Gameplay on the pitch, lightning faSt, dribble, fake, then make a dash player tries tO steal the ball lift and step and make him fall zip and zoom to find the spot defense readies for the shot Chip, then kick it in the air take off like a Belgian hare shoot it left, but watch it Curve all he can do is observe watch the ball bEnd in midflight play this game faR into night. Wake Up Call After playing FIFA online with Coby till one thirty a.m. last night, you wake this morning to the sound of Mom arguing on the phone with Dad. Questions Did you make up your bed? Yeah. Can you put bananas in my pancakes, please? Did you finish your homework? Yeah. Can we play a quick game of Ping-Pong, Mom? And what about the reading. I didn't see you doing that yesterday. Mom, Dad's not even here. Just because your father's away doesn't mean you can avoid your chores. I barely have time for my real chores. Perhaps you should spend less time playing Xbox at all hours of the night. Huh? Oh, you think I didn't know? I'm sick of reading his stupid words, Mom. I'm going to high school next year and I shouldn't have to keep doing this. Why couldn't your dad be a musician like Jimmy Leon's dad or own an oil company like Coby's? Better yet, why couldn't he be a cool detective driving a sleek silver convertible sports car like Will Smith in Bad Boys ? Instead, your dad's a linguistics professor with chronic verbomania* as evidenced by the fact that he actually wrote a dictionary called Weird and Wonderful Words with,       get this, footnotes. * verbomania [vurb-oh-mey-nee-uh] noun: a crazed obsession for words. Every freakin' day I have to read his "dictionary," which has freakin' FOOTNOTES. That's absurd to me. Kinda like ordering a glass of chocolate milk, then asking for chocolate syrup on the side. Seriously, who does that? SMH! In the elementary school spelling bee when you intentionally misspelled heifer, he almost had a cow. You're the only kid on your block at school in THE. ENTIRE. FREAKIN'. WORLD. who lives in a prison of words. He calls it the pursuit of excellence. You call it Shawshank. And even though your mother forbids you to say it, the truth is you HATE words. Excerpted from Booked by Kwame Alexander All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.