Slam Dunk (Going for Gold) - Softcover

King, Donna

3.86

110 ratings by Goodreads

9780753461556: Slam Dunk (Going for Gold)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0753461552 ISBN 13: 9780753461556

Publisher: Kingfisher, 2007

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Talented thirteen-year-old Ashlee Carson is the Tribeca Saints' topscoring point guard. Ashlee is smart, too, but her mom worries that basketball is going to get in the way of her bright academic future. Ashlee will do anything for a chance to win a place on the National Youth basketball team -- even if it means defying her mother and enlisting the help of her estranged father, a former professional basketball player. This gripping story, with plenty of drama both on and off the court, will appeal to any young basketball fan.

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About the Author:

Donna King is the alter ego of Jenny Oldfield, a best-selling author of children's series fiction, including the Horses of Half-Moon Ranch series. More than one million copies of her books have been sold around the world.

Chapter One

Ashlee ran, weaved, and jumped. She flipped the ball toward the hoop from
the three-point line. Swish!

Tribeca Saints 31, SoHo Panthers 28 in the NYC Community League.

"Go, Saints! Go, Saints!" the fans yelled.

Five minutes to go to the end of the game, and the Saints were edging
ahead. But the Panthers had the ball; they were dribbling up the court—
Ashlee fell back to defend.

"Yeah, Ashlee!" the Saints fans cried as she stole the ball back. She dribbled
smoothly past half court, faked in one direction to give herself an open space,
drove to the basket, and then pivoted and passed as a Panthers` defender
closed in. Marissa caught the ball, faked, and passed back to Ashlee. This
time Ashlee squared up to the hoop, tucked her elbows in, and shot.

The ball kissed off the backboard and dropped through the net.

The referee signaled for two points—33 to 28. The crowd went wild.

But Ashlee didn`t notice them. She saw only the ball and her fellow
teammates dressed in their bright blue uniforms—tall, lithe girls with long
legs and arms that propelled them up to reach the hoop and push the ball in.
She heard only the voice of their coach, Erika Schrader, yelling instructions
from the bench.

"Press!" Erika cried as the Panthers inbounded the ball.

The ref quickly blew her whistle, signaling that Marissa had fouled the
Panthers` guard. Ashlee sprinted down the court and lined up for the foul
shot. The Panthers` guard shot the free throw off the front end of the rim, and
Ashlee leaped up to grab the rebound. The Saints pushed the ball up the
floor.

"Great defending!" the crowd roared.

For almost 40 minutes they`d watched Ashlee Carson scoop, push, shoot,
and block the ball. They`d seen her dribble circles around the Panthers team,
twist her torso in midair, and float the ball through that magical hoop.

Overhead the rows of lights had dazzled. Out on the court the SoHo Panthers
had been left floundering, flat-footed, and frustrated.

"How does Ashlee do that?" the crowd cried in astonishment. "Honest to
God, I swear I saw that girl fly!"

"Ashlee, where were you?" Theresa Carson was angry, waiting for her
daughter at the door of their apartment. "I expected you home early tonight."

"The Saints had a game," Ashlee muttered. She flung her school bag down in
the hallway and headed for the refrigerator.

"How come you never told me?"

"I did."

"I don`t remember." Frowning, Theresa searched on the narrow hall table for
her keys. "Listen, I`m late for work. I`m going to trust you to do your
homework and then get to bed early. You look beat."

"`Hey, Ashlee, how did the game go? Did you win?`" Ashlee mimicked the
voice of a sweet, supportive mom, the type that wore lipstick and baked
apple pie. The type that didn`t exist.

Theresa raised her eyebrows. She found her keys. "If I`m late again, I lose my
job. If I lose my job, I don`t buy your uniform for Queensbridge."

Ashlee frowned and shook her head. She said nothing.

"Do your homework," her mom repeated, banging the door shut as she left.

"Footwork fundamentals." Erika began Saturday`s coaching session with the
basics. She was focused on the four new kids who had joined the Tribeca
Saints. "You stand with your weight forward on the balls of your feet, knees
bent, butt down, hands held at five and ten o`clock. Marissa, you show them."
Ashlee`s best friend went into the familiar crouch, while Ashlee sat tapping
her foot on the sideline. In her head she ran through the new offensive
formation that she wanted to practise with the rest of the team.
"From there you can slide left and right or shuffle backward and forward,"
Erika went on. "Simple," she grinned as Marissa demonstrated.

