“Blast it, Kim Soo!” a fan yelled as Kim Soo Hong led off for the Hawks. Coach Parker had changed the lineup slightly in this game, according to Harold Dempsey’s announcement of the first three batters a moment ago: “Hong! Farrell! Keech!” Penny stood in the on-deck circle, waiting for her turn to bat.
Kim Soo missed the first pitch, then corked a double to right center field.
“Bring her in, Penny!” a fan yelled from the stands behind the backstop screen. Penny recognized Jonny Keech’s voice, and a nervous feeling swept over her as she stepped into the batting box. Knowing that Jonny was back there made her think of Karen, and thinking of Karen’s brilliant playing tightened the tension even more.
Penny popped two pitches foul, then struck out.
“That’s okay, Penny!” she heard Jonny yell. “Better luck next time!”
Sure, she thought. And probably strike out then, too.
She sat down and somehow wasn’t surprised when Karen unleashed a hit that went for three bases, scoring Kim Soo. Nothing extraordinary that Karen or Shari did would surprise her anymore.
She glanced down the length of the dugout at Faye, who was sitting at the far end, watching Sophie Kowalski striding to the plate. Wonder where the coach has her batting in the lineup? thought Penny, and then she looked for Harold. She almost jumped with surprise when she saw that he was sitting right next to her.
“Harold, who does Faye bat after?” Penny asked him calmly.
“Mary Ann,” he answered, and looked at her apologetically. “I understand you and everybody else were wondering why Faye wasn’t at practice last Saturday afternoon,” he said in that deep, drawling voice of his.
Penny looked at him. “That’s right. Do you know where she was?”
“With me.”
“What?”
“She went to a movie with me,” Harold explained quietly. “Don’t look so strange. I’ve taken Shari and Karen, too. Anyway, we thought we’d get out in time for her to go to practice, but it was a long picture. By the time we got out — ”
Penny found herself staring at him and not listening to the rest of what he was saying. She could see her twin images in the mirrors of his dark-brown eyes, see his lips moving, hear the hum of his voice drumming into her ears. But his words were not registering.
Suddenly she didn’t like the sight of Harold Dempsey anymore and wanted to get up and find another place to sit. Something about him was frightening her. Something — but she didn’t know what.
Penny tried to dismiss Harold from her mind, and she watched as Sophie popped out to second base and Jean Zacks, the first baseman, walked up to the plate. Jean was tall, dark-haired, and left-handed, and almost always when she’d hit the ball would drive it out to left field. This time she drove a hot grounder down to short, which the Hard Hats’ shortstop let go through her legs. Karen scored on the error.
Then Mary Ann got up, and Penny saw Faye leave the dugout, pick up a bat, and go to the on-deck circle. Faye picked up one of the metal “doughnuts” that were lying on the ground, slipped it over the handle of her bat, and began swinging the bat back and forth over her shoulders. The doughnut slid down to the heavier part of the bat, giving it extra weight so that it would feel lighter to her while batting.
But Mary Ann grounded out to first for the third out, and Penny would have to wait till the next inning to see what Faye would do.
She didn’t have to wait long. Helen Chang grounded out. Her sister, Rose, singled but got out in a double play on a sharp drive to short, and the half-inning was over. But that double play. So swift and accurate. Penny couldn’t believe it.
Now we’ll see how and what Faye does at bat, Penny thought as the Hawks ran off the field.
Faye, leading off the top half of the second inning, swung at the first pitch, a fast ball down by her knees. She met it squarely and the ball shot between third and short for a sharp single. Nothing spectacular, Penny thought, but Faye had hit it pretty hard.
Shari, up next, didn’t waste any time, either. She also swung at the first pitch, delivering it out to right center for a stand-up double, scoring Faye, who, Penny noticed, ran around the base paths as if a swarm of bees were chasing her.
The run was the only one the Hawks scored that inning, but it put them farther ahead, 3 to 0.
Penny couldn’t help but glance at Harold after Faye had crossed the plate, and see the faint smile on his face as he wrote in the scorebook. Was there another meaning behind that smile, besides the fact that Faye had scored a run? A gleam of satisfaction, maybe? Of triumph? Was Faye’s performance expected?
