Mascot

  “This pitch-off,” Alyssa replies, giving me a hard stare, “is justice. If no one stands up to Logan, he’ll never learn.”

  By “no one,” I figure she means me. “Well, I don’t think getting humiliated is going to teach us much. And you never should’ve said I’d play catcher.”

  “Who else was I supposed to pick? Logan’s teammates would cheat so that he wins.”

  “I don’t think they’d need to cheat for that to happen,” says Dee-Dub.

  She scowls at him, but it looks fake. If anything, she seems to find the idea of losing kind of funny. Which is very confusing. And suspicious.

  “Trust me, Noah,” she says. “This is going to be fun.”

  “Fun” isn’t the word I’d use, and it shouldn’t be the word she uses either. But what Alyssa lacks in baseball experience, she more than makes up for in smarts.

  And as Mom is always reminding me: brains can be dangerous too.

  9

  Pitching a Fit

  If my life were a movie, the director would fast-forward twenty minutes to Logan and Alyssa’s pitch-off. Viewers would find me in my wheelchair on the blacktop, warming up by catching lightning quick fastballs. They’d think, Wow, Noah got outside really quickly! Or maybe they wouldn’t think about the whole getting-outside thing at all.

  Unfortunately, my life is not a movie.

  In reality, this is what happens: I reverse from the cafeteria table, rotate ninety degrees, and begin my tortuous journey through the labyrinth of scattered chairs. From time to time, I bump into one, and the chair leg squeaks loudly against the tile floor and kids look up accusingly. When they realize the perpetrator is me, they look away again quickly. And the whole time, Alyssa hovers nearby. I can tell she wants to help, but she knows I have to do this alone.

  It doesn’t get much better when we leave the cafeteria. The elevator is only ten yards away, but it’s ancient, and Murphy’s Law says it’s stuck on one of the other floors. Dee-Dub taps his foot impatiently as we wait. When the door finally opens, he says, “Twenty-five seconds. That’s remarkably slow.”

  No kidding.

  Wellspring Middle School was built almost a hundred years ago, back when people thought it was a good idea for schools to have three floors and a flight of ten steep concrete steps leading to the ornate main entrance . . . on the second floor. This means I spend a lot of time in the elevator and even more time waiting for it.

  Alyssa and Dee-Dub aren’t allowed to ride with me, so I have to take the half-minute journey to the first floor alone. When the doors finally open, I find Alyssa and Dee-Dub staring at their watches like they’re afraid time has stalled. I often wonder the same thing myself.

  On the bright side, it’s only twenty yards, two wheelchair ramps, and one electric door until we’re outside, where the real punishment can begin.

  We might have a fancy main entrance, but like most St. Louis Public Schools, Wellspring Middle doesn’t have a field, so Logan waits for us on the blacktop. While Alyssa warms up her arm, I wheel over to him.

  “Uh, Logan,” I say in a voice that sounds higher than usual, “my PT says I’m not allowed to, you know, catch baseballs.”

  “Whatever.” He reaches into the bag at his feet and pulls out a catcher’s mask and glove. “You’ll be safe with these.”

  A crowd is gathering. I can’t tell if they’re here for the competition or because they want to see me get beaned again—with a real baseball this time! I really want to leave, but I don’t want to let Alyssa down.

  Sweat runs into my eyes behind the smelly mask. It’s sweltering on the blacktop. As he shuffles over, Dee-Dub seems to be suffering even more than me.

  “Are those gargoyles?” he asks, pointing to the corners of the old brick building.

  “Believe it or not, yes,” I say. “You should see them when it rains.”

  “Why?”

  “Five years ago, some of the graduating class climbed on the roof and rerouted the gutters. Now the rainwater sprays out from between the gargoyles’ legs. Nothing says ‘Welcome to Wellspring’ like a whizzing gargoyle, you know.”

  “You two done making out yet?” Logan shouts. “Let’s get this started.”

  Logan wins the coin toss and pitches first. Standing in the middle of the blacktop, right arm raised, left leg cocked, he uncoils his body and whips the baseball right at me. Alyssa swings the bat with a satisfying but useless swoosh, and the ball embeds itself in my glove.

