Gabby Garcia's Ultimate Playbook #3

by Iva-Marie Palmer

  But most of the reactions I got were the right ones: people were definitely devastated! I don’t mean to sound excited about that, but it shows that no one wants me to leave.

  But none of them had ANY SOLUTIONS.

  My broken arm wasn’t helping things. Not that I could see anyone thinking, Wow, your broken arm is really coming in handy during this challenging time! But it was getting in the way. Getting a cast feels weird and awkward but getting used to a cast means you forget it’s there sometimes.

  WAYS A BROKEN ARM GETS IN THE WAY

  Petting animals

  Eating two-handed foods, like tacos

  Wedging yourself through narrow spaces

  Handling a pen or chalk

  Hugs!

  I needed one of two things: the perfect plan to STAY IN PEACH TREE; or something to get my mind off the fact I might have to leave.

  Devon handled my Seattle news with a series of blinks that seemed to say, “You can’t let that happen.” She asked what I was going to do, and because I still didn’t have a great idea, I said, “Hope that my dad doesn’t get the job, I guess?” Which also didn’t feel great.

  “Coming to the game today?” Devon asked, meaning the first tourney game. Since I have a broken arm, I’ll be on the disabled list, even though Coach Hollylighter said I don’t have to come if I don’t want to. (But what am I going to do? I’m more than caught up on homework after avoiding my parents the rest of the weekend.)

  “I was thinking I might work on my campaign speech,” I said. All candidates had to give speeches next week and I wanted to give the best one.

  “You really should be there.” Devon will tell you exactly what she thinks if you ask her directly, but she doesn’t always let on when she has something SHE wants. Her making two suggestions I come to the game meant she wanted me there for some reason.

  “I can’t even play,” I told her. “And it’s a charity game.”

  “Well, your fill-in is this seventh-grade transfer and I think he’s starting today. Nolan Chao. I wanted you to see him. Maybe you’ll have some pointers for him.” Devon gave me her best pleading look, which just involved raising her eyebrows and basically daring me to say no.

  A FILL-IN? Ugh. Thanks to my stupid cast, I was being replaced before I had even stepped totally out of the picture. I was in no mood to give pointers to some newbie. But now I was curious about Nolan Chao. “Fine, but I’m doing it for you, not my fill-in,” I told Devon.

  So, when four o’clock rolled around and my arm hadn’t magically healed, I took a seat in the dugout, truly sidelined for the first time in my life. The stands weren’t very crowded, maybe because a charity baseball tournament also had to compete with all the fall sports at Piper Bell, like soccer, lacrosse, and tennis.

  I felt a little bad for the opponent, from Rockland: they had to be mostly sixth and seventh graders, and the Piper Bell team had a lot of eighth graders, so we looked a lot bigger and more intimidating. Had I ever been that small? (Fine, so I’m still kind of on the small side, but sixth-grade small is a FEELING more than a size. Even Diego, who’s very tall, and Mario, who’s very broad, can vouch for that.)

  The Piper Bell players still hadn’t emerged from the locker rooms, so I was the only one waiting on our team’s side of the field, and each minute ticking by made me feel more abandoned than ever.

  I was slumped against the back of the dugout like a forgotten equipment bag when Johnny showed up. I don’t want to say like a knight in shining armor because—bleh—that’s so old-fashioned and also because I knew why he was there. As our school’s star mathlete, he also kept stats for a lot of the games. BUT this wasn’t even an official game. I sat up straight. “I thought you’d be at the lacrosse game,” I said.

  “I thought . . . you might be here,” he said, carefully writing “Piper Bell Charity Tournament Game One” across the top of his scoring sheet. “And might want company.”

  How did he KNOW?

  “I do, since the team seems to have forgotten to show up, and also, I’m glad it’s you,” I said. Now I looked at my cast, where Johnny had written “Happy Healing.” Every time we talked about feelings, or even things close to feelings, we both got shy.

