Game Changer (15 page)

Evangeline is as feisty playing mathletics as I used to be playing softball,
KT thought, and that “used to be” was like a dagger through her heart.

No! No! It’s not “used to be”! I’m playing softball tomorrow!
she told herself.
I’m getting softball back! I’m playing tomorrow and then, somehow, that will show this world who’s boss, and everything will change back
the right way!

But that thought was enough to make it impossible for KT to watch Evangeline either. And when the cheerleaders jumped up for a time-out cheer in Evangeline’s honor—“E [clap], E-V [clap], E-V-A-N-G-E-L and I-N-E [clap, clap]! She’s our C-H-A-M-P and I-O-N [clap, clap, clap, clap]! Champion!”—that was like a dagger through KT’s heart, too.

Why does she get her own cheer and her own game, and my game barely even exists in this world?
KT wondered.
It’s not fair!

KT slipped into something like the zone she entered when she pitched—or maybe it was the flip side of that zone, because she just blurred out everything around her and did nothing. She stopped thinking; she let her hands fall loosely in her lap. She could have believed that she almost stopped existing. She was somewhat aware that the coach had put the second-string players in for the second round, and that Max’s team fell far, far behind. In the third round, KT kind of noticed that the first string was back in, and Evangeline was answering a lot, but now every triumphant Evangeline grin just made KT feel more and more miserable, more and more adrift, more and more alone in the crowd.

And then Mom was clutching KT’s arm.

“It’s sudden death!” she hissed. “They’re tied! I can’t stand it! Everything comes down to this last question!”

The library was absolutely quiet, as if no one even dared to breathe.

“If Bob pays a quarter for an apple and a banana,” the announcer began, in the same serious, hushed voice that golf announcers used in the real world, “and twenty cents for a banana and a pear, and twenty-one cents for an apple
and a pear, how much would it cost Bob to buy just one of each fruit?”

Max buzzed in immediately.

Idiot!
KT thought.
His coach and Mom and Dad are going to kill him for hitting the buzzer by mistake at a time like this!

Max didn’t even look like he’d realized he’d made a mistake.

“Oh,” he said dreamily, like there weren’t hundreds of people hanging onto his every word. “That’s not as tricky as it sounds. You just add up all the numbers to get two of each fruit, and divide that in half. So it’s . . .” He blinked, almost sleepily. “Thirty-three. Thirty-three cents.”

“Yes,” the announcer said.

The library exploded with screams and clapping and—from the opposing team—disappointed wails. People shot off streamers around KT; they cupped their hands into imitation bullhorns and made sounds like vuvuzelas. The cheerleaders jumped up and down and started the whole home side of the stands chanting, “Max! Max! Max! Max! Max!”

KT sat silently in the midst of all the hubbub and celebration. She slipped her iPod out of her pocket and sent another message out to her entire message list: “I can’t wait to be around people who like the same things I like! People who know what’s really important! It’s only another fifteen hours!
See you all tomorrow!”

Saturday morning dawned bright and crisp and clear. KT was up with the sun, doing stretches and sending out final reminder messages: “Today’s the day! Don’t forget to come to Ridgestone Park in Brecksville at ten a.m. for the great sport of softball!”

She packed up the old pillows she’d decided would be the best she could do for bases. She put those, the basket of balls, her two gloves, her cleats, and the bat in an old red wagon she’d found still in the garage from when she and Max were little. She went back upstairs and tried to decide what to wear.

It’s not like I expect anyone to actually have uniforms, but it’d be nice if everyone on the same team wore the same color,
she thought.

She sent out another message to everyone: “Bring a couple different colors of T-shirts as spares, so you can match your teammates.”

In the real world KT had a great collection of softball-themed T-shirts: a pink one saying
(SOFTBALL) DIAMONDS ARE A GIRL’S BEST FRIEND
, a black one saying,
YEAH, I THROW LIKE A GIRL. SCARED YET?
and drawers full of commemorative T-shirts from every team she’d been on, every softball camp she’d been to, every big tournament she’d played.

In this world KT had mostly plain T-shirts—red, blue, green, yellow, orange, and purple—and a smattering of T-shirts that said meaningless things like
JOE’S COFFEE SHOP
or
I GO TO BRECKSVILLE NORTH
. (If any writing-related ac team had been involved in coming up with that one, KT was pretty sure they were having a losing season.) This whole past week those shirts had made KT feel dull and dreary and deserving of no notice whatsoever. But at least today a couple of the colored ones would do as decent stand-ins for uniforms. She could loan some out if she needed to.

KT went downstairs to the kitchen and pulled out water bottles she’d stashed in both the refrigerator and the freezer overnight. Sure, it was cool outside right now, but if they played into the late afternoon, things might get a little steamy. She added the water bottles to the wagon in the garage, then tucked a twenty-dollar bill under the bottles. There were a few fast-food restaurants within walking distance of the park. Maybe everyone who showed up would want to go out for a late lunch afterward.

KT went back into the kitchen and forced herself to choke down a quick breakfast, even though she was almost too excited to eat. Dad was just stumbling into the kitchen as KT put her dishes in the sink. He had his head down, studying the Academics section of the newspaper.

“Guess what, Dad?” KT said. She hadn’t mentioned her planned softball game to Mom or Dad all
week long. Superstitiously, she’d almost been afraid that if she told them, somehow this, too, would disappear from her world. Or Mom and Dad would take it away.

