Safe at Home (12 page)

“
Very
cool stuff,” his dad said.

Nick loved how Lancelot was kind of an orphan himself, and how he was just getting to the parts about how Lancelot and King Arthur were fighting over Guinevere.

“I can’t believe it,” Nick said. “All that over a girl?”

“Well, not just
any
old girl,” his dad said. “Think of her as a Gracie-type girl.”

“Still,” Nick said. “Going to war?”

His dad patted him on the shoulder and said, “You’ll understand when you’re older. Hopefully not as old as me.”

“You weren’t old playing ball tonight,” Nick said.

His dad laughed out loud now, the kind of laugh Nick hardly ever heard from him, and said, “Well, you’re nice to say so.”

Just then they heard the doorbell ring. Nick’s mom was calling upstairs a minute later, saying it was Coach Williams to see Nick.

Coach Williams was there to tell him that Bobby Mazzilli’s wrist had healed and that he’d been cleared to play.

Paul and Brenda Crandall left them alone in the living room, Coach Williams on the couch and Nick facing him from a chair on the other side of the coffee table.

Feeling like he’d been called to the principal’s office but not sure why.

This was the chair he sat in when he and his dad had some of their talks about his schoolwork.

“Bobby was probably ready to practice a couple of days ago,” Coach Williams was saying. “But he had one last doctor’s appointment today. And I frankly didn’t want him putting any more pressure on you than you were already feeling by hanging around practice.”

“Yeah,” Nick said.

“He’s been working out with his dad, though, on his own.”

Bobby’s dad, Nick knew, was the varsity coach at the high school.

Nick just waited, hands on his knees. He noticed that he could already see them turning into catcher’s hands, a little lumpy in some places. He was staring at his hands because he didn’t know what to think about this, what to say. If Coach had told him a few days ago that Bobby was ready to reclaim his old job, Nick would have been relieved.

Happy, even.

Not now.

“I told Bobby not to say anything to anybody until I had a chance to talk to you,” Coach Williams said. “I’m the one who got you into this, after all.”

Nick said, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”

Coach Williams took a deep breath, let it out. “I’m not going to lie to you, Nick. I feel like I’ve been honest with you from the start, and I’m gonna be honest now. Once Bobby’s good to go, I’m gonna send you back to JV, where you can
play every game and get ready for next season. You know that’s best, right?”

Nick nodded. It was pretty amazing, if you thought about it, how often grown-ups told you what was best for you.

“One small problem,” Coach Williams said. “The big game on Monday.”

“The biggest,” Nick said.

“This is our year to get those guys,” Coach Williams said. “We’ve finally got players who aren’t just good enough to do it, but believe they can do it.” He took another deep breath and said, “What I’m here to find out is if you’re one of those players. Bobby thinks he’s ready right now to be the starting catcher on the Hayworth team that finally beats King. What about you, Nick?”

Nick wanted Gracie here. Or his dad. Or his mom.

But he knew this was on him.

He knew he was the one being challenged here.

It was completely quiet in the house. Since he’d been called up to varsity—adopted again, that’s
what he’d told Gracie—he’d been looking for a way out, a way to get off the team and get back to JV.

Now here that chance was, staring him right in the face.

All he had to do was say the word.

So he did.

“I want to play,” Nick said.

Coach Williams smiled.

“All I wanted to know,” he said.

King’s nickname was the Vikings, and Nick thought that worked out just fine, because it looked to him as if a few of their guys were big enough to play for the
Minnesota
Vikings.

The pro football team.

The biggest of them was Zane Diaz, star catcher.

“I know who I want to be when I grow up,” Jack Elmore said to Nick while the Vikings were finishing up with infield, pointing out at Zane. “Him.”

Nick said, “Even his catcher’s mitt looks small on him.”

“Well,” Jack said, “you know what they say: Bigger they are, harder they fall.”

Just then Zane Diaz cut loose with a throw down to second base. With what looked like just a small
flick of his wrist, he nearly took the glove off his second baseman’s hand.

“
Who
says that?” Nick said.

