Miracle at the Plate (2 page)

“That’s Pancho, Tommy Scott’s dog,” Shadow said. “Boy, will he be upset!”

S
keeter realized that they were right in front of Tommy Scott’s house. Had Pancho’s cry been heard? Would someone be running
out of the house within the next few seconds?

No one appeared. He glanced at the yellow house next to it. A trim hedgerow bordered the driveway leading to a garage in the
rear, and a blue spruce rose elegantly near the center of the small front lawn. It was Roger Hyde’s house. In a short while
both boys would be coming home from the ball park.

“What’re you going to do?” whispered Shadow. “Leave him here? Looks as if he’s real hurt.”

Skeeter held one hand against the Chihuahua’s head, and felt the dog’s body with the other. What he hated worse than anything
in the world was striking a bird or an animal. Even accidentally. He loved them. He had a white falcon he called Gus — a beautiful,
trained bird he had raised from the time it had begun sprouting feathers. Dad had gotten it for him for his ninth birthday.
He knew how he’d feel if someone struck Gus and injured him. He’d feel almost as if he, himself, had been injured.

That was probably how Tommy Scott would feel, too. Because Tommy must love Pancho.

Skeeter picked up the little animal and cradled it in his left arm. The Chihuahua lay still, trembling. It licked Skeeter’s
hand as if
it wanted to be friends, as if all that barking had been just to show off.

Skeeter lifted his bike, climbed on it, and started to pedal away.

“Where are you taking him?” Shadow asked as he followed close behind on his bike.

“Home, first. I promised I’d go right home,” said Skeeter. “Then to Dr. Wiggins. I think his leg is broken.”

The boys rode home. Shadow lived four houses beyond Skeeter’s. “I’ll meet you in about fifteen minutes and we can go to the
vet’s,” said Skeeter.

Skeeter hid Pancho in a corner of the garage, placing him on an old coat he found in there. He didn’t tell anyone about the
accident. That had to be just between him and Shadow.

He got out of his uniform, put on regular clothes, and washed. Mom must have noticed that he was very quiet. She always
noticed things like that. She asked him if something was wrong and he said no, there’s nothing wrong. Why?

“Shouldn’t be anything wrong,” Bob said. “All he did was single, double, and homer.”

That stopped Mom from asking more questions, but she still seemed puzzled about the way he looked. That Mom. She was always
more observant about things than Dad was.

Skeeter did a lot of thinking while he changed. Dr. Wiggins, the vet, lived about six blocks away. Suppose someone saw Skeeter
taking the Chihuahua there, and this someone recognized the dog? How would Skeeter explain that?

Then he had it figured out. At least, he thought he did. Calling to his mother that he was going for a bike ride with Shadow,
he left the house.

He rode over to Shadow’s house with two
small baskets, one clinging to each handlebar. Shadow was waiting for him. He looked at the two baskets and frowned.

“Two baskets?” He looked at Skeeter. “How come two baskets?”

“Just in case,” said Skeeter. “Here, you take this one. Be careful. Pancho’s in there.”

“And what’s in that one?” Shadow pointed curiously at the other basket, then started sniffing. “Smells good.”

“It is,” Skeeter replied, and pedaled ahead of Shadow without telling him what was in the basket.

Tree shadows flickered across their faces as they rode. They passed kids jumping rope and playing catch with a soft ball.
Here and there people were sitting on porches, reading the evening paper or just relaxing.

The boys had two blocks to go when a shout sprang from behind them.

“Hey, Skeet! Shadow!”

“Oh-oh!” murmured Shadow.

Skeeter looked over his shoulder. For an instant, panic shot through him. Four guys were coming up behind them on bikes, including
Roger Hyde and Tommy Scott!

“What shall we do, Skeet?” Shadow cried softly.

“Act natural,” replied Skeeter. “I’ll handle it.”

Roger was first to reach them. “Where are you guys going with those baskets?” he wanted to know.

Skeeter looked at him and then at the others. He flashed a smile. “Are you guys good guys or bad guys?” he asked jokingly.
He glanced at Tommy Scott, saw the sober, rather sad look on Tommy’s face. His heart ached again. He wanted to tell Tommy
not to worry, that he had Pancho, and that he was taking him to a doctor. But he couldn’t
tell that to Tommy. Not yet. Not until he knew that Pancho would be all right.

The guys laughed, all except Tommy.

