Josie Dorrado and April Czernin looked from Love to me to see what I would do. I couldn’t-mustn’t-lose my temper. After all, I might only be imagining that Love was going out of her way to get my goat.

“If I wanted to humiliate her, I’d follow her to the bathroom to see if she really had her period.” I also spoke just loudly enough for the team to overhear. “I’m pretending to believe her because it might really be true.”

“You suspect she just wants a cigarette?”

I lowered my voice. “Celine, the kid who disappeared for a break five minutes ago, is challenging me. She’s a leader in the South Side Pentas, and Theresa’s one of her followers. If Celine can get a little gang meeting going in the stalls during practice, she’s taken over the team.”

I snapped my fingers. “Of course, you could go in with Theresa, take notes of all her and Celine’s girlish thoughts and wishes. It would raise their spirits no end, and you could report on how public school toilets on Chicago ’s South Side compare with what you’ve seen in Baghdad and Brixton.”

Love widened her eyes, then smiled disarmingly. “Sorry. You know your team. But I thought sports were meant to keep girls out of gangs.”

“Josie! April! Two lines, one shoots, one rebounds, you know the drill.” I watched until the girls formed up and began shooting.

“Basketball is supposed to keep them out of pregnancy, too.” I gestured to the bleachers. “We have one teen mom out of sixteen in a school where almost half the girls have babies before they’re seniors, so it’s working for most of them. And we only have three gang members-that I know of-on the team. The South Side is the city’s dumping ground. It’s why the gym’s a wreck, half the girls don’t have uniforms, and we have to beg to get enough basketballs to run a decent drill. It’s going to take way more than basketball to keep these kids off drugs, out of childbirth, and in school.”