  Why was it so hard to say exactly what you meant to the person you liked? I kicked against the floor of the dugout with the tip of my shoe so the dust made a scratching noise. I was trying to think of what to say next when Piper Bell’s team came onto the field. “What are they wearing?” I said, even though I could see what they were wearing: NEW JERSEYS. Not New Jersey, the state, or its official clothing, but NEW. JERSEYS. Jerseys I didn’t have. Jerseys with an adorable image of our mascot, a penguin, on them.

  “I think it’s a new jersey for the tournament,” Johnny said. “A new shirt, I mean, not a New Jersey like the Garden State.”

  “I can see that,” I snapped, even though nothing was Johnny’s fault. Then I quickly added, “I’m sorry. It’s just way cuter than a cast. Ugh. I wish I could get rid of this thing and play ball!” I waved around the orange cast that somehow hadn’t faded at all.

  “The penguins are probably wishing someone knew they shouldn’t be in Georgia,” Johnny said. It was a home-run joke and got me to laugh until I saw the boy who had to be the new Piper Bell pitcher come out. My fill-in.

  He didn’t look nervous or worried at all. He was acting like he owned the place. Um, sound familiar? I had once been the pitcher acting like she owned the place. ME. Now, I knew better: Fields were for sharing. With your TEAM. Nolan sure didn’t look like someone who was going to figure that out.

  He went to the mound to warm up with Ryder Mills while the rest of the team filed into the dugout. “So that’s him?” I whispered to Devon, who’d plopped down in the dugout with me.

  “Yep, that’s Nolan.”

  “Hmm.”

  He sure didn’t look like someone who would want pointers from me. He looked like someone wearing the jersey I should have been wearing and feeling just fine about it.

  He looked like someone whose parents could tell him he was maybe moving to Seattle and he would say, “Oh, okay, it will be no problem to leave all my friends and make new ones and start at another new school and find a new team and hop right over that dropped hot dog instead of tripping on it.” Like a better ME than me.

  Nolan checked out the field with satisfaction, like I had in my Golden Child days, or when I first started here (even though I was only pretending to feel that way). He didn’t look like he was pretending.

  As the first inning began, all the other sounds of the field and the crowd dropped away. I could only focus on Nolan and how easy he was making everything look in his brand-new Penguins jersey.

  “Watch it,” I muttered under my breath toward Nolan. “There could be a hot dog waiting to get you.”

  Johnny was scratching player names onto his stats sheet and looked up for a second. “Did you say something?”

  I couldn’t tell him how upset I was. It wasn’t very sportswomanlike. So I shook my head. As Nolan easily struck out the first batter, Johnny said to himself, “If he keeps throwing like that, his ERA is going to be so low.”

  Old me, in case you’ve forgotten or the rules of baseball have changed a lot one hundred years from now (yes, I do plan on being a very old person), an ERA is an Earned Run Average, or how many batters get hits and score while you’re pitching. If you’re a pitcher, you want the number to be as low as possible, meaning you were effective at not giving away runs.

  With the second batter up, Nolan wound up and threw. The batter, a girl with a long ponytail sticking out of her cap, CRACKED it far into the outfield, where Madeleine was not paying attention. Madeleine could be a weak link, but still, Nolan had really let that batter get a piece of it.

  So much for his low ERA.

  “It’s a tournament FOR CHARITY, not to give away RUNS!” I muttered. Oh my gosh, I’d said it out loud. Johnny glanced at me and my insides curdled into something gross. He’d o
nce told me I was a positive person and what if I’d just ruined it?

  But he said, “You sound like me when the rest of the mathletes forget their pencils,” and smiled, like he was glad we got upset at the same things.

  Nolan didn’t seem fazed by the runner, who’d made it to second. He composed himself and then struck out the next batter, then walked the batter after that.

  “Whoa, his consistency is awful,” I said to Johnny.

  “It’s his first game, so maybe he’s nervous?” Johnny said.

  “Nervous is one thing, but he looks sloppy,” Devon said. I’d forgotten she was sitting next to me, because she’d gone into silent-Devon mode. “Ugh. Rookies. I’d help him but I don’t think I can mentor AND bring my best game to the tournament. Can you?”

  I nodded that I could, while wondering if teaching Nolan to be a solid replacement for me now meant I was helping him to replace me later?

