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  I lower my head. It will mean more parents want their kids off our team.

  But Franny says, “It means that people better start supporting the middle school team, because you’re as clean as it gets.”

  “Yay!” Benny shouts.

  The three of us walk home from school not saying anything. When we turn onto Weldon Road, Bo is lugging a trunk out from the garage. Franny gasps and backs up. Benny sees his dad and runs over shouting, “We lost, Daddy! We lost!”

  “That’s okay.” Mr. Lewis gives him a big hug. “Everybody loses sometimes.”

  Adler trots over to say hello. I pat him. “Good dog.”

  But the trunk . . .

  “I . . .” Bo begins. “I didn’t know it was in there. It had a tarp over it.”

  Franny looks at the dusty trunk. It has stickers on it from Chicago, Kansas City—the others are ripped and faded. Play Ball! is painted across it.

  Mrs. Engers walks out of the garage like she’s holding herself together. “I thought he’d lost it.”

  Franny bites her lip. “Guess not.”

  “It’s locked,” Bo adds quietly. The lock is rusted.

  Franny looks at me sadly. “It’s our dad’s trunk, Jeremiah.”

  Oh.

  They stare at it, and I remind myself—four years ago, something happened to this family.

  “Do you want to open it?” Bo asks her.

  “No.” Franny and her mom say this together.

  Bo stands there at first, and then carries the trunk back to the garage.

  Chapter

  28

  THE HILLCREST HERALD comes out with an editorial that goes viral—in Hillcrest, at least.

  El Grande reads it to Franny and Bo. Mrs. Prim gets on the phone and reads it to her granddaughter. Walt and I take turns reading it. It’s one of those times when a good voice breaks out and helps just about everybody.

  Walt leans against the refrigerator to help his back and begins: “‘What Really Happened in Hillcrest? by Mark T. Inslow. For as long as I can remember, Hillcrest has been a baseball town. Winning. Losing. Winning. Losing . . . and then Coach Perkins came. And we stopped losing. We won. Big games. Big championships. After a while, you forget about losing. Being the best year after year means you’d better stay there. Nothing short of it is acceptable.

  “‘I wonder if I should have been asking more questions. I’d come to expect nothing short of winning from this team of champions. The truth is, the team—and many in our town—became addicted to winning. It was good for the boys, for the town, for the school, for . . . You fill in the blank.

  “‘Now we know it was too good to be true. Hargie Cantwell’s fastball is forever a memory, and baseball in Hillcrest, so big and bold, made us the worst kind of famous.’”

  Walt sighs deeply and hands the paper to me. I sit at the table and read the next part.

  “‘What do we tell the kids? Here’s what I’m telling mine: It’s okay to lose; it’s okay to not be number one year after year. Taking steroids in sports is cheating. And cheating, even if almost everybody else is doing it, is wrong. Winning by cheating isn’t winning. It’s losing. And losing by honorable efforts can be the biggest win of your life.

  “‘I hope we won’t just toss our Hornets hats in a growing pile by the stadium and shake our angry fists at being tricked. We don’t need anger as much as we need courage. Courage is at its best when there isn’t much of it around. So if you feel the stirrings of that, please step out and help us rebuild. Let’s give the media something else to talk about.’”

  I stand here holding the paper. “I swear, Walt, if there was a place to enlist, I’d go and do it.”

  “Jer, I think you already have.”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  I draw a beard on the mother on the front of the cheesiest Mother’s Day card I can find. I paste a picture of a laptop in the mother’s hand. Inside it says:

  Mother dear,

  How can I thank you

  for every year

  and every tear?

  I put an X through that and write:

  Walt, You rock!

  J

  I hand it to Walt. I always get my dad a Mother’s Day card, and he always groans, like now.

  “This might be the worst yet, Jer.”

  I smile. “Thanks.”

  “Where do you find these things?”

  Cards this bad don’t fall from the sky. “I had to look hard, Walt. I got it at the Peaceful Lutheran secondhand store.”

  Walt dips an extreme Nutella cookie into his coffee. “You made these?”

  “Benny’s mom’s recipe.”

  “This cookie requires full concentration, Jer.” He eats it slowly, sips the coffee. “You’ve outdone yourself.”

  We’re eating hamburgers on our back porch. Regular people tend to have cookies after their hamburgers, but our number one Mother’s Day rule is Dessert Comes Whenever You Want It.

  Walt has another cookie. “Listen, to change the subject for a minute: I’ve got a dinner tomorrow night.”

  “Okay.”

  Cough. “It’s, uh, not a business thing.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s a dinner with a . . . person.”

  “Eating with a person is good, Walt, as opposed to, say, eating with a buffalo.”

  “A female person, Jer.”

  Oh.

  He coughs. “A female person who is also a doctor.”

  “What kind of a doctor?”

  Another cough. “A cardiologist.”

  “Would that be my cardiologist?”

  He nods.

  “My personal cardiologist?”

  He nods.

  “How did this happen?”

