“Well, I’m not going to be here, so I sure hope someone can fill in for me,” I said. “Your parents seem to be used to the idea.”
Nolan nodded and then looked over and waved at his parents. “Yeah, they actually watched a Braves game with me yesterday. And, we got a ping-pong table for our basement, so we have a sport the whole family can play.”
I excused myself from the bleachers to help clean the dugout. I wanted as much time near the Piper Bell field as I could get. I was tossing out some crushed Gatorade cups when Rachel, the sixth grader from the talent squad, walked up.
“I voted for your boyfriend,” she said. “I’m sorry he lost. I heard a rumor that you’re definitely moving. Is that true?”
“I think I am,” I said, even though it was hard to say. “Unless something goes really wrong for my dad.”
“Well, here’s the thing. I joined the talent squad after we talked, and I like it, but what’s been really cool is making so many friends. I didn’t think it was possible when I started here,” she said. “And I kind of owe you, because I wasn’t going to join anything until you said it was a good idea.”
“I’m glad you like the talent squad. Katy will help you find your talent. Or, do the yoga with Coach Raddock,” I said. “It’s really true if you clear your head, ideas pop up.”
“No, I have a talent,” Rachel said. “I want to do a podcast called When Life Gives You Lemons. It’s sort of an advice show and I wanted to launch it in the new year. Would you . . . want to be on it with me? It doesn’t really matter if you’re in Seattle. It’s almost cooler if you are! I mean, not for you but . . .”
“I get it,” I told her, as my phone buzzed with Katy, Johnny, and Diego asking me to go out for my Last Post-Game Celebration. This time, I didn’t mind so much.
“And, it might be fun to do it.” I thought of you, Playbook. Maybe I’d even tell the world about you. “I’m in.”
TO THE NINTH (INNING) DEGREE
Goal: Find a way to get extra innings in Peach Tree
Action: Be on the lookout for signs from the universe
Post-Day Analysis:
October 2
I was walking home from Diego’s just now. We were doing homework together, acting like we’d be doing homework together for the rest of our lives, which we knew we wouldn’t be, which was maybe why we were trying so hard to pretend like everything was totally normal. But I’d told him about Seattle being pretty much for sure, and he’d said, “Oh.” And then we started scratching things down on our homework and muttering to ourselves about that homework.
It was the kind of nice silence you could only have with someone you’d known your whole life, but then Diego stopped scribbling to ask: “So . . . you don’t think there’s going to be a bloop and a blast?”
It was a saying invented by one of his favorite sportscasters, Bob Prince, who’d announced for the Pirates a long time ago. (He was most famous for saying, “Kiss it goodbye!” when someone got a home run.)
OTHER GUNNERISMS (SAYINGS OF BOB PRINCE, SPORTSCASTER KNOWN AS THE GUNNER)
Aspirin tablets (when a fastball was going so fast it looked as tiny and hard to hit as an aspirin would be)
Atem balls (a line drive to an infielder—it was going right at ‘em)
How sweet it is! (a Pirates victory, or a home run)
Radio ball (a pitch the batter could hear but couldn’t see)
Mary Edgerley (no one knew who this was, but Prince ended every broadcast with, “Good night, Mary Edgerley, wherever you are.”)
A bloop and a blast is sort of a last-minute game-changing play in baseball (sort of like when a football quarterback throws a crazy long pass—or a Hail Mary—to score when there seems to be no chance). The bloop is a batter hitting a single and the blast is the next batter getting a home run, and you really want to get a blast to follow a bloop if your team is down by one point in the ninth inning.
“The last game was yesterday,” I said, sort of confused by his question. Diego had been at the game. “Piper Bell finished third overall, remember?”
“No, I mean for you, and Seattle,” he said. “I guess . . . do you think your parents will change their minds?”
I shook my head. “I think my dad really wants to go.”
“There’s no chance that something might change?”
