“Right again.”
“Oh, we are going to be excellent coaches,” said Claudia. “We’ve just figured out the key secret.”
“Well, there’s a little more to it than that,” I began. But then the phone rang.
“ThismeetingoftheBSCwillcometoorder,” I said hastily and picked up the phone.
“So, Kristy, any other tips on coaching the Krushers?” asked Claudia after we’d finished setting up the appointment.
“Uh, yeah,” I said.
“Wait a minute,” said Stacey. She dug around in her pack and pulled out her notebook.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Taking notes.”
“Oh.”
“Well, go ahead,” Stacey urged.
Everyone was looking at me. But how do you coach a coach? Or a pair of coaches? Especially coaches who have never coached before?
Or possibly even played softball.
“Um, well, you’ve played softball before, right?”
Both Stacey and Claudia looked indignant.
“Of course I have,” said Stacey. “You think there aren’t any softball fields in New York?”
“Me, too,” said Claudia. “I mean, I’ve played, too.”
Shannon said softly, “Uh-oh.”
“When?” I asked, trying to sound neutral.
“In school,” said Stacey. “It was part of phys ed.”
“Yeah,” said Claudia.
“Right. So you’ve got the basics.”
“Yep.” Claudia made a pitching motion with her hand. “A pitch has to go over the plate to be a strike.”
“A full count is two strikes and three balls.” That was Stacey.
“Well, you’re both right,” I said, trying to break it to them gently. “But that kind of thing is a little sophisticated for the Krushers. We do real basic stuff. You know, base running drills, drills on plays to first and second, catching fly ball drills.”
A long silence followed my words. Stacey and Claudia, and for that matter, Shannon, Jessi, and Mary Anne all looked at me blankly. Only Mallory nodded in comprehension.
“We do stuff like that in our family,” Mallory explained. “You know, when you have so many kids, you figure you might as well do some real practicing instead of just throwing the ball around.”
The blank looks remained on the others’ faces.
“Drills,” I said. “You know, doing something over and over again until you get it right.”
“I know what a drill is,” Claudia finally said. “Homework.” She made a face.
“I never thought about it like that, Claud, but I guess you’re right.”
“I guess this means we won’t be practicing double plays and squeeze plays and bunts,” said Stacey with a sigh.
“Not at first, maybe.” I didn’t want to totally discourage her, but as good as the Krushers were, they were not a team that routinely practiced deep baseball (or softball) strategy.
“So, ah, Kristy,” Stacey said. “What kind of drills will we practice?”
“Batting practice is good,” I said. “You pitch to the team and let them practice batting. That way, you can rotate other players on the field and let them get fielding practice in at different positions.
“Then you can do fielding practice. You stand at the plate and throw the ball up and hit it to different parts of the field and the fielders — in their regular positions — practice fielding. That’s where setting up the various plays — things that might happen in a game situation and how to handle it — can also come in —”
“Kristy.”
I’d been so intent on explaining a basic practice routine that I’d forgotten whom I was talking to. Claudia’s voice brought me back to reality.
“Yes, Claudia?”
Claudia pulled out a sketch pad and a pencil and sat down cross-legged on the floor.
“Let’s start with batting practice,” she said. “Stacey is going to take notes. I am going to draw pictures. Okay?”
“Great idea,” I said. “Listen, I’ll come to the first practice with you to help out. Don’t worry. It’ll work out fine. Really.”
Stacey suddenly grinned. “You mean that? One coach to another?”
“Coach’s honor,” I said solemnly. I looked down at Claudia who sat, pencil poised above paper. “Now. About this batting practice. Why don’t we start with the layout of the field and the positions, okay?”
“A field is called a diamond …”
“Have a good time, Mrs. Engle, Mr. Engle,” Mary Anne said. It was Saturday afternoon and she was baby-sitting for Karen and Andrew while their mother and stepfather went to a garden party. Mary Anne wasn’t quite sure what a garden party was, but she thought the Engles looked very garden-y: Mr. Engle was wearing a loose linen jacket and pants and a panama hat, and Mrs. Engle had on a flowered dress with a full skirt and a big hat with a flower pinned to the upturned brim.
