Me, Mop, and the Moondance Kid

  “I am giving him a target!” Mop yelled back as she picked the ball up again.

  “C'mon, Son.” Dad made a fist and held it up toward Moondance. “Bring it high and tight.”

  I didn't know what that meant, but I saw the next ball go flying outside again.

  “Stand on the other side, TJ.”

  That's what Maria said.

  “No!” That's what I said. Moondance was throwing the balls just where she wanted me to stand.

  “You're not scared of the ball, are you?” Dad asked.

  “No,” I said.

  I went to the other side. I wasn't scared of the ball. I mean, if the ball and me were in a dark room together, I wouldn't be nervous or anything. I was afraid of being hit by the ball.

  Moondance wound up and threw the ball. I dropped the bat and got ready to duck in case it came toward me, but it didn't. It went on the other side.

  “Moondance, are you afraid of hitting him?” Maria got off the bench and started toward us.

  “I don't want to hit anybody,” Moondance said.

  “Don't worry about it, just throw the ball to Hop,” Dad said.

  “That's Mop, M-O-P. “ Mop gave Dad a look.

  “If you just aim for Mop's glove, you won't be that close to him,” Maria said. “You can almost do it with your eyes closed.”

  I got away from the plate. He wasn't throwing the ball at me with his eyes closed.

  “Just keep your eye on the glove,” Sister Carmelita said. “Take your time.”

  Moondance looked at Mop's glove and kept his eyes right on it. He wound up and threw the ball again.

  Zip¡

  Fast as anything, but outside. I think they were right. He didn't want to hit me.

  Then Dad caught and Mop got up to bat. Same thing. Moondance didn't want to throw the ball near anybody.

  Dad said he would talk to him and I saw Moondance look a little sad. Sometimes Dad says things that sound good, or at least okay, but deep down you know they're not. He said he would talk to Moondance, that everything would be okay. But you could tell by the way he said it that he wasn't happy with the way Moondance pitched. I could tell it and Moondance could tell it too.

  It's bad when you mess up and people aren't happy with you. Like when I missed the fly ball and everybody on the team threw their gloves down. But I think it's even worse when you do something good, like Moondance did, and somebody isn't happy with you because you didn't do it good enough. Especially when that somebody is your dad.

  Still, Sister Carmelita had helped Moondance a little, and we didn't even know that Peaches was going to help too.

  When we got home, Dad got out all these pictures of him playing baseball. He looked great. I imagined myself doing some of the things he did.

  WILLIAMS'S HOMER SPURS ASU WIN¡

  “That's when we won the national championship,” Dad said. “We made every paper in the state of Arizona every day that week!”

  “That's where I first met him,” Mom said. “All he ever talked about then was playing baseball. All he ever did was play baseball too. I think he married me because I could keep score.”

  Then he showed us the pictures of himself when he played for Kansas City.

  “It must be hard to be a great baseball player,” I said.

  “Sometimes,” Dad said. “It's even harder not to be a great ballplayer.”

  t wasn't even seven-thirty when Mom woke us up on Monday.

  “We have a visitor!” she said. “Get dressed as quickly as you can!”

  I got dressed first and started helping Moondance look for his sneakers.

  “Mom seemed upset,” I said.

  “I heard Dad leave for work.” Moondance was looking under the bed even though I had just looked for his sneakers there.

  “Look in the closet.”

  “They're not there,” he said.

  “So where are they?”

  “I don't know.”

  “Then how do you know they're not in the closet?”

  “I just know.”

  I looked in the closet and found them. He smiled his stupid little smile and a moment later we went out to see who our visitor was.

  “I want to ask you boys one question,” Sister Marianne said. “And I want you to look me right in the eye and answer me truthfully.”

  “I'm sure the boys will answer you honestly,” Mom said.

  “Do either of you know where Taffy is?”

  Sister Marianne looked at us one at a time.

  Moondance said he didn't know, and I said I didn't know.

  “How long has the llama been missing?” Mom asked.