  As the team returned to the dugout for our at bat, I felt like Nolan was looking at me. SO I looked straight ahead, like he wasn’t even there. It wasn’t like he KNEW I was avoiding him on purpose.

  We were at the top of the third and the only run was for Rockland.

  “I hope we don’t lose this game. Rockland’s not even that good, and we went to regionals,” Devon muttered, kicking the ground.

  Johnny shook his head as Nolan made a wild pitch. “It’s not looking good.”

  Coach Hollylighter, who grimaced as the ump called another ball for Nolan, peered over at me.

  “Garcia, maybe you can talk to Chao?” she said. “I think he gets in his head a lot, like you.”

  I said, “Sure!” but I didn’t mean it. When it had been ME coming onto the team as a new player, Coach Hollylighter told me to check my ego and build rapport with the team. Why wasn’t Nolan getting the same treatment? But I didn’t want him to fail, exactly, especially with Devon pouting beside me. After another runner scored in the third, I felt knotty in my stomach for the whole team, but especially Nolan. We were down 2–0 and if it hadn’t been for another seventh-grade newbie making a double play at shortstop, Nolan would have let two more runs in. I knew how bad it could feel to pitch a lousy game.

  I was trying to think of what to say, but in the fourth, Nolan let by only a single and no runs. “Hmph,” Devon said. “Maybe he WAS just nervous.”

  Johnny nodded. “He’s not looking bad.”

  Whose side were they on? And whose side was I on? I wanted a Penguin win, but I hated that my replacement would be responsible—even though two innings ago I’d felt bad for him.

  In the fifth, Nolan knocked three batters out right in a row, and then Mario homered and drove in Madeleine and the new shortstop. We were up 3–2 and now Nolan looked relaxed in the dugout.

  His fastball was speedy, and he even threw a couple curves that dropped just in time. The better he did, the less Nolan looked at me when the team came back to the dugout. And the more my teammates seemed to forget I was even there. Everyone backslapped and complimented each other and poured little cups of Gatorade—even Devon. I echoed every “way to go” and “nice hit!” but I wasn’t wearing the uniform and it didn’t feel like anything I did counted.

  Being sidelined was like being the team’s ghost. I was there in spirit but all the action passed right through me.

  The Penguins won the game, 4–2, and Nolan beamed at each and every “nice going.”

  So Nolan Chao was just fine. And he sure didn’t need pointers from me.

  But I needed a plan to stay in Peach Tree because it was starting to feel like I’d never existed.

  By next year at this time, everyone might have forgotten me, because the score was still:

  Seattle: 1

  Gabby’s Life: 0

  A FEW MIGRATORY* BIRDS OF THE UNITED STATES (*OR, “DIEGO, THIS IS NOT MAKING ME FEEL BETTER!”)

  *MEANING BIRDS THAT LEAVE THEIR HOMETOWNS FOR VARIOUS REASONS BUT OFTEN COME BACK

  Prothonotary Warbler—A bright yellow little guy that feasts on insects and totally has to bail on Peach Tree for the winter so it can find bugs in Central America

  The Buff-bellied Hummingbird—Born in Texas but likes to head NORTH to hang out in the Northeast states. Maybe it’s a Red Sox fan.

  Bluethroat—A rare bird in the US that hangs out in Alaska’s tundra for a while but is so secretive, no one knows where it goes in the winter!

  Phainopepla—A bird with attitude! (See: shiny feathers and spiky head.) For part of the year, they feast on desert mistletoe in the Southwest and then move to oak and sycamore canyons. Scientists are baffled by the way they keep to themselves in one area and socialize in the other, and that they seem to “teleport.” (Ugh, I need some teleportation powers!)

  IS THIS THE SAME BIRD?

  THE IT AIN’T OVER TILL IT’S OVER

  Goal: Find a plan for staying in Peach Tree

  Action: Pay attention to everything

  Post-Day Analysis:

  September 9

  “It ain’t over till it’s over” is a Yogi Berra saying, and one thing Diego and I agree on is that even though a lot of people claim Yogi never made sense, some things he said DO make sense, like this one. Even if, lately, my Peach Tree life is starting to feel like it’s over. Especially today.

