Maia was normal. Was she? A small, quiet 10 year old girl of average weight and fairly good grades that couldn’t be beaten at wheelchair basketball? Yeah, she definitely was normal. She turned the corner to go to her class after lunch, and just had to cut through the courtyard, as her classroom was at the other end. She didn’t know what was coming her way. Nicole, the school bully, and her 2 giant sidekicks, Esther and Catherine blocked the entrance to the courtyard with their fat bodies, and the expression on Nicole’s face looked one that a witch would make when she was about to use her magic spell on a bunch of unwilling children.
Nicole wasn’t exactly the nicest person to call a friend, always picking her nose, getting terrible grades, and always thinking she was superior and popular in school. Everyone else found it easy to shoo Nicole and her 2 ‘buddies’ away, because they were so gullible and stupid, but Maia, being the quiet girl that she was, would never have the courage to get them out of her face. She hated them the most out of all the bullies in the school because she kept on reminding her about her legs, and Maia absolutely HATED it when people talked about them. She didn’t exactly know what happened, but her mom said that she was born with a condition that meant that her lower body was paralyzed(she never paid any attention to the big lecture that followed). Her mom always said that the fact she had weak legs was ironic because she said her baby was the strongest girl that lived.
“Look who it is, guys.”, sneered Nicole knocked Maia’s back to her senses.
‘Okay’ she thought to herself. ‘Let’s get this over with’.
Nicole came back into view. She was gesturing to her companions, and had on a bittersweet smile on her ugly face. “I’m sorry, flimsy legs, but you’ll need to get out of our way. We have more important things to do.” Maia wanted to fight back, but she decided to wait it through until they stopped.
  “Why don’t you answer me, huh? Are you afraid that I MIGHT BEAT YOU UP?” She snarled that last bit like a maniac, and Maia was surprised that she didn’t speak like that all the time.
“What do you want.” Maia cursed at herself for replying, but she didn’t want Nicole pestering her like this.
“Oh yeah, well news flash! Just out of curiosity, is there anything wrong with  your legs, freak?” Nicole’s friend, Esther announced this so loudly that almost everyone in the courtyard heard.
Everyone came to stare at what was going on. At this, Maia moved out of their way, and started rolling her way to her next class. She didn’t have anybody or anyone that she could play with or talk with. Everyone thought she was weird. Nobody wanted to sit with her at lunch and everyone bullied her because she was different. This was not right. Things had to change, fast.
* * *
The rest of the day flew by. On Maia’s way home to school, she was deep in thought. She couldn’t figure out how to get those girls back for what they always did to her. That night, she was watching TV, and she always saw the star players and wished that someday, she could be one too. As she was watching TV, and suddenly an idea struck her. She thought to herself: ‘I’m better than them at basketball. That’s what I’m better than them at. I’m better than all of them at basketball.’
Everyday, Maia liked to shoot hoops at least for 1 hour at the practice ground. As a 10 year old, she had a lot of time on her hands. That evening Maia still pondered the idea. She tried to forget about it, but she couldn’t stop thinking. It was a nice evening though, and the sun was out, so she soon cleared her mind of it and got into the groove of shooting baskets.
On her way out of her long, hard practice session, Maia stopped for a drink of water. All she was thinking about was a nice, hot shower and warm food for dinner. While she was rolling along, a crumpled piece of paper was on the sidewalk.
“No littering, it’s bad for the Earth” she muttered under her breath. She was about to throw the piece of paper away when a picture of a basketball caught her eye.
The paper said: “Preliminary round of wheelchair basketball tournament starting on Saturday, November 22nd in the morning at 9:00 at Kennedy Middle School Gym - for girls aged 10-13.
This was her chance. Her chance to prove to the girls at school that she was actually good at something. Maia would have gotten up and done a happy jig, had it not been for her leg problem. She raced back home as fast as she could.