  “When I woke this morning some of the younger children at the Academy informed me that she was gone,” Sister Marianne said. “I spoke to Sister Carmelita, who was all wide eyes and wonder but I was not—I repeat— not satisfied.”

  “Did you ask Mop?” Moondance asked.

  “I asked Miss Olivia Parrish and she, too, was wide-eyed and full of wonder.”

  “Mop?” Moondance squinched up his nose.

  “I didn't believe it either,” Sister Marianne said. “The animal-protection people were to take the llama away today, and now it has mysteriously disappeared!”

  “Would you care for coffee?” Mom asked Sister Marianne.

  Sister Marianne said no, that she had to go to Newark on church business. “But FU be back tomorrow evening and we'll get to the bottom of this, I assure all and sundry.”

  She left and we had to eat breakfast before going out to look for Mop. We had to know where Taffy was.

  We found Mop at the Academy. She was oiling her glove. Not her catcher's mitt, which really belonged to the team, but her other glove. It was old, and beat up, and the strings were so messed up, you couldn't catch with it anyway.

  “So I wake up and Taffy's gone,” Mop says. She was chewing some grape bubble gum and you could smell it. “Sister Marianne told you that, right?”

  “Right. You got any more bubble gum?”

  “She tell you that Peaches is gone too?” She pulled a piece of bubble gum out of her pocket, broke it in half, and gave Moondance a piece and put the other piece into her mouth.

  “He leave a note or something?”

  “Uh-uh.” Mop shook her head. “Nothing. You know what I think? I think he took Taffy and he's got her hid some place. You know what else I think?”

  “What?”

  “That if we don't find her soon, they're gonna make llama chops out of her.”

  “Get out of here,” I said.

  I knew she didn't mean that, because she didn't look really worried or anything.

  We got ready for the game with the Hawks. We had to win to get into the play-offs.

  At the field Maria was having everybody doing stretching exercises. Mop told her what had happened about Taffy.

  I was a little worried. Because if they were going to let the animal-protection people take Taffy, that meant the Academy was just about ready to close. Also, Sister Marianne was going to Newark for something. Maybe that was about the Academy closing too. I didn't say anything to Mop, though.

  Okay, the game started with us up first. We scored six runs in the first inning. Six runs. Brian was supposed to start the game, but after we scored six runs Maria told Frank to pitch. Frank's a really nice kid—he just looks mean. Also he gets really mad if you get a hit when he's pitching.

  ‘Just let them hit the ball,” Maria said. “Don't let them walk.”

  Their first two batters walked. But the next two struck out. The next guy tried to bunt and Mop threw him out at first. End of the first inning. Us 6, them zippo-rooni.

  Second inning. We scored no runs and they scored one run. Score: us 6 and them 1.

  Third inning. We scored nothing. They scored one. Score after three innings: us 6 and them 2.

  Fourth inning. Joey struck out and Frank struck out. Then Mop hit a double and Brian hit a ball over the left-field fence. Everybody was going crazy jum
ping up and down. I looked over at the Hawks’ bench and you know who was there talking to their coach? Mr. Treaster from the Eagles¡

  They didn't score anything. We were ahead 8 to 3.

  Fifth inning. Chrissie, Moondance, and Evans all grounded out to the pitcher, so we didn't score. In the bottom of the fifth Frank walked the first three guys up. Then the next ball got hit to Brian. Brian threw the ball to Mop and we got the runner coming in from third base. Then they had two new kids who I had never seen play before. They were huge and they were twins.

  “These kids on your roster?” Maria asked the Hawks’ coach.

  “Sure,” he said, “they were just out of town for a while.”

  The first kid gets up and hits a line drive right to Brian. That ball was hit so hard, even I jumped. Brian caught it, but I saw him rub his hand afterward.

  I backed up at third.

  The other kid, the first big kid's twin, struck out. It was still 8 to 3 with one more inning to go.

  “Hey, you see those big kids they got?” Evans asked Maria.

