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  Now, Cody thought, as he watched an errant throw sail three feet over his head, if only Chop could get all that strength under control!

  “Chop,” he said, laughing, “any chance you’ll actually throw a ball to me? This isn’t keep-away, you know. Not fetch either.”

  “I meant to throw that one high,” Pork Chop said. “Wanted to see if your vertical has improved any. But it looks like you still have no hops.”

  “Yeah, right. Yao Ming couldn’t have caught that one.”

  It didn’t take long for the Rockies to round into a strong team. During the last practice before the season opener, Cody marveled as he watched Pork Chop stretch to backhand a screamer of a line drive, off the bat of Terry Alston, who had been Grant Middle School’s best all-around athlete. “Chop’s like a vacuum at first,” he whispered to himself. “He snarfs up anything that comes near him.”

  Later in the practice, Alston produced a “web gem” of his own—in an effort, no doubt, to upstage his arch rival, Pork Chop. With Coach Lathrop hitting fly balls to the outfield, Alston sprinted from the warning track, straw-colored hair flying, to shallow right field, then dove on his stomach and slid to snare the fly, capturing it in the top of his webbing. A few of the Rockies hooted in approval. “Alston’s got himself an ice-cream-cone catch,” hollered Murphy. Pork Chop turned to Alston and raised his mitt to his forehead in salute.

  Cody couldn’t rein in his smile on the ride home. He wondered if his dad would ask him what was behind the smile, but Luke Martin was so focused on the road that Cody figured he could be on fire and his dad wouldn’t notice.

  But if his dad had asked him, Cody would have told him that he was smiling because the team was looking tough. With Alston and Greg Gannon flanking him in the outfield, Cody felt confident that the trio could chase down any ball hit to them.

  The infield was solid, too. Chop was a rock at first, and Gage McClintock, a reliable middle-distance runner on the track team, was also a dependable second baseman. And at the hot corner, AJ Murphy was fearless, with a cannon for an arm.

  Bart Evans played shortstop when he wasn’t pitching, and he wasn’t a great fielder. But if he was able to secure the ball, he could throw out a first base-bound runner from almost any position, including from his knees—or even the seat of his pants.

  Mark Goddard, who played every sport without mastering any of them, was catcher—mainly because no one else wanted to wear the heavy gear during the summer’s heat. Still, Goddard didn’t let many pitches get by him, even when Bart Evans—or his twin brother and fellow pitcher, Brett—tossed one in the dirt. Most importantly, Goddard wasn’t afraid to guard the plate as a runner charged home from third.

  We could actually do some damage, Cody thought. Maybe we’ll even win a tournament or two.

  In the season opener, the Rockies faced the Braves, a strong team from Pueblo, which was seventy-five miles southwest of Grant. Cody remembered them from last year, when they beat Grant by two or three runs. They weren’t a great hitting team, but they had Guzman, a hard-throwing right-hander almost as big as Pork Chop. He couldn’t throw fire like Madison, but he had a tireless arm. He had gone the full seven innings last year, and Chop and the Evans twins had been the only guys to earn a hit off him.

  As the Rockies went through pregame stretches and drills, Cody’s mind started to wander. Almost out of instinct, he kept looking to the ancient stands behind the backstop, searching for his mother’s face.

  He took a deep breath and then returned to tossing the ball with Pork Chop. After a few throws, Chop held the ball in his huge first baseman’s mitt, staring at it as if it were a still life apple in a painting, and then looked at Cody.

  Cody could feel his friend’s eyes studying him. “Code, what’s wrong, dawg?” he said finally.

  “What makes you think anything’s wrong?”

  You’re throwing like an old washwoman. Something’s gotta be eatin’ you. I mean, usually you wing it pretty good, for a skinny white boy, anyway. So what’s up? A week ago you were all amped for the season to start. And now—”

  Cody shook his head slowly. “Something just hit me, Chop. See, I started thinking about this time last year—the beginning of baseball season. Mom was pretty sick by then, but she made it to our first couple games, remember? This is the last sport she saw me play.”

