Wall Ball (8 page)

W
hen I next opened my eyes, a bright yellow glow filled the room. I sat up and blinked. I felt as if I was trapped inside a lemon.

I slid to the floor and ran to the window. I was psyched to see that no snow had fallen overnight. Even better, what remained from previous storms was melting fast. The bright yellow glow that filled my room was sunshine.

“Wake up,” I called excitedly to Mr. Bones. “Spring is finally here.”

He cocked his head and pricked his ears.

“That’s right, you old furball,” I teased. “It’s curtains for that coat of yours.”

I threw open the window and stuck out my head. The air carried the smell of the world waking up after a long nap. Warm and moist and earthy. I inhaled deeply. Someone should capture that scent and put it in a bottle. They’d make a million dollars selling it to people who were sick and tired of winter.

Dad was cooking up a storm when I came downstairs.

Omelets, of course.

“One Star-Spangled Special coming right up,” he hollered over the roar of the CD player. “There’s hits in omelets, you know!” The speakers pumped out “We Are the Champions” at earsplitting volume. Another game-day ritual of my dad’s.

“Great!” I yelled back.

In truth, I wasn’t all that hungry. Given all the fried baloney sandwiches I’d wolfed down the night before, I probably could’ve gotten by with a bowl of thin gruel. Whatever gruel is. But tradition is tradition. You don’t mess with it.

Mom breezed in with a big smile on her face.

“Game on!” she shouted across the table. “Are you ready to rock those Haymakers?”

“You bet,” I said.

“Hold on!” Mom shouted. She got up and lowered the volume on the music. “I can’t hear myself think.”

Dad frowned but didn’t protest. The omelet had reached a delicate stage and required his full attention.

Mom unfolded the morning paper.

“Will you look at that?” she said.

Splashed across the front page was one of Gabby’s pictures. It showed Mount Rambletown with the team banner flying above the presidents. Clearly they were Rounders’ fans.

The caption said:

“Now, how do you suppose that got up there?” Mom wondered aloud.

“Beats me,” I said.

“Breakfast is served,” announced Dad, lumbering toward us under the enormous weight of a flying saucer–sized omelet. “Red, white, and blue in honor of the national pastime!”

Wagging his tail furiously, Mr. Bones parked himself beside my chair.

Dad set down the platter on the table. His creation was blue with ribbons of red pepper slices and white stripes of cheese. It looked like an American flag with the stars and stripes jumbled together.

“I’m afraid to ask,” I said. I’d never seen blue eggs before.

“Blueberries,” Dad said proudly. “Good and good for you.”

Mr. Bones growled. “Enough with the questions,” he seemed to say. “Let’s eat!” Blue eggs didn’t bother him one bit.

I cut off a corner of the scrambled flag and nibbled the edge. Not bad. Not bad at all. Quite good, in fact. I slipped Mr. Bones a piece under the table. He gulped it down and sat up for more.

“Can we give you a ride to the game?” Mom asked between bites.

“No thanks,” I said. “Better stick to the routine.” I always biked to home games. Of course, there’d never been snow on the ground before. But still. I didn’t want to go changing things at the last minute.

“The plows were out yesterday, so the streets should be pretty clear,” I said. “Plus, everything is melting fast.”

“Okay then.” Mom nodded. “We’ll see you in the second inning.”

This was another of our traditions. Mom and Dad came to all my games, but they always came late. It’s a long story. Years ago they had missed the first inning by accident, and I ended up having the best game of my life. Hit about a gazillion dingers. Ever since then, they timed things so they arrived at the ballpark for the top of the second. Call it superstition, but it seemed to work.

I hoped it would today.

I scarfed down some stars and stripes and then dressed for the game. Winter coat over my uniform. That was a first. Then Mr. Bones and I headed over to the ballpark. Out of habit, I took my shovel.

The first thing I noticed when we got there was that the whole place shimmered. The air itself seemed to glow.

The second thing I noticed was snow. More precisely, the lack of it. Huge mounds still dotted
the foul areas in the shadows of the stands, but the field itself was clear enough for baseball. The sudden thaw made things wet. Really wet. But the snow was gone.

Finally.

“I guess I won’t need this after all,” I said, ditching my shovel by the dugout.

“And it looks like I won’t need any of these,” said Orlando, coming up behind me. He wore the modified golf spikes on his feet.

He held a big cardboard box. A pair of old-fashioned wooden snowshoes stuck out the top. They looked like tennis rackets for feet. Many other pairs of shoes were crammed inside. Rubber galoshes. Tennis sneakers. Football cleats. Swim flippers. Ski boots. Even a pair of ice skates.