“There’s a tiny possibility it won’t work out,” I said. “But he was on the phone with someone from the paper this morning, so I think it’s going to happen.”
But just now, as I was walking to my house and looking at the sky—and swinging my arms, both of them!!—I could have sworn the clouds looked a little like me and my Dad and Peter and Louie.
Maybe I’m seeing things because I’ve been thinking about our family so much and staying here, or moving. But there we were: Cloud Garcias. Here. In Peach Tree. Not in Seattle.
You could accept a thing was happening and still want a different thing to happen, right?
And what I wanted was everything to align so that staying in Peach Tree was the best thing for everyone. I wanted a bloop and a blast that sealed the win and made us all happy. But that would have been a miracle.
When I rounded the corner for home, Peter was sitting on the porch with an envelope. A thick yellow envelope. “What took you so long?” he asked me.
“I didn’t know you were waiting for me!”
He rolled his eyes, then waved the envelope around. “It’s from the COMMITTEE.”
So a committee could be for anything, but I knew right away what he meant. THE COMMITTEE was the deciding force for the Community Alliance Peach Tree Citizen of the Year Award. And committees didn’t use giant envelopes if all that was inside was a letter that they didn’t pick you.
“Whoa! Is this the bloop or the blast?” I said out loud.
“A blob or a what?” Peter said, but he didn’t wait for an answer because he was already ripping open the envelope.
Inside was exactly what I hoped would be inside: my dad was the Peach Tree Citizen of the Year!
“We have to tell him,” I said, “NOW!”
Peter ran into the house ahead of me, which under many circumstances would have bugged me, but today I let it slide. Peter had been my teammate on the All-Pros Play from day one. What if entering Dad for the award had been the bloop and winning was the blast and Peach Tree got to keep the REAL Garcias and not the cloud ones?
Dad was sitting at the kitchen table, which was weird. He has a problem with sitting. It’s half the reason why deadlines can be extra-tough on him. Keeping his butt in a chair—a writing essential—is like asking me not to be great at baseball. Almost impossible.
Peter and I trampled in as Peter pushed the packet across the table at Dad.
“Wow, synchronized stomping. Should I be nervous?”
“Just read it!” I said, and as Dad pulled the papers toward him, I saw him notice the fancy stationery and the first lines of the letter.
“What did you guys do?” Dad asked, but he was smiling. “You entered me? Together?”
We nodded like a set of eager puppy dogs.
“Wow,” he said. “Well . . . hmm. I don’t know what to say.” He looked teary. “Thank you.”
I waited, for what, I didn’t know, and then Dad said, “And, well, I need to talk to you both. But separately.”
Peter and I exchanged a look and it was like my longtime dream to be able to read thoughts had finally come true. I knew we were thinking the same thing.
I went first. Dad suggested we talk at the park. Our park. After the clouds and the letter, I thought maybe he’d tell me that the whole idea of Seattle had been a huge mistake. That he couldn’t leave behind all these memories. I mean, we were headed to the park down the street, where I’d had my thirteenth birthday party but also where I’d spent a million summer nights with Dad, just playing catch. Where Dad had told me he was marrying Louie. Where Dad later taught me to throw faster and harder. Where he told me not to be nervous the night
before the first day I pitched on my Little League team.
Like my tree, it was a big deal, our park.
“Catch?” he said and held up a ball. He tossed me my mitt and I put it on, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t gotten home from getting my cast off and done that immediately. My mitt felt like home. Dad tossed a throw lightly at me and I plucked it out of the sky. It didn’t hurt to catch the ball, but it felt weird, the way putting on long pants after a summer of wearing shorts could feel weird.
“You okay?” Dad pointed at my arm.
“Yep,” I said, talking only about my arm. Dad was talking about more than my arm.
“You know you and your brother are loons, right?” Dad said, catching my throw. “The best loons I know, but still loons.”
“It’s Peach Tree that picked you as Citizen of the Year. We just suggested it,” I said.
“Well, I appreciate it,” he said. “And everything you two did.”
