Wing Ding (6 page)

L
osing a game felt about as good as getting kicked in the teeth. Losing to the Haymakers felt worse. Like maybe getting kicked in the teeth by a horse with brick hooves.

Real bricks would have been nice. We could have used them to build a shelter from the wind.

As it was, we ducked into the dugout for our traditional postgame huddle. My cheeks stung like they'd been rubbed with sandpaper, they were so raw from the blow. My eyes watered and my nose ran. It reminded me of a corny joke my dad liked to tell.

Question: “Why was the kid called the upside-down boy?”

Answer: “Because his nose ran and his feet smelled!”

I was about to share the joke with Ducks, when Skip Lou clattered down the dugout steps to give his postgame pep talk.

“You guys should be proud,” he said, tucking his clipboard under his arm. Behind him, clouds of dust swirled across the infield. “You played hard in really difficult conditions. Slingshot pitched a great game. We had lots of good at bats. Don't let the final score get you down. It's a long season and we can't expect to win them all. Especially not against a team as tough as the Haymakers.”

Gabby scribbled his words in her notebook. I knew they'd find their way into her game report and that I'd read them in the paper in the morning. I wondered if Gabby noticed the one thing Skip left out of his speech. Namely Stump's tough day. What was there to say, really? When your shortstop commits four errors, the best thing to do is try to forget it.

I glanced over at Stump. Sitting by himself off to one side of the bench, he stared at the cement floor hard enough to crack it. While I watched, Mr. Bones jumped up next to him. My dog licked my friend's face like it was an ice-cream cone. Normally that will make anyone laugh. But Stump didn't even crack a smile.

I guess he really didn't want the attention, because he suddenly jabbed his elbow at Mr. Bones. The dog yelped and leaped out of the way.

I jumped up from the bench. Mr. Bones was just trying to be friendly. Everybody knew that. Stump had no right to take out his frustration on Mr. Bones.

“I'm sorry!” Stump exclaimed before I could say anything. He looked like a graveyard at midnight: spooked. “You know I would never touch Mr. Bones!”

“You just did,” I pointed out.

My face burned. And not just from the wind. Everybody was staring at us.

“I didn't mean to!” Stump cried, flapping his right arm wildly.

“Stop doing that!” I shouted.

“I…I…I can't stop!” he said as his arm continued to jerk and jiggle like a hooked fish.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I've been trying to tell you,” Stump cried. “My arm has a mind of its own!”

When he said that, all the air seemed to rush out of the dugout. None of us said a word. None of us moved a muscle. None of us breathed. The dugout suddenly felt like a coffin, tight and airless and perfectly still. The stillest place on earth in the middle of the windiest day on record.

It might have stayed that way forever. Except for one thing. Stump's right arm. It flung itself away from him as though it meant to leave his body for good. Then, like a dog reaching the end of its leash at a full sprint, it gave a mighty jerk and fell flat.

“I've got it bad,” Stump whispered. “Real bad. I'll never be able to play in the All-Star Game!”

My jaw dropped. My heart dropped with it. Those bad throws he'd made hadn't been flukes. The wind hadn't taken him. He had a full-blown case of the yips, for sure. I'd heard stories about the yips actually taking over a player's arm. Making it twitch like a dog with fleas. But I'd always thought they were urban legends. Now I knew it really could happen. My anger turned to dread. There was no known cure for the yips.

“Of course you'll play in the All-Star Game,” said Skip Lou. “Everybody muffs a throw now and then. It's nothing to get all upset about.”

He meant to be comforting, but I could tell Stump didn't buy it. I didn't either.

Probably better than anyone, I understood how Stump felt. Once I'd fallen into a hitting slump so deep and dark, it made Carlsbad Caverns seem bright. Carlsbad Caverns is a series of deep caves in the state of New Mexico. They plunge hundreds of feet below the earth and stretch for miles and miles in every direction. They're also full of bats. Compared to
that slump I had, or to Stump's case of the yips, those caves are sunny.

Forget about locusts and crazy wind. The number one thing we needed to worry about was Stump. We had to find a way to cure him.