“I brought everything,” Orlando explained. “Just in case.”

“The sandpaper shoes are all you need,” I said. “They really work. Just not in the way we expected.”

Orlando glanced at his feet. “What are you talking about?” he asked.

“Check it out,” I said. I pointed toward the summit of Mount Rambletown, visible above the naked tree line. Orlando shaded his eyes and looked to the sky.

He did a double take.

I didn’t blame him. There seemed to be two suns up there. The regular one and a second one parked atop the mountain.

“The gigantic foil Ramblers sign,” I explained. “It’s acting like a huge mirror, reflecting the sun’s rays right down onto the field. That’s why everything’s glowing so weirdly.”

The sign also explained how so much snow had disappeared so quickly. The thing melted it like a laser beam.

“Whoa!” murmured Orlando. “Do you think it will last?”

I really had no idea.

“As long as the sun keeps shining,” I said, “it should.”

“It kind of makes me feel like a hamburger or something.”

“Just make sure you put a lot of mustard on your relay throws,” I joked.

By now the other guys had showed up and were marveling at the condition of the field.

“Sloppy but playable,” said Tugboat, strapping on his catcher’s gear. “Bring on the Haymakers!”

He hunkered down behind the plate, and the rest of us tossed our coats into the dugout and trotted out to the diamond to get loose. In all the glittery sunlight, warming up was like tightening a belt. It was a cinch.

As we tossed the ball around the infield, fans began filling the bleachers. Most were decked out in Rounders’ red and white. Many carried thick blankets, as if they didn’t trust the weather to stay warm. All wore sunglasses.

At a quarter till noon, Skip Lou called us into the dugout.

“I don’t know how that ray gun of a banner got up on Mount Rambletown,” he said. “And
I’m not sure I want to know. But I do know I’m ready for this game. I hope you guys are too!”

“We are!” we yelled in response.

“Good. Then let’s play hard and play fair and have a good time out there.”

No sooner had he finished his pep talk than the public-address system boomed to life. “And now,” bellowed the announcer, “please welcome the reigning division champs, our very own Rambletown Rounders!”

We charged out of our dugout to a standing ovation. Packed shoulder to shoulder in the bleachers, fans stamped and cheered and screamed our names. After the longest winter on record, they were as eager to watch baseball as we were to play it. It felt great to be standing at third base wearing a Rounders uniform instead of a down-filled parka.

Over on the visitors’ bench the Haymakers looked like a bunch of skinned knees. Sore. They scowled at us and spit wads of chewed-up sunflower seeds on the ground. But at least they
didn’t fire any snowballs.

The umpire gathered himself behind home plate.

“PLAY BALL!” he roared.

T
he first Haymaker splashed to the plate. He was enormous. All the Haymakers were big, but this guy was downright scary. He was built like a refrigerator with arms and legs. He stepped into the box and cocked his bat. The barrel twitched like a tiger’s tail.

Slingshot wound up and delivered the first pitch of the game. Fastball on the inside corner.

“STRIKE ONE!” boomed the umpire.

The gargantuan batter spit a wad of chewed-up sunflower seeds. He looked at strike two, then coolly lashed Slingshot’s third pitch past Gilly at first. As the ball skidded into a puddle in the right field corner, the Haymaker tagged
first and chugged for second. Ocho snatched the ball out of the drink and rifled it in. The Haymaker slid into the bag, splashing mud all over the Glove.

When the tidal wave subsided, the umpire made his call.

“SAFE!” he roared.

“No worries,” I chattered. “Get the next guy, Slingshot!”

Slingshot bore down. He struck out batter number two on four pitches. He got the one after that on a pop fly to Ducks Bunion in left. The runner on second feinted toward third but retreated to the bag as Ducks fired the ball in to me.

“Two down,” I shouted. “Let’s go, guys. Play is at first.”

Then it was Flicker Pringle’s turn to hit. Out in the bleachers, fans nervously adjusted their sunglasses. They knew. We all knew. If there is one thing Flicker Pringle can do even better than throw a baseball, it is hit a baseball.

“C’mon now, Slingshot,” called Stump. “Strike him out! He’s got nothing!”

Flicker snorted. “Nothing but power to any field,” he growled. The eye black smeared under his eyes to block the white glare reflecting down from atop Mount Rambletown looked like war paint. He crowded the plate, stirring the air with his bat.

Slingshot hurled some high cheese.

A lesser hitter would have swung right under the speeding ball. Not Flicker. He smashed it into deep center field. The second he connected, he dropped his bat and triumphantly raised both arms in the air.