  “Stee-rike!” yells Logan, pumping his fist in the air.

  My bones feel like they’ve been crushed. Still, I’m surprised at how natural it felt to catch the ball.

  “Remind me how this is going to punish Logan?” I stage-whisper to Alyssa.

  “Shh! I’m concentrating.”

  I toss the ball back to Logan, but my aim is way off. He runs to retrieve it. “At least you can still catch!” he shouts. “Well, except in kickball.”

  Alyssa gives me a warning look. “Ignore him,” she says. “We let our play do the talking.”

  I seriously doubt that, but I nod anyway. I’m definitely feeling motivated to up my game. If I don’t, I might get pasted again. I wonder which is worse: getting hit by a solid object at high speed or by a poop-smeared rubber kickball.

  Logan winds up and pitches a laserlike fastball that’s in my glove before Alyssa even begins her swing.

  “Strike two!” Logan crows.

  Alyssa takes the ball from me and lobs it back to him. She seems very relaxed for someone who’s about to be struck out on consecutive pitches.

  Logan’s about to throw the same pitch again. I can see it in his eyes. I bet Alyssa can see it too. Trouble is, she doesn’t stand a chance of hitting it.

  Sure enough, he flings the ball, and she swings the bat, and like opposing magnets, the two never meet. The pitch is so high it wouldn’t be called a strike, but she has swung and missed.

  “Strikeout!” Logan blows on his hand like he’s trying to cool it off.

  Alyssa hands me the bat. “My turn,” she says.

  Dee-Dub sidles up to me. “Has Alyssa ever batted before?” he asks. “Because I’ve got to say, she really whiffed.”

  He retreats as Logan jogs over to me and takes the bat. “You can relax now, Savino,” Logan says. “I’m not going to let this ball get anywhere near your glove.”

  He gets into his batter’s stance, knees slightly bent, bat raised over his right shoulder. The crowd is large now, and Logan loves it. Even Mrs. Friendly has emerged from inside the building to watch the duel. It’s like she’s got radar that detects athletic competition within a mile radius.

  As Alyssa winds up, Logan adjusts his grip. He’s usually impatient at the plate—it’s his biggest weakness—but not today. He’s so confident, he doesn’t even twitch a muscle until Alyssa releases the ball. He wants to get a read on it. End this contest with a single swing.

  The ball flies from her hand quicker than I expect, but it’s on a collision course with the blacktop. Logan doesn’t swing because he doesn’t need to. He just watches as it lands a yard in front of him, ricochets off the ground, shoots up, and cracks against the outside of his left knee.

  Logan drops the bat and grabs his knee. Hops up and down on his right leg, growling something strange and definitely rude.

  “Oopsy!” Alyssa calls out.

  Logan, tired of hopping, lowers his left leg and tries to put weight on it. Which is not a good idea, because he topples over and lands on his hip.

  “Arrrgh!” he screams, rolling around. “What the heck!”

  As Logan’s shocked teammates watch their fallen leader, Dee-Dub crouches beside me. “That was a surprisingly effective pitch,” he says.

  “Sure was,” I reply.

  I figure Alyssa will be giving high fives to everyone in sight, but she isn’t. She’s a picture of innocence as she watches Logan writhing on the ground.

  But as she turns away and heads for the school building, she looks over at
Dee-Dub and me. And in the moment before she goes inside, she winks.

  She actually winks.

  “Wow,” I say. “I think Alyssa took out Logan on purpose.”

  “She’s like a black-and-yellow-striped ninja assassin,” says Dee-Dub admiringly. “I advise that we stay on her good side from now on.”

  That might just be the most sensible thing he’s said.

  10

  Doubling Down

  After school, I sit outside the main entrance and wait for Mom to pick me up. She’s not usually late, and it’s still baking hot. I can’t complain, though. She could make me take the school bus to and from school, which would mean waking up half an hour earlier every day. Since school starts at seven a.m. and I’m a big fan of sleep, that would be a disaster.

  So here I am, roasting in my black wheelchair, sweat pooling around my butt, when Logan emerges from the school. As usual, he’s not alone.