What was in that mind of Harold Demp-sey’s — the computer expert — anyway? What was he thinking of as he wrote the “single” and “run scored” signs in the score-book after Faye’s name?
Harold Dempsey. Where had he taken Faye and the other two girls, after they had left the movies those Saturday afternoons?
SEVEN
PENNY, standing on the ground behind and to the side of the third-base sack and just inside of the short-cut grass, waited for the Hard Hats’ leadoff girl to come to the plate. But her mind was still on Harold and the three girls, Shari, Karen, and Faye. What could she do? Now that her closest friend, Faye, was also under that strange spell — Penny couldn’t think of anything else to call it — whom could she talk to? Who would believe her? You would think that other members on the team could see that something had turned those girls into strangers and superstars, but no one else had mentioned it. Maybe some of them had noticed it but were reluctant to say so. As I am reluctant, Penny thought. But someone has got to say something to somebody sometime!
Joyce Buddins, the Hard Hats left center fielder, corked a single over short, and the next two girls got out, both on fly balls to the outfield. Then June Cato, the top of the Hard Hats’ lineup, came up again and drove a hot grounder down to third. Watching it come at her in short, rapid hops, Penny knew she was going to miss it. She felt too tense and nervous.
And miss it she did. The ball struck the heel of her glove, hit her on the chest, and bounced to the ground. By the time she retrieved it, June was almost on first base — too late for Penny to throw there — and Joyce was on second.
“Sorry,” Penny said apologetically to Mary Ann as she tossed the ball to the pitcher.
“Forget it,” said Mary Ann. “That came at you like a bullet.”
She doesn’t know that I missed it because I wasn’t concentrating on my playing, Penny thought guiltily.
Effie Moon knocked a high bouncer down to third. Penny caught it easily and stepped on the bag for the force-out. She caught Mary Ann’s smile as the girls ran off the field together. “I needed that,” Penny said, feeling better.
She reached the dugout and was about to sit down when she heard Harold calling out the names of the first three batters. “Farrell! Keech! Kowalski!” Oh, no! she thought, forgetting that Kim Soo had made the last out in the bottom of the second inning.
Penny dropped her glove on the bench, walked to the pile of bats, selected her favorite yellow one, and went to the plate. She felt nervous and hot. A lot of things were on her mind. That error, for one, in spite of her redeeming herself on the next grounder hit down to her. The three girls. Harold. And her striking out her first time up.
She let the first pitch sail by. “Strike!” cried the umpire, a six-foot, broad-shouldered guy towering behind the catcher.
Who can I talk with about it? Penny asked herself. Who can I confide in?
She was tempted to swing at the next pitch, but wasn’t ready.
“Strike two!” boomed the umpire.
“Relax, Penny!” Coach Parker’s voice drifted to her from the third-base coaching box. “Just meet it!”
Penny stepped out of the box, shut her eyes tightly for a few seconds, took a deep breath, then opened her eyes and got back in the box again. The next pitch was a fast one that zoomed up near her shoulders. She swung at it, and missed.
The chee
r from the Hard Hats’ fans hit her as if it were a physical thing, and she returned to the dugout, not looking up once till she got there.
“It’s only a ball game, Penny,” Melanie Fallon said to her as she gave Penny room to sit beside her. “Don’t feel so bad.”
“I guess I just can’t help it,” said Penny, her heart pounding.
Cries from other team members began exploding from the dugout. “Get on, Karen! Get on!”
“Another long clout, Karen!”
Karen lashed out a single.
Sophie came up next, and doubled. And Karen, who Penny thought would hold up at third base, raced all the way in to score.
“Oh, wow!” Melanie exclaimed. “Can she run!”
Penny looked at her, wondering. “Have you noticed how much faster she’s been running lately? And how much better she’s been playing?”
“Who hasn’t?” Melanie replied. She had her cap tipped back, revealing her short, blond hair that partially covered her ears. Her blue eyes were wide, enhanced by her long lashes. “You’d think she was getting tips from some big-leaguer or something.”