  Pork Chop’s head drooped. “Ah, I’m sorry. I’m sorry about doggin’ you about your throws. I shoulda known, shoulda remembered. You gonna be okay?”

  “I think so,” Cody said, his voice crumbling around the edges.

  Cody was relieved when Coach Lathrop called the team to the dugout to announce the batting order. He hoped that once the game began, he could shed the sadness that weighed on him, just as he had shed his down-filled coat last winter whenever he entered his overheated house, where his dad had kept the thermostat at a nausea-inducing seventy-five degrees.

  “Martin,” Coach Lathrop said without looking at him, “you’re leading off. We need someone who can get the bat on the ball every time, and you’ve been making good contact lately. Alston, you bat second. Evans, Brett-type, you’re third. And there’s no mystery about our cleanup man, is there?”

  Pork Chop flexed his right bicep and gazed at it with admiration. “Just get on base, y’all, and I’ll bring everybody home.”

  “Don’t get too cocky, Mr. Porter,” Coach Lathrop warned. “This Guzman’s got pretty good stuff.”

  Pork Chop smiled. “So do I, Coach.”

  The Braves were up first, and Brett set them down in order—via a strikeout and two weak infield grounders.

  Cody stared grimly at Guzman as he stepped into the batter’s box and assumed his stance. Well, he rea- soned, at least I know what’s coming. Okay, Guz, bring the heat.

  Guzman’s first pitch painted the outside corner for a called strike.

  “It’s okay,” Cody heard Chop shout from the dugout. “Wait for your pitch.”

  Cody tapped his bat twice on home plate as Guzman loaded up for pitch number two. As hard as this guy is throwing, he told himself, if I can just make contact, I’ll probably get a hit.

  The pitch came, and Cody did make contact, but not with his bat. Guzman threw low and inside, smacking Cody on his left shin. He didn’t know if it was the pain or the sheer force of the impact that knocked him down, but there he was, on his back, embarrassed and staring up at a cloudless sky.

  “You okay, young man?” he heard the umpire ask.

  “Yeah,” he answered, climbing tentatively to his feet. He put some weight on his leg and said a silent prayer of thanks when it didn’t buckle under him. But it hurt, like someone had whacked his shin with a hammer. He limped his way to first base.

  He saw Coach Lathrop signal for a time-out and trot to the bag. “That guy’s got a wicked-hard fastball,” the coach observed.

  “Yeah. Can’t wait to see the bruise,” Cody said, trying to sound nonchalant.

  “You need to come out of the game?”

  “Nah, I’m fine. It’s feeling better already.”

  “You sure? I don’t want you in here if you can’t run the bases.”

  Oh, silly me, Cody thought. I thought you might be concerned about my leg. “Really, Coach,” he said. “I’m good.”

  Coach Lathrop rubbed his chin, his hand making a scratchy sound on the thick, half-inch red-and-gray stubble, then proclaimed, “All right, then. I’m leaving you in. Be glad it wasn’t Madison who just plunked you. He’d have snapped your shinbone like a toothpick.”

  As the coach jogged back to the dugout, Cody peeled off his batting glove and shoved it in the back pocket of his pants.

  Alston was at the plate now, his favorite green aluminum bat on his shoulder. He swung at Guzman’s first offering and hit a weak dribbler right back to the mound. Guzman scooped up the gift grounder, turned to second, and threw Cody out easily. Then the second baseman rifled the ball to first. Alston, apparently angry with himself for the poor effort, did
n’t run hard, and the Braves turned one of the easiest double plays Cody had even seen.

  Brett Evans whiffed on three straight pitches, and the first inning ended in a 0–0 deadlock.

  The Braves picked up a run in their half of the second, as Guzman hit a two-out double that resulted in the game’s first score.

  Pork Chop led off the bottom of the second. He ignored two pitches at his knees and then fouled a high fastball straight into the backstop.

  Guzman tried to confuse Pork Chop on the next pitch, throwing his first changeup of the game.

