Lemay knew the game was on the line or maybe he was trying too hard to throw the perfect pitch. Whatever the reason, the North Vale chucker grooved a medium-speed offering right down the middle of the plate. Tanner jumped all over it, lifting a high fly ball all the way to the fence in right field. The ball bounced off the white wooden boards and rebounded wildly into right field where the Nuggets' fielder tried to chase it down.
Meanwhile, Jake was on the dead run. He rounded second and headed for third with so much speed that a slide wasn't necessary. The throw came in from right field, but it was well over the third baseman's head. Jake sped home. South Side had won its first game of the season one to nothing.
Cheers erupted in the stands and in the dugout as the Stingers high-fived each other. Matt felt himself caught up in the emotion, the thrill of the win taking the sting out of the fact Coach had been so eager to pinch-hit for him.
Coach Stephens was busy congratulating his players after the game, speaking with each one individually. He came over to Matt and patted him on the back. “Nice job in the field,” he said quietly.
“I guess I need work on my hitting,” Matt replied. He felt stupid the moment he said it. But he couldn't stop dwelling on the fact that Coach hadn't shown any faith in him as a batter.
“Look, Matt,” Coach Stephens said patiently. “Everybody has some phase of his game that needs work. And that's what we're going to do with you at the plate.”
Matt looked at him quizzically.
“Can you take some extra batting practice on Saturdays?” Coach Stephens asked.
Matt didn't see why not. “Sure, Coach.”
“Good, then. Come out Saturday morning at, say, 9:30. Meet Charlie at the door to the locker room and he'll let you in.”
Charlie? Matt wondered why he would be there. Just then, Coach cleared his throat and called his players together in the locker room.
“All right people,” he said, making sure everybody was listening. “Nice game out there today, especially for your first of the season. There's plenty of room for improvement, but I think we can be solid this year. Nice pitching, Whitey.”
Steve White grinned from ear to ear. He had thrown a great game and he knew it.
“Hit the showers,” the coach continued. “We'll take tomorrow off and practice here Wednesday. Be ready to work.”
The posters seemed to be plastered across every wall and bulletin board in South Side Middle School.
Spring Fling. Who Will You Bring
? one of them read.
Matt stared at the sign for a couple of seconds. It took that long to register just what the sign meant.
Who Will You Bring?
As in
Who is your date?
Matt gulped. He hadn't thought about asking a girl to any dance. In fact, he hadn't thought that much about girls, period. For one thing, he had been preoccupied with sports since school began the previous fall. First it was basketball, now baseball. And if he wasn't practicing or playing, there was a ton of schoolwork to do. Middle school meant more choices and freedom than he and his friends had enjoyed at Glenview Elementary. But it also meant more responsibility and much tougher subject matter. For the first time in his life, Matt had homework pretty much every night.
He didn't know exactly what to make of this Spring Fling that was coming up at the school on June 5. He and his friends hadn't talked about it at all.
“Checkin' out the big dance?” came a voice from behind. It was Amar Sunir, another of Matt's longtime friends. Amar didn't play baseballâhis family was into soccer and cricket when it came to outdoor, summer sportsâso he and Matt hadn't seen each other as much lately as they did through the basketball season, when Amar was a fellow starter on the Stingers.
“You going?” Matt asked.
“I guess so,” Amar replied. “I mean, if everybody else is, I will.”
“Do we have to bring somebody?” Matt emphasized the word “bring” like it carried some unfathomable ramifications.
“Nah,” Amar said. “I don't think so. It's just a sort of a hang-out thing with good tunes.”
“I'll probably go,” Matt said, eyeing the poster one last time.
The two headed into Room 107 where they shared morning advisory period with Miss Dawson. South Side Middle School students began each day with a twenty-minute period run by their advisory teacher, whose responsibility it was to help shepherd a group of twenty-five students through their school year. Matt felt lucky to have Miss Dawson, a tall woman with long dark hair and hazel eyes, as his adviser. She was one of the coolest teachers in the school, and she seemed to understand even the weirdest problems her students were experiencing. Having Miss Dawson to bounce questions off and to talk with had helped make the transition from elementary to middle school easier than it might have been.
