Windmill Windup (6 page)

T
he Diamondbacks’ next practice was almost as bad as the first, but not quite. Some of the sixth-graders on the team were actually
good — Allie most of all, of course. Kelly thought that a year from now the Diamondbacks might actually have a team. Of course,
she’d be on to the next league by then, so it wouldn’t benefit her any.

Coach Beigelman spent most of his time trying to find someone who could pitch windmill. Nobody actually knew how, including
him, so it was difficult. For most of batting practice, it was just Marie del Toro, a total klutz, soft-tossing to the hitters.

Kelly, Allie, and even some of the girls who weren’t very good were smacking the ball all over the place. “Hey, we’ve got
a hitting powerhouse here!” Coach Beigelman exclaimed enthusiastically.
But Kelly knew that once they started facing real pitching the Diamondbacks’ bats were going to go cold in a hurry.

When the day of their first game arrived, Kelly could not keep down her sense of dread. This was all so unreal! As she waved
to all her friends on the other team, it felt like the old days in T-ball, when one team was short of players and the other
team would lend them some for the day. Except in those cases, you would always give the other team your worst players. Kelly
was one of the Devil Rays’ best, or rather, ex-best.

She went over to greet her pals. They all seemed happy enough to see her, but Kelly could tell they were concentrating on
getting ready for the game. The Rays were such a together team, they weren’t about to let themselves get distracted over a
reunion with Kelly.

“Good luck today,” Sue was kind enough to say to her. “You guys are gonna need it. No offense.”

Kelly shrugged and sighed sadly. “I can’t believe this is happening,” she said. “It’s such a nightmare.”

She swallowed hard so she wouldn’t start crying. She gave Sue a quick hug before running back to the other bench, where the
Diamondbacks were all
staring at her like she was a traitor or something for talking with the enemy.

“They’re friends of mine, okay?” Kelly said to their accusing faces.

“Okay, okay, team!” Coach Beigelman said, clapping his hands to get their attention. “I want you all to play hard today and
do your best, and may the best team win. But remember, it’s how you play the game that counts!”

“Oh, brother,” Kelly said under her breath. “Spare us, please.”

Coach Beigelman gave out the starting lineup. Kelly was batting cleanup, of course, with Allie just ahead of her in the third
spot. Dorien Day, a skinny little sixth-grader who could run really fast, was leading off. Kyla Sutton was second, with Rena
Downey fifth. The bottom of the order was composed of three sixth-graders and poor, hopeless Marie del Toro, batting ninth.

“We’re the visiting team, so we’re up first,” the coach said. “Let’s jump out to a lead, okay? That’ll give Marie a cushion
to work with.”

“She’s gonna need it,” Kelly muttered softly.

“What’s that?” Dorien asked her.

“Um, nothing,” Kelly said.

“Okay. Here goes…” Dorien picked up a bat that was much too heavy for her, in Kelly’s opinion, and headed for home plate.

“Play ball!” the umpire shouted, and put on his mask.

Laurie Solomon was on the mound for the Devil Rays. Kelly watched her warm up. Wow! Where had she learned to windmill pitch
like that?

Kelly had never known Laurie to have such a great arm. Obviously, she’d been getting good coaching somewhere. The ball zipped
in toward the plate like a blur, making a sharp, buzzing sound. Kelly felt her muscles tightening and her nerves jangling.
She’d never had to hit fast pitching like that before. Would she be able to now?

“Okay, here we go, Diamondbacks!” Coach Beigelman said in his typical enthusiastic tone. “Put your hands in here!” The sixth-graders
really got into the spirit, but Kelly and some of the other older girls laid back when he tried to get them excited. It seemed
so …well,
dumb
.

Kelly took a seat on the bench as the ump called, “Play ball!” and the Diamondbacks came up to bat.

Dorien went down on strikes, swinging wildly at pitches she couldn’t even see, half of which were
over her head. Kelly snorted to herself and shook her head. This new team of hers was hopeless. How she wished she was back
on her old team, where she belonged!

Kyla Sutton was next. She had two strikes on her before a wild pitch from Laurie nailed her right in the helmet. Kyla screamed,
more in fright than in pain, as Coach Beigelman and the ump checked to see if she was all right. She got up, wiped the tears
from her eyes, and was escorted to first base.

Kelly blew out a long breath. That was a close one, she realized. Kyla had been lucky not to get hurt. Laurie was pitching
fireballs, and she was just a little bit wild, too. A scary combination.