"Hey, Ashlee. Where were you after the game last night?" Angelica leaned
across the row of leggy girls, all dressed in warm-up pants and Saints
practice jerseys.

"Yeah, Ash. Why didn`t you stay behind and celebrate?" Candice
asked. "This is the first year ever that we beat the Panthers, and it was
mostly down to you."

Ashlee shrugged. "Yeah, sorry. I couldn`t make it." She didn`t admit that she
was at home doing her math homework, or that her mom was on her case
110 percent of the time.

Ashlee, do your homework. Let me see your report card. See how hard I have
to work waiting tables at La Sila to buy your uniform. Don`t let me down,
Ashlee. Work, work, work.

The Queensbridge scholarship exam was in two weeks` time. It loomed ever
larger on her mother`s horizon—the high peak of the Rocky Mountain range
that was their life.

Up and down, up and down went the Carson family fortunes. Ashlee
remembered their life before her dad dumped her mom for a younger, prettier
model. She was six years old at the time, the kind of blonde-haired, blue-
eyed kid who had it all. There were sunny poolside pictures to prove it.
After her dad vanished for good, Ashlee and her mom had downsized big
time. Gone was the luxurious waterside house in Miami. Hello to three rooms
in a run-down brownstone in Tribeca—back to Theresa`s roots in the old meat-
packing district of New York. Garbage and dirty snowdrifts lining the winter
streets, the dash and rattle of the subway trains at the end of their street, the
melting-pot school overlooking the wide Hudson river, where Ashlee first
picked up a basketball seriously and discovered she had a real talent.

"Ashlee?" Erika called. "Hey, wake up, girl. Didn`t you hear me call the `A`
squad onto the court?"

Starting up from the bench, Ashlee joined Marissa, Candice, Lindsay, and
Angelica. Here was action at last—to take her out of herself and help her
forget everything else.

Erika studied Ashlee through narrowed eyes. "That`s not like you," she
snapped.

"Sorry. What are we doing here?"

"Showing the new kids how to fake," Marissa muttered from the corner of her
mouth, passing Ashlee a ball.

"Begin with a head fake," Erika instructed. "Go!"

The five starters gathered at center court and formed a large circle. They
began passing the ball around, faking one way and pressing another.

"That`s how you fake a defender—they think you`re going to pass to the right,
but you pass the opposite way. Lo and behold, you open up some space for
a clean pass. Does that make sense?"

The four new kids nodded enthusiastically. They looked up at the starters
with admiring glances as they swapped places with them on the floor.

"Ashlee, I want to talk," Erika said, leaving Marissa, Lindsay, Candice, and
Angelica in charge of coaching the four new recruits. The coach took Ashlee
off to the side.

"Are you okay?" she checked.

Ashlee nodded. "Sorry about earlier," she said, blushing. "I had my mind on
other things."

"Anything I can help with?"

"No, it`s cool."

"Come on, I may look like I bite, but I promise I won`t," Erika urged. She`d
been coaching kids for 15 years—drilling, teaching them the drop step, the
jump shot, the "give and go." She prided herself on being able to read a kid`s
personality as well as anyone.

"No, really." When it came to personal stuff, Ashlee always did this. She shut
up as tight as a clam. Or she said everything was cool. She faked it off the
court as well as on.

Erika sat Ashlee down on the bench. "Okay, so let`s take a long look at
things. First, I want to tell you how happy I was with your performance last
night at point. I was impressed with your leadership qualities—your ability to
read the game and motivate the other players. I`d like you to keep that
position for the rest of the season."

"Wow!" Ashlee took a deep breath as her roller-coaster life took a sudden
turn. Hold on tight!

"Yeah, wow! But seriously, Ashlee, I have high hopes for you."

"Thanks, Erika. I love playing point guard, and I won`t let you down."

The coach`s steel-gray eyes looked deep into Ashlee`s blue ones. "You`re
good enough to make it to the top in women`s basketball," she confided. "I
mean it, kid. You`re heading for the heights—for the junior regional teams and
then the nationals, if you want it enough."

Ashlee gave her head a quick shake as she tried to take it all in, then
nodded.

"I want it!"

"Enough?" Erika double-checked.

"I love playing basketball!" Ashlee insisted. "I live it, breathe it, sleep it. It`s all
I ever want to do!"

"And nothing`s going to stop you?" Erika asked.

At that moment Ashlee felt like one of the subway trains rattling headlong
down the track, hurtling through the stations to its final destination. "Nothing,"
she promised. "When I`m out there on that court, I want to win. Believe me!"

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