The Contract Page 6

  Derek could feel a stinging sensation as his eyes welled up with tears. He turned and ran straight upstairs to his room, without waiting for an answer. He threw himself facedown on his bed, feeling horrible.

  He knew what came next, too. His dad would be coming up the stairs any minute.

  But instead of his dad’s footsteps, he heard the front door open downstairs and his mother’s cheerful voice. His father’s reply was muffled, and Derek couldn’t make any of it out, but right away his mom’s voice got less cheerful, softer, more concerned.

  When Derek finally heard footsteps coming up the stairs, they were his mom’s, not his dad’s. “You want to tell me about it?” she asked, standing in the doorway.

  “Not really,” said Derek, staring at the mattress.

  She came into the room and sat down on the side of the bed, patting Derek gently on the shoulder. “It’s okay to get frustrated, old man. None of us would ever make big changes in our lives if we didn’t get frustrated sometimes. We just have to turn that frustration into determination.”

  “But it’s so . . .”

  “Unfair?”

  “Yes! Why can’t Dad be the coach?”

  “Derek, you know the answer to that question. We’ve talked about it a hundred times. Your dad wants very much to be your coach. Don’t you think he feels bad about all of this?”

  “If he were the coach, I’d be the shortstop for sure!”

  “If he were the coach, he’d do whatever he thought was best for the team, and of course for you. But he’s working very hard right now . . .”

  “I know.”

  “. . . teaching, and taking courses for his master’s degree . . .”

  “I know, but—”

  “Derek, remember the other night, when we talked about your life’s dream?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, your dad has a life’s dream too—to help kids and teens get their lives back on track. I know he’s grateful and glad that you’ve got a dream, and that you’re following it. He knows you can’t go wrong shooting for your dream, as long as it’s a good one.”

  Derek stayed silent, taking it all in. He felt bad because he knew he’d been acting selfishly. He knew he had probably hurt his dad’s feelings by what he’d said about him not being the coach. He wished now that he’d never said that, but he knew it was too late to take it back.

  His mom must have been reading his mind, because she said, “It’s okay to feel however you feel, Derek. It’s what we say and do that counts. I know, and your dad knows, that you’re going to figure all this out in a good way. Just stick to your big dream, and you’ll find a way through all the little stuff.”

  After kissing him on the forehead, she left the room, to give him time and space to work things out. One thing was for sure—from here on in, he was going to make extra sure he acted in a way to make both his parents proud.

  He realized how proud he was of them, and how lucky he and Sharlee were. What was rule number one on the contract? “Family comes first.”

  His parents had met in Germany when they were both in the army, and they had fallen in love despite their different backgrounds. His father was raised by a single mother in Alabama, and he was determined to be the kind of father he never knew. Derek’s mother grew up in a close-knit New Jersey family, and together she and Derek’s father navigated a world that didn’t exactly welcome interracial couples.

  Derek’s problems suddenly didn’t seem that big.

  • • •

  “We beat the Phillies 10–0!” Jeff whispered, loud enough for every kid in the back of the class to hear, but not quite loud enough to attract the attention of Ms. Wagner, who was explaining a math problem while writing on the blackboard.

  Jeff had worn his Yankees uniform shirt to school that day—number 13, Derek noticed, green with envy. “They had to call the mercy rule!”

  “What’s the mercy rule?” Gary asked, clueless.

  Derek tried to explain. “It’s when one team is beating the other so bad—”

  “Ten runs or more,” Jeff interrupted.

  “So badly that they call off the rest of the game so the losers don’t feel too crushed,” Derek finished.

  “Doesn’t sound too merciful to me,” Gary decided. “Besides, if you ask me, anyone who wastes their time on sports is already a loser.”

  “Aw, what do you know?” Jeff waved him off. “How’d your team do, Derek? Did you win?”

  “Nah. We should have, but we blew it. We had a—”

  “Derek Jeter!” Ms. Wagner called. “Are you following the lesson, or do you and your friends need a conversation break?”

  The whole class laughed—even Jeff and Gary. Just his luck that he’d been the one talking when she’d turned around and noticed.

  “No, Ms. Wagner. Sorry,” he said.

  “All right, then. Let’s move forward,” she said, wiping the chalk dust off her hands. “Now, class. Be quiet and pay attention. I have your math tests here.”

  She took a pile of papers off her desk and started passing them out. “Most of you did well, a few of you need to hit the books a little harder . . .”

  Derek took the paper she handed him, and stared in disbelief at the mark he’d gotten—84! He couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t gotten less than a 90 on a math test all year!

  He thought back to that last day of studying, when he hadn’t been able to concentrate because his mind had kept wandering back to his problems with his Little League team. How had he let this happen? It might have been an okay grade for somebody else, but to Derek an 84 on a math test—any test—was a disaster!

  He knew his parents would feel the same way. That’s why focusing on schoolwork was in the contract, and now he had already broken it. They expected the best from him, and he usually delivered. This time he’d fallen way short of what he expected of himself. Forget about beating out Gary. He hadn’t come close to his own usual high grades!

