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wrong.
    â€œWhy don’t you have a television?” Kia asked.
    â€œWe’re too far out to get any signals.”
    â€œWhat about satellite TV?” Kia questioned.
    He shook his head. “That doesn’t work either be-cause of how close we are to the mountains.”
    While all of this was unbelievably strange, it at least helped explain Ned. Who he was and why he was that way now made more sense to me.
    â€œNed, have you ever seen a basketball game? Either in real life or on TV?” I asked.
    â€œMaybe once … a long time ago … I think it would be an interesting game to watch. I bet there’s lots of action.”
    I didn’t know what to say. Kia and I just looked at each other. If he’d just said he was an alien life form visiting from another planet, we couldn’t have been any more shocked or surprised than we already were.
    â€œNed, you should come back outside. Even if you’re nervous about playing, you should at least watch us play,” Kia said.
    â€œI guess that would be okay.”
    â€œAnd if I do throw you another pass,” she said,
    â€œit’s okay to move your hands to try and catch it.”
    â€œDo you think you can memorize that?” I asked.
    â€œI’ll try … I’ll really try.”

Chapter Seven

    â€œI brought out something for you boys … and girl, to drink,” Debbie said as she came out carrying a tray with a pitcher and glasses on it.
    â€œThanks,” Kia said, tossing me the ball.
    â€œCould we show my mom a play before we stop?” Ned asked.
    â€œSure, why not,” Kia said. “I’ll sit out while you three run the play.”
    I knew Kia’s offer wasn’t so much about being nice as about being the first one to the drinks. We’d been working all day. Ned had made some progress. For one thing he managed to go the entire day without once catching the ball with his face. Actually in the beginning he found it difficult to catch the ball with any part of his body,including his hands, but he had improved a little. He’d learned most of the plays, or at least could tell us what they were and what he was supposed to do. He had a lot of trouble doing anything once he got there, but he had thrown the ball up a couple of times and made a basket. The first time I thought it was just an accident or fluke. When he missed the next six — failing to even hit the backboard — I knew I was right. But at least he was trying.
    Actually I found Ned very trying. He was trying my patience, and trying my ability to remain even remotely polite. It wasn’t just that he couldn’t play — and he couldn’t — as much as the things that kept on coming out of his mouth. He kept rambling on and on about insects, and dinosaurs, and ‘interesting’ facts about nature that nobody but him seemed to find interesting.
    I had to hand that to him though. Despite the fact that he stunk, he just kept on trying. He was terrible, but he wasn’t giving up. If I was that bad I would have gone inside the house and just quit. Maybe he wasn’t smart enough to realize just how bad he was.
    There was no question about how much playing time he was going to get in the tournament. Unless the other team totally sucked or we were up by ten baskets, he was going to sit on the sidelines.
    Kia had been bugging me, saying we could play him a little. I figured the ‘littler’ the better.
    â€œCan we do one where I get to shoot?” Ned asked.
    â€œOkay. Sure,” I answered. What difference did it make?
    Ned gave me a big, goofy smile — which went along perfectly with his big, goofy everything. His hair was sticking up into the air in a million directions, and he had this T-shirt that read ‘Science is happening here!’ and wore hiking shorts and canvas hiking shoes. He couldn’t have looked goofier if he sat down and planned it out.
    â€œLet’s do