Page 9 of Untouchable Player

“What are you getting now?”

“A ‘D’.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “Why didn’t you tell me man? If you don’t get a C grade, Coach’ll have to cut you from the team.”

“I know.”

“Aren’t you on a scholarship?”

My face gets so hot I think it’s on fire, “yes.”

I can’t even look at Jones when he slaps me on the back. “Don’t sweat it, we’ll find someone to help. But not Clarke, he’s dumb as shit, what’s he getting anyway? Scraping a C?”

I shrug. “What about Petroski?”

“Petroski? He can barely speak English.”

I want to tell him that Petroski speaks English, Polish and Russian and while I don’t know how good his Polish and Russian are, there’s nothing wrong with his English as far as I can tell.

“Listen, leave it with me, I’ll figure something out.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m your captain, that’s what I’m here for.”

I try to leave and Jones calls me back, “and Engels, next time, just come to me first yeah?”

Nate

I’ve been waiting for over an hour for my brother and his idiot friends to leave so I can go downstairs and get a drink, but they’re still here and I’m thirsty.

I do my best to avoid them as I slink into the kitchen and pour myself a glass of juice, but Harrison pounces the second I open the fridge.

“What’s up?” he says.

“Uh, nothing.”

“What you up to?”

I show him the carton of orange juice.

“Cool.”

I turn my back, but he comes and stands beside me.

“So Nate, you wanna be a teacher one day right?”

“A professor, when I’m like forty.”

“Yeah exactly, so, how would you like to get some practise?”

I frown and he says, “not me, no, it’s for someone else.”

I look through the window leading into the pool room and my stomach drops.

“Oh no, no way, I’m not tutoring any of your idiot teammates.”

“Hold on a minute, that’s not very nice, just because they play sports…”

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