  “I'd like to see if they were really on his roster from the beginning of the season,” Maria said.

  “They looked like the monster twins from the Planet Ugly!” Chrissie said.

  “That's the first smart thing I've ever heard you say,” Brian said.

  “You think that's what they look like?” Chrissie asked. She had this little smile on her face again.

  “Exactly,” Brian said.

  “That's because you probably come from there too,” Chrissie said, putting on a batting helmet.

  Brian went after Chrissie, but Maria got to him before he got to Chrissie. They argued some more, but I wasn't watching them. Mop was pointing at the fence down near the foul line. I looked and saw Peaches leaning on the top of the fence. He waved to me and I waved back.

  “If he disappeared, it looks like he didn't disappear long,” I said to Mop.

  “I don't see no llama with him,” she said.

  I didn't either.

  I was up first in the sixth and got a hit. It was a slow roller right through the first baseman's legs. I had put a lot of English on that ball. I got to second base so fast it wasn't even funny. Mr. Treaster was yelling something at the umpire. Then they threw the ball to first base and said I was out. They said I hadn't stepped on first base. I guess they were right because nobody on my team argued about it.

  Lo Vinh pinch-hit for Joey and struck out. Then Frank struck out, got mad, and threw his bat all the way across the field. That's why they put him out of the game and Jennifer had to play.

  ‘Okay, now they're trying everything in the book to get us to lose this game,” Maria said. “The Eagles must be pretty worried if their coach is here trying to help another team beat us. Let's just hold them for this one inning, and we're in the play-offs¡ Okay, let's do it!”

  Boy, I was really mad at that Treaster. He kept on talking to Evans, who was playing first base, trying to make him mad. You can make Evans mad easy and then he makes errors.

  Lo Vinh was pitching and the first Hawk got up and hit a ground ball to Brian. Brian got it and threw it to Evans, but it bounced on the ground first and hit Evans on the leg. Evans picked it up and tagged the bag just before their guy got there. One out.

  The next guy hit a fly ball to Moondance and he caught it. Just like it was nothing. He just stood under that ball and caught it the way they do on television. I don't know how come he's my brother and he can do it like that.

  One more out and I was hoping they didn't hit it to me.

  “There's a hard smash down third-base line!” Mike was announcing the game again. “TJ. dives for it¡ It goes off his arm¡ Now it goes off his chest¡ Now it's rolling around!”

  “He ain't running!” I could hear Evans screeching from across the field. I looked up from the ball. The Hawk batter was still standing in the batter's box.

  “That's a foul ball!” he called out.

  “Fair ball!” The umpire was standing right next to me.

  “TJ. picks it up!” Mike was standing almost on top of me shouting in my ear. “The long throw to first … Out!” That was me. I did it.

  We all had to line up and shake the other team's hand the way you do after every game. You don't really shake hands. You kind of slap their hands. Brian wanted to be the first in line and then run to the back of the line so he could do it again, but Maria wouldn't let him.

  “You scouting us?” Maria asked Mr. Treaster when he came over.

  “You got two ball players on that team,” he said. “That Brian kid and the girl behind the plate. You can't beat us with just two players.”

  “Then you didn't have to be here to watch us, did you?” Maria said.

  Mr. Treaster turned on his heel and walked away without looking back.

  “What's wrong with him?” Chrissie asked.

  “I don't know,” Maria said. “Maybe it's what's right with us.”

  “Hey, here comes that weird friend of yours, T.J.,” Brian said, poking me in the side.

  I looked up and saw Peaches headed our way. I started to speak to him but he went right past me and up to Maria.

  “Sister Carmelita said that one of your pitchers needed a little help pitching close to people,” Peaches said. “I think maybe I can help him.”

  Maria looked at Moondance, then at me, and then she turned and looked to where Mr. Treaster was just getting into his car.