He had told himself that his attitude was going to be completely different today, his last game on the varsity—for now—no matter what. No hanging his head, no worrying what he might do to lose this game, focusing instead, every chance he got, on ways to win it.

Basically, he was going to be a different guy.

But how did he do that going up against a guy like Zane Diaz?

Coach Williams must have seen him staring at Zane, because he came down and sat next to him.

“Remember something,” he said. “We’re not just playing their catcher today. We’re playing the whole King team.”

“Coach,” Nick said quietly, “that guy is awesome.”

“Just play your game,” Coach Williams said. “A pitch at a time, an out at a time, an inning at a time. And before you know it, it’ll be a day you’ll remember the rest of your life.”

He had thrown well during warm-ups, as well
as he had yet, hadn’t babied the ball. It was part of his new attitude. If he was going to make a mistake today, he wasn’t going to make one because he was afraid.

Before he took his position behind the plate to start the game, he looked up to the top row of the stands where his dad and mom and Gracie were sitting. His parents both gave him small waves, looking more nervous to Nick, even from this far away, than Nick felt.

Gracie, though, was smiling her head off, as if there was no other place in the world she’d rather be than watching Hayworth vs. King. Right before the ump told them to play ball, she stood up and waved at Nick.

At first he thought she was pointing to her heart.

She wasn’t.

Nick smiled back.

The game was 2–2 by the third, the two King runs coming on a massive two-run homer from Zane Diaz that went over Les Roy’s head in center and seemed as if it might not come to a stop until it
made it all the way to the JV field. By the time Les had chased the ball down and gotten it back to Joey Johnson—who went all the way out to Les’s normal position to take the cutoff throw—Zane was already across home plate.

The guy scoring ahead of Zane on the home run, their first baseman, was still on base with two outs because Nick
hadn’t
thrown him out trying to steal second.

King wasn’t a fast team, and it was the first base they’d tried to steal. And Nick’s throw, one that could have ended the inning right there and made Zane lead off the fourth, was decent. It was just a little too high. Joey made a nice catch, got the tag on the kid, but he got him on his hip, and a half second late.

Because there were enough days between the Tigers’ last game and this one, Gary Watson was on the mound. Zane Diaz crushed the next pitch he saw from him after the steal, and the game was tied, just like that.

The next inning, though, with a runner on third and two outs, Nick redeemed himself.

He picked up a slow roller down the third
baseline, a ball neither Gary nor Conor Bell had a chance to get to, dropping to one knee, then side-arming the ball as hard as he could toward Steve Carberry.

At the other end of the play, Steve made the best stretch Nick had seen him make all season, the runner was out and the game stayed at 2–2.

Jack, who hadn’t gone in to play second yet, was the first to get to him when he reached the bench.

“That wasn’t just money,” he yelled. “Dude, that was
allowance
money!”

Before Nick could say anything back, Steve Carberry came jogging by, ducked his head, bumped Nick’s mitt with his own. “Throw,” he said.

Nick wanted to do more than throw in the top of the fifth, when he came up with runners on second and third, nobody out, King ahead now 3–2. But the best he could do was a hard ground ball right back at the pitcher, who held the runners and threw him out. Two batters later, though, Gary singled both guys home, and Hayworth was ahead of King, 4–3.

It stayed that way into the top of the seventh.

Three outs away.

Tomorrow, Nick knew, Bobby Mazzilli would be the starting catcher.

And Nick would be back with JV.

Just not now.

Gary Watson hadn’t struck out as many guys as he usually did today, but that was one of the reasons why his pitch count was low again, why he was still in there for the top of the last inning.

Before they all took the field, Coach Williams called his team around around him in front of their bench.

“I’ll keep this short,” he said. “Hopefully, you’ll all go on to play bigger games than this in your lives.” Then he looked from face to face, trying to smile at every one of them as he said, “You just won’t be playing one bigger today.”

He put his hand out, and they all crowded in to put theirs on top of it.

“Now, go beat those guys,” he said.

