Screaming at the Ump (11 page)

So there we were in front of Mrs. G.'s house on a Saturday afternoon—me with my bike and Zeke with his skateboard. Sly was waiting for us with a big cardboard box on her lap.

“You're not going to hurt him, are you?”

“Of course not,” Zeke said. “Definitely not on purpose, anyway.”

Sly stood and started carrying the box back to the house.

“I'm kidding!” Zeke said. He looked at me and said, “Kids!” Then he asked Sly, “So what tricks does your cat know?

“He's supposed to know tricks?”

“Unless it's some kind of stupid cat.”

Sly looked stunned. I think Zeke really didn't get that you couldn't talk to little kids the same way you talked to . . . people. Or maybe it was that Sly was a girl? Or some combination. I was definitely not Sly's biggest fan, but he shouldn't have been mean to the kid when she was trying to help him out.

“Hey, boys,” Mrs. G. called from the front steps, her hair hanging down instead of in that holding-pencils-and-other-surprises bun. “It's so nice of you to come over to play with Sylvia today.”

Sly just mouthed the word “Sly.”

“Actually, we're really just—”

I cut Zeke off. “We wanted to meet her cat!” I said. You have to know how to play the old people. You didn't tell them that you wouldn't be caught dead here if it weren't for the fact that your slightly off-in-the-head best friend was trying to get something—anything—on TV and that he'd decided her granddaughter's cat just might be the ticket. And you definitely didn't mention that eleven- and twelve-year-old guys did not play with eight-year-old girls in any universe anywhere, ever.

“It's probably a good thing she's taken the cat out of the house. Her mom starts sneezing whenever she's near him.”

Zeke gasped and put his palm flat on his cheek. “That is JUST like Marcia Brady!” he said.

“Jan, you idiot,” Sly said.

“Please be careful. It's a busy street,” Mrs. G. said before going inside.

 

The Concerns of the Old, a list by Casey Snowden:

1. It's a busy street.
   
2. You could take someone's eye out with that thing.
   
3. Now you're laughing; soon you'll be crying.
   
4. Turn on a light! How can you read in that dark room?
   
5. Wash your hands before you eat!
   
6. Move back from the television! You're way too close!
   
7. You can't swim; you just ate.
   

***

I always wondered at what age you officially got old and started saying stuff like that—it was somewhere between Dad and Pop. I had to remember to write it down the first time I heard Dad talking like an old person.

“So really, now,” Zeke said to Sly. “What does your cat do?”

“He eats. He sleeps. He can arch his back that way that cats do. He poops. And pees.”

Zeke gave me a look like,
THIS is what I have to work with?

“What do the animals do on
That'sPETacular
?” I asked Zeke.

“
That'sPETacular
? I love that show! Oh, my God! Tiny's going to be on
That'sPETacular
? I can't believe it! Oh, my God! Thank you so much!”

Zeke shook his head and sat on his skateboard. “I have no idea if your cat will get on. We might have to teach her some tricks or something. Can we at least see her?”

I wondered if trouble was coming. What if the cat ran away? “Has she been outside before?” I asked. I'd never had a pet, but if I were stuck inside all the time, told to eat out of a bowl on the floor, to do my business in a little box where everyone could see, I'd run away the first chance I got.

“Yeah,” Sly said. She opened the box and pulled out a black and white cat. Tiny blinked a few times, getting used to the light. “And stop saying her and she. Tiny is a boy cat.”

“I thought you said he was tiny,” Zeke said.

“Well, he was when I named him. But he eats a lot. When I put out food, he finishes it, and then when I put out more, he finishes that too, and it takes a long time before he stops eating.”

This was one fat cat. When he started walking in slow circles around Sly, and then over to check out Zeke and me, his stomach almost touched the driveway's asphalt. The stomach swung back and forth as he walked.

“What about the swinging stomach?” I said. “Is that a good trick?”

“Only if you could sort of set it swinging to music or something. But maybe . . . I mean that is really a hugely fat little cat.”