  “What did you have in mind?” she asked.

  wo big trucks came on Wednesday and moved some stuff from the Academy. They took all the desks from the third-floor classrooms, and all the blackboards. There were only fourteen kids left at the Academy and late Wednesday the four youngest went in a station wagon to Little Flower in Riverhead.

  Me and Moondance were there when they were packing the kids’ things and getting them in the car. Sister Marianne said it was good that the older kids came back to help the younger ones. Another kid, Keith, had come back to help with the packing too. I didn't like him when he was at the Academy and he still wasn't too cool.

  “You guys like your new parents?” he asked.

  “Yeah, they're nice,” I said. ‘Only they're not new anymore.”

  “Mine are okay,” he said. “They're kind of corny, though.”

  “All parents are corny,” Moondance said. “That's part of their job.”

  “At least we got adopted,” Keith said, nodding toward Mop.

  I just walked away from Keith. Mop was my friend, and nothing in the world was going to change that, ever. It seemed when nobody else in the whole world wanted or cared for us, we wanted and cared for each other, and things like that just didn't go away so easy.

  I went over to where she was getting the kids settled in the back of the station wagon that was going to take them out to Little Flower, their new home.

  “Don't cry, Moppy,” one of the kids was saying. “You can go next time. Okay?”

  “Sure,” Mop nodded and looked away, but not before I saw her red eyes and the tears on her face.

  I rubbed her shoulder. I don't know why, but I did, and she jerked it away.

  She went upstairs before the station wagon left.

  “I imagine you boys are going to stay around for dessert tonight,” Sister Marianne said.

  “No, I don't think so,” I said.

  “TJ.” Sister Marianne took my hands in hers. “I know you're sad about the Academy closing.”

  I looked at her and there were tears in her eyes too.

  “A little,” I said.

  “Just remember that the Lord works in mysterious ways” —she sniffed twice—” His wonders to perform.”

  Sister Carmelita came into the office we were in, saw Sister Marianne, and turned sharply around.

  “Sister Carmelita!” Sister Marianne's voice was so loud, it made Moondance jump.

  Sister Carmelita came back into the room. Mop was waiting outside in the hallway. I looked at her and she turned aw
ay. I figured she was still crying.

  “You know the Little League season is almost over,” Sister Carmelita said, quickly putting the catching mitt behind her back. “There are only a few more practices left …”

  “I suppose it's better than sitting around here moping about the Academy's closing,” Sister Marianne said. “As a matter of fact, I might even join you for today's practice.”

  “That would not be a good idea,” Sister Carmelita said. “Moondance has to practice his pitching and he might not be able to concentrate with you there.”

  “If he can concentrate with all of those children and parents screaming at him from the sidelines, I'm sure that he can concentrate with me just watching him practice,” Sister Marianne said, taking her wallet and keys from the desk.

  Sister Carmelita looked up toward the ceiling. “With all due respect, Sister, he's used to those children and the parents. You always said that we had to make a difference in the lives of the young people at the Academy. And you're a lot different from the others. …”

  Sister Marianne looked at Sister Carmelita for a long while and then put her keys and wallet down on the desk. “If you say so….” she said.

  In a minute Sister Carmelita had us all out and headed down the street.

  We went down toward the park and then Sister Carmelita had us stand near the entrance while she checked back to see if anyone was watching us. Then she scooted us across the street toward Bergen Avenue.

  “What are we going down here for?” Mop asked.

  “You'll see.”

  “Where's Maria?” I asked.

  “Waiting for us.”

  We went down Bergen until we got to Goodman's, an old abandoned department store. It was boarded over and there were graffiti all over the walls. Sister Carmelita looked quickly around, and then opened one of the side doors.

  The inside of the store was spooky and Sister Carmelita stopped and put her hand across my chest.

  “Mrs. Kennedy?”

  “Here!” Maria's voice called out.

  We went forward a little and then a light came on in the back of the store. Sister Carmelita went first and we followed close behind her.

  When we got to the back of the store, we saw that the light was in another room. We went in and saw Maria fixing something on the floor. Peaches was standing near a rack.