“Thank you, Mary Anne. We should be back around six,” said Mr. Engle.
Mary Anne and Karen (who uncharacteristically hadn’t said a word) waved good-bye. Andrew didn’t wave, but he watched until the car had pulled out of the driveway.
That was when Mary Anne expected Karen, the Queen of All Imaginative Games, to want to play a garden party game. And knowing Karen, she was sure it would be much more exotic than any real garden party.
But Mary Anne was in for a surprise. Karen didn’t want to play any games at all. At least not any of her usual games.
The moment the car disappeared from sight, Andrew yawned. For some reason, that made Mary Anne yawn. And then Karen yawned.
Mary Anne laughed. “I think yawning is contagious, Andrew, what do you think?”
“I’m not sick!” exclaimed Andrew instantly.
“No, no, of course not. I just meant that when you yawned, it made Karen and me yawn, too.”
Andrew thought for a moment, then said, “Oh.”
“It’s a job for Dr. Sleep,” said Karen suddenly.
“Hmmm,” said Mary Anne. “What would Dr. Sleep recommend?”
“A nap,” said Karen. “Then, dessert.”
“Well, Andrew, how does that sound to you?” Mary Anne held out her hand and Andrew put his in it with a sleepy smile. A few minutes later, he was sound asleep in his bed.
“What do you want to do until Andrew wakes up, Karen?” Mary Anne asked as they walked back down the hall from Andrew’s room. “Want to play …”
But before she could finish Karen said, “How old are you, Mary Anne? Are you thirteen, like Kristy?”
Surprised, Mary Anne answered, “Yes.”
“You are? Gigundoly super. No. I mean, that’s, that’s excellent.” Karen paused.
“Let’s have some lemonade,” suggested Mary Anne.
Karen barely nodded, so intent was she on her own thoughts. Mary Anne soon found out what they were.
“When you’re thirteen, can you stay up as late as you want? Do you take neat classes at school? Like biology and dissecting frogs?” (Mary Anne shuddered inwardly.) “Can you dress any way you want? Why aren’t your ears pierced like Dawn’s are?”
Karen paused to draw a breath and Mary Anne took the opportunity to shove a glass of lemonade in her hand and sit down at the kitchen table across from her.
“Wow, Karen, those are a lot — a gigundoly lot — of questions. Let me see: Yes, I can stay up as late as I want, within reason. I usually don’t, unless I have a test to study for. If you stay up late, you’re tired the next day at school. Yes, we take good classes, but no, I haven’t had to dissect a frog yet. I can dress pretty much the way I want to, but nothing wild or extreme. But that’s okay, because I think my style suits me just fine. And the reason my ears aren’t pierced is because I don’t want them pierced.”
Now it was Mary Anne’s turn to stop for a breath. Karen jumped right in.
“What about sleepover parties? You can stay up as late as you want then, right? How do you decide what clothes you w
ear? Can you shop all by yourself? With your own money? How old is old enough to get your ears pierced? Do you have a boyfriend?”
Karen paused and Mary Anne laughed helplessly.
“One question at a time, Karen. I don’t know what to answer first.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?” Karen repeated promptly.
Mary Anne thought of Logan and smiled. “Yes, I do.”
“Wow,” breathed Karen. “A real live boyfriend.”
“Well, yes,” Mary Anne agreed. “A real live boyfriend.”
“I have a pretend husband,” said Karen. “Ricky Torres. But we had a pretend wedding anyway, so I don’t think it is the same thing.”
“Not exactly,” said Mary Anne, keeping her face straight.
“What is your boyfriend’s name?”
“You’ve met him. Logan. Logan Bruno. Would you like some more lemonade?”
Karen shook her head impatiently. “No, thanks. Logan. Hmm.”
“I think I’ll have a little more.” Mary Anne was amused by Karen’s questions. But she found Karen’s intense scrutiny somewhat unnerving.
