Soar

  The new heart I got was from a fourteen-year-old girl who died in a bike accident in California. I had to wait for eleven months and seventeen days to get a close match. I wanted to know her name so I could write to her parents and tell them I was taking good care of their daughter’s heart. Dr. Feinberg said no.

  Well, I’d named my stuffed eagle Baby and my cardiac defibrillator Fred. So I named my new heart.

  I call it Alice.

  Do you know what Alice means? You’re going to love this.

  Noble. Possessing excellent qualities. Grand or impressive. Having a superior mind or character.

  I pat my chest. Alice, get ready. This is going to be an awesome sixty days!

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Walt drives past Chip Gunther’s Sports Store on the corner of Hyland Road and Oakley Avenue. This store has a huge GO HORNETS banner in the window and a giant stinger jutting out from above the door.

  A guy on a red motorcycle races in and out of traffic.

  “Slow down, pal,” Walt says to him under his breath.

  The motorcycle swerves too fast around a corner.

  Finally, we’re on our street, Weldon Road. Walt pulls into the driveway of a small gray wooden house set back from the road and surrounded by trees.

  Swoop. The Eagle has landed.

  I pull down the visor in the car; I look in the mirror at my piercing brown eyes that are on fire with vision, intense determination, and the extreme love of baseball.

  Lopper, I’ve been watching you. You’ve got the moves, you’ve got the heart, you’ve got the courage. I want you to go out there with the best you’ve got and do it . . . for your team, for your family, and for your fans, who are counting on you. It’s all in there, kid. All the hours of practice, all the losses, all the wins. They’ve brought you to this place. Get out there and make it happen!

  “The key’s supposed to be under the mat, Jer.”

  I look in the backseat. “We’re here, Jerwal.”

  He lights up in the box.

  I get out of the car. I can hear the music from the stadium. I do the robot dance up the path, driving my shoulder down toward the ground. I move to the left and stop, to the right and stop. Jerwal and I do this together sometimes. I can see a woman looking at me from the window of the house next door. I jerk my head and freeze. She leaves the window.

  It takes time to get used to me.

  Walt is lugging our suitcases to the porch. “Under the mat, Jer.”

  I look under the mat. No key. I try the door handle. Locked.

  Shoulders up, shoulders down.

  We walk into the little backyard. No mat at the back door. This door is locked, too. The deck has broken steps and a sign: DO NOT USE.

  Walt calls the Realtor, leaves a message, but let me tell you, this is a great yard. There’s a little stream running through the back, and a wooden bridge crosses over to rocks so big you can sit on them. I walk across the bridge, plop down on a flat rock.

  This will be an excellent place to sit and think.

  I need to sit a lot.

  But I always work to keep my head in the game.

  Lopper approaches the batter’s box. The crowd is on their feet. He’s got one goal: to hit the ball hard and far. He fixes his mind on that, stays loose. The pitch comes . . .

  “Jer!”

  I get up. “Yeah?”

  “I can’t reach this woman!”

  Walt is referring to the Realtor, but Walt also has a lot of trouble getting a date. He gets so nervous asking women out.

  I walk to the front. Across the street, a girl around my age and a boy a little older are having a fight. There’s a car with bumper stickers parked in their driveway.

  Peace, Love, Baseball.

  You are following one great coach.

  Thou Shalt Respect the Game.

  The license plate reads:

  EL GRANDE

  I like these people. I head to their yard.

  The girl has long brown hair that curls below her shoulders. She is not happy.

  “Bo, I swear, Mom said you need to clean the garage or she’s going to set fire to all your stuff!”

  Bo, the guy, throws a baseball in the air and catches it behind his back. Nice catch.

  “Bo,” she shouts, “do it!”

  He throws the baseball up and away from him and runs to catch it. “Come on, Franny.”

  Her eyes turn from mad to sad. “Do you know what day this is?”

  “Opening day.”

  “Think about it. Four years ago. What happened?”

  Suddenly, Bo’s eyes get sad, too. “Tell Mom I’ll be right there.”

  Franny shouts, “It’s got to be on fire for you to get it!” She heads into the house.

  Bo looks at the screen door slamming shut. “I forgot, okay?” He heads to their garage.

  This might not be the best time to ring the doorbell, but being desperate . . .

  I do ring it.

  No answer.

  I ring again.

  A man shouts, “Get it, Franny!”

  She opens the door. It’s good I’m not like Walt, who drops his phone around pretty females.

  She waits.

  I cough.

  How to introduce this?

  “What?” she says.

  I push my hair out of my face. “Do you have a paper clip?”

  She looks at me like I’m crazy. She’s got greenish eyes.

  “My dad and I just moved across the street, and the Realtor forgot to leave the key.” I stick out my hand; she looks at it. “I’m Jeremiah Lopper. We moved here from St. Louis. I need to break into my house.”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  I straighten out the paper clip. “I saw someone do this on TV. You have to jiggle the point like this.” I jiggle it as Franny looks on. “And then, the door is supposed to open.” I try that. It unlocks.

  Franny looks impressed.