Penny looked harder at her. Maybe I can confide in her, she suddenly thought. Melanie was eleven, sensible, and smart. She’d understand.
“Can I talk to you after the game, Melanie?” Penny asked, making sure only Melanie heard her.
Melanie stared at her, frowning. “Sure.”
Penny smiled, a wave of relief sweeping over her. At last, she thought. Even if Melanie couldn’t help her solve the problem, Penny at least could share her views with someone. Talking with her mother or father, or with both of them, was out of the question, Penny had decided. They didn’t know any of the girls half as well as she did, and they wouldn’t be able to compare the girls’ present behavior with their past.
It would seem that their own parents, or their brothers and sisters — especially Karen’s brother Jonny — would recognize the change in them, Penny thought. But, so far, none of them had said anything. Were they so naïve as to think that whatever it was that had changed the girls was temporary? Or that it wasn’t serious? Maybe someday I’ll find the answer myself, Penny thought. I just hope that by then it won’t be too late.
Too late for what? she asked herself. But how could she know what would finally happen? What if, whatever it was, had already happened?
Penny was so absorbed in her thoughts that she didn’t see what: the next two batters did. Not till she saw Faye leaving the on-deck circle for the plate did she notice Mary Ann on first base.
“How’d Mary Ann get on?” Penny asked Kim Soo, sitting on the other side of her.
“Jean grounded out to short, and the shortstop missed Mary Ann’s grounder,” Kim Soo answered, flashing one of her bright, eye-sparkling smiles. “Aren’t you watching the game, Penny?”
Penny shrugged. “I guess I wasn’t paying much attention to it,” she admitted.
She focused her attention on Faye now, and saw her take two pitches, both almost hitting the plate. Then Faye swung at the third pitch so hard that one would think she was trying to smash the softball into pieces. The sound of bat meeting ball was solid, and almost instantly a roar exploded from the crowd as the ball soared out to deep center field. Everyone in the Hawks dugout stood up — stunned silent — as the ball cleared the fence by at least thirty feet for one of the longest home runs ever hit there.
The team cheered and applauded, and then each member of it dashed out of the dugout and up to the plate to shake Faye’s hands — both of them — as she crossed the plate behind Sophie and Mary Ann. Penny met her eyes, and for a moment their eyes were locked as Penny said, “Beautiful hit, Faye. It was just fantastic.”
“Thanks,” Faye said.
“Thanks.” That was all. She never even cracked a smile.
Penny saw Faye go down toward the end of the dugout and sit next to Karen, and looked to see if there was room on the other side of Faye. There was. Penny then got up, walked down to the vacant spot, and sat down.
She looked at Faye. “Faye, I’ve got to talk to you,” she whispered.
Faye looked at her. Her eyes were blank. “I don’t want to talk,” she said.
“Faye! We have to!”
Faye looked at her a moment longer, and nothing on her face or in her eyes suggested she was interested in what Penny wanted to say. “I told you, I don’t want to talk,” she said again, and looked away.
Just then there was an explosive roar from the fans, and Penny looked up in time to see Shari thrown out at first base. The third inning was over. Hard Hats 0, Hawks 7.
T. K. Ellis, a tall, spindly-legged girl, led off the top of the fourth inning for the Hard Hats and dumped a Texas leaguer over second base. Barbara Nelson then tripled, scoring T. K. Helen Chang homered, and the Hard Hats’ fans went crazy.
Then Mary Ann walked the next two girls, and Penny began to wonder: Aren’t we ever going to get them out? Isn’t the thing that’s happened to Shari, Karen, and Faye enough?
She realized that in her uppermost thoughts she was hoping for the Hawks to win, momentarily forgetting that they had been doing so well only because of the change — the superstar qualities — that the three girls had mysteriously acquired. If she had a choice, what would she want? A winning team, or to have her friends return to their normal selves?
Wow! she thought. What am I thinking? The girls come first! I want them to be normal again! Winning comes second.
EIGHT
JOYCE BUDDINS, the Hard Hats’ tall, freckle-faced left center fielder, got her second single of the game, a sharp drive over third base, scoring Rose Chang. Rose and Cay Lattimore were the two girls Mary Ann had walked in succession after that home run by Helen Chang. Cay stopped on third.