“Maybe I will have some,” Karen said suddenly. So Mary Anne poured some lemonade for both Karen and her. She sat back down at the table across from Karen. Karen’s blue eyes were enormous behind her glasses.
Mary Anne took a drink of lemonade.
Karen took a drink of lemonade.
Hmm, thought Mary Anne.
“Tell me more about Logan. Is he really that …” Karen lowered her voice, “cute?”
“I think he is,” answered Mary Anne. “I think he looks just like Cam Geary. Only cuter. And he’s got this great southern accent. And, let’s see. He can be very stubborn. But he can be very sweet. Oh, and he’s an associate member of the Baby-sitters Club.”
“He is?” Karen looked thrilled. “Wow.”
“Mary Anne. Mary Annnnnnne.” Before Karen could ask any more questions, the sound of Andrew’s voice came to them.
“Andrew’s awake,” said Karen.
“He sure is,” said Mary Anne. She finished her lemonade in one gulp, and set the glass down. “Why don’t you clear off the lemonade glasses and I’ll go get him.”
“Okay,” said Karen, finishing her lemonade in a gulp, too.
On her way out of the kitchen, Mary Anne caught a glimpse of herself in a small mirror above the telephone table. She stopped and smoothed her hair down.
She looked down and realized that Karen was standing behind her and a little to one side, smoothing her hair back in exact imitation of Mary Anne.
Hmmm, thought Mary Anne again.
When she returned with Andrew, Mary Anne suggested that Karen and Andrew might like to play out in the backyard. Both Andrew and Karen agreed immediately. But if Mary Anne thought that Karen was going to put her extremely vivid imagination to work thinking up wonderful games or outrageous charades, she was wrong.
Andrew, still a little slow and cranky from his nap, promptly sat down in the shade of a tree and began excavating holes with an old trowel.
“What are you doing?” asked Mary Anne. “Are you looking for treasure?”
“Worms,” said Andrew.
Worms seemed to be a theme this month, thought Mary Anne, shuddering inwardly. Aloud she said, “Oh. What are you going to do with them, Andrew?”
“Dig new homes for them and move them,” said Andrew.
“Oh,” said Mary Anne. She sat down in an old Adirondack chair nearby and Karen sat down in the one next to her.
“Good grief,” said Karen.
Mary Anne looked at her in surprise.
“Worms,” Karen continued. “Can you believe it?”
“Ah, well,” began Mary Anne cautiously. Normally, Karen would have been right down there with Andrew and would probably have tried to persuade Mary Anne to join in, too, building worm palaces and making up wild stories of worm wildlife beneath the dirt.
But not this version of Karen.
“What do you think of the weather, Mary Anne?” asked the new “adult” Karen.
“The weather? Oh, it’s all right. Ah, how’s school?”
“School?” Karen rolled her eyes and crossed her legs at the ankle (Mary Anne had just crossed her legs at the ankle, of course). “Oh, it is so — babyish.”
“Babyish,” said Mary Anne neutrally.
“You know,” said Karen. “I wish we could study something exciting, like you do.”
“You have math and art, right? So do we,” said Mary Anne.
“It’s not the same,” said Karen. “Now does Logan have brown eyes or blue eyes or green eyes? What color eyes are your favorite color? What is the first thing you liked about Logan? How could you tell if he liked you? What were you wearing? Something really sophisticated?”
“Sophisticated?” Mary Anne repeated, startled.
“You know. Cool.”
“I don’t remember, exactly. About what I was wearing, I mean.”
“I just love boys with green eyes, don’t you? Ricky’s eyes are not green.” Karen shrugged. “My grown-up boyfriend will have green eyes and be very handsome and drive a wonderful car.”
“Thirteen-year-olds can’t drive.”
That stopped Karen, but only temporarily. “Maybe my boyfriend will be a much older man. Sixteen. What do you think?”
Remembering Stacey’s crush on an “older man” (her teacher) Mary Anne said, “I don’t think older men are as much fun. I mean, for boyfriends.”