  It started at breakfast. My dad has a habit of making big weekend meals, but what I saw downstairs a little while ago was way beyond the norm.

  He was at the stove and next to him was an enormous stack of pancakes. In the middle of our table was a mixing bowl filled with cereal (no milk) and smaller bowls around it. It looked like a mix of Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops, and Cocoa Puffs.

  “Cereal salad,” my dad said.

  “But why?” I said. It didn’t look that good to me. And any breakfast with the word “salad” in it was just plain unappetizing.

  “We’ve got a lot of odds and ends in the pantry to use up so we won’t have to pack them if we . . . ,” he said.

  “Seattle.” It sounded like a swear word the way I said it, but Dad didn’t notice.

  “Yes, if it works out. Presumably. I spoke to LaKesha and she said we should hear something soon.” UGH. “Presumably” still could mean “maybe” but it was a longer word and a grown-up one and I knew my dad wouldn’t use it if Seattle wasn’t becoming a more solid possibility.

  Even without the cereal salad, my appetite was gone. Forget pancakes. Dad had made a Moving-Away Meal. I didn’t want Pack-Your-Stuff Pancakes! Next it would be Say Farewell Falafel or Sayonara Spaghetti or Peace Out, Peach Tree Pork Chops. If I ate any of it, it would mean I’d accepted that we were probably going to move.

  I took three pancakes and some syrup and put them on a plate that I brought to my room, where I’m writing this. (Fine, even when I lose my appetite I find it again pretty fast. It’s like a boomerang. There’s no way I’m starting a hunger strike to get my “No Seattle” point across.)

  The past few days, I thought my parents would snap to their senses and say, “Oh, gosh, we can’t leave Peach Tree!” Everything would go back to normal. My cast would come off and I’d maybe be class president and I’d play baseball and finish eighth grade at Piper Bell and . . . I don’t know the rest EXACTLY, but the rest would be happening here, not Seattle.

  Ping! My phone chimed with a text. Ack. A group text. Team sports I can handle, but group texts make me nervous.

  Diego: What are you doing today?

  Gabby: Pancakes now, later = ???

  (I can’t tell them about Cereal Salad.)

  Johnny: We were thinking about going to Peach Tree Preserve.

  Gabby: Who is?

  Katy: All of us.

  See, the group text is instantly awkward! When did Diego, Johnny, and Katy talk about this? Was there another group text that I’d missed?

  Gabby: Is this a bird thing?

  (If it is, I have to say, I am not in the mood.)

  Diego: Nah. No birds. Not formally. Unless you want to go birding, formally.
r />   (This made me think of birds in formal attire. It’s a little funny.)

  Katy: She can’t hold binoculars steady with a cast!

  (This was technically not true. I could probably hold binoculars. But maybe Katy didn’t feel like birding, either.)

  Johnny: Are you in?

  Gabby: Sure. In.

  I know I probably should stay home today, until I figure out the play to help me stay home IN PEACH TREE for good. But with the way Dad is acting, I have no home-field advantage staying here. The Peach Tree Preserve is a pretty nature sanctuary with a small building for little kids with all kinds of displays about flora and fauna. Maybe it will inspire me with its wildlife and calming qualities.

  (Pause for time with the flora and fauna)

  I’m back, knowing what happens when you’re “presumably” moving somewhere far away: your friends ambush you.

  They HAD planned the preserve trip before asking me. Because it wasn’t just a fun weekend hangout anymore. It was a MEMORY LANE hangout.

  Johnny had packed a picnic for us. Well, okay, he’d ordered two pizzas from Peace-a-Pizza and brought some sodas, but if you’re eating pizza in NATURE, it’s a picnic.

  So there my friends were, waiting for me on a blanket near the Tadpole Center, when I plopped down and said, “I didn’t bring anything!” My dad would have probably let me clean out the pantry so we could just zip to Seattle on a moment’s notice. I didn’t say that.

  “No, we wanted to do everything,” Johnny said. He looked extra cute because he was wearing a ballcap over his floppy hair, which is not his usual look even though it could have been; ballcaps look great on him. “. . . ’Cause, you know.”