  “It’s good this works,” I tell her, “but am I the only one who’s nervous about how easy it is?”

  She laughs. “I have to go.”

  “It was nice to meet you, Franny. Do you go to the middle school?”

  “Yes.”

  “I start sixth grade on Monday.”

  She studies me. “Sixth grade started in September.”

  “Timing’s not my greatest strength. How old are you?”

  “Twelve,” she whispers.

  “I’m probably twelve, too.”

  She smiles strangely.

  Of course, I could be older. Medical science isn’t always exact.

  “So this middle school—how good is it? I need the truth.”

  She glances at her house. “It’s pretty good. The teachers are okay.”

  “Only okay?”

  “The food in the cafeteria won’t kill you.”

  “Is there a baseball team?”

  “Kind of . . .”

  “What’s a ‘kind of’ baseball team?”

  “Well . . . um . . .” She seems nervous. “Do you play?”

  I hate this question. “Not exactly.”

  “Franny!” An older man stands on the porch and calls her.

  She looks relieved. “Coming.” She runs across the street. She’s fast.

  That could have gone worse.

  It could also have gone better.

  “See you Monday,” I say to her back.

  Where is Walt?

  A dog sits on the lawn next to Franny’s house and looks at me. I whistle low. The dog cocks his head, trying to decide what to do. I cock my head just like the dog, whistle again. The dog stands and almost takes a step forward.

  The old woman next door pokes her head through the bushes. “That dog hasn’t moved since his owner died last
year.”

  The dog has black and white markings like a spaniel. You can do this, dog.

  “Who are you?” the woman asks.

  “I’m Jeremiah Lopper, ma’am. My dad and I just moved here from St. Louis.”

  She pinches up her face. “Penelope Prim.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  I look at the dog. “You can come if you want.”

  The dog leans forward, but doesn’t come.

  Walt walks around from the backyard. “I still can’t get the Realtor.”

  I point to the open door.

  “How do you do these things, Jer?”

  I show him the straightened paper clip.

  He carries his suitcase inside. “I’m grateful you use your gifts for good.”

  Chapter

  6

  HARGIE CANTWELL HAS a sting in his slider. It whizzes and dunks past the batter for the Temple High School Tigers, who stands there, clueless.

  “Strike three!” the umpire calls.

  The crowd in the Hornets’ stadium goes crazy and makes a loud buzzing sound. People wearing Hornets hats shake their heads to make the stingers bounce.

  Hargie’s struck out the last two batters with only seven pitches. That’s impressive. It’s the sixth inning.

  “He’s a big kid,” Walt says, “but he’s going to blow out his arm at those speeds.”

  Walt pitched in college, but his arm didn’t hold up.

  Wham! Another strike.

  Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

  We stand up, we sit down.

  Let’s go, Hornets!

  clap clap

  clap clap clap

  Turns out Hargie Cantwell can hit, too. He sits on a three-one fastball and whacks it into the stands for a two-run homer.

  “That kid is something,” Walt says.

  I grin at Walt. It is so amazing to be here.

  Behind us, two men talk about the Hornets catcher being suspended because he insulted the Spanish teacher. I don’t know if the insult was in Spanish or English, but the principal sent him home for a week, and that meant he couldn’t play on opening day.

  One man says, “You know what that principal told Coach Perkins?”

  “What?”

  “That woman said baseball wasn’t as important as respectful behavior. Can you imagine that?”

  “They’ll remember it when her contract’s up for renewal.”

  Walt and I look at each other.

  I see Franny in the crowd, cheering, twirling a GO HORNETS towel.

  I wish I could play. I used to play when I was little. Third base. Shortstop.

  I’m still hoping medical science is going to figure me out.

  Aunt Charity wanted me to write a three-paragraph essay about that. I didn’t need three paragraphs to talk about it. I only had one thing to say:

  I deal with it.

  The End

  In the margin, she wrote: Jeremiah, you do indeed deal with it. I give you an A+ for courage and an Incomplete on content, which, believe me, is generous.

  I rewrote it in three paragraphs, but I basically said the same thing.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  The Hornets have a huge lead: 11–2. In the final inning Hargie throws his glove down and starts screaming when a kid from the Tigers drives in a run. Hargie is stomping and fuming on the mound like he’s lost the game. The catcher runs up and tries to calm him down; the coach runs up, puts his arm around Hargie, and talks to him for a while. He throws some out-of-control pitches, but then he settles down and finishes the inning. The Hornets win 11–3.

  After the game, I try to find Franny, but she’s disappeared into the crowd. Walt and I stand in line and finally get into Junk Ball Pizza—this is only okay pizza, but it seems to be the place to go after the game. A few of the Hornets come in and people applaud them like superstars. There’s a special booth with a sign: ALWAYS RESERVED FOR COACH PERKINS. No one is sitting there.

  We head home. We pull up our driveway and walk inside the house to the kitchen. Walt leans against the refrigerator. He does this when his back hurts. He straightens himself against the door.

  A loud motorcycle goes down the street; we hear what sounds like our neighbor Mrs. Prim shout, “Hargie Cantwell, if you don’t slow down on that blasted thing, you’ll kill yourself or somebody else!”

