Summary

Chapter 1

Basketball is Greg “Slam” Harris’s life. He is an excellent player. When Mr. Tate, the school principal, tells Slam’s mother Moms that Slam should stop playing basketball until he gets his grades together, it is as if his world stops. It makes for sleepless nights. Slam can hear the wind, boom boxes, and people talking outside, as well as police and ambulance sirens. Slam thinks about things that bother him over and over again. Slam loves his mother. His mother is worried about his grades. She almost cries at Mr. Tate’s office. Slam’s father Pops works here and there. When he works, he doesn’t drink too much. Slam’s younger brother, nine year-old Derek, has a big mouth and nothing to back it up, so Slam, at seventeen, worries about Derek. Slam goes upstairs to think about...