Long Shot Read Free Page A

Papa.”
    “I don’t want you to just know,” his dad said. “I want you to believe.”
    Then his dad was pulling him up, wrapping him in a bear hug, putting his face close to Pedro’s, Pedro feeling the scratch of his beard, his dad’s face rough even though he had just shaved. Pedro felt the way he always did when his dad put his arms around him: good and happy and safe.
    “President Morales,” his dad said now.
    Pedro laughed.
    “Do you believe?”
    “Papa . . . ”
    “I want to know you believe. Let me hear you say it and I will do the bicycle kick for you.”
    “Fine, I’ll say it. President Pedro Morales.”
    “No, say it like you believe.”
    “President Pedro Morales!” Pedro said, louder this time, grinning all the while.
    “That’s what I want to hear!” his father said, then stood up.
    Luis Morales wasn’t big, even though he had always seemed big to Pedro. He seemed bigger than ever now, standing there between Pedro and the blue sky.
    Pedro watched as his dad’s feet started playing with the soccer ball as if they had a mind of their own, left foot first then right, the ball bouncing off a knee, then off his dad’s head, then back to his feet without touching the ground.
    Now Luis Morales turned his back to the goal they had been using, and Pedro knew he was ready for the bicycle kick.
    Pelé’s kick.
    First the left knee came up. Then his right leg, his kicking leg, was coming up, Luis Morales really looking as if he were pedaling a bike backward. Then the left leg came down as the right leg was kicking through the ball, looking as if it were one of those perfect right angles they studied in geometry.
    It always looked as if his dad, as graceful as he was, was somehow going to kick himself in the head.
    Only he never did.
    He just buried the ball in the back of the net.
    “See,” he said. “You work hard enough at something, and anything is possible. Isn’t that right, Mr. President?”
    “Yes, Papa,” Pedro said.
    They went home after that, and Pedro’s dad went off to his restaurant, getting it ready for its grand opening in about a month. Pedro had told Joe he would call him when he got back from the soccer field and they would hang out later.
    But first he went up to his room, the one with the Fathead poster, like a 3-D image, of Steve Nash on his wall, the one that made it seem as if Nash was about to make a bounce pass with the ball in his right hand right across Pedro’s bedroom.
    Only Pedro wasn’t thinking about basketball right now.
    Or about soccer.
    He was thinking about his dad.
    He had heard his speech about a hundred times before, or maybe a thousand. But today it was as if he had heard it for the first time, as if his dad’s words hadn’t just gotten into his head this time, but all the way into his heart.
    Pedro’s English teacher, Mr. Randolph, liked to talk about what he called the “blink moment,” which was his way of describing the idea from which great stories and great books came—a great idea being born in the blink of an eye.
    Mr. Randolph said that no one ever knew when a blink moment happened. They just happened.
    And Pedro knew one had happened to him on that soccer field this morning.
    President Morales.

THREE
     
     
     
    Pedro had two private places he liked best, places where he was completely happy to be alone with a basketball, places where he did his best thinking.
    One was the full outdoor court at Carinor Park. The other was the miniature court his dad had built for him next to their garage. It wasn’t the size of a real half-court, but it was big enough to shoot from the corner and shoot free throws and then move back beyond the partial three-point line Pedro had drawn on the smooth cement Luis Morales had lovingly laid down himself.
    This is where Pedro found himself now, working on his outside shot.
    Pedro Morales was constantly working on his shooting, simply because it was the weakest part of his game.
    By a lot.
    He could make free