Windmill Windup (10 page)

“She doesn’t look like a sixth-grader.”

“Whatever. Like I said, it’s your call. But talk about weird —
that’s
weird.”

“If you say so. I just thought I’d let you know….”

“Why should I care? You don’t need my permission.”

“I know. Even so, just thought I’d give you a heads up.”

“Yeah, well, thanks.”

Thanks for nothing!
she thought bitterly.
That stupid Allie Warheit — I could kill her for this!

“Oh, by the way,” Ryan said, stopping her as she was about to run off to Spanish class — late, thanks to him. “My dad asked
me to talk to you about —”

“What, was he complaining about me?” she asked, openly hostile now.

“Well, not exactly …but —”

“I don’t care what he thinks,” she said, turning to go again.

“He’s not a bad guy, my dad,” Ryan said, stopping her. “He really isn’t, whatever you think. I mean, he has his flaws, sure.
He’s a little too strict —”

“You can say that again.”

“But he’s got his good side, too.”

“Yeah, right.”

“He does, believe me. Like, for instance, he was always there for me, growing up.”

“Oh, please — bring out the violins,” Kelly said sarcastically.

“Okay, make fun of me,” Ryan said, “but it’s true. For instance, he’s never, ever missed one of my ball games.”

That got Kelly where she lived. She felt a pang in her gut as she thought of all the times her dad hadn’t shown up for one
of
her
games, even though he’d promised to be there.

“And he taught me everything I know about the game,” Ryan went on. “He’s the best coach ever.”

“Huh,” Kelly said noncommittally.

“You know, it wouldn’t kill you to let him work with you on your swing. I know he asked if you wanted help.”

“I don’t need any help, from him or anybody else, thank you.”

“Whatever.” Now it was Ryan’s turn to be sarcastic. “But think about it. Like I said, he’s not all bad. Not even half bad,
really. If you gave him a chance, you might find out I’m right.”

“Yeah, well, thanks,” Kelly said, not even looking at him as she walked away. “See you around sometime.”

“Sorry if I upset you,” he called after her.

“You didn’t,” she assured him. The tears were forcing their way out of her eyes, but luckily she had her back turned to him,
so he couldn’t see how hurt she was.

A
ll day long, Ryan’s words burned into Kelly’s consciousness. She wondered if perhaps she’d judged Ken too harshly. After all,
Ryan was his son. He’d lived with Ken for years before the breakup, and if he thought Ken was a good guy, then maybe he was.

Several things about her conversation with Ryan were eating at Kelly. Worst of all, of course, was that he was asking Allie
to the May dance instead of her. That was a slap in the face, especially since he said that he’d wanted to ask Kelly in the
first place, but didn’t because of their parents going out.

Kelly wondered if that was true. She thought that perhaps the real reason Ryan was asking Allie instead of her was that Allie
was a better ballplayer than she was. Ouch. It hurt just to think that, but Kelly couldn’t escape the truth. Sure, she was
as good a fielder as Allie, and she used to be as good a
hitter. But she wasn’t anymore. These days, she was a total loss at the plate.

Kelly thought again of what Ryan had said about his dad being a great coach. “He taught me everything I know about the game,”
he’d said.

Maybe she was just being stubborn. For the first time, humiliating as it would be, Kelly considered asking Ken to help her
with her swing.

No, she couldn’t. She just couldn’t! Not after the way she’d treated him. He’d just tell her to get lost, and he’d be right,
too. If anyone had talked to Kelly like that, she certainly wouldn’t give her the time of day if she asked for help.

But after all, he was supposedly in love with her mom. Maybe, for the sake of family harmony, he’d be willing to forgive and
forget …
if
she could get up the courage to ask.

That night, she got her chance. After dinner, her mom had to leave for a meeting of her women’s group, a bunch of professional
moms who got together every month for encouragement and dessert. Kelly had always thought of it as just an excuse for her
mom to socialize. But it usually meant a night when she could watch TV all evening without her mom complaining, so it was
fine with Kelly.