As they took their seats, Matt spied Andrea Thomas sitting in her usual spot two rows over. The blond-haired, blue-eyed seventh-grader with the long legs smiled at him, and he blushed in returnâhe didn't know why. Matt gave her a little half-wave in reply, hoping not too many kids had noticed.
Something was different about Andrea today, though, and Matt couldn't quite put his finger on it. Then it came to him in a flash. “Hey, you got your cast off,” he exclaimed, loud enough for most of the class to hear and setting off giggles among the girls seated around Andrea.
“Yeah, I was away from school yesterday getting it cut off. It healed up great and the doctors say I can start practicing with the softball team right away,” Andrea said.
Matt was pleased she was going to be able to play sports again soon. She was a terrific athlete who had injured her leg in a soccer collision last fall, just two games into the regular season for South Side. Andrea had spent the winter in a cumbersome red cast that had run from her foot to her thigh. But she had put her time to good use, working as the manager-trainer for the boys' basketball team and helping Matt through some injuries of his own.
“We've got a game today, you know,” Andrea said to Matt. “We're playing North Vale. You going to come cheer us on?”
Matt felt his cheeks redden. He noticed Amar looking at him strangely. “Yeah, maybe,” he said coolly. “If I can.”
Matt turned and faced the front of the class. Miss Dawson was about to begin, but Matt's mind was somewhere else. Why had Andrea just asked him to come out to the girls' softball game? Part of him was happy that she had. He liked Andrea and had felt from almost the first time they met that she was easier to talk to than other girls. He wanted to go to watch the softball game, as long as his friends wouldn't think it was some kind of date or something.
The rest of the day flew by. As students were being dismissed from their last class, Principal Walker reminded them over the loudspeaker system: “Our own Stingers girls' softball team plays its first game today. Come on out and support them.”
Matt had forgotten about the game, but since there was no boys' baseball practice, he was free to go. He leaned over to Phil and asked, “You want to go check out the second-best ball team in school?”
“Yeah, sure,” Phil said. “I can go for awhile. Then I've got to get to Grandma's store.”
Phil was the most responsible hard-working kid Matt had ever known. Not only was he a straight-
A
student and a varsity baseball and basketball player, but he was also a chess whiz. To top everything off, he worked several hours a week in Wong's Grocery, a family corner store located not far from the school and run by his aging grandmother.
Of all the things he was good at, baseball was probably Phil's forte. He had consistently been the top catcher through Little League, always able to block any pitch and possessing a gun of a right arm that was capable of throwing out runners at any base. Best of all, Phil had a mind for baseball. Coach Stephens liked the fact that he was always thinking one play ahead of everybody else.
Matt and Phil sat in the bleachers behind the home plate fence for the softball game. It was South Side's first game of the season and, like the boys, they were facing North Vale. But unlike the game the day before, the Nuggets girls' team wasn't very good. The game wasn't close and it was called after just four innings with the Stingers leading 21-2.
Matt and Phil were heading past the dugouts when they saw Andrea coming toward them. She was still limping slightly but moving much faster than she had all winter. “Hey guys,” she said. “Thanks for coming out.”
Matt felt his ears growing hot. “You guys are pretty good,” he said, fumbling for something to say. “I mean, you girls are.”
Andrea laughed. Matt waved self-consciously, and he and Phil continued walking toward Wong's Grocery.
“You going to the dance?” Phil asked his friend, after they had walked a ways in silence.
“I guess so. I mean, why not?”
“You should ask Andrea to go,” Phil said matter-of-factly.
“Andrea? Are you serious?” Matt was taken aback. He knew he liked her, but he didn't realize anybody else could tell.
“For sure,” Phil said. “She's pretty cool. And she obviously likes you too.”
Matt felt himself getting embarrassed all over again. “Yeah, right,” he said, trying to muster up some sarcasm. “Why don't you ask her, Philly?”
