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  Nagel was studying the graffiti and shaking his head. “Wow.”

  “Yeah.” Brock nodded at the vandalism, then showed Nagel his torn pants and bruised knee. “Bruise for a bruise.”

  Nagel sighed and shook his head. “I told you to watch out.”

  “What can we do?” Brock asked. “Your brother had a knife. He was going to cut my hair if Bella didn’t say she called the police.”

  Nagel looked at Bella, then at his feet. “Hey, Bella.”

  “Nagel.” She didn’t smile, but her voice wasn’t as hard as it had been a minute ago.

  Nagel looked up and narrowed his eyes. “Wait, you said he had a knife? Like a survival knife?”

  “It was big and sharp with a jagged top edge,” Brock said.

  Nagel nodded. “Oh, boy, is he in trouble.”

  “What do you mean?” Bella asked.

  “That’s my dad’s knife. He was with the army in Bosnia. My brother got in trouble with that knife last fall. My father told him he better never touch it again. Oh, this is awesome!”

  “Why awesome?” Brock wrinkled his brow.

  “Don’t you see?” Nagel’s face was bright with glee. “My father will kill him. Well, not really kill him, but you and Coach won’t have anything to worry about. Let me handle it. You’ll see.”

  Nagel slapped Brock a high five, winked at Bella, and took off in a jog.

  “See?” Brock watched Nagel disappear behind an apartment building. “He’s not so bad.”

  “Maybe not,” Bella said.

  Brock followed Bella back through the gate.

  “Want to see if my aunt has any cookies?” Bella asked.

  “Nah. I better get back.”

  They passed through Coach’s yard without stopping and continued on up the street. Brock opened the side door to the empty garage and the smell of fresh paint almost knocked him over. Bella took her bike out and touched Brock on the nose before climbing aboard.

  “Thanks, Brock. You’re kind of awesome.”

  Brock looked at his feet and when he looked up she was already rolling down the driveway.

  “See you tomorrow!” he shouted after her, then watched until she disappeared around the corner.

  Brock fixed himself dinner, then packed for the tournament. While he was zipping up his bag, he got a text from Nagel.

  no worries about my bro. he’s outta here. dad takin him to recruiting station 2morrow! Bye bye bro! hahaha. Good luck in Pton!

  Brock smiled and forwarded the text to Bella. He went downstairs to read his book. At ten, he climbed back up the stairs and got into bed, thinking pretty much about nothing but Bella, except maybe with a little Jamie Nagel, Coach, and Dylan mixed in here and there. With the lights out, lying in the dark, he was almost asleep when his phone buzzed from its perch on the night table beside the bed.

  “Nagel?” Brock reached for the phone, hoping Nagel’s father hadn’t had a change of heart.

  Then he saw that it wasn’t Nagel.

  It was a text from his father.

  71

  2 more days. gd luck!

  Brock sighed and set the phone back down and thumped his head back into the pillow.

  “Good luck,” he said to the darkness. “Thanks, Dad. Good luck to me.”

  The annoyance about his father’s absence mixed with his anxiety over baseball and resulted in a strange brew inside his mind that let him nod off into a deep sleep. When he woke, sunlight already poured through the curtains and he had to check his phone again to assure himself his father’s message wasn’t a dream. He got ready, then ate some cereal before heaving his travel bag on one shoulder and his bat bag on the other.

  He knew Coach would happily give him a ride and all he had to do was stand at the end of the driveway and wait for him to come outside, but Brock wasn’t like that. He started off down the road on his own. If Coach saw him on his way to the school, he’d likely pull over to take him the rest of the way, but showing up at the doorstep seemed too forward to Brock. He knew it was important to always remember that he couldn’t rely on anyone, not even his own father.

  The grass was still damp and the shadows long and cool. Birds sang from treetops and telephone wires and the sunlight filled him with an elixir of hope. It seemed like the kind of day that was the beginning of something special. He got halfway to the school on Bayberry Circle before he heard the light tap of a car horn behind him.