And we had to do it fast.

Before the All-Star Game.

The only question was…how?

We filed out of the dugout and onto the bus. From time to time during the ride home, a gust of wind tried to push the bus off the road. A cow or two sailed past the windows. But we all were too gloomy to pay much attention.

Stump, Slingshot, and I sat in our usual places in the back. Mr. Bones curled next to Stump, his head resting in Stump's lap. Mr. Bones is not the type to hold grudges.

Gabby finally broke the silence.

“Stump,” she said softly, “I hate to bring it up, but I'm going to have to mention your game in my story.”

“It doesn't matter,” Stump said dejectedly.
“Write what you saw.”

“Nothing personal, you know. If you don't mind, I'd rather just leave the yips out of it. It doesn't seem right to go there.”

“To me it looked like the wind,” I said. “Gave everyone fits today. The ball did crazy things.”

“Definitely,” Gabby said.

Stump started to say something, but I cut him off.

“You saw how those fly balls behaved,” I said firmly. “It was the wind, all right.”

Gabby nodded.

We said no more on the subject.

The minute Skip Lou pulled up at Rambletown Field and cranked open the door, everybody cleared out of the bus. Nobody said anything, but I could tell the guys wanted to put some distance between themselves and Stump. Fast. Nothing like the yips to kill a party. Not that the game or ride home had been much of a party.

More like a funeral.

Picking our way around branches downed by the storm, Stump, Slingshot, and I went to get our bikes. The wind hammered less forcefully than before. When I turned my back to it, my ears didn't get folded into origami.

The yips weighed so heavily on my mind that it took me a minute to notice that more than the wind had quieted.

“Hey,” I said. “You guys hear that?”

My friends cocked their heads and listened.

“I don't hear anything,” Slingshot said after a few seconds.

“Exactly,” I agreed. “The buzz is much fainter.”

We jumped onto our bikes and rode onto the diamond to have a look around. Mr. Bones charged ahead of us. He must have thought he was finally going to get a shot at those critters.

“Whoa!” Slingshot whistled as we wheeled toward the mound, which the wind had lowered by a good three inches. The whole field looked like it had been run through a blender.

Grasshoppers had torn the turf to smithereens. Sections of outfield wall lay toppled by the storm. Beyond the field, in Rambletown Park, uprooted trees sprawled every which way, their branches tangled like the tentacles of giant squids spit out by the sea.

“Three days until the All-Star Game,” Slingshot said.

“The grass will never grow back in time,” Stump said. “Not that I'll be playing. Grass or no grass.”

From the distance came a familiar whine.

Slingshot nodded toward a cluster of large trees still standing beyond the ruined wall. Packed tightly together, they'd shielded one another from the storm and survived without damage.

“It's coming from there,” he said. “The wind must have picked up the grasshoppers and swept them into those trees.”

“Think they'll come back to the field?” I asked.

“Not unless the wind changes direction,” Slingshot said. “Even if it did, there's not much left for them here.”

Mr. Bones ran barking around the dirt. Dust puffed up at his every step. The diamond looked more like a giant sandbox than a place to play ball.

“They're gone, boy!” I called. “Come on, let's get out of here.”

With that, we turned our bikes into the breeze and headed for home. When we reached our block, Stump and Slingshot peeled off one way, and Mr. Bones and I went the other.

“See you guys tomorrow,” I said.

Slingshot waved.

Stump did, too.

At least I think he did. His arm definitely fluttered. But for all I knew, it might have been the yips.

“M
om,” I called when Mr. Bones and I came through the door, “I'll get my own supper.”

Rattled as I felt, only one thing would help. Fried-baloney sandwiches. When things go bad, there's nothing better to eat. Somehow, they make you feel better.

Without bothering to change out of my uniform, I dropped a fat pat of butter into a frying pan. Parking himself at my feet, Mr. Bones licked his lips. He knew what was coming. That's one thing about dogs. They're very sensitive to people's moods. Not to mention the smell of good stuff cooking.

