by H. N. Kowitt
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Me At-A-Glance
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
About the Author
Also by H.N. Kowitt
Copyright
Name: Danny Shine (rhymes with “whine”)
Age: 12
School: Gerald Ford Middle School
Often found at: Comix Nation
Never found at: Cafeteria “cool” table
Secret weapon: Drawing rude tattoos
Likes: Pizza Day, Asia O’Neill
Hates: Gym, Swirlies, Mexican wedgies
Least likely to: Shave a Chicago Bears logo into my head
Burning question: “Does this zombie need more drool?”
I began the day as Danny Shine, invisible seventh-grade comic book geek. When it ended, I was the Guy Who’d Destroyed Everyone’s Hopes and Dreams. I was booed, jeered at, even spit on — kids hated me so much, I needed a security guard just to walk down the street.
It started at the All-City Baseball Championships.
My best friend, Jasper, and I were in the front row at Hartman Field, a baseball stadium across town, watching beefy jocks high-five each other. For the first time in twenty-five years, Gerald Ford Middle School had a shot at clinching the city baseball title. GF had never seen a winning season, much less a championship. All week, the whole school was breathless, asking, “Is the ‘Curse of the Woodchucks’ finally over?”
Jasper and I couldn’t care less.
“Why are we here again?” Jasper asked.
“Asia O’Neill gave me tickets.” I wanted to keep explanations short. My crush on her was so secret, even Jasper didn’t know about it. “She couldn’t use them.”
“Why didn’t you just say we were busy?” Jasper asked, turning the page of his comic book. To get him to come, I’d had to bribe him with a rare first edition of Rat Girl. I didn’t think he’d read it during the game.
“I just thought it would be a goof.” The truth was too embarrassing. A few days ago, Asia had come up to me at lunch.
“Hey, Danny,” she’d said. “Want to go to All-City on Sunday?”
The coolest girl I knew was asking me to do something! This was so off the charts, I didn’t know how to process it.
“Y-yeah. Sure. Absolutely.”
“Oh, good.” She sounded relieved. “See, Jenna and I are going rock climbing Saturday and can’t use our tickets.”
WHAT?
CRUD! I felt like I’d just been punched.
“I didn’t even know if you liked baseball,” she said.
“Uh …” I didn’t want her to think I’d said yes only because I thought she was going. “Yeah. Totally. Big fan.”
“Good.”
“Can’t wait to see those stupid … other guys get pounded,” I added.
“Highland, you mean,” she said.
“Right.”
Just remembering that conversation made me cringe. Now Jasper and I were sitting behind third base, surrounded by a sea of Woodchuck fans wearing orange and blue. Across the field, maroon and silver flags waved for the Silver Hawks, the defending champs from snooty Highland Middle School. The stadium was a neutral site, but both schools had tons of fans there.
“All this hoopla,” I said, turning to Jasper. “What’s the point? It’s just a bunch of overgrown freaks hitting a ball around.” In my opinion, the wrong things in life got all the attention:
Sports
Ripped abs
Good looks
“Right now we could be having a James Bond marathon,” Jasper pointed out. On Saturdays, we sometimes watched back-to-back movies or hung at our favorite store, Comix Nation. “How long does this go on for?”
“It’s only the first inning,” I said.
“So, what, two more to go?”
“More like eight.” I don’t know that much about sports, but next to Jasper? I might as well be the commissioner of baseball.
“In that case …” Jasper opened up his bag to show a stack of comics. “Want some reading material?”
Jasper didn’t care what people thought, which I admired. He just did his own weird thing, whether it was turtle racing, designing robots, or whatever. But I was too self-conscious to sit in the bleachers and read, so I shook my head.
“I guess we could stay until halftime,” Jasper said.
“Baseball doesn’t have —”
I didn’t get to finish. Someone elbowed me to stand, and suddenly we were swept up in “the wave.”
Behind us were a bunch of obnoxious, face-painted jocks from school. There was Tank Friedman, a football player whose head was shaped like a canned ham. Next to him were his friends Kyle Larson and “Abs” Tanaka.
“HIGHLAND REEKS!” Tank yelled, his face half blue, half orange. Tank represented everything I didn’t like about jocks. Rude, loud, and cocky, he acted like he owned the school. He and Kyle were throwing French fries at each other.
I tried to focus on the field. A Silver Hawk batter came to the plate. “That’s Dex Van Zandt,” someone behind me said. “He’s their best hitter.”
“STRIKE ’EM OUT!” our cheerleaders yelled. I spotted an enormous coil of hair with orange and blue feathers in it and recognized Chantal Davis, the bossiest diva in seventh grade. The cheering squad leaped around while Chantal browbeat the fans by megaphone.
“Are you people dead?” she yelled. “I can’t hear you!”
“Woodchucks are number one!” the crowd chanted.
“People.” Chantal shook her head. “Show these Highland clowns we got the skills to pay the bills. You feel me?”
“WOODCHUCKS ARE NUMBER ONE!”