Matt was trying to do anything to turn the conversation in another direction. He wasn't sure why, but talking about asking out a girl made him nervous, even with a long-time friend. Maybe especially with a friend.
They had reached Wong's Grocery, the tiny, old, white corner store that had served the neighborhood for more than thirty years. “I gotta go,” Phil said. “But I'm serious, you should ask her.”
“Whatever,” Matt said. “What do you think I am, some kind of bossa nova or something?”
Phil broke into a huge belly laugh. “I think you mean Casanova, don't you?”
Matt was jarred awake by the obnoxious alarm of his bedside clock radio. It was 9:15 AM on Saturday, and he had been sleeping for ten hours. But still he felt groggy.
No time to dawdle, though. This was the morning Coach Stephens had asked him to report for extra batting practice. Matt didn't know what good taking more swings was going to do. His problem wasn't hitting. It was being able to stand in there when the ball was coming at high speeds.
It wasn't like Matt was afraid of getting hurt, at least no more afraid than anybody else his age. He had taken plenty of elbows in basketball and hard tackles in soccer. It was different with a baseball, though. Something about a small, hard ball coming at him in such unpredictable fashion out of a pitcher's hand was scary. He wasn't afraid of charging a hard grounder, and he had even taken a couple of those in the face. But when a tall fourteen-year-old kid with sinewy arms was winding up to throw, Matt couldn't resist the urge to jump back. And like Coach said, it was pretty hard to take a decent swing at the baseball when you were jumping away from it.
After wolfing down some toast and orange juice for breakfast, Matt threw on a sweatshirt, his maroon Stingers cap and some sweatpants, hopped on his bike and pedaled the six blocks to South Side Middle School. The campus was empty, and Matt hoped he had got the day right because there was no sign of Coach Stephens' car. He wheeled around back by the locker room door. Charlie was there, waiting with an equipment bag and a set of keys.
“Where's Coach?” Matt asked.
“Can't make it today,” Charlie replied. “He told me to help you out.”
Matt was irritated. He looked at Charlie, with his huge leg brace and his ever-present limp. The manager's disability prevented him from running at even quarter-speed. That kept Charlie from playing any sports competitively. So how, exactly, was he going to help out Matt?
“Maybe we should just wait for a day when Coach can be here,” Matt said, eying Charlie.
“Nope,” the manager replied, shaking his head back and forth. “We've got everything we need, and Coach told me what drills to run. I didn't waste my Saturday morning so you could just go home. Let's get started.”
Charlie's serious manner took Matt by surprise. “Okay,” Matt said. “What do we do, then?”
Charlie found the key that opened the locker room door and headed over to the equipment storage area. “Come over and give me a hand,” he said. It wasn't so much a request as a command, Matt thought to himself.
“We're going to take the pitching machine out to the field,” Charlie said. “You grab that end.”
Matt and Charlie wheeled the machine out the locker room door and down the path to the empty baseball field. They set it up on the mound and, using a yellow extension cord, plugged it into a power outlet in the home dugout.
“You know how to work this thing?” Matt asked.
“Sure,” Charlie replied with a confident grin. “It's not exactly rocket science. You go back to the locker room and get the bag of soft practice balls. I'll get it going.”
Matt returned with the black bag filled with at least fifty yellow balls. They were shaped like a baseball but made out of a soft synthetic material that didn't hurt half as hard if they hit you.
“We'll use these today,” Charlie said. “Maybe next time, we'll use real baseballs.”
Next time? Matt was wondering what he had got himself into. It was kind of embarrassing being out here on a Saturday, taking orders from a student manager. What would his teammates say about it? They already thought he was enough of a wuss being afraid of the baseball.
Charlie had the pitching machine whirring, the wheel turning and spitting out balls toward the plate as the manager fed them through the top of the apparatus. He was busy adjusting the height and speed so that the ball would come across the plate every time.
“We're going to start at forty miles an hour,” Charlie said. “Grab a bat and we'll try a few.”