I placed four slices of Old Leadbelly Sinker
bread in the melted butter and layered baloney on top of them. The butter sizzled. The baloney curled at the edges.

Mom came into the kitchen, took one look at the smoke, and said, “Tough game, huh? I still can't get over that hit of Gilly's, the way the ball turned cartwheels like that.”

“It's more than the game,” I said. “Stump has the yips, locusts have eaten our ball field, and the Haymakers are trying to steal the All-Star Game. Plus some hoity-toity Hog City lady called Mr. Bones a rat.”

“Ouch,” she said. She kissed my cheek. Then she leaned down and patted Mr. Bones. “Can I help?”

“Sure,” I said. “You know a cure for the yips, how to make grass sprout overnight, and the secret to hitting a baseball in a gale?”

“With your meal, I mean.”

“Fried baloney I can handle.”

When the sandwiches were brown on one side, I flipped them over with a spatula and
toasted the other. In no time at all, I had a nice heaping platter of them. Mr. Bones, meanwhile, had a serious case of the grumbles. His stomach bleated and burbled like a tuba packed with bubble gum.

A real tuba would have been nice. It would have drowned out the locusts I could still hear buzzing in my head.

I flipped off the heat and carried the sandwiches to the table. Mom poured a glass of milk and set it down at my place. Tail wagging to beat the band—and stomach grumbling just like a band—Mr. Bones camped beside my chair.

Then we started eating. A fried baloney sandwich for me, a fried baloney sandwich for Mr. Bones.

“Would you like one?” I asked Mom between bites. She didn't look exactly hungry. Astonished was probably a better description. Or maybe grossed out. But you never knew. “Plenty to go around.”

“I'll wait for your father to get home,” she
said. “We'll have something later. I mean lighter. We'll eat something lighter, later.”

Nodding, I snarfed down another sandwich.

As I chewed, the door burst open and a gust of wind swept into the house. Dad blew in with it. His tie, the one printed with golf balls instead of fishing lures, wrapped his neck like a scarf, and his face glowed like he'd been sandblasted.

“Holy cow,” he panted, pressing his back against the door and forcing it shut. “I've never seen anything like it.”

“He couldn't help it!” I snapped.

“Who couldn't help what?” Dad asked.

“Stump,” I said. “He didn't mean to throw away the game.”

“Oh, yeah, that was tough. Poor kid! But I'm talking about the weather. I went back to the office after the game. You know the Maple Street bridge?”

I nodded.

“Well, it's the Elm Street bridge now. The wind pushed it three blocks south. Traffic is snarled for miles.”

He plopped into a chair and noticed my stack of sandwiches, much smaller now.

“That bad?”

“The worst,” I confirmed.

Mom quietly joined us at the table. She and Dad exchanged glances.

“The yips, huh?” Dad sighed. “When I was a kid, our second baseman came down with a nasty case.”

“He did?”

“His aim got so bad, we had to close down the bleachers behind first base. Way too dangerous for people to sit anywhere in his line of fire.”

“Yikes!” I said. Hopefully we wouldn't have to do the same because of Stump.

“Tell me this,” Dad asked. “Has he reached the twitching point yet?”

Remembering the crazy way Stump's arm jiggled, I nodded. “Scary twitchy.”

“Yep, sounds like Flapdoodle Flanagan all over again,” Dad said. “Not his real name, of course. We called him Flash for the longest
time. Kid had tremendous speed. Then his arm started jerking like a chicken wing, and some wise guy dubbed him Flapdoodle. Unfortunately it stuck. Eventually Flapdoodle got so discouraged, he quit baseball and joined the swim team.”

“The swim team!” I cried. I couldn't imagine Stump ever giving up baseball. He loved the game too much.

“Turned out Flapdoodle moved even faster in water than on dry ground. Plus, his right arm worked like a bionic paddle. For each stroke everyone else made, he completed three. Of course, he could only swim in circles. If pools were round instead of rectangular, he could've been an Olympic champion.”

“That's a terrible story!” I grimaced. “Didn't he ever get better?”