Skeeter turned his attention back to his driving. At the same time he veered his bike slightly to get closer to Roger.

“We’re bad guys,” said Roger out of the corner of his mouth. “This is a holdup.” Then he grinned and sniffed the air. “Hey!
Whatever’s in that basket smells good!”

“Doughnuts,” said Skeeter. “I’m taking them to my aunt and uncle’s.” He slowed down and braked the bike to a halt. “Wait a
minute. There’s plenty in our two baskets for an army. You guys want one?”

Roger looked at him in surprise. “I only
said
this was a holdup, Skeet. I didn’t
mean
it.”

“I know you didn’t,” replied Skeeter. “Take one, anyway.”

He pulled back the white linen cloth that
covered the doughnuts and lifted one out for each of the four boys. They were large, powder-sugared doughnuts and still warm.

“Thanks, Skeet!” Roger’s eyes went almost as wide as the doughnut holes. “H’mmm! They smell delicious!”

The other boys paid their thanks to Skeeter, and then turned their bikes and rode off.

“Yokies,” said Shadow, wiping his brow with his forefinger. “It’s a good thing you figured that out or we’d have been sunk.”

Skeeter grinned. “Just leave it to me,” he said triumphantly.

He got to thinking about Tommy, and the grin faded. No matter what he had thought of Tommy’s ability as a baseball player,
deep inside Skeeter felt awful.

He loved animals so much. Why had Pancho taken that moment to run in front of him and be struck by his bike? Why?

D
r. Wiggins lived in a white sprawling house with a large green lawn around it. Flowers grew alongside the driveway and up
a lattice that stood on either side of the front porch.

There were three people in the waiting room, each patiently holding a dog. Skeeter and Shadow had to wait for half an hour
before their turn came.

Dr. Wiggins was a tall man with gray, friendly eyes peering through horn-rimmed glasses. He and Skeeter had become acquainted
when Gus, the falcon, had gotten
sick. Skeeter had taken it to the vet and in a short time Gus was well again.

After the doctor greeted the boys, he looked curiously at the basket and then at Skeeter. “Gus isn’t sick again, is he?” he
asked.

“No. This is Pancho, a Mexican Chihuahua,” Skeeter explained. “He doesn’t belong to me. I hit him accidentally with my bike.”

Dr. Wiggins uncovered the trembling little animal, lifted it out of the basket, and laid it gently on a table. He ran his
fingers carefully over the tiny body and then paused at a spot on the dog’s rear left leg and rubbed his thumb over it. Pancho
whimpered and tried to lift his head, but the doctor held it down.

“Bone broken in the leg,” Dr. Wiggins observed. “Needs to be set and splinted. That might not be all, though. If the wheel
of your bike ran over part of his stomach it
could’ve caused an internal injury. I think you’d better leave Pancho here a few days, Skeeter.”

A lump rose in Skeeter’s throat. “Is he real bad, Dr. Wiggins?”

The doctor shrugged. “I’m not sure, Skeeter. I won’t know for sure until I see how really serious the damage is. Call back
in a few days. By then I should know how he is.”

Skeeter took the sack of doughnuts out of the basket Shadow was holding and placed it on the table.

“What’s that?” asked Dr. Wiggins.

“Doughnuts,” replied Skeeter humbly. “You can have them. There’s no sense taking them back. If those guys stopped us again
and smelled the doughnuts we wouldn’t know what to say to them, because I told them we were taking them to my aunt and uncle’s.”

“What guys?” asked the doctor curiously.

So Skeeter and Shadow told him about meeting Roger and the others and giving them doughnuts and telling them that they were
taking the doughnuts to Skeeter’s aunt and uncle’s. Skeeter said he just didn’t feel like riding all the way out in the country
to Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Rob’s now.

The doctor lifted a doughnut out of the sack between his thumb and forefinger, squeezed it gently, and smiled. “Well! If all
the doughnuts are like this one, I’m not going to argue with you!”

The boys rode home. Skeeter parked the bike in the garage and walked with a heavy heart to the back porch. In the large screened-cage
in the corner, built level with the windows so that it could look out-of-doors, was the white falcon Gus.

His head jerked erect as Skeeter’s footsteps sounded on the porch. A large eye,
glued upon Skeeter, was briefly covered as an eyelid went down and up again.

“Hi, Gus,” said Skeeter. The falcon answered with a soft cackle.

