Skinnybones (6 page)

Fran and Ethel’s Cleaning Service—that’s the name of my team this year. Catchy, huh? When I first found out about it, I thought about quitting. But my dad said that Fran and Ethel had paid a lot of money to sponsor our team, and it wouldn’t be fair if everyone quit just because it was a stupid name.

So far, I’ve never had a team name that sounds as neat as Franklin’s Sporting Goods. Last year my team was called Preston’s Pest Control. Our team banner had a roach being knocked out with a baseball bat. It was totally humiliating.

Anyway, on Friday morning, right after class started, T.J. raised his hand and made another public announcement.

“Tomorrow, at 10:30
A.M
., my Little League team is going to be playing Alex’s team. So I was thinking some of you guys might want to come by the field and watch us play.”

My stomach turned over. Oh, geez, no! He was inviting the entire class? No way! My team hadn’t won a game all season, and T.J.’s was in first place. It was going to be a slaughter!

Quickly, I jumped up. “Why?” I called out.

My teacher looked at me strangely. “Why what, Alex?”

“Why would anyone want to come to our game?”

Desperately, I looked around the room. “Don’t you people have lives of your own? It’s just a stupid Little League game.”

T.J. smiled broadly. “Well, not exactly. There’s something else you guys should probably know. I don’t want to brag, but I’m going to be pitching tomorrow. And if I win the game, I’ll set a Little League pitching record for most games won in a row.”

He paused so that his thrilling information could sink in.

“It’ll put me in all the record books,” he added.

Mrs. Grayson’s whole face lit up. “Really, T.J.? That’s terrific!”

I jumped up again. “Books, schmooks! Record, schmecord!” I hollered.

Mrs. Grayson told me to be quiet. But T.J. wouldn’t quit. He kept talking about that stupid game all day long.

Even after the bell rang and kids were leaving the room, he stood at the door issuing personal invitations. “You’re gonna be there, right?” he’d ask. “You’re not going to let me down, are you?”

I tried to duck past him, but he grabbed my shirt. Then he pulled me right up to his face and smirked.

“See you tomorrow,
Alexandra
,” he said.

I wrinkled my nose at his breath. “Phew.
Mackerel for lunch again?” I asked.

But T.J. just laughed. “We’ll see how funny you are tomorrow when the whole class turns up to watch you lose. Loser.”

Then he sort of rubbed his hands together and walked away.

Man, was I ever in for it now. This was even worse than the pitching contest. If there’s one thing worse than losing, it’s losing in front of your whole entire class!

I’ve never even played in front of a crowd before. With a team like mine, a lot of the parents don’t even show up. In fact, so far there are only two people that have been at every single game we’ve played this year.

Fran and Ethel.

They always come to watch us play right after they get off from work. You can tell who they are because they usually wring out their mops while we warm up.

It wasn’t surprising that I couldn’t eat any dinner that night. And I didn’t sleep at all. Mostly, I just lay in bed trying to think of a way to get out of playing. I must have gone through a hundred plans before I finally came up with one that I thought might work.

It was pretty extreme. But it was my only chance.

The next morning, I made sure my parents were at the breakfast table. Then I dragged myself into the kitchen on my stomach and slowly pulled myself over to the table.

“ ’Morning,” I said weakly.

My father looked down at me. “ ’Morning, Alex,” he said back.

“ ’Morning,” said Mom. “What kind of cereal do you want?”

Feebly, I raised my head. “Cornflakes. I’ll have a few cornflakes, please,” I muttered.

My mother got up from the table and stepped over me to get to the refrigerator.

“Juice?” she asked.

I nodded. What was
wrong
with these people? Didn’t they notice that I was lying on the floor?

Mom bent down and put my bowl in front of me. “You’d better hurry and eat,” she said. “You have to get ready for your game soon.”

Okay. Fine. I didn’t know what little game they were playing here, but I could play right along.

Leaving the cereal on the floor, I pulled myself into my chair. I made a big deal of it, grunting and groaning all the way.

“I think I’d like to eat up here,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “Could someone please get me my cornflakes and juice?”

