Chapter 4 - Part 1: Ghost by Jason Reynolds

Okay, we're moving along with our story.

Take a look.

We're on Chapter four titled World Record for the worst

day ever.

Oh, let's see what happens.

I know it seems like this was the best suspension

day made in history.

And to be honest, it waas at least at first.

I got to punch that jerk Brandon in the face.

I know I know.

Not cool, but still leave school early and hang out

on the track with my new coach because I was

on a team now well, turned out to be a

pretty cool dude.

Being coach didn't go no further into my life or

nothing like that, which was a good thing because I

never really told nobody about my dad.

Instead, Coach asked me what was my favorite?

Well, my favorite basketball player, Waas LeBron, I said, like

it should have been obvious.

Wells. Who else?

Coach said, surprised, uh, let me think.

Michael Jordan, Jordan, Come on, man.

Jordan's like somebody's granddaddy Jordan don't want to see LeBron

On his worst day, LeBron could sick from a bad

batch of cafeteria chicken drum ease and still give Jordan

the business coach stood up.

See That's the problem with you kids.

You all don't know what a true champ is.

Coach, I hate to break it to you, but LeBron

is a jam.

He got rankings.

I said Hold up two fingers and wiggling them around.

But Jordan has six now.

Coach held up both his hands.

All five fingers spread on his one Justice pointer finger

up on his left.

He wiggled them like I did.

Six. Jordan's got six.

Whoa, I probably should have known that, but I didn't.

Dang, I knew we want a few.

But X is that in the Guinness Book of World

Record, the one coach s the Guinness World Record gotta

be. I put it in my head to check the

book when I got a chance.

I don't know.

Probably he was the greatest of all time.

Coach shot an invisible jump shot, his tongue hanging out

of his mouth.

It looked ridiculous.

Clearly he wasn't a ballplayer.

Then I asked him about that guy.

Read about who was supposed to be the fastest man

alive, was saying Bolt coach knew all about him, too.

He ran a 958 coach said, What's that mean?

I asked, because the numbers 95 and eight mean nothing

to me.

They're not points or nothing like that.

At least I didn't think they were.

I actually wasn't even really sure if you could score

points in track or not just leaving like the kind

of sport you just win ribbons and medals or whatever

That was his time for.

The 100 meter coach pointed up the track toward the

start line.

He had everybody sprinting from the day before.

From there, he moved his hand to the finish line

to their nine seconds and 58 milliseconds.

The boy is like lightning.

I looked at the distance in my head, counted one

Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi and pictured myself running nine

seconds. Seemed like a pretty long time, but that even

that is that even that fast, I said.

Plus, it just seemed like 100 meters was all that

wasn't all that long.

I mean, I had just run it the day before

in what had been had to be six or seven

seconds couldn't have been more than eight.

You don't think so, Coach asked, flashing a slide grand.

You think you can beat that I looked at the

distance again.

One. Mississippi, two.

Mississippi. I don't know.

I shrugged.

Probably this was when the best date ever went bad.

Coach told me to try to run 100 meters in

nine seconds and 58 milliseconds.

Bolts time.

He stood at the finish line with this whistle in

his mouth.

I rolled my pants up to my knees and mice

shirt sleeves up to my shoulders, just like I had

done the day before on the whistle, Coach said, holding

up the stopwatch on your mark.

Get set.

But it I took off down the track, running as

fast as I could.

Legs pumping arms, probably heart pumping until I got to

the finish line.

Oh, coach, How old?

Excitedly. I felt good, knew that I had proven my

point. I bopped over to coach with my hand up,

ready for the high five, but coach never lifted his

hand. Not even close.

He helped, not even freaking close.

You ran a 12 5 and before I even responded,

he barked back on line.

I jog back the start coach blew the whistle.

Iran. He blew the whistle.

I ran again and again and again each time it

came in a little slower than the last.

My head started swimming, my chest burning and my legs

got all gooey.

Like all the running was turning my bones toe liquid

or something.

After the fifth try Coach L.

Though 14 seconds, 14 seconds on the track, that might

be, well, 14 minutes.

Are you kidding me?

Event over and planted my hands on my knees.

My legs were shaking, but only on the inside, like

my muscles were shivering.

My heart was pounding as fast as my feet had

pounded the track, maybe even faster.

My stomach was flipping and I just knew by French

fries were going to come up as mashed potatoes all

over the place.

Coach walked over a shadow, making the red track burgundy

around me.

He leaned in and said lightly, almost as if he

were whispering to me back on the line.

That's when I lost it.

What, what, what again?

I need break!

I panted.

I'm tired, tired, Coach squealed, and I could hear the

smile in his voice.

I glanced up in there.

It waas big and chipped and wide, like whatever words

were hiding behind those teeth he was struggling to keep

in. So we let them out.

You know who's really tired, son, your principal coach put

his hand up homes facing me as if to stop

me from even thinking about responding.

