Say It Ain't So (15 page)

I heard the voice again. “Knock it off, you idiots!” it screamed. And then I heard a
thwack
.

Oh, great
, I thought.
Another baseball-throwing ninja trying to take me out
. But this
wasn't
a baseball. It was larger. It was a softball. And it wasn't trying to take
me
out. It was trying to take the ninjas out.
Thwack
. I heard it again. My savior wasn't just yelling at these guys. My savior was chucking softballs at these guys.

My savior was a girl.

My savior was Maria Bonzer.

The ninjas of Griffith scampered off. I was still dazed, but I could hear their cleats clacking on the sidewalk. They were running away! It worked! Maria came over to me. She started helping me extract my arms from the bike rack. I must have looked like a puppy trapped in a storm drain.

I never thought I'd be so happy to see anyone in my life. Maria Bonzer was, yes, the niece of Mr. Bonzer the librarian. And yes, she is the Maria Bonzer me and the Mikes briefly thought was a murderer. But she ended up helping us solve the case last summer. I had no idea she was still in town.

“Whoa, Lenny, what happened to you?” she said.

“Are you … Are you real? Or … are … you … a …?” Like I said, I was feeling woozy and
was kind of afraid that I was imagining things. Like in movies when guys are lost in the desert and they start to get so hungry and thirsty that they think a cactus is a glass of water. A mirage! That's the word. I yelled it out. “Mirage!”

Maria laughed. “Yeah, Lenny. I'm a freaking mirage over here. You're tied to a bike rack hallucinating about the librarian's niece.”

“Well, the first part
is
true,” I said. “Though technically they didn't tie me up. I just sort of fell in.”

“You did this to yourself?” she asked.

“No, not really. I mean, they were throwing baseballs at me! I was trying to get the heck out of here. One hit me in the back.” I was trying not to cry and doing a not-okay job at it.

“It looks like one caught you in the face.”

“That was that ninja's fist!” I said.

She laughed. “Um, do I have to call a doctor?” she said. “You really are seeing things.”

“No,” I said. “I'm fine. I know he wasn't actually a ninja. Just the way he had his hood up over his head. Looked kind of ninjalike.”

“Got it,” she said. “So those ninjas threw baseballs at you and then punched you in the face when you tried to flee on your bike?”

“Yeah,” I said. “That pretty much sums it up.”

“Why would they do that?” she asked. “Other than the fact that just about everyone who knows you wants to punch you in the face once in a while.”

“Very funny,” I said. “They did it because I'm onto their secret!”

“This sounds good,” she said. “But I have to get home before dinner or my mom will kill me. Can you walk and talk?”

“Uh, sure,” I said, just happy to stand. I was finally free of the bike rack. I spun the combination on the lock and popped the chain. It felt good to know that even if the ninjas returned, I could get out of there fast. However, they were nowhere to be found. Maria had successfully scared them off. I was a little embarrassed, but pretty grateful. My eye was killing me.

She pointed in the direction she was headed and I rode along. It's hard to ride that slowly, though, so I did that move where you stand over the bike but just walk rather than pushing the pedals. We walked like that while I gave her the scoop. The whole time my eye burned. I could feel it throbbing like a living thing was breathing on it. Breathing fire.

“So what are you doing here?” she said.

“I could ask you the same thing!” I said right back.

“Um, I go to school here?”

“You do?” I asked. It was a dumb question. She pointed to her own green Griffith sweatshirt. I had flashbacks of the ninja attack.

“Yeah. So what are you doing here?” she said again.

I filled her in. I told her all of it. About how Mike made the baseball team as a catcher after Famosa encouraged him. About how I helped him practice by throwing wild pitches and kicking him in the crotch. About how I got a job as the announcer for the Schwenkfelder games. And about how someone from Griffith was stealing Mike's signs, ripping off clues for the pitches from the great Hunter Ashwell.

“Whoa,” she said. “You tell quite a tale.”

I couldn't figure out if she was being sarcastic or not, so I just pressed on. “Yeah,” I said. “Me and the Mikes have been working like crazy. Trying to figure the whole thing out.”

“Have any luck?” she asked as we stopped at the busy intersection of Center Street.

“No,” I said sadly.

“Hard to believe your brain trust wasn't having any success,” she said. “I mean, especially given the fact that you don't have any brains.”

“Ha,” I said. “Har-har. Har-de-har-har. Har-de-freaking-har-freaking-har.” That's the proper way to laugh sarcastically. No one ever says “har-de-har-har” in a nonsarcastic way. If they do, I don't want to know them.

“Well?” she said.

“Well, what?” I asked.

“I'm waiting.”

“Waiting for what?” I asked. “Did you ask me a question?”

“I'm waiting for you to ask me a question,” she said.

“If you're waiting for me to ask you to marry me,” I said, “you're going to have to wait quite a bit longer. I should at least get my own car first.” I don't know why I said that. It came out stupid. I started blushing.

“Har-de-freaking-har,” she said. “You know what I'm waiting for you to ask.”

“I honestly do not,” I said.

“I'm waiting for you to ask me to help you.”

“To help me?”

“Yeah,” she said. She put her hand on her hip and spit. “We make a good team. You know that.”

“It's true,” I said. “We sort of did crack one of the biggest mysteries in Philadelphia sports history. I'm pretty sure we can get to the bottom of whatever shenanigans a bunch of middle school dorks can muster.”

“That's like the pot calling the kettle a dork,” she said.