My parents glanced down at the bowl on the floor.

“You should have brought it up here with you, son,” said Dad. “Your mother and I are eating right now.”

For the next few seconds, I sat there tapping my fingers on the table. Then, even slower than before, I leaned down until my hands were touching the floor again. The chair flipped over on me as I dropped back down. But Mom and Dad still didn’t react.

This called for drastic action. Something so outrageous they couldn’t ignore it. That’s when I started eating right out of the bowl. Without a
spoon
, I mean. Like Fluffy.

My mother looked down and dropped a napkin on my head.

That did it!

“Hey! What kind of parents are you, anyway?” I hollered. “Your pathetic little son is lying on the floor, eating like an animal, and all you can do is drop a napkin on his head? Don’t you even want to know what happened to me?”

“We already know,” said my mother.

“You mean you already know that in the middle of the night, Fluffy jumped up on my bed … and the big oaf went to sleep on my legs … and she cut off
the circulation to my entire lower body … which is why my feet and legs are asleep and I can’t stand up? You already know all
that?”

“No, Alex,” said Mom. “We know that you’re trying to get out of going to your game today. Brian’s parents called this morning and said that most of your class will be there. So we figured you’d be pulling some kind of stunt to get to stay home.”

I rolled over.

“Oh.”

After that, I just lay there. For a really long time, I mean. I just lay there staring up at the ceiling.

Finally, I rolled back on my stomach again and silently pulled myself back out of the kitchen. Sometimes, when you’re caught doing something stupid, it’s less humiliating if you just ease out of it gracefully.

When I got back to my room, I stood up and put on my uniform.

My pants fell down again.

This was going to be the worst day of my life.

I put on a belt and headed over to the baseball field. The Little League uses the same field as the middle school. It’s not far from my house. But this time, as I turned the corner, I froze dead in my tracks.

The bleachers were packed! And when I say packed, I mean packed solid!

My skin broke out in a cold sweat. No! This couldn’t be happening! Why would all those people show up at a dumb Little League game? It didn’t make sense. Even if my entire class showed up, the bleachers wouldn’t come close to being filled. There had to be a mistake somewhere. The middle school was having some kind of function, I bet.

That’s when it hit me.

Wait! Hold it! It’s June, Alex! June! June, as in Graduation Day!

Of course! The eighth-grade class was graduating. And there had been a mix-up in the schedules. Someone had forgotten to tell the Little League.

I looked up to the sky and folded my hands. “Thank you, God. Thank you, thank you! This is a wonderful thing you’ve done here! A wonderful, Godly, zippy, wonderful thing!”

Relieved, I sat down on the curb to wait for my parents. They’d be coming along soon, and I wanted to be the first one to break the good news.

As I was waiting there, a truck from Channel Six News pulled up and a cameraman got out. He lifted some heavy equipment out of the back door.

“Are you guys going to be filming that graduation ceremony over there?” I asked.

The man didn’t pay much attention to me. “What graduation? That’s a baseball game,” he mumbled.

All of a sudden, the cold sweat was back.

Okay. Okay. Don’t panic. There’s a reasonable explanation here, Alex. Nothing to get excited about
.

I swallowed hard. “A baseball game? Like what kind of baseball game? Like the middle school championship game, do you mean? ’Cause that would make sense, because I mean the crowd is huge.”

The cameraman shook his head. “Nope. It’s not a championship. It’s just a regular Saturday morning Little League game. In fact, somebody told me that one of the teams hasn’t won a game all season. What losers, huh?”

I collapsed on the sidewalk. Just flat out collapsed.

The cameraman glanced down. “You okay, kid?”

I opened one eye and stared up at him.

“Okay?” I asked. “Am I okay? No. I am
not
okay. That’s my team you’re talking about, mister. It’s my team that hasn’t won a game all year. What kind of man are you, anyway? What kind of man would want to embarrass a pathetic Little League team by showing them lose on the six o’clock news?”

“Whoa! Wait a minute, son. Calm down,” he said. “I’m not here to embarrass anyone. It’s the
other
team we’re interested in. The one with that hotshot pitcher on it.”

