Soar (17 page)

WE WON!!!

That's the banner hanging across my porch.

I throw my hands in the air. We're going to the World Series! Okay, maybe not that, but it feels like we should.

I'm wearing Baxter, the heart monitor, again. I know it's recording this intense moment.

Franny runs over. “Three to two, Jeremiah!”

She shows me a picture of the team all together after the win. Everybody is there. Benny. The rabbi. Everyone except me.

“It got in the paper and everything,” she adds.

“You knew this?” I ask Walt.

“I wanted you to see the sign.”

The whole team signed it, plus Benny.

Franny hugs me. “We couldn't have won without
you, Jeremiah. Everyone said it. Are you coming to practice?”

I look at Walt, who shakes his head. “I guess I'll be there tomorrow.”

“It'll be a few days,” Walt explains.

Franny looks worried.

“I'm fine,” I say, and head up the steps. That's when Benchant walks over, carrying his bat. He's never been to my house.

“You okay, Lopper?”

“Yeah.”

He looks at the
WE WON
banner. “Can I talk to you?”

“Sure.”

Walt and Franny stand there.

“Alone?” he says.

“Yeah, sure.” We walk to the back, across the bridge. “Pull up a rock, Benchant.”

He sits down. “I haven't liked you much, Lopper.”

“I know.”

“But that's not why I'm quitting the team.”

Is he serious? “We just won.”

“I know.” He throws a pebble in the stream. It plops, makes no difference to the stream.

“Why, Bobby?”

“My dad said I need to do football so I can play in high school, since the Hornets . . . you know . . .”

“Is that what you want to do?”

“I think sometimes I'm better off in a game where I can shove people out of the way.”

“Has your dad seen you play baseball?”

“Nah . . .”

That's hard.

“I'm done, Lopper. I wanted you to know.”

“Well, whatever you do, you'll be good at it. I've been thinking about your strengths. They are many, Benchant.”

He looks shocked. I don't think too many people say this to him. “They are?”

I nod. “Many.”

“Many,” he whispers.

“You've got the strength to be an awesome hitter.”

“I do?”

“Plus you have the ability to drive a pitcher up-the-wall, into-the-stratosphere crazy.”

A little smile forms on Benchant's face. “I like doing that.”

“Jackie Robinson, the greatest ballplayer in history,
drove pitchers nuts. He stole bases. He threw their focus. You can do that, too, Bobby.”

He's nodding.

“I'm sure you've thought about all the athletes who were so good, they couldn't pick one sport. They gave their all to baseball, then they gave what was left to something else, like football. I'm sure you and your father have talked about this.”

He grips his bat. “Not exactly.”

“You hold that bat like it's part of you, Bobby.”

Benchant stands up, swings it hard.

“That's power,” I tell him.

“I could talk to my dad again.”

I nod. “Mention the power of your swing.”

“He already knows how irritating I am.”

Benchant takes out his phone, walks to our fence. I hear: “Listen, Dad. I've been thinking . . . No really! I want to . . .” He walks farther away. He's deep in conversation.

The little stream keeps running like none of this matters.

I throw a pebble in the water. Baseball matters.

Benchant walks back with his bat over his shoulder. “I'll be at practice,” he says.

I stand. “That's great, Bobby!”

“You're okay, Lopper. You're weird, but okay.”

◆ ◆ ◆

SARBs are everywhere in my house. It's like a convention. You have to look where you're stepping. Jerwal tripped over a little blue one that likes to go fast. Walt and I had to put Jerwal's right hand back on.

I warn Franny about this before she comes over. Walt is working at the big table. “You,” he says to the blue SARB, “get a time-out.” He turns the SARB off and puts it on a shelf, lifeless.

Franny giggles as another SARB rolls by. “Hi,” she says to it. The SARB doesn't respond. She and I are in the kitchen watching the eagle cam. Nature, unfortunately, is showing its dark side.

“This is usually inspiring to watch, Franny. I'm sorry about the predator.”

We're watching new baby eagles in their nest as a hawk circles overhead.