In center field, Orlando turned and galloped toward the deepest part of the park. Mud splashed up at every step he took.

Orlando would have caught the ball, too.

Except for one thing.

He ran out of room.

“Look out!” I yelled from third base.

The fans in the bleachers saw what was about to happen and sucked in their breath all at
once. They’d read Gabby’s report. They understood Orlando’s wall problem. The noise they made was the sound of all the air going right out of the stadium. For a second, Rambletown Field was perfectly quiet. Then a fearsome crash shattered the uneasy calm.

Sha-bam!

Orlando rammed into the wall like a bulldozer.

As he tumbled to the ground, the ball sailed right over him. It landed in the bleachers for a homer.

Flicker dragged out his glory forever. Magellan circled the globe in less time than it took Flicker to round the bases. When he finally made it home, he jumped on the plate with both feet.

Slingshot glowered at the showboating pitcher from high atop the mound. But all the hard looks in the world couldn’t change the score.

Just like that, the Haymakers led two to nothing.

“Time!” called Skip Lou. He clattered up the
dugout steps and picked his way between puddles to center field.

The rest of the infielders and I trotted behind. By the time we got to Orlando, he was up and talking to fellow outfielders Ocho and Ducks.

“Are you all right, kid?” Skip asked. “That looked like a doozy.”

“It’s nothing,” said Orlando. “The only thing that hurts is the homer. I thought I had it.”

“Forget the homer,” said Skip. “You’ve got to stop beating up on that wall. See all these people out here?”

Orlando glanced at the bleachers and nodded.

“Well, son, they came to watch a baseball game. Not a demolition derby. Promise me, no more ramming the wall.”

“I promise, Skip,” Orlando said sheepishly.

Skip Lou patted him on the back. “Good. Now, let’s get out of this inning!”

“Yeah!” we all shouted.

“PLAY BALL!” roared the umpire once we were all in position again.

Slingshot wound up and delivered a sneaky curveball. The Haymaker batter lunged awkwardly at it, sending a dribbler back toward the mound. As wet as the field was, it really did dribble, too. Slingshot swooped down on the sodden ball like an owl catching dinner and fired to Gilly for out number three.

Ducks led off for us and saw three straight Flicker fastballs.

Only he didn’t see them.

They zipped past him way too fast.

“STRIKE ONE!” hollered the ump.

“STRIKE TWO!”

“STRIKE THREE, YOU’RE OUT!”

Ducks trudged back to the bench, and Stump took his place in the batter’s box. Different batter, same story. Rolling his trademark toothpick around in his mouth, Flicker whiffed him on a trio of invisible heaters.

Then it was my turn.

Billy Wishes handed me my favorite Louisville Slugger.

“Wallop one to Kalamazoo,” he said.

“I’ll sure try,” I said, rubbing the batboy’s head for luck.

Under the blinding double sun, I dug in at the plate, determined to get our first hit of the game.

In the stands, fans stood and chanted my name. They still remembered my walk-off homer in the championship game, I guessed. I scanned the crowd for my parents and saw two empty places where they usually sat. It boosted my confidence to know they were sticking with tradition. Fired up, I locked into my stance.

Flicker reared back and gunned a handful of smoke in my direction.

I heard the ball, but I didn’t see it.

It whooshed like a bottle rocket, then exploded with a pop.

The pop was the ball slamming into the catcher’s mitt.

After that came a telltale “Yowch!”

The “Yowch” came from the catcher. It hurt to catch Flicker’s sizzling fastballs.

After the catcher, it was the ump’s turn to speak up.

“STRIKE ONE!” he roared.

Flicker rolled his toothpick. That made me mad. I knew it was his way of laughing. He reached back and served up a second helping of fastball.

Whoosh! Pop! “Yowch!”

Strike two left as bad a taste in my mouth as the first one.

“Come on now, kid,” Skip Lou called from the bench. “It only takes one. Look for your pitch.”

“He can look all he wants,” sneered Flicker. “He still won’t see nothing.”

I clapped down my helmet and made like a frozen can of orange juice. I concentrated. Flicker wound up and launched a rocket. I swung.

Crack!

I knew the ball was gone the second it left my bat. The only question was if it would be fair.
Fans jumped to their feet and roared. Blowing a kiss to the left field foul pole as it breezed past, the ball dropped into the bleachers.

“FAIR BALL!” bleated the ump.

I rounded the bases calmly and quickly, as if homering off Flicker Pringle was no big deal. But inside I was like a bike tire. I was pumped.

Tugboat came up after me and grounded out to short to end the inning.

We went to the second down a run but right back in it.