But she felt too hyped up to keep secrets any longer. It was finally Saturday. What could go wrong now?

And—wouldn’t Dad want to come and watch?

“Hey, wasn’t that a great game Max had last night?” Dad asked, barely bothering to glance up at KT.

“Yeah, but—,” KT tried again.

Max appeared at the kitchen doorway, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. He yawned. Dad dropped the newspaper, grabbed Max around the shoulders, and gave him a noogie on the head. Then Dad faked a couple of punches at Max’s chest.

“There’s my boy!” Dad cheered. “My champion! What do you say the two of us hit the math books together today?”

Max darted his eyes quickly at KT, then back to Dad.

“Uh, maybe this afternoon?” Max said.

“What’s wrong with right after breakfast?” Dad asked.

Max glanced at the clock on the microwave.

“Nothing, I guess,” Max said.

Dad pulled out a chair at the kitchen table for Max.

“Here. Sit down. Want me to fix you pancakes? French toast? An omelet?” Dad asked Max. He looked over at KT as if he’d just remembered she was there. “KT, do you want any? Er, I guess you already ate, didn’t you?” He glanced toward the dishes in the sink, then squinted at her a little blankly. “Oh. Were you saying something a minute ago?”

“Nothing, Dad,” KT said. “Never mind.”

She left the kitchen, trying to hold
on to her excitement from a few moments ago.

Never mind is right,
she told herself.
He wasn’t interested enough for me to bother telling him anything. But it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I’m going to have softball again.

This wasn’t any different from a setback in a game. You just had to shake it off and keep going.

She decided to head to the park early.

“I’m leaving!” she called back to Dad and Max in the kitchen, even as she pushed the garage-door opener so she could pull out the wagon. “I’ll probably be gone most of the day!”

She didn’t wait to hear if Dad even bothered asking, “Where are you going?”

It took longer than she expected to roll the overloaded wagon all the way to the park. It was probably a good mile away, and KT’s arms started hurting before she’d even gone halfway.

Oh, well. That will build better muscles for pitching,
she told herself.
I probably haven’t been getting enough practice this week, just pitching during that one short class every day at school.

Soon enough the flat, open green of Ridgestone Park appeared before her. KT had picked this park because it was so huge—if enough people showed up to hold four games simultaneously, they could do that. Without backstops or fences everyone would just have to stay alert for runaway balls.

KT set out enough pillow bases for two diamonds, for a start. She stepped off the proper distances between bases and readjusted all of the pillows
slightly. Somebody persnickety—Vanessa? Bree?—might bring a yardstick or something to measure it precisely, but KT was satisfied. She could feel the distances in her bones, could tell even with her eyes shut what it should feel like to run from base to base.

In the center of each diamond she stomped down the grass and dug in her cleats to mark the pitcher’s place. She practiced the motion of each throw, whirling her arm just right without actually releasing any balls. Then she went to home base and practiced hitting tossed-up balls.

Probably some of the girls will be so eager they’ll show up before ten,
KT thought.
We can get started with an impromptu practice until everyone gets here.

She reminded herself that she’d probably have to teach everyone the game, so she’d have to be patient and not expect them to play at a Rysdale Invitational level right away.

But they’re all great athletes,
she thought.
They’ll learn fast.

She targeted the location of all the balls she hit:
This one will go to second base,
she told herself.
This one will go to right field . . .

She used up all the balls, then jogged out to collect them all. On her way back to home base, she stopped at the wagon to check the time on her phone: 9:56.

Any minute now,
she told herself.

She kept batting, in between looking back toward the parking lot.
This one will go toward third base, but don’t let it go foul,
she told herself.
Now, this one will go toward where a shortstop should be . . .

She came to the bottom of the basket of balls once more. She was slow walking out to retrieve the balls again,
slow walking over to the wagon, slow picking up her phone.

Ten fifteen.

She slid down to the ground, grabbed one of the water bottles, and gulped it down.

Maybe some of the girls got lost,
she told herself, wiping the sweaty bottle against her own sweaty forehead. In one of her multiple mass messages, she’d given everyone her cell number—maybe she’d just missed hearing the phone. She checked both her missed-call log and the text-message in-box.

Nothing.

She watched the deserted parking lot.

Nothing.

At ten forty-five, she had to face the truth: Nobody had shown up. Nobody was going to.

Nobody.

KT pitched her head forward, burying her face in her hands. Then she collapsed all the way down to the ground. She wasn’t much for crying, but she sobbed now; she wailed; she scared herself with how violently the tears came.

I can’t get softball back,
she thought.
I can’t. No matter how hard I try, I can’t play softball alone. I need a team and—nobody wants to be on a team with me.

She pounded her fists on the ground, rubbed her face back and forth in the dirt.

Two hundred girls I contacted. Two hundred! All of them used to love softball. Most of them used to be my friends. And none of them even bothered writing back to say they weren’t coming.

She was getting snot in her hair, mud in
her ears.

How can I survive in this awful place without softball? How can I ever get back to the real world now?

She felt a hand on her shoulder. She heard a voice.

“You were voted one of the best eighth-grade pitchers in the entire state. You pitched a no-hitter in that championship tournament game in Atlanta—or was it Houston? You’d think I’d remember, I’ve heard the story so many times.”

KT lifted her head.

It wasn’t one of her softball friends or teammates crouching beside her, holding her shoulder, trying to pull her up.

It was her brother, Max.