  Gary came over to brag. “Ninety-seven! Fourth time in a row!” he said, waving his test in Derek’s face. “How’d you do, Mr. Yankees Shortstop?”

  Shaking his head and staring down at his desk, Derek took his hand off the paper to reveal the horrifying truth.

  “Eighty-four! Whoa. That stinks, even for you!” Gary said, faking sympathy. “Hey, maybe you should study more, instead of wasting all your time playing sports?”

  Derek had no answer for him. But he was seething inside. Somehow, even if he had to study until his eyes crossed, he was going to beat Gary Parnell on their next math test!

  Chapter Eight

  PLAY BALL!

  Coach Kozlowski’s lineup for the Tigers’ second game—against the Mets—was the same as for their opener. Derek was at second base, batting second. He didn’t like it, but he wasn’t thinking about that today. He was thinking about winning a ball game.

  The Tigers were the “visiting” team again, which really only meant they batted first, since all the kids were from the same part of town. Chris led off with a walk.

  Derek came to the plate next. He couldn’t wait to get a swing at the ball, but he remembered what his dad had told him: “Take the first pitch from a pitcher you haven’t seen before, just to get an idea of what kind of stuff he has.”

  He watched the first pitch go by for a strike. As soon as the catcher caught it, Chris took off for second base. His steal attempt caught the catcher by surprise, and his late throw to second was off, ending up in center field.

  Chris wound up on third, and Derek smelled a run batted in for the taking.

  The next pitch was in the dirt. Another fastball, but unlike the first one, it was easy for Derek to let this one go by. Not too fast for him to catch up with, he noted, digging into the batter’s box.

  The third pitch was right down the middle.

  Derek swung so
hard, his feet left the ground. He barely hit the ball off the end of the bat. Luckily, it skittered down the first baseline, right between the first baseman and the bag. “Fair ball!” the umpire called.

  Chris scored, and Derek wound up on second with a squib double. He clapped his hands together so hard it hurt, but he didn’t care. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” he yelled to himself.

  Pete came to the plate. With the first pitch, Derek was on his way to third. “Safe!” called the umpire. Derek got up and dusted himself off. He could hear Coach clapping and saying, “Automatic!” meaning that anytime Derek got on base, he was going to steal successfully. To this point in the season, it had been true.

  In fact, so far Derek was the hero of the game—but not for long. He was about to give way to an even bigger hero. Pete took the next pitch way deep, and there was no doubt about this one. He jogged around the bases while Derek stood on home plate, waiting to high-five him. 3–0, Tigers!

  These Mets were obviously not the previous year’s championship version. Still, three runs was all the Tigers got that inning, in spite of a double by Ernesto. And in the bottom of the first, the Tigers gave the lead right back.

  Pete started the damage by muffing an easy grounder. He had it in his mitt but lost control of the ball when taking it out to throw it. “Arrrghhh!” he groaned, covering his head with his mitt. But this time, there was no one to blame but himself.

  Ernesto didn’t seem to have his best stuff on the mound. He walked two hitters to load the bases, and even though he got the next two on strikeouts, he gave up a three-run double before getting out of the inning.

  Derek doubled again with two outs in the second, scoring Norman, who’d walked ahead of him. Norman whooped it up, deliriously happy, when he crossed the plate. “That’s my first run scored!” Derek heard him saying. “EVER!”

  Derek felt happy for him, all the more so because he was the one who’d driven Norman in. He hoped he could do it again this season, for every one of those kids on the Tigers who’d never scored a run in a real Little League game.

  Pete came up again, waggling his bat, glaring at the pitcher as though he were ready to knock his head off. Derek tried to distract the pitcher, who paid no attention because he was so intimidated by Pete.

  The pitcher threw him a big fat fastball—and Pete swung right through it. Derek shook his head. Pete might have hit that one if he hadn’t closed his eyes, he thought.

  On the next pitch Derek took matters into his own hands, breaking for third. He made it easily, and as he got up, he heard his teammates chanting his name. “Der-ek! Der-ek!”

  Pete singled on the next pitch, and the Tigers were up 5–3. Derek came back to the bench and high-fived his teammates. But now the Tigers were chanting, “Pete! Pete! Pete!”

  “Yo, Pete! You’re the man!” Chris shouted out. “Woo-hoo!”

  “Go, Pete!” Isaiah echoed.

  “Yeah, Pete!” Coach added his voice to the chorus.

  Ryan hit a grounder to second to end the inning, but at least the Tigers were up.

  After his poor first inning, Ernesto struck out the side in the second, third, and fourth. Ryan replaced him in the fifth and allowed only one hit. But in all that time the Tigers didn’t score either. In the sixth, Derek hit a screaming line drive that made the second baseman duck for cover.

  Derek stopped at first when the right fielder made a good throw into second, but he took second on the next pitch, when the ball got past the catcher. Then Pete smacked another homer, and the Tigers went up by four runs, 7–3!

  All they had to do now was hold on to their lead. But the Mets weren’t giving up, and rallied in the bottom of the inning, loading the bases with two out. Then their cleanup hitter hit a line drive to Pete’s left. He leapt into the air and made a great play to knock it down. All Pete would have had to do was hold on to the ball—only one run would have scored. But he tried to make a spectacular play at first. He had no chance of catching the runner, even if the throw had been on target. But it wasn’t. It went off into right field, and two more runs scored!

