145th Street Short Stories: "The Streak"

The Streak is about a kid named Jamie Farrell. He's playing this basketball game, and this guy passes to him. It's 15 seconds until the end of the game, and they're losing by one point; he makes a layup and misses. Everyone was disappointed in him because they were the only team that lost to Powell Academy. So he tells his friend Froggy about how everyone's mad at him and stuff. He goes into the locker room and he's just sitting there, drinking Wonderale. Then he drops the bottle on the floor and it breaks on the floor.

The next day, he doesn't even want to go to school, but he goes, and everyone's giving him dirty looks. He goes to biology class with his friend and tells him that he's thinking of inviting Celia Evora, who's really popular, to the dance. Froggy tells him he's never going to be able to. His teacher then tells everyone to clean up their slides, and he breaks one. He tells the teacher he didn't mean to do it on purpose, but his teacher doesn't believe him and marks something on his paper. Jamie tells Froggy that he gives up and that he's just going to go home and wait until the year 3000. On his way to the cafeteria, his friend tells him that he might be a streaker, and that he read that in a book somewhere. He explains that a streaker is someone who has a bunch of bad or good things happen to him in a row. Jamie replies that he doesn't believe in all this streak or luck stuff. They're in the cafeteria, and he's drinking a soda and Froggy's drinking a carton of milk. They finish, and Jamie throws his soda right into the trash can; he tries to throw Froggy's milk carton into the trash can, but he misses and throws it right onto the lap of the meanest kid in the school. He runs out of the cafeteria and spends all day trying to hide from the kid. When school's over he just runs home, not even bothering to get his stuff. On the way home, he stops at the corner of his street where there's a shop and buys some potato wedgies. He then realizes he forgot his wallet at school. So he runs home, not even bothering to pay. He goes up too his room and hits his ankle on the dumbbell. Then the phone rings and he's scared to pick it up. He decides to pick it up and his teacher tells him he failed his English test. So he goes downstairs, and he's like crying and stuff and he gets some ice to put on his ankle. His younger sister walks in, and she's like, whats wrong? He replies nothing, so she takes two eggs, gives one to him and tells him to put it on his other leg so he could have matching legs. He stands up to punch her, but his leg really hurts so he sits back down. He throws the egg at the sink and slowly gets up to get a soda. He then notices that the carton of eggs in the sink has 12 eggs. he asks his sister if she really gave him an egg and she's like, are you crazy, you idiot! Then he's like, I threw the egg and it landed in the carton! So he calls his friend and his friend's like, dude, you need to count how many bad things happened to you. He counts and finds out that he had seven pieces of bad luck. So he used up one piece with the egg, and he has six more to go.

The next day, he goes to school and aces his math test. His friend's like, that was your second piece of good luck. Then he goes to the cafeteria and gets a soda from a machine which no one else can get a soda from. He goes home, and buys some roses for Celia, and sends them to her house. When he gets home, he calls and her mom tells him that she's at the hospital because she's allergic to flowers. He tells her to tell Celia that he called, and then hangs up. When his dad gets home, he talks to him about how bad drugs are, and stuff like that. Then he gives Jamie a hundred dollars to make him happy in return that he tells his dad when he has problems. That was the fifth thing. he decides that he's not going to do anything until Celia calls, so he writes a list of the good things that have happened to him on a piece of paper. He throws the paper towards the wastebasket, and at the last minute, bats it away. Then he calls Froggy, and Froggy says that its his sixth lucky thing, because he wanted the paper to go into the basket.
Now he has one thing left on his streak. His basketball team is playing the hardest team, there's no way they can win, yet they're tied even even. He can't play because of his ankle, but then his teams best players foul, and it's either they play the game with only four players, or he plays. So he plays, and they win.

The next day, everyone's like you're awesome! He's just sitting there, waiting for his next streak to start. Then Celia comes up and asks him to the dance, and he's just like ok. Then she says, I knew you would say that, and then he says why, and she says, I've been on a lucky streak all week.

I would connect with Jamie in the story because he has bad luck then he has good luck, and that's what happens to me sometimes. I have a bunch of bad things happen to him and then suddenly a bunch of good things happen to me. Jamie's just like a regular kid, and that's another reason for picking him.

I think that Jamie's just going to continue having streaks, and Froggy will probably have streaks too.

Why do you think Jamie didn't believe Froggy in the first place?

What was the purpose of the story?

I'm going to go fishing on Saturday, and I'm just going to be bored on Sunday.