Simon sighed deeply. How he hated sports, especially basketball. The memory of being flattened by one of the jocks on his second day of school was still fresh in his mind. With four chipmunks in the class, the couch divided them to two on each  team to make it fair. Alvin and Theodore were on one team, while Simon and Jesse were in the other. Tony was also on Simon’s team. He felt a little lost without his brothers to back him up.

He looked at the clock and there was still twenty minutes to go until class was over, the longest twenty minutes of his life he could safely say. Simon avoided actual play as much as possible, seeing that the ball was just as tall as he was, but the game soon heated up and Alvin gained a shot as he leapt through the air holding onto the ball and diving right through the basket.

“Show off,” he said just under his breath.

“Hey, that brother of yours is good,” Jesse said as Tony was dribbling the ball across the court.

One of the other boys on Alvin’s team took command of it, but Tony put up two fingers. Jesse just grinned and ran up Tony’s arm until he reached his shoulder and leapt off it and slammed dunked the ball into the basket. Simon just looked on with his mouth open. Even Alvin never made that dramatic of a shot. The coach blew his whistle signifying the end of the game.

“Alright, boys, that was a good game. Next class we work on strategy.” He looked directly at Simon. He realized basketball wasn’t just a game of skill and strength, but one of careful planning and teamwork. Maybe he wouldn’t be as inept at sports as he thought.

He had one more class before lunch, one he rather enjoyed. Biology. He wondered if they would be dissecting anything this semester. He didn’t much care for pulling apart poor defenseless little creatures, but given that they were already dead, and there was possibility of discovering something new was just too appealing.

He had this class with Alvin, Jeanette and Brittany. They all sat at a table together with Celia and two of the girls on the cheerleading squad who were good friends with Brittany. She was on the squad and the only chipmunk at the school to actually become a cheerleader. With Brittany’s natural ability for singing and dancing it only made sense that not only was she a cheerleader, but she served as the top of the pyramid.