Supercharged Infield (3 page)

She stood balancing herself, one foot on a pedal, the other on the street, wanting desperately to go and talk with Karen.
But Karen’s impassive, cool attitude held her back. Penny thought that if Jonny would only invite her into their yard, her
problem might easily be solved. But he didn’t.

“Played a terrific game today, Karen,” Penny said, breaking the awkward silence.

“Thank you.”

The reply was soft, almost inaudible.

“We should’ve won the game,” Penny added.

“I know.”

Jonny caught the next pitch from Karen, folded the fingers of his glove firmly over the ball, and grinned across at his sister.
“Well, I’ve had enough,” he said. “How about you?”

“Yes.” Karen turned and started to head for the house, and Jonny looked at Penny. “How you doing?”

Penny shrugged. “Okay.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say for a moment.

“Mom said you called and asked about Karen,” Jonny went on in that pleasant, velvety voice of his. His straight blond hair
was a little unruly in front, dangling over his forehead, and his nose seemed to be too small for his wide face. But his smile
now overshadowed that minor oversight of nature’s, and Penny smiled back.

“Well, she . . . she didn’t seem to be saying much, and I just wondered if she was okay,” Penny said, feeling uncomfortable
and nervous.

“She
was
a little tired,” said Jonny. “But she rested awhile and is fine now. Thanks for asking.” He headed for the house. “Take care.”

“You, too,” said Penny. She watched him as he walked toward the back door, then she got on her bike and rode off. He knows
there’s something fishy about Karen, too, Penny thought. He knows as well as I do. Why doesn’t he say something?

Penny found Faye and Mrs. Marsh trimming rosebushes in their backyard.

“Uh oh,” Penny muttered, remaining on her bike as she watched mother and daughter
from the narrow sidewalk leading to their back door. “I guess I should have telephoned.”

Faye and her mother glanced up simultaneously. Both smiled, surprised to see her. “Oh, hi!” said Faye. “Telephoned? Why?”

Penny grinned. “I never
dreamed
you’d be working.”

“You call this work?” Faye cried. “I’m cutting in on Mom’s hobby. And you know what? It’s fun!”

Mrs. Marsh straightened up, moved her shoulders back and forth, and stroked away some of her straight black hair, which had
fallen over her slender, cheerful face.

“If it’s so much fun, how come I’ve trimmed three bushes so far, and you only one?” Mrs. Marsh asked, and smiled. “Go on.
Get your bike and go riding with Penny. I’m sure you’d rather do that than trim rosebushes anyway, in spite of the fun.”

“No! Please!” Penny cried, getting off her bike and putting down the kickstand. “I didn’t mean to interfere. I’ll just stay
here and watch. Okay?”

Faye looked at her mother. “Do we have another pair of trimmers, Mom?” she asked coyly.

“Unfortunately, no,” replied her mother, smiling.

“In that case,” said Faye, turning back to Penny, “you can watch and take some lessons, all for free. There’s a bench under
that tree you can sit on.”

Penny laughed, went to the bench, and sat down. After a while she began to feel bored. She wanted to discuss with Faye the
people she had come here to discuss: Shari and Karen. But she didn’t dare to bring up the subject of the girls’ super softball
playing in Mrs. Marsh’s presence. The woman would think that her daughter, and her daughter’s friend, had gone bananas.

So, for almost half an hour, Penny sat there and watched them trim rosebushes. Who cared what strains of virus the pregnant
Mrs. Nelson had, anyway? Or whether she was going to have two babies, or three? Nothing was more important right now than
finding out what had happened to the two girls on the Tall Oaks Hawks softball team.

T
HE
H
AWKS PRACTICED
on one of the four softball fields at the Municipal Athletic Center on Saturday afternoon, a hot, eighty-eight-degree, you-can-fry-an-egg-on-the-sidewalk
kind of day. But one player was missing: Faye Marsh.

“Got any idea why Faye isn’t here, Penny?” Coach Parker asked, probably knowing that the two girls were close friends.

