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  I feel the energy building. Donald Mole shows up to practice with two more players, Handro Corea and Roy Nader.

  “Handro should play second base,” Donald tells me.

  “But you’re on second.”

  “He’s better.”

  Handro runs on the field and starts throwing and catching. He’s so much better. Roy picks up a bat and Sky pitches to him. He’s got a power swing.

  “Okay, Donald, you and Roy are utility players. That means you’ll play different positions as we need you.” I slap his shoulder. “It’s awesome what you did.”

  “I want us to win.”

  We’ve now got twelve guys!

  A reporter from out of town comes to watch us practice. He has a little mustache and a lot of snark. “So what do you kids think of baseball now?”

  Everyone looks to me. I say, “Was it baseball that did this, sir, or people?”

  He has a fake smile. “So will you be playing baseball in school even after all that’s happened?”

  Terrell steps up. “As you can see, mister, we are playing baseball after all that’s happened! And we’re going to keep playing it.”

  “Why?” the reporter demands.

  Terrell points a finger at him. “Because my grandpa always told me, giving up is stupid.”

  The reporter sits there.

  “You should write down what he said,” I tell the man.

  “What’s the name of your team?”

  “The Muskrats.” Terrell says it strong.

  The reporter turns to me. “And you are . . . ?”

  “He’s our coach,” Donald says.

  “Really? Do you Muskrats have a captain?”

  We hadn’t thought about that. But most of the players look to Terrell, then back at me. “It’s Terrell if he’ll do it,” I say.

  A big cheer goes up. Terrell’s smiling. If we ever get new uniforms, maybe we should have GIVING UP IS STUPID written on the backs of our jerseys.

  There’s another message going around town: HONK IF YOU LOVE BASEBALL.

  I didn’t have anything to honk when I first saw it, so I shouted, “Yes!” I expected to hear a lot of honking, but there wasn’t much.

  I wonder what happened to all the people who loved it? I wonder about the other people—the ones who say:

  What’s the big deal about steroids?

  You think this is only happening in Hillcrest?

  So many people want that edge to WIN.

  WIN.

  WIN.

  But in the middle of all this, another voice rises—it’s a real one, too. She stands on the high school steps with her husband and her son, Mac Rooney, who was a big Hornets star. Mac Rooney’s mother gives motherhood a gold star.

  “I don’t know how the other parents are feeling,” she begins. “But I’m feeling that we’re the lucky ones. We still have our sons. Michael and Dellia Cantwell lost their boy, Hargie. I, for one, want to know the truth about what happened. I want to understand what trust was broken, I want to understand what my son was exposed to, what he knew and didn’t know. I want us all to stop running from this ugly thing and look at what’s at stake here! If we ever needed truth in this town, we need it now.”

  Mac Rooney is standing next to his mother when she says it and applauding louder than anyone.

  Then Mr. Aronson gives us the best homework assignment. “What’s an example of a tragic flaw in our world today? Write a paragraph about that.”

  I haven’t finished my paragraph about Coach Perkins, but here’s what I’ve got so far.

  His love for winning was his downfall. It became more important than being honest and being responsible to his players and to the sport. I really like this sentence: Finally, when it comes down to it, a coach is responsible for the health and safety of his players.

  I actually call Aunt Charity and read it to her.

  “Well done,” she says. “You’re getting quite an education in that place.” And she doesn’t ask if I’ve had a bowel movement!

  Of course, I get off the phone before she can.

  I ask Franny who she wrote about. At first she doesn’t want to tell me. Remembering Canada, I let it be. But later in the day, she comes up to me.

  “Promise you won’t tell.”

  “I promise.”

  She stands there quietly. “I wrote about my dad.”

  Chapter

  22

  I HAVE A million questions I want to ask Franny about her dad, but everything says Don’t.

  I’m trying to show Jerwal how to pick up a garbage bag. I’m live-streaming this to Yaff, but Jerwal’s not getting it.

  “When you learn this, Jerwal, you can begin to clean my room,” I explain. “Won’t that be great?”

  “Then you can clean my room,” Yaff tells him.

  Jerwal shuts down at that, except for the blinking light in his eyes.

  “We’ll talk about this later, Jerwal.”

  Yaff sends me pictures of the science fair. Our tables were supposed to have been next to each other. “They put Lanie Costrider next to me! She won first prize with ‘How We Can Save the Ozone Layer.’ But I got more traffic.”

  Yaff brought his gerbil, Brucie, to the fair. He built a maze for him to follow and tested how fast Brucie went through it. He changed the treats and colors so you could see what got Brucie moving and what made him stop. Yaff got awarded a SCIENCE IS FUN ribbon for his project. He hung the ribbon over the maze to show off, but Brucie got hold of it and started shredding it.

  “When are you coming back?” Yaff asks.

  I sigh. “I’m not sure.”

  “So, see you pretty soon, Eagle Man.”

  “Yeah . . . pretty soon . . .”

  I don’t know how long I’ve got to rescue baseball.

