Plunked

by Michael Northrop

  I think that’s something I could ask her. But I can’t call her. It’s not like she was hit in the head. And even if I ask her in school, what would I say: “I was just staring at your name on the team contact list”?

  I could just pick up the phone right now and call Andy, but calling Katie — Kathryn? — would be this big thing. It would be this Big Thing, and everyone would be talking about it.

  I put the list back in the drawer and go back to my homework. Man, I think. I should’ve done some of this yesterday.

  I sort of know I’m dreaming, or I half know, anyway. Dreams can be so weird that way. I sort of know it’s a dream, and I sort of already know what’s going to happen, but I can’t stop it, and I can’t help freaking out about it.

  I’m standing in the batter’s box at Culbreath Field, our practice field. I’m looking out at the mound, and there’s a pitcher going into his windup. He’s big, but I can’t see his face so I don’t know if it’s that kid Tebow or someone else. I don’t recognize his uniform, either, but his arm is coming up, and now I’ve got bigger problems.

  I go to pick up my front foot, just a little to start timing my swing, but my foot won’t budge. I try harder to pick it up, and nothing happens. It’s like it’s glued there. I try to step back out of the box, but now my other foot won’t move, either. I’m completely stuck!

  The pitcher’s arm is coming forward. His arm is big and powerful, and I just know he’s going to launch the ball like a rocket. I’m jerking both legs now, trying to move my feet even an inch. Nothing happens. I’m stuck in place. It’s like I’m waist-deep in mud.

  As the huge figure on the mound delivers the pitch, I can finally see his face. It’s blank. I don’t mean his expression, I mean his face! There is nothing there: no mouth, no nose, no eyes. I want to scream out, but I can’t. I want to move, but I can’t do that, either. The ball is coming straight for me, straight for my head. Of course it is. I knew all along it would. All I can do is take it.

  I wake up sweating and jittery. For a long time I just lie there, staring straight up at the ceiling. It’s blank, too. Every once in a while, I move my feet under the covers.

  I’m waiting for the bus on Monday morning, looking down Main Street for something big and yellow. It’s a little warmer today, even though it’s still so-so-so early. Why does school have to start so early? Right on cue, the bus pulls up, and its door opens. Shut up and get in, it says.

  My stop is kind of late on the route, so I almost always have to sit with someone. It isn’t always someone I want to sit with, either. There are other guys from the team on the bus, but they’re usually already two to a seat by then. Andy would save a seat for me, but he takes a different bus.

  Today I sit with Zeb Chamberlain. Zeb is short for Zebediah. I didn’t even think that was a real name before I met him. I mean, I knew there was Zachariah and I knew there was Jedediah, but Zebediah? What, did Zachariah and Jedediah have a kid?

  Anyway, he’s OK. He plays for another Tall Pines team, the Rockies. I’m glad I don’t play for the Rockies. That name just seems geographically stupid around here. We were much better than the Rockies last year, too. I should know: We played them often enough.

  We’ll find out pretty soon who’s better this year. We’re playing them next. Sitting with Zeb isn’t a big deal, though, not like if I was caught hanging out with someone from the Haven Yankees. The Rockies are from the same town, go to the same school, and ride the same buses. It would be impossible to avoid them, so we don’t really try.

  Still, you don’t necessarily want to sit next to them the week of a game. Of course you’re going to talk about baseball — what else would you talk about? — and you don’t want to give anything away. I don’t have a choice, though.

  “Heard you got plunked,” Zeb says, first thing.

  “Yep,” I say. The side of my head is still sore enough that I’m not wearing my Braves cap like I usually do on the bus.

  “It hurt?” says Zeb.

  “I got my bell rung,” I say. “No biggie.”

  I’m trying not to think about it, and that’s as much as he needs to know, anyway.

  I catch up with Andy at his locker. We’re in sixth grade now, but we still have the little mini lockers that are “sized appropriately” for elementary school. I think the best thing about junior high is going to be having lockers that don’t look like they’re from the Munchkin Land of Oz. Anyway, we go over our math homework super quick because it was kind of tricky.

