Say It Ain't So (12 page)

“You'll get this guy,” I yelled from my spot in the stands, trying to offer some encouragement.

I was wrong.

Hunter didn't get the next guy. Or the next guy. Or the guy after that. The first four hitters absolutely smashed the ball. They hit line drives all over the place. Two more runs scored. It was unbelievable! The score was three to nothing before the first out was even recorded. Both Robert and Trebor Fenner had hits. The fifth batter up, a lefty, hit a hard line drive too. But he hit it right at Kyle Webb, who caught it and stepped on first for a double play. Hunter sighed and settled down to get the sixth batter on a groundout. But it was hit hard. Everything was.

Schwenkfelder scratched out a run in the top of the second, but Griffith came right back swinging. They smacked line drive after line drive, one more of which went for a home run. The score was nine to one here in the bottom of the second inning. Griffith was going to win by the run rule if this kept
up. The whoop rule going
against
us! With Hunter Ashwell on the mound! It was simply unbelievable.

Coach Zo had apparently seen enough. He went out to the mound to tell Hunter to hit the showers. A very surprised Noah Stewart was given the call to the mound. Noah wasn't a bad player, but he was
maybe
the fifth-best pitcher on the team. There was no way he thought he'd get into a game Hunter was starting. But there he was, on the mound, trying to salvage one for Schwenkfelder.

While Noah warmed up, Other Mike came back over and sat next to me on the bleachers.

“So what did you find?” I asked. “Any sign of the great Truck Durkin?”

“Not that I could see,” Other Mike said. “And I looked everywhere. Up trees, around the fence. I checked every single car. I don't think he's spying from a nearby building.”

“Good deduction,” I said. “Given that there are no nearby buildings.”

“Right,” Other Mike said. It was true. The only building nearby was the school, and it was pretty far away and not really tall enough to get an angle on the field from. “And my helper couldn't find any signs of Truck either,” he added.

“Your helper?” I said. Other Mike pointed over toward the concession stands. Even from the backs of their heads I could recognize who was in line.

“Davis Gannett?” I said. “What is he doing here?”

“He likes to watch baseball games, I guess,” Other Mike said. “I agree with you, it's a terribly strange way for a person to entertain themselves. But I suppose there is no accounting for taste.” He flashed that big, goofy Other Mike–ian smile.

“Very funny,” I said. “Don't you think it's weird that he keeps showing up? It's like he's stalking the team. It's … creepy.”

“Yeah, Len,” Other Mike said. “Nothing ironic about
you
saying that.”

“Well, it's different with me,” I said.

“Different how?”

“He got kicked off the team!”

“You were never on the team!”

“I'm the announcer!”

“Are you announcing today?”

“Just shut up, Other Mike,” I said. “And go back to looking for Truck.”

“He ain't here,” Other Mike said. “I told you. Me and Davis looked everywhere.”

“Probably a good thing,” I said. “Did you see how Hunter got destroyed out there?”

“No,” Other Mike said. “I did not.”

Noah did okay as the new pitcher. He limited the damage. Schwenkfelder scored a few more runs, so the run rule wasn't put into effect. Still, we were too far behind to come back. The final score was twelve to five, Griffith. Hunter's stats for the day were the exact opposite of his first start. He had gone just one and one-third innings. He had given up nine runs on twelve hits. If he hadn't lucked out on that double play, things could have been much, much worse.

A tough one here in Griffith, sports fans. Sometimes you're perfect, sometimes you're far from it .…

After the game, I went over to chat with Mike. Some of the guys were taking the bus back to school, but because his parents were there, he was going straight home with them. There was no celebratory pizza this day. We stood in the grass next to the field, leaning against the chain-link fence.

“Tough one,” I said.

“You got that right,” Mike said. His face was streaked with dirt and his hair was slick with sweat.
He was sipping on a cup of water. He looked like he had been through a war. “I just don't get it. How do you go from being perfect to being perfectly terrible?”

“Just a rough outing,” I said.

“You think?” Mike said.

“Sure,” I said. “Happens to everyone. Happens to the best pitchers in the world. Even could happen to the Great Imperial Ashwell.”

“Can you believe that stunt with the microphone?” Mike asked. “I thought Coach Zo was going to kill him.”

“I'm surprised he didn't bench him,” I said.

“Me too,” Mike said. “I guess the rules are different for the great ones.”

“Or the formerly great ones,” I said. “Just kidding. He'll get it back. You'll get them next time. Just an unlucky break.”

Davis Gannett butted into the conversation. “Hey, you dork-buckets,” he said. “Sorry to interrupt.”

“No you're not,” Mike said.

“Well, listen,” Davis spat. “Ain't no way the massacre we just witnessed had anything to do with luck.”

Mike and I kept our mouths shut. We just stared at each other, then looked back at Davis.

“You think luck is going to turn a bunch of weak-hitting dork-buckets like the Griffith Griffins into a whole team of Babe Ruths? Luck has nothing to do with it.”

“What, then?” I said. “You can't really blame Hunter. He's been nothing but great all year.”