“Got that right,” Chantal said. Being a cheerleader was the perfect job for her. She got to bully people on a mass scale.
As if to prove Chantal wrong, Dex hit a long line drive into deep left field. “OOOOOH,” everyone gasped. It looked like a sure triple, but Luke Strohmer, our left fielder, made a spectacular running catch. Even Jasper looked up.
People screamed, jumped, and woo-hooed. “AWESOME CATCH!!” yelled Tank, practically in my ear. “Gold glove, dude!”
Luke was one of the school’s best athletes. He was always breezily rolling down the hall, accepting high fives, girls trailing after him.
Now the whole stadium was cheering like crazy. I wondered if I should join in, but I didn’t want to act like a dumb sports fan. I looked at Jasper.
He had put away his comic book.
Whenever I caught a baseball game on TV, it droned on and on. But this one was different. There were stolen bases, diving catches, even a screaming argument at second base.
And then something amazing happened. The Silver Hawks were beating us 3–2, when our first baseman, Bruce “Bruiser” Pekarsky, came to bat. He hit a home run so far, it cleared the right-field bleachers and bounced off a car in the parking lot. Everyone’s jaw dropped.
It was so cool, Jasper and I were both yelling as Bruiser crossed home plate. I didn’t even mind the jocks behind us.
“Sweet!” they howled, bumping chests.
The air smelled like wet grass and root beer, and the mood was enjoyably tense. I’m having a good time, I realized with surprise.
After that, the Woodchucks were flying high. Heading into the ninth, we were leading 6–3. By coin flip, we were officially the home team, so we’d bat last. The way things
were going, though, we probably wouldn’t even need our final turn.
The crowd was going crazy. After twenty-five years of losing, the championship was just three measly outs away.
Three measly outs!
The game wasn’t over yet, but people didn’t care. They were already planning the victory party, pouring soda on each other and high-fiving.
Highland’s first batter struck out.
“The Curse of the Woodchucks is finished!” Chantal shouted. “Dead! Gone! Six feet under!”
Their second batter grounded out to second. One out to go …
“Hey, Highland!” Kyle yelled to the other team. He turned around and pulled down his pants.
Talk about Woodchuck Pride. Even Jasper laughed.
“One more out,” someone whispered. “One more out …”
That’s all it would take, and then the Woodchucks would be All-City Baseball Champs.
But then Dex Van Zandt walked up to the plate, the Silver Hawks’ best hitter. Woodchuck fans groaned. The whole stadium held its breath as Dex fouled off two pitches.
“One more strike!” I burst out.
The pitcher wound up and threw. The batter swung. CRA-A-A-A-CK! The ball soared high above the third base line … reached its peak and started down … heading straight at us!
Two seconds later, I made the biggest mistake of my life.
The ball came arching down toward our section, closer and closer … right at me. If I didn’t do something, it was going to conk me on the head! I put my hands up to catch it. Even though I reek at baseball, I thought I had this one — it was twenty feet away, ten, five, practically IN MY HANDS, and then —
WHAP!
The ball arrived just as Luke Strohmer’s glove collided with my hand. He was reaching over the fence and into the stands, trying to make the catch. The ball dropped through my fingers and bounced at my feet.
“$%&*@*&%!” Luke roared.
He threw his glove to the ground and glared at me. Did I just block him from making the play? People started to boo.
Now he was swearing! I never even saw Luke coming — after all, I was looking up at the ball. In that split second, my only thought had been to stop the thing from bouncing off my head.
Holy crud.
“Foul ball,” said the announcer, and the ump motioned for me to toss it back. I hesitated, shy about my throwing skills. Finally someone else picked it up and threw it onto the field.
The Silver Hawk hitter, Dex Van Zandt, smiled.
“BOOOOOOOOOOOO!” The crowd roared. “He should be out! That was Luke’s ball!”
Tank poked me from behind. “You better hope Dex doesn’t get a hit. Luke was totally going to catch that ball.”
“This is YOUR fault!” hissed another guy.
Now it was starting to sink in that everyone was mad. Not just mad: furious.
But … but …!
It was totally unfair. All I’d done was stick my hands out when the ball came at me — that’s what everyone did! Luke had reached into the stands, right?
Or had I reached out onto the field?
Catching a ball in the stands was allowed. A fan reaching over the fence and onto the field was another story — that was illegal, wrong, and highly uncool. I was just protecting myself; I never meant to interfere with Luke. But it seemed the rest of the stadium saw it otherwise.
“You might’ve lost us the game, dirtbag,” yelled someone else.
I sank into my seat, terrified. A moment later, I heard a loud thunk of the bat and a big cheer went up on the Highland side.
Total disaster. I didn’t even have to watch to know what happened. Dex Van Zandt had hit a home run.
Things only got worse.
The next Silver Hawk hit a triple. Then there were two walks in a row. Our outfielder dropped an easy fly ball. The Woodchucks were giving up runs left and right, and all we could do was watch in horror.
The Silver Hawks tied the game and kept right on scoring:
6–6.