Tiny put his paws on Zeke's skateboard and lowered the front of his body to stretch.

“I think he wants to ride your skateboard,” Sly said.

Zeke smiled. “Now you're talking!”

He got off his board and went to pick up the cat—his arms stretched out straight in front of him, like the cat had cooties or something. “You don't pick up a cat like that!” Sly yelled. She rushed over and took Tiny from him.

She tried placing him on the board, but he walked right off. She did it again, and the cat just kept leaving. It was as though Tiny had met Zeke before and knew nothing good could come of this. Headline:
CATASTROPHE AVOIDED IN CLAY COVES
. No matter how many lives Tiny might have had, I wasn't sure any should be trusted to Zeke.

“What if we start with you sitting on the board with the cat on your lap, to get him used to it. Would that work?” Zeke asked.

“I'll try,” Sly said.

“And I'll shoot for practice,” Zeke said, pulling out Dad's reject camera.

“I'll just stand at the bottom of the driveway and make sure no cars are coming,” I said.

“Oh, she's not going to ride all the way down there. Just a few feet, from the garage, maybe like not even a third of the way down. To get the cat, you know, used to it,” he said, as though he'd been doing this kind of thing his whole life. Putting little girls and obese cats on skateboards and sending them down a sloping driveway. Sure. Just a third of the way. To get them used to it. Of course.

“Go hold the board for her, then hand her the cat.” Great. I was the assistant. I helped the director and the talent.

“How is she supposed to stop?” I asked.

“She puts out her feet. That'll stop the board.”

“I think she should try without the cat the first time,” I said.

“It wouldn't exactly be
That'sPETacular
material without a cat, moron,” Zeke said.

Boy, were we having fun. “I meant so she learns how to stop. Moron.”

“You guys are fun,” Sly said. She smiled, and it seemed like she actually meant it.

I held the board with my feet while the cat was in my arms. “Go slow,” I told her, trying to imagine how I'd explain the blood to her grandmother and mother after Sly capsized into a face-plant on the asphalt. I had a quick thought about helmets, but before I could even mention it, she was off.

“So like this?” she asked, and did it perfectly.

“No!” Zeke yelled. “Not at all like that! Did you hear me yell ‘Action!'? I don't think you did because I didn't. That's only the most important part of this whole production. Nobody moves until I say so.”

Sly rolled her eyes at me.

I'd never wanted a little sister. Ever. And in books, I wished I could just remove the pesky little sister who got in the big brother's way. I still got annoyed when I thought about some of them, like that Annie in those Magic Tree House books—she always made me want to scream, the way Jack would be figuring things out and Annie would screw everything up. But there was something appealing about having a sidekick when Zeke was at his worst—someone to roll eyes at me.

“AND! ACTION!” Zeke said.

Sly, sitting on the skateboard, rolled down the slope of the driveway about a third of the way, then put her feet down and stopped. “Ta-da!” she said.

“And CUT!” Zeke said. “Excuse me. Who gave you lines?”

“I don't know what you're asking me,” Sly said. She looked at me. “I don't know what he's saying.”

“‘Ta-da,'” Zeke said. “That's what you said. No one told you to say anything. I'm the director.”

“You know what this is?” Sly asked, standing up and reaching for her cat. “This is so not fun. Goodbye.”

“No, no, no, no, no!” Zeke said. “I'm sorry. You can say
ta-da
. It's just my first time directing, and this camera is a little messed up, which takes some of my concentration away, and if you, as one of the stars of this film, felt
ta-da
was an important part, then I should consider that. I'll tell you what, practice now with the cat on your lap one time, okay?”

Sly looked unconvinced. She looked at me, and I shrugged, like it was her call.

“Maybe another day,” she said. “I want to go inside now. And
you
,” she said to Zeke, “need to be nicer. If you are, you can come back.”

I'd been waiting my whole life for someone to say that!

“Where did I go wrong?” Zeke asked, probably not really expecting an answer, as Sly headed back into her house.

“Next time,” I said, “try to suck less.”

