SCHOLASTIC INC.NEW YORK TORONTO LONDON AUCKLAND

SYDNEY MEXICO CITY NEW DELHI HONG KONG

stanford

wong

flunks

Big-Time

B Y L I S A Y E E

332532_ i-ii_298_v1.indd i332532_ i-ii_298_v1.indd i 10/7/10 10:12 PM10/7/10 10:12 PM

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher,

and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

Text copyright © 2005 by Lisa Yee. All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, the LANTERN LOGO, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

ISBN 978-0-439-62248-6

Arthur A. Levine Books hardcover edition designed by Elizabeth B. Parisi, published by Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., October 2005.

16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 10 11 12 13 14 15/0

Printed in the U.S.A. 40

This edition first printing, April 2007

332532_ i-ii_298_v1.indd ii332532_ i-ii_298_v1.indd ii 10/7/10 10:12 PM10/7/10 10:12 PM

june 7, 1:40 p.m.Today’s the last day of school, the only school day that I lookforward to. I grab my basketball and head to Mr. Glick’s class.Once I make it through that I’m free for the entire summer.Good-bye, school — hello, camp!!!

It takes a while to make it down the hallway.“Stanford, way to go!”“Congratulations, Stanford!”“Have a great summer, Stanford!”“Stanford, send me a postcard!”I’m grinning and waving and crash!“You okay?” I ask. Star Trek action figures lay scattered on the

ground.“I’m fine,” the boy sputters.We face each other. It’s Marley. We both redden. I step on

Captain Jean-Luc Picard as I back away. Marley raises his handto me and parts his middle and ring fingers in the Vulcan salute.Gotta get out of here. I take off running.

I spot Stretch heading toward me and slow down. He doesn’tsay anything, but from the way he’s drumming every locker I cantell he’s happy school will be over soon. We take our seats in the

1

255606_ iii-297_v1 11/9/06 11:29 PM Page 1

back of the room and I brace myself for my final boring day ofsixth-grade English.

As Mr. Glick blabbers on, my eyelids get heavy. Soon I’m see-ing myself, Stanford Andrew Wong, as a starter on the RanchoRosetta Middle School Basketball A-Team. I flash forward twoweeks when I’ll be on center court at Alan Scott’s BasketballCamp in the San Gabriel Mountains, “Where basketball is notjust a game, it’s a way of life.” I get chills every time I read thebrochure.

During the last three days of camp, Alan Scott himselfcomes in to coach. He’s this season’s top NBA scorer. Everythingabout him is cool, from his spiked hair right down to his AlanScott BK620 basketball shoes. At the end of camp he presentseach basketball player with his own personally autographed pairof BK620s. I can’t wait to get mine. I close my eyes and imagineme and the man shooting hoops. I can hear Alan Scott now: “Hey,Stanford, great layup!” Or, “Stanford, a one-handed reverse triple-loop crosscourt slam dunk? You’re amazing!” Or, “Stanford Wong,snap out of it!!!”

Huh? What’s that? Why is Mr. Glick glaring at me?“Stanford Wong, snap out of it!” he booms. Does he have to

be so loud? “Put the basketball down. I’d like you to stay afterclass. There’s something important we need to discuss.”

Uh-oh. He’s holding my final book report and he doesn’tlook happy.

The bell rings. Mr. Glick makes his way toward me as kidsstream in the opposite direction, pushing toward the door.Toward summer. Toward freedom.

Why am I still here?

2

255606_ iii-297_v1 11/9/06 11:29 PM Page 2

The room clears out fast. My desk feels like an anchorwrapped around me. I am sinking. Mr. Glick slides the reporttoward me, facedown. I lift up the corner, then slowly turn itover. All I see is red, like the paper is bleeding.

“An F,” Mr. Glick says. “Not a C, not a D — you got an F.Stanford, I expect you to show this to your parents. They need tosign it and get it back to me within three days.”