  “Noah!” He grunts my name like it’s a cuss word and hobbles over. There’s a big red welt on the outside of his left knee. “Did you tell Alyssa to do this to me?”

  I put on a confused face. “Do what to you, Logan?”

  “Try to break my leg.”

  “Nope.” I press my lips tight together. “I told her to aim for your balls.”

  Logan’s teammates snicker but shut up real quick when he glares at them.

  “Hi, Logan!” Alyssa calls out. “Are you feeling any better?”

  Logan, teeth gritted, watches her wheel her bike toward us. She has spray-painted the frame matte black, but the mean-machine look is undone by the star-spangled tassels dangling from the handlebars. At least her bright-yellow helmet color coordinates with her bumblebee T-shirt.

  “Seems like you and me have some unfinished business, Choo,” he mutters.

  “You and I,” she says, correcting him. “Grammar is so important, Logan. Especially now that your baseball career is over.”

  Logan makes a strange growling sound. “You’re pathetic. You didn’t even try to win fair.”

  “The way I see it,” she says, “a tie is like a win.”

  “A tie? You hit me! That’s an automatic base.”

  “But you didn’t touch first base.”

  “Because there wasn’t one!”

  “An oversight, for sure,” she agrees.

  Logan’s teammates know better than to laugh again, but I can’t help myself. Logan eyeballs me, but I still can’t stop. I don’t know if Alyssa has a future in baseball, but when it comes to a battle of wits, she’s schooling Logan.

  “If you’d given me a real pitch,” Logan spits, “I would’ve hit it out of the city.”

  Alyssa frowns. “On one leg?”

  “I wouldn’t be on one leg if you hadn’t struck me.”

  “I don’t think it was technically a strike. But it was certainly an effective pitch, if I do say so myself.”

  Logan is literally hopping mad now. “I want a rematch!” he shouts.

  Alyssa looks like she’s caught a whiff of a Flub special. “Why would I do that?”

  “You won’t,” he sneers. “’Cause you’re a joke with a loud mouth and no arm!”

  For a moment, there’s total silence. Logan has always been hot-tempered—his competitive streak is so strong that almost everything boils down to winning and losing—but this time he has crossed a line.

  “Back off, Logan,” I say, wheeling between them. I crane my neck to make eye contact. He looks especially big up close. “You got hit by a pitch. Happens all the time in the big leagues. Not that you’d know anything about that.”

  He snorts. “Says the kid who can’t even play.”

  My hands are shaking. “Oh, yeah? So, how’d last season go without me catching for you?”

  I can tell by his reaction that I’ve hit a nerve. I wonder what annoys Logan more: that his Little League team lost more games once I stopped playing for them or that his pitching was part of the problem.

  “You think you’re that important, huh?” he fires back. “Then let’s have a rematch. Maybe your amazing catching can help your girlfriend pitch straight.”

  I turn red. I don’t mean to. It just happens, and I can’t look at Alyssa anymore. Will people think I’m trying to protect her if I back down from Logan? Will she think so?

  “Fine,” I say. “You’re on. You can have your stupid rematch.”

  Everyone is still watching us, and no one is speaking. But as I look into the stunned faces of my former teammates blinking against the bright sunshine, I get the feeling they’re not all on Logan’s side anymore. Justin and Carlos even turn away, shaking their heads.

  “You better start practicing, Choo,” Logan says as he lopes away, his posse in dribs and drabs behind him.

  I peer up at Alyssa. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I—I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

  She flicks the brake levers on her bike. “It was a little cruel of you, Noah,” she murmurs. “I mean, just look at the poor boy. He’s got only one good leg. Imagine how he’s going to feel when I hit the other one.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “How else are we going to beat him?”

  “I was thinking we could try practicing. Like, a lot.”

  She swings a leg over her bike and clicks her helmet strap closed. “Suits me. How about Friday? Five thirty at your house.”

  “Uh, sure.”

  Are we really teaming up to take on Logan? It feels a little crazy but also kind of cool. And if we can pull it off, it’d be legendary.

  “Hey, Alyssa,” I say as she prepares to pedal away. “Did you hit Logan on purpose?”

  She lowers both feet to the ground. “It’s complicated. See, I meant to hit him, but I was aiming for his foot. The pitch kind of got away from me.”