Now, as Kelly grabbed a helmet and a bat and stood in the on-deck circle, Allie Warheit stepped up to the plate. Allie watched
the first three pitches go by without swinging, letting the count go to two balls and a strike. A hitter’s count. Then she
swung at the fourth pitch and sent the ball rocketing over the center fielder’s head.

Allie took off like a shot, and by the time she rounded third base, she had caught up to Kyla, who was still recovering from
being hit in the head by the pitch.

“Go! Go!” Allie shouted, pushing Kyla along in front of her. The two girls crossed the plate ahead of the relay throw, and
the Diamondbacks mobbed them, yelling happily as they took a 2–0 lead.

Kelly walked slowly to the plate, a mix of emotions surging inside her. She’d hoped to be the one to knock the runner in,
but Allie Warheit had stolen her thunder. Now there was no way Kelly could top her feat. Not in this at bat, anyway.

Laurie Solomon wound up and fired a pitch. Kelly tried to get the bat moving through the zone, but the ball was in the catcher’s
mitt before she even swung. “Strike one!” the umpire called. Kelly tensed, gripping the bat handle tighter. She knew she’d
have to hurry her swing to catch up with the ball.

Laurie fired another one, and Kelly swung fast — but the pitch was outside and high, and she wound up lunging at it, hitting
only air. “Strike two!” the umpire called.

Kelly could hear the murmuring from both benches. Everyone knew her reputation from last season — the big home-run hitter,
best in the league. But that had been against regular, slow pitching, not windmill. Kelly tensed even harder, determined not
to let the next pitch get by her.

Laurie went into her windup and let fly. Kelly could see that the pitch was in the dirt, but she’d had to start her swing
so early that now she couldn’t stop it in time. On a check swing, the umpire yelled, “Stee-rike three! Yer out!”

Kelly slammed her bat on the ground and headed back to the bench, blinking back sudden tears. She glared at everyone who told
her, “That’s okay, Kelly,” or “Next time, Kel.” She didn’t want to hear it. She’d been humiliated. That stupid Allie Warheit
had hit a home run like it was nothing, and she, the great Kelly Conroy, had whiffed like a total loser.

In the bottom of the first, things started to get really bad. Still thinking about her strikeout, Kelly got a late jump on
a grounder, and it got through her for a base hit. It could even have been considered an error.

Her miscue opened the door for a seven-run Devil Ray avalanche against the lame pitching of Marie del Toro, the Diamondbacks’
starter. By the end of the inning, Marie had been replaced by Dorothy Barad, one of the sixth-graders, and the D’backs were
in a hole that would only get deeper as the game went on.

Kelly batted again in the third inning and once
more in the fifth. Each time she whiffed badly, and the murmuring on both benches got louder. Now, when she tromped back to
the bench, the other girls avoided her, seeing what an evil mood she was in. No one wanted to get her head bitten off by trying
to console her.

Kelly could feel the stares of her former teammates on the other bench.
They must be wondering what’s happened to me
, she realized. She was wondering the same thing herself.

The final score was a humiliating 13–3, with the only other Diamondback run accounted for by another monster shot by Allie
Warheit. The sixth-grader finished with two home runs and a double. The other Diamondbacks had amassed all of one hit between
them, and that one was a dribbler by Dorien Day.

After the game, Coach Beigelman gathered his battered troops for a pep talk. “We’ll get ’em next time,” he assured the downcast
girls. “You all looked good out there. We just lost to a powerhouse team, that’s all.”

Kelly doubted it. Sure, the Devil Rays were awesome. With Laurie Solomon throwing like a windmill whirlwind, none of the other
teams in the league were likely to do much better against them.
But the way the Diamondbacks had played, they weren’t likely to be a winning team, in this league or any other.

Kelly trudged off the field, studiously avoiding her friends on the Devil Rays. She saw her mom’s station wagon parked on
the street and made her way quickly toward it.

“Hey! Kelly!” She turned around to see Allie trotting toward her. Kelly turned away again, but Allie kept coming.

“Nice game,” Kelly managed to tell her.

“Thanks!” Allie said, flashing a brilliant smile. “Um, you too….” Her voice faded, as she realized the hollowness of what
she was saying.

“Yeah, right,” Kelly said. “I stunk. Worse than anybody.”