  “I called her when you were sick because I was worried, and we got to talking. I wasn’t planning to bring up dinner, but it kind of spilled out.” He looks happy. “You’re cool with this?”

  “You haven’t been on a date, Walt, since—”

  “This isn’t a date. It’s dinner.”

  I was about to say Margie in Toronto, who I didn’t like at all, as opposed to Dr. Dugan, who I like a lot.

  “It’s not a date,” Walt repeats.

  Whatever you say, Walt. “Where are you going?”

  “There’s a new fish place I heard about.” He smiles. “Cardiologists like fish. It’s good for the heart.”

  I’m smiling, too.

  “What?” he says.

  “Nothing.”

  “I’m finding this irritating, Jer.”

  I’m smiling big as we head to the front lawn to play catch.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Something called a preliminary hearing is taking place tomorrow to look at the evidence piling up against Coach Perkins. That’s the next step in the process. After that, Walt told me, the case goes to a grand jury. All of this has to happen before there can be an official trial. Coach Perkins is saying through his lawyers that he’s not guilty—the truth will come out.

  Lying and steroids seem to go together like peanut butter and jelly. Most of the athletes I’ve heard about who were accused of using PEDs lie at first. They’re very good at this. Then later they admit they lied and apologize. I don’t ever want to be a good liar. It would make it too easy to keep doing it.

  I look out my bedroom window. So many stars are out tonight. My favorite star fact is: stars die but can keep on glowing. I like stubbornness in a star.

  A couple of streetlights are on. Two more hours and Mother’s Day is over. I’ve tried to picture what my mother was like—was she tall or short or skinny or always on a diet? Did she have a big laugh or a quiet one? Did she like baseball? I just want to know one thing about her.

  I’ve asked Walt, “You don’t remember some desperate-looking mother arou
nd the office? She could have come in at night and cleaned the building. She was probably watching you.”

  “Believe me, Jer, I’ve tried to remember any little thing, but . . .”

  “She was probably shy, Walt. She might not have spoken very good English.”

  Walt would hold up both hands and shake his head.

  Uncle Jack always told me, “When you don’t know something, focus on all the stuff you do know.”

  I get a piece of paper and write:

  Hey, Mom.

  Baby and I are fine, although he needs a plastic bag to stay together. So far, I don’t. Happy MD, wherever you are. You were right about Walt.

  J

  Chapter

  29

  AT SCHOOL I have three pop quizzes. Then a substitute teacher in science says we can’t make compounds in class until Ms. Mullner gets back. Danny raises his hand and says Ms. Mullner said we could make gunpowder—a world-famous compound. This is so not true. Franny shoots him a look.

  The substitute smiles. “No gunpowder on my shift.”

  “I just want to hear the noise—that’s all!”

  Then it rains, which means no baseball.

  The school bus drives past the Hornets’ Nest. They did a good job of cleaning off the CHEATERS word, but some words just stay in places long after you can’t hear or see them anymore.

  When I get home, Donald Mole is sitting on my porch. “Can I talk to you?” he asks.

  I’m tired, but I sit down. “Will you help me get better, Jeremiah? I’ll really work hard. I know I’m not great at baseball, but I love it. I want to be better.”

  I wish we could play catch right now, but it’s raining too hard.

  He looks at his glove. “I know what you’re thinking. I can’t run, hit, or throw . . .”

  “I wasn’t thinking that. I was thinking, what are you best at?”

  He studies his glove. “I’m best at figuring things out.”

  I stand up. “That’s a great thing, Donald. People like you can make things happen.”

  “Yeah?” He stands, too.

  I’m processing this . . .

  “Okay, Donald, remember the last practice? You weren’t catching the ball well. What was happening?”

  He’s processing. “After I missed a couple, I got embarrassed and I stopped trying.”

  “I know exactly what that’s like.”

  “You do?”

  “And do you know what you can do? You approach this in a new way. Let’s figure it out. The ball”—I hold up my baseball—“is coming toward you, Donald.”

  “Is it in the air or on the ground?”

  “The air.”

  He looks up a little. “Okay.”

  “Show me how you catch it.”

  He holds up his glove and pinches it together.

  “Donald, you have to have your glove open to catch the ball. If you get a piece of it, you close your glove tight around it like a clam. Practice that—opening and closing. And then the ball is coming toward you nice and easy, your glove is open . . .”

  Donald is looking up, his arm is up . . .

  “And you say to yourself, ‘I’ve got this. I’ve got this.’”

  “I’ve got this,” he whispers. “I’ve got this.”

  “Practice that.”

  “I will.”

  “Can I see your glove?” He hands it to me. It’s new and stiff. I tell him about breaking in the leather and making the glove part of his hand. “Mess it up.”

  He starts doing that. The rain is down to a sprinkle. “Come on.” I get my glove.

  I throw underhand to him. He catches a few, and when he does, his face glows.

  He throws it back to me, I reach to catch it, throw it back.

  “That’s it, Donald. That’s it.”

