Wind Up Read online

  And now, with only one out left to save their season, it was Norman coming up. Norman, of all people! He rarely played more than two innings in a game, and most of the time he was more interested in goofing around than playing serious ball.

  Derek had his heart in his throat, along with the rest of the Yankees. But Norman fooled them all. Baseball, that weirdest of games, took another strange turn—just as the Yankees were about to face the final curtain. Norman took a wild swing at a pitch up in his eyes and hit one straight into the hard ground in front of the plate.

  The ball bounced high into the air between home plate and the mound. Norman took a second to look for the ball, which he’d lost sight of. Then, realizing he had a chance, he took off for all he was worth. “RUN! RUUUNNN!” all the Yankees screamed.

  “YESSSS!” Derek cried as Norman made it safely to first, just ahead of the throw from the catcher.

  Now there was real hope! Mason was a fast, smart player who made contact most of the time.

  “Just a ground ball… a stupid little grounder,” Derek pleaded under his breath. Half the time, Mason could turn a slow dribbler into a hit.

  He did much better than that, though. He hit one down the line that got past the first baseman for a clean double, sending Norman to third!

  Derek came to the plate for his biggest at bat of the season. He was the Yankees’ last hope. All they needed was a single….

  Derek let the count go to 2–1, on three straight fastballs. Something told him the next pitch was going to be off-speed. Wait on it, he told himself. Don’t try to do too much.

  Sure enough, it was a curveball. He waited an extra split second, then slapped one over the first baseman’s head and into right field. As the ball bounced down the line, Derek raced around first and slid safely into second. Ahead of him, the tying and go-ahead runs scored! 3–2, Yanks!

  Derek popped up, ripped off his helmet, and shouted in triumph, “LET’S GO!”

  But Pete tried to kill the ball again and wound up popping to second to end the Yankees half of the inning. He kicked the dirt, mad at himself for blowing his big chance to put the game away.

  Derek was glad he hadn’t taken a walk and left it to Pete to drive in those runs! He ran to the bench to grab his mitt, then headed out to short.

  Avery was already back on the mound, raring to close things out and seal the victory. Derek could feel waves of energy radiating from her.

  Her first pitch sailed two feet over the hitter’s head! A gasp went up from the crowd. Her next pitch, a riding fastball, hit him on the elbow.

  “OWW!” the kid yelled.

  “Take your base!” cried the ump.

  The hitter glared at Avery as he walked slowly to first, rubbing the sore spot. She held both arms out and said, “What? You think I hit you on purpose?”

  He stopped, looking as if he wanted to charge the mound but was thinking twice about it because she was a girl.

  “KYLE!” the first-base coach shouted to him. “Knock it off! We’ve got a game to win—let’s go!”

  Kyle gave Avery one last poisonous look, then continued on his way, still rubbing his elbow.

  Derek saw that Avery was shaken by what had happened. She walked the next batter on four pitches. Then she doubled over, grabbing her stomach.

  Coach K jogged quickly out to the mound. “You okay, kid?” he asked, crouching down next to her. Derek, ten feet away, could see that she wasn’t.

  “I’m fine,” she insisted, waving Coach K away. “I’ll be fine. I just need a minute to get myself together, that’s all.”

  Coach K looked at her for a long moment, as if he didn’t know whether to believe her. Then he got up and clapped her on the shoulder. “Okay, then. Go get ’em, kid.”

  Avery blew out a few long breaths, trying to calm herself down. The Reds’ cleanup hitter was up, waggling his bat, practically salivating, daring her to throw one over the plate.

  Her first pitch was a fastball, and he clobbered it all the way to kingdom come—luckily, it landed just foul.

  Derek realized he’d been holding his breath—and he knew he wasn’t the only one.

  That was the last fastball Avery threw him. Two wicked changeups later, he’d struck out, and was slinking his way back to the bench.

  Now it was the Reds who were getting antsy and playing tense, Derek noticed.

  Avery struck the next batter out too—on three straight changeups, each one slower than the last.