8–6.
11–6.
Even Jasper, who hated sports, looked crushed. “This is pathetic.”
That foul ball had changed the whole momentum of the game. The Woodchucks had lost their confidence. The crowd groaned as Highland’s worst hitter knocked a clean double. And then …
PLOP.
A half-open bag of peanuts landed in my lap. I brushed the bag away — maybe someone had dropped it by mistake. I tried to concentrate on the field.
THUNK.
Something wet hit my back. I reached behind me and found a half-empty soda can and put it on the floor. Crud! By the time I’d been pelted with a tube sock, a Big Gulp cup, and a magazine, I had to admit it wasn’t an accident.
“Hope you’re happy, jerkwad.” I could feel one of the jocks poking me in the back.
“Moron!”
“IDIOT!”
I sat frozen in my seat, my heart pounding. Was this really happening? I stared straight ahead. Jasper leaned over and whispered, “Ignore them.”
THWAP!
A meatball sub hit me in the neck and slid down the front of my jacket. Grimacing, I tried to wipe off the bits of meat and onion. I could hear the guys behind me laughing.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said to Jasper without looking at him. I pulled my head into my sweatshirt like a turtle.
“No.” He looked around nervously. “You’d draw even more attention. Better stay till the game’s over, then sneak out with the crowd.”
I sank lower in my seat.
By the time the Woodchucks finally got the third out, we were down 12–6. We still had a chance — a tiny chance — if we could put together a big rally in the bottom of the ninth. Turn this thing around, I prayed.
The first batter popped out to the shortstop.
The second batter hit a long fly ball … straight to the center fielder.
The third batter struck out in three pitches.
Nooooooooooooooooo!
“And that’s the game,” trilled the announcer. “Let’s hear it for the Silver Hawks” — a huge cheer from Highland — “the new All-City Baseball Champs!!!”
Woodchuck fans wailed like they were at a funeral. I heard a jock behind me yell, “It’s HIS fault!” and I turned around to see him pointing at me. “He ruined it! He jinxed the game!”
“LOSER! LOSER!” People were pointing. The chant got louder. “LOSER! LOSER! LOSER!”
Now fifteen hundred people were yelling at me. My stomach felt like it had dropped to my knees.
“Let’s am-scray,” said Jasper, pulling me out of my seat. “Put your collar up and —”
“LOSER! LOSER! LOSER!”
At least they don’t know my name, I thought.
“HEY, DANNY!” Chantal yelled by megaphone.
Crud.
“WAS THAT YOU, DANNY? MESSING UP LUKE’S CATCH?” Now everyone was looking from me to Chantal. Since when did cheerleaders stop and talk to people in the stands?
“I THOUGHT YOU HATED SPORTS,” she shouted. “Dang.”
I refused to look at her.
“DANNY SHINE!” she yelled. “Look at me when I’m —”
A woman security guard in a blue uniform tapped me on the shoulder. “I’ll escort you out. It’s for your own safety.”
For your own safety? Now I was even more worried. The security guard herded us through the crowd, down the stairs. As we passed the field, we saw an astonishing sight: hundreds of fans storming the field, throwing trash and yelling.
“SILVER HAWKS SUCK! SILVER HAWKS SUCK!”
And the strange thing was — it wasn’t just hard-core jocks. Normal-looking girls were going crazy too, tearing up the grass, stomping on signs, and turning over garbage cans.
“This is insane,” Jasper said.
The fans’ rage scared me. Before, they’d cheered the team like crazy; now they were trashing the field with the same intensity. Like someone had flipped a switch.
“Th
at Danny kid,” said someone behind us. “His life is over.”
Jasper and I froze.
“Go,” said the security guard.
* TOP FIVE VOICEMAILS I DIDN’T WANT TO HEAR
“Hey, Danny! You owe me three dollars for the hot dog I threw at you!”
“It’s Asia, just back from Wisconsin. How was the game?”
“Don’t worry. We’ll get another shot at the title in 2085.”
“Jasper here. Want to borrow my Yoda mask?”
“When you switch schools, can I have your locker?”
The next day in school, I tunneled through the crowd, not speaking to anyone. A few people said things like, “Nice catch, dorkwad!” As soon as I got to homeroom, I shoved my nose in a book. I wanted to put the game out of my mind.
Unfortunately, the principal brought it up in his PA announcement.
“About the baseball championships.” Dr. Kulbarsh sighed. “The Woodchucks played admirably and came very close to winning. Painfully close.” He swallowed. “We were all disappointed. But I was even more disappointed in the fans’ behavior after the game.”
A few people looked at the floor.
“Losing is no excuse to go on a rampage. You were guests at the stadium, and you abused the privilege. If that’s how you behave, you don’t deserve a team. In a time of budget cutbacks, the school must make painful choices. And that is why we are considering …” He paused dramatically. “Cutting after-school sports.”
Everyone gasped.
I looked up from my book.
“We’re reviewing the matter and will give you our decision in a few weeks,” said Kulbarsh.