  And here’s the worst part: I don’t want to go back. I like my life in St. Louis, and I really miss Yaff—but wait! I can’t think this way!

  Head in the game, Lopper.

  Across the street, Bo is lugging an old suitcase from the garage. Then he carries out a broken rocking horse. Franny runs out of the house.

  “No! Not the horse. That’s mine.”

  Bo puts the horse down. It doesn’t rock; it flops over. He shakes his head. “It’s dead, Franny!”

  “It’s not dead!” she yells.

  El Grande stands up slowly and says something to them I can’t hear. Now El Grande is walking across the street toward me. Adler follows him. “Son, I want to talk to you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He looks at Jerwal, whose robot eyes glow. El Grande shakes his head. “I feel like I’m in a space movie.”

  “It’s just everyday robotics.”

  He unfolds the Hillcrest Herald. “I’ve heard from people on both sides about baseball at the middle school. I don’t know if you’ve seen this yet.”

  IS BASEBALL HISTORY IN HILLCREST?

  I feel my heart racing.

  I’m getting sick of this!

  Chill, Alice!

  “We need a break here! How can we keep playing when nobody cares?” I flop down on the porch steps and put my head in my hands.

  Jerwal beeps. El Grande lowers himself on a step.

  “I figured you’d feel that way, and I came to tell you something. You know what blinders do for a horse when it’s running a race?”

  “I think they keep the horse from looking around at other things.”

  “That’s right. And I’m inclined to think you need to figure out a way to tell the team about keeping their eyes away from all these voices that are squawking and discouraging everybody. You’ve got a team to build and a job to do. It doesn’t matter what the other people say.”

  I look at a crack in the step. “That’s good, sir.”

  “When I play
ed ball, my coach always told me, ‘Ellis, you’ve got to play your game.’ I was never sure what my game was, to tell the truth, until one day we were behind twelve runs—it was the eighth inning and hotter than a pizza oven outside. Any fans we had were long gone. I hated baseball that day, I hated my life, and I didn’t think I had a blasted thing left to give. But I did.”

  I look up. “What was it?”

  “Well, I laughed. Good and long.”

  “You laughed?”

  “That’s right. I laughed because I decided to play the last part of a losing game the best I’d ever played. I went on to get two home runs and stopped three guys from scoring.”

  “Did you win?”

  “I sure did. My team lost bad. But I won. You get what I’m saying?”

  I sit there grinning. “I get it. Thank you.”

  It takes him a while to stand up. “I hate to say something so insightful and then have such trouble taking my leave.”

  “You don’t have to leave, sir.”

  “Tell you what, now that we’re friends, you can call me Coach or El Grande, but let’s be done with sir.”

  I grin. “El Grande—definitely.”

  Jerwal beeps.

  El Grande looks at my robot. “You’re going to take some getting used to.”

  There should be special movie music when El Grande walks back across the street to his house.

  “We’ve been visited by greatness, Jerwal.”

  I can’t wait to talk to the team.

  I wish I was about ten years older, but you don’t always get what you want.

  Chapter

  23

  ON THE LOCAL news, Rabbi Tova is mad as anything and she’s not taking it anymore.

  She stands on the steps of Town Hall with half her congregation and shouts, “Is baseball history in Hillcrest? If you mean the kind of baseball that uses steroids to cheat and win and harm young players, then, yes indeed, it is history here!”

  Walt and I clap at that and turn on the Reds game. We both have work to do, but it’s good to have a baseball game happening in the background. It gives you comfort, except for the commercials.

  I’m all for comfort right now. The new medicine Dr. Dugan gave me has a side effect—dry mouth. I feel like I’m in the desert. Walt says she’s going to change the medication again to see if it makes me feel better.

  Better is good; getting worse is not acceptable. We’re picking up the pills tomorrow. “I asked her about side effects, Jer.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “She said you might urinate more in the beginning.”

  “Come on! I hate that.”

  “Sorry, pal. Maybe you won’t.”

  I probably will, but I can’t think about that now. Tomorrow will be my first big speech to the team, and it’s got to be right. Mr. Hazard got us a game in two days against the Myerson Middle School Bolts. I spread out my coaching books for inspiration.

  There are speeches coaches give in the middle of a game when their team is losing: You’re better than this! Remember that! I know what you can do!

  That’s not the kind of speech I need.

  There are speeches coaches give near the end of a game when their team is losing: When you look in the mirror tomorrow, will you be able to say “I did everything I could to win”?

  Will you?

  I’m going to have to write my own.

  From the heart, Alice.

  I practice the speech in front of Jerwal, who moves back and forth.

  I practice it in front of Adler, who really wants to play get-the-bagel.

  All during school I think about it. It’s going to be a big moment.

  After school when the guys come on the field, Benchant walks up to me.

  “I’m not sure I can stay on the team, Lopper.”

  “Why not?”

  He shrugs.

  Then Casey says he’s not sure he can keep playing, either. We can’t lose our reliever!

  This is bleak!