Tonight, though, her mom had left Ken in charge. For a moment, Kelly felt the automatic impulse to act nasty about it, but
she restrained herself. It gave her a weird kind of satisfaction to see the surprised looks on their faces when she didn’t
act up.

A few minutes after her mom had left, while Ken was busy doing the dishes, Kelly came into the kitchen. “Need any help with
those?” she asked pleasantly.

Ken gave her a startled look. “Er, thanks!” he said. “That’s nice of you to offer, but I’m almost done here.”

“Oh.” She opened the fridge. “Want me to cut up some fruit for dessert?”

“Yeah, that’d be great.” Ken stood there watching her, a dish in one hand and a towel in the other, not moving.

“Um, remember the other day, when you offered to give me some pointers on my swing?” she asked, fishing out some apples.

“Sure,” he said, beginning to wipe off the dish.

“Could you — I mean, would you mind? I know my swing’s kind of a mess….”

He put down the dish and the towel. “Right now?” he asked.

“Well, I don’t know…. It’s kind of dark out.”

“That’s nothing. We can turn on the porch light. Come on.”

“Cool. I’ve got a bat in the garage.” Kelly ran to get it, while Ken dried his hands off on the towel. Moments later, they
met on the porch.

“Come on down here, in the light,” he told her. “Now, take a swing for me. Right, like that.”

She swung hard, visualizing the ball arcing into the night sky.

“See, you’ve got a great natural power swing,” Ken told her.

“Yeah, right. That’s why I can’t hit for beans.”

“You hit fine, until you started seeing windmill pitching,” he pointed out. “Isn’t that true?”

“Well, yeah. So? I can’t catch up with it, is all. So that’s that.”

“Not necessarily,” Ken corrected her. “That’s why I wanted to work with you on it. See, windmill pitching’s a lot faster,
so you have to cut down your swing a little.”

“Uh-uh,” Kelly balked. “That’s what they told me at that softball camp. It messed up my swing even worse.”

“Well, there’s nothing wrong with the swing that I
can see,” Ken insisted. “Let me see how it looks when you cut it down.”

She showed him. “Aha!” he said. “See, you’re not shifting your weight when you take the shorter swing. You’ve still got to
make the shift if you want to hit with any power.”

“How can I do that?”

“Well, you’ve got to start it earlier, and cut out the hitch.”

“Hitch?”

“Yeah, you know how you drop the bat a little when you start the swing? It’s kind of a timing mechanism for you — but if you
lift your front foot instead, you’ll still be able to time the swing without making it take longer.”

She tried it a few times, and he made small adjustments until he was satisfied she had it down. “There,” he said. “Now, the
other thing is, you’re not picking up the pitcher’s release point.”

“Huh?”

“You’re following all that motion, and you’re not seeing the ball as it leaves the pitcher’s hand. You’ve got to stare at
the point where you know the release will be, and ignore all the motion around it.”

“Okay…,” she said doubtfully.

“Look, when’s your next game?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to check.”

They went inside, and she consulted her schedule. “Oh, great,” she moaned. “We’re playing the Devil Rays again. Day after
tomorrow.”

“Well, that gives us a day, at least. Can you come with me to the ball field after school?”

“The other teams’ll be playing there.”

“Okay, how about someplace else?”

“Um, I guess the school yard would be okay.”

“Fine. I’ll meet you there after school with your bat and a bag of balls. I can throw you some windmill pitches, so you can
get used to the idea.”

“Cool!”

Her enthusiastic response came as a complete surprise to her — and to him, too, she could see by the look on his face. Maybe
Ryan was right about him and maybe her mom wasn’t so stupid after all. Maybe Kelly had made up her mind too soon about Ken.

She went to bed that night full of confusing thoughts and didn’t sleep much at all. When she did, she had nightmares about
the upcoming game against the Devil Rays.

