Karyn's morning had gone pretty smoothly. She found herself subconsciously knowing Biff's class schedule, just how Biff had subconsciously known Karyn's, and nobody was really paying her much attention. If anything, folks seemed to naturally move out of her way. On the one hand, not sharing any classes with Jon made her feel a little lonely. But on the other hand, she didn't feel her usual pressure to participate in class discussions, because she was pretty sure the teacher was never going to call on her. In some ways, being in Biff's body felt almost like a vacation.
But as class wore on, Karyn began to feel restless. Like there was an energy building up inside of her that just needed release. She wasn't built for sitting in one spot for an hour at a time! Or at least, she wasn't anymore.
By the time third period ended, she felt like she was about to explode. She needed an outlet. She was about to go outside and punch a tree or something, when a thought popped into her head: "you have gym next."
Relief.
Karyn practically roared as she entered the locker room, responding to an instinct she'd never felt before. The room went silent, every eye upon her, and she almost felt the instinct to panic. But it never fully materialized, like it dissolved before it could reach her new muscle-head. Instead, Karyn found herself basking in the attention. "Go on, suit up everybody! Time's a-wastin'!" she shouted as she took great stomping steps into the body of the locker room and found Biff's locker.
The commotion resumed, as boys pulled of shirts and pulled on gym clothes, and were generally sweaty and rowdy in a way that Karyn should have found off-putting, but today just keyed her up even further. She wasn't even thinking about the naked bodies around her, or her own naked body for that matter, as she thought about who she'd pick for her basketball team today.
Basketball team? Yes, Coach Burlington always let Karyn-- always let Biff lead a half-court basketball game, no matter what else was on the agenda for the day. She'd let Steve be captain of the other team. Moose wasn't fast, but he could park himself in the dunker's spot and use his size advantage. Tom was pretty quick. Oh, the teams didn't matter, Karyn just wanted to hoop.
The whole world was just a distracting blur until ten minutes later when Karyn found herself pounding the rock at the top of the key, backing down her defender step by step. She faked left, turned right, and slipped past her man to get an easy layup.
"That's how you do it!" Karyn pumped her fist in the air, even as one of her teammates passed the ball out to the three point line so the other team could inbound.
Karyn's eyes sharpened. She looked at her four teammates' positions, calculated where the five offensive players were likely to go, and parked her cement block of a shoulder right in the path of the ballhandler, who ran at full-speed into the pick she'd set, wobbled down to the floor, and lost control of the ball.
Without even thinking about checking on her classmate, Karyn scooped the loose ball up, stepped back behind the three point line, and shot the ball in a perfect arc, just barely grazing the inside of the rim as it fell through. Five points in under thirty seconds.
The rest of the game wasn't quite so one-sided, but the other team was playing catch-up the entire time, and Karyn's team was up 38 to 31 when she got the ball at the three-point line and looked up at the gym clock: almost time to go back into the lockers. This might be the last play of the game.
A second defender came up into Karyn's face, creating a double team, but leaving a lot of empty space on the way to the basket if she could get past them. Karyn knew she should be looking to pass to the guy the defender had left open, but she didn't want to. This was the last possession. This was her possession. The game was already won, that didn't matter. She just wanted to win this possession. She wanted to dominate the two boys in front of her, and their teammates by extension.
She faked right, faked left, dribbled the ball through her legs and quickly right back again. One defender went one way, the other went the other, and Karyn pulled off a spin move between them, splitting the defenders and leaving her with a wide open lane.
One step. Two steps. Three steps. She gathered the ball and launched off of the ground, slamming the ball down into the 10-foot rim with another great war cry. She hung there for half a second before handing on the ground with a slap of rubber soles onto wooden floorboards. Every neuron in her body was firing. She'd just done a slam dunk. Her. Karyn Black.
Well, Biff Meadows. But for now that's who she was. She stared down every one of her classmates, giving them the most intense glare they'd probably ever seen in their lives.
And then Coach blew his whistle. "Alright, everybody back in the locker room to change!"
And the spell was broken. Karyn shook her head, stood back up straight, and extended her hand to the captain of the other team. "Good game."
But inside her heart was still pumping. This was precisely what she needed. The feeling of dominating other people physically. Of winning. Of reaching the very edges of her physical capabilities and pressing herself just a tiny bit further. That's what she'd been missing all morning.
Karyn shook hands with the rest of the opposing team, made sure her teammates all shook their hands too, and lead all ten basketball players back into the locker room.
