Okay, I know it was a dumb thing to say. But Brian wasn’t much help. He fell right on the ground and started laughing himself sick.
“You?” he roared. “You … you … you … pitched?”
T.J. came strolling over with this big, smirky grin on his face. He bent down and tapped Brian on the head. “ ’Scuse me. But did I hear Skinnybones say that he can throw a curve ball?” he asked.
Brian held his stomach and busted out laughing all over again.
T.J.’s smirk got bigger. “Hey, Frankovitch. How’d you like to make a little deal?” he said.
I shook my head and started to walk away. “Nope. Sorry, T.J. No deals. I’m gonna have to tell you what I’ve been telling everybody else today. No matter how hard you beg, I cannot pitch for your team. My coach made me sign a contract.”
Brian let out another wild hoot of laughter. Apparently, the idea of me pitching was a lot more amusing than I thought.
It’s not like I’ve never tried it before. Just last week, I practiced pitching with my dad. It didn’t actually work out that good, though. Most of the balls I threw didn’t make it to the plate. The one that did, beaned my father on the head.
“What kind of stupid pitch do you call that?” Dad yelled.
“That would be my bean ball!” I yelled back.
We packed up our stuff right then and went home. I’m not kidding. The man cannot take a joke.
Anyway, T.J. kept on bugging me and bugging me. “Come on, Alex,” he pleaded. “Just listen to my deal. What have you got to lose?”
By this time a bunch of kids had started to gather.
“Okay. Fine. Tell me your deal, T.J. But make it snappy. It’s almost time for Brian to massage my pitching arm.”
Brian went off in another fit of hysterics.
“All right. Here it is,” said T.J. “Since both of us are such good pitchers, why don’t we have a contest after school to see who’s the best? We’ll even get a couple of kids to be the official umpires. What do you say, Alex? That’ll be fun, don’t you think?”
Oh, geez, what a mess! If I said no, everyone would know I was a liar. But if I said yes, everyone would be able to see how weak I threw. Somehow I had to get out of this.
I hit myself in the head. “Oh, man. I just remembered. My coach told me not to tire my arm out by being in any stupid pitching contests. I’m mostly just supposed to rest it on a velvet pillow. Thank you anyway, though. See ya.”
I started to walk away, but T.J. grabbed me by the shoulders.
“I’m not asking you, Frankovitch. I’m telling you. You get one of your friends, and I’ll get one of mine. They’ll be the umps. I’ll meet you at the Little League field after school. If you don’t show, we’ll all know it’s because you’re a liar and you can’t throw a curve.”
As he turned to leave, he stopped and looked back at me. “Be there, chump.”
After everyone left, I looked down at Brian. He was still on the ground.
I reached out my hand to help him up.
“Thank you, Brian. You were very supportive,” I said dryly.
Brian nodded his head “you’re welcome.” His sides were still hurting from all that laughing.
“Geez, Brian. If you think this is funny, wait until you see my curve ball,” I said.
This time both of us started laughing.
I figured I’d better laugh now while I still had the chance.
chapter six
ALL WOUND UP AND NOWHERE TO THROW
I kept praying that school would last forever that day. But before I knew it, the three o’clock bell rang, and my teacher dismissed the class.
I stayed at my desk until everyone was gone. I just had to think of some reason to stay after school. I had to get out of that pitching contest.
“Mrs. Grayson, how would you like some help cleaning the boards and erasers this afternoon?” I asked hopefully.
“No thanks, Alex. I’ve got a meeting to go to,” she replied.
I tried to act shocked. “Mrs. Grayson, I’m surprised at you!” I said. “You don’t mean you’re going off and leaving this room in this condition, do you? The place looks like a pig sty.”
Mrs. Grayson closed her eyes. “Please, Alex. Don’t start, okay? I’m really in a hurry.”
She tried to usher me out the door, but I kept dragging my feet.
“Yes … well … um … exactly what kind of meeting are you going to, Mrs. Grayson?” I asked. “Maybe I could tag along.”
