Sea City, Here We Come!

  “After the old man moved away, Priscilla would visit the farm. She would just sit on the porch, always waiting. Waiting and hoping that Jared would come for her.

  “But months went by and he never did. Soon another man in town, Obadiah Spooner, took a liking to Priscilla. One day he followed her when she came to this house. He sat on the porch and said the sweetest things to her. But Priscilla had her heart set on Jared and no one else.

  “Then one day it happened. Jared came back. Or at least his voice did.

  “Priscilla was sitting on the porch with Obadiah again. This time Obadiah was asking for her hand in marriage. And poor Priscilla, even though she still loved Jared, was tempted to say yes. Obadiah was a wealthy man, and although he had a wart in the middle of his nose, he was kind. Every time he visited Priscilla, he made sure his black hair was brushed handsomely.

  “Before Priscilla could answer Obadiah, a muffled voice called, ‘Come to the barn … come to the barn …’

  “Well, Priscilla sat straight up. She forgot about Obadiah. The voice belonged to her beloved Jared! She raced to the barn — this barn. She flung open the door —”

  Dawn fell silent.

  “What happened?” Myriah said, her voice a squeak.

  Dawn took a deep breath. “The barn was pitch-black. Obadiah called after her, ‘Priscilla, stop! No!’ But there was no keeping her from her true love. Priscilla walked in.

  “Then there was a scream — followed by silence. Obadiah took out his gun and ran into the barn. Shots were fired, Bang! Bang!

  “Neighbors came running. No one was foolish enough to go inside, so they waited … and waited …”

  “Then what?” Jamie asked.

  “Only one person came out. It was a man with hair as white as snow, sticking straight into the air. His eyes were wide open and glassy, as if he’d seen something no man was supposed to see. No one recognized him until he came closer. Then they could see the wart on the nose.”

  “Obadiah!” Charlotte said.

  “Yes. He noticed no one as he walked out. He went straight to his house, lay down on his bed and never again got up, although he lived a good twenty years more. The neighbors went into the barn then, but no one else was inside. Not Priscilla, not Jared. Not a trace. Some say Jared was alive, and took her to Alaska to marry him. Others say the ghost killed Priscilla. Still others say that Priscilla, too, became a ghost, and to this day she walks the barn, looking for Jared.”

  The only sound in the barn was the tapping of rain on the roof. The kids were open-mouthed. I could see Dawn reaching toward the trap door (there actually is a secret passageway that leads from the barn to the house). But I gave her a sharp Look. If she opened that door, no one would sleep that night.

  Including me.

  Just to be safe, I stood up and rolled a lawn mower onto the trap door.

  “I think they’re both still alive,” Carolyn whispered.

  “If they went to Alaska, maybe they turned into Santa and Mrs. Claus,” Johnny said.

  Charlotte yawned. So did I. “Listen, guys, it’s getting late now. What do you say —” I was going to suggest lights out, but that didn’t seem like such a great idea. “— we go to sleep?”

  There weren’t any protests. One by one, everyone began to nod off. “Good job,” I whispered to Dawn. “Where’d you hear that?”

  She shrugged. “I made it up.”

  “Fantastic!”

  I put my head down. It was a good story — and a good sleepover. But I had a hard time falling asleep.

  I couldn’t keep my eyes off the lawn mower.

  “Good morning, class.”

  It had been twenty long, long days. And old Mrs. Wegmann had begun each one with the same highly original greeting. For twenty days, the fluorescent light above the left side of the room had given off the same annoying buzz. For twenty days, I had been counting backward from twenty.

  Now I was at One. At long last, the Summer of Torture was ending.

  I should have been thrilled. Thrilled? I should have been dancing on my desk. I’d gotten decent grades. Good enough so that I was guaranteed to pass even if I flunked the final exam. All I had to do was sit there and not commit a crime. When the bell rang, I would be ready for G-M-O-O-H:

  Get Me Out Of Here!

  And then I could start thinking about serious things. Like which bikinis to take to Sea City.

  “Well, here we are, our last day,” Mrs. Wegmann droned on. (Duh, no kidding.) “I’ll give you some time for questions, then we’ll have our final exam.”