  The tying run was now on third. Ryan reared back and threw his best fastball. The hitter swung, and lofted a pop-up just to Derek’s right.

  “I got it! I got it!” he yelled.

  He heard Pete saying “I got it!” too. Derek knew the ball was to the right of the bag, and so should have been the second baseman’s ball. But Derek also knew it was the shortstop’s call, as captain of the infield. So he backed off, saying, “Take it! Take it!”

  And Pete did—with both hands, just to make sure. The game ended with the Tigers up, 7–6.

  As happy as Derek was that they’d managed to save the victory, he was annoyed by the way the whole team mobbed Pete—their hero—forgetting that Pete was the one who’d committed two key errors that had almost cost them the game.

  Pete was loving it, doing a little victory dance until his dad lined them all up for the traditional postgame handshake with the opposing team.

  Oh well, thought Derek. At least there won’t be any tantrums this week.

  • • •

  Because he’d gone straight from school to the game, it was only afterward that Derek remembered the math test and his embarrassing grade on it.

  He’d mentioned the test to his parents beforehand, and he knew they never forgot anything he told them, especially about schoolwork. So it was clearly just a matter of time before one of them asked him how it had gone.

  “So, how’d it go today?” His mom was setting a casserole down in the center of the table before sitting down herself.

  “We won,” Derek said innocently, but he knew what she meant.

  “The math test,” she said. “How’d you do?”

  Well, that didn’t take long, Derek thought. He sighed and shook his head. “Not too well.”

  “Really?” His father stopped cutting the casserole into squares and looked up at him. “Not too well, as in . . .”

  “As in eighty-four.” Derek sighed again.

  “What?” It came from both his parents at the same time. While 84 might have been an okay grade, or even a good one, for some kids, it wasn’t for Derek. Math had always been his best subject in school, right from the beginning.

  “Uh-oh,” said Sharlee, covering her head and grimacing. If she’d thought it would make the rest of them laugh, she’d been mistaken.

  “Why do you think you didn’t do better?” his mom asked.

  Derek shrugged. “She gave us the assignment a week before, but I guess I forgot about it until she reminded us. That was the day before the test, and I couldn’t concentrate that night.”

  “Because you were too worried about baseball.” His dad said it like it was a fact, not a question.

  “I guess,” Derek admitted. “But I couldn’t help it! Little League was about to start, and I was worried—”

  “We know all about it,” his dad said. “But—”

  “I know, I know,” Derek said, hoping to avoid any more criticism. “Rule number two.”

  “Derek,” said his mom, putting a hand on his arm, “there’s no excuse. You always have to work your hardest if you want to achieve your dream.”

  “I know, Mom,” Derek said, “but sports is my dream!”

  “I know,” said Mrs. Jeter. “But you can’t do it at the expense of schoolwork.”

  “Doing well in school is the ticket that gets you into the ballpark, and into the game!” his dad added. “Where would I be today if I hadn’t gotten that college scholarship?”

  “You got a baseball scholarship, Dad,” Derek pointed out.

  “But I needed good grades to get it!” Mr. Jeter insisted. “And I had to keep up my good grades all through college to keep getting my scholarship money!”

  “Don’t you see, old man?” his mom said. “You can’t let
yourself get distracted. It’s not one thing or the other. You’ve got a very big dream, and to make it happen, you’re going to have to do your best. All the time, not some of the time. If doing your best isn’t a habit, you won’t be able to call on that when you need it most.”

  “That’s right,” his dad said. “Don’t worry. You’ll always find time to practice doing the thing you love, so try to love what you have to do. And doing well in school will make you smarter, too. You’re going to find out someday that being smart pays off, even on the ball field. Especially on the ball field!”

  “How’s that?” Derek wondered.

  “Even if you’re playing against players who are better than you—better hitters, better fielders, whatever—you can always get an edge by outworking them and by outthinking them.”

  “Like . . . math?” Derek didn’t quite get it.

  “Hey, there’s a lot of math in baseball!” his mom said, clapping him on the shoulder.

  “There is?”

  “Sure!” she said. “I’m an accountant, right? So I definitely know what I’m talking about!”

  “For instance?”

  “For instance, how many times have you been up at bat this season?”

  “Uh . . . six? No, seven.”

  “See? Already, we’ve got a number!” she said, rubbing her hands together enthusiastically. “Now, how many times did you make an out?”

  “Once.”

  “You got how many hits?”

  “Four. Plus I walked once and was hit by that pitch.”

  “Right, right,” she said. “How’s your arm, by the way?”

  “It feels fine now, thanks. So, where are you going with this?” He was curious now, for sure.

  “So since walks and getting hit by a pitch don’t count as at bats, you are batting .800!”

  “Eight hundred percent?” Derek said, scrunching up his face. “How’s that possible?”

  “Not percent. It would be eighty percent, actually. It’s point eight, zero, zero. At any rate, it’s a really good batting average—and it’s math!”