  Miles, who’d come in as catcher for JJ in the fifth, threw the ball back to the mound. Avery caught it, then turned toward the outfield as if to rub up the ball. Only Derek could see that she was wincing again.

  He jogged in toward her. “Hey,” he said. “Just one more out, Ave. You got this?”

  “Got it,” she said, looking away, still rubbing up the ball.

  “Listen,” he told her. “This guy at the plate? Stick your tongue out at him before the pitch.”

  “What?” That got her attention. She was looking at him now—like he was crazy.

  “He’s thinking changeup now, but you want to throw it anyway. So you’ve got to get him mad—make him jump too early and swing too hard.”

  She grinned—sort of. Just a little upward curl at one corner of her mouth. But Derek knew he’d hit the mark. She wouldn’t be worried, now that she had a trick up her sleeve.

  Derek couldn’t see her stick her tongue out, but he saw the hitter react. He stood up straight, frowning, then had to rush back into hitting position to swing.

  “Strike one!” called the ump.

  The hitter was mad now. Derek could almost see the steam rising from his head! Now go with the changeup, he silently begged Avery.

  The changeup fooled the hitter so badly that he almost corkscrewed himself into the ground. He was trying to beat the ball into powder, but he caught nothing but air.

  “Strike two!”

  One more time now…. One more…

  Avery wound up and fired with all her might—or at least that’s how it looked. The hitter bought the fake-out totally, and once again swung hard enough to start a tornado. But it was another changeup, and it did the trick!

  “Stee-rike three!” the ump yelled.

  Ball game!

  Avery fell to her knees and screamed in triumph. Everyone rushed to the mound to celebrate. They’d done it! The Yankees had lived to play another day!

  Everyone started hugging. When Derek got to Avery, she was all smiles, just like the rest of them.

  “That tongue idea was awesome!” she told him as they hugged. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” Derek said. “Got to pull out all the stops, right?”

  “For sure,” she agreed. “Well… see you.”

  “Yup. See you.”

  Derek went on to hug Vijay, Pete, and all the others. As he did, he noticed Avery and her mom standing side by side near the dugout. Her mom had a hand on Avery’s shoulder and was leaning in, asking her something.

  Avery just looked down at the ground and shook her head. And then the two of them hugged.

  Her mom looked worried. And that made Derek worry.

  Was something wrong with Avery? Really wrong?

  Chapter Seven CONFIDENCE AND DOUBT

  “We won! We won!” Sharlee leapt into Derek’s arms as soon as he walked through the front door. “I told you we would! Didn’t I? Didn’t I say?”

  “You did! That’s great, Sharlee. What was the score?”

  “10–3! And I hit a home run and a suicide fly!”

  “Sacrifice fly,” said Mr. Jeter, coming in from the kitchen with a spatula in one hand and an oven mitt on the other. “Suicide is a kind of squeeze bunt.”

  “Huh?” Sharlee let go of Derek, looking confused.

  “Bunting. They don’t let you do it till you’re older,” Derek explained.

  “Anyway, I drove in three runs!” she crowed. “Didn’t I, Daddy?”

  “Yes indeed,” said Mr. Jeter. “Made
a nice play at second base too.” He turned to Derek. “I can see by your face that the Yankees won too. Congratulations.”

  “Thanks,” Derek said, flashing a broad grin. “Am I that obvious?”

  His dad laughed. “I’ve know you a long time,” he said. “You can’t fool your father.”

  “3–2,” Derek said. “We were behind the whole way too!”

  “Awesome,” said his dad.

  “Yeah, awesome!” Sharlee agreed.

  “High-five?” Derek offered. When she jumped up to slap his palm, he yelped. “Ow! Hey, don’t kill me!” He shook off the pretend pain in his hand, making a tortured face. Sharlee dissolved in giggles.

  “Our next game is Saturday!” she told Derek. “Can you come this time at least?”

  “What time?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Daddy?”

  “Nine o’clock,” said Mr. Jeter.

  “Dang,” said Derek. “My game’s at nine too.”