Davis sneered. “Yeah, the Great Imperial Ashwell has been great. He
is
great. But if and only if they don't know what's coming.”

“What are you saying?” Mike asked.

“That he ain't good if they do know what is coming! Do I have to spell it out for you?”

“You know how to spell?” I said. It was mean.

Davis got right in my face. “You shut up, Lenny. I know a lot of things. And one thing I know for certain: Griffith was stealing your friend's signs.”

“No way!” Mike said. “We have a secret system!”

“Well, the secret's out,” Davis said. “You stink.”

For a moment I thought Mike was going to take a swing at Davis. But Coach Zo walked up and yelled, “Let's go! Team meeting, pronto!”

I didn't know what
pronto
meant, but you could
tell by the way he said it that he was
not
joking around.

Other Mike and I got onto our bikes. I didn't have the heart to make up wacky nicknames. I just glumly snapped on the helmet and started to pedal.

“Hey,” I said as we rode. “Where was Davis when you ran into him?”

“Here,” Other Mike said. “At the game.”

“No,” I said. “Where
exactly
was he?”

“Out by the fence,” he said. “Way out there.” He pointed toward center field.

“What was he doing out there?” I asked.

Other Mike shrugged. “He said he didn't like sitting where everyone could see him. Said everyone kept giving him mean looks. I think he's right. You and Mike are both pretty mean to him. I'm not sure why.”

“You're not sure why?!” I yelled. “He's been mean to
us
our whole lives!”

“Well, he's different now,” Other Mike said, though Davis's behavior just a few minutes ago was evidence to the contrary. “I thought you'd think it was a good thing that he was here to support the team or whatever.”

“Yeah,” I scoffed. “Support the team. Ha.”

That night, Mike called me. He wasn't known for calling very much, so I could tell something was wrong.

“Hey, Newts,” I said.

“Hey, Len,” he said.

“Tough loss,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Knocks us out of first place.”

“Aren't you tied, though?”

“I guess,” he said. “But we're almost in last.”

“Don't feel too bad,” I said. “It's easy to fall from first place to last when there are only three teams in the league. Even last is only third. Hey, could you be tied for third? You'd be in first and last at the same time! Wait, I'm not sure—”

“Stop making fun of our league,” he said.

“Not making fun!”

There was a pause.

“So do you think there is any chance that Davis is right?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “You are definitely not a dork-bucket.”

“Not that! Do you think that someone is stealing our … stealing our signs?” He sounded like a little kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He sounded ashamed. He sounded guilty.

“Well,” I said, trying to remain upbeat. “It's certainly possible. I mean, don't take it the wrong way or anything. It happens to lots of guys. Big-league catchers have it happen to them all the time. Remember how Pap was just talking about it in that interview the other day?”

Davey Pappenheimer was the Phillies manager. He was a little eccentric—which, according to my dad, is just a way of saying a rich person is crazy. I don't know if Pap is crazy, but he
is
pretty entertaining. Sample Pap quote: “Yeah, there's more than one way to skin a cat. In fact, there's six. And I've done all six. One I'll never do again and I don't recommend it and I'll thank you never to bring it up again.” This was in a discussion regarding the hit-and-run.

I continued. “Pap was saying that the Mets are stealing signs from your boy Famosa. And you
know he's a crafty catcher. If the stupid Mets could steal signs from someone as crafty as Ramon Famosa, it could happen to anyone.”

“But we have a system!” he said. “Hunter and I worked with Coach Zo to make a secret system. It's the most secret system of all secret systems.”

“As you have mentioned,” I said. He seriously has mentioned it about a million times.

“I won't even tell you, and you're my best friend!”

“Thanks,” I said. It was nice to hear. I kind of did wish he would tell me their system, but I wasn't going to push it.

It was silent for a minute. Neither of us knew what to say.

“I'll take the case,” I said.

“What?”

“The case,” I said. “I'll take the case. The case of the stolen signs. Lenny Norbeck: baseball announcer, detective, solid B student. You know, I have a pretty impressive résumé for a middle schooler.”

“Don't forget to add dork-bucket to the list,” Mike said with a laugh.

I laughed too.

“You really think someone is stealing the signs?”

“They have to be,” I said. “Now that I think about it, there's no way Hunter all of a sudden became so hittable. It's like night and day.”

“It can't be that Griffith suddenly has him figured out,” he said. “They're, like, the worst team in the league.”

“Third place isn't that bad,” I joked.

“Out of three it is,” he said. We laughed. “So you think you can crack the case
while
announcing ball games?”

“I can crack the case while announcing ball games, whistling ‘Dixie,' drinking a quart of milk, and farting the national anthem.”

“Just do the first two, okay?”

“Okay.”

I knew what my plan for the next day would be: a trip to the library.

I took the bus home from school, chucked my backpack into my room, had a quick snack, and got out my bike. I snapped on the helmet, ready to ride alone to the library. There was no game scheduled that day. There was practice, so Mike was busy. I called Other Mike up, but he was hanging out with Davis! Ridiculous. I had no desire to join that team. Oh yeah, I guess I probably had some homework. But I didn't feel like doing it.