From Chapter One:


    I'd secretly fixed an eye on Angel McPherson the moment she arrived at
Big River High School, at the beginning of the girls' basketball season six
months ago, and now was my chance to put a move on her.
    Me, Danny Henderson, who'd never had a serious date in his life, was
going to hit on the Stone Angel.
    I studied her now as she stepped, relaxed and confident, to the
free-throw line, bouncing the basketball, eying the hoop, her blond ponytail bobbing.
Dressed like her, in a red-and-white Falcons basketball uniform, I crouched on
my haunches on the sideline at center court in our overcrowded gym. We're all
Falcons. We call our gym the Bird Cage-it's that small.
    I was waiting my turn at the hoop for the Free-throw Shooting Contest at
our annual spring charity assembly. The student council sponsors the assembly
in the gym during the first week of April every year. Kids pay a dollar to
listen to student air bands, participate in pie-throwing at volunteer teachers,
and watch the principal kiss a pig. Someone always asks, "Which one is the pig?"
    "The one with the wiggly tail."
    "I still can't tell the difference."
    We can also watch a free-throw shooting contest between a member of the
boys' basketball team and member of the girls' team. The money we raise goes to
help handicapped kids. My best friend and teammate, Tony Gomez, stood behind
me for moral support.
    I eyed Angel McPherson harder. She was the coolest girl I'd ever seen.
She was probably the best female basketball player in the state of Iowa, an
all-state center, playing on an undefeated team that had won the state
championship a month ago. Awesome for a small-town high school in eastern Iowa on the
banks of the Mississippi River.
     We boys had stumbled to a 5-16 mark. Pretty bad.
    Every girl in the gym was rooting for Angel. Their shrill screams pierced
my ears and made me wince. She was so sharp in her basketball outfit I
figured ninety per cent of the guys were rooting for her, too.
Angel stopped dribbling, took a deep breath.
     Silence reigned in the gym.
    Blowing out a long breath, she hoisted the palmed ball to eye level in
her right hand, the left balancing it. She bent her knees, then lofted her shot
in a high arch toward the basket with perfect rotation, her wrist and fingers
extending for follow-through.
    Swish! Nothing but net. Another girl from the girls' team chased the ball
down and tossed it back to Angel.
    "Nice form," Tony whispered in my ear. "And she can shoot the basketball."
    Angel nailed her second shot, and I thought the girls' shrieks would
split the gym's walls and burst the windows.
    In a team meeting, Coach Dunlap had begged for someone to step up and
challenge Angel. The contest was a no-win situation for a guy. If he won, he had
beaten a girl. What pride could he take in that? If he lost, he faced
humiliation and ridicule. Who wanted that?
    Fully understanding the downside, I stepped forward, saying I didn't mind
doing a good deed for charity, even if I might look foolish. I had a lot to
be thankful for compared to handicapped kids, which was true, but everyone
looked at me as if I was crazy. Not a single guy knew of my secret wish to sidle
up to Angel.
     She popped in her third, fourth, and fifth shots. All net. She was in
rhythm now.
    The gym rocked with even louder shrieks.
    I swallowed and shifted my haunches.
    Another thing. Dunlap said he was glad I had volunteered because I needed
all the practice I could get shooting free-throw under pressure. He was right
about that.
     When she dropped in her tenth consecutive free throw, the entire student
body-faculty included-stood, clapped, and cheered for her.
    "We're number one! We're number one!" the girls chanted, pounding their
fists in the air.
    I stood up on the sidelines, my throat dry. I hadn't expected to feel
this shaky, but if my strategy worked, the shakes were worth it. And the
humiliation of losing to her.
    "Just relax, buddy," Tony said. "You can beat her. Keep telling yourself
that."
        The contest format was simple enough. Each shooter would take twenty-five
shots. Ten for the first shooter, ten for the second, followed by another
round of ten for each shooter, then a round of five.
    The most baskets out of twenty-five won. Each shooter had to take
twenty-five shots, even if things looked hopeless for him or her near the end.
     Angel turned and flicked me the ball, a chest-high shot with steam behind
it, her face expressionless, her eyes sliding away from mine.
     As I dribbled the ball to the free-throw line, I paused a moment when she
passed me, and made my first move on her, saying, "Nice shooting."
     She looked at me again. Blankly. Maybe surprised. "Thanks."
    For the first time, I noticed that her mouth was tilted a little, not
much, as if someone had pasted it on her face crooked.
     She'd worked up a nice sweat. Beads of perspiration sprinkled her
forehead and clung to her full upper lip. She'd probably been loosening up in the
upper gym before the assembly started. I should've thought of that.
    As I stood at the free-throw circle, bouncing the ball with my right
hand, then my left, my knees felt weak, my palms, damp. Just like first-game
jitters.
    Tony stood under the basket, ready to retrieve the ball. "C'mon, buddy.
Just do it. Beat her."

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