  Coach pulled up and swung open the passenger door. “Hop in.”

  Brock did. “Thanks.”

  “You can always ride with me.” Coach crunched on the last bite of a granola bar. “Silly to walk.”

  “My dad says walking never killed anyone.” Brock shifted the baseball gear off his leg.

  “Your dad coming to this one at all? Maybe if we make it to Sunday?”

  Brock kept his eyes fixed on the road. “He kind of works all the time.”

  Coach nodded his head. “Nothing good comes without hard work, so . . . Did you tell him about our new windup?”

  “Yeah,” he lied. The truth really didn’t matter. Brock felt like he’d entered a room he needed to get out of as quickly and politely as he possibly could.

  “Great. What’s he think?”

  “He thinks it’s great.”

  “Nice.”

  “Yup. Bella took me swimming. At the river.”

  “The rope?” Coach raised an eyebrow and cast him a look.

  “That thing goes high,” Brock said.

  “I told her about that. You know the water’s not the cleanest in the land.”

  “She said it’s cleaner than the beach. She says the beach is full of pollution and bacteria.”

  “What beach?”

  “I don’t know. Just the ocean.”

  “That Bella . . .” Coach paused. “You like her?”

  72

  Brock’s face grew warm. “Sure. She’s cool.”

  “She’s a tough cookie.” Coach chuckled.

  Brock didn’t reply, because he wasn’t sure where Coach was headed, and he really didn’t want to know. They came to a stop in the school parking lot. The bus was already there, humming away and soiling the air with the stink of diesel. Other kids on the team gathered with their parents in little pods, getting kisses from their moms and hearty backslaps for good luck from their dads. Brock tossed his gear underneath and climbed aboard, trying not to watch. Bella was already in her seat and she looked up bobbing her head to some tune she listened to through the earbuds connected to her iPhone.

  She snatched them out and smiled. “Fun yesterday, right?”

  Brock stole a look at Coach who was climbing aboard with Coach Centurelli. “I think I sprained my neck.”

  “When you hit the water like a chicken,” Bella said, “that happens.”

  “I thought ostrich.”

  She grinned. “Both.” They looked at each other and her eyes sparkled at him through her glasses in a way that was as pleasant as it was uncomfortable. Finally, he broke free from his trance and took out his book, holding it up for her to see.

  “Count of Monte Cristo?” she said. “The classics. You getting brainy on me?”

  “There’s a reason people keep reading it,” he said, opening the book.

  “Hunger Games.” She held up her own book. “There’s a reason they made it into a blockbuster movie.”

  “Is everything a competition?” he asked.

  “If it was, I’d be whipping seventh-grade girls in softball all summer instead of hanging around with a bunch of cavemen.”

  “You really think this makes you better? All the practice, but no games?”

  She shrugged. “They’re talking about letting me play varsity next year, as a seventh grader. I could get a scholarship. I’m not worried about lining my dresser with trophies. I want money. You?”

  “I guess. I’m thinking about the majors.”

  “For girls, the best you get is a college scholarship, so . . .”

&nb
sp; “Kind of stinks.”

  She shrugged. “That’s life.”

  Brock took one final glance at her. He was now seriously uncomfortable, but she appeared calm, cool, and collected. In a word, she scared him, so he dug into his book and stayed there until they pulled into the Homewood Suites outside Princeton. The team unloaded and went to their rooms. Brock hadn’t even thought about a roommate, but unlike the hotel in Fairfield the week before, the rooms at this hotel had two beds in them and Brock found himself beside Charlie Pellicer, picking out the bed by the window.

  The team had lunch and then boarded the bus, which took them across the bridge spanning Carnegie Lake and dropped them off at the ball fields right on the Princeton campus. Brock started to get nervous the minute his feet hit the sidewalk. The smell of hot dogs and fresh-cut grass filled his nostrils, and around the building, he heard the crack of a bat and the cheer of a crowd. Baseball was in the air.