“Wait a minute! Time!” Penny yelled to the base umpire, and trotted in to the pitcher’s mound, hoping to say something to Mary Ann to calm her down. Jean came in from first base, too, but Karen and Faye remained at their positions at the edge of the infield grass, and Shari behind the plate, as if their presence wasn’t needed. Penny wasn’t surprised that they didn’t come. Whatever it was that had made them become almost one hundred percent emotionless had made them less considerate about certain things, too. Always before they used to come to the mound with Penny and Jean when their pitcher needed that much-welcomed moral support. That it — whatever it was — had changed all that.
“Slow down,” Penny advised Mary Ann. “Take a breather.”
She could see that the girl was sweating profusely, moving about every second, looking this way and that like a worried bird. Suddenly Penny heard feet pounding behind her and turned to see Coach Parker running toward them from the dugout. He was looking back over his shoulder at a girl warming up in the bullpen. When the girl, Edie Moser, looked up, he signaled for her to come in. She tossed the ball to the girl she was playing catch with, and came running out to the field.
“I guess I should’ve put Edie in right after Chang knocked that home run,” the coach admitted to Mary Ann. “But you were doing so well before that, I hated to take you out.”
Mary Ann smiled, and shrugged. “I guess I started to get nervous,” she said shyly. She handed him the ball and ran off the field, receiving applause and cheers from the fans till she disappeared into the dugout.
Edie threw a few underhand pitches in to Shari, Coach Parker left the infield, Penny and Jean returned to their positions, and the game resumed. Annie Moses, the Hard Hats’ batter, laced Edie’s first pitch in the gap between left and left center fields for three bases, scoring two runs, and Penny wondered again whether the inning was ever going to end. Had that crazy spell touched the Hard Hats, too?
Then Pam Colt, the Hard Hats pitcher, drove a sharp grounder to Karen, who caught the ball easily and whipped it in a straight line to Jean for the putout. The next batter grounded out to Penny, and the third flied out to Gloria in right center field to end the Hard Hats’ big inning. Hard Hats 6, Hawks 7.
The scor
e remained the same until the bottom of the sixth inning, when Faye connected with a double over the shortstop’s head, followed by another double by Shari. Both hits were solid line drives that were hit directly at the outfielders, but not high enough for them to catch the balls in the air. Any other girl — including me, Penny thought — would not have risked running to second base. But both Faye and Shari had stretched their hits to doubles.
Melanie grounded out to short. Then Gloria singled, scoring Shari, and Kim Soo singled, driving Gloria all around to third base. Penny popped out to short — disgusting, she thought — ending the half-inning, and the Hawks led by three runs.
“Don’t let it get you down, Penny,” Harold said, smiling, as Penny came into the dugout for her glove. “We’re ahead.”
She wanted to ignore him; there was something about him — something strange — that bothered her. She couldn’t describe the feeling, but it was there.
Yet she couldn’t ignore him. What if she was wrong? What if she just thought there was something strange about him because he was a nut about computers, and had taken all three of the changed girls to the movies? Wasn’t it quite a coincidence that it happened to be those girls?
Penny inhaled deeply as she swooped up her glove and shot a quick glance at him. “I’ll try not to, Harold,” she promised, and ran out to her position at third.
Why should I feel so strange now whenever I’m near him, or when he speaks to me? she wondered. Am I going crazy, or what?
The Hard Hats’ bats went wild again in the top half of the seventh inning and didn’t stop until five runs had crossed the plate, including two home runs — both by the Chang sisters. Penny, running in toward the dugout, her legs and shoulders aching from the long, tough game, couldn’t believe it. Those darned Hard Hats just won’t give up! she thought.
Well, we won’t either, she murmured quietly to herself as she plopped down on the bench. Her heart wasn’t entirely into winning the game now. The thing that had happened to the girls took first consideration.
“Start it off, Karen!” a familiar voice yelled from the bench. “Belt it out of the lot!”
Supercharged Infield Page 3
