Wing Ding (7 page)

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louds drag-raced across the sky the next morning. Treetops swayed like hula dancers. I ducked back into the house with the paper and gave the weather report to Mom and Dad:

“A hurricane without rain.”

Mom clucked sympathetically. Dad snorted.

“Go fly a kite!” he said.

“No,” I said. “I'm serious. It's blowing like crazy.”

“That's what I mean,” he said. “Perfect kite weather!”

Right! The Rambletown Kite Festival. I'd almost forgotten. Today was the day. I hoped the distraction would be good for Stump. Take
his mind off the yips for a bit.

“Could I take that old kite of ours to the festival after practice?”

“I don't see why not,” Mom said.

“I wish I could go, too,” Dad said. “Too bad I have to work.”

We sat down for breakfast. Over a bowl of Pirate Crunch, I flipped through the inky newspaper to see what Gabby had written.

A photograph of Stump leaped off the first sports page. It showed him fumbling away the ball against the Haymakers. Ouch. Not the kind of picture you want in the paper.

Gabby's caption helped ease the pain:

Rambletown's All-Star shortstop Stump Plumwhiff commits a rare error against the Haymakers yesterday. Gale-like conditions made play difficult.

“Thank you, Gabby,” I said aloud. She'd called Stump an All-Star, noted that he didn't usually make errors, and indirectly blamed the weather. Most important, she'd left the yips out
of it, just as she'd said she would.

After finishing the paper and breakfast, I went into the garage and rummaged around for the kite. I found it tucked away on a shelf behind a bunch of empty flowerpots: a yellow nylon owl with two big black eyes, just as I remembered. Wound on a red spool, the string appeared to be in good shape. I hoped it was. The way the wind screamed, piano wire probably would've been a good bet.

I wrapped the kite around the top metal tube of my bike frame, tied it in place with its own string, then grabbed my mitt and pedaled through a strong headwind to Rambletown Field for practice. As he always did, Mr. Bones trotted along beside me.

When we got to the ballpark, I saw right away that the grasshoppers had not returned to the field. They were still camped in the same grove of trees where we'd seen them the night before. That was the good news.

The rest of it was bad.

The toppled sections of outfield wall had not righted themselves. No grass had magically sprouted. The field looked more like my uncle Harry the time his dog mistook his toupee for a chew toy and ran off with it. Bald. Completely bald. Out beyond the damaged fence, a crew of city workers wearing hard hats and orange vests cleared downed tree limbs.

As I surveyed the mess, the rest of the guys arrived for practice. One by one, they nodded my way. Billy Wishes even tried to wink. At least I think he did. It looked like he had something stuck in his eye. I took it to mean Slingshot had spread the word about my plan.

Skip Lou walked onto what was left of the field, carrying three big blue plastic buckets.

Mr. Bones poked his snout into one of the buckets. I don't know what he expected to find. Grass seed, maybe. But the buckets were empty. He looked at me. I looked at Skip Lou.

“We're going to try a little game,” Skip Lou explained. “First let's run through our usual
routine.” He blew his whistle, signaling the start of practice.

The guys and I quickly formed a double line at home plate. Skip Lou had trained us well. We knew the drill. He gave another blast, and Ocho and Ducks took off on a fast lap around the diamond. We always started practice by running the bases.

Stump and I went next. We crossed first base and made the big turn toward second, Stump chugging along on the inside, I to his right. The Glove and Velcro breathed down our necks a few steps back. We ran like undercooked eggs to stay ahead of those two speed merchants.

Without any grass it was hard to tell where the base paths ended and the field began. The diamond looked like one big mud puddle waiting to happen. I hoped the wacky weather forecast didn't include rain.

“You got your picture in the paper,” I puffed as we crossed second in a cloud of wind-whipped dust.

“Yep,” Stump said, digging for third.

I didn't press him for an opinion.

“How's the wing?” I puffed. “Any better?”

“Wing's not hurt. Just won't work.”

As we rounded the bag, he elbowed me hard in the ribs and darted away. I caught up and he jostled me into foul territory.

“Quit it,” I said. “Just warming up. No points for finishing first.”

Stump batted me again.

A real bat would have been nice. The flying kind. They eat insects. Maybe a flock of them would devour the grasshoppers, which had started droning again in the trees where they roosted.

“Quit what?” Stump puffed.

“Quit…oh! Never mind!” I got it. The yips struck again! I swung wide to avoid his flailing elbow.