  But the Rockies’ first baseman was ready. He waited on the pitch and then drove it over the fence in straightaway center field. Guzman could only turn and watch his chances for a shutout sail out of the park.

  Cody thought Chop would be smiling as he rounded the bases, but his friend’s expression was grim.

  Guzman set the rest of the Rockies down in order, and as the team took the field, Cody saw Chop grab Alston’s arm. “We should have three runs right now, Hollywood, not just one. We should be winning. But you have to go and swing on the first pitch, just like you did all the time last year—if you can call that a swing. I’ve seen rusty gates swing better. And then you jog to first like you got arthritis? That was weak!”

  Alston pulled away from the bigger player and stared at him, eyes burning. “You best back off, fat boy. I’ve had about a gutful of you. Why don’t you take your black—” Cody felt his heart race. The last guy who hurled a racial slur at Pork Chop, a tall but skinny kid at the mall earlier in the summer, lost consciousness—and two teeth. “Say ‘hey’ to your dentist for me,” Pork Chop had said before walking away from his fallen opponent.

  Now Chop was smiling at Alston, but it was the kind of smile that always frightened Cody. “My black what, Alston? Which part of my blackness do you want me to take somewhere? It’s important to be specific—we learned that in composition, remember?”

  Before Alston could answer, Coach Lathrop was on them. “Is this baseball or debate, gentlemen? Because if you want to yap, you’re wearing the wrong uniforms.”

  “Sorry, Coach,” Alston said. “Porter was just criticizing me, and I was defending myself.”

  Coach Lathrop turned on Pork Chop. “I’m the coach here, Porter. Don’t forget it. I don’t care how big you are or who your brother is. Got it?”

  “Yes, Coach.”

  Coach Lathrop headed for the dugout. As they jogged to their positions at first base and right field, Pork Chop hissed to Alston, “After the game—in the park. It’s on.”

  “Finally,” Alston shot back. “I can’t wait.”

  Chapter 2

  The Showdown

  Cody stood in center field, praying fervently. Please, God, he pleaded, don’t let them fight. I have to admit, I have been hoping all year that they would. I’m just as curious as everybody else about who would win. But now that it’s going to happen, it just makes me sick to my stomach.

  Cody watched as Pork Chop snagged a bullet line drive up the first base line for the first out of the inning. His friend was huge. He could probably take Alston. But Alston was lightning-fast. He was mean—and a year older than the other freshman-to-be, thanks to his dad sending him to a private school for the first of his two years in eighth grade.

  “What a twisted sense of priorities some parents have,” Cody’s mom had said of the decision. “Some people will do anything to give their kids an athletic advantage.”

  Advantage. Cody considered the word. But who would have the advantage if Chop and Alston fought? Size and power—or speed and cunning?

  Back in third grade, Cody had read an account of a wolverine battling a black bear. The bear was bigger and stronger, but the wolverine had attacked with such ferocity that he ripped the bear’s belly wide open.

  By the sixth inning, the impending fight had Cody’s stomach churning so furiously that he reacted too late to a lazy fly ball to shallow center field, and it dropped in for a base hit. He could hear Coach Lathrop screaming at him from the dugout steps, but he couldn’t decipher what he was saying.

  When the game ended in a 4–1 Rockies loss, Cody decided to find a quiet spot to talk Chop out of the brawl. He saw Chop and Alston arguing conspiratorially between home plate and the backstop, and headed in their direction.

  Then Coach Lathrop stepped into his path. “Martin,” he said through near-clenched teeth, “don’t ever let me see you fall asleep in the outfield again. You hear me?”

  “Yes sir,” Cody said robotically, angling his body to steal a peek around him to see if Chop and Alston were still jawing.

  “Good. I’m glad we understand each other. Now, go bag up the bats and put them in the back of my truck.”

  Cody felt a wave of panic wash over him. “But, Coach—”

  “But what, Martin? You too good to help with cleanup? I thought you church boys were supposed to help out all the time.”

  Cheap shot, Cody thought angrily. “I’ll be happy to help,” he said cheerfully.

