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The noise faded as the plane passed out of sight.

“They're awfully loud,” Lailah said.

“I hardly notice them,” I said.

“Me neither,” Kia agreed. “But we've gone to this school our whole lives.”

Lailah was still so new at the school that she hadn't gotten used to it.

“I never hear them when we're inside the school,” Lailah said.

“It's specially built to be soundproof,” I added.

“I guess that's why. I was sad about the Raptors not coming,” Lailah said.

I really didn't want to talk about this.

“We haven't given up yet,” Kia said.

“You haven't?”

“Nope, not quitting.”

“So what's the new plan?” Lailah asked, looking right at me for an answer.

“Umm…we don't have anything specific yet.”

“But we'll come up with something,” Kia said.

“It would be awesome to have them come to the school,” Lailah said. “Is there anything I can do to help you?”

“We've got it covered,” Kia said, cutting her off. “We don't need any help.”

Lailah gave Kia an evil eye and then turned to me, flashed a big smile and walked away.

“I really don't like her,” Kia snapped.

“I don't think she's too crazy about you either.”

“Good. Now forget about her. Let's try to figure out what we're going to do about the Raptors.”

“I thought you had an idea.”

“I just said that to get rid of her, but we'll come up with something. Maybe we can write them again.”

“That didn't work once so I don't think a second time will help. You don't have any other ideas?” I asked.

She shook her head. “The day is still young.”

Chapter Five

We filed into class and took our seats behind the computers. They were high-tech, top-ofthe-line and brand-new. They had been funded by the parents' association—my mother was the president. The only thing that wasn't brand-new and high-tech in our computer room was our teacher, Mrs. Carson.

To be fair, she wasn't a computer teacher. She was the music teacher at our school. She just didn't know much about computers. Just like Mr. Roberts did for Mrs. Orr, Mrs. Carson gave the regular computer teacher, Ms. Brown, planning time. Ms. Brown taught every grade in the school except ours. I guess that made some sense. We were the oldest kids, so we already knew lots about computers. Certainly more than Mrs. Carson would ever know.

She
was
a great music teacher though. She played the piano, the guitar and the trumpet. She had a wonderful singing voice. She directed the school play and even wrote songs for it. She was the director of the choir. Unfortunately none of those skills had anything to do with computers. The only keyboard she cared about was on her piano.

“Good afternoon, class,” Mrs. Carson said. “Today we are going to be…going to be…”

She looked down at the lesson plan Ms. Brown had left her. It was sad that somebody who could perform so well with music was so helpless in this class.

“Oh, yes, we're going to be learning about sending emails.”

There was a groan from the class.

“I know that most of you have probably sent an email or two in your life, but Ms. Brown has left me with a very detailed lesson plan on the
correct
format for emails.”

Great. In one class we had to write letters, and in this one we had to email—wait!

I grabbed my binder and flipped through the pages until I found the reply from the Raptors. I'd wanted to throw it out, but I'd kept it—after all, it was from the Raptors. I ran my finger down the page, looking for something…there it was.

Mrs. Carson continued to read from the lesson plan. Nobody was paying any attention. Maybe if she sang the instructions that would have worked.

“Are there any questions?” she asked.

I got the feeling she was really, really hoping nobody would have any questions, and then she wouldn't have to try to give an answer to a question she didn't even understand.

“In that case, everybody should get to work on their email,” she said.

She sat down at the desk and I got up. I walked to the front board, carrying the letter with me. I picked up a piece of chalk and in big letters started to print out an email address.

“Nick?” Mrs. Carson asked.

“I'm just writing down an email address…you know…for the assignment.”

“Oh, that's good,” she said.

I finished writing out the address.

“For anybody who's interested,” I said, “this is the email address for the lady at the Raptors who turned down our first request to have a Raptor come to our school.”

“We should email her and tell her she's a jerk,” Greg said.

“No!” I exclaimed. “I thought that maybe we could email her and ask her again to have somebody come. We could tell her that the invitation is still on.”

“That is a great idea,” Kia said. “And if everybody emails her, then maybe she'll rethink the whole thing.”

“Everybody wrote letters and look how much good
that
did,” Ashley chimed in.

“Not
all
of us,” Kia said pointedly.

“Do you really think
my
letter would have made that big a difference?” Ashley asked.

“Twenty-six would have been better than twenty-two,” Kia snapped.

“But not as good as seventy or eighty,” Lailah added.

She stood up and everybody looked at her. She looked so confident. Funny—the way she was standing there so calmly reminded me of the way Kia stood on the line waiting to take a free throw.

“You can't seriously think that we should all write
three
emails,” Ashley said.

“No. I was thinking that we could have everybody in the three grade-six classes send her an email,” Lailah replied.

“That's right. Mrs. Carson, you teach all three of the grade-six classes, and they're all going to have to do this assignment, aren't they?” I asked.

“Yes, all three,” Mrs. Carson confirmed.

“So wouldn't it be simpler if all the classes did the same thing? Wouldn't that be easier for you to explain to them? If that's okay with you, of course.”

“I don't see why not,” Mrs. Carson agreed.

“I could talk to them about it,” I said.

“If you want to talk to them, that would be fine,” she said.

“Can I go and talk to them
now
?” I asked.

She looked hesitant.

“That way there would be fewer questions for you to answer,” I added.

I saw the hesitation start to lift.

“It won't take me long, and I'll be back in time to finish my email.”

She shrugged. “It sounds like a wonderful idea!”

“Thanks. And could I bring somebody with me?”

“Of course.”

Kia started to get up.

“Take Lailah with you,” Mrs. Carson said.