  You know what? Four kids asked questions, and I knew the answers to each one! Me, Claudia “The Smart One” Kishi, budding math genius!

  The test began. There were a few tough problems, but mostly they weren’t too bad. I even managed to finish a little early, believe it or not.

  While I was waiting for the official end, I looked around the class (not too obviously, so Mrs. Wegmann wouldn’t think I was cheating).

  Carly’s tongue was hanging out of her mouth — and she was chewing on it. Very suave. I wanted to giggle and tell her.

  I looked at the clock. Two minutes till the end of summer school. Feelings began rising up inside me. Half of me wanted to celebrate, but the other half felt a little sad. I would miss my new friends.

  Don’t get me wrong. If I had had one more day of summer math — one more hour — I think I would have passed out.

  But still …

  BRRIIIINNNG!

  “Class, have a wonderful rest of the summer!” Mrs. Wegmann shouted over the cheering.

  We ran out of the room, throwing our papers on her desk. Out in the hallway, Carly practically started screaming. “We did it! We did it!”

  Theresa shouted, “We are officially not stupid!”

  We gave each other a big hug and danced around.

  “Speak for yourself,” grumbled another classmate, named Fran. “I think I’m going to have to repeat this stuff again.”

  “Oh, Fran, no you won’t,” Carly said. “You passed the quizzes, right?”

  “Most of them,” Fran answered.

  “Okay, look,” I said. “What answer did you get on the word problem about the doughnut bakery?”

  As we discussed the test, Fran began feeling better. A lot of our answers were the same.

  We walked together through the front door of the school. As we waited for the bus to arrive, we started feeling nostalgic.

  “Remember the day Mrs. Wegmann had the hiccups?” Theresa asked.

  “And the time David Gabel called her Mrs. Wigwam?” Carly piped up.

  Another classmate, Barbara, grinned at me. “And that quiz you thought you’d brought your calculator to, but it was your VCR remote?”

  We all howled.

  “I’m going to miss you guys,” Carly said sadly.

  “Oh!” Theresa blurted. “What are you guys doing Sunday?”

  Everyone said “Nothing,” except me. I told them about Sea City. Just mentioning it made me feel wonderful, until Theresa spoke up again: “Because my mom and dad said I could have an end-of-school barbecue for us.”

  “I can go,” Carly said.

  “Me too,” Fran and Barbara added.

  My heart sank. I really wanted to go to that party. But I was supposed to leave with Mrs. Barrett’s boyfriend and his kids on Saturday. Maybe I could tell him I’d stay and take a bus on Monday —

  Stay? Was I crazy? I’d only been looking forward to this for a whole summer!

  A school bus roared up to the front door, which meant Barbara and Theresa had to leave.

  “ ’Bye, Claudia!” they said. “We’ll miss you!”

  “Me too!” I replied.

  “Write, okay?” Barbara said.

  “I will!”

  We hugged, and promised to keep in touch. Theresa said she’d have another party at the beginning of school.

  They climbed in. We kept shouting “ ’Bye!” to each other through the open windows.
br />   Carly, Fran, and I walked home. Fran’s house was closest to the high school and mine was next. At each one we had a long, tearful good-bye.

  At home, I ran straight to my room to begin packing. I felt much less excited than I had expected. In fact, when Dawn and Mary Anne came by to visit, the first thing Mary Anne said was, “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, fine,” I replied.

  “Want to go to the Krushers game with us?” Dawn asked.

  “It’s actually happening?” I said.

  Mary Anne nodded. “You know Kristy. She managed to put a team together.”

  “This I have to see.” I pulled a suitcase out of my closet and opened it up.

  Inside were three bags of pretzels. I’d forgotten all about them.

  So … we snacked while we packed.

  Mary Anne and Dawn told me about the famous Mini-Camp overnight. Mary Anne said she had awakened in the middle of the night to a noise.

  “I could have sworn it was a female voice,” she said, “calling out, ‘Carrot! Carrot!’ I thought Charlotte was calling for her dog in her sleep.” (Carrot is the name of Charlotte’s schnauzer.)