  He looks at the side of my head once or twice, but that’s it. It’s not like there’s anything to see. But people keep doing that all day. About a dozen times I feel like saying, It’s fine, all right?

  Before lunch, a kid who’s maybe in fourth grade walks up to me and just stands there. He clearly has something to say, so I go, “What?”

  “I heard your brains were coming out of your ears,” he says.

  I can’t tell if he’s joking. Maybe he really believes it. I don’t remember our science lessons being all that great in fourth grade.

  “Who said that?” I ask, even though I have a pretty good idea.

  “Bye,” he says, and walks away.

  Little punk.

  Anyway, I figure all I have to do is get through this one day, then everybody will be over it. There will be something else to talk and gawk about tomorrow.

  And that’s what I do, just get through the school day. The second half goes better than the first. There’s big news. Everyone is talking about how Benny Mills farted doing pull-ups in gym class.

  It’s kind of a funny story — funnier than getting hit in the head, anyway. It was that physical fitness test we have to take, so only three kids go at a time, and Ms. Cimino is right there counting. I mean, on sit-ups, the spotter counts, because some kids can really fly on that. I did forty-five in a minute, and that wasn’t even the best. But on pull-ups, Cimino could be playing a video game and still count three of us. A lot of kids can’t even do one. (I did three. It’s not exactly a world record. But still, I did three.)

  We hear the story from Dustin, who was there. “So Benny’s really struggling, right?” he says. It’s lunch, and he’s got the whole table’s full attention. “You know, he’s cranking away on pull-up number one, maybe halfway there. His face is bright red and scrunched up.”

  Dustin stops and scrunches up his face to demonstrate.

  “Dude, you look constipated,” says Andy.

  “I’m getting to that part!” says Dustin. “So anyways, the other kids’ve pretty much packed it in after cranking out as many pull-ups as they could. Not many. So everyone is just watching Benny and waiting for Cimino to click her stopwatch and put him out of his misery.”

  Dustin stops and looks around the table. He’s building up the suspense, so we know that whatever he’s got to say is going to be good.

  “Yeah?” says Tim.

  “OK,” says Chester.

  “And then: Brrrriippp!” says Dustin. “BRRRRIIPPP! He just lets one go! Lets. One. Go. I guess he was just so clenched up that he squeezed it out without even realizing. And what could he do? He’s just hanging there, like, on display. It’s not like he can pretend someone else did it.”

  “No way!” Andy and I say at the same time.

  “Wow,” says Tim, sitting back from the table like he’s just witnessed some kind of tragedy.

  “Yeah,” says Dustin, nodding solemnly. “Yeah. So Cimino just clicks the watch, either because time really was up or because she was standing right in the waft zone, and that’s it. Game over. Benny just drops down from the bar, as good as dead.”

  “And you saw this?” says Tim. “All of it?”

  “Saw it?” says Dustin. “I smelled it!”

  Dustin pops up, grabs his tray, and takes it over to the next table. He’s like our Paul Revere, spreading the word far and wide. For the rest of the day, no one is talking about me getting beaned anymore. In the war movies, that’s what they call covering fi
re. I should thank Benny, but I don’t really know him. And everyone knows to steer clear of him today, anyway.

  So things are going along fine. Then, at the end of the day, right before the buses, Tim says, “Bet you can’t wait to get back to practice tomorrow.”

  I hadn’t really thought about it until then. I’d been thinking about everyone staring at me, and getting through classes, and then swapping stories about Benny. I mean, I knew practice was tomorrow, but I hadn’t really been thinking about what that meant. It means putting a helmet on my bruised-up head and stepping into the box.

  And you might think I’d say, “Heck, yeah,” or something like that, but I don’t say anything. I just give Tim this blank look like he might as well be talking to a goldfish.

  “Well,” says Tim, once he gets tired of waiting, “see ya tomorrow.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “See ya in the a.m.”

  But that’s all I say. I have this weird feeling in my gut.