By the end of their practice session the following day, Kelly had begun to get her old confidence back. She was walloping
pitch after pitch, sending balls rocketing off the wall of the school, way at the other end of the school yard. If she hit
anything like this against the Devil Rays, she was going to surprise a lot of people.

And though it took something to admit it, she was having a good time with Ken. It was weird, she thought in one of her more
contemplative moments. She would never have believed he could be this much fun.

Maybe he’d been as uncomfortable around her as she’d been around him. It couldn’t have been easy for him, she reflected, coming
into their house and trying to act like a part of their family, especially when Kelly had made his every move that much more
difficult. She felt sorry now that she’d been so mean to him, especially since he was being so nice to her.

When the time for the Devil Rays game rolled around, Ken and her mom were both there in the stands, cheering her on. Kelly
sort of wished they weren’t there, since it was really distracting knowing
she had to perform or they would see her fall flat on her face again.

On the other hand, the tips she’d gotten from Ken in the past two days had made her feel much calmer about her skills. She
felt sure she could at least make contact with Laurie’s pitches.

And on the other side, the Devil Rays were in for a surprise when she stepped onto the mound. “Windmill Wizard,” Coach Beigelman
had called her. Well, today she was going to show her old team some of her new magic.

There they all were — Sue Jeffers, Karen Haynes, Laurie Solomon, Beth Parks, Nina Montone — all her old friends and teammates
in their blue-and-green uniforms. And here she was, in her yellow-and-black Diamondbacks jersey, ready to do battle with them.

The D’backs were the visiting team, so they batted first. Laurie hit the mound and started to warm up, her windmill pitches
popping in the mitt of Danielle Lauritsen, the Rays’ catcher. “Attababy!” Danielle shouted encouragingly, even as she shook
the pain out of her glove hand.

Dorien Day walked slowly to the plate. As she did,
Coach Beigelman yelled, “Let’s go, D’backs! Let’s show ’em what we’re made of!”

They were made of pretty good stuff, Kelly had come to see. A 5–2 record going in, while it wasn’t a perfect 7–0 like the
Devil Rays’, was not exactly chopped liver, either.

Dorien had never been a great hitter for them, but she somehow usually found a way to get on base. Today was no different.
After taking two called strikes, Dorien kept fouling off pitch after pitch. Finally, on the tenth pitch of the at bat, she
worked out a walk.

Kyla Sutton was not so patient, nor so good a contact hitter. She struck out on three pitches. Allie Warheit was up next.
“Come on, Allie!” Kelly found herself yelling. As much as the sixth-grade phenom irritated her, they were teammates now, and
this was war.

But Laurie Solomon had no intention of letting Allie beat the Rays. She pitched carefully to her — so carefully that Allie
walked on four pitches.

Oh, so that’s how it is
, Kelly thought bitterly.
They’d rather pitch to pathetic old me, huh? Well, fine. Bring it on, Laurie
. She strode angrily to the
plate, going over in her head all the things Ken had taught her.

She paid no attention as Laurie went into her herky-jerky windup. Instead she focused only on the spot where the ball would
be released. At the same time, she raised her front foot, timing her swing. The ball whizzed toward her, looking to Kelly
more like a basketball than the pea it had resembled of late. She swung hard, then heard the sweet ping of aluminum smashing
cowhide.

A roar went up from the crowd as the ball soared skyward. “Look at that!” Kelly heard Coach Beigelman raving. “Wow!”

Kelly ran toward first base, but she might as well have walked. The ball was way gone, and it wasn’t coming back. Kelly reached
home plate and was mobbed by her jubilant teammates well before the left fielder had retrieved the ball from beyond field
number three.

“Whoo-hooo!” Allie Warheit roared, double high fiving Kelly. “Oh, baby! What a shot!”

The Conroy Comet, her old teammates used to call those moon shots of hers. Well, it had been a long time since she’d hit one,
and never off windmill
pitching. Kelly looked up into the stands and found Ken, standing with her mom and applauding. She gave him a smile and the
thumbs-up sign before heading back to the dugout.