I try to leave, but Mr. Glick is not finished with me yet.“Young man, wait one minute. This is not something you canshrug off. This is serious business. If you don’t do somethingabout your grade this summer, you won’t make it to the seventhgrade. Do you understand?”

Mr. Glick is staring at me. We are standing face-to-face. He’snot that much taller than I am. I’ll bet I could take him down.

“Stanford,” Mr. Glick says, unblinking. “Do you understand?”“An F.” My voice is flat. “I get it.”I grab my book report and tear out of the room. I’m sup-

posed to meet the Roadrunners at Burger Barn, but I run in theopposite direction. I run past the park and through the emptylot. I run over the bridge and toward the train tracks. I run as faraway from school as I can and only stop when my lungs areabout to explode. Panting, I drop to my knees and uncrumplemy report. The paper looks blurry, yet one thing is clear — thebig fat F scrawled on the page.

3

255606_ iii-297_v1 11/9/06 11:29 PM Page 3

june 9, 7:16 p.m.These past couple of days I’ve been at the top of my game. Allthe Roadrunners say so. I hope they remember that when I’mdead, because in about two minutes my father’s going to kill me.I can already see my tombstone:

STANFORD A. WONG

Loving SonGreat Basketball Player

Rotten Student

My parents are in the kitchen. Mom’s rearranging the uten-sils as Dad talks about work. Here goes nothing. I rush in, handmy father my book report, and pivot around to make a fast exit.

“Stanford, come back here this instant!” Dad is gripping mypaper. “An F? Stanford, you got an F? This is not acceptable!” Iam frozen and on fire at the same time. “What’s the matter withyou? Do you want to explain to me why you got an F?”

I don’t want to explain anything. I want out of here.“I’ve put up with a lot from you, Stanford, but an F crosses

the line.”

4

255606_ iii-297_v1 11/9/06 11:29 PM Page 4

I glance at my mom. She looks as upset as I am. I stare at thefloor as my dad goes on and on and, “. . . now that you won’t begoing to basketball camp, you’ll have the whole summer to raiseyour grade.”

What???!!! I jerk my head up. “No fair! Coach had to pullstrings to get me a spot. Only the top players go to Alan Scott’sBasketball Camp.”

“Flunking this class means you could flunk sixth grade.”“If I go to camp I’ll be the best player Rancho Rosetta’s

ever seen.”“You need to study more.”“Basketball camp is the only thing I’ve ever wanted.”“If you had studied, this wouldn’t have happened.”“I have to go to camp!” I insist.“Stanford, listen to me: You are not going to basketball camp

and that’s final!”“Mommm!” My mother knows how much this camp means

to me. She’s been to my games. She’s heard the cheers. Mom justshakes her head.

As my dad continues to shout, my grandmother, Yin-Yin,peeks in from behind the door and then disappears. I look atMom as she turns away from Dad. My mother hates it when myfather yells. I’ve heard him tell her, “Raising my voice is the onlyway I can get that boy to pay attention to me.”

He’s wrong about that.“I have to go to camp,” I plead. “I’m on the A-Team. Every-

one’s counting on me!”“Well, they can stop counting,” Dad says. “I’m going to call

your English teacher and get to the bottom of this.”

5

255606_ iii-297_v1 11/9/06 11:29 PM Page 5

My father leaves the room. My mother puts dinner in frontof me. Fried chicken, my third-favorite food. I can’t eat, soinstead I try to listen to my dad yelling at Mr. Glick. All I hearis a lot of nothing. Maybe Dad’s using his low voice on him. Hislow voice is even scarier than his yelling.

Wait! He’s coming back and he looks pleased. I wonder ifMr. Glick changed his mind about flunking me. Or maybe Mr.Glick made a mistake and I didn’t flunk after all.

“It’s settled,” my father says, smiling.Suddenly I am starving. I pick up a drumstick and tear into

it. “Well, I’m glad that’s over,” I tell him. “Thanks, Dad.”“Stanford.” His voice is serious. “I talked Mr. Glick into

taking you in his summer-school class. You’ll start onWednesday.”

“Summer school?” I try not to choke on my chicken. “Sum-mer school?”