He gave me a look that suggested maybe I wasn't being what Dad would call my best self.

“You know what that was?” I asked Zeke as we headed slowly back to BTP.

“A total waste of time?”

“That,” I said, “was PETacular.”

W
E'D
gotten to the point at home where we were eating cereal for almost every meal, and I really didn't want to live through another week like that, so I asked Pop to cover for Dad while I dragged Dad to the Shop A Lot.

I'm not sure why I picked that time to bring it up. Maybe it just felt too big to hold in anymore. “You know that student MacSophal?” I said. “The one you talk to a lot?”

“Patrick,” my father said.

“It's not Patrick, right?” I had to be careful here. I definitely knew it was wrong to eavesdrop, and that was how I had gotten all my information.

“What are you talking about?” Dad asked, eyes on the road. “Patrick MacSophal, Group H.”

“Well, that's sort of a weird last name, right?”

“I don't know. Is it?”

“Zeke and I think MacSophal is actually J-Mac, that steroid pitcher.”

“And how did you come up with that?”

“I guess it was really Zeke who figured it out.”

“Did you tell anybody else?”

“Who would we tell?” Did Dad picture our friends at school as some big, connected posse? Our world was a small world, after all. And anyway, I hadn't even shared the confirmation with Zeke. “So can you help me understand why you're letting a drug-using, steroid ex-athlete attend BTP? The guy was practically thrown out of Major League Baseball—”

“Casey, what are you talking about? He wasn't thrown out. He left.”

“After Rhodes told everyone that MacSophal was the one giving him drugs.”

“All he was guilty of is being accused of something. How come you're so fast to say he's guilty?”

“How come you're so fast not to?” I said. Everyone knew that J-Mac left baseball because he was caught red-handed. You didn't need to overhear his confession to Dad to know. He disappeared like a coward because he was ashamed.

“Well, we're here,” Dad said.

It felt ridiculous to even consider getting out of the car and pushing a giant shopping cart around, filling it with food. This conversation was too important. I turned to face him.

“I don't get it. If you knew it was him, why would you let him come to your school? He's a cheater. Taking drugs and giving them to other people isn't only breaking the law, it's cheating. It's giving yourself an unfair advantage over your teammates. It seems pretty obvious that he's guilty. So I don't understand why you would let a bad guy like that anywhere near the school. You always talk about integrity. What kind of integrity does J-Mac have? He's the anti-integrity.”

“Casey. Whoa. You weren't there. You don't know what happened. How do you know who's guilty and who's innocent? Doesn't a journalist need to listen to all sides of the story and present it honestly and fairly?”

“An innocent guy doesn't disappear. He clears his name,” I said. “I don't get why you're defending this jerk.”

“Because everyone deserves a second chance,” he said.

We got out of the car and slammed our doors. “And you need to call your mother again.”

Unreal.

F
ROM
Saturday evening until Monday morning, BTP students were on their own. Clay Coves was only ten minutes from great beaches, and a surprising number of umpire wannabes were also surfers. Some headed out for an afternoon surf after Saturday class was over. I always liked watching them return, standing on top of their cars and vans to take their boards down, stamping sand off their feet. They looked like some combination of human seals and penguins in their wetsuits.

This Saturday, a lot of guys went to the Tavern or the Well and drank too much and talked too loud when they came back to the dorms. Dad and Pop didn't like it. They said umpires need to command respect on and off the field.

But students worked so hard all week. I thought they deserved to relax however they wanted.

My brain was doing that thing again—thinking about everything from surfing umpires to the BTP schedule. Everything but the article I was sitting outside trying to start.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cell phone and Steamboat's number, but it just kept ringing and never went to voicemail. I ran back into the house and grabbed that folder Mrs. G. had given me and a BTP sweatshirt before I went back to where I'd been sitting. I looked through the folder, expecting to see maybe another number or an address. I had assumed that folder would have all the information I needed to run You Suck, Ump! Day
. But all it had were receipts from the copy shop for each year's flyers. Nothing else.