We crossed the plate stride for stride, then joined Ducks and Ocho at the backstop to urge on the guys still running. Not that we could
actually see anyone. Stirred up by our footfalls and the steady gale, a dust storm had completely engulfed the diamond. I couldn't make out much of anything more than three feet in front of my face.

“Holy smokes!” Ducks exclaimed.

“Thicker than any smoke I ever saw.” I blinked.

As we stared, first the Glove, then Velcro emerged from the gritty brown cloud. One after another, the rest of our teammates stumbled out behind them. Caked in grime, they looked as if they'd just crossed the Sahara Desert. Any second now, I expected camels to appear.

Real camels would've been nice. They have long eyelashes to protect themselves from sand-storms.

Right then and there, Skip Lou decided to move practice off the diamond.

“This is ridiculous,” he snorted. “Follow me.”

We gathered up our stuff and trudged out of our sand pit. It felt good to breathe clean air
again. Not to mention being able to see.

Slingshot fell in beside me.

“Did you get the green light from Stump's parents?” he whispered.

I checked over my shoulder. Stump moped along by himself at the back of the pack.

I nodded.

“Excellent,” he said. “I'll get the supplies after practice. Everybody's coming to my house tonight to make what we talked about.”

Suddenly Mr. Bones let out a yelp and ran toward the buzzing trees. Launching himself through the air, he scrabbled three feet straight up the nearest trunk before gravity pulled him back to earth. He turned a back flip and landed on his feet. For a second the bugs fell silent. Then they started up with the horror music again, even louder than before.

“That dog should be in a circus!” One of the workers laughed.

A real circus would've been nice. They always stretch huge nets beneath the high wire. We could've used nets to catch the locusts. Mr.
Bones sure didn't have any success. I called him away from the trees.

“Is he smiling?” Gasser asked as Mr. Bones trotted over to us. “He looks like the cat who swallowed the canary. If I didn't know better, I'd say he has something up his sleeve.”

“Except he doesn't have sleeves,” I said.

“Whatever did happen to that coat he used to wear?” Velcro asked. “You know, the plaid one?”

“Ugh,” I said, remembering the horrible little doggy jacket Mr. Bones had gotten for Christmas. The thing made him look ridiculous, like a throw pillow with a head sticking out one end and a tail wagging at the other. He'd proudly worn it all winter long. “Don't mention the coat,” I said. “He'll want it back.”

Skip Lou led us to an open area at the edge of the Rambletown Park playground. Telling us to hang tight for a minute, he went over and talked to the leader of the work crew. The conversation involved a lot of nodding and pointing.

As they spoke, we watched a steady stream of
cars pull into Rambletown Park. People jumped out, carrying bags and boxes, and headed for a large open area a few hundred yards beyond the playground.

Tugboat squinted his eagle eyes. His face brightened. “Kites,” he said. “They're setting up for the festival!”

“I brought mine!” the Glove announced. He unfurled a gray-blue kite in the shape of a shark. “Anybody else?”

“Tied to my bike,” I said.

The other guys nodded. Almost all of us had remembered kites.

Before we could say anything more, Skip Lou returned and proceeded to arrange the blue buckets in a row on the wood chips about fifteen feet from where we stood.

He turned and faced us.

“Listen up, guys,” Skip Lou said. “We're going to break into two teams to practice throwing. Never hurts to work on accuracy.”

He didn't mention any names. He didn't need to.

“T
he game is called bucket ball, and the rules are simple,” Skip said. “Each player gets six throws. You score one point for hitting a bucket, two for landing a ball inside. Hit all three buckets twice and you pick up five bonus points for your team. I deliberately set the buckets close. At this distance, the wind shouldn't be much of a factor. Winners earn bragging rights. Everybody else gets to run.”

We all snapped to attention. Skip Lou often devised competitive drills for practice. The squad that came up short always ran. The Losers' Lap, we called it.

We chose sides. Ducks, Gilly, the Glove, Ocho,
Kid Rabbit, and Tugboat formed one team. They were the Reds. Slingshot, Gasser, Velcro, Stump, and I made up the Blues. We had Slingshot, so they got the extra man. With his accuracy, the pitcher was worth at least two players.

To keep things fair, the Reds got to pick which of our players would take two turns. They huddled to compare notes. The obvious choice would be Stump. I wondered if they'd be low down enough to make it.

After a few seconds of whispering, the five of them straightened. Ocho cleared his throat.

“Gasser goes twice,” he said, his teammates nodding behind him. “He can take twelve throws in a row or two turns of six.”

We all knew they'd given us a break.

“Hear that, Gasser?” Skip grinned. “These guys think you can't hit the side of a barn!”

