The kids squealed about how cute Elvira is. And it’s true. She’s a scrawny little bundle of hair and knees and elbows, with this pointy chin and big, big eyes.
“Are you kids hungry?” Mrs. Stone asked.
“Yeah!” cried Myriah and Jamie.
“Is peanut butter and jelly all right?”
“Yeah!” (See what I mean about Mrs. Stone being nice?)
She returned a few minutes later with a platter stacked with all the ingredients for p.b. & j. sandwiches.
“Thank you,” I said as she set it down on her picnic table. I found a plastic knife and went to work.
Behind me, three different-sized dogs wandered around the yard, along with a fat goose. “Who’s that?” I asked.
“Glynis,” Mrs. Stone said. “She thinks she’s a dog.”
“Oh,” I said with a laugh. I could tell the kids were in heaven. Myriah was heading toward the Stones’ small pasture, where they keep four cows. Jamie was peeking into the pig pen. Mathew and Johnny were —
“Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!”
That was Jenny, by the barn. Elvira was trying to get behind her. She seemed determined to butt her in the behind.
“Help! Help!” Jenny cried.
Mary Anne and I both rushed to her, but Mrs. Stone got there first. “Bad girl!” she said, pulling Elvira away by the collar.
Jenny was bawling. “I want to go home!”
“Honey, do you have anything in your back pocket?” Mrs. Stone asked.
“Waaahh! No!” Jenny cried.
I suddenly realized what had happened. Elvira had smelled the smushed egg on Jenny’s pants.
“Here, doggie! Here, doggie!” Johnny was chasing after Mrs. Stone’s Labrador retriever with a stick.
“Johnny,” I said, “put the stick d —”
ROWWWRF! The dog lunged at Johnny. Johnny screamed and jumped away, bumping into Mathew. Mathew stumbled on Glynis the goose. Glynis let out a honk, spread her wings, and ran toward Charlotte.
Charlotte turned chalk white. “Aaaaaah!”
I ran to Charlotte and gave her a hug (Glynis was walking around as if nothing had happened). Mary Anne was holding Jenny up off the ground, comforting her. Mrs. Stone was in the barn, putting Elvira into her pen. Mathew and Johnny were rubbing their sores. And Myriah and Jamie were holding their stomachs, laughing.
“It’s not funny,” Johnny said.
“Uh, why don’t we have snack?” I suggested.
We sat on the picnic bench. Mrs. Stone returned and said, “Don’t you worry. Elvira’s in her pen. The other animals won’t hurt you.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Stone,” I said.
We wandered around a little more after our snack. No major tragedy occurred, until Jamie offered the half-empty peanut butter jar to Elvira. She plunged her snout right in, and it got stuck.
With a sharp fling, she sent the jar across the barn.
CRASSSSSH! It smashed into pieces on the cement floor.
“Beeeeeaahh!” Elvira complained.
“It’s okay, that’s easily cleaned!” Mrs. Stone called out.
I couldn’t believe how cheerful she was. But I knew the cheerfulness wasn’t going to last forever.
Neither Mary Anne nor I wanted to wait around until it ran out. We politely thanked her and walked back home with our campers.
When the day finally ended, Mary Anne and I collapsed on the front lawn.
“What a day!” was my gross understatement.
“Only four more after this,” Mary Anne said.
We both sighed and looked away.
Finally I spoke up. “You know, we really should plan some special activity for our last day.”
“Something clean and easy,” Mary Anne suggested. “Like storytelling.”
“Or a trip to the mall,” I said.
“How about a movie?”
Then I thought of a sleepover I had organized once. It had been a fundraiser for some pen pals of the elementary school kids, and everyone had had a great time. “Why don’t we have an overnight, under the stars?”
“Are you serious?” Mary Anne said. “After what happened today? It’s hard enough to control the kids when it’s light outside.”
“We don’t have to do anything fancy,” I said. “Can you imagine how cute they’d be — climbing into their sleeping bags with their little pj’s, watching for shooting stars, telling ghost stories …”
“Yeah, but I don’t know. It would be a lot of work.”
