicated force diagram depicting every variable involved in making or missing a shot. He included every conceivable factor, from the distance between himself and the hoop, to the estimated strength of the breeze he felt on his face. Satisfied that he understood the parameters of the problem, Colin extrapolated the diagram from his imaginary Notebook to a mental image of himself and the hoop in three-dimensional space. Colin threw shot after shot in