``Come on, Russell - we're jetting!'' Stephon places his hand against the back of Russell's bald head and flicks it hard to make the skin sting.

``Damn, Stephon, stop sweating me!'' Russell cries, his voice high and strangulated.

``Can't you see I'm talking to my girl?''

``Can't you see I'm talking to my girl?'' Stephon mimics. Russell tries to ignore him.

He whispers in Terry's ear, gives her a kiss, slings his book bag over his shoulder and marches toward the locker room. The last class bell has rung, bringing rush-hour congestion to the Lincoln corridors. Stephon lingers in the crowd and leans in close to Terry. ``You know, when Russell goes to college, I'm next in line.''

Terry is almost as tall as Stephon, and for an instant I think she's going to hit him.

But she says, ``You got some mouth,'' and simply walks away.

Stephon does not suffer from the usual array of adolescent insecurities, but there's no reason that he should, given that his arrival at Lincoln last month as the fourth - and arguably most talented - Marbury boy was anticipated throughout the school as if he were Magic Johnson returning from retirement.

All the seniors have been awaiting Stephon's advent at point guard, where, it is hoped, he will flawlessly deliver the ball into their hands for easy baskets. And (coach) Bobby Hartstein, who usually gives incoming freshmen a grudging nod at best, has allowed Stephon his choice of team jerseys and has even given the first-year player the combination to his own locker so that Stephon can store his schoolbooks there during practice.

Stephon has not exactly been immune to all the hype. In the first week of school, he asked one of his classmates to carry his books; a few days later, a girl in the corridor asked if he was the Stephon Marbury and he replied, ``Yeah, but I don't know you from a can of paint.''

And Stephon's profile will in no way diminish when he takes the court this afternoon during the season's first official varsity practice. Hopes for this year's team are running so high around school that a small crowd begins to gather in the gym: students, teachers, other coaches, even a reporter for Newsday who will cover the team almost daily this season. ...

Stephon is making his official debut as a high school player today, but he takes the court as he always does - confident, leaning forward on the balls of his feet in happy anticipation, arms jangling at his sides. ``Mission day,'' he announces with a clap. ``Time to get busy.''

Within moments he is making quick work of his older competition, stunning the crowded, noisy gym into a reverential silence. Here he is, out by the three-point line. He does a stutter step to freeze the defense, then drives the lane. In midair, he encounters Tchaka's 6-foot, 7-inch presence, so he changes direction, shifts the ball from right hand to left, and sinks a reverse lay-up.

Coach Hartstein, getting his first look of the season at Stephon, mutters, ``Holy shh--,'' not even finishing the thought, because here Stephon is again, off to the left. He drives, sees too many bodies in the paint, and pulls up for a jumper. He is way out of position, his lithe body still floating toward the basket, so he calculates his velocity, takes a little something off the ball, and banks it gently off the glass.

It's not just that Stephon is a great young player; he does things you simply cannot teach in this game. As point guard, setting up plays for his teammates, Stephon always keeps his head up and sees the court as if he had one eye in the usual spot and the other near the ceiling, looking down.

He goes up for a jumper and, eyes fixed like radar on the rim, guns the ball inside to a surprised Russell for an easy lay-up. How could he have seen that? Running the fast break with Corey, he picks up his dribble, cradles the ball in the crook of his arm, and whips a diagonal bounce pass through two defenders as effortlessly as if were lazing by the shore, skipping stones. (``Deliver the pizza, cuz, with pepperoni!'' Corey cries on his way to the hoop.) This sort of command one sees only among genuine child prodigies - Itzhak Perlman playing Paganini at age 5 - the ability to perform the easy and difficult passages with the same fluid grace.

Stephon began his study of the game at approximately 3 years of age. At 6, he could shoot and dribble with both hands. A few years later he would show up at halftime during Lincoln games, steal the ball from the ref, and begin tossing in three-pointers with such pinpoint accuracy (``bye-bye birdie,'' he would chirp) that the net gave but the slightest shiver.

