Calli Be Gold Read Online Free

it to the hoop!” he shouts as Alex weaves around two players from the other team. Alex looks over at Dad although the coach is shouting something at him. “Shoot!” Dad screams.
    Dad’s face is so frantic and red he reminds me of a crazed cartoon character, like his eyes might pop out of their sockets or steam will shoot out of his ears.
    It’s fair to say that Dad becomes possessed when he’s watching Alex play basketball. Same thing when he watches Becca skate in a competition. He forgets about the rest of the world. If a fire was to start in the bleachers, he wouldn’t even notice.
    Alex takes a long shot, then throws his fists into theair as the ball sinks through the net. The crowd erupts. The cheerleaders do little cutesy jumps. Mom bolts up from her seat like a rocket and sends me off balance, toppling me backward from the bench. She doesn’t realize she knocked me over, because she’s applauding wildly and stamping her feet and yelling, “Woo, woo!”
    Here I am, stuck with my legs up on the bench and the rest of me below. All around me, people’s feet are tapping and stomping, shaking the bleachers like a mini earthquake.
    With the deafening commotion, people crammed into their seats, Dad shooting imaginary steam from his ears, and Mom woo-wooing, all under the glaring overhead lights of the high school gym, for some reason, the only thing I can think about is that little kid at the rink, Noah Zullo, lying quiet and still and alone in his zipped-up jacket under the broken hockey-foosball table.
    I wonder who he is and why he was at the rink. I wonder if he’s still there, under the table, or if someone found him and took him home. Then I wonder why I’m wondering so much about him.

he other team ties up the game right at the ending buzzer. Ugh. Overtime. Everyone gets even crazier. Dad starts to climb toward us, then stops as a father from the other team shouts that Alex’s team is a bunch of punks. Dad yells a couple of swears in his direction. Then the other father asks Dad if he wants to “take it outside,” but a woman next to him, probably his wife, plunks a hand on his shoulder and pushes him down onto the bleacher seat. A different woman shouts to both fathers that they are setting a bad example and should shut up unless they want to get thrown out of the gym.
    I’m noticing all the things no one else notices, like how the dad who called Alex’s team punks has an unusual striped pattern of baldness and hair, and how thewoman who told them to shut up has eyebrows that are colored in thickly with brown pencil.
    I’m curious about whether the man combs his hair to get it like that, or if it naturally grows that way, and if the woman puts on the eyebrow pencil every morning and how it stays untouched all day.
    At last, the game has only a few seconds left. After some more fouls and free throws and time-outs, when my stomach grumbles are sounding as loud as thunder, the game finally ends. Alex’s team wins by two points. Do I need to say who made the final shot?
    Finally, the four of us are walking through the dark parking lot to Mom’s van and Dad’s car. Dad is more leaping than walking, really, as he slaps Alex on the back and punches his fist upward in the night air. “Now that’s how it’s done!” he shouts ecstatically. “You dominated that entire game. Alex, my boy, that might have been the best of your career!”
    Then, right in the middle of the parking lot, Dad stops and grabs Alex’s shoulders. “I’ve never been more proud of you, Son,” he says. He chokes up a little and his eyes look misty. I wonder if he’s going to cry.
    Mom’s eyes are shining too as she beams at Alex and pulls a tissue from one of her purse compartments. “Remember this moment,” she tells him, dabbing at her eyes. “They don’t get any better than this.”
    “That shot, at the end …” Dad glows. “It was amazing.I thought it might hit the rim but it was right on target.” Dad starts