  “You do know that hitting the batter is bad, right?”

  “You just said it happens all the time in the major leagues.”

  “Well, yeah, but . . . that’s different. They’re retaliating. Or trying to make a point. Or . . . or something.”

  “I was retaliating, and I was making a point,” she says, eyes twinkling. “And so were you when you agreed to the rematch. Now we just need to make it count.”

  Mom pulls up to the curb and brakes hard. She hops out of the minivan and notices that I’m not alone. “Oh, hello, Alyssa,” she says.

  “Hi, Mrs. Savino.”

  “You’re not taking the bus these days?”

  Alyssa raps her knuckles against the helmet. “I like fresh air.” Then she stands on the pedals and sets off in the direction of her house, a couple blocks away from mine.

  Mom watches her go. “I’m sorry I’m late, honey,” she says. “I tried to get away, but there was a problem at the store, and—”

  “It’s okay, Mom. Really.”

  She wrings her hands, anxious to explain how guilty she feels. Me, I’m ready to get out of here. I didn’t mind everyone seeing me stand up to Logan, but I’m not super excited about having spectators as I get bundled into our minivan.

  I glance over Mom’s shoulder as she wraps her arms around me. Sure enough, several pairs of eyes are trained on me. Then everyone looks away like they’re ashamed for having stared. Or maybe they’re just embarrassed that I noticed.

  Mom heaves me into the van and shuts the panel door. Once my wheelchair is tucked away in the back, she takes her place in the driver’s seat. “Thanks for understanding,” she says. “I try not to be late, but I’m the assistant manager, you know? I feel bad tweaking everyone’s schedules all the time.”

  “It’s okay,” I tell her, because it still beats taking the bus. Plus, if she was working, it means she wasn’t hanging out with Mr. Dillon again. “Actually, I’m glad you were at the store.”

  She eyes me in the rearview mirror. “Where else would I be?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. . . . Hanging out with Mr. Dillon, maybe.”

  She presses her lips into a thin line. “What’s your problem w
ith Mr. Dillon?”

  I can’t believe she’s asking me that. Not when the answer is as obvious as the empty passenger seat beside her. I can still picture Dad sitting there. Sometimes he’d turn around and wiggle his left ear, like his entire face was made of rubber. It made me laugh when I was younger and roll my eyes when I got to middle school. But I wouldn’t roll my eyes if he were here with us now. I’d wrap my arms around him and make sure he never left us.

  Can Mom still picture him too?

  “Please, Noah,” she says. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.”

  I take a deep breath. “I just hate being left alone,” I blurt out.

  Okay, that’s pathetic. And it’s not even true. After Mom went out with Mr. Dillon the other evening, our neighbor Kathy came over and talked to me for twenty minutes before I could get rid of her. But feeling guilty is Mom’s kryptonite, so I need to lay it on thick.

  “I’m sorry,” she says softly. “Kathy’s not the greatest company these days, huh?”

  “Not exactly, no. Neither is Flub.”

  She chuckles, which means I must be winning. So I swallow hard and smile right back.

  “You deserve better company,” she says.

  “Definitely.”

  She starts the engine. “That’s why Makayla’s coming around this evening.”

  “Uh-huh. . . . Wait. What?”

  “There’s a pregame event for Cardinals employees at Busch Stadium tonight,” she explains. “Mr. Dillon asked me to go with him. So I told him that Makayla should keep you company. I think you two are going to get along great!”

  Mom’s smile, which had morphed from sad to happy, now appears positively ecstatic.

  Mine, not so much.

  Just as Alyssa threw a freaky pitch this afternoon, I think Mom just dealt me a curve ball. And like Logan Montgomery, I never saw it coming.

  11

  Reasons Not to Have a Little Sister

  Makayla Dillon is in fourth grade. She tells me so almost as soon as she walks through the door. She also says she’s the reigning class spelling bee champion and fastest kid in her entire grade. That’s when Mr. Dillon shushes her. I don’t know if it’s because he doesn’t approve of bragging or because he thinks I might not like hearing about girls with supercharged legs when I can’t even stand up without help.