  He sprinted to the dugout, collected the bats, and stuffed them into the dirty white canvas bag that he figured Coach Lathrop must have been using since the 1980s. He slung the bag over his shoulder and jogged to find the coach’s truck.

  “Chop,” he whispered to no one in particular, “please don’t do this. Or at least just trash-talk for a while until I can find you.”

  Cody flipped the bag into the bed of the truck and then sprinted for the park. He checked the tennis courts first but found only a pair of squirrels chasing each other along one of the nets.

  “The pool,” he said. “They must be at the pool.”

  The park’s swimming pool hadn’t been filled this summer, due to cracks around its base and problems with the filtration system. Two high school guys had fought there earlier in the summer. The battle had drawn such a crowd that the police showed up.

  When he saw the entire baseball team gathered around the perimeter of the deep end, Cody knew he had found the battle site. A few grade-schoolers on bikes were parked along the opposite end, their front wheels almost ready to slip over the edge.

  As Cody climbed down the rickety aluminum ladder at the shallow end of the pool, he offered one of his favorite prayers—Help!

  He made his way into the deep end, where Chop and Alston circled each other warily, the latter firing a few jabs in an effort to keep his bigger opponent at bay. When Chop took two steps back to avoid being tagged with a punch, Cody stepped between them, the two best athletes and fiercest competitors in the school.

  This is a fine spot, he thought, right between the bear and the wolverine. I must be crazy.

  “What are you, Martin,” Alston spat, “our referee?”

  “Dawg,” Chop said grimly, “you best step off now. I mean it. Don’t get in the middle of this.”

  Cody swallowed hard. “I’m not here to referee. I’m just here to say something to the two biggest idiots, the two most selfish morons, in the whole town.”

  Alston’s face puckered and twitched, as if he’d just bitten into a lemon. “Wuh–what?!”

  “You heard me, Alston,” Cody said, hoping no one could hear the fear that constricted his throat. “You know, the way you finished strong in basketball this year, the way you ran track—I thought you were maturing. I guess I was wrong.”

  Cody could tell Alston was forming a response, but he turned his back on him and faced Pork Chop. “And you, you’re our team captain. Is this what captains do—beat down their teammates?”

  Pork Chop glared at Cody, who spun around and took two steps back so he could see both of his teammates. “You know, I was talking to your brother a couple days ago, Chop. He said our class might be the best crop of freshmen athletes ever to hit the high school. He says we have a chance to take state in football and basketball, maybe track, too.”

  Pork Chop nodded in agreement but his expression didn’t change. And Alston looked like he was ready to pounce on Cody, perhaps to give him a warm
-up pummeling before the main event.

  Cody inhaled deeply. “You guys are the best athletes in this whole region—maybe even the whole state. Just think what you could accomplish if you actually worked together.” He looked toward Alston. “Your speed and skill.” He nodded at Chop. “And your size, power, and guts.”

  “Look—,” Alston began.

  “No, you look,” Cody interrupted. “I’m sick of both of you, trash-talking for a whole year, tearing each other down, bringing your teams down. You know, a team divided against itself is never going to win much. But if you’re that selfish, go ahead. Beat each other to a pulp. Prove your manhood. Show those grade-schoolers down at the shallow end how team leaders solve their problems. Be their role models. But I’m not going to stay around to watch. I’m so outta here.”

  Cody glanced up and wagged his head sadly at the Rockies who had gathered to watch. “You guys here to see blood, huh? Good. I hope you get what you want.” He went back to the ladder and climbed out.

  “Cody,” he heard someone call as he marched away, “wait up.” He turned to see Murphy jogging after him.

  Cody gave the new guy an approving smile. “Well, at least one of our players has some common sense.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. Dude, what you did back there? That was cool.”

  “Apparently, you’re the only one who thinks so. Everyone else is staying to watch the carnage.”

  “No, that girl walked away, too.”

  Cody felt his jaw drop. “Girl? I didn’t see any girl.”

  “Yeah, she was standing in back of all those kids on their bikes. A real fly honey, with glasses. I think she’s in our grade.”