“The thing is, the yips only affected Flapdoodle when he felt nervous. During a tense baseball game, say, or at a swim meet. The rest of the time, he was rock solid. His hands were
so steady, he became a surgeon when he grew up. Operating on people didn't make him nervous at all.”

“See?” Said Mom. “There's hope for Stump yet.”

Sure there was. If he wanted to be a doctor. Which I knew for a fact he didn't. Not a doctor, a concert pianist, or, for that matter, a professional juggler. Stump loved to play ball, pure and simple. Baseball was his life.

Still, my dad's story gave me plenty to think about. Such as the connection between the yips and nerves. So what was making him nervous?

That was the million-dollar question.

If we could answer it, I was sure we could help Stump beat the yips.

The wind?

I didn't think so. Stump's arm had started acting up before the weather went haywire.

The grasshoppers? I thought back to his first error, the one that started everything. It had happened during the game against St. Joe.
Tugboat had just spotted the locusts and called time. Immediately after, Stump had hurled the ball into the grandstand. Ever since then, he'd been wilder than the Amazon rain forest.

Maybe the bugs had spooked Stump more than he let on. He claimed he hadn't seen them until after he threw the ball. But what if he had caught a quick glimpse as he set up to throw? The shock of it certainly could have messed up his timing. Once the ball sailed away, his nerves took over. Baseball was everything to Stump. The idea of failing at it would have shaken him badly, especially with the All-Star Game only a couple days away. In that case, the grasshoppers could have been sort of a—whatchamacallit? A Trojan horse.

We'd learned about the Trojan horse in school.

A long time ago, the ancient Greeks fought a war against the kingdom of Troy. The Trojans retreated within the walled city of Troy and held off the Greek army for ten years. Finally
the Greeks came up with a trick to end the war. They built a giant wooden horse on wheels, rolled the horse right up to the city gates, and pretended to go home. When the Trojans saw the statue, they figured it was a victory present. Who knows? I guess people really liked giant wooden horses back then. Anyway, feeling all smug, the Trojans pulled the statue into the city. Whereupon a band of Greek warriors sprang out from a secret compartment in its belly and took over the city. War over.

Maybe the grasshoppers were something like the Trojan horse. Instead of Greek soldiers, they carried fear and doubt. When the locusts swooped down, triggering Stump's error, they unleashed a storm of doubt in his mind. The more he worried, the worse he threw; the worse he threw, the more he worried. Around and around it went, like a merry-go-round. Except it wasn't merry. It was horrible.

My theory was rough. I'd need to work out the details. But it seemed to hold some promise.

If I was right, the way to fix Stump would be to knock the fear out of him. Send it packing with the grasshoppers.

Before going to bed that night, I picked up the phone and called Slingshot.

“Slingshot, it's me. Remember when I had my slump?”

“Who could forget? You struck out, like, thirty-seven times in a row.”

“Yeah, well, you know how you guys woke me up in the middle of the night and did all that hocus-pocus stuff to cure me?” Even now, a year later, I could still taste the nasty potion they'd made me drink.

“Sure,” said Slingshot. “The magic was make-believe, but the show we put on made the guys feel better. They thought you were cured, and that gave them the confidence we needed to beat the Haymakers and win the pennant.”

“Exactly,” I said. “I think we should do the same thing for Stump.”

“Force-feed him a concoction of red pepper
flakes, milk, and foot powder?”

“I wouldn't go that far. But we need to do something startling, something that will shock him out of the yips.” I explained my idea about the Trojan horse. Then I outlined my plan.

When I finished, Slingshot didn't say anything for a moment.

“Hello?” I said.

“Walloper,” he breathed at last. “It just might work. Either that or he'll drop dead on the spot! If you can get the green light from Stump's parents, I'll take care of the rest.”

“Deal,” I said.

“When do we go for it?”

“Night before the All-Star Game,” I said.

“I'll get right to work on the design,” Slingshot said by way of saying good-bye.

He clicked off.

I punched in Stump's number. I hoped his mom or dad would answer.