Sammy Keyes and the Sisters of Mercy (11 page)

In between chewing and talking about nothing Marissa and Dot are bugging their eyes way out, mouthing stuff like, “Where is she?” and “What do you want to
do
?” and I’m bugging my eyes right back at them mouthing, “Shh! Shh! Right behind you!”

And I’m right in the middle of getting the bright idea that we could be giving Monet some
wrong
information to take back to Heather, when she stands up, “accidentally” elbows Marissa in the head, and says, “Oh, I’m sorry! Gee, I hope that didn’t hurt!” Then she says, “Well, if it isn’t the B Team!” like she’s so surprised to find us sitting there.

Marissa and Dot just kind of shake her off, but I look
straight at her and smile. That’s all—just smile. And she starts to leave, but before you know it, she’s back at our table saying, “Don’t give me that stupid little smile, Sammy. You guys are so deluded. The whole school knows you’re gonna get slaughtered today. Even your outfield wants to bail.”

I’m about to say something like, So why are you wasting time snooping on us? but
Marissa
smiles at her and says, “They can bail if they want. You guys aren’t going to be hitting any balls out there anyway.”

Now you have to understand—Marissa doesn’t usually stand up for herself. She kind of lets people take advantage of her and then feels bad about it for the rest of the day. So when she puts Monet down and then takes a bite of hamburger and smiles at her like, Try me, girl, Monet doesn’t quite know what hit her.

Marissa puts a hand up for us to slap, and Monet huffs off. And when we’re all done yipping, “Yes!” and giving Marissa high-fives, she wipes her mouth and says, “We are going to win today,” and for the first time I actually believe her.

Since the game was scheduled for the last hour and a half of school, we only had one more class before the teams got to go suit up. And by the time we were all clomping around in our cleats, the rest of the school was down at the diamond, getting yelled at by Mr. Caan to back up and sit down.

Aside from being our vice principal and the one who’s got me working at St. Mary’s, Mr. Caan is also our home plate umpire. And since he hovers right behind me when
I’m catching, I try not to let too many wild pitches get past me.

While Mr. Vince huddles up in the infield with his team, Ms. Rothhammer and Miss Pitt holler at us to take a long lap and then circle up out in left field. Miss Pitt is a student teacher this year, which means she’s practicing to be a teacher. Some days she just sits and watches Ms. Rothhammer, but lately she’s been running the class more and more and Ms. Rothhammer’s been watching
her
.

Anyhow, when we’re circled up, Miss Pitt calls, “Count ’em out! Loud!” so we all start yelling, “One … two … three … hey! Two … two … three … hey!” as we do our jumping jacks.

And while our team’s busy yelling numbers at each other, Mr. Vince is huddled up with his team, probably going over strategy and last-minute signal changes.

Mr. Vince always does real complicated signals. He’ll slap himself all over really fast—first one arm, then the other, then a leg, then his head and his neck and his thigh—and while he’s busy playing himself like a bongo drum, you’re supposed to remember that it’s the signal after he slaps, say, his stomach that counts.

He also does really gross signals. He’ll stand in the coach’s box with his finger up his nose—or scratch his butt or hock a loogie—and that’s supposed to
mean
something. Trouble is, Mr. Vince is always picking his nose or scratching his butt or hocking loogies, so half the time his team doesn’t pick up the signals, and then everyone gets to watch him yell his head off and dance around the coach’s box like a bug on a barbecue.

Anyhow, Ms. Rothhammer goes off to do the toss while we finish stretching, and when she comes back she says, “We’re in the field, girls.” She hugs her clipboard and says, “Remember, back each other up, and
visualize
winning. Forget about the crowd, forget about looking good. If you play good, you’ll look good, and the only way that’s going to happen is if you concentrate on the game, not the people watching you.” She bites the inside of her cheek a minute. “I know you can knock the socks off Mr. Vince’s team, and ladies … nothing would give me greater pleasure.”

We all look at each other sideways, because Ms. Rothhammer’s always even-tempered and in control, and you can tell—she’s a little hot under the jersey about one eighth-grade history teacher.

So while we’re busy pulling faces at each other, Miss Pitt puts her hand out and says, “C’mon, girls, show ’em who’s number one!”

We all pile our hands on top of hers and yell, “Go! Fight!
Win!”
and then race off to the bench to get our gear.