“We'll see about that.” The center fielder laughed.

For his part, Stump didn't say anything. His expression spoke louder than words, though.
He looked like an elephant had just climbed off his back.

Kid Rabbit got things going for the Blues. In six tries he nailed two targets and neatly dropped one ball into a third. Four points—a very good start. Gasser stepped up for us. Electing to use all his tosses at once, he plunked three buckets on his first go-round and five more on his second.

“There's your barn,” he said smugly.

Because Gasser counted for two turns, the Reds sent up a couple players in a row. Gilly drilled three of six, just missing a two-pointer when his last attempt rimmed out. Ocho followed him and rallied his side into the lead by scoring four times.

Taking the ball with the Reds up 11–8, Slingshot put on a clinic. He scored on all six of his throws, including a high-arching eephus pitch that settled in for two. The five bonus points pushed his score to twelve and gave us a total of twenty.

Throwing for the Reds, Tugboat rifled the ball like he meant to cut down a base runner trying to steal second. It would have taken more than wind to knock his cannon shots off course. His first three blasts nailed their marks dead center, sending the buckets flying. After Skip reset them, Tugboat took deadly aim and toppled two more. His sixth attempt sailed a fraction of an inch high. Lucky for the bucket. Lucky for us, too: no bonus for the Reds. Velcro came up next and gave us three out of six, each of his misses narrower than the edge of a dime.

Ducks grabbed the ball from him and took aim for the Reds. Lobbing gentle rainbows, he dropped six balls in a row into the buckets. Amazing! Twelve points plus the bonus of five gave those guys a whopping total of thirty-three. Even though Ducks had stolen the lead, we all cheered his incredible performance. You've got to admire perfection.

“There's your All-Star left fielder!” Skip hollered as Ducks beamed and we all clapped like
mad. “Way to go, kid! What touch!”

Having carefully watched four and a half rounds, I decided to try for straight pegs on my turn. We were down 33–23 and we flat out needed some hits. I figured it made sense to go after the easy points rather than to chase the tricky ones. Concentrating hard, I picked off the buckets one after another—
plink, plonk, plunk
—and pocketed the bonus. Eleven points gave us thirty-four. More important, it gave us the lead again.

For a few seconds, it did.

I handed off to the Glove, who promptly nailed half his chances. Down to our last man, we now trailed the Reds by 36–34. Only one player stood between them and victory.

The player was Stump. He needed two hits to tie, three to win.

I held my breath as he took aim at the bucket on the right.

Stump reached back and fired a dart. Straight and true, the ball met plastic and
made a beautiful
thunk
.

“Way to go, Stump!” I roared, slapping high fives with the Blues. He'd cut the Reds' lead down to a single point and still had five shots left. Things looked good. Stump looked even better. He looked like he'd beaten the yips!

As he gathered himself for his second shot, a strong gust of wind blasted through the park. It must have disturbed the grasshoppers, because all of a sudden they started buzzing louder than ever. It definitely disturbed Stump. His arm hiccuped and the ball bounced wide of the mark.

Four shots to go.

“Nice and easy now,” called Gasser.

Stump nodded. The grasshoppers whined. He threw. The ball fell short. Three shots to go.

His next one sent Mr. Bones scrambling for cover.

We winced.

“Just toss it like you always do,” I called. “Nothing to it.”

He tossed the ball, all right. He tossed it
smack off the side of the climbing structure in the middle of the playground. The grasshoppers seemed to get a kick out of that. Their chirping sounded like laughter.

One shot left. Stump needed to make it count to tie the game. Judging by the way his arm twitched, what he really needed was a miracle.

We tried to drown out the bugs by cheering. Everybody joined in, Reds and Blues alike. Forget the score. Stump was our friend. He was our teammate. We hated to see him struggle. All of us pulled desperately for him.

And he tried. You could see how hard he tried. He took a deep breath. His right arm drew back, and the left reached forward and pointed at the target. It all looked textbook…right up to the end. Just as he released the ball, a horrible shiver ran through his body. A twitch, a jolt, a jerk, a stammer. The yips. He fired the ball into the ground like he meant to bury it.

Our cheers died in our throats. We looked away. It was probably the worst throw any of us
had ever seen in our lives.

Skip Lou kept quiet. He just circled his finger in the air.

Slingshot, Gasser, Velcro, Stump, and I took off on the Losers' Lap. We kept quiet, too. We had nothing to say. As we jogged around the playground, only our footsteps and steady breathing disturbed the uneasy silence. That and grasshoppers droning in windswept trees.