Did. Past tense. What did it mean?
We tossed the ball back and forth a bunch more, in that same kind of silence I had with Diego. I like it sometimes, having quiet, because, Playbook, you might have noticed my brain can be kind of loud. Even when it’s quiet, it sometimes still has conversations.
Bob: This is nice.
Judy: It is. But is it TOO nice?
Bob: Why do you have to ruin it, Judy?
“I know I wasn’t too happy with that application to the Atlanta Herald, but I am impressed with how you’re pushing to stay in Peach Tree,” Dad said.
I thought of a million questions, but I didn’t ask any of them. I caught his throws and waited. It was hard not to talk when I really wanted to.
“Your mom was like that,” Dad said. EMOTIONAL CURVEBALL ALERT! “Loyal. When she loved something, she’d dig in her heels and hold on for dear life. I can be flighty, but she was always sure.”
He held the ball in the air, about to throw back to me, but then put his arm down. “I should have told you before we even took the Seattle trip what I was thinking about,” he said. “It wasn’t fair.”
I knew, right then, Playbook, that he was going to say he took the job. Part of me wanted clouds to roll over the sun and the world to get gloomy and rain to fall—whatever ominous (seriously, I’m learning so many good words. Piper Bell is quite a school!) signs it took for Dad to think that what he had to say next was all wrong. But part of me was okay when it stayed sunny and calm as Dad said, “But I got the job.” He held the ball in midair, waiting for my reaction. “I know you aren’t happy about it, but I hope you’ll give Seattle a chance.”
“So you’re going to be a sportswriter for a major newspaper?” I said, instead of the million other things in my head. “Like you’ve always wanted?”
“It looks that way,” he said. “I wish I didn’t have to disappoint you and Peter to do it.”
I’m not disappointed, though. I’m nervous. I’m sad. I wish I could be in two places at once. But I guess I’m a little excited for a whole new adventure. And, face it, if I make it to the majors, I’ll probably have to move at least once as a key player who’s sought after by many teams. Plus away games, and maybe even a season in Japan. I’ve always thought it would be cool to play in Japan.
I knew for sure at least one person who’d back me through whatever.
I ran to my dad and gave him a huge hug.
Leaving was going to be a tough play to handle. But sometimes getting through the tough stuff is part of being on a great team.
VICTORY LAP (SORT OF)
The Community Alliance Award Banquet was a big deal. OR it was going to be. It was being held at the Town Hall, in the Rotunda, this round room at the top of the building where, on a clear day, you could see all the way to the next town. At night, it was bound to look beautiful.
For the moment, I’m packing. We leave in a few weeks and, well, Seattle might be okay. For one, my new school’s spring break is in early March, and Dad and Louie said we’ll come back here for a visit. And then, in April, Diego and the Parker family will come to see us!
I’m still nervous, and I already know there are going to be days when I’m really miserable about the move. But I guess it would be kind of weird to have a baseball season where you know you’re going to win every game ahead of time. What would be the point? So maybe life is like that, too, and you can’t know when your wins are going to come.
Plus, I have you, Playbook. And the me that goes into coming up with plays. As teammates go, I’m pretty good to have on my side.
(Little brother intrusion pause.)
Did I mention Peter’s back to barging in my room? It’s annoying. But also, familiar in a way I can rely on. Annoyingly familiar is about the right way to describe the new new Peter. Who, by the way, caught a glimpse of you, Playbook.
“I knew it!” he said. “You’re making plans again!”
I shook my head and closed you, Playbook. I didn’t toss you under anything this time. “I’m between plays right now.”
I’d prepared for this moment. Or, well, a different moment than one where Peter walked in like he owned my room, but it was as good a time as any. I took out a notebook just like this one, Playbook, but on the inside cover I’d written “Peter Garcia’s Playbook.”
Peter looked down at it and flipped through the pages, which were blank, of course. He has to decide how he’s going to approach his plays on his own.