“I'm not quite sure that's how the expression—”

“So you really think they're stealing your signs, huh?” she said. “They gotta be if they're hitting Ashwell. I hear that kid can throw.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I hear all about him all the time. Believe me. But before we get into this, you have to answer me something. Why are you going to help us?”

“What do you mean? I already told you. We make a good team.”

“Yeah, but won't you be hurting your own team? You'll be helping Schwenkfelder beat Griffith.”

“I have no loyalty to this stupid school,” she said. “I never wanted to move to this stupid town anyway. No offense.”

“Hey, don't apologize to me,” I said. “If I was
Sam Schwenkfelder, sure, I'd be highly offended. But I'm not. I just live here. I didn't invent this stupid town.”

“Was there really a Sam Schwenkfelder?” she asked.

“I don't know,” I said. “But, listen, how do I know I can trust you with this?”

“It's the principle,” she said.

“You think Principal Wagner is behind this? I could see
Vice
Principal Jaxheimer having a sideline as a criminal, but Wags seems pretty decent.”

She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean,” she said. She spit into her hand and gestured for me to do the same.

I guess we were reaffirming our status as spit twins. Seemed good enough for me. “Put 'er there,” I said. We shook on it. It was settled.

We were on the part of the road that doesn't have any sidewalk, so we were trying to stay close to the shoulder. I gave up riding and was pushing my bike as she was walking next to me. I looked around to make sure we weren't being watched.

“What are you so nervous about?” she asked.

“Just—those guys aren't going to cause trouble for you if they know you're working for the other side, are they?”

“They have no idea,” she said. “Total double agent.”

“Except that you did just kind of sort of call them ‘idiots,' ” I said.

She shrugged.

“Hey,” I said. “Do you know who they are? Those guys, I mean.”

“Well,” she said. “I think our first clue is that they were members of the Griffith baseball team.”

“Nice work, Sherlock,” I said. “What tipped you off? The Griffith baseball sweatshirts they were wearing?”

She tapped the bill of her softball cap with her finger. “Always thinking,” she said.

“Duh,” I said. “I mean, did you recognize them?”

“No, I never saw their faces. They didn't stick around long, did they?” she asked. “Once they got a glimpse of my mighty arm.”

“I didn't know you played softball,” I said. “I thought you were just a fan.”

“Why would you think that?” she asked.

“I don't know,” I said. “You never mentioned it.”

“You never asked,” she said.

“No, I guess I didn't.”

“There's a lot you don't know about me, Lenny Norbeck,” she said.

“Yeah?” I said. “Well, there's a lot you don't know about me too.”

“I know you spend all your time arguing with Mike and Other Mike. I know you love baseball and think you're some sort of detective, even though you get tangled up in a bike rack at the first sign of trouble. I know you're the announcer for the games over at Schwenkfelder. And I know you lose your library card all the time.”

“That jerk Bonzer! What happened to the library code of secrecy?” I said.

She laughed. “That about sum it up?” she said.

“Yeah, pretty much.” It was true. I was simple. “I guess the one with all the secrets is you. I didn't even know you were living here, for one. I thought you were just visiting for the summer and then it was back to the city.”

“Yeah, that's what I thought too,” she said. “That was the plan. Supposed to be anyway. But my mom decided she'd had enough of the city, I guess. Our apartment got broken into over the summer. My phone got taken. I miss it. Weird thing was, whoever stole it kept texting people I knew. Everyone was like, ‘Why did you keep texting me?' I guess the thief just wanted to mess with me.”

“Oh, jeez,” I said. “Sorry to hear that. You catch the guy?”

“Nah,” she said. “Gone without a trace.”

“Should have hired a good detective,” I said. “I think I can recommend one for next time.”

“There never will be a next time,” she said. “Now we're living out here with the cows and horses and dorks like you.”

“Hey, excuse me,” I said. “Things get pretty rough around here. Speaking of, how does my eye look?”

She stopped walking and I stopped the bike. She peered at my face for what felt like a long time. “You'll live,” she said. “Working up a pretty decent bruise there, but you'll live. That's our house,” she said, pointing up. “The one we're renting, I mean. There's lots of rich people around here. It's weird, we're, like, the only renters.”

“Cool,” I said, for some reason.

She shrugged. “Whatever.”

“Whatever,” I repeated.

“So keep me in the loop,” she said. “Let me know how it's going. Keep me up to speed on any developments. Let me know if I can help. You know where to find me.”

“I do?” I said.

“Um, yeah,” she said, pointing up. “I just told you I live right there.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Got it. Cool.” I am as smooth as a baby's butt.

She started up the steep set of concrete stairs toward the door. “One more thing,” I called after her. “Would it help you to identify the ninjas if I told you something about how they talked?” I asked.

“Maybe,” she said with a shrug.

“Their voices were … weird. Anybody on the team with an accent? Jagdish Sheth maybe?”

“Nah,” she said. “Jagdish Sheth was born in New Jersey. Unless you count the New Jersey accent as weird.”

“It wasn't Jersey-weird,” I said. “It was … foreign somehow? German or Swedish or something?”

“How do I know what a Swedish accent sounds like?” she said.

“I don't know,” I said. “Never mind.”

“Do a Swedish accent,” she said. “Do it right now.”

“No,” I said.

“That was a terrible Swedish accent.”

“That was just me talking normal. I'm not saying
they were necessarily Swedish, just that it sounded weird. It was like
well, well, well
.” I did my best to mimic the ninja's voice.

“That just sounds like someone doing a stupid voice,” she said.

“Thanks for your help,” I said.

She started to go in the house again.