  The team entered the clubhouse, where they registered for their late afternoon game. Brock stood off to the side trying not to mix with the other team that was also waiting. He knew from their black caps with a sword emblem that they were Liverpool’s first opponent this afternoon, the Scarsdale Knights. Brock knew from Coach Centurelli that the Knights were the favorite team to win the tournament. The coaches clustered around a registration table presenting copies of birth certificates for their players, proving they were eligible for U13 competition.

  The Knights coaches walked away from the table first, both of them short men—the younger one, chubby, with a thick blond mustache, the older wearing no cap on his bald head. As they passed Brock, he heard them laughing.

  “How does he even have a team?” the Mustache said. “Wasn’t he the one who did a face-plant last year at midnight in the lobby? Who would sponsor a train wreck like that?”

  “Barrett Malone, that’s who,” said Baldy. “Barrett pays for the whole kit and caboodle. They call Hudgens ‘Huggy.’ He gets the dregs from the Titans. They’re always good for an easy win. It’ll let us rest our top pitchers for the next round.”

  “Barrett Malone?” Mustache screwed up his face. “Why?”

  “Huggy coached him. Probably feels sorry for the guy.”

  “Train wreck.” The Mustache seemed to like the sound of it.

  The two men kept talking as they went, and as they passed him by, Brock saw that Coach had been directly behind them. By the pained look on Coach’s face, Brock was sure he’d heard what they said. Brock quickly looked down, pretending to study his iPhone. When Bella tapped him on the shoulder, Brock spun around.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  Brock looked over his shoulder to see that Coach had gone, then unclenched his teeth. “I want to crush these guys.”

  73

  Later that afternoon, as the team warmed up, Brock threw like a demon. When his ball hit Charlie Pellicer’s catcher’s mitt, the pop turned people’s heads.

  When Coach announced the starting lineup in the dugout, he put Dylan on second and Brock on the mound. Bella secretly slapped Brock high five. As the players jogged out, Brock hung back and tapped Coach on the shoulder.

  Coach looked up from his clipboard. “What’s up?”

  “I won’t let you down, Coach.” Brock kept his voice low. “I hate these guys.”

  Coach laughed. “Don’t worry about hating anyone. Just let me see that full windup and everything will be fine.”

  Brock jogged out to the mound, trying hard not to grin at Dylan.

  The first kid up was the Knights shortstop, the Mustache’s son. Brock heard the kid call the Mustache “Dad” during their warm-ups. Brock sneered at Mini Mustache, who was short and blond too. With both heels on the mound, he focused on his full windup, going through the motions in his mind.

  “Play ball!” the ump shouted.

  When Mini Mustache stepped into the box, though, Brock felt a sudden wrench in his gut.

  It seemed somehow that Mini was standing too close to the plate. Brock wanted him to move back. It didn’t seem quite right, and Mini held the bat out at a funny angle, away from the field, pointing toward the backstop.

  “Get him, Brock!” Coach shouted from the dugout.

  “Come on, Brock!” Bella joined in.

  Brock looked over at her, wishing he could tell her with his eyes that everything was wrong. Wishing she could tell him what, and fix it.

  “Let’s go, pitcher!” the ump bellowed at him.

  Brock tried to clear his mind. He remembered Coach’s words of advice.

  He set his jaw, went into his full windup, and let it fly.

  74

  The pitch went so wide of the batter, that had he stood still, he would have been fine. Instead, startled by the speed and direction of the ball, Mini Mustache backed into it and the ball thunked off his helmet like a mallet striking a coconut. Mini dropped into a pile of limbs and a puff of dust.

  Brock stood frozen in terror.

  The real Mustache shot from the dugout with his hands flying in wild fury around his head as he screamed. “That’s a beanball! I want him out! That’s a beanball!”

  Brock turned to Coach, who emerged from the Liverpool dugout with a lot less enthusiasm than the Mustache. Coach held his hands up, as if to tamp down the rage spewing from the Mustache who was already kneeling down over his son and screaming for the ump to eject Brock immediately.

  The umpire raised the mask from his face so it sat atop his head and he started a slow walk out to the mound. Coach arrived at the same time.

