The Girls Take Over (3 page)

The boys looked at each other.

“Okay,” said Jake finally. “Fair enough.”

“I could find something secret to put in our bottles!” Peter offered helpfully.

“Peter, anything you find in your closet will be either moldy or decayed,” said Josh. “No thanks.”

“Are we agreed on the time limit?” Eddie went on.

“Four weeks,” said Jake. “The deadline will be the last day of April. Whoever's bottle goes farthest by then gets to make the others do what he says.”

“Or
she
says,” put in Beth.

“Yeah,” said Jake.

“But wait!” said Wally. “What if someone finds one of the bottles but doesn't call?”

“There's nothing we can do about that. It's just the chance we have to take,” said Eddie. “And if they call after April thirtieth, too bad.” She put up her hand. “Deal?”

“Deal,” said Jake, slapping her palm.

The girls walked all around the table giving high fives to the boys, the butter from the popcorn traveling hand to hand. Then they went to the front door to put on their boots and raincoats.

“Hey, look! Sun!” said Beth.

It wasn't sun exactly, but the sky was brighter and the rain had stopped. For the first time in days there was a little gold in the sky along with the gray.

“Maybe they'll hold tryouts tomorrow,” Eddie mused.

“Goodbye, Eddie! Goodbye, Beth and Caroline!” called Peter, holding one of the popcorn bowls in his arms and scooping up the last kernels.

“Goodbye,” said Caroline. “Get ready to be my humble, obedient slaves if my bottle goes the farthest.”

“Ha!” shot back Jake. “Be ready to work like dogs if
my
bottle goes the farthest.”

The girls crossed the road and went down the path to the swinging bridge, stopping to peer over the cable handrail at the water.

“Do you suppose it's over our heads now?” Caroline asked.

“In places, I suppose. The guys said there are only certain parts of it deep enough for swimming,” said Beth.

“Still, I'll bet a bottle would travel pretty fast in this,” mused Eddie aloud.

“I wonder what it's like to be in a flood,” said Caroline. “Just think if water was slowly creeping up your stairs, and you had to crawl out a window onto the roof and wave a pillowcase at passersby, pleading for help, and a helicopter came along and a handsome man dropped a rope ladder and he crawled down and picked you up in his arms and climbed back up the ladder and—”

“Okay, Caroline, we get the picture,” said Eddie. “Everything to you is just a movie. If you
were
in a real tragedy, it wouldn't seem so romantic.”

“I can do tragic!” said Caroline. “What if a woman crawled out on the roof with her little baby in her arms, but the water kept rising and rushing, and swept the baby away and—”

“Stop it!” said Beth. “Caroline, can't you just talk normal for a change?”

The girls went on across the bridge and up the soggy hill to their house.

“I don't want to leave here,” said Caroline. “We've had more fun in Buckman than we ever had back in Ohio.”

“Well, I don't think we're going to have any say in it, whatever Dad decides,” Eddie told her.

In the kitchen they took off their wet clothes.

“Sun's trying to come out,” called their mother. “The forecast says it's supposed to clear up for a while.”

That was good news—for Eddie, anyway.

“Mom,” said Caroline, going to the door of the dining room. “Has Dad said anything more about going back to Ohio? Do you think we will?”

“My dear, you know as much about it as I do,” Mrs. Malloy said. “He's waiting to hear from someone who's waiting to hear from someone else who's waiting to hear … It's like dominoes. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't find out till the very last minute. With your father, anything could happen!”

Four
Tryouts

M
rs. Hatford brought home the seven bottles as requested, but on Tuesday the rain had stopped, so the Big Bottle Race was put on hold till the team had been chosen. After school Jake Hatford and Eddie Malloy were both out on the school baseball diamond with the other hopefuls. They had all been practicing for an hour under the watchful eye of their coach, and finally he called everyone over. They were all boys except for Eddie.

“With only nine players on a team,” Mr. Bailey said, “I have to make a choice and choose the nine of you for the A team that I think will play best. The rest of you will be the B team, and you'll each be a substitute for an A player. Things happen in a game, you know. If a player gets sick or hurt, a substitute has to be ready to take over, so you'll come to every practice too. Some of you may even prove to be better players than my A team, and I'll keep watching you
during practice. If I need to change you around, I will, so everyone needs to play his very best.”

All the boys, of course, were looking sideways at Eddie. So were all of Jake's brothers and Eddie's two sisters, who sat on the wooden bleachers behind home plate.

The coach went down the line and chose the nine players for the A team. Both Eddie and Jake made the list, to the cheers of those in the bleachers. Then Mr. Bailey asked each of the nine what position he would most like to play.

“Pitcher,” said Jake.

“Pitcher,” said Eddie.