I threw down my cap. “T.J.! I knew it! I knew this was his fault! He probably called the station, didn’t he? He probably called the station and invited you here personally!”

The man shrugged. “I don’t know who set it up, kid. The story was headline news in the paper this morning, though. That probably explains all the people. It said this kid has won every single Little
League game he’s ever played in. If his team wins today, it will be his 125th straight winning game. That’s quite a string,” he said.

I closed my eyes. “String, schming,” I muttered miserably.

I got to my feet and started walking.

Desperately, I looked into the sky again. “God? Remember a few minutes ago when I was thanking you? Well, it was my understanding that you’d done a little miracle for me or something. But now it turns out you didn’t. And so I think it would be a nice gesture on your part if you could make it up to me.”

I racked my brain for a plan.

“Okay … got it. Just make the people in the bleachers go home. You could do that, couldn’t you, God? Just make everyone think they left the water running in their bathtubs. That would be easy enough, right? It might even be kind of amusing, don’t you think?”

I looked around to see if anyone was leaving. People were still piling into the stands.

“Okay, then how about this?” I bargained. “Just make the cameraman go home. Just that one little man, God. If the cameraman goes home, I will go to Sunday school every single Sunday for the rest of my life without a fight. I promise.”

I turned around. The cameraman was walking
behind me, carrying his equipment to the field.

“All right. This is it … my last idea. And this is something right up your alley, God. A lightning bolt. Close enough to scare them … but far enough away not to hurt anyone. Just one tiny little lightning bolt, God, and I promise I will run home this very minute and read my entire book of Bible stories from cover to cover.”

I looked into the sky. It was the sunniest day since my pitching contest.

My shoulders dropped even lower than before. I hung my head. God is not the pushover that some people would like you to believe.

When I finally arrived at the field, my team was already out there warming up. I could see the tension in their faces. It was obvious I wasn’t the only one who was sick about this.

I headed out to right field. My knees were shaking underneath me.

“Hey, Frankovitch! Where in the heck have you been?” shouted my coach. “I thought we were going to have to play without a right fielder! Get out there and warm up! Now hustle!”

I began to trot.

“All right, Alex. Okay. That’s far enough,” hollered my coach again. “I’m going to hit you a couple out there. Now get ready.”

He hit me a high pop fly. I was nervous as anything. All those eyes in the bleachers. I could actually feel them staring at me. But the ball came so fast, I didn’t have time to dwell on it. I’d watched the ball leave the bat, followed it in the air, and caught it.

Perfect! A perfect catch!

My nerves settled a little. Geez. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so tough, after all. Maybe a crowd brought out the best in me or something.

“Okay, Alex. Here comes another one.”

This time it was a grounder. As soon as I saw it coming, I ran up to it, bent down, and scooped it up in my glove.

“Hey! All right out there, Alex!” yelled the coach. “Way to play!”

Man, did he ever sound relieved.

My shoulders relaxed.

I looked up to the sky and smiled.

The umpire called to the coaches. It was time for the game to begin.

On the sideline, T.J. was being interviewed for the six o’clock news. I tried to get close enough to listen, but they’d already finished. As T.J. walked off, I heard the interviewer say, “Good luck out there today, T.J. We’re all rooting for you.”

I looked into the bleachers and saw Fran and Ethel. They were hard to spot because they didn’t have their mops with them. But the two of them got my attention and gave me a thumbs-up sign. I smiled.
Not everyone’s rooting for you, T.J
.

T.J.’s team was the home team, so they hustled onto the field. Meanwhile, T.J. started warming up on the mound. Just like in our pitching contest,
every warm-up pitch he threw went zinging over the plate at about sixty miles an hour.

“Batter up!” shouted the ump.

Kevin Murphy was the first batter on our team. Kevin can hit the ball a ton when he connects. The trouble is, he mostly doesn’t.
Connect
, I mean.

As soon as he stepped up to the plate, I could tell he was really nervous. He kept trying to spit, but nothing would come out. Instead, he just kept making this funny sound with his lips … like
puh … puh … puh
. It was pretty awful.