For everyone else “gear” is a glove and maybe a ball to warm up with. For me it’s a mountain of padding and a mask. I’ve got to put on a chest protector and shin protectors, and by the time I’ve wrestled into my mask I look more like a porky potato bug than a girl.

After I’m dressed, I always go off by myself for a minute and, well, kind of talk to my mitt. It’s not like I say, Hiya, Mitt! How’s it going? It’s more like I go over the signals out loud or tell myself I’m going to have a good game.
And when I’m all done talking, I count the loops in the laces and tug on the knots, and just spend a minute with my mitt.

And my dad.

Anyhow, I’m in the middle of counting loops when I hear Marissa call, “Sammy! Warm me up! C’mon, it’s time!” and sure enough, everyone’s in position but me.

So I crouch down behind the plate and hold out my glove, and after a few practice pitches Mr. Caan signals Mr. Troxell to take his position umpiring in the field.

Mr. Troxell’s the boys’ P.E. teacher. He’s big and boxy and really tan, and his hair’s buzzed right down to his scalp. When he’s in position, Mr. Caan steps behind me, flips down his umpire’s mask, and calls, “Batter up!”

From all the whistling that’s going on I can tell without looking that it’s Julie Jaffers stepping up to bat. She’s tall and blond, and she’s got curves that could show through a catcher’s shell.

She
doesn’t
catch, she plays first base, and she’s good. Actually, she’s great. She’s left-handed, which means she catches with her right hand, and with her being so tall she can snag a ball
miles
away from first without ever leaving the bag. The last thing you want to do if Julie Jaffers is on first is slap a ball down the first-base line. She’ll snap it up like a frog snags a fly, and you’ll be out before you can say, Rats!

Anyway, I check the fielders, and everyone seems ready, so I crouch, flash Marissa the signal for a curve, and put up my mitt. Marissa presents the ball, then squints and windmills the first pitch. It comes sailing in like it’s going
to nail Julie in the stomach, and then curves right over the plate.

I throw the ball back to Marissa while Mr. Caan yells, “Steeerike one!” and jams a finger up in the air.

Julie slaps the plate with her bat and then holds it real still, high in the air by her left ear and waits.

I signal Marissa for another curve, put up her target, and
whoosh
, there it comes, straight for Julie’s stomach and then over the plate.

“Steeerike two!” yells Mr. Caan and jams two fingers in the air.

You can hear people yelling, “C’mon, Julie!” and you can tell from the way she’s slapping the plate that she’s not about to get suckered by another curve. I set up my mitt low and inside, and when Julie swings at the pitch she does it like she’s expecting it to curve out. She connects with the ball all right, only she does it way down the handle of the bat and all the ball does is dribble straight out to Marissa. Julie doesn’t even run to first. She takes three steps and then shakes her head and goes back to the bench while Marissa scoops up the bail and tosses it to Xandi Chapan.

Miss Pitt is going a little crazy jumping up and down, yipping, “Way to go, girls! One up, one down! Keep it up, keep it up!”

Then Gisa Kranz comes up to bat. Gisa is a foreign-exchange student from Germany. And even though she speaks pretty good English, when she gets excited or mad—which is pretty often—her words come out in German. And even when she’s not excited or mad, “yes”
comes out
ja
, and “that” comes out
das
. You can always tell when someone’s been talking to Gisa ’cause
they’ll
say
ja
and
das
for a few sentences instead of yes and that. I guess it’s kind of contagious.

Anyhow, Gisa plays third, and when she’s in the field you can hear her yelling, “Ja!” or, “Is mine!” or just yelling at the ump. If there’s one thing I know about Gisa Kranz, it’s that she’s definitely not shy.

I also know that when she’s at bat, she’ll swing at the first pitch. Every time.

So when she whacks the bat against the plate, digs in real good, and calls out to Marissa,
“Ja
, let’s have it, girl—I’m ready!” I signal Marissa to throw a riser and then set up her target.

And sure enough, Gisa swings and pops a fly ball right out to Dawn Wilson at shortstop. Dawn catches it for an easy out and halfway to first Gisa starts sputtering in German. Nobody could tell you exactly what she was saying, but let me tell you, the meaning was loud and clear.

So while Gisa heads back to the bench, Miss Pitt goes into hyper-hop, yelling, “Way to go girls! Two up, two down. One more time!”