  He catches three in a row and starts laughing. “You know what, Jeremiah? Two years ago, I had cancer. And my big wish was to play baseball.” He throws the ball back to me. It lands in the bushes, but that’s okay. I get the ball. I’ll tell him about my hospital stuff another time.

  “Donald, it’s happening. You’re doing it!”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  I tell Walt about this as he changes shirts five times before he settles on the first one—blue—for his this-is-not-a-date dinner with Dr. Dugan.

  “Don’t say it.” He heads for the door.

  I walk him to the car. I feel like I should give him some tips—like, Don’t drop your phone. Don’t drop your fork. “Good luck, Walt.”

  “Thanks, Jer.”

  He pulls out of the driveway. I wave good-bye.

  I just hope this doesn’t mess things up for me, because Dr. Dugan seems like a very good cardiologist.

  I go back inside and watch the eagle cam for inspiration. The eggs are still eggs—no baby eagle beaks pecking through. The father eagle is sitting on the nest.

  You go, man!

  But the dad starts moving. What’s going on? He moves off one of the eggs, and I see it. A little crack. This is major! Come on, baby. Now the eagle dad is acting upset. Another viewer says there are two other eagles flying overhead.

  The mother flies back to the nest. The father screeches. It’s good they’re together right now. I think this would be much harder for a single parent to do, although not impossible.

  And now the cam stops working! Oh, come on! This happens sometimes, but not now. I wait, but get nothing.

  I suppose I should have dinner, but I’m not really hungry. I’ll just close my eyes for a minute, then do my homework . . .

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  “You’re still up?”

  I look around. Walt is standing here. “I think I fell asleep.”

  “Homework was that fascinating?”

  I shake my head clear. “How did it go, Walt?”

  He scratches his beard. “The restaurant was good.”

  “Good.”

  “I had sautéed grouper with pistachios; Sarah had salmon with pineapple chutney.”

  “Good.”

  “I’m going to bed.” He touches my shoulder. “You should, too.”

  I fold my arms across my chest. “Did the dinner turn into a date?”

  Walt freezes. Doesn’t turn around. “As a matter of fact, Jer, yes. It did.” He heads to his room. “Lights out in five.”

  I see the clock. Twelve seventeen. That’s twelve as in midnight.

  I’ve got questions.

  Is my life going to change, Walt?

  And how much longer do we have here? What are they telling you at work? Does this at least mean you need to get your contract renewed? Because I’d start working on that now if I were you.

  We need to stay in Hillcrest as long as we can. Right?

  I need to find out what happened with Franny’s dad. The team has to win at least once before I go. And if I wasn’t so tired, I’d think of more stuff that will keep us here.

  Sorry, Yaff. Really, really sorry.

  Chapter

  30

  THEY DIDN’T ALLOW TV cameras in the courtroom during Coach Perkins’s preliminary hearing, but the Hillcrest Herald published parts of the transcript (the actual wording of what people said). None of the names of the Hornets players were used because they are under eighteen.

  Did Coach Perkins give you pills?

  —Yes.

  What did he say they were for?

  —He said they were vitamins.

  Did you receive injections from Coach Perkins?

  —Yes. I mean, he didn’t give them. A lady came and gave the shots.

  Who was this woman?

  —I don’t know.

  Why did you consent to this?

  Objection, Your Honor.

  Objection overruled. Answer the question, please.<
br />
  —He said they would help our muscles bounce back from injury. I just figured he knew. I trusted him. He was my coach.

  Did you feel different after the injections?

  Objection, Your Honor . . .

  Did Coach Perkins tell you what you might experience after the injections?

  —He said we would feel more pumped, but that meant it was working.

  Did you experience side effects?

  —My mom said I talked back more . . . I got zits on my back.

  Another player said:

  —We should have known. We should have thought about it.

  Mrs. Rooney said:

  —I missed some clues along the way. I’m ashamed to say that, but I did.

  Coach Perkins said:

  —I love these boys like they are my own. I’m saddened by this—I can’t tell you how it grieves me. But the pills I gave them were vitamins. I don’t know what they got into on their own, but they didn’t get steroids from me.

  That got people screaming in town.

  It’s good to know these things, but Walt said not to focus on it. “Jer, you’ve got higher business to take care of.”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Right before English class, Mrs. Ogletree waves me to her desk.

  “Jeremiah, I think you’re a good and concise writer, but I’m concerned that you’re only writing about baseball. I would like to see you branch out . . .”

  “I wish I could,” I tell her. “But I need to stay focused right now.” I hand her my sentences that show hyperbole, which is a fancy word for exaggeration. I worked hard on these.

  ◆ The weight of the world was on the coach’s shoulders as he looked at the scoreboard and knew his dream of winning the World Series was only a mirage.

  ◆ When he pitched, the screaming eagle swooped over the plate, coming in for the kill.

  ◆ The outfielder was so hungry, he could eat a horse.

  She looks at my paper and back at me. “We’ll need to talk about this again, Jeremiah.”

  “After the season is over, ma’am.”