No Fear!

by Steve Moore

  I took off my glove and chucked it at the gopher . . .

  . . . just as Coach Earwax yelled, “Right fielder! Heads up!”

  He hit a high fly ball to me. I had only one choice.

  In case you’re wondering, catching a high fly ball with your bare hands hurts. A lot.

  But that wasn’t even the worst part of the gopher fiasco. Remember when I told you that between seasons the human body can forget things, such as how to throw a baseball? Well, my arm was struck with total amnesia.

  I threw the ball as hard as I could toward home plate, but it sailed way off course over the fence and into the faculty parking lot. The ball ricocheted back and forth and set off about a dozen car alarms.

  Ms. Vielhaber, my English teacher, was walking to her car, and the loud racket scared her so badly she screamed like someone in a horror movie and dove underneath the groundskeeper’s filthy pickup truck.

  I slunk back behind the other two guys trying out for right field and tried to make myself invisible. If I could have fit, I would have crawled into the gopher hole.

  Coach Earwax scribbled something on his clipboard, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t “strong arm.”

  I figured my performance in the fielding drills didn’t exactly fry Coach’s burger. I had one more chance to show him what I could do.

  CHAPTER 8

  Coach took the mound to pitch to us. We all got ten swings, and on the last pitch we were supposed to bunt the ball and run to first base as if our lives depended on it.

  Jimmy Jimerino got a hit on every one of his pitches, including a blast over the center-field fence. He looked at Becky and arched his eyebrow as if to say, “That one was for YOU!”

  Coach Earwax and all of Jimmy’s posse gave him “Atta babes,” but Skinny Dennis really sucked up.

  Bombdiggity? I hadn’t heard anyone use that word since preschool.

  After his home run blast, Jimmy bunted and ran to first base. He would have been thrown out, but he plowed into the first baseman like a linebacker sacking a quarterback.

  Ronnie Howard, the first baseman, got knocked on his butt and dropped the ball. He wasn’t hurt, but Ronnie is kind of a drama king. He blubbered and moaned and milked the scene a little too much.

  I don’t think he was expecting that Coach would send him home “out of an abundance of caution.”

  Another player gone!

  Becky was outstanding at bat. Five clean hits in ten pitches. And when she bunted, Becky beat out the throw to first base by a mile.

  Carlos got up to bat and fouled off all his pitches and the bunt. But one of his fouls was a monster fly ball that flew out of the ballpark and bounced down Seventh Street toward the stadium.

  Carlos looked surprised at first. Then he snapped out of it and got all cocky. As if he hits it that far all the time.

  Everyone except Jimmy was impressed. Coach Earwax even scribbled a top-secret note on his clipboard. Carlos probably figured it was something complimentary about his long foul ball.

  Joey’s batting went as you might expect. Coach Earwax had a hard time getting the pitch into his strike zone.

  Whenever a pitch did manage to get close, Joey would hit a slow grounder to shortstop. Jimmy fielded the grounders behind his back, between legs, with eyes closed. Showing off for Becky.

  Joey rocked the bunt, though. It dribbled only a couple of feet in front of the plate, but by the time the catcher picked up the ball, Joey was standing on third base!

  Coach Earwax quickly scribbled another top-secret note on his clipboard. A speedy player with a tiny strike zone might come in handy.

  When it was my turn to hit, I tried to impress Coach with my batting stance. I copied it from a former major league baseball player named Julio Franco.

  Quick Time-Out about Julio Franco

  Julio always stood with his knees knocked together, arms up and the bat straight over his head with the barrel pointed right at the pitcher like a cannon. Then he waggled the end of the bat to purposely mess with the pitcher’s brain. (I’m not even making this up. You can Google Julio Franco.)

  At home in front of the mirror, I had fiddled with Julio’s stance and came up with my own version.

  I named it the Mind-Bender.

  When I got to the plate, I went right into my Mind-Bender stance. Coach Earwax was caught off guard. He had a look on his face like he’d just smelled a dirty diaper and stared at me like that stupid gopher.

