Tales of a Ninth Grade Nothing

Because Jacob  is very small and skinny for his age, but full of talent and enthusiasm (biased mom writing here), he has a knack for getting into gripping dramas that only happen to him, particularly in P.E.

Yesterday, they were starting a new session of basketball in P.E.  The teacher divided the kids into two groups.  Teachers never spell out that one group is advanced while the other group is for the beginners, but the kids always know.  As always, Jacob gets put in the group with the "band kids" (the ones that, at his school, are allowed to and want to opt-out of 1 semester of P.E a year), and the other small kids.  Meanwhile, the basketball team members, the football players, the tall boys, and the boys who are well-built but have never picked up a basketball in their lives, ie. the swimmers, are in the advanced group.  Jacob is miffed about his placement, but accepts it as normal that he always gets placed in the "beginners group".

The teacher announces that they are going to do a dribbling drill.  He demonstrates a drill where the kids dribble the balls between their staggered legs, dribbling the ball side-to-side as their legs switch places between dribbles.  This is something that Jacob could do with his eyes closed.  The challenge is to see how many dribbles they can get in 30 seconds.  The teacher mentions that in the earlier period, someone, probably from the "advanced" group, got 41.  Meanwhile, the band kids are getting 5, the swimmer in the advanced group gets 10.  The tall basketball forward gets about 20. The numbers are low because a lot of kids spend their time chasing the balls that fly out of their hands and roll into the rest of the gym.  In fact, in the beginners group, there are particularly many balls that are rolling around the gym floor.

However, Jacob gets into a great tempo.  He exceeds 60 dribbles in a minute, and is glowing with pride. Suddenly a ball from one of the beginner boys comes flying out of nowhere and knocks the ball out of his hands. He stops at 61 but knows he could have hit 70 otherwise.  Still he sets a class record and is extremely proud to show the teacher that size doesn't mean anything.