Digging Deep (Volume 4) (Hoops, Band 4) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Elena Delle Donne has been a professional women’s basketball player since 2013, when she was selected by the Chicago Sky second overall in the WNBA draft. She was the 2015 WNBA MVP and won the gold medal with the USA’s women’s basketball team in the 2016 Olympics. She is the global ambassador for the Special Olympics and became the first national ambassador for the Lyme Research Alliance. Elena also plays host to De11e Donne Academy, a basketball camp that runs throughout the year, where she mentors and coaches girls ages seven to eighteen. She now plays for the Washington, DC, Mystics.

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Digging Deep

1

Time for Something New?

In my dream I was tearing down the basketball court, dribbling so fast past the defenders that they were just a blur. The crowd chanted my name. “Elle! Elle! Elle! Elle!”

I approached the basket and jumped up, my body feeling light as I floated upward, ready to dunk. I flew high above the basket, but when I looked down, I didn’t see net. I saw a dark, swirling tunnel of wind.

“Nooooooo!” I yelled as the tunnel sucked me inside. My body twisted and turned as I plummeted down into the tunnel, about to . . .

“Zobe, no!” I cried. My Great Dane was licking my face as I sprang awake, my heart pounding from the dream.

I thought I knew what the dream meant. On Friday I had quit the school basketball team. Today was Monday, and I’d have to face most of my teammates for the first time since I’d walked out. I was pretty nervous about that.

I pulled my covers over my head. Zobe nudged them aside with his big doggy nose. I knew he wanted his morning walk, and breakfast.

“Can’t we just stay home today, Zobe?” I asked him. “Let’s just stay right here in this bed.”

“Woof!” Zobe gave a loud, deep bark. I sighed and threw off the covers. Zobe was not going to let me win this argument.

Twenty minutes later Zobe was eating his kibble and I was eating my cereal, nervously tapping my foot on the floor.

Mom sat down next to me and plunked her steaming coffee mug on the table. “Jim’s going to drive you and Blake to school this week. I’ll be picking you both up, except on days when Blake has basketball practice, or when you’re staying late for the anti-bully club, or Camp Cooperation. Then I’ll just get you.”

I nodded. Jim is my older brother, Blake is one of my best friends, and we all go to Spring Meadow, a private school in Wilmington, Delaware. We live in Greenmont, which is about thirty minutes away. And now that Jim is a senior, and has his own car, he helps out sometimes.

“What am I doing?” Jim asked, yawning as he walked into the kitchen.

“I believe you are driving Elle and Blake to school,” Dad said, not looking up from his laptop. He owns a real-estate business in Wilmington, and he works a lot. Even during breakfast!

“Cool,” Jim said, and I felt grateful that he wasn’t the kind of older brother who would complain about taking his little sister to school.

Actually, I’m not sure if the phrase “little sister” can technically apply to me. I’m twelve years old and six feet tall. So I’m not very little. It’s one of the reasons I started playing basketball in the first place.

It’s also one of the reasons I quit.

Jim grabbed a protein bar from the cabinet. “You ready, Elle?”

I jumped up from my seat. “Yes!” I put my dishes in the sink and then moved over to my sister, Beth, who was sitting in her wheelchair at the end of the table.

I leaned over and let Beth sniff my head so she would know it was me, because she couldn’t see or hear me. Then I took her hand and traced two symbols onto her palm with my finger, part of the special language that we used to communicate with her.

Good-bye. Love.

Beth took my hand and answered me. Love.

“I’ll be at the pickup area at three,” Mom told me.

“Thanks,” I said, and inside I was thinking, Three, not five, because I’m not going to basketball practice. Weird! I was going to have to get used to my new Monday routine.

I walked outside with Jim and saw Blake making a beeline for Jim’s car in the driveway.

“Shotgun!” I yelled, and dashed to the front passenger seat side of the car.

“Not fair!” Blake protested.

“Of course it’s fair,” I said. “I called it.”

Blake couldn’t argue with that. Those shotgun rules had a history going back to when we had both grown tall enough to sit in the front seat. He frowned and slid into the back. I got into the passenger side and then, to bust him, I pushed the seat back as far as it would go.

“Hey, now that’s definitely not fair!” Blake cried.

Jim shook his head. “Are you two twelve or five?” he asked.

I quickly pulled up my seat and locked in my seat belt. I heard Blake yawn behind me.

“I hate Mondays,” he complained as Jim pulled the car out of the driveway.

“I hate this Monday,” I said. “I haven’t seen anybody since I quit the team, except for you and Avery.”

Avery is my other best friend. She and I played on the girls’ basketball team together, the Nighthawks. Pretty much everybody I hang out with in school is on the team.

“You think it will be a big deal?” my brother asked.

“I know it will,” I groaned.

“You might be right,” Blake said. “Bianca’s been texting me all weekend, freaking out.”

“Really?” I asked. “I thought she’d be thrilled. She hated it when Coach Ramirez made me center.”

“Well, she’s happy she’s center,” Blake admitted, “but she’s worried about the team. She wants to make it to the championships. And she doesn’t think the Nighthawks can get there without you.”

“Of course they can,” I said quickly, but that was followed by a pang of doubt. I hadn’t really thought about the fact that my leaving could hurt the team’s record. That they might lose without me.

They won’t, I told myself. They’ve got too many good players. Bianca was really good. So was Avery, and Tiff and Dina were pretty solid. They didn’t need me.

That didn’t stop me from feeling guilty though, especially when we got to school and my friends Hannah and Natalie ambushed me at my locker. They both squashed me in a double hug.

“Elle, please don’t quit!” cried pink-haired Natalie as they pulled away from me. “I thought you loved basketball more than any of us!”

“I still love basketball,” I said. “I just don’t feel comfortable playing it competitively right now.”

“What can we do to get you to stay?” Hannah asked. I felt awful, because her big brown eyes looked so sad when she said it.

“Nothing,” I said. “I mean, thanks, but this is just something I need to do. It’s not personal.”

Hannah sighed. “I thought you would say that.”

“I get it,” Natalie added. “As long as you’re happy, Elle.”

“Thanks,” I replied, although I wasn’t sure if I was happy, exactly. Relieved, maybe. But I hadn’t gotten to “happy” yet.

Next, Bianca walked by with her best friend, Tiff. Bianca didn’t say a word to me; she just tossed her glossy black hair as she passed and glared at me. Tiff, who was wearing a blue hijab over her dark brown hair, shot me a look of apology.

Luckily, Avery was right behind them. She stopped and grabbed my arm.

“You all right?”...