  So I stared back.

  Finally, Coach blinked and threw a pitch that bounced three feet in front of the plate.

  It worked! Coach’s brain was messed up by the Mind-Bender. Unfortunately, so was my body.

  He got the next nine pitches across the plate, but the crazy batting stance was hard to unwind. I swung and missed every single pitch.

  On my last swing I managed to nick the ball—barely. It dropped onto the dirt next to me like a spilled snow cone.

  Coach said I got a piece of it, but I think he was being sarcastic.

  Fortunately, I pulled off a really good bunt that dribbled down the third-base line.

  Becky hustled over and fielded the bunt because Ricky Schnauzer was playing third base and he was, er, preoccupied.

  I almost beat Becky’s throw to first, though. I think that made a good impression, because as I jogged off the field, Coach Earwax yelled, “Atta babe!”

  Or maybe he was talking to Becky.

  The last batter up was Dewey Taylor, one of the other players trying out for my position in right field.

  Dewey is kind of a picky guy, and he didn’t like the first few pitches that Coach threw. Too slow. Too low. Too far outside.

  Joey was standing right behind me, and I heard him say something spooky. It turned out to be the most famous psychic-Joey prediction of all time.

  Coach Earwax overcorrected on the next pitch to Dewey. He reared back and tossed a fastball that was high and inside.

  Poor Dewey. He was like the bad guy in a Western movie who gets plugged by the sheriff before he can even draw the gun out of his holster.

  The ball hit Dewey right smack on the nose. It sounded just like my baseball hitting Mrs. Smoot’s fence. Dewey was knocked flat on his back. Blood gushed out of both nostrils and soaked the front of his T-shirt.

  His nose was smashed sideways on his face!

  Everyone on the ball field was stunned and silent, except Skinny Dennis, who screamed like someone in a horror movie.

  Mr. Joseph, the school groundskeeper, looked up from raking the grass behind the dugout, and when he saw all the bloody gore, he keeled over backward and fainted!

  I was standing in front of the dugout. I wanted to run over and help Dewey, but my feet wouldn’t budge.

  Coach Earwax and Becky immediately ran to home plate. Coach tore off Dewey’s T-shirt that probably cost a lot of money and used it to stop the bleeding while Becky held Dewey’s head in her lap.

  Jimmy Jimerino ran to the dugout to get his cell phone, but he wasn’t going to call for help.

  Fortunately, Becky gave Jimmy the stink eye, and he changed his mind.

  After Mr. Joseph recovered from fainting, he drove Dewey to the doctor in his filthy pickup truck. As they pulled away, we all knew Dewey was going to be okay, because he stuck an arm out the window and gave us a thumbs-up.

  Dewey’s gory broken-nose incident would soon become known in Spiro T. Agnew Middle School folklore as the “Valentine’s Day Schnoz Massacre.”

  Later that night, after all the drama during the tryout, it took me three hours to get to sleep. Part of the reason was that Frenchy was under my bed snoring like a dragon. But mostly I kept picturing poor Dewey with his nose bent sideways and blood all over his T-shirt.

  When I finally did fall asleep, I had a horrible nightmare.

  My brain was in the grip of an epic fear.

  Bean-O-Phobia!

  CHAPTER 9

  The next morning before school, my friends and I hustled over to the ball field to
see if we’d made the team.

  Coach Earwax tacked the roster to the dugout wall, then ducked out in a big hurry to avoid eye contact with the poor shlubs who’d been cut.

  We all crowded around the list. Jimmy Jimerino and his posse made the team, of course. They slapped hands and bumped chests, then they left to show off their sweat stains to girls.

  It was easy to tell the players who got cut. They all wandered off like zombies. Ricky Schnauzer was one of them.

  Becky made the team. She flashed Nature’s Near-Perfect Smile and made a pumping gesture with her fist. As Becky walked past, she gave me a wink! My knees wobbled, and I’m not even exaggerating.

