Chapter 3: Making A Friend
After his introduction, Jack sat in the empty seat at the front of the class. As he was listening to the lesson, Jack was feeling a peculiar funny sensation. This feeling came from being in high school as he remembered that in his previous life it had been almost many decades since he finished his high school. The first class was math's and the teacher was talking about some trigonometry formula which Jack had not used for a long time but with his own intelligence and the perks helped him recall all the information about the formula easily. Jack was pretty amused and astonish by the perks given to him by the guide or some higher being, which could even be the almighty. He wanted to find out what else he could do with the perk and took out his Spanish textbook. In his previous life he was pretty lousy at learning new languages both for lack of natural aptitude and lack of interest. After reading the first few pages of the book secretly, Jack found out he could easily understand and remember all the contents from the book. Jack began to think how far he could go in this life with the help of his perks as he was pretty successful in his previous life. But Jack had to pull himself back, he was thinking to far ahead and right now he should just enjoy his youthful years.
After some time, the teacher finished teaching about the formula and assigned them some problems to solve based on their lesson. Jack quickly finished his work in ten minutes and was just reading the Spanish textbook. The boy next to Jack notice this and was pretty surprised at what jack was doing. The boy was having a hard time solving the assignment and so he decided to ask Jack if he finished his work.
"Hey dude, did you already solve the problem?" asked the boy, looking at Jack expectantly. When Jack said yes, he became really happy and asked "can you help me, man. This problem is kicking my butt". Jack laughed at the statement and said "Sure". For the next twenty minutes Jack explained to the boy how to solve the problem in a very detailed manner. At first the boy was struggling but with the help of jack he understood how to solve the problem at the end.
"Hey, you're pretty smart. Wanna be friends?' asked the boy and Jack was surprised by the straight forward nature of the boy. Jack was happy to make a new friend so quickly and said "Sure man, my name is Jack Ryan and I just moved here recently". The boy said with a big smile "Really! That's cool dude. My name is Peter Harris. Nice to meet you". They shook hand and exchange phone numbers.
As the day went by, they stared to talk in between classes when they got some free time and Jack found out Peter was a pretty funny and chill guy. He found out Peter was on the school basketball team and that's when Jack notice Peter was not only tall but had pretty big hands and a long reach with a long face with dirty blonde hair. With a basketball physique, Jack could see why Peter was in the basketball team. When the lunch bell rang, Peter invited Jack to eat with him with his friends. When they reached the cafeteria, Peter led the way to his friends table. Jack notice all the boys at the table were wearing the high school basketball team jacket. When they reached the table, Peter announced in a loud voice "Hey, say hi to Jack. I just met him in my math's class and became friends. He is pretty smart and helped me a lot, so be nice guys". A boy equal in Peter's height but much muscular said "its cool Peter, we are all nice guy." After turning to Jack, the muscular boy said "Nice to meet you dude, names James Wilson." Another boy who was a little bit shorter with a Japanese look said "Names Kenzo Kimura but everybody calls me Ken, nice to meet you." The other two boys who looked identical said "Hi, my name is Terry Jefferson. Nice to meet you" and the other boy said "And my name is David Jefferson, happy to make your acquittance". "They are the famous identical twin in our basketball team" Peter chimed in from the side.
"Cool, nice to meet you all. Are you all in the basketball team?" asked Jack. "Yep, we are the famous hoop heroes of Walters High. And this year will be our year." said James. "Dude stop dreaming, this year will probably suck. Most of our talented players graduated last year and we don't have enough talent to go all the way" Ken stated with a straight face. "Dude stop being so negative, if we give it our all we can do it. We have enough talented people to finish the job" Peter defended James. Then David also chimed in "Yeah, I also want to win the championship trophy and we even got close last year but let's look at the facts, two of our most talented guys were seniors and they graduated last year. We have to fill their place and the new players don't meet our standard man." "I am also worried we don't have the squad depth to go all the way" Terry said with a dejected look.
The vibe around the table became a little sad, even Peter didn't know how to solve this problem. At that moment Jack aske "Can I try for the basketball team?" and everyone turn to look at him with a hopeful look. Peter asked "Jack, can you play and are you any good?" but Jack douse their hope "Nah dude, I just play for fun in the past and don't expect me to be any good. I just want to try for the team and see how well I can do". It was true, in his previous life he wanted to play some sports and experience the spirit of comradeship and brotherhood but he never got the chance. So, in his new life he wanted to experience this feeling and when he found out his first friend Peter was in the basketball team, he chose basketball.
"Sorry dude, didn't mean to put you on the spot but we are in a pretty desperate situation. But yeah, come try out man if you are selected, we can hangout with the boys everyday" said Peter quickly changing his mood. Peter tried to cheer the group "We can't mop around forever. We just have to deal with our problem and try our best and that's all we can do."
"Yeah, bros what's the point of being sad. Who knows what will happen in the future, we can even win it all" James chimed in from the side. Everybody agreed to stop feeling sad for themselves and the team and try their best to win and deal with the challenges as they come.
As they guys moved on from the depressing topic, they started to talk about other things like about the NBA and the video games. Jack listened to them talk occasionally offering his opinion on the matter but his mind was now on the basketball tryouts later. In the heat of the moment, he wanted to tryout for the team but he never played the sport so in his mind he was pretty worried. Jack hoped that his perk will help him learn the game before he had to go to the tryouts at the end of school.