“Mr. Glick said you hardly ever handed in your homeworkand that you never paid attention in class.”

“And you believed him?”“Yes.”My dad believes everything teachers tell him.“Wha . . . what about basketball camp?”“I told you. There isn’t going to be any basketball camp.

You’re lucky Mr. Glick agreed to take you for summer school.”Dad picks up a piece of chicken and salts it. “I hope it’s not toolate to get a refund from camp.”

Then it hits me. No camp? School all summer long?Whoaaa . . . this is way, way too much to take in. “Mommmmm,”I yell. “Mom!” My mother rushes to my side. “Dad says I have to

6

255606_ iii-297_v1 11/9/06 11:29 PM Page 6

go to summer school. He says there’s not going to be anybasketball camp.”

She looks at Dad. He gives her a little nod. He’s tryingto hypnotize her! “Stanford, your father is right,” she says.“I’m sorry, but school comes first. Maybe you can go to campnext year.”

He did hypnotize her! They never see things the same way,and suddenly they’re ganging up on me. I push my chair awayfrom the table, grab my basketball, and run out, slamming thedoor behind me.

11:57 p.m.I’m drenched. I am at the park playing hard, weaving in and outof the twenty guys guarding me from every angle. Only there’sno one on the court but me. Water is pouring down my face, butit’s not tears, it’s just sweat. Athletes don’t cry.

When I was little I used to cry a lot. I wasn’t good at any-thing. I couldn’t even spell my own name. I was always in the lowestreading group, and whenever we had partners on class projectsI’d hear: “Aw, why do I have to be stuck with Stanford?”

Basketball saved me.No matter what else was happening at recess, I was always

drawn to the basketball court. Different groups of guys playedall the time. Every morning I went to school praying I’d beinvited to join them. Every afternoon I went home depressed.

Finally one day I took a giant gulp of air, then asked, “CanI play?”

7

255606_ iii-297_v1 11/9/06 11:29 PM Page 7

The world stopped until Trevor, the best player on theplayground, spoke up: “Sorry, loser, but you have to be good toplay on this court.” Laughing, the boys gave each other high fivesand went back to their game.

I started running and swore never ever, ever, to go back.But I couldn’t stay away. It was as if basketball was in my

blood. One week later, there I was, first watching from a dis-tance, each day getting closer and closer. I watched how the guysshot the ball. I studied how they guarded each other. I memo-rized the moves.

At night my mom would quiz me, “How’s school?”“Fine,” I’d mumble.“Not so fine according to your grades,” my father would say.I couldn’t win. Not at home. Not in class. Not on the court.“Can I play?”“No.”“Can I play?”“No.”“Can I play?”“Give up.” Marley was standing next to me. “They’re never

going to let you in.”Marley and I were friends by default since we both sat at

the reject table in the cafeteria. He was wearing his Mr. Spockshirt. Marley always wore Spock on Tuesdays and Scotty onWednesdays. Just the week before I had buried all my Star TrekT-shirts in a bottom drawer along with my Trekkie tradingcards and Klingon Battle Cruiser. The only thing I couldn’tbear to hide was my 1988 Next Generation Galoob Phaser. I still have it.

8

255606_ iii-297_v1 11/9/06 11:29 PM Page 8

“Do you want to come over after school?” Marley asked.“I’m still working on my model of the Voyager. Did you ever fin-ish your Stargazer?”

Trevor glanced our way and snickered. I braced myself andthen said in a loud voice, “Star Trek? Are you still playing with StarTrek stuff ? That’s only for geeks!”

Marley looked right at me. “What’s going on, Stanford?Why are you acting like this?”

I turned away, unable to face him.“This is mutiny, mister,” he muttered, quoting episode

twenty-five of the original series.After that I wasn’t welcome at the reject table. I wasn’t wel-

come anywhere.A few days later my grandmother asked me to come over to

her house. “Stanford,” she said as we ate shu mai in her kitchen,“I know you’re having a hard time at school, but it doesn’t haveto be that way. Here.” She held up a black leather cord witha bright green stone dangling from it. “This is for you. Forgood luck.”