  Finally, the moment of truth. The major milestone. Success or painful rejection.

  I looked at the roster. Dewey Taylor’s name was at the top of the list, even though he didn’t complete the tryout. Dewey wasn’t there to see it, but I thought this was a really nice gesture by Coach Earwax.

  At the very bottom of the list was scribbled—not typed like the rest of the names—“Joey Linguini, Carlos Diaz, Steve Moore,” in that order. We apparently made it by the skin of our teeth.

  Carlos grumbled because Joey’s name was above his, but we all slapped hands and bumped chests just like the hotshot athletes.

  We didn’t stink!

  As we walked off the field, I looked over at home plate. Mr. Joseph had raked clean the bloody spot where Dewey Taylor got beaned right in the schnoz.

  But in my mind I saw Dewey’s bloody sideways nose.

  And a baseball the size of a meteor.

  CHAPTER 10

  I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t stop thinking about what was already being called the St. Valentine’s Day Schnoz Massacre. Everyone at school was talking about Dewey.

  Everyone except Jimmy Jimerino.

  Crazy rumors were flying all over the place.

  That last one was my personal favorite.

  The rumors came to a screeching halt, though, when Dewey was dropped off in front of school.

  We all saw the true damage: both of Dewey’s eyes were swollen and bruised. He was wearing a masklike bandage that made him look like the villain in a horror movie who causes people to scream.

  No one screamed, though. Dewey got the celebrity treatment. Everyone crowded around and slapped him on the back and gave him high fives. Becky gave him a big hug—right in front of Jimmy.

  But Dewey told us he was done with baseball. He would play no more. Forever. He was going to do track and field instead, because the chances of getting beaned on the nose by a baseball while running are pretty slim.

  I was just about to ask Dewey if he had nightmares about baseballs the size of meteors, but it was time to head into school.

  Quick Time-Out about My School

  Spiro T. Agnew is not your normal middle school.

  First of all, you probably noticed that the name is kind of odd. Most schools are named after presidents or poets or military heroes or other famous dead people. Not my school.

  Our dead guy was a mere vice president who resigned from office for being corrupt. Miss Dubois, my history teacher, said it happened a long time ago. She is older than the internet, but her mind is still sharp enough to remember the entire episode.

  When someone asks us where we go to school, all the students except the kiss-ups answer “Spiro.” It’s a lot quicker to say, and you don’t have to explain all that corrupt-politician thing.

  The second you walk in the front doorway, you notice something eerie. Our school is really quiet.

  We don’t even have a bell that rings when class begins and ends. We have a recorded “jingle.” It sounds like one of those dangling wind chimes that people hang in their backyards to calm their nerves.

  Our hallways don’t have linoleum or tile floors. We have carpeting that muffles all the ruckus when students rush to the next class.

  The only sound you hear is soft music that’s piped into every hallway in the entire school. But it’s not the kind of music you actually want to hear. If you’ve ever been in a dentist’s office, you know what I mean.

  At Spiro there is a strict rule: no raising your voice in the carpeted hallways. We’re forced to communicate in whispers.

  How is that even possible?

  Ms. Theresa is the person responsible for turning Spiro into a dentist’s office. She’s our school principal. We call her Mother T., and I am only slightly exaggerating when I say that she is probably 120 years old.

  I’m always thinking that she might crumble into a pile of bones at any moment.

  Mother T. patrols the hallways, smiling, with her hands folded as if she’s praying for world peace. She looks like the saintliest person in the entire world.

  Trickery!

  Mother T. is the strictest school principal you could possibly imagine. She rules Spiro with a mysterious mental power, sort of like that old dude in the Star Wars movies who could turn a guy into a puppet with just a few words.

  Mother T.’s evil goodness is everywhere at Spiro.

  For example, all our restrooms are sparkling clean and odor free, and I’m not even making that up. No overflowing trash cans. No sinks with green scum. No graffiti.