“You said eagles were good parents, Jeremiah.”

“They are. They might have gotten stuck in traffic.”

“Isn't there someone to protect these babies?”

“Sometimes.”

Franny stands up. “Why are we watching this?”

I'm trying to introduce the soaring concept, but—

“Are we going to watch the babies die?”

“No! A parent will come.”

“You said they took turns guarding!”

“Well . . .”

“What's going to happen?” Franny shouts.

“They're eagles, Franny. They'll work it out!”

This isn't the best introduction to what I need to tell her, but I take the card out of my pocket. It has a picture of an eagle flying through a storm. It's the same one I gave to Yaff before I left St. Louis.

“In my opinion, and I've dealt with these things before, you're an eagle, Franny. You just don't know it.”

She turns the card over. On the back is written one word:

SOAR

Franny looks at the eagle cam with the helpless babies. She looks back at the card.

This concept takes time to sink in.

She says, “Eagles molt, right?”

“Yes.” This means they lose their feathers.

“And they're bald, right?”

“Some have white feathers on their heads; they just look bald.”

We watch the circling hawk. The unfairness of the wild.

“I'm not sure I want to be associated with a bird who doesn't care about its babies!”

She gets up. A SARB rolls in front of her. “Excuse me,” she says, and heads for the door.

TO PLAY ONE
more game—that's what we're all hoping for. And the latest we can play it is next week. After that the best teams battle it out for the championship. I need to know how much longer I have in Hillcrest.

Walt doesn't know. This isn't like him. “It could be much longer or shorter. I'm sorry. It's complicated, Jer.”

No kidding!

I try to get him to zero in.

“Ten days, Walt? More?”

“I hope so.”

I take out my phone, look up “What you can do in ten days.”

◆ Get your kitchen remodeled (at least according to one kitchen contractor).

◆ Write a screenplay (probably not a good one).

◆ Lose five pounds.

◆ Visit China.

Note that “Save baseball” is not on this list.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Are we ever going to play another game?” Logo asks me.

I gulp. “Of course.”

“Against who?” He looks around the park. “Squirrels?”

“I'll get back to you on that.”

But even without an official game to get ready for, the Eagles are practicing anyway. Benny still comes to practice, but he's taking a new medicine and not talking as much. He is, however, out on the field, watching.

He stands near first base and watches Franny take grounders.

He stands in the outfield and watches as the Oxen catch flies.

He runs laps with us. He's a good runner—his problem is stopping. When he sees something
interesting, like a butterfly or a bird, he stops.

Danny Lopez is coaching Benny on running. “Okay, Benny Man, this is for real. This is the answer you've been looking for.” Benny looks confused. “'Cause it's about taking all your strength and getting it in your legs. Ready?”

Benny's not sure.

“Is that a yes or a no?” Danny asks him.

“A yes or a no,” Benny says.

I'm leaving subtle reminders for Walt around the house.

Ten days left?
It would be helpful to know something!
Can you believe it's June already, Walt? It feels like we just got here. Nine days left?

We are now at, possibly, eight days left and Walt has no information for me.

“When does the school year end, Jer?”

Every kid knows the answer to this. “June sixteenth. Two thirty-seven p.m.”

Walt sighs. He deals with big concepts all day long. How hard can this be?

It would be helpful to know if we will play another game this season, but the adults in charge aren't saying anything about that either. I don't know what to tell the team this afternoon.

I know one thing—they're getting restless.

Terrell throws down his glove. “They're just going to let us practice and do nothing, Jeremiah!”

“We're a joke to them,” Logo adds.

I see El Grande walking toward us. Maybe he's got news.

“Look!” Terrell points.

Across the street from the field, we see a group of guys moving toward us. They're so far away, we can't tell who they are.

Benny runs toward them.

I shout, “Not too far, Benny!”

He stops, looks, and runs back to us waving his hands. “Baseball men! Baseball men!”

What's he talking about?

But now we see them. Nine guys, big guys, with baseball gloves; some have bats over their shoulders.