  “So you’re not even coming to my game? Again?”

  “You’ll have to win again, so I can come to the next one,” Derek said.

  “Oh, don’t worry—we will,” Sharlee assured him. “Right, Daddy?”

  A timer dinged in the kitchen. “Excuse me,” said Mr. Jeter. “Dinner in five. Derek, table needs setting. Sharlee, make sure you wash up first.”

  As Derek set the table, he thought about Sharlee’s blissful sense of certainty. He himself was usually just as confident—but not lately, somehow.

  And why not? His current coaches might not have been as good as his dad, but they’d done well enough to get the team this far, hadn’t they? And as for school, Derek always got good grades—it wasn’t like he was in danger of failing or anything.

  But something about this past week had shaken his faith in himself. He wasn’t used to walking around tense all the time.

  * * *

  “Hey, how’d you guys do yesterday?” Dave asked Derek when they saw each other the next morning outside school. “I can tell you won just by looking at you.”

  Derek laughed. “Yeah, we came from behind in our last at bat to win, 3–2.”

  “And I’ll bet you were right in the middle of it all too.”

  “I knocked two runs in with a double,” Derek admitted. “It was a great game. You guys ready for Saturday?”

  “You bet,” Dave said. “We play the Marlins. We’re both 6–2 on the season, but they beat us last time, so they’re the home team.”

  “Well, good luck.”

  “You guys too—you’re going to need it. Man, those Giants kicked our butts when we played them.”

  “Ours too. But hey, you never know. Every game is different—that’s why they play ’em, right?”

  “Hey, if you guys win, and we do too…”

  “That’s right,” Derek said with a grin. “Us versus you guys, winner take all! Let’s hope it happens, right?”

  “It would be a dream matchup! Tigers–Yankees?”

  Suddenly a familiar voice sounded from behind Derek’s shoulder. “Ooooo! Are we talking sports here?”

  Derek pivoted to see Gary standing there with his arms crossed over his chest and a big, fat smirk on his face. “Don’t tell me you’re thinking about baseball, Jeter—not when finals start on Monday!”

  “I’d better get going,” Dave told Derek.

  “Can you come out to the Hill tomorrow after school?”

  “Uh, not today,” Dave said. “My team’s got practice. See you, Gary.” He waved and went off to his class.

  Derek stared after him, feeling jealous. His coaches should have called a practice too. He knew if his dad had been the coach, he would have had one for sure.

  Gary and Derek headed for Ms. Terrapin’s room. “Do you have to butt into every conversation?” Derek asked him.

  “Only the unbearably stupid ones. But honestly, Jeter—how do you expect to beat me next week if your mind is on distractions like baseball? I mean, baseball, of all things! Possibly the stupidest of all sports!”

  “Okay, Gar, that’s enough. We’ll talk when you’re wearing that chicken suit.”

  “Oh!” Gary exploded in laughter. “That’s a good one! Well, Jeter, just for that, I’m putting the whammy on you.”

  Putting out his arms toward Derek and wiggling his fingers as if to cast a spell, he said, “Abbada-babbada boom! There. You’re cooked.” He wiped his hands together, as if to get something nasty off them.

  Then he had another idea. “Oh, and here’s another, for your big baseball game. Abbada-babbada LOSE!”

  Derek shook his head, trying not to let Gary’s antics get to him. He remembered something his dad had once said: “When somebody is spoiling for a fight with you, sometimes it’s better to just walk away. It takes a real grown-up to do that.”

  So Derek turned away and headed into the classroom, leaving Gary laughing in the hallway behind him. But it was harder to leave his taunting words behind.

  As he sat there during finals review, Derek couldn’t keep his mind on work. His thoughts kept drifting back to Gary. In particular, those whammies he’d tossed Derek’s way.

  Derek wasn’t usually superstitious. But something about that smirk on Gary’s face when he’d laid the whammies on him…

  Derek felt a shiver go down his spine. What if Gary’s jinxes really work?

  * * *

  “Come on, Vij…. We need to get back to work! It’s almost time for you to head home.”

