Safe at Home (8 page)

The first Captain Marvel comic book Nick ever read explained that the magic word
Shazam
came from the first letters of Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury. Billy Batson, when he turned into Captain Marvel, was supposed to have gotten wisdom from Solomon, strength from Hercules, stamina from Atlas, power from Zeus, courage from Achilles and speed from Mercury.

Nick was coming up short in all those areas right now. Especially courage and speed. Even if it was only arm speed.

The weird thing was, he was starting to hit a little better, getting at least one solid hit a day. On
Friday, Nick’s last time up, he had doubled off Gary Watson, the best knock he’d gotten yet, driving home a couple of runs and making it into second base standing up.

The hit seemed to make Gary Watson even more annoyed with Nick than usual.

The next guy up against him was Joey Johnson. And even though Nick wasn’t taking any kind of lead, Gary wheeled before his first pitch to Joey and tried to pick Nick off. Nick dove back to the bag, because the last thing he was going to let happen after his first big hit as a varsity player—even if it was only in practice—was to get himself picked off second base because he’d let Jack Elmore sneak in behind him.

Gary’s throw hit him right in the back.

Hard.

Nick was sure he’d done it on purpose. Gary hadn’t tried to pick anybody off second all day, and he wasn’t that wild. In the big leagues, you knew when a pitcher wanted to hit a batter. Nick was sure this was just as intentional, even if Gary was throwing toward second instead of to the plate.

“Sorry, dude,” Gary said, mostly for the benefit of his teammates and Coach Williams.

“No problem,” Nick said, dusting dirt off the front of his shirt.

The ball had hurt him. But no way he was going to show Gary that. It was part of what the announcers called the code of the game that you weren’t supposed to rub after you got hit by the ball, no matter what.

Jack Elmore was still standing next to second when Gary turned back toward home plate.

He leaned in toward Nick, like he was still trying to keep him close. “Know why he hit you where he did?” Jack said.

“Why?”

Jack gave him a quick slap on the side of his leg with his glove. “’Cause he thought it would be too obvious trying to bounce one off your helmet, that’s why.”

Practice ended ten minutes later. Nick had somehow managed to survive the week. The only good thing that had happened was that double off Gary Watson. And even that turned out to be painful.

Only Jack had made any real effort to make him feel welcome. Some of the other guys would talk to him occasionally during practice, and Joey had yelled “nice hit!” after the double. Nick wasn’t sure if he meant it, if any of them meant it, or if they were just doing it for show in front of the coach, now that they were stuck with him as catcher.

At least he hadn’t quit. Sometimes, not too often, but sometimes, he actually thought Gracie might be right, that he was tougher than he thought he was.

Tough didn’t mean he was ready for varsity ball, though.

When Nick added it all up—as bad as he usually was at math—nothing much had changed from the first day he’d practiced with the varsity.

Nobody wanted him there.

“Is it just because I’m a seventh-grader?” Nick was saying to Jack Elmore now. “Is that why these guys act as if they’re going to, like, catch something from the new catcher?”

Nick and Jack and Gracie were at school on Saturday afternoon for the annual Hayworth School
carnival, known as the Frogtown Fair. It was a funny name for a carnival, but Hayworth was on Frogtown Road. It wasn’t the biggest or best carnival in the world, not like the one they’d have outside of town during the summer. But there were a lot of games, and contests, and cool prizes, and even a Ferris wheel that the fire department had set up for them.

Pretty much the whole school turned out for it, especially when the weather was as perfect as it was today.

For Nick it was a chance to hang with his two best friends and not think about baseball for a change.

Except he had just asked Jack this one question, like he’d dropped his guard for a second.

He just wanted to understand why guys who were supposed to be his teammates were making this so much harder for him than it already was.

“You want the truth?” Jack said.

“He can’t handle the truth!” Gracie yelled.

They both looked at her as if she’d just stuck her ice cream cone in her ear.

She shook her head, this sad, sad look on her face. “It’s from a famous movie,” she said.

Jack said to Nick, “
Do
you want the truth?”

“Yeah.”