When he reached the advanced age of 10, (local coaches) Disco and Mr. Lou let him captain one of their 14-and-under teams. The next year, Stephon scored an astonishing 41 points in a Catholic Youth League championship game, making the New York Daily News for the first of what would turn out to be countless occasions.

Even as an eighth-grader, Stephon still looked unimposing - just a scrawny kid whose narrow shoulders could barely support his tank top - and he spent most of his nonplaying time worrying that he'd never grow tall enough to dunk. But his advanced skills and size 11 1/2 feet gave an auspicious picture of what he'd be like full grown and strong enough to wreak complete havoc on the court.

What I hadn't know until Stephon joined his older friends on the Lincoln varsity is that the feverish recruiting of top players actually begins when they are 14 and in junior high. Stephon may have grown up in one of the city's most isolated communities, but by the time he was ready to pick a high school last spring, everyone associated with prep basketball throughout the five boroughs had heard of him, and every school within a 30-mile radius of Coney Island began its recruiting.

Catholic schools like Bishop Ford, Tolentine, Bishop Loughlin, Christ the King, Saint Raymond's and Xaverian placed their bids - promises of a starting position from some schools, a guaranteed supply of his favorite sneakers from others. One Brooklyn coach presented Stephon with a new uniform and treated him and his father to a series of extravagant dinners. A coach in the Bronx was rumored to have offered cash up front.

And the recruiters arrived not only from the big-time parochial schools. Technically, of course, kids in the New York City public school system must go to their neighborhood zoned schools. But when it comes to talented athletes like Stephon, the Public School Athletic League (PSAL) finds so many loopholes in the admissions procedures that public school coaches have begun recruiting eighth-graders the same way the college coaches go after the seniors - by promising them the most playing time, the best chance to win a city title, and the exposure to get recruited to the next level. (``They've been after me since I was in fifth grade actually,'' Stephon once told me.) ...

When Stephon was in the process of narrowing his choices for a high school last spring, Hartstein assiduously kept a low profile and hoped that Lincoln would have the edge simply because Stephon's older brothers - Eric, Donnie, and Norman - had starred at the school and older friends of Stephon's, like Russell and Corey, were already there.

But something about Stephon's amazing repertoire of skills seems to soften the resolve of even the highest-minded coaches; and Hartstein, it must be said, could not resist making a few subtle advances toward the young player. Though he normally forbids most Lincoln students from watching varsity practice (including the sports reporter for the student newspaper), for the last three years Hartstein welcomed Stephon into the gym with a big hug. And when the team played for the city championship at Madison Square Garden last spring, Hartstein reserved an honorary place for his incoming star on the Lincoln bench.

For a time, toward the end of last summer, it looked as though Stephon might go into the Catholic league after all. Stephon had grown wary of Lincoln after two of his brothers, Donnie and Norman, failed to meet the minimum NCAA academic requirements and were forced to attend junior colleges. Vowing not to go that route, Stephon thought he might get better academic preparation at a Catholic school. But then Hartstein made Stephon an offer that would be considered extraordinary in almost any business but this: the 42-year-old coach promised the 14-year-old player that he'd turn down any college coaching offer over the next four years so that he could personally shepherd Stephon through high school. ...

So when Stephon concludes his stunning performance during the season's first practice with a three-pointer off the dribble, wiggling his fingers in Tchaka's face as the ball slides through the net, Hartstein turns to his two assistant coaches and exults, ``Jesus, this kid's the real thing! Getting Stephon is like trading for an experienced senior point guard just when you need him! Do you realize Stephon could keep us in TV tournaments for the next four years?'' There is in the coach's usually subdued voice something like joy.

``Stephon may be the real thing, but you'd better watch him right from the start,'' warns Gerard Bell, one of Hartstein's assistants. ``Stephon's got that attitude. When he walked in today, he gave me the Marbury look. I'm telling you now; you better not start him the first game. I don't want another four years of Norman.''

``Don't worry,'' Hartstein assures Bell. ``Stephon's gonna be OK. He's a lot more down to earth than his brothers. He's seen three of them struggle. He's not gonna make the same mistakes.''

``Yeah, well, Donnie saw one brother struggle, Norman saw two, and it didn't help them,'' Bell replies.