Skeeter opened the cage, called to the falcon, and the big bird stepped out and climbed upon Skeeter’s arm. It was heavy,
its white plumage like snow.

“Want to exercise your wings a little?” Skeeter smiled. He walked to the porch door, stretched out his arm, and the falcon
took off with a
whoosh!
of its huge, pointed wings. The wings flapped quickly for a while as the big white bird climbed higher and higher, flying
over the houses and the towering trees.

Skeeter watched, with a bright glow in his eyes, as his winged friend sailed freely around in the sky. A few minutes later
the falcon returned, landing on the wooden perch that extended from the rail of the
porch steps Dad had made expressly for this purpose. From there it climbed up on Skeeter’s arm and Skeeter returned it to
its cage.

At baseball practice the next morning, Skeeter noticed that Tommy Scott seemed even more troubled than he was last evening.
The first thing he heard was, “Something’s happened to Tommy’s dog, that little Mexican Chihuahua. He disappeared yesterday.”

He trotted to the outfield and shagged flies which a high school boy was hitting out to them. Another high school boy was
working with the infielders.

There was batting practice afterwards, but Skeeter remained in the outfield. He didn’t come to bat until one of the guys yelled
for him to come in and hit. He didn’t want to bat even then. But if he didn’t,
someone might wonder what was bothering him.

He swung at two pitches and missed completely. Then he hit two grounders, popped one to the pitcher, and missed again.

Roger Hyde, standing in center field with his arms folded, roared out in laughter. “What happened, slugger? I thought you
were a fence buster?”

Skeeter telephoned Dr. Wiggins that afternoon. Pancho’s condition was still critical, said the doctor. He had placed a splint
on the broken leg, but he was not yet able to tell whether the little Chihuahua might survive its internal injuries.

“I have a hunch he’ll come through, though, Skeeter,” added the doctor. “Don’t worry.”

He just says that to make me feel better,
thought Skeeter.

A few days later he changed into his baseball uniform in preparation for the game against the Dinosaurs and heard his father
calling to him. Dad was reading the
Crown Point Journal
in the living room. “There’s a notice here in the Lost and Found column about Tommy Scott’s pet dog, Pancho,” he said. “Says
Pancho’s lost or stolen. Have you heard about it, Skeeter?”

Skeeter’s neck reddened. “Yes. Heard it last week. Tommy told us at practice.”

“That’s a shame. That was a cute little dog, that Chihuahua.”

S
keeter wasn’t himself as he stood beside the dugout and waited for his turn to bat. He couldn’t get Pancho out of his mind.

Tip and Joey both struck out. Roger banged out a single and Skeeter stepped to the plate. There was a girl sitting in the
bleachers behind the Milky Ways’ dugout and shouting as if she were the only Milky Ways fan there. She had yelled for Tip
and Joey and Roger to hit. Now she was yelling for Skeeter.

He took a called strike and two balls.
Then he swung at a belt-high pitch and missed for strike two.

He stepped out of the box, rubbed his sweating hands on the bat, and stepped in again.

The pitch came in, a little high and close to the outside corner. He swung.

“Strike three!” cried the umpire as the bat swished through the air.

A disappointed moan broke from the girl in the stands.

No balls came out to Skeeter during the second half of the inning. In the next inning a high fly was hit to deep left. Skeeter
watched it soar into the blue sky and thought for sure that it was heading for the fence behind him. He turned and rushed
back, stumbled, regained his footing, turned again.

His eyes widened in horror as he saw the ball coming down far in front of him. Boy,
had he misjudged that one! He bolted forward, running as hard as he could. When he saw that he would not be able to catch
it by running, he dove at it. The ball brushed the tip of his glove and struck the ground, and he went sprawling forward on
his stomach.

He scrambled to his feet, picked up the ball, and pegged it to second. The man was already there.

Laughter exploded from the Dinosaurs’ fans.

“Holy cow, Skeet!” exclaimed third baseman Henry Mall. “If you’d stayed in your position you could’ve caught that ball in
your hip pocket!”

In the third inning he misjudged another fly. He thought this one was going to land almost in the exact spot where he was
standing. He realized it wasn’t when it began sailing over his head. By that time he wasn’t able to get back fast enough.
The ball
bounced out to the fence. He raced after it, picked it up, and threw it in. The hitter stopped on third base for a triple.