Yin-Yin explained that the stone was from the fabledHengshang Mountain, one of China’s Five Famous Mountains.A group of monks trekked there to fetch the jade, and the eldestmonk carved it under the moonlight so that it would be infusedwith the magical rays. “Then,” she said, “while I was visitingthe Great Wall, the eldest monk personally presented the pen-dant to me.”

I protested. What kind of boy wears a necklace? “Wear it fora week,” Yin-Yin insisted. “After that, if it doesn’t change yourluck, you can do with it what you want.”

9

255606_ iii-297_v1 11/9/06 11:29 PM Page 9

The next day, I went out to the court again. There was a newgroup playing basketball.

“Can I play?” I asked, already turning around to leave.To my surprise, a freckle-faced kid said, “Give him the ball.

Let’s see if he can even get it near the hoop. It’ll be good for alaugh.”

“Jeez, he’s a waste of time,” Trevor groaned. “He’s just a dork.”Someone handed me the ball anyway. “Good luck,” a boy

with dark curly hair whispered.Jaws dropped when I shot the basketball. It sailed through

the hoop and I heard the most beautiful sound in the world:whoosh.

“Bet you can’t do that again!”At first everybody thought my free throws were a fluke,

including me. But when it became clear that not only could Imake free throws, I could dribble, I could block, I could scoreimpossible shots, the other boys stopped ignoring me. Insteadthey started asking me to play basketball.

Then Digger invited me to join the Roadrunners with him,Stretch, Tico, and Gus. They were okay before me; they wonwith me. We took the Parks and Rec title three consecutivetimes. I was league MVP three times. I moved from the rejectcorner of the cafeteria to the popular table. I got taller andstronger.

Basketball’s big in Rancho Rosetta. Even before I startedmiddle school last year, people knew who I was. I was the leadingscorer for my school’s B-Team, breaking the league record. I gotmy picture in the newspaper. I was unstoppable. Everyone’s for-gotten that I used to be a nobody. Everyone but me and Marley.

10

255606_ iii-297_v1 11/9/06 11:29 PM Page 10

My mother drives up to the park. She rolls down the car win-dow. “Stanford, time to go home.”

I make one last basket. An amazing jump shot. The kind ofjump shot that made Alan Scott famous.

It is quiet in the car. The radio is on, but the volume is waydown low so I can only hear murmurs. It sounds like peopledrowning. My mother doesn’t seem to notice. She is just staringstraight ahead. I was afraid she would be angry, but she’s not. Sheseems tired. It’s hard to figure her out. Sometimes I get in trou-ble for just being alive. But here, it’s almost midnight and shedoesn’t even blink.

“Stanford,” Mom says, “you owe it to Coach Martin to tellhim you won’t be going to basketball camp.”

“Do I have to?”She gives me that look.As we near our house, I ask, “Do you hate me because I’m

stupid?”Through the living room window I can see my dad pacing.

Mom doesn’t answer. Instead, she keeps driving until we’re onthe next block. Carefully she parallel parks the car but leaves theengine running. “Honey, I don’t hate you, and you’re not stupid.Grades aren’t everything.”

“Dad thinks so,” I mutter.She sighs. “Yes, well, they are important to him. But as long

as you are doing your best, I’ll be happy.” Mom pauses. “Stanford,did you do your best in Mr. Glick’s class?”

I think about it. I think about the books I didn’t read. I thinkabout the homework I didn’t turn in. I think about how Iskipped class to play basketball. . . .

11

255606_ iii-297_v1 11/9/06 11:29 PM Page 11

My mother is waiting for my reply. I take a deep breath.“Yes,” I tell her. “I did my best.”

“Is that true?”“Yes,” I mumble.“All right then,” she says. Mom doesn’t look at me. Instead,

she puts on her blinker and eases the car back onto the road.

12

255606_ iii-297_v1 11/9/06 11:29 PM Page 12