Throwing Like a Girl
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Authors: Weezie Kerr Mackey
Text copyright © 2007 by Weezie Kerr Mackey
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Amazon Publishing
Attn: Amazon Children’s Publishing
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www.amazon.com/amazonchildrenspublishing
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s
imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or
dead, is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mackey, Weezie Kerr.
Throwing like a girl / by Weezie Kerr Mackey.
p. cm.
Summary: After moving from Chicago to Dallas in the spring of her sophomore year, fifteen-year-old
Ella finds that joining the softball team at her private school not only helps her make friends, it also
provides unexpected opportunities to learn and grow.
ISBN 978-0-7614-5342-0
[1. Softball—Fiction. 2. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 3. Self-actualization (Psychology)—Fiction. 4.
High schools—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction. 6. Family life—Texas--Fiction 7. Dallas (Tex.)—Fiction.] I.
Title.
PZ7.M198638Thr 2007
[Fic]—dc22
2006030233
Book design by Alex Ferrari/
ferraridesign.com
First edition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Rob Mackey, my north, my south, my east, my west
Thank you to Greenhill School in Dallas, Texas, which served unknowingly as the setting for this book. For dramatic purposes, the fictional Spring Valley Day School is not nearly as grand, warm, or spectacular a place as Greenhill. I loved working there and knowing all the great kids, amazing teachers, and generous administration
.
To the extraordinary Bill Reiss, my literary agent, and Marilyn Mark, my superb editor: thank you for giving this book a chance
.
To my amazing coaches, colleagues, teammates, and players: especially Lee Kennicke, Bonnie Beach, Robin Sheppard, JoAnne DeMartini, Tim Emerson, Sue Zawacki, Sarah Cigliano, Martha Brown, Laney Makin, Annie Farquhar, Lisa Lynch, Suzy Symmons, Liz Valicenti, Sue Fernald, Kathryn Hamm, and Lydia Hemphill—I am forever grateful to all of you
.
To Lucy Otto, Candace Martin, and Allie O’Leary for still treating me like the little sister so I don’t have to look far for inspiration and for reading every version of this book and laughing in the right places. To Dawn Pratt, Heather Ford, and Nancy Mackey, for providing last-minute daycare and encouragement so late in the game
.
To Anne Otto; Emmy O’Leary; Lindsay Martin; Kate, Jessie, and Lizzie Pratt; and Molly and Teri Ford. For acting as models on some days and readers on others. You’re darlings
.
I especially want to thank Michelle Bella, confidante and best friend in the world; my mom, Sue Felt Kerr (artist, writer, illustrator), who has read everything I’ve ever written about a hundred times and still gets excited about it; and my dad, Jamie Hastings Kerr, Jr., for cheering from the sidelines on and off the field
.
To Conor and Matty, my shining pennies, thank you for retelling your dreams every morning and reminding me that sometimes going to the park and playing Uno is more important than anything else. And to Rob Mackey, my best pal, you delight and astonish me every day with your insights, encouragement, and good humor
.
Preseason
You think turning fifteen will be the best. You’ll take driver’s ed. You’ll stop being a freshman, finally. And maybe, with the help of your three best friends, you’ll learn to talk to boys better. So you spend practically the whole year happy, hopeful even, setting little goals for yourself—until your father tells you he got a promotion. Then everything changes. Then you’re moving to Texas.
There’s talk, for a very short time, of my mom and me staying in Chicago until I finish school. I overhear her on the phone with a friend. She’s sighing a lot, laughing. She’s quick to say, “Oh, we’re not sure exactly. John may go down first for a while.” Then a pause. “I know. It may be better for everyone if Ella finished up here. We just don’t know.”
A moment of indecision is always a good time to put in your two cents. I spend the next few days trying to act troubled, but thoughtful. I bring up meaningful subjects, such as world peace, summer jobs, and the Valentine’s Day dance. I act as agreeable as possible to remind my parents that they’ll want to do everything they can to keep me in this cheerful condition, since they already have experience with adolescence and my three older sisters.
Then one day I’m sitting on the back steps listening to my parents in the kitchen. My father’s just home from work, shaking peanuts from a jar. My mother’s starting dinner. The radio’s on. I’m waiting.
“I think Ella’s really growing up,” my mother begins.
This has real potential. There’s a long pause as my father considers her position.
“What do you mean? You think she can handle the move now?”
“I do,” the traitor says. “Maybe this’ll give her time to adjust, and she won’t spend all summer worried about the new school. She’ll make friends down there. Have some fun.”
“Okay, then,” my father says, not needing any more persuasion.
Of course, no one asks me what I’d like to do. The decision has been made.
Before I know it, it’s Valentine’s Day. None of us get invited to the Hearts Afire dance, so Christine, Amy, and Jen throw a little going-away party for me at Christine’s house. We have the best time listening to music, dancing, and watching movies. Her mom bakes this huge chocolate chip, heart-shaped cookie with M&M’S and butterscotch chips, and we pretty much eat the whole thing, even though we ate half the dough already. Lying on the floor, all of us feeling totally sick, my friends invent stories for me about what they think will happen in Dallas and what it’ll be like at my new school. They tell me I’ll suddenly be this new person, more attractive, smart, and witty, and everyone will love me, which is the hardest part to believe.
After they fall asleep I lie there with my eyes wide open, trying
not to cry. The sleeping bag smells like David, Christine’s older brother, and it’s not a bad smell, kind of like the beach during winter. This is about as close to a boy as I’ve ever been, except in eighth grade when Sarah McNamara had a kissing party in her basement, and I got stuck with Jeff Melanowski, who everyone called Melon Head. We only kissed once, but it didn’t really count because it was so dark and not quite on the lips.
I wonder if the boys in Texas wear cowboy hats and boots.
I’m sure I don’t know how to do any of this—how to move and make new friends. How to get ready for something so foreign when everything I know and everything I remember will be in Chicago. Without me.
In Dallas, everything comes across new and clean. Shiny. The neighborhoods look like suburbs instead of part of a city, like Lake View, where I used to live, where trains and buses took you anywhere you wanted to go, and the stores were only a few blocks away. Here, people drive. And everything feels far away.
Our ten-year-old house is brick with glossy black shutters and a curving front walk, edged by a weedless yard. There’s no paint chipping anywhere. It’s a little overconfident for my liking, with its central air and a stainless-steel refrigerator that doesn’t hold magnets. My old house, on the other hand, was a rambling bungalow, and Becky and I shared a room on the third floor, which had slanted ceilings and radiators that thumped and hissed. There was something comforting about living right under the roof. Something safe.
This neighborhood is swept and mowed and clipped. “Manicured,” my mother gushes.
“And the roads don’t have potholes,” my father adds, like we’re in a commercial for how great Texas is.
I have to start my new school in two days, and each one of my older sisters calls to talk to me, which never happens. I think my parents put them up to it. Becky, who’s in college in Boston,
says she can’t wait to come home this summer, that we can check out Dallas together. Janie ends up telling me about her new job at the ad agency since I don’t say anything when she asks what’s up. But Liz is pretty cool about it; she’s getting married this summer so she has temporary moments of sensitivity. She says, “Are you nervous about starting your new school?”
Mom and Dad have enrolled me at Spring Valley Day School, where a coworker of my father’s sends his kids.
I try to respond casually. “Not really nervous, no.” Even though I am.
“What’re you gonna wear the first day?”
“I’m not sure. Mom’s taking me shopping.”
“Don’t let her talk you into something babyish.”
“I won’t. They actually wanted me to wear a sweatshirt they bought for me when I interviewed at the school.”