  We go through some fundamental drills. Danny Lopez, our third baseman, isn’t here. So I adjust . . .

  “Donald, you’re on third.” He half runs over there. We do the ground ball drill. We do the fly ball drill. Donald misses every time. He even drops the ball Terrell hands to him.

  There’s no hustle on this field, except from Terrell.

  I can’t stand it anymore. I wave my arms for them to stop. “You’re not the same team! What happened?”

  They look down.

  Handro steps forward. “We’re going to get killed tomorrow, Jeremiah. Myerson is seriously good. Man, we are not ready.”

  I don’t know what to do. “Is that how the rest of you feel?”

  Logo and the Oxleys nod.

  “So, what would make you feel ready?”

  Sky laughs. “A couple of wins.”

  This feels like a Magellan moment, when people were telling him it was impossible to circle the globe because there was no globe and he’d better wake up to reality.

  I cross my arms like coaches do. “All I can tell you is what I know. Winning isn’t just about who gets the most runs—that’s not the point.”

  Donald Mole is leaning on his bat, listening like I’ve got the secret to the universe.

  This was not the speech I planned at all. “Winning,” I tell them, “is deciding you’re not going to quit.”

  They look at one another.

  “You’ve got to do the hard work and decide you’re going to keep at it, bit by bit, no matter how tough it gets.”

  Now Benchant looks straight at me.

  “Here’s the word we kill here and now,” I tell them. The guys wait for the word, just like I waited for it when Walt told me this in the hospital. “Quitter.” I kick the sand. “That’s dead to us. We destroy it.” I stomp my foot like I’m squishing a bug.

  Terrell is looking around at the faces; he looks back at me and nods. He’s not quitting.

  I stare at them. “So what are you not going to be?”

  “Quitters!” they say.

  “I want you to write it down. ‘I’m not a quitter.’”

  Benchant raises his hand. “I don’t have any paper.”

  “Do it when you get home! Write it down every day. And next to it, write ‘I’m a winner.’”

  Benchant says, “How come you know this, Lopper?”

  I learned it when I got sick and I thought I was going to die, and I was too sick to care, but Walt told me. He put courage in me.

  I say, “I play the game in my head. I picture all the things that can go wrong and I see myself stepping over them and getting it right.”

  Benchant glares at me.

  “You know what, Benchant? Glare at the pitcher just like that. It’s awesome.”

  That throws him. “It is?”

  “Positively awesome. Like a secret weapon.” I slap him on the back.

  He smiles a little. “You think?”

  I smile back. “I know. And that’s for all of you. Attitude on the field. I want you to practice that. Game faces on.”

  They get serious.

  “Okay,” I shout. “Who are we?”

  “The Muskrats!” they yell back.

  We need to do something about that name.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Danny comes late to practice. I give him a shorter version of the speech. “You have to play tomorrow,” I tell him. “We need you.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  I give Franny the entire speech, and she says, “Where did you learn to think like that?”

  “My dad mostly.”

  Franny looks down. “I learned the exact opposite from my dad.”

  “Where is your father?” I ask.

  She doesn’t answer.

 
I don’t push. “You’re coming tomorrow, right? We need loyal, cheering fans.”

  “Benny and I will be there.”

  “It’s nice you take care of him.”

  “Benny has a special way of looking at the world. And believe me, Jeremiah, after everything . . .” She stops. “It’s the least I can do.”

  What does that mean, Franny?

  And she walks into her house.

  Chapter

  24

  “WE’RE GOING TO cheer for our team, Benny.”

  Franny says this, and Benny shouts, “Yay!”

  “Louder, Benny Man,” says Sky.

  Benny screams it louder.

  “You’re our mascot,” Terrell tells him.

  Benny looks confused. He doesn’t understand mascot.

  Our bus pulls up to Myerson Middle School. Mr. Darko, the soccer coach, has been assigned to us permanently. He doesn’t say anything encouraging; he just claps and says, “Okay now, okay.”

  Out the window, I see Walt parking his car. I asked him to come to the game. I know he had to reschedule a lot to be here. Four Hillcrest mothers are holding up a GO, MUSKRATS! sign and cheering as our bus pulls up.

  Benny jumps off, shouting “Yay!” The team follows. The mothers sit in the bleachers. Walt walks with us to the field. And that’s when we hear it.

  We look at one another.

  At the crowd.

  Is that about us?

  It is.

  We’re getting booed. Good and loud.

  I’ve never been booed before.

  The team freezes.

  I make the mistake of looking at the people booing. They seem to enjoy it.

  The Hillcrest mothers are angry.

  “Cheaters!” someone shouts.

  Benny backs off the field and grabs Franny’s hand.

  “It’s okay,” she says. “It’s okay.”

  “No!” he shrieks.

  Mr. Darko is steaming. Walt moves fast. He points to Mr. Darko’s whistle. “This would be a good time to blow it. Loud.”

  Mr. Darko blows it loud and long. A couple of dogs start yelping. Benny hollers “No!” like his ears are bursting.

  The crowd quiets down a little.