  I shrugged. “Was she?”

  “No,” Mary Anne replied solemnly. “She was fast asleep. But I know who the voice belonged to. It was the ghost of Priscilla Gatlin, saying, ‘Jared! Jared!’”

  “Oh, stop!” I could feel myself shivering.

  Dawn laughed. “Mary Anne woke me up. Then she went back to sleep — and I couldn’t sleep. Then Jamie woke up whining. I thought he was having a ghost dream, too, but he just had to go to the bathroom.”

  Our conversation turned to Sea City. We talked about the postcards we’d received. We gabbed away until I was all packed. By that time I was fully, totally, one hundred percent psyched about Sea City.

  And I couldn’t wait to see Kristy’s new Krushers.

  “Come on, pitcher!” Kyle Abou-Sabh shouted. He cocked his bat, ready to smack a practice line drive.

  “Kyle, that’s first base,” I said. “Home plate is to your left.”

  I gently pushed him in the right direction.

  Moon Pinckney was already at home plate, taking some warm-up swings of his own. He seemed to be getting the hang of it — except for one minor thing.

  “Uh, Moon,” I said, “take your glove off when you bat.”

  “Oh,” he replied.

  As he removed his glove, I noticed something else. “And when you do wear it, it goes on your right hand, not your left.”

  “But I’m a lefty,” he said.

  “Exactly,” I replied. “You’ll be able to leave your left hand free to throw. Besides, look where the thumb is.”

  I left Moon staring at his mitt.

  Kate Munson was playing catch with Myriah Perkins near the third-base line. Myriah was pitching very gently to her.

  And Kate was ducking each throw as if it were a hand grenade.

  Richard Owen had brought a tennis ball to the game and looked confused.

  Alexandra DeLonge had come dressed in a brand-new designer baseball outfit. She was trying desperately to wipe off a smudge of dust from her right ankle. In the stands, her parents and grandparents were having a champagne picnic and toasting each other.

  Sheila Nofziger was picking dandelions in left field.

  “Let’s look alive, guys!” I shouted. “The Bashers will be coming any minute!”

  Actually, the Bashers weren’t due for another half hour, but we were in dire need of serious practice.

  I had gotten a team together, all right. But what a team. Our only hope was that the Bashers would be laughing so hard they’d pass out and forfeit the game.

  I’m exaggerating. I was much more optimistic than that. For one thing, we hadn’t lost any more Krushers that week. We still had seven original members. If I kept them all in the game, that meant only two of my new people had to play at any one time. (Of course, I’d rotate them so they’d all have a chance to play.)

  Alexandra wasn’t a bad catcher. And I could put the other new player in right field, where he or she couldn’t do much harm. (Why? Because most batters tend to hit to the opposite field: righties to left field and vice versa. So, since most batters are righties, not too many balls are hit to right field. That’s a bit of Kristy Thomas Baseball Wisdom, and you heard it here, folks.)

  When the Bashers did arrive, Bart stood by the batting cage and watched the end of our practice. I tried not to talk to him, but he tracked me down.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to cancel?” he asked.

  “Not on your life,” I said. “We’re here, aren’t we?”

  “Kristy, look, you don’t have to forfeit, okay? We can just drop the game — or postpone it.”

  I smiled and shook my head. “I’m not a quitter, Bart.”

  He took off his cap, looked out to the field, and scratched his head. “Okay. But, uh, maybe you should tell your outfielders to stop playing patty-cake.”

  Sure enough, Sheila and Kate were playing some hand-clapping game in centerfield. As Bart walked away, I ran to them and said it was time to play ball.

  Sheila looked surprised. “Oh, darn!” she complained, skulking away.

  Oh, darn? Why did she think we were all here?

  The Bashers, being bigger and older, held a very short practice. A very short and disciplined practice. Honestly, I don’t know why Bart ever organized this team. His players could join Little League or T-ball, no sweat.

  Moon was staring at them, google-eyed. “W-we’re playing them?” he whispered.

  “Hey, we’ve beaten them before,” I said in the most confident voice I could manage.