  When students from normal schools visit Spiro and borrow our clean and odor-free facilities, they always walk out with a freaky look on their face.

  It’s embarrassing!

  Later in the day, after Dewey returned to school with his face in a horror movie villain mask, I was in one of Spiro’s clean and odor-free restrooms when I got a chance to ask Dewey about the Valentine’s Day Schnoz Massacre.

  I was in front of the mirror trying to flatten a rebellious clump of hair on the back of my head that stuck up like a twig and refused to blend in with the crowd.

  Dewey walked in and went right to the mirror. I think he wanted to make sure his nose hadn’t flopped back over to the side of his face.

  I smashed down the rebellious clump of hair so it wouldn’t be a distraction, then I asked Dewey if getting hit on the nose by a baseball is more painful than, say, getting kicked in the shin, which is one of the most sensitive bones in the entire human body.

  Yeah, it was a dumb question, but I needed to know where Dewey’s injury ranked on the Pain Meter. I figured if it didn’t hurt worse than a kick to the shin, then maybe I wouldn’t be afraid of the ball next time I went up to bat.

  Dewey stopped fiddling with his mask. He turned and stared at me with his swollen and bruised eyes.

  Dewey slowly nodded his head yes.

  I was doomed.

  CHAPTER 11

  At the first baseball practice of the season, everyone was excited because we all had made the cut. We all had made the team. We all were . . .

  But there was another hurdle. We all were competing in practice to see who would be playing in the games and who would be sitting on the bench.

  Carlos said he was “one hundred and ten percent certain” that he would be the first-string shortstop. I was one hundred and ten percent certain that Carlos would be sitting the pine and grouching for the entire season. I didn’t even need a crystal ball.

  But I did ask Joey to do his psychic thing and foretell whether he and I would be starters or benchwarmers. Joey wasn’t in the mood, though. He apparently can’t just turn his power on and off like a lightbulb.

  Coach Earwax climbed to the top of the center-field bleachers and got into his heroic pose.

  That is without a doubt one of the most annoying coaching commands in all of sports—right up there with “Drop and give me a hundred push-ups!”

  We had to run a lap all the way around the outside of the baseball field. And we couldn’t just jog. Everyone had to run as fast as humanly possible in order to work our bodies into finely tuned athletic machines.

  If Coach caught even one player “doggin’ it,” the entire team would have to run another lap.

  Joey completed the lap in about five seconds. I was in the middle of the pack. But good ol�
�� natural-athlete Carlos jogged around the field and came in way behind the rest of the team.

  I don’t think Carlos was doggin’ it on purpose. He’s just a big-boned guy, and that extra weight can really slow you down.

  The entire team had to take another lap because of Carlos, and he got the major stink eye from Jimmy Jimerino and his posse.

  Carlos ran the next lap even slower because he was still out of breath from the first lap.

  Thankfully, Coach Earwax didn’t make us run another one, because I think he realized that Carlos would only get slower with every lap.

  Coach Earwax moved to home plate and began hitting balls to players at every position. He told the infielders to scoop up ground balls and throw to first base. Outfielders were to catch fly balls and throw to second base.

  Since Dewey Taylor was retired from the game of baseball, the only two players competing for starting right fielder were myself and Skinny Dennis.

  Skinny is probably the least hotshot of the hotshot athletes in Jimmy Jimerino’s posse, but I was still facing pretty stiff competition.

  When it was our turn to field fly balls, I went first. Skinny probably would have insisted on going first, but he was distracted.

  Coach Earwax hit a short blooper to right field, and I had to beat cheeks to make the catch before it dropped. I made one of those cool “shoestring” catches where you nab the ball on the run with the glove just inches above your foot.

  It was awesome. No brag. It’s just a fact.

  Unfortunately, I was so excited about catching the ball that I forgot where to throw it. First base? Second base?

  Don’t ask me why, because I can’t explain a brain wreck, but I cocked my arm and threw the ball halfway between first and second bases.