  “I guess it’s hard to come down from a big game like that, Walt.”

  Walt rubs his lower back. “That guy is wound too tight.”

  Chapter

  7

  I’D JUST SAY to every kid who doesn’t want to go to school, if you’d been sick for a few years and couldn’t go much, like me, you might think about the whole experience differently.

  I’m standing by the NO BULLYING/NO KIDDING poster in the office of Hillcrest Middle School. The lady at the desk looks at my too-long doctor’s report, then at me. I try to look healthy.

  I wish people didn’t have to know about my heart. Mention the word transplant and people get nervous. It’s not like I had a brain transplant!

  “How do we know if something goes wrong?” is her question.

  I’d like to say, “My chest rings.”

  Walt puts his hand on my shoulder. “It shouldn’t be a problem, but you have my emergency line. That will get me anywhere.” Walt’s emergency line blares like a siren. “And the doctor has requested that he carry his phone in school for emergencies. He won’t abuse the privilege.”

  She stares at me. I hold up my right hand like I’m being sworn in. “I won’t. I swear. Unless I’m dying, no one will ever see the phone.” Still staring. “But I have no immediate plans for death.” Walt shakes his head.

  I’m looking at a door with a yellow-and-black sign. There’s a big exclamation mark in a triangle—underneath it is one word: HAZARD. A man walks out of that office. The woman says, “Mr. Hazard, this is Jeremiah, our new student.”

  We shake hands.

  “Mr. Hazard,” she continues, “is our vice principal.”

  The lady hands him my medical report. He leafs through the pages, then looks at me.

  “It’s not as bad as it seems, sir.”

  Mr. Hazard smiles. A woman walks up who looks official. “Dr. Selligman,” Mr. Hazard says, “meet Jeremiah, our new student.”

  “Hello, Jeremiah.”

  “Dr. Selligman is the principal,” Mr. Hazard adds.

  I stand straighter. First impressions are important. “This seems like a good school,” I say.

  Dr. Selligman smiles. “I’m glad to hear that. I hope you’ll jump right in.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’d like to do that.”

  “Any questions so far?”

  “Is there a middle school baseball team?”

  The principal looks at Mr. Hazard like she’s not sure. Mr. Hazard coughs. “Ah, somewhat. We don’t exactly have a full team.” He pauses. “That program . . . is being reevaluated.”

  “Well, I have a meeting. Glad you’re here, Jeremiah.” Dr. Selligman heads to her office.

  Mr. Hazard gives my medical report back to the lady at the desk. “And my door is always open. Welcome to our school.”

  He marches out of the office. Actually, I have another question.

  What’s a “somewhat” baseball team?

  The lady says she’ll take me to my first period En-glish class. Walt is working hard to not look worried.

  I whisper to him, “I’ll try to blend in.”

  He laughs and pats me on the back.

  I sit in the middle row of sixth grade English class and hear the dreaded words.

  “The three-paragraph essay,” Mrs. Ogletree says, “has a simple structure.”

  Aunt Charity drummed this into me and it will never leave. When I’m old and bald and can’t re
member my name, I will remember the three-part structure.

  Introduction

  Body

  Conclusion

  Mrs. Ogletree writes on the board:

  Introduction

  Body

  Conclusion

  I can tell she’s lost some of the kids already.

  “Let’s talk about what’s in each of those parts,” she says. “In an introduction, you present the concept or the thesis you want to get across.”

  Slumped shoulders in the class—at least the kids in front of me are slumping.

  “What’s a thesis?”

  I know this.

  No one is raising their hands.

  Mrs. Ogletree stares at the class until a boy can’t stand the silence anymore. He raises his hand. She points at him. “Donald.”

  “Uh, a thesis . . . is kind of like an idea.” He has a flat voice.

  “That’s right . . .” She wants more, though, and this teacher can wait. Kids are looking down. I don’t want to raise my hand on the first day, but I don’t have any choice. She nods at me.

  “A thesis is like a theory,” I say. “It’s an idea you have, and you need to explain it and build on it.”

  Everyone looks at me.

  “Very good, Gerard.”

  “It’s Jeremiah, ma’am.”

  I can’t believe that the three-paragraph essay has followed me to Ohio!

  Or the recorder.

  In Music Appreciation, twenty kids with recorders are trying to play “Go Tell Aunt Rhody,” which makes me want to run out of the room, it’s so grim. I’ve got this song down like some kids know “Chopsticks” on the piano.

  “You’re quite good at the recorder, Jerry,” Mrs. Nimroy says.

  I mention it’s Jeremiah, not Jerry. I don’t mention that only Walt is allowed to call me Jer.

  It’s good to know the stuff you learn has applications in other places.

  It’s less good when it’s not the stuff you care about.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  I’ve been looking for Franny all day. I see her in the cafeteria sitting at a table with other girls. She has a tray of red velvet cupcakes with white frosting.

  I walk up. “I’m Jeremiah, the interesting new kid. Remember? You brought these cupcakes for my first day?”

  She laughs. “It’s my birthday. Today I’m twelve.”