I look at El Grande. He takes off his glasses, cleans them on his shirt, and puts them on again.

Terrell says, “It's the Hornets.”

And they've got their game faces on. They walk right onto our field.

“You guys want to play?” the biggest guy asks us.

“You're Mac Rooney,” Terrell whispers.

“Yeah,” the big guy says. “You want to play . . . you know . . . a baseball game?”

We stand there.

“You need to practice, right?” another guy asks.

“And we haven't played for a while,” another one adds.

“You'll kill us,” Logo mentions.

Mac Rooney smiles. “Maybe.” He's got that Baseball Is Life look as he studies the field.

El Grande shakes their hands. “We'd be honored, boys.”

◆ ◆ ◆

In the first two innings, only Franny can get on base for the Eagles. She hits a line drive into the left-field gap and gets on second. In a middle school game, she would have been fast enough to make it to third. I'll tell you what—these guys are playing for real. But they're adding something more.

“You almost got a piece of that,” their pitcher says to Handro. “Don't swing so hard.”

At the top of the third inning, it's 8–0.

Guess who's the zero?

Mac Rooney says, “We need to mix it up.” He talks to his team, and five of their players come onto the Eagles team. Joey Fitz, another Hornet, waves our other players over and says, “The girl can come with us.”

Franny's face turns irritated purple as she marches over.

At the top of the sixth, it's 10–7. These are big numbers in baseball. El Grande tells Sky, “Make them go for the corners.” That means the slider—Sky's big pitch. It looks like one thing coming at you and slides away before the batter can figure it out.

He strikes out Joey Fitz. Franny's up. She heads to the plate, snarling, “The girl can come with us.”

She slices the first pitch, rams the second out of bounds. Benny is jumping up and down and clapping. “Franny's mad. Pow!”

The Hornets in the outfield move in closer like she can't hit far. That really steams her. The pitch comes, she cracks the ball. Mac Rooney watches it sail over him.

It's a home run!

Franny rounds the bases as Mac Rooney shakes his head.

I clap for her as she comes in—all the Eagles do. “Head in the game,” I'm telling our guys. “Total focus. Tell me the numbers, Benny. Pitches?”

“Six seven.” That's sixty-seven.

“Catches?”

“One two.”

“Misses?”

“Six.”

“Who do you think's going to win, Benny?”

“Franny!”

And, you know, it's too bad the town isn't out here to see us play. Because they'd see what this game can be and how people need it.

The Hornets are laughing—not all hyped up like they played at their stadium. They're cheering for one another, they're cheering for us.

El Grande stands there shaking his head, saying, “Well, I'll be.”

I wish Mr. Hazard would come out dancing in his eagle outfit. I wish Dr. Selligman would watch and be amazed. I wish Chip Gunther could be here feeling totally guilty.

Benny is right. Franny's team wins. Franny goes three for three with a home run, a double, and a single.

Joey Fitz is looking around the field. “I used to play here.”

“Me too,” another Hornet says.

“You're welcome any time,” El Grande tells them.

Joey grins. “We appreciate that, Coach.”

Benny points to me. “He's Coach, too.”

Joey shakes my hand. “Later, Coach Two.”

“Yeah, later.”

The Hornets walk off.

Pictures! I should have gotten pictures!

“Wait a minute!” I shout. And we do a group picture. Terrell lifts Benny up on his shoulders—normally, Benny wouldn't like this, but today, the miracle day, Benny raises his hands in the air and screeches like a baby eagle.

All the Eagles screech.

Click.

El Grande gets the best sports shot of the season.

“You guys are okay,” Joey says.

“You guys, too.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Word gets around town about the great game that everybody missed. El Grande sends the picture to the
Herald
and it shows up on page one. Here's what I'm hoping: page one will be hard to ignore!

El Grande has a meeting with two coaches from the middle school league tomorrow. It's killing me that I can't be in that meeting. I think I could add a youthful perspective. I'm dying to know: “What are you going to tell them?”

“Well, that depends. First, I'm going to listen.”