Maia burst into the house as soon as her mom was getting the table ready. The warmth of the house rushed onto her face after the cool October breeze of outside. She washed herself with nice, hot water, and went downstairs, the food beckoning to her. Maia devoured the dinner like a hungry beast (it was chile, Maia’s favorite), she told her mom between bites about the tournament and how she had thought about entering. Her mom was not happy to hear about this. She knew that her daughter was in love with basketball, but Maia was already a vegetable for life, and she didn’t want her to enter a tournament with girls that old and experienced.
“How can you go play a tournament? I don’t want you to get even more hurt, there will be 13 year old girls who will be competing against you!!” Maia’s mom worried.
Maia knew how to argue, she took debate in school. “I’ll be fine, mom. This tournament is for people in wheelchairs only, so I can’t get fouled that badly, and I know how to deal with bigger girls.”
Maia’s mom opened her mouth, but nothing came out. After a long pause, she finally agreed. “Okay honey, but I don’t want you to come to me with a broken hand next.”
“It’s okay, mom, I won’t.” Maia smiled slyly and stared out into the foggy October evening.
* * *
Finally, November 22nd, the big day of the tournament had arrived after weeks of long, hard practice. Maia was ready for it. She was placed with a random group of 3, as it is done in wheelchair basketball, and the tournament began. The set of elimination matches started that week and continued over the course of 5 weeks. The 6th week was the quarter-finals and semi-finals, and the finals was on the 7th week. Maia and her teammates, two 12 year-olds, got off to a shaky start, as in their first game, they played a hard team that had some good players. Maia’s determination was unbeatable, though, and she felt like she could win anything, scoring 25 points that game. Because of Maia’s confidence and determination, her team didn’t drop out of the tournament. At the end of the first game Maia got to choose the team name, ‘The Rockets’.
As days and weeks passed by, Nicole constantly saw how long Maia was on the basketball court, practicing during recess time. She quickly informed her friends:
“Ha! Maia thinks she’s so good.We can easily beat her. Let’s join a basketball tournament and win it!!”
Maia was on the court, far away from Nicole, but she was speaking so loudly that Maia could hear her clear as day. ‘They’re saying that they’re better than me at basketball?’ she muttered under her breath. Let’s see about that.’ She made a 3-pointer.
* * *
Though the tournament was hard, and some teams were really tough, Maia’s team made it through the 6 weeks of playing games. On January 15th, the finals, the Rockets arrived at the game at 7:30 a.m. But man, Maia’s mouth dropped open when she saw who their opponent was: The Wellington Wizards. They were the best team, and had crushed all of the teams in the competition so badly that most of their games’ scores were 33-0, or 65-5. All 3 of them looked like 13 year olds, with big muscles and very large bodies. At 79 pounds, Maia was a small 10 year old who probably didn’t stand a chance against them, but she had older teammates, and they had a chance of winning the trophy.
As soon as the game started, the opponents scored a basket. They fouled like crazy, but they were clumsy, so using her speed and agility, Maia zigzaged them easily and made baskets. At half-time, Maia’s team was down by a lot of points. Her teammate was really worried, but Maia supported her and they went into the second half feeling confident.
One of her teammates got badly injured when there were 4 seconds remaining in the game and her team was 1 point down. Maia had the ball. Her injured teammate was on the bench, cheering her. Her other teammate was frantically urging her to shoot. The crowd was going wild. Maia decided to take a hit and hope shot, and she let it fly.
Maia shut her eyes.
She felt it going in. Time trickled on... 3… 2… 1…
“Whoosh”
There was suddenly an eruption of applause as the buzzer sounded with a buzz. Maia cautiously opened her eyes to see her mom jumping up and down, and her opponents hanging their heads. Maia had scored a buzzer-beater to win the tournament. Stunned, she went to go congratulate the other team.
* * *
For winning the tournament, Maia got a 4 ft tall trophy and a medal. Nicole and her gang lost their tournament badly: on the first round. It was unimaginable how ashamed the Nicole and her gang looked when they found out that Maia had won the basketball tournament. Maia had finally broken through Nicole, all thanks to her determination.