“No, I don’t. And I just saw her Thursday evening,” Penny replied, puzzled.

Faye had not even given her a hint that she would not attend practice today. Perhaps she hadn’t known then what she’d be doing
two days later. Or maybe she came
down with one of those viruses she had been talking about, Penny thought wryly.

“Debbie!” Coach Parker called to a brown-haired girl playing catch. “Take second base for infield practice. Move!”

“Yes,
sir!
”

Debbie Brohill, one of the Hawks’ three substitutes, broke into a run from near the dugout to the infield, her long, skinny
legs flying. If she could hit and catch as well as she could run, Penny was sure the coach would have her start every game
instead of Faye. Maybe she’ll develop in those areas, Penny thought, and give Faye something to worry about.

“Okay, everybody at their positions!” the coach ordered, picking up a softball and a bat from a pile near the dugout and going
to the plate. “Outfielders to the boondocks! Jack Grayson will hit them out to you!”

Jack Grayson, a tall, dark-haired kid wearing a letter-sweater with a TO on it — for Tall Oaks — was a high school athlete
who sometimes helped Coach Parker out with fielding practice. He picked up a bat and went to the right side of the plate to
hit flies to the outfielders.

Penny glanced across at Karen and tried
to catch her gaze, but Karen seemed absolutely aloof. Penny thought she’d say something to her anyway before the coach started
the practice.

“Hi, Karen! How you doing?”

Karen looked at her, her face blank. “Fine, thanks,” she said, and focused her attention back on the coach.

“Good,” Penny replied, but hardly loud enough for Karen to hear her. I just don’t understand it, she thought. Karen’s acting
exactly as she had during the game on Thursday.

“Okay, Penny!” Coach Parker yelled. “Get one!”

He knocked a fast, bouncing ball down to her, which she fielded perfectly and whipped over to first. Jean Zacks, standing
with one foot on the bag, caught it and threw the ball home. Shari caught it, shot it to Penny, and Penny pegged it back to
her.

The routine continued with Karen next, then Debbie, and so on, and was repeated several times before Coach Parker decided
that his infielders had had enough.

“Okay, twice around the field,” he commanded. “Then take off.”

Whew! Penny thought, feeling hot, achy,
and tired from the grueling practice. What does he want to do? Kill us?

But they all made the run, and none died from it.

Penny thought about calling Faye after she got home from practice and took a shower. If Faye had come down with some virus,
she would appreciate a word or two of sympathy. Especially from her best friend.

But nobody answered the phone on Faye’s end when Penny called. Even after ten rings. Maybe she wasn’t ill after all, Penny
thought. Maybe she and her parents went shopping. Or to visit friends.

Penny didn’t see Faye again until the Hawks — Hard Hats game on Tuesday afternoon.

“Hey! How you doing?” Penny cried, rushing over to Faye and grabbing her hands.

Faye stood and looked at her. Faye didn’t have the familiar smile on her face that Penny expected to see. Or that pink glow
in her cheeks, that gleam in her eyes. She was totally expressionless. Emotionless. “Hi, Penny,” she said, robotlike.

Penny stared at her, feeling a tingling in
her arms, a shiver shooting through her body like a weak charge of electricity.

“Faye,” she whispered softly, “are you all right?”

Only Faye’s lips moved. “I’m okay,” she said. Her voice was lukewarm. Almost cold.

Fear gripped Penny. Oh, no! she thought.
Not you, too, Faye! Not you, my best friend!

“Faye! What’s happened to you?” she cried, tension seizing her. “Please tell me! What’s changed you?”

Before Penny could say more, Faye, silent, yanked her hands out of Penny’s and headed briskly toward the dugout.

T
HE
H
ARD
H
ATS HAD FIRST BATS,
and June Cato, their leadoff hitter, cracked out a double on the first pitch. Coach Parker had Mary Ann Dru pitching again
for the Hawks, because, Penny figured, it had been five days since she had pitched a game and it wouldn’t hurt her arm. She
had more speed and better control than Edie Moser, the Hawks’ other pitcher, and was even a little better at the plate. Edie
would pitch on Thursday.