Some of the boys smiled and elbowed each other. Baseball was big in Buckman, and half the kids in the school—the boys, anyway—wanted to be one of the Buckman Badgers when they reached sixth grade. Four on the A team wanted to be the pitcher, and Mr. Bailey tried them out one by one till only Jake and Eddie were left.

“Who wants to go first?” asked Mr. Bailey.

Jake and Eddie both said, “I will,” at the same time. “Okay,” the coach said. “Jake, you pick up a bat there, and Edith Ann, you—”

“Eddie,” she corrected firmly. “Okay, Eddie. You go out to the mound.” The coach tossed her a ball, and Eddie took her place.

The Hatford brothers and the Malloy sisters were all rooting for both Jake and Eddie for a change, because they wouldn't be competing against each other; they'd be playing teams from other schools.

“Okay, let's see what you can do,” the coach said.

Eddie juggled the ball around in her hands a couple of times. The other boys, whom Mr. Bailey had sent out in the field to catch, laughed softly among themselves.

Jake chose a bat, and after a few practice swings went to home plate. Mr. Bailey served as catcher.

“Ready?” the coach called out.

Eddie drew back her arm, her body turning a little to one side. She slowly lifted one foot off the ground, and then,
pow!
The ball came so fast that Jake wasn't ready. He blinked as the boys in the outfield fell silent. Mr. Bailey caught the ball and sent it back to Eddie.

“Good throw!” he said. “Let's see another one.” This time Jake was ready. With his knees slightly bent, weight on the balls of his feet, he gripped the bat, his eyes on Eddie. He saw her arm move back, saw her body turn, saw her foot come off the ground, and then the pitch.
Crack!

The ball went sailing out over left field and was caught by one of Jake's friends.

“Good! Good pitch! Good swing, Jake! Now, you two trade places.”

There were murmurs in the outfield again, and the boys automatically moved in a little closer to catch any ball Eddie might hit.

Jake did his windup with a flourish and let the ball fly.

Crack!

The ball sailed out over Jake's head, far out into center field, and rolled along the ground several yards before a fielder could rush back to scoop it up.

“Again!” the coach said.

Wally could tell from the way Jake was winding up this time that he was trying to scare Eddie.
Whish
came the ball, but Eddie was faster. She didn't even blink.

Crack!

The ball sailed out over right field. “Get it! Get it!” the boys were yelling, but Eddie could have made a home run in the time it took them to get the ball back to Mr. Bailey.

“Okay, Eddie, you're in,” said the coach. “So are you, Jake. I'm going to have you two trade off as pitchers.”

Over on the bleachers the Hatford and Malloy cheering sections hooted and hollered.

When both the A and B teams finished practice an hour later, the Hatfords and the Malloys walked home together. It seemed to Wally that Beth and Caroline just wouldn't shut up about how well Eddie had performed. They didn't say anything about Jake.

“You
did
it! You
did
it! You made the team!” Caroline cried, slapping her sister on the back.

“Boy, you showed them!” said Beth. “Mr. Bailey's

teeth almost fell out when he saw you hit that first ball. You're
in,
Eddie! You're
in
! You'll wow 'em!”

“I
told
them I could do it!” Eddie crowed. “I wish the games began this month. I wish we didn't have to wait till May.”

“Everybody needs practice,” Jake mumbled. “Even you.”

When they had parted at last at the swinging bridge and the Malloy girls had gone home, Jake said to the others, “She'll be impossible, you know.”

“She already is,” said Wally. “Who?” asked Peter. “The Whomper, of course!” said Jake. That was the nickname they'd given Eddie. “It'll go to her head! You can tell already. Did you hear how many times she kept saying, ‘I
told
everyone I could pitch! I
told
everyone I could bat!' So okay, already! Do we have to go on hearing that the rest of the season?”

Wally didn't say so, but Jake sounded a little jealous. “Just be glad she's on your team and not playing for some other school,” Josh said.

“Yeah,” said Jake, but he didn't look very happy about it.

At dinner that evening, when Jake announced he'd made the A team, Mrs. Hatford said, “That's great, Jake! Didn't you try out, Josh?” People often thought that Josh and Jake, being twins, liked the
same things. Even their parents made that mistake sometimes.

“No,” said Josh, who was a sort of resident artist for the school. He could draw better than anyone in Buckman Elementary, including the teachers. “I'll just watch from the bleachers.”

“The parents are going to take turns driving you kids to the Saturday games next month,” Mr. Hatford said. “Your mother and I will each take a Saturday off if we need to, and I'm sure the Malloys will do their share of driving.”

“Of course!” said Jake. “They wouldn't want to miss seeing their precious Edith Ann pulverize the other team, would they?” He jabbed at his potato and stuffed a bite into his mouth.

Mrs. Hatford studied him. “Do you
mind
having Eddie on your team?” she asked.

“Heck, no,” Jake insisted. “As long as she doesn't throw her weight around when she's with us, I'm okay with it.” And he jabbed his potato again.