“Just give it to him in little sips,” Gracie said, taking a big lick of chocolate ice cream, leaving marks all around her mouth. “Like when you have to take yucky cough medicine.”

“Wellllll,” Jack said, “some of the guys—not all, just some—think you’re too small to play catcher. That’s one thing.”

“But I’m not even close to being small for my age,” Nick said in protest.

“For your age,” Jack said. “But remember, we’re talking about varsity.”

“Boys,” Gracie said to herself, shaking her head again. She did that a lot when she was hanging around with them. “You ever hear girls talking about varsity like it’s one of those secret societies in Nick’s comics?”

“I’m just saying,” Jack said. He paused and said, “And it’s more than that, and more than Coach Williams treating you like teacher’s pet.”

“That’s not my fault, that he’s trying to make me stink less.”

“I’m not saying it is,” Jack said. “You’re the one who asked.”

“What else?” Nick said.

Jack took a deep breath and let it out and finally said, “They
do
think you stink. Mostly at throwing.”

“But throwing is his best thing!” Gracie said.

“Not this week,” Nick said.

“You don’t forget how to throw in a week, Captain,” she said.

“See, the thing is, Bobby Mazzilli was
great
at throwing people out,” Jack said. “He didn’t have the kind of arm you do, but he had this quick release, and it made his arm seem stronger than it really was. Not only did he save a bunch of games for us last year, by the end of the year, guys were afraid to run on him.” Jack gave Nick a serious look, no jokes now, and said, “They think guys are gonna run wild on you. Just like we did all week in practice.”

“They’re right,” Nick said.

“You don’t know that,” Gracie said. “You haven’t even played a game yet.”

“If you can’t do it in practice,” Nick said, “why would anybody think you can do it in a game?”

“This is the dumbest conversation I’ve ever had with you guys,” Gracie said, “and I’m not really even in it.”

Then she smiled and said, “Come on. You’re about to prove you can still throw. At the dunking booth.”

When they got there it was almost a dream situation for Nick. His English teacher, Mr. Dodds, had just begun his turn in the Easy Dunker.

Mr. Dodds was on the side of the dunker to Nick’s left, sitting behind a screen like the one behind the plate in baseball, which protected him from getting hit by the balls, if not from the small pool of water underneath him.

Next to Mr. Dodds was the target, a white bull’s-eye with a black circle around it, set in the middle of a bright yellow wall.

Nick knew other teachers had taken turns in the
booth, and not just seventh-grade teachers. When they’d first shown up at the fair, Hayworth’s headmaster, Mr. Garson, had been in the hot seat, drawing the longest line of the day.

Now it was Mr. Dodds, who seemed to be smiling and having a good time—the opposite of the way he was in class, where he hardly ever cracked a smile. Where he was most famous for what was known as the Stare.

“Now, that is what I call a sitting duck,” Gracie said.

Nick said, “But if I put him in the water, he’ll probably dog me more than he already does.”

“Dude,” Jack said, “how many times are you going to have this kind of clear shot at him?”

“One of you guys do it,” Nick said. “The way I’m going, I’ll probably bust one of the kindergarten windows.”

Gracie took Nick by the arm, putting him third in the line, telling him he didn’t even have to use his own tickets to pay for his throws, he could use hers.

“Thanks so much,” Nick said.

It was when he’d moved up to second in the
line—the first kid had missed all three times, so Mr. Dodds was still dry for now—that Nick saw the group of varsity baseball players walking around the corner of the lower school building.

Please
, Nick thought. Please don’t let them see me standing here, like I’m in the on-deck circle.

The last thing he needed was an audience, even for something as simple as trying to dunk his English teacher.

This really wasn’t supposed to be about baseball today. Today was supposed to be all silly stuff at the Frogtown Fair. All week long in baseball, every single practice, Nick had felt everybody watching him. And he’d stunk.

It was why he’d promised himself he wasn’t going to pick up a ball all weekend long. Just take a little break until Monday, then pretend he was starting over again, the day before their opener against Valley Falls.

That was his plan for the weekend: Come to the fair, hang with Gracie and Jack, then read comics.

Maybe even do a little of Mr. Dodds’s homework.

