Sammy Keyes and the Sisters of Mercy (12 page)

The first pitch Emiko throws is low and outside. Way low. And as it’s coming in Babs says, “Swing!”

I don’t. I step back and then measure up for the next pitch.

It comes in low and outside again, and Babs calls, “Swing!”
again
.

I almost did. I mean, I
want
to hit the ball. I’ve got all this adrenaline pumping and I want to run, not walk. So when the third pitch comes, Babs doesn’t have to tell me to swing. I watch the ball sail straight in the strike zone and
wham!
I whack it with all my might.

Trouble is, the pitch was a riser, and before my bat even hit the ground I knew I was out. I tore off down the baseline anyway, because Ms. Rothhammer’s always yelling at us to give it the gun even if it looks hopeless, but I wasn’t paying much attention to first base—I was watching the ball take a nice little stroll through the air, straight for shortstop, straight for Heather Acosta.

Heather lines up right beneath it, all right. Then she looks my way and drops it. That’s right, the giveaway pop-up of the season and she drops it. She scoops it up and fires it to first, but it’s too late. She’s just given me a freebie and let me tell you, I’m taking it. And as Xandi Chapan comes up to bat, there’s Heather across the field, glaring at me like it’s
my
fault she dropped the ball.

I blow her a kiss and get ready to lead off. And when the ball leaves Emiko’s hand I move out about ten feet, keeping one eye on Dot and the other on Xandi. When Xandi swings, she misses, so I scoot back to the base and so does Dot.

We wind up doing that two more times. On the third strike, Xandi throws down the bat, spins on Babs, and yells, “Shut up, would you?”

Now, even through all her gear you can tell that Babs is
smiling. And as Becky Bork steps up to the plate, Babs crouches into position and calls, “One out, force at second or third!” because she’s expecting to pick off two more outs without chipping a nail.

What she wasn’t expecting was for Becky to bat left-handed. See, Becky’s right-handed, but sometimes she decides to bat the other way. And, right or left, she doesn’t just hit grounders. Ms. Rothhammer’s got her fourth in the lineup because if Becky connects with the ball, it’s
gone
, and that usually means we’re on the board.

Trouble is, that’s a big if. Becky’s gone
games
without connecting, but it doesn’t seem to bother her. She just comes back to the bench with, “I’ll get it next time. Wait and see. I will.”

So Becky picks the heaviest bat available, steps up, and slams the plate a few times like she’s trying to crack it open. Then she tucks in her lower lip and wags the bat in the air.

Emiko plays with her toehold a bit, then whips a pitch straight through the strike zone.

Becky keeps on wagging.

Mr. Caan yells, “Steeerike one!” and Babs tosses the ball back to Emiko.

Emiko plays with the ball a minute and then whips another one right down the middle.

Becky keeps right on wagging.

Now, I’m looking at Dot and Dot’s looking at me, and we’re both getting kind of nervous. I mean, Becky’s up there looking like a crazed robot waving a wooden arm, and we’re both thinking there’s no way she’s going to get a hit, let alone drive us in.

Then Emiko does something she should never have done. She throws her a change-up. Against any other power hitter a change-up might’ve been a good idea, but against Becky? Mis-take! That’s
her
pitch.

The minute Becky sees that ball coming toward her, well, the crazed robot with the wagging wooden arm comes alive. She steps into the pitch and
wham!
It goes hurling out to right field, and no amount of praying is going to land that ball in Tenille Toolee’s glove.

So around the bases we go, just kind of dancing across home plate and giving each other high-fives until our hands hurt.

And when the cheering finally dies down and Dot, Becky, and I are back on the bench, I look out at the field, and I can’t see much but Heather. She’s out there, pacing between third and second like a caged tiger. A hungry caged tiger.

And I can tell from the way she’s looking at me—I’m her pail of meat.

We won, 6–1. Mr. Vince’s team did make some good plays, and I hate to admit it, but Heather made two terrific outs. But I think they were so thrown by the first inning and we were so charged by it that they kept blowing it, and the mistakes we made just seemed to wash right off.

For a while we thought we might even shut them out, but then Gisa hit a ball clear over Kris Zilli’s head, and before you know it, Gisa’s dancing up and down on home plate yelling, “
Ja! Ja! Ja!
I did it! I did it!” and they were on the board.

After the last out, we tried to go up and shake hands, but they just ignored us. All except Heather and Emiko, that is. Heather gave me the scariest Evil Eye I’ve ever seen, and Emiko went up to Marissa and told her, “Great pitching. You deserved the win.”

So while their team is getting yelled at by Mr. Vince, Miss Pitt waltzes around giving us hugs, saying how proud she is of us. We’re all keeping half an eye on Ms. Rothhammer, though, because she’s in the enemy camp with her hand out to Mr. Vince.

At first he stands there like he’s much too busy holding a clipboard to shake her hand, but finally he shuffles
things around and gives her a quick shake. And when Ms. Rothhammer jogs back over to us, there’s a smile dying to explode all over her face.

She stands there for a minute, studying her tennis shoes. Then she looks up and says, “You girls did me proud,” and if I didn’t know her better, I’d swear there were tears in her eyes. “I’ll talk with you individually tomorrow, but right now I want you to go over and shake hands with Mr. Vince’s team.”

Xandi says, “But we already tried!”

Becky chimes in with, “Yeah, they snubbed us.”

Ms. Rothhammer gives us a wise little smile. “I know that. Try again. Try harder.” We stand around looking at each other until she claps her hands and says, “C’mon, girls. Move it!”