  Then it was time to begin. The remaining BSC members had shown up. They were in the stands, cheering and looking, well, dubious.

  Watson had agreed to be the home plate umpire. Even though Watson’s obviously a Krushers fan, Bart hadn’t protested a bit. (I guess he knew we needed all the help we could get.)

  Bart and I met with Watson at the pitcher’s mound. We agreed to play seven innings. Then Watson tossed a quarter and I won the toss. We would take the field first.

  Our pitcher was Marilyn Arnold. Alexandra was behind the plate, catching. Kyle was in right field, looking lost. Another questionable player was at second base. David Michael was our shortstop, so I hoped he’d be able to handle anything hit to the infield.

  The first Basher batter stepped up. He wore a confident smile. He took a few practice swings, so hard you could hear the wind swoosh.

  Bart shouted, “Take it to right field!”

  Now Kyle looked terrified.

  I closed my eyes and prayed.

  “Ball one!” Watson called out.

  “New pitcher new pitcher new pitcher new pitcher!” one of the Bashers kept repeating.

  “Knock it off!” David Michael yelled. “You’re boring!”

  “Ball two!” Watson barked.

  “Come on, get it over the plate!” the batter taunted.

  Marilyn walked him on four pitches. He sauntered to first base, spitting every few feet, as if he were a pro.

  “Keep cool, Marilyn, looking good,” I said. (Okay, I was lying.)

  The next batter hit the ball between second and third. David Michael scooped it up. He turned to throw to second.

  Our second baseperson was drawing a happy face in the dirt. “Look up!” David Michael screamed.

  Too late.

  The ball hit second base and bounced into right field.

  Kyle froze. He pointed to himself, as if to say, “Me?”

  “Throw it to third, Kyle!” I yelled.

  Kyle squatted, waiting for the ball to come to him. It rolled between his legs. He bent down to watch, like an ostrich just before it buries its head.

  “Go get it!” I called out.

  He ran after it, picked it up, and threw with all his might. Richard Owen made a perfect catch.

  Unfortunately, Richard Owen was sitting on the bench.

  B
oth batters were jumping on home plate. “Inside-the-park home run!” they squealed.

  “Unh-uh,” I protested. “Interference from the sidelines. That’s a ground-rule double!”

  “Ask the ump,” Bart said calmly.

  I looked at Watson. He smiled and shrugged. “Sorry, the runners crossed home before Richard touched the ball.”

  “Two to nothing!” the first batter gloated.

  “You guys,” Alexandra groaned. “Why don’t you watch where you’re going!”

  She was standing behind home, dusting off her pants. The runners had kicked up a cloud of dirt around her.

  “Can I call a time out, to change?” Alexandra asked Watson.

  “Oh, brother …” I muttered to myself.

  I closed my eyes and sat on the bench. This was going to be a long game.

  * * *

  The final score was 34–1, Bashers. Our one run came when Gabbie whacked her Wiffle ball past the Bashers pitcher, who had moved in close. The third baseman picked up the ball and threw it so hard it sailed into the stands, and my older brother Charlie hid it.

  Gabbie skipped around the bases and scored. Even the Bashers cheered her.

  After the game, no one seemed particularly crushed. Some of my new players even seemed proud of themselves — which was great. I congratulated them on their play and complimented them to their parents.

  Claudia, Dawn, Mary Anne, and Watson all tried to tell me what a phenomenal job I’d done.

  Inside, however, I felt as if I’d just tried to move a boulder up a hill by blowing on it with a straw.

  I was tired. But I was proud we hadn’t given up.

  Bart found me later and said, “Good game. Have fun in Sea City.”

  I think I answered him, but I don’t remember what I said.

  I walked home from the game with David Michael, Karen, and Andrew. Karen looked upset.

  “It’s okay,” I told her. “We did the best we could, and we had fun.”

  “I know,” she said. “It’s just that … that …”

  “What?”

  She sighed. “Well, Nannie and I baked a victory cake for you, Kristy. It was supposed to be a surprise. It says ‘Congratulations, Coach,’ on it — and we lost!”