I could tell she was beginning to like the idea. And I was convinced it was perfect.
But I didn’t want to push it. “Well,” I said, watching the sun set, “at least it’s something to think about.”
Boo-Boo is Watson’s cat. I was not being serious.
But I thought about it.
Boy, was I steaming. I mean, we had been practicing two or three times a week. Everybody was excited about the game with the Bashers. The team was looking great.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, I received this postcard from Hannie Papadakis, saying she and Linny had to drop out. Okay. At full strength, we have twenty players. But we had lost five of them — Nicky, Claire, Margo, Buddy, and Suzi — to Sea City. Hannie and Linny made seven.
So as of the weekend, there were still thirteen players left for Friday’s showdown. You only need nine to play, so we were in fine shape.
Or so I thought.
Saturday the Gianellis called from their summer house in the Berkshires. Mrs. Gianelli was going to stay there all week, selling real estate. Bobby and Alicia were having such a great time, they wanted to stay with her. Bobby is the newest member of our team.
Twelve players.
On Sunday I saw Haley Braddock. She reminded me of something I’d forgotten. Her brother Matt was leaving the next day for his special camp for the hearing impaired (he’s been deaf since birth). Matt is our best hitter.
Eleven.
Then, on Monday, Mrs. Rodowsky called. Jackie had scratched his eye with a plastic drinking straw. Nothing too serious, but he had to wear a patch and would be very sensitive to light for a few days. He might be able to play on Friday, but he’d still have to wear the patch. On the left side. Jackie’s a righty, so left is the side that faces the pitcher when the ball comes.
Now, I don’t mean to be cruel to Jackie. I really do love him. But wherever he goes, an accident seems to follow. His nickname is “the Walking Disaster” — and that’s with two normal eyes. I couldn’t imagine what he’d be like with one eye.
Ten.
Still a team, with one to spare.
These were the brave souls who had stuck it out: the Kuhn kids, Jake (eight), Laurel (six), and Patsy (five); Myriah Perkins and her sister Gabbie (five and two and a half); Jamie Newton and Nina Marshall (both four); my brother David Michael (seven); and my stepsiblings, Karen (seven) and Andrew (four).
All ten showed up at our Tuesday practice at Stoneybrook Elementary School. (SES has been really nice about letting us use their playground all year.) As usual, some of the parents decided to stick around. As they climbed into the stands, I called out, “Okay, Krushers, who are we going to beat on Friday?”
“The Bashers!” they screamed.
“Who?” I said.
“The Bashers!”
“All right! That’s more like it. Now let’s have hitting practice!”
Jake Kuhn looked confused. “Shouldn’t we wait for the others?”
“There are no others,” I said. I explained what had happened, and said, “See, it’s on our shoulders now.”
“Oh,” Jake muttered. Now he seemed worried and nervous. He looked into the stands, where his mom was sitting.
Jake’s a little overweight, and he’s self-conscious about it. It’s not unusual for him to have an anxiety attack. I guessed I was putting too much pressure on him. “Don’t worry, you’ll do great,” I reassured him.
“How can we play a practice game with only ten people?” David Michael asked. “That?
??s only five on a side.”
“We won’t,” I said. “We’ll hit and catch and field, and then we’ll play Round Robin.”
Round Robin is another idea of mine. Nine players take the field and one goes to bat. Everyone else sits on the bench. If the batter gets a hit, he or she runs the bases as far as possible. Then, when the play is dead, everybody rotates. The batter becomes the right fielder, the right fielder becomes the center fielder, and so on. The pitcher goes to the bench and a new player gets to bat.
(Okay, you non-jocks can stop yawning now. I’m done.)
Anyway, the practice went pretty well. We had a few problems, though. In Round Robin, Nina Marshall hit the ball so far she went around the bases twice. I had to convince her that you can’t score two runs in one turn at bat. Gabbie Perkins, who’s so little that we have to use special rules (like pitching her a Wiffle ball instead of a softball), got bonked on the head on a slow chopper to second base, but she was all right.