Mr. Vince’s team tries to ignore us again, but Mr. Troxell makes them line up. We come through and shake hands, mumbling, “Good game,” back and forth, and then there I am, cleat to cleat with Heather Acosta. And I’m looking straight in the eyes of someone who’d shove me down the shaft of an outhouse without blinking, but for some reason I’m not feeling scared or mad or spiteful. I’m feeling bad that we’re such enemies. And I find myself wondering
why
she hates me so much. I mean, sure, I’ve called her Turdface and Eggbreath and I’ve trespassed on her property a time or two, but she hated me way before that. And really, what I’ve done to her is nothing compared to what she’s done to me.

But standing there, I wished that it would all just go away. That I could walk around school not worrying
about what plan Heather’s concocting to embarrass me. That we could both just live in our own little pockets of the world and forget about each other.

So I take a deep breath, put my hand out, and say, “Good game, Heather,” and in my heart I know—I mean it.

And what does she do? She spits on me.
Splat
, right in my face.

Now, that’s too much, even for Mr. Vince. While everyone else is sucking in air and covering their mouths, he yanks her out of line and drags her off for a good talking-to.

Dot and Marissa huddle in and say, “I don’t
believe
it!” and you can tell that Dot’s dying to tackle Heather and choke the saliva out of her.

Ms. Rothhammer calls, “Let’s go girls, back to the locker room!” but the three of us stay put while I wipe spit off my face. And it’s funny. I’m still not feeling scared or mad or wanting to get back like I would’ve even a few hours ago. What I’m feeling is sorry. Not for myself. No, for the first time in my life, I’m feeling sorry for Heather Acosta.

* * *

The last thing I felt like doing was putting in my two hours at St. Mary’s. I wanted to hang out with Dot and Marissa and talk about the game! And it wasn’t until we were about halfway to the mall that I started thinking that maybe I could do both. “Hey! You guys want to come help me stuff envelopes for the Sisters of Mercy?”

Dot says, “What are you talking about?”

“I’ve got to help Sister Bernice mail out fliers for their shows. C’mon! It’ll be fun.”

They look at each other and shrug. Marissa says, “They won’t care?”

“Heck, no!”

When we get to the mall, Dot calls her mom, and then we’re off to the church to find Sister Bernice.

I spot Father Mayhew walking along the parish hall with Gregory, so I run up to him and say, “Father Mayhew! Have you seen Sister Bernice?”

He smiles at me and says, “Afternoon, lass,” and right away, Gregory tries to give me his carrot.

I scratch him behind the ears and say, “No, thanks, boy,” but somehow I wind up with this slobbery carrot in my hand and Gregory in front of me, wagging and panting.

Father Mayhew laughs and says, “Toss it for him, lass. It’s all right.”

So I toss it, and as Gregory goes charging off to retrieve it, I look around for someplace to wipe my hand. Father Mayhew says, “I believe the Sisters are in their motor home—right over by the parish hall.”

Before I’ve had a chance to clean off my hand, Gregory’s back trying to get me to throw it again. I try to ignore him, and say to Father Mayhew, “I brought a couple of friends to help. You don’t mind, do you?”

Father Mayhew smiles and waves at Marissa and Dot, standing a little ways down the sidewalk. “I’m sure the Sisters will be delighted.”

Well, there’s that carrot stump in my hand again, only this time it’s got a big goopy strand of slobber on it which
runs between my fingers and onto the back of my hand. I throw the stupid carrot and try wiping the slobber off on the grass, but all that really does is coat my hand with grass clippings.

Father Mayhew says, “I’m sorry about that, lass,” but I don’t want to stand there and discuss it while ol’ Bunny Breath digs his stump out of the bushes. I just say, “That’s okay,” then hightail my tarred and turfed hand back to Marissa and Dot.

The three of us go charging over to the parish hall, but kind of sputter to a stop when we see the Sisters of Mercy’s motor home.

I don’t know how I’d never noticed it before. The thing’s like a whale on wheels. It’s white with purple stripes going around it, and propped over the parish hall lawn is an awning that could shade half a beach. And sitting in a lawn chair with a cellular phone to her ear is Sister Bernice.

She gives us a great big smile, holds up a finger, and says into the phone, “Wonderful. I’ll look forward to meeting you at ten … um-hm, you, too. God bless,” and then punches the
OFF
button.

She motions us closer. “Sammy! What’s this? Has our Good Shepherd brought me a flock?”

“If it’s okay with you.”

She laughs and says, “It’s more than okay! We’ve got so much to do before Thursday, I’ve got to laugh to keep from crying.” She gathers some papers from a table. “In this business, timing is everything, and unfortunately, everything has to happen all at once.” She smiles and
looks off at the sky and sings, “But I … yi yi, I’m a believer,” and even in the wide-open spaces of the parish hall lawn her voice sounds big and full and powerful.

She grins at us. “So, my little lambs, let’s get you stuffin’ and stampin’.”

We follow her to the motor-home door, only she turns around and says, “Wait right here, okay? We’ll be doing this at the parish hall, I just need to get the supplies.”

I say, “Um, Sister Bernice? You know Father Mayhew’s dog?”

She laughs, “Ol’ Growler-yowler? Why, sure.”

“Well, he made me throw his carrot and—”

“He made you throw his carrot? You got that close to him?”

I laugh and say, “Yeah. For some reason he likes me.” I hold up my hand. “Anyhow, it was really slobbery and I’d like to wash this, if you wouldn’t mind?”

She stands at the base of the steps and frowns for a minute, looking at my hand. Then she breaks into a smile and says, “Well, that certainly could use a little soap and water.” She pulls a key from the sleeve of her habit and brings her voice way down when she says, “My Sisters like the solace of their own quarters, so try not to disturb them, okay?”