Only now here came his baseball season right
around the corner and right at him. Gary Watson. Steve Carberry. Joey Johnson. John Fox, the second-best pitcher on varsity after Gary. All of them with ice cream cones in their hands.

“Wow, here comes your very own cheering section,” Jack said.

“
Booing
section is more like it,” Nick said.

When the varsity players got close, Nick could hear Gary Watson say, “Hey, look who’s up! Our new backstop.”

Steve Carberry said, “Mr. Dodds has nothing to worry about. He’s not going anywhere near the water with Crandall throwing.”

They all laughed. And it was clear that they weren’t going anywhere until Nick made the three throws that Gracie had already paid for.

“Oh, just ignore them,” Gracie said.

Nick wanted to tell them it would be easier to ignore a fastball somebody had thrown right up in his grill, but he didn’t, he just tried to pretend as if Gary and the rest of them weren’t even there.

“C’mon, Crandall!” Mr. Dodds yelled from the Easy Dunker, trying to give him the Stare. “You
know you want to dunk me the way you would a basketball.”

“Yeah,” Gary Watson chimed in. “Let’s see that famous arm of yours we keep hearing so much about.”

Nick gave a quick look in Gary’s direction—he couldn’t help himself—and noticed a few more of his teammates had suddenly appeared.

What, he thought, did they make some kind of announcement all over the grounds?

Step right up and watch Nick Crandall, the rag-armed catcher, try to sink an English teacher?

“Just put the first one on the target and let’s get out of here,” Gracie said.

“Right,” Nick said.

One more time he wanted to be as brave as Gracie Wright.

Or just
be
Gracie.

“Come on, it’s barely more than a throw back to the pitcher,” Jack said into Nick’s ear. “Cake.”

Mrs. Carey, the seventh-grade science teacher, had handed Gracie the balls, old scuffed-up baseballs. Gracie gave one to Nick.

“Only one you’re going to need, Captain,” she said.

Off to the side Nick heard Gary Watson, trying to sound like a public address announcer at the ballpark, say in a deep voice, “Now pitching for the Hayworth Tigers, their
catcher
, young Nick Crandall.”

Now the other varsity players with him started chanting his name.

Nick, Nick, Nick.

Clapping as they did, having a good old time.

Nick felt himself squeezing the dirty baseball in his right hand, like he was trying to squeeze the seams right off the sucker.

Let it go, he told himself.

Throw the stupid ball.

Only he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t raise his arm. Couldn’t make this one stupid throw.

Just stood there with the ball, arm hanging at his side.

“I can’t do this,” he said, handed the ball back to Gracie. Walked away.

He wasn’t even going to look back, not even
when the hoots from behind him seemed to be chasing him as he moved toward the varsity field.

But then he heard the splash and the huge cheer that followed.

Nick couldn’t help himself. He turned around and saw that Gracie had hit the target and put Mr. Dodds in the water.

“What the heck happened back there?” Gracie said when she finally caught up with him near the Frogtown Road entrance to the school, where her mom was supposed to pick them up.

“You saw what happened,” Nick said. “I froze.”

“I get that part,” Gracie said, lowering her voice even though there was no one else around. “What I don’t get is why.”

“I was
afraid
,” Nick said. “Afraid I couldn’t even make a dumb little throw like that.”

Gracie wasn’t about to drop it. “Because the other guys on the team showed up?”

Nick said he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. And he didn’t, just stood there in silence with Gracie, waiting for her mom to pick them up. He
knew how hard it was for Gracie not to talk about something when she really wanted to, or when she wanted to fix things for Nick. But even she was quiet now, and on the ride home.

When they were both out of the car and Nick was walking down the Wrights’ driveway, all she said was, “Talk to you later.”

Nick didn’t turn around, just waved and kept going.

Paul and Brenda Crandall were watching a movie in the living room when Nick came in. He wanted to break all known speed records for getting through the front hall and up the stairs to his room, but his mom turned around as soon as she heard him, wearing the same big smile she gave him every time he came through that door.

Like she’d been saving up smiles like this her whole life.

“Hey, you,” she said.