Then he continued, No, no, you know, it was really

tired. Your mother, she's so tired, so tired.

And she's gonna be even more exhausted when she hears

about your suspension.

Come on, Coach Jay begged.

That's messed up.

Come on.

Nothing, Coach said.

Like every old black person says, when they don't have

a good comeback, you grabbed my shoulder and stood me

straight. Bending over cuts off your air, he said.

We stand straight up all times.

Understand? I nodded.

No understanding what was happening.

I was being punished.

After all, this was coaches way of telling me that

I better stop acting up in school.

If this was what the consequences of getting sent to

Mr Marshall's office, we're going to be every time.

I'd rather have to call my mother now, Mr Butter

than Bolt.

Get back on the line.

Coach made me do the sprint two or three more

times before finally letting up, and the only reason I

think he let me stop was because my sprint had

broken down into a weird, sloppy try the tall, skinny

kid Sonny had done at practice the previous day.

My shirt was gone.

I had peeled it off and thrown it on the

field just in case the wet cotton was weighing me

down or something.

My legs had pretty much clocked out, but instead of

let me just sit and rest, Coach told me toe

walk it off, Walk it off.

I asked, annoyed and confused and almost ready to cry.

Yeah, just walk around the track.

It will cool your body down slowly.

But I didn't want my body to cool down slowly.

I wanted to cool down immediately.

So yeah, at this point, I had pretty much made

up my mind.

The track was the dumbest sport ever.

I mean, you gotta move toe warm up.

You gotta move to cool down.

Don't make no sense.

Cool down.

Should be.

I don't know some juice and ice or something like

that. Not a walk.

Once I finished the first lap, coach told me to

take one more and about halfway around the second lap

of me mumbling under my breath about how stupid all

this waas I could see the other runners, my new

teammates showing up, dropping their sports bags and water bottles

and all of that on the track, some of their

parents trailing behind.

This is gonna be a coach was preaching to everyone

as I finally made it back to the other side

of the track for the second time.

10 girls and boys.

Just so we're clear.

This doesn't mean you still can't be cut.

It means you ain't cut yet.

No, I'd like to keep it this way, but that's

totally up to you.

Got it.

Everybody nodded, including a woman with braids who looked too

old to be on the team even though she was

dressed in running clothes.

I had first noticed her from the other side of

the track and figure she was somebody's mother until she

didn't sit down with the rest of the corny kids

cheering squad coach Wim um, about how this was the

third day of practice for the spring season and how

he wanted to be sure we all knew each other,

or at least to make sure all the vets knew

the newbies.

I was still standing back, sort of outside the circle

as coach started rattling off everybody's name on the girls

side For the vets we have Michelle Cherry, Brit Brat

Williams, Melissa Jordan DD Gross Crystal speed.

Any girl with the last name speed had to be

fast. Kind of like any dude with the last name.

Bolt Coach continued.

Deja Bolek lin take Condra.

Former Nikki McClair.

He paused in motion toward the last girl in Our

Newbie for the for the Girls is Cantina.

But she told me a few minutes ago that she

goes by Patty Jones.

Everybody clap, Patty.

I got high hopes for you, young lady.

Let's make it happen.

Then he started calling out the boys names.

The vets Eric Dane, her current outlaw, Aaron Homes, Mikey

Ferer, Freddy Hayes, Josh J.

J. Jerome and Chris Myers.

You boys better look out for our newbies.

Lu Richardson, Sunny Lancaster in This was one coach turned

to me and as of yesterday, this kid castle Cran

ghost. I cut him off before he could even get

to the Shaw wrote, Just call me Ghost Coach gave

me a look.

Actually, everybody gave me a look, probably because I didn't

have no shirt on and my pants were rolled to

my knees and my belt was yanked so tight that

it made the done a bunch of around my waist

like genie pants.

But whatever I was going to tell them, that son

coach said I was gonna tell them that, son Coach

said. Then he turned back to the rest of the

team. Lastly, this is your assistant coach, coach wit.

Coach Wit was the woman with the braids.

She had also had a chubby cheeks.

And like I said, she looked too old to be

on the team.

But she definitely didn't look old enough to be nobody's

coach. Then she pulled the whistle from her underneath her

sweatshirt, so that pretty much meant that's who she waas.

Give it up for your squad, coach told us, slapping

his hands together.

This is gonna be a great season.

Everybody cheered and clapped for maybe 10 seconds before coach

shut it down and told us it was time to

get to work.

Let's stop there, you guys.

So he's that track practice.

Is anyone thinking, my gosh, he hasn't jeans on and

built doesn't sound like it's high tops are made for

running. So I'm thinking to myself, This isn't good.

What's gonna happen?

I feel like there's that's some part of the story

that's important So let's listen on as I go on

to our next part.

Chapter 4 - Part 1: Ghost by Jason Reynolds

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