  What is that? I think. It feels like … and then it comes to me: It feels like after that dream.

  I wake up nervous on Tuesday morning. It feels like game day, but it also feels different. I try not to think too much about it. Let’s be honest: There are plenty of things to be nervous about on a day-to-day basis in sixth grade.

  I get dressed and tell my brain to shut up. It gets revenge by dressing me stupidly. Even though it’s not that cold, I put on a big blue sweater. I know I’m going to end up sitting next to the windows in math and baking, but I put it on anyway. I just wear a good T-shirt underneath, instead of one of the white ones with holes, so I can ditch the sweater if I need to. By the time I leave the house, I’m like an advertisement for the color blue: blue jeans, blue sweater, and my dark blue Braves cap, which fits again.

  Tuesday is back to normal at school, with no one hit in the head or farting in the gym. It goes fast, and pretty soon I’m sitting next to Andy on the cool grass of Culbreath Field.

  After a game, Coach always starts off with a postmortem. That means, like, an autopsy. It’s a good name for it, too, because it can be as tough to stomach if we lose. Not that I’ve cut up a lot of corpses. And we didn’t lose, either. But there are always things to go over — win, lose, or lose badly.

  All three coaches talk during the postmortem, and pretty much none of the players do. Last year, I was always afraid they were going to single me out for some mistake, but there’s not much they can say to me today.

  “How’s the coconut, Mogens?” Coach says right at the start.

  “Fine,” I say, and I knock on it twice with my knuckles.

  That’s pretty much it for me, but a few other kids take it on the chin. I guess there were some problems with players not backing up the cutoff throws.

  “Throws going to third from right,” says Coach. “Who’s the cutoff?”

  “Me, Coach,” says Tim. “Second baseman.”

  And the way he says it, you know he didn’t do it right on at least one play on Saturday.

  “Could’ve fooled me,” says Coach, sort of twisting the knife a little. Meanwhile, Tim’s dad is looking at his son like he’s bailing him out of jail.

  “And who’s backing up third?” Coach says, like he can’t believe he even has to ask.

  “Pitcher, Coach,” says J.P.

  “What’s that, J.P.?” Coach says, even though there’s no way he didn’t hear.

  “PITCHER, Coach,” says J.P.

  So J.P. shuts out the other team, and Coach is grilling him about not backing up third on the one time a runner got that far. It seems kind of crazy, right? But Coach has a point, and we all sort of know it. If the ball gets away at third, and there’s no one there to back up the throw, the runner probably scores.

  And more than that, a few extra bases here and there might not mean that much in a 7–0 game. But that’s exactly how you lose a close game. It’s how we lost to Haven last year. So everyone, even J.P., just takes their medicine.

  And sure enough, we spend almost half of practice working on cutoff throws and backing up bases.

  “Grab the tub,” Coach yells at no one in particular. That’s what he calls the big plastic trash can we use for throws home, instead of killing our catchers with one-hoppers and high-flyers and everything in between.

  Everyone groans, but not me. I want to be in the field. I bust it out to left before Geoff can get there. I’m still the starter, as far as I know. You don’t lose your spot due to injury. That’s like universal. Otherwise people would play it safe all the time, just trying not to get hurt.

  Geoff knows the deal and doesn’t make it a foot race. The coaches are going to shift us all over the field anyway, so we’ll know what to do wherever we play.

  “Don’t make me look bad,” Andy says as he breaks off for third base. He’s smiling, but he means it. If the ball is hit down the line and the throw is going home, he’s my cutoff man.

  “Incoming!” I say, because when I miss, I usually overthrow, like artillery. I’m smiling, too, but what I mean is, I’ll do my best.

  And then we’re out there: the starting lineup from Saturday. Some of us are hoping not to repeat our mistakes, and some of us are just glad to be out in the field again. Coach is tossing the balls up and hitting them. J.P. is just out there to field.

  The first fly ball goes to Manny in center. The crack of the bat hits me like a punch to the stomach. That’s when I realize how much I don’t want to bat today.

