“I could,” she said.
Mr. Reynolds turned around. “How much do you wanna bet?” and the class
went, “ooooohhhhh,” and Marigold said, “Twenty dollars.”
“Let me see the twenty dollars,” he said, and Marigold said, “Let me see if you
have twenty dollars,” and the class went, “ooooohhhhh” again. Mr. Reynolds reached
into his wallet, fucking Velcro, and slammed a twenty on his desk. Marigold reached
into her purse and counted out ten ones and a ve. “at’s all I have,” she said, and
Mr. Reynolds said that was just ne.
“Patrick,” he said, and I got scared. “You hold the money,” and so I got up and
waddled around the room to get the money.
“Let’s go,” Mr. Reynolds said, and he walked into the hallway. It took a few
seconds, some giggling, but soon we all followed him, down the hall, out of the
main building, and into the gym.
e gym teacher, Coach Billings, seemed perturbed to have us in there. His class
was playing badminton on one half of the gym.
“Franklin?” he asked Mr. Reynolds. “You doing a science project in here or
something?”
“Jimmy, I need to use that half of the court for a demonstration. It’s all about”—
he paused, trying to think of something—“physics and whatnot.”
Mr. Reynolds went to get a basketball, and Marigold was stretching.
“Can’t have those shoes on the court, Franklin,” Coach Billings said apologeti-
cally, and Mr. Reynolds just kicked o his loafers, peeled o his socks, and walked
onto the court. “We’ll play to ve,” he said, “one point per basket. Make it, take it.”
I know for a fact, one-hundred-percent, that I was the only person in that gym
who wanted Mr. Reynolds to win. Marigold’s boyfriend had called me a queer
one day when he saw that I had a handkerchief that had little roses embroidered
on it.
Marigold took the ball from Mr. Reynolds and started dribbling to her right,
looking to blow past Mr. Reynolds, but he stayed with her, and when she went for
a lay-up, he swatted it away so easily that the whole class seemed to groan at the
same time. In his bare feet, toes as long as ngers, he ran down the bouncing ball
and immediately put up a weird set shot that came from his hip, and he buried it
easily. “One-zero,” he said, and Marigold looked puy and angry.
Mr. Reynolds scored three points as easily as possible, even hitting a skyhook
over Marigold’s ineective defense. When he got the ball back, Marigold dug in,
scued her sneakers on the squeaky oor, and Mr. Reynolds faked a shot. In that