Now usually you’re not lucky enough to have three up and three down. One of the first three batters usually slips by. But we had two up and two down, and that put Heather in danger of being the third out, which is worse than you might think. See, if you’re the first out, or even the second, well,
you’ll
remember you made an out, but chances are other people won’t. What they
will
remember is that So-and-So made the third out. It’s almost like if
you make the third out, you’re responsible for all of them. It’s not fair, and people would tell you it’s not even true, but trust me—I’ve been the third out lots of times and that’s the way it works.

So here’s Heather, a seventh grader up after two eighth graders have just gone down, and what’s she thinking? That there’s no way she’s going to shoulder the third out. She slaps the plate, gives me the Evil Eye, then waves her bat in the air like she’s going to lasso a cow.

When I give the signal for a curveball, Marissa just stands firm on the mound and shakes me off. Now, this has only happened a couple of times before, and both times what she wanted was to pitch a fastball, straight down the middle. So I set up her target, but very slowly Marissa leans her head back—she wants the target higher.

Up goes my mitt a tad, and in comes the pitch. Heather swings all right, only she just gets a piece of it. The ball pops up and back, so I flip off my mask and dive to catch it. When I dig myself out of the dirt, there’s the ball, smiling up at me from my mitt, and there’s Heather, glaring down at me like she’s going to kill me.

I just dust off and try to ignore her. Mr. Caan steps over and says, “Move along, Heather,” because he knows that Heather’s on the verge of slicing and dicing.

So I yank off my armor and join the rest of the team at the bench, and when Miss Pitt gets done dancing around telling us what a great job we did, Ms. Rothhammer looks at her clipboard and says, “Okay, you know the batting order: Dot, Sammy, Xandi, then Becky, Marissa, Kris,
Dawn, Cindy, and Jennifer. Remember, whether you’re on the bench or warming up, focus on the game. Try to pick up Mr. Vince’s signals, look for weaknesses … stay sharp. What you pick up while you’re waiting for your turn at bat can be as valuable as a good play in the field. Keep your eyes open!”

While the rest of the team lines up on the bench, Dot and I pick through the bats until we each find one that feels good. And while I’m on deck loosening up a bit, I hear Babs Filarski say through her catcher’s mask, “Little Dotty’s up to bat. Eeeeeeasy out.”

Now, that’s just not true. Dot’s a good hitter. Babs is just one of those psych-out catchers. She’ll harass you into swinging, and do stuff like snicker or laugh when you’re about to lean into a pitch. And if the umpire’s standing far enough back she’ll call you things that would make Mr.
Vince
blush. If you don’t get a decent pitch early on, you stop caring about whacking the ball and start thinking about whacking Babs.

Anyway, Dot just scowls at her and then Mr. Caan straightens out his face protector and calls, “Batter up!”

So Dot gets up, taps the plate a few times with the end of her bat, then raises it and waits. And waits and waits some more. And the other team’s pitcher, Emiko Lee, never does present the ball. You can see her out there, flipping it around and around in her glove, and finally she steps off the mound and calls, “I need a new ball.”

Mr. Caan straightens out and says, “That
is
a new ball!”

Emiko just shakes her head. “It’s lopsided!”

Mr. Caan pushes back his mask and walks out to the
mound, but before he’s even halfway there, Mr. Vince is next to Emiko, taking over, inspecting the ball. The three of them stand out there for a while, arguing, and while everyone’s busy waiting, Ms. Rothhammer sneaks over from the third-base coach’s box and says to Dot, “It’s a psych-out, Dot, just relax. Close your eyes and picture yourself slamming that ball right past Gisa clear out to Anita and beyond. You can do it. Just stay cool.”

Mr. Caan gives Emiko another ball, and after she does a few more warm-up pitches she digs herself a good toehold, presents the ball, and then windmills a pitch right over the plate.

And Dot whacks the stitches off it. It goes smashing past third and out to left field just like Ms. Rothhammer told her to. She takes off like a firecracker, shooting around first and straight at Monet Jarlsberg on second. And when she sees Anita Arellano hurling the ball to Monet, she pours it on and then slides in, hooking the corner of the bag with her toe.

When the dust dies down, she’s safe and Babs Filarski is steaming like a teapot. She kicks some imaginary dirt off home plate with her cleats and when she sees me waiting for her to back up, she practically spits, “Uppity seventh graders.” She straightens out her chest protector and it looks like she’s about to shove me, when Mr. Caan calls, “Let’s go, girls. We haven’t got all day.”