“It’s a teachers’ meeting, Alex. And you can’t tag along. No students allowed. Now move it. Please. I don’t want to be late.”
Suddenly, my face brightened. “Wait a second, Mrs. G. I’m getting an idea here. Maybe you could sneak me into the meeting. That would be kinda fun, don’t you think? That way, if things get boring, you and I could play tic-tac-toe in the back of the room.”
Mrs. Grayson narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Alex? Is there some reason that you don’t want to leave school today? Are you in some sort of trouble?”
“Trouble? Me? Oh, no, Mrs. Grayson. Not me. No trouble here. Nope. None at all. Zero trouble. Honest. I was just trying to make your meeting a little more fun, that’s all.”
“Well, thank you anyway,” she said. “But I’ll be fine. Really.”
Reluctantly, I stood up. “All righty, then,” I said. “I guess I’ll just let you be on your way. That is, unless you’d like me to wait until your meeting’s over so I can help you with the boards … which I wouldn’t mind doing at all, Mrs. Grayson. ’Cause that’s the kind of guy I am. Like right this minute, if you were to say, ‘Sit down and wait till my meeting’s over,’ that’s exactly what I would do, Mrs. G. I would sit down right here and I would …”
Mrs. Grayson put her hands over her ears. “GO HOME, ALEX!” she blurted out.
So that was pretty much that.
I went home and got my ball and glove.
Then I called Brian and told him to meet me at the Little League field. It made me sick to have to go through with this, but there was just no way out.
By the time I got to the field, everyone was already there. And, when I say everyone, I mean everyone. About a million kids were standing around waiting for me to make a big fool of myself.
“Hey, Frankovitch!” shouted T.J. when he saw me coming. “For a minute there, we didn’t think you were going to show. What took you so long? Were your pants on fire?”
I think this was his way of calling me a liar again.
“The only thing smokin’ is my pitching arm,” I shot back.
Why I said that, I’ll never know.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” he said. “I brought along a catcher. And he’ll be catching for both of us.”
I looked over at the kid in the catcher’s mask. It was Hank Grover, one of T.J.’s best friends.
“Oh, no. No way, T.J.,” I protested. “If you get your own catcher, I should get my own catcher, too.”
T.J. rolled his eyes. “What difference does it make who catches? The catcher isn’t going to call balls or strikes. The umpires are going to do that. Besides, Frankovitch, none of your little moron friends knows how to catch.”
Man, did that ever make me mad! Insulting my friends like that. I probably should have left right then and there. But there was one tiny little problem. He was right. None of my little moron friends can catch.
“Okay,” T.J. continued, “here’s how it’ll work. We’re each going to pitch ten balls. Your umpire and my umpire will stand together behind the plate. Then, as each ball is thrown, they’ll decide whether it’s a strike or a ball. And to make it fair, the umpires have to agree on every call. If they can’t agree, the pitcher takes the whole thing over again. That sounds fair, right?”
By this time my stomach was tying itself in knots. All I wanted to do was go home.
“Yeah, I guess,” I mumbled.
T.J. took a dime out of his pocket. “We’ll flip to see who gets to pitch f
irst,” he said.
For a second, I saw a way out. “Oh, geez. Sorry, T.J. I guess we won’t be able to have this contest after all. I never learned how to flip. I can do a somersault, but that’s about it. Well, it was nice seeing you. Ta-ta.”
T.J. grabbed me by the shirt. He held me while he threw the dime in the air and let it fall to the ground.
“Call it,” he ordered.
I looked at the dime and started to whistle. “Here, dime … here, boy,” I called.
T.J. didn’t smile. “Cut the crap, Alex. I mean it. Now, I’m going to throw this up one more time and …”
I made a sick face. “You’re going to throw up? Right here? Right now? That’s disgusting. Really, T.J., I want no part of this.”
His grip tightened on my shirt.
“Heads or tails?”
I called tails.
It was heads.
Not a good sign.
“Okay, I won the toss, so I’ll go first,” said T.J.