I couldn’t help but notice that Jake wasn’t his old self. It wasn’t until practice ended that I found out why.
As I packed up, I could see him whining about something to his mom. I minded my own business until I heard him say, “Can’t we at least go on Saturday?”
“Jake, you know what the weekend traffic is like,” his mom replied. “I’m taking a day off from work especially to do this …”
Uh-oh.
I saw Laurel and Patsy playing catch by the first-base line. Casually I approached them and asked, “Um, when are you going on vacation?”
“This weekend,” Laurel answered.
“Which day are you leaving?”
They looked at me blankly. Then they looked at each other. Then they shrugged.
“Mommy?” Patsy finally yelled. “What day are we leaving for Nantucket?”
“Friday morning,” Mrs. Kuhn called back.
“Noooo!” Jake insisted, stomping his feet.
But Mrs. Kuhn had Yes in her eyes.
And I had to subtract three from ten.
We were sunk.
As I packed our stuff, I thought furiously. I had to find a solution to this. Who could I recruit? Which of our charges had shown any interest in sports? What about kids I’d never sat for?
A voice interrupted my thoughts. The last voice I wanted to hear.
“Hey, you guys getting ready to be bashed?”
Bart Taylor was walking toward the field, grinning.
Okay, I said I would tell you about Bart. Here are the most important things to know: He is seriously cute. He has deep brown eyes. His smile is a little crooked, and his hair looks naturally as if he just stepped out of a stylist’s. He’s athletic, too, and he has a fantastic sense of humor.
All right, he’s perfect. Well, almost. He can be really competitive — but then again, so am I. Anyway, he’s the only guy I’ve ever liked.
And … he likes me!
I’m amazed that we stay friends, when I think about it. The Bashers are the only team we play, and they’re older and bigger then we are. But the Krushers have beaten them, so our rivalry is intense.
And until Tuesday, I was sure we’d beat them again.
“Can I walk home with you guys?” he asked.
“Sure.” I gathered my siblings together, and the four of us headed toward my house.
When I told Bart about our player shortage, he became very serious. “That’s too bad,” he said. “It really feels lousy to forfeit a game. When I was —”
I stopped walking. “What?”
“We had to forfeit once when I was in T-ball. Our coach came down with —”
“What do you mean, forfeit?” I snapped.
Bart shrugged. “Well, you can’t play with only seven kids on your team, and if you can’t play —”
“I’ll have a full team by Friday,” I said firmly.
“How?”
I looked him straight in the eye. Kristy Thomas was not going down without a fight. “Just watch.”
* * *
In my old neighborhood, where Claudia lives, the houses are close together. Everyone knows each other.
Now I live in a neighborhood full of “top-out-of-sights.” That’s what Watson calls the people around us, because you can’t see some of the houses from the road (they’re at the ends of long driveways that wind uphill). Many of the kids go to private school or boarding school. So there were quite a few I’d never met.
But most of them were home for the summer. And that evening, I went after them.
With bat, ball, and clipboard in hand.
First I climbed one of the driveways to a modern-looking, wooden house.
DING-DING-DING-DONG-DI-DING-DING-DONNNNG!!
Brother. The doorbell played a symphony. That would drive me crazy.
I heard rumbling footsteps. The door opened. I expected to see someone like Lurch from the Addams family.
Yea! It was a kid. I figured he was about seven.
“Hi, I’m a neighbor of yours, Kristy Thomas. Do you like playing softball?”
The boy squinted at me. Then he turned and shouted, “Ma! Collection for Little Lea —”
“No!” I interrupted. I explained about the Krushers and asked if he were interested.
“But I’m in Challengers,” he said.
“What?”
“You know, they pick you up on Saturdays and take you to the playing field in Stamford?”
I figured Challengers was some kind of fancy Little League for “top-out-of-sighters.”
“Well, I’m offering you the chance to hone your skills before Saturday, with a real live championship game. Now, what’s your name?”
