Not that less hair had reduced the attention Jared got from girls he saw on the street or at the mall. During those rare times when his mother wasn’t working and could coax him into helping her with the grocery shopping, she often teased him about the appreciative looks he got from girls his age and even older. Strangers smiled shyly, while girls from Cornwallis Middle School, where Jared was in grade six, greeted him by name.

He always smiled back, but he’d keep walking, uncomfortable with all the attention. Steve, in grade seven and much more worldly, kidded him about it and told Jared he’d gladly give up his favourite food—tacos—for even half that attention. Although he was shorter than Jared, Steve’s square features and broadening shoulders attracted quite a few glances of their own, but he joked, “Most of them are just ricochets. Their eyes bounce off you and hit me.”

People often remarked that Jared got his good looks from his mother. Long, auburn hair framed a face pretty enough for billboards or shampoo bottles, and her slim figure gave no hint of the Pepsi and chocolate bars she snacked on regularly. A fast metabolism, nervous energy, and her work as a nurse at the city’s largest hospital kept her from putting on weight. Jared had his own share of fun teasing his mother about the men who turned and stared at her in checkout lines or at bus stops, but she’d elbow him in the ribs and tell him again how one guy in her life was more than enough, thank you very much. Jared’s dad had left them both seven years ago, and she just didn’t have much use for men at this point in her life.

There was one girl from Cornwallis Middle School who seemed to feel the same way about Jared. One time when he and his mom were at the mall, Jared bumped into a girl coming out the exit, her eyes focused on a book in her hand. When she glanced up at Jared, recognition reflected in her face, but she hurried by without saying a word. “That’s Ellie,” Jared had told his mother when she’d asked who the girl was. “She’s in my class. Doesn’t like me much.” But Jared wasn’t concerned one way or the other with the attention he got from his female classmates. His first love was basketball.

Which was why he was so anxious to share Steve’s news now. “Guess what?” he said, opening the door and following his mother and Cal inside the bungalow. “Tryouts start next week!”

“Tryouts for what?”

“For the Cougars!” he exclaimed incredulously, then noticed his mother’s teasing smile. He had talked of little else for the last three weeks. “Steve told me Coach Jamieson posted the notice today. Tryouts start next Thursday.”

“Think you’re ready?” she asked, hanging her sweater on the hook behind the door, then taking down a package of angel hair pasta from the cupboard above the stove. She pulled a pot from a drawer and handed it to him, and he began filling it with water while she took green and red peppers, tomatoes and mushrooms from the crisper of their old Kenmore refrigerator and laid them on the cutting board.

“I dunno. I think so, but Jamieson don’t like to—”

“Doesn’t like to,” she corrected as she began slicing the vegetables.

Jared scowled. “He doesn’t like to take on grade sixes. Only grade eights and maybe a few sevens make his team. Hardly ever grade sixes.” He turned off the tap and put the pot of water on the stove to heat.

“I think I remember you telling me something like that,” his mother said elaborately, and Jared knew she was teasing him again. He had announced that sad truth nearly every day since school had started seven weeks ago. Cornwallis Middle School had a policy that all students take part in at least one extracurricular activity each year. Jared was already playing on the school’s soccer team—which was finishing up an excellent season, thanks largely to his and Steve’s offensive skills—so he had already fulfilled his extracurricular requirement for the year.

A natural athlete, Jared would have tried out for soccer even without the school’s policy. Yet, as much as he enjoyed soccer, it was Jamieson’s Cougars that he most wanted to play for.

Coach Jamieson did not train losing teams. In fact, he had coached the Cornwallis Cougars to division championship status six years in a row. Jamieson was an okay grade eight science teacher, but his reputation as a basketball coach was almost legendary in the city. Kids who dreamed of becoming Cougars began training long before they walked through the doors of Cornwallis Middle School. Most, like Jared and Steve, played at the Y and joined community leagues. A few who had the money, like Jared’s classmate Rafe Wells, paid for private coaching and spent summers at expensive basketball camps in the States. Everyone, however, was equal in Jamieson’s eyes—he didn’t give two hoots about your background. What counted was what you could do on the court during tryouts. Above all else, Coach Jamieson wanted to win.

And above all else, Jared St. George wanted to play.

Which was why he’d decided he wasn’t going to show his mother the letter folded neatly out of sight in his pocket.