He took his ball and glove to the pitcher’s mound.
T.J.’s umpire, Eddie Fowler, and my umpire, Brian, took their places behind home plate. I hated to admit it, but having two umpires really did seem pretty fair. The trouble was, it was almost too fair. If I was going to stand a chance, I would definitely need a little help from my good old pal, Brian (if you get my drift).
I called him over for a last-minute chat.
“Okay, listen, Brian,” I said, “just because T.J. Stoner happens to be the best pitcher that anyone has ever seen, that doesn’t mean that he’s perfect. So whatever you do, don’t be afraid to call any of his pitches a ball. Any pitch at all, I mean. Like even if it’s right over the plate, for instance, and you just feel like saying the word ball … then go ahead and say ball. You’re the umpire, right? You can say whatever you want to. And please keep in mind that I will be glad to pay you fifty cents for every ball you call.”
Just then, I heard T.J.’s voice from the mound. “Hey, Alex, don’t even think about getting Brian to cheat for you. I told him before you got here that if I caught him cheating, he’d go home without his head.”
Brian patted my shoulder. “Sorry, Alex. But my head and I have grown sort of attached over the years.”
T.J. called out again. “Okay, I’m ready! Let’s go!”
I gulped. Ready? He was ready … already?
I yelled back. “Wait! Aren’t you going to take some practice pitches first? I thought we were going to get practice pitches!”
T.J. smirked. “You can take them if you need to, Frankovitch. But I’m ready to go.”
Just then, he went into his windup. Some kids look dumb when they’re winding up. But I swear, T.J. looked just like Greg Maddux.
He threw.
The ball hit the catcher’s mitt at about sixty miles an hour. But even worse, it hit his glove exactly in the center.
“Strike one!” shouted both umpires together.
T.J. didn’t even blink. He just got ready and threw the next pitch.
“Strike two!” shouted the umpires again.
This time, T.J. looked over in my direction and smiled. I leaned down and pretended I was tying my shoe so I wouldn’t have to look at him.
“What’s the matter, Alex?” he said. “Is the ball flying by so fast that it untied your little sneakers?”
He threw his third pitch. Perfect, again. The guy was making me totally sick. Every single pitch he threw went whizzing directly over the plate. The catcher never even had to move a muscle. Ten straight pitches … ten straight strikes.
T.J. walked off the mound cool as anything. He tossed me the ball.
“Okay, Skinnybones. Let’s see your curve,” he said.
As T.J. sat down on the sidelines, Brian came over to wish me luck.
I glared at him. “What’s the matter, did you forget how to say the word ‘ball’?”
“Oh, get off it, Alex,” he said. “All his pitches were perfect. You really didn’t expect me to cheat, did you?”
I just glared at him. “I’ll remember how you feel about cheating the next time I feel you tapping me on the back during a math test,” I snapped.
After that, I picked up my glove and slowly walked out to the pitcher’s mound. Really slowly, I mean. As in slow motion, practically.
The thing is, if you walk slow enough, there’s always a chance that the unexpected could happen. Like a tornado could pop up and carry off the spectators, for instance. Or there could be a total eclipse of the sun, perhaps.
But unfortunately, this time nothing happened at all. When I got to the mound, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
There was no weaseling out of it now. I took a deep breath and turned around.
My heart stopped. Geez! It was farther to home plate than I remembered! There was no way I could throw strikes from that far! No way!
The umpires lined up behind home plate, and the catcher got set.
“Are you ready yet, Skinnybones? Or do you need to practice?” yelled T.J. mockingly.
Aha! A perfect opportunity to stall for time.
I walked off the mound and headed for T.J. on the sidelines. Then I stood on my tiptoes and tried to look him in the eye.
“Okay, this name-calling has got to stop, T.J.,” I said, trying to sound tough. “For your information, there is nothing skinny about my bones. They are just regular normal bones, okay? So I would appreciate it if you would stop calling me that stupid name.”
T.J. grabbed hold of my arm and held it up next to his.