  I watch Manny camp out under the lazy fly ball, squaring himself to throw. It looks so harmless in the air like that, but I don’t want to see it at the plate. Manny makes the catch, and Tim pounds his fist into his glove, waiting to get the throw. It’s on-line, and he catches it cleanly, spins, and throws a one-hopper over the mound and into the plastic trash can.

  “There ya go, Liu!” yells Coach. “That so hard?”

  This is a problem: a big, fat problem. But the next ball is hit to me, and I don’t think about anything else.

  I shade over toward the line. The ball is basically coming right to me, but I take a step back. You want to be behind the ball and coming forward in order to make a strong throw. You definitely don’t want to be backpedaling.

  I line it up so that I’m stepping forward as I make the catch. I get the ball out of my glove quick and throw it on a line to Andy.

  Sure enough, I overthrow him. Ugh. He bails me out by jumping for it and making a snow-cone catch with the very top of his glove. He comes down with it just as Coach finishes turning the can toward third. Andy throws it in there on the fly.

  “You benchwarmers watching this?” Coach yells, meaning the starters are doing it right.

  Andy turns and points to me, as if my throw had been perfect. I know it wasn’t, but I point back, glad my best friend is also our best third baseman.

  The next ball goes to right.

  “Play is to third!” Coach yells. J.P. is off the mound and backing up the throw in a heartbeat.

  I move over to take a turn in center field and then to right and then take a seat on the bench. Geoff is one behind me the whole time: in left when I’m in center, in center when I’m in right. By the time he makes it to right, the drill is over.

  “BP!” yells Coach. “Let’s see if you knuckleheads can still hit.”

  The nerves come back like a wave breaking over top of me. My heart feels too big for my chest, and my lungs feel too small. It’s like there’s too much blood getting to my head and not enough oxygen. For the first time in my life, I’m hoping practice ends before I get my turn at bat.

  BP starts like it always does: Everyone out in the field. I grab the glove that I just put down a few minutes ago and head out to join the crowd in left. It’s the place to be because it’s where most of the balls are hit. This I can do.

  Coach looks around and calls you in for your turn. No one’s ever sure how he comes up with the order. It seems kind of random, and I guess maybe that’s the point. If all the best hitters went first, then t
he last kids to go would know they sucked, instead of just suspecting it.

  Anyway, Jackson is first up. He’s a right-handed pull hitter, and he usually puts on a show, so I pound my fist into my glove and get ready. Coach Liu is pitching to give Wainwright a break after hitting all those balls.

  Coach Liu’s pitches are a little flatter and straighter than Coach’s lollipops.

  Harder, too. It just pops into my brain. I want to make a catch right now, to chase down a fly ball slicing toward the line. I just want to do something to not think so much, but Jackson is waiting on the pitches like he should. He’s driving them more toward center. His third shot clears the fence, and everyone hoots and whoops.

  I watch Jackson: how relaxed he looks, how easy his swing is. He cranks a few more, and Coach has seen enough. He calls in one of the new kids. Good luck following that. He doesn’t come close, but he gives the infield a workout, which is probably what Coach is looking for.

  J.P. goes next, and his power seems to be down a little. He’s working on making contact. Wayne is up next. He’s Malfoy’s friend and Andy’s competition at third, so: double evil. Then it’s Katie: double good. She hits one right to me, and I pretend she meant to. I smile for the first time all day, and then I hear my name.

  The smile is gone and the nerves are back. I put my head down and jog in. Mind over matter, that’s what Dad would say: I don’t mind and you don’t matter. My body will do what I tell it to. I hope.

  The helmet slips on. It’s not the one I usually wear, because that’s the one I got hit in. And I guess it did its job, but I don’t even want to look at it right now. The new one fits OK, and I barely feel it as it slides over the bruise.

  I put on my batting glove and pick up the bat I like. Katie takes her last swing, and I’m up. Everything feels fast and out of control. It’s not until the first pitch is coming in that I realize I didn’t go through my routine.