“Come on, anyone can have a bad game,” Allie said consolingly. “It must have been nerve-racking for you, facing your old team.
I’d have played tight, too, if it was me.”

Kelly looked up at her and managed a faint smile. “Thanks,” she said. “That’s nice of you to say.”

“You’ll be your old self next game, you’ll see,” Allie assured her.

“Yeah. Well, you keep up whatever you’re doing,
okay?” Kelly told her. “You played awesome.” Clapping Allie on the arm, Kelly hoisted her bat and glove over her shoulder
and made for her mom’s car.

Ugh
. She could see already that Ken was there, too, sitting in the front passenger seat. Why did he have to be there now, of
all times? Wasn’t it bad enough that she was a total flop, and embarrassed in front of all her old friends? Why did her mom
have to bring her dorky new boyfriend to witness her humiliation?

Kelly opened the rear door, threw her stuff inside, and climbed in.

“Hi there!” her mom said chirpily. “How’d it go?”

“Crummy,” Kelly said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“That bad, huh?” her mom said pityingly. “Sorry, honey. It’ll get better next time.”

“Can’t get much worse,” Kelly agreed, sinking into the seat.

But she was wrong. Later that afternoon, her mom called her into the kitchen. “Listen, Kelly,” she said. “You know spring
break is in ten days, and Ken and I were thinking — well, you’ve probably noticed that we’ve been getting pretty close….”

Kelly rolled her eyes and sighed heavily to show how she felt about
that
.

Her mom ignored her reaction. “And we thought we’d like to go away together and spend some quality time in a nice, quiet resort
—”

“Forget it,” Kelly quickly told her. “I’m not going anywhere with
him
.”

“Well, that’s just it,” her mom went on. “We knew you probably wouldn’t want to go, so —”

“Who said I didn’t want to go?” Kelly countered.

“But you just said —”

“I said I didn’t want to go with
him!
”

“Nora?” Ken’s voice came from upstairs. “Everything okay down there?”

“Fine, darling,” her mom called back. “Kelly and I are just discussing our plans for spring break.”

“Oh, good!” came the reply.

Kelly stared intently at her mom, waiting for what was to come next. “So you’re going away to Shangri-la with lover boy,”
she said sarcastically. “And what am I supposed to do? Stay home by myself?”

“Well, that’s just it,” her mom said, trying to put a hand on Kelly’s shoulder. Kelly moved back, shaking off the hand. “We
thought,” said her mom, “that
maybe you’d like to spend the week at as softball camp, seeing how much you love the game and all….”

“Softball camp? Are you nuts? I already know how to play softball!” Kelly felt like throwing something, but there was nothing
handy except for kitchen knives. So she banged her fist on the fridge instead. Fridge magnets flew in all directions.

“Kelly, honey —” her mom began.

“I’m not going to any stupid camp!” Kelly screamed at the top of her lungs. “And you can’t make me! Forget it!”

She could hear Ken clomping down the stairs. “What is going on down here?” he yelled as he came storming into the kitchen.
“Nora, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, sweetheart,” her mom told him. “Kelly’s not happy about our plans, that’s all.”

“I’m not going to any stupid softball camp!” Kelly repeated for his benefit.

“You’ll go wherever your mother and I decide,” Ken was quick to reply. “Whether you like it or not.”

“You don’t tell me what to do!” Kelly shouted in his face. “You’re not my father, okay? I don’t have to listen to you!”

“Ken…,” her mom started to interrupt.

“I can handle this!” Ken insisted. “Obviously, she
hasn’t got enough respect to listen to her mother. But I’m not going to let her treat you like that!”

“You can’t stop me, you jerk!” Kelly shrieked. He reached out to put a restraining hand on her arm, but she yanked it away.
“Don’t you touch me! I wish you’d never met Mom. You’re a stupid twerp, and I hate you!” Turning to her mother, she added,
“I hate both of you! And I’m not going anywhere! I’d rather die!”

Now she’d gone and done it. She’d told Ken exactly what she thought of him, and there was no taking it back. She stormed up
to her room and slammed the door behind her. Then she collapsed on her bed and let all the bitter heartache pour out of her.

She was a loser, a total loser. She couldn’t hit anymore — her main claim to fame was gone. She was on a team full of fellow
losers, and her mom had a loser for a boyfriend. And now she was going to have to go to a camp full of losers for a week,
while her mom and lover boy smooched on some secluded beach!