“If your bones aren’t skinny,” he said, “then why is my arm so much bigger than yours?”
“Your bones are chub-ettes,” I told him.
T.J.’s eyes started getting real squinty. I hurried back out to the mound before he could pound me.
After that, I stood there a while trying to remember how to begin my windup.
Which do I lift first … my left leg or my right leg? And then what? Is there a hop involved? Or a skip? Or a jump?
Pretty soon some of the kids started yelling for me to get started. I swallowed hard and pulled my glove back toward my chest. Then I stared at the catcher’s mitt and raised my left leg high in the air. Unfortunately, I lost my balance and started hopping all over the place.
Both of the umpires totally cracked up. The catcher fell right over in the dirt laughing.
“Time out!” I yelled. “No fair! Interference by the umpires and the catcher! They’re not allowed to laugh! Laughing is very distracting!”
For once in his life, T.J. agreed with me. He went over and tried to get the three of them to calm down. But still, it took a few minutes before they finally got themselves under control.
Once again, I went into my windup. I pulled my glove back to my chest, raised my left leg high into the air, hopped around a little, and let it fly.
Well, maybe fly is the wrong word. Mostly what it did was bounce and skip in the dirt. But the good news was, eventually it rolled directly over the plate.
Whoa, not bad, Alex, old boy! I thought. At least you’ve got it aimed in the right direction!
“Ball one!” shouted both umpires together.
I shrugged my shoulders and walked off the mound.
“Okie-doke. Well, I guess that’s it, T.J.,” I said. “I lost. One little mistake on my first curve ball and it’s all over. There’s no way I can win now. I can’t even tie. It’s really a shame, too. That’s probably the only bad pitch I’d have thrown all day.”
T.J. grabbed me by the shirt again. “Oh, no, you don’t, Frankovitch,” he said. “You have nine more balls to throw. We had a deal, remember? Ten pitches. Now get back to that mound and we’ll just see how good you are.”
I took a deep breath. There was no sense trying to argue with him. He was going to make me do it no matter what.
Slowly I turned around and headed back.
There’s still hope, Alex. Just throw it a little higher. That’s all you need to do. Just a couple of good solid
strikes, and you won’t end up looking like a complete idiot.
My heart was beating faster than ever. I took a deep breath and got ready to throw my second pitch. My windup was the same, but something terrible happened when I started to throw. As I brought the ball behind my head, it slipped out of my fingers and rolled to second base.
The catcher fell in the dirt laughing again. Brian did, too. His mouth formed the words “Ball two,” but nothing came out.
By this time I felt totally sick. All I wanted to do was get the whole thing over with so I could go home and die. I got the ball, wound up again, and threw my third pitch as hard as I could.
T.J. was watching from the sidelines. The ball hit him smack in the forehead.
What d’ya know … my old bean ball was back.
I couldn’t keep from grinning. “STRIKE ONE!” I shouted out.
T.J. ran out to the mound and gave me a shove. “What do you mean, strike one?”
I pointed at the red bump forming on his head. “Well, it struck you, didn’t it?” I asked.
T.J. shoved me again. “Yeah? Well, let’s see how you like being struck, Skinnybones,” he said.
Then he punched my arm as hard as he could. And he kept doing it again and again. Right in the same spot.
“Just remember what this feels like the next time you think about hitting someone with a baseball,” he said.
My arm was killing me, but in a way I felt sort of flattered. T.J. actually thought I had been aiming for his head and had hit my target. I mean, when you think about it, it was a pretty nice compliment.
Anyway, it was clear by now: the contest was over. I couldn’t have pitched again if I’d wanted to. My arm hung limp at my side like it had croaked or something. I checked to see if it was bleeding, but no such luck. I hate that, by the way. When something hurts as bad as my arm did, the least it could do is bleed a little.
As T.J. walked away from the field, his friends followed him. Most of them were patting him on the shoulder and raving about what a great pitcher he was.
If anyone had patted my shoulder, my entire arm would have fallen right off into the dirt.