“Really? Well.” Karen raised her voice. “Are you having fun, Andrew?”
Andrew looked surprised by the question. “Yes,” he said impatiently.
“Oh, good. Excellent,” said Karen.
Without realizing it, Mary Anne sighed.
Beside her, after the briefest of pauses, Karen sighed, too.
Mary Anne had never, ever spent very much time with a copycat. It was like playing a weird game of Simon Says.
And it also was, thought Mary Anne, going to be a long afternoon.
“Hey, you!”
I looked up from where I sat on the bench by the softball diamond, re-knotting my cleats into double knots. Just because I’d made the team didn’t mean that I could get slack. What if my shoes came unlaced while I was practicing a big play right in front of Coach Wu?
Tallie and Marcia and another girl, whom I remembered as a left-handed player named Coreen, were standing in front of me. “Hey,” I said.
Tallie raised her voice. “Tonya, Dilys, Bea, could you come over here? Please.”
The way she said please didn’t sound like a request, it sounded like a command. It must have sounded that way to the other three new players on the team, because they hustled over, looking a little apprehensive.
“Your initiation is to spray paint the old shed.” That was Tallie, folding her arms and surveying us coolly.
“Soon,” added Coreen.
“Very soon,” said Marcia.
I looked from one face to the other. They weren’t kidding. Marcia and Tallie and Coreen were dead serious.
“No,” I said.
“Me, neither,” said Dilys. “I mean, no.”
Bea and Tonya didn’t say anything.
“No?” repeated Tallie. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to,” I said.
“And because it’s wrong,” said Dilys. “It’s vandalism.”
Marcia rolled her eyes. “You’re kidding! That old shed? A coat of paint, any kind of paint, would improve it!”
I shook my head.
“Listen,” said Tallie. “I don’t think you understand. This is a team initiation, decided on by the team. Not doing it means you don’t really want to play on our team. Is that what you’re saying?”
“No,” began Dilys, but before she could go any further, the familiar blast of the whistle sounded from the center of the dugout.
“Okay, girls, let’s hustle. Get out there and start warming up!”
Tallie waved her
arm and smiled. “Right, coach,” she called.
She and Marcia and Coreen trotted away, looking every inch the shining examples of team spirit.
Dilys and Tonya and Bea and I looked at one another.
“Girls?” coach called again. “We haven’t got all day. Move it!”
No time to think about it now.
We moved it.
* * *
If I’d thought tryouts were tough, I thought Coach Wu’s practices were tough to the infinite power. I was so tired after the first one that when I lay down to go to sleep at night, all my muscles kept twitching. And my hand, despite the padding of my trusty softball glove, was tender from catching the balls that had been winged into it. Whatever else I might think about the rest of the team, I had to admire their talent and drive. They could play, really play good ball. In one practice, it seemed, I’d already learned a million new things.
But did they have to throw the ball so hard?
Or was that part of the hazing I’d get if I didn’t go along with the initiation?
I turned a little and groaned softly. I had a shiner of a bruise coming up on my knee where a ball had skipped off a rock and creamed me. Huh. They might call them softballs, but when they whacked into your knee at a million miles an hour, there was nothing soft about them.
I’d put ice on it after practice and that had helped.
I’d have to remember to put ice on it tomorrow.
Too bad I couldn’t pack my whole aching body in ice. But it would get better, I told myself, gritting my teeth. As I got in shape and got used to being on the team and playing for Coach Wu, things would get better.
And they did.
At least physically.
By the fourth practice, I had learned to absorb the speed of the balls thrown to me in my glove more efficiently, letting my arm give a little, just as the ball went into the pocket, to take the shock. My reactions were getting faster. And I was getting stronger and smarter about how to play softball.
I should have been feeling pretty terrific. Gigundoly super.
But I didn’t.
Because Tallie and Marcia and Coreen and all — every single one — of the old team members were making it very clear that they weren’t kidding about the initiation plans.
Like Marcia stopping me in the stairwell at school (I felt like I was in some weird scene from Grease) and saying, “Well.”