“Is this for me?”
“It has your name on it.”
“So you just, like, write about life and stuff?”
“There’s a strategy,” I said. “I’ll help you, if you want.”
He nodded. “Thanks.”
He looked around my room at the spaces where my posters used to be. “You’re gonna hang up your Mo’Ne Davis poster in our new house, right?”
I nodded. “Definitely.”
“Then it’s not like everything will be TOTALLY different,” he said.
“We’re probably still going to have rooms next to each other,” I said. “And you’ll probably still bug me all the time.”
“Promise,” Peter said.
It was good to have that to count on.
“Kids, it’s almost time to go!” Louie hollered up the stairs.
Almost time to go. To the banquet, and later, Seattle. There was no way to know what to expect, except that my family would be there.
I don’t exactly have a play in mind, but at least I know who’s on my team.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In the course of writing the Gabby Garcia’s Ultimate Playbook series, I’ve had the chance to think about and answer the question, “When did you know you wanted to be a writer?” And I always say I started late at writing fiction, that I didn’t know writing books was something that any book- and word-loving person could try her hand at, that it took me a while to realize that, while getting a book published was hard, writing a book was entirely something I could do.
But, if I think on it longer, I might amend that. I think I knew I wanted to write books very early, at least since I first insisted on bringing a pile of books on a long road trip and almost looked forward more to the time in the car with the books than the destination itself. Or since the time I had to call my mom to come pick me up from the library after I’d planned on walking home, because I couldn’t carry the thirty-one books I’d checked out. Or when I read a book by a particular author (and there’ve been a few) and then wanted to read every word that person had ever written. (I still do all these things, but what I’m trying to say is that my passion for reading should have tipped me off that I wanted to be a writer.)
So, now, as I think about who I want to thank—and saying thank you is a lucky thing, I think—I don’t know where to start. There are infinite possibilities and a limited word count. But over the years there’ve been family members, librarians, teachers, friends, random people who said funny things in conversation at the supermarket checkout line, people who paid in exact change at the greeting
card shop where I worked, and had such a particular way about them, I never forgot their mannerism . . . you get the idea. I’ve been fortunate to be in this life game with so many people who’ve in countless ways big and small been influential, and who’ve all made a difference in who I am and what I write. And there’ve been books. Can I first and foremost thank books and the people who write them, and edit them, and illustrate them, and make them? Because books always have and always will be treasured friends to me, and I hope they are to you, too, reader.
Okay, as to this one in your hands, I will be more specific. For seeing the potential in Gabby from well before she stepped up to the plate, I’d like to thank Claudia Gabel, and for coaching Gabby all the way to the last inning, Stephanie Guerdan. And thank you to Katherine Tegen and her entire team for allowing me the privilege and opportunity to share this character and her stories. The team of Emily Rader, Mitchell Thorpe, and Emma Meyer ensure that these books get out into the world and that people might hear about them, and for all of their efforts, I am grateful. For bringing the spirit of Gabby to every last element of this book, from cover to cover and every page in between, a mega thanks to the design team of David Dewitt, Amy Ryan, and Katie Fitch.
I’d never written books with illustrations before the Gabby series, and I feel so lucky that Gabby brought Marta Kissi into my life. It’s always a treasure when you feel like someone can translate the oddball images that pop into your head and make them a million times better than your brain even imagined. Marta, someday we’ll meet in person, whether in London or L.A.!
I heap gratitude upon Fonda Snyder for offering support and advice and a cheering section, too.
This Gabby in particular is about family, and I couldn’t write without mine. It starts with my mom and dad, Bill and Debra Palmer, who provided inspiration from day one, often by sharing the things they love with me. From my dad’s love of baseball, so devoted that I recall once making a bat and ball from a stick and a pinecone on a long road trip, to my mom’s love of cooking and—up until the day she died—trying out new recipes or developing her own; you’ll see their marks on all the Gabby books, and on me. (They also passed on a love of reading and of books.)
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