Kia looked shocked and quickly settled back into her seat, hoping nobody had noticed. Some people had seen her start to get up.

“It might be better if there were three of us. Could—”

“Two is just fine,” Mrs. Carson said.

Lailah stood up, pushed in her chair and smiled. There was something about her smile… but she looked sort of…sort of…I don't know, pretty. I glanced over at Kia. She looked as unhappy as Lailah looked happy.

Chapter Six

Hello Ms. Allison,

I wanted to email to thank you for sending us a letter back. Sometimes I think that people just ignore kids, but you didn't. We all appreciated that. You are right that we are really big Raptor fans. You can probably tell by all the emails you are getting from our school. Every student in grade six is sending you a personal email.

That was sort of a lie. It was everybody except Ashley and two of her friends. But seventy-one was almost all the grade sixes, and it wasn't like Ms. Allison would know.

We understand that the Raptors can't visit every school, and that's why we're only asking
you to visit ONE school—Clark Boulevard. We think because we are the biggest fans that this would be the best school for Wayne Dawkins to come to. Our school basketball team is called the Clark Cougars. I wish we could be called the Raptors, but I don't get to choose the names. I think that was decided by some principal who was here a long time ago when the school first opened. It's not a bad name, I guess, and both
Clark
and
Cougars
start with the same letter. Anyway, I am the co-captain of the team. Last year we were the city champions. This year, so far, we are undefeated.

Okay, that wasn't even a lie. It was the truth until the next game started. Better if I wrote about something else.

We are still offering a pizza lunch for any Raptors that come, and since you work for the Raptors, you could have pizza too. If you do not like pizza, I could get my mother to make you something special. You could choose, but I would recommend her pasta salad. She makes the best one in the world. It would be really nice to have the Raptors come. We know the Raptors don't
give up when they're losing a game, and we don't give up so easily either.

Your friend,

Nick

I took a deep breath and then clicked the Send button.

Chapter Seven

Part of me thought that sending the emails was a good idea. Most of me thought it wasn't. The odds were that it wasn't going to make any difference. The only thing that was likely to happen was that people would get their hopes up again and then we'd be told no again. I knew that I wasn't supposed to give up, but with some things, sometimes, it just made sense not to try. Really, if letters didn't work, would emails work? Probably not…unless, maybe, the email went to the right person. And I
had
the email of the right person—a person who
could
help us.

When I arrived home, I went straight to my computer and opened up my Hotmail account. I was going to email Jerome Williams, the former Raptor fan favorite. Not many people had the email address of a former NBA player. I began typing away. Why hadn't I thought of this earlier?

Hey JYD,

How are you doing? I bet it's a lot hotter where you are than where I am.

Since he retired from the New York Knicks, Jerome and his family had moved to Las Vegas. It was a lot colder here than it was there, for sure.

Everybody in my class wrote letters a couple of weeks ago asking if a Raptor could come to our school, and they said no. Today everybody in grade 6 emailed them to ask the same thing.
I know you'd come to visit if you lived here instead of so far away.

I wasn't just saying that. I knew he would come if he could. Jerome was like that. He used to visit schools all the time when he was playing— he and his brother Johnnie—and since he retired, he did it even more. He liked visiting schools and talking to kids. My mother said that he was like a big kid himself— a really
big
kid. She said the same thing about my father, except he wasn't nearly that big. My dad wasn't small—he was six foot three—but compared to Jerome he was pretty short.

I was wondering if you could do me a favor— again. My grades are really good and Kia is doing well also and it's for our whole school, not just for me.

Jerome had done me lots of favors before. He'd come and played ball with us when Kia and I were being bullied by some older guys on a playground court. He'd invited Kia and me to come down to be part of his summer basketball camp—his Boot Camp—in Washington,
DC
. He'd signed lots of stuff and, even when he was busy, he always answered my emails. Maybe I'd asked him for enough already… maybe I really shouldn't ask him for anything else. Maybe, after this little favor, I wouldn't ask for any more.

I was suddenly feeling guilty. How long had it been since I'd emailed JYD? It had been at least a month. I really didn't like to bother him with lots of emails because I knew how busy he was, but still, now when I was writing I was asking him for something. That wasn't right. But that's what we kids did—we asked for stuff, lots of stuff.

I figured I better butter him up with some basketball talk.

Our team won its first game of the year. We're not too good but we are going to try our best and who knows? If you are up this way, it would be great if you dropped by the school. And if you want to bring somebody along—like Johnnie or anybody else—that would be great.

Okay, maybe I was sort of suggesting that he could bring a Raptor along, but even if it was just him and Johnnie, that would be pretty amazing.

I suggest you guys come on Tuesdays. It's our pizza day and we always have pizza left over… although I've seen you eat pizza and I don't know if we'll have enough left over to feed you.

Your friend,

Nick

P.S. Do you know Wayne Dawkins? If you do, could you get him to come for a visit?

Chapter Eight

“And the leading scorer, with twenty-two points, was Kia,” the principal said over the P.A.

There were cheers from the class. I noticed that Lailah didn't cheer. She still didn't seem to like Kia any more than Kia liked her.

“…leading our still undefeated Cougars to their third win of the year.”

There was an even bigger cheer, and Lailah joined in this time.

“And that concludes our morning announcements. Have a wonderful day at Clark!”

“Let's begin with a period of silent reading,” Mrs. Orr said. “Everybody take out a book.”

I dug into my desk and grabbed my book. It was about Sherlock Holmes when he was young, and it was called
Eye of the Crow
. It was so good that I was tempted to bring it out to read at recess…well, tempted, if there wasn't basketball to be played. It
was
a good book… but basketball was a little bit better.