“Bear down, Mary Ann!” Penny shouted from third. “Bear down!”

The Hard Hats’ Effie Moon drove a Texas leaguer over short that sure looked as if it
were going for a hit. But Karen raced out beyond the bare ground of the infield, stretched her gloved hand far out in front
of her, and made the catch.

The crowd went wild.

I can’t believe it, Penny thought. She really robbed that batter of a hit!

T. K. Ellis walked on five pitches, bringing up Barbara Nelson, the Hard Hats’ homerun queen. The outfielders moved back about
five or six steps each, and even Penny stepped back on the grass.

Barbara connected solidly with a hot grounder toward short. Karen scooped it up and shot it to Faye covering second base,
and Faye relayed it to first. Penny thought it was the fastest double play she’d ever seen the girls pull off.

“Beautiful fielding, Karen!” she exclaimed as the girls ran off the field together. “Both plays were terrific!”

“Thanks,” Karen said, again as deadpan as if she made such catches in every game.

“Blast it, Kim Soo!” a fan yelled as Kim Soo Hong led off for the Hawks. Coach Parker had changed the lineup slightly in this
game, according to Harold Dempsey’s announcement of the first three batters a
moment ago: “Hong! Farrell! Keech!” Penny stood in the on-deck circle, waiting for her turn to bat.

Kim Soo missed the first pitch, then corked a double to right center field.

“Bring her in, Penny!” a fan yelled from the stands behind the backstop screen. Penny recognized Jonny Keech’s voice, and
a nervous feeling swept over her as she stepped into the batting box. Knowing that Jonny was back there made her think of
Karen, and thinking of Karen’s brilliant playing tightened the tension even more.

Penny popped two pitches foul, then struck out.

“That’s okay, Penny!” she heard Jonny yell. “Better luck next time!”

Sure, she thought. And probably strike out then, too.

She sat down and somehow wasn’t surprised when Karen unleashed a hit that went for three bases, scoring Kim Soo. Nothing extraordinary
that Karen or Shari did would surprise her anymore.

She glanced down the length of the dugout at Faye, who was sitting at the far end, watching Sophie Kowalski striding to the
plate. Wonder where the coach has her batting
in the lineup? thought Penny, and then she looked for Harold. She almost jumped with surprise when she saw that he was sitting
right next to her.

“Harold, who does Faye bat after?” Penny asked him calmly.

“Mary Ann,” he answered, and looked at her apologetically. “I understand you and everybody else were wondering why Faye wasn’t
at practice last Saturday afternoon,” he said in that deep, drawling voice of his.

Penny looked at him. “That’s right. Do
you
know where she was?”

“With me.”

“What?”

“She went to a movie with me,” Harold explained quietly. “Don’t look so strange. I’ve taken Shari and Karen, too. Anyway,
we thought we’d get out in time for her to go to practice, but it was a long picture. By the time we got out — ”

Penny found herself staring at him and not listening to the rest of what he was saying. She could see her twin images in the
mirrors of his dark-brown eyes, see his lips moving, hear the hum of his voice drumming into her ears. But his words were
not registering.

Suddenly she didn’t like the sight of Harold Dempsey anymore and wanted to get up and find another place to sit. Something
about him was frightening her. Something — but she didn’t know what.

Penny tried to dismiss Harold from her mind, and she watched as Sophie popped out to second base and Jean Zacks, the first
baseman, walked up to the plate. Jean was tall, dark-haired, and left-handed, and almost always when she’d hit the ball would
drive it out to left field. This time she drove a hot grounder down to short, which the Hard Hats’ shortstop let go through
her legs. Karen scored on the error.

Then Mary Ann got up, and Penny saw Faye leave the dugout, pick up a bat, and go to the on-deck circle. Faye picked up one
of the metal “doughnuts” that were lying on the ground, slipped it over the handle of her bat, and began swinging the bat
back and forth over her shoulders. The doughnut slid down to the heavier part of the bat, giving it extra weight so that it
would feel lighter to her while batting.