  “Brock?” Coach’s eye twitched. “What were you doing?”

  Fear and confusion added a pinch of anger to Brock’s words. “He was right up on the plate, Coach.”

  “Okay.” The ump turned from Brock to Coach. “That’s it, Coach. He’s out.”

  “Out?” Brock couldn’t believe it.

  “Out?” Coach growled at the ump. “It was a wild pitch. We’ve been working on it. He’s fine in practice, but when he gets in a game he loses control. He didn’t mean to hit the kid. He’s not like that.”

  The ump folded his arms across his chest. “He just said the kid was crowding the plate. A brushback pitch is the same as a beanball in my eyes. It’s dangerous and that’s not happening in a game when I’m the umpire. Sit him down.”

  “You can’t do this!” Coach was right up in the umpire’s face now. “He backed right into it!”

  “I just did!” The umpire didn’t shrink away. “And you’ll be gone next if you don’t get back in your dugout and send out a new pitcher.”

  The ump and Coach went into a staring contest. Brock felt horrible and all he could think to do was grab Coach and tug him away. “Coach, please. This is all my fault.”

  “What?” Coach dropped the umpire’s glare and turned to Brock. “You meant to hit him?”

  Brock shook his head. “No, but he’s right about the brushback. I was thinking. . . . I don’t know, but don’t ruin everything because of me. Please, just play. I’ll watch. Don’t do anything, Coach.”

  Coach shot one more evil look at the umpire and shook a finger as he retreated to the dugout. “You’re wrong.”

  Brock stopped halfway to the dugout and turned toward the batter who was now sitting and taking a drink.

  “Is he okay?” Brock called out to the Mustache.

  “No, thanks to you!” The Mustache glowered at Brock.

  “I’m . . . sorry.” Brock’s apology didn’t seem to register, but it was all he could do so he returned to the dugout and sat down next to Bella, who simply stared out across the field. Coach put Dylan on the mound and sent one of the other players out to cover second. Dylan was given a few warm-up pitches and the game resumed with Mini Mustache bouncing atop first base and chattering at the pitcher.

  “Looks like he’s okay.” Bella snapped her gum and kept her eyes on the field.

  “Great.” Brock’s voice was a foghorn of despair.

  They sat for a while, watchi
ng Dylan struggle through the inning. After a time, Brock turned to look at her chewing steadily on her gum.

  “That’s it? That’s all you got to say?”

  “Wow.”

  “Wow?”

  “Yup, wow.” Finally, she turned to look at him with sparkling eyes. “Do you realize what you can do if you get that pitch under control?”

  “Bella, I just got ejected from the game.”

  “But we play again tomorrow morning. This is a double elimination tournament. It’s a big tournament. Winning this would put you and Coach on the map. These Knights? They won three national tournaments last year. They are good. But, you get that thing under control and we will rip through this tournament. No one can hit that pitch. Not any U13 kid I’ve ever seen.”

  Brock turned back toward the field and rested his chin on two hands. “One problem.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t have it under control, and I have no idea in the world how I can fix it.”

  75

  The Knights crushed Liverpool, 17–0.

  It was embarrassing. It was humiliating. It was painful.

  Brock hung his head, and after the game, the ump wouldn’t even let him shake hands with the other team, which was fine with him. Brock kept his chin down as the team piled back onto the bus and headed back across the lake to the hotel. When the team unloaded, with the rest of the players already bubbling about getting some pool time in before dinner, Bella took Brock by the arm and asked Coach if they could talk, just the three of them.

  On a bench along the circular drive, Bella pointed for them to sit.

  “Okay,” she said, “what are we gonna do?”

  Coach gave her a puzzled look. “Just keep trying.”

  Brock shook his head in defeat. It was the first time in his life that he actually looked forward to the moment his father tapped his shoulder to say it was time to go. He wished his father would appear this very night, this very moment, and take him away.

  “What?” Bella grew angry. “You’re quitting? That’s how it works? Not as long as I’m helping out with this team.”