King’s shortstop singled to start the seventh. Gary was so focused on getting the next batter that
he completely forgot about the runner, who got a huge jump on him. When Gary yelled “no throw,” Nick held the ball.

Stolen base.

The runner moved over to third when the next kid grounded out to second.

One out, runner on third.

Gary put everything he had left into getting the next batter, striking out the King pitcher on three pitches.

Just like that, the Tigers were one out away, the tying run still at third.

Gary walked the next batter, not getting the call from the home plate ump on a close 3–2 pitch. But that wasn’t such a bad thing, because the following batter was the weakest King had, the smallest kid on their team, one who’d gone in to play second back in the fourth inning after their regular second baseman had hurt himself sliding into third.

Gary had struck him out on three pitches his first time up. Before he stepped in now, Gary motioned for Nick to come out to the mound, something he’d only done one other time.

The message hadn’t changed.

“The only way we can lose from here is if somebody messes up,” he said, “because this guy has
no
chance.”

They both knew he didn’t mean “somebody.”

To the end he wasn’t giving an inch.

“So don’t let the ball get by you,” Gary said. “And if they send the runner from first, let him go. I’m going to get a strikeout whether it’s first-and-third or second-and-third. Got it?”

“Got it,” Nick said.

Only Gary Watson didn’t strike the kid out. He tried so hard—too hard—to throw the perfect pitch that he overthrew the first one and came in so low and so far inside that it hit the kid on the foot.

Bases loaded now.

Still one out away if Gary could get it.

Problem was, the out would have to be Zane Diaz.

Nick looked over at the King bench. They had all turned their caps inside out, rally-cap style, and they were pounding on each other as if Zane had
cleared the bases already. Zane, a lefty, was three-for-three already. Home run, double, single. Had scorched the ball all three times.

Maybe we should walk him, Nick thought. Let the tying run score, take our chances with the next guy.

Even though Coach Williams had come out to talk to Gary, tried to calm him down, you could see that Gary was still thinking about the pitch that had clipped the second baseman.

The count went to 2–0, both pitches high and outside, not even close to being strikes.

Nick stood up then, trying to slow things down, not just Gary, slow the whole game down, acting as if he were checking his infielders, as if he might move them around.

For some reason, he took one last look up in the bleachers, to where Gracie was standing along with everybody else. Took one last look at what she had written in red Magic Marker on the front of her white T-shirt, what had made him smile at her before the first pitch.

Shazam.

Yeah, he thought.

Then he looked away from Gracie and straight at Jack Elmore.

It all happened fast after that. Gary Watson threw ball three, another one high and outside, but Nick didn’t care, he wasn’t worried about the count or about Zane. He was stepping out in front of Zane and away from the plate at the same time so Gary Watson wasn’t in the line of fire.

Because it wasn’t the pitcher’s game to win or lose now.

It was the catcher’s.

Jack Elmore was in, playing second, and he cut behind the runner at second, who’d been taking a bigger and more careless lead with each pitch. Cut behind him as if he’d been able to read Nick’s mind when Nick looked at him.

Nick threw the ball as hard as he could, as hard as he’d ever thrown a ball, threw it to the shortstop side, right where he’d aimed it.

Right where Jack’s glove was now.

The runner slid right into it, and the field umpire crouched there threw his arm up into the air and yelled “Out!” as if he wanted people down on Frogtown Road to be able to hear him.

Hayworth 4, King 3.

Final.

“Shazam,” Nick said quietly at home plate as everything got real loud around him.

Zane Diaz was still standing there, bat in his hand, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just seen, what had just happened. “What did you say?” he said.

And Nick said, “Just talking to myself.”

“That’s as much arm as I’ve seen all season, dude,” Zane Diaz said, and bumped Nick some fist.

Somehow, through the rest of the players, Gracie got to him first, asking if he could see her T-shirt, could he really? And Nick said, yeah, he saw the shirt, right from the start. Then his parents were there along with Gracie, Nick’s dad grabbing him and saying into his ear, “Not just a knight today. A king, in just about every way.”