  “Sorry, Derek. Where were we?”

  The two boys were sitting side by side at Derek’s desk. Textbooks lay open between them, along with sample pages of standardized tests that Ms. Terrapin had given them for practice at home.

  “It’s almost six already,” Derek said, glancing at the alarm clock on his bedside table. “We’ve only got, like, ten more minutes. Did we make any headway at all today?”

  “A little,” Vijay said weakly.

  The two boys had spent more time talking about Dave moving away than about their upcoming finals.

  “I still can’t believe it,” Vijay had said shortly after they’d sat down to study together. “It’s like he just moved here, and now he’s going?”

  “It’s been two years,” Derek had replied. “Dave says it’s the second longest time his family has lived in one place. Can you imagine?”

  “It’s not going to be the same without him,” Vijay had said sadly. He’d seemed really upset—as upset as Derek. And Vijay never got upset!

  “I never thought about him leaving,” Derek had said, “and then one day, just like that—bam!”

  They’d gone on and on about Dave. Then, after they’d finally gotten back to studying, Derek had kept flashing back to the image of Avery doubled over, holding her stomach. If she’d gone to Saint Augustine, like them, he would at least have known if she’d stayed home from school today.

  When Vijay had asked what was distracting him, Derek had told him what he’d seen.

  “She is under a lot of pressure, I think,” Vijay had said, nodding. “More than the rest of us.”

  So they’d talked a little about her, wondering whether she’d be okay for their next game on Saturday. They agreed it would be tough to win without her.

  They’d gotten back to work one more time, but that had lasted only about twenty minutes, and then they were talking about Dave again. They agreed to tag-team writing Dave letters, so he got one every week. That solution helped Derek felt a little better about things. But now their study time was almost up—and nearly all wasted!

  “Well,” Vijay said now, shrugging, “what can we do in ten minutes to make up for lost time? Is there some big knot we can untie?”

  Derek held up the practice sheets for the standardized tests. “I’m a little spooked about these, to tell you the truth.”

  “Those?” Vijay sounded surprised. “Those are easy! Just like the ones they gave us in fourth grade. No problem for a smart kid like you.”

  “I don’t know�
��. I kind of got messed up last time. The teacher said to make sure we filled in the circles completely.”

  “So?”

  “So, I spent so much time filling them in, and sharpening my pencil, which kept breaking from all the pressure I was putting on it…”

  “I see where you’re going here.”

  “…that I didn’t even finish the test! There were, like, three whole pages of questions left!”

  “You still scored pretty high, as I remember,” Vijay said.

  “Not as high as I should have.”

  “So, quickly, before time is up—do you want to know a trick I taught myself to finish fast?”

  “Seriously?” Derek asked, his eyes widening.

  “Here’s how you do it,” Vijay said, rubbing his hands together as he warmed to his subject. “First time through, you only tackle the questions you know the answers to. Any doubts, leave it for now and come back to it later, in round two.”

  “And round three?”

  “Is for the ones you have no clue about. And make sure you at least answer all of those, too—even if you’re wrong. At least that way you have a chance of getting it right!”

  “You taught yourself that trick?”

  “Nooo,” Vijay said with a grin. “My parents knew these tests were coming, and they wanted me to score my highest, so they signed me up for a prep course last year.”

  Derek smiled, and clapped Vijay on the shoulder. “Man, you are the best. I’m going to put those tricks to good use.”

  “Look out, Gary Parnell!” Vijay said, and they both cracked up as they high-fived.

  Derek was feeling much better, at least for the moment. Even if he lost Dave, he still had a best friend in Vijay—and there was no better friend in the world for a guy to have.

  Chapter Eight AVERY’S QUEST

  Avery seemed pretty much fine, Derek observed, as they threw the ball around what passed for the infield on Jeter’s Hill. She seemed, if not relaxed and happy, at least fairly normal. She wasn’t clutching her stomach and wincing. She didn’t even look that stressed—in spite of the fact that they had a huge game coming up the next morning.