“Phil Fields, but —”
I wrote his name down. When I looked up, a woman was standing at the door, holding out a five-dollar bill. “Here you go, dear,” she said. “And good luck with the season.”
It took forever to explain about the Krushers. When I left, Phil and his mom were giving me a weird look.
I went to the next house, which was visible from the road. The youngest person there was about eighty-five.
I finally found another kid two houses away. Her name was Kate Munson, and she was mortified at my suggestion.
“But I — I don’t know how to play,” she stammered.
I smiled. “Nobody else does either! See, you’re perfect for the team.”
“But then how can you have a game if —?”
“Well, I mean, they didn’t know how, until I showed them how easy it is. Here, hold this bat.”
I gave Kate a lesson. Right there on her doorstep. She was awful. Swinging the bat made her scared, so she’d let go, sending it through the air. I thought she was going to break her basement window.
But I could tell she liked playing. I wrote down her name and number.
Then there was S. Emerson Pinckney IV, “Quad” for short (don’t ask me why). He probably weighed as much as half my team. And he came to the door with a Nintendo joystick in his hand. I tried my hardest, but it was a lost case. He did have a younger brother, though, who seemed to hang on to my every word. His name was “Moon” (short for P. Archibald). He was also … well, moon-shaped.
Next was Sheila Nofziger. You could have fit four of her into one Quad. She could barely lift the bat, but she was the most excited of all.
I went on until dark. In the end, I thought I could count on about six people — Kate, Moon, Sheila, and three others named Richard Owen, Kyle Abou-Sabh, and Alexandra DeLonge.
None of them had ever played softball. But they were going to learn.
And they were going to play on Friday, or my name wasn’t Kristy Thomas.
I love the beach so much.
One of my favorite things is taking long walks. You can see the best sand castles that way. Sometimes you can watch seagulls swooping down into the water and coming up with fish. You can also see them swooping down into garbage cans and coming up with garbage, but that’s disgusting.
In Sea City I saw al
l kinds of cool creatures. One time I found something that looked like a Baggie filled with water. I stooped to pick it up, but Mal was with me and she shouted, “Don’t!”
It turned out it was a poisonous jellyfish. Ew! Ew!
I saw lots of clams. I didn’t even know that the gross stuff inside it is actually its body. I saw one open and close. And I saw a kind that actually spit water. One time, Mal and I walked out on a jetty, and we saw blowfish swimming in the water. They looked like balloons, but Mal said they could be poisonous.
On Wednesday, Jessi, Claire, and I took the best nature walk. We were catching sand crabs in a bucket (we always let them go), and I noticed these tiny birds. After a wave came, they would follow the edge of the water back to the ocean. They’d peck-peck-peck with their beaks. Then, when the next wave came, they’d run away!
“What are those?” I asked Jessi.
“Sandpipers, I think,” she said.
“Why do they go back and forth like that,” I asked, “if they’re so afraid of the water?”
Jessi shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe they pick up little bits of algae from the water as it washes back.”
I asked Mom later on and she said Jessi was right. Jessi is so smart.
“What’s algae?” Claire asked.
“Tiny little plants you can’t see,” Jessi replied.
“I can see them!” Claire insisted. She ran to the water, just like the sandpipers. She crouched low to look for algae. And she ran away when the sandpipers ran.
“Aaaaaaah!”
Claire was not a sandpiper. The wave crashed around her legs and she got scared. She stopped looking for algae.
Farther along, just past a jetty, the beach changed. The sand formed a cliff near the water. The waves would crash, then roll juuust up to the cliff. Every few feet there were these pools. Some were tiny but some were the size of a small car.
“Ooh, tidal pools!” Jessi said.
“Look!” I cried. One of the pools had creatures in it!
We ran to it. Claire screamed.
In the center of the pool was this huge, ugly crab. It looked like a helmet with a tail.
“That’s a horseshoe crab,” Jessi said.
“Is it dangerous?” Claire asked.
Jessi nodded. “I think so. If you step on one.”