The Rhino in Right Field

by Stacy DeKeyser

  I shrugged. “I don’t know why they don’t climb out, but they never do. I guess the wall is too smooth for them, maybe.”

  “And the water gets deeper here, next to the wall,” said Ace. (He knows that from experience too.) “The monkeys can’t climb out if they can’t touch the bottom. A zookeeper told me that while he was pulling me out of the moat.” He gave Penny a crooked grin, and his ears went red. “It was an accident.”

  Penny shook her head. “This is a crazy zoo. Monkeys close enough to touch. Mountain goats afraid of you instead of the other way around. The rhinoceros fence only this high.” She held a hand up to her waist. Then she looked at me and Ace. “Or maybe it’s you guys that are crazy. Climbing in with dangerous animals like it’s no big deal!”

  Ace held up his disgustingly dirty cast like it was a trophy. “See this scar on my thumb? Monkey bite.”

  I just smiled and said, “It’s the most wonderful place in the whole wide world.”

  Since we couldn’t practice at the zoo, we went back to school and used the playground. It’s a good place to practice baseball, because there’s lots of room, and there’s a high fence along one side. But it’s also bad, because it’s all pavement, which is nasty if you trip and fall. And also, lots of other kids use the playground after school, so there’s always somebody watching you, and I’ve already described how an audience makes me really nervous.

  But with all the activity at the zoo, we didn’t have much choice.

  At least Pete and his gang steered clear. I don’t know if either me or Pete thought that I’d have the guts to risk a punch in the face by calling him Taki in front of everybody, but I guess he decided not to find out. Which was fine by me.

  We claimed our territory on the playground, and Ace pitched. He did pretty good too, considering he had a cast on one arm. Penny was the batter, and I played right field. (Since she’s a lefty, that’s where she hit the ball most of the time.)

  I practiced “reading” the ball, just like Penny had shown me at Mountain Goat Mountain. And now that we had more room, Penny showed me how to run on the balls of your feet when you’re chasing down a fly ball, instead of heel to toe. It felt really strange at first. But she said it’s easier to see the ball that way, because your head doesn’t bounce as much when you run. And she was right.

  Sure enough, pretty soon I was able to catch a few really high ones, even with other kids watching. And the more fly balls I caught, the less nervous I got.

  Things were starting to look up. If the final contest had anything to do with catching fly balls, I might actually have a chance on Saturday.

  CHAPTER

  35

  THAT NIGHT, there was a full-page ad in the newspaper, announcing the big day: The caravan of animals from the zoo to Orchard Field and back again. The Mudpuppy for a Day final contest. And (oh yeah) the ball game. And the whole thing was even going to be broadcast live on the radio. Joe Daggett had really gone whole hog.

  “Hey, Pop, did you see the map of the parade route?” I told him at the supper table. “Right down Frederick Street. It’ll go past the shop!”

  Pop nodded as he wiped his plate clean with a hunk of bread. “You and I, we can watch it going past, neh?”

  “Yep,” I croaked. I still hadn’t figured out a way to tell him that I wouldn’t be at the shop on Saturday. But I needed to think of something pretty quick. Saturday was only two days away.

  Uncle Spiro cleared his throat. “Lots going on at the ballpark on Saturday, that’s for sure. Big parade. Marching bands. Quite a spectacle.”

  “And don’t forget,” said Ma, dabbing her mouth with her napkin, “Ladies’ Day.”

  “You’ll be able to listen to the whole thing on the radio, Ma,” I told her. “While you’re ironing and dusting and stuff.”

  She gave me a funny look—I don’t know why. Then she got all dreamy and said, “Remember, George, how we used to go to the ball games? That was lots of fun, neh?”

  Pop nodded. “The good old days!” he said.

  “Nicky, I can’t listen on the radio,” said Ma with a sigh. “Ladies’ Guild meeting at the church on Saturday. They are going to choose whose koulouria will be sold at the church bake sale.”

  “Of course they’ll choose yours, Athena,” said Uncle Spiro.

  Ma shook her head. “That Mrs. Costas, she’s very fussy.”

  “Who cares what ol’ Mrs. Costas thinks, anyhow?” I said. “We know your cookies are the best, Ma.” Poor Ma, having to put up with the Queen of England instead of hearing all the fun on the radio.

  Uncle Spiro pushed his chair back and patted his stomach with both hands. “If your cookies are even half as good as this dinner, Athena, you’ll be a shoo-in.”

  Ma reached over and pinched Spiro’s cheek. Some things you just never outgrow.

  “I was thinking, George,” said Spiro, rubbing his cheek. “With all the hullabaloo around town on Saturday, I bet it’ll be pretty quiet at the shop.”

  Pop gave Spiro a suspicious look.

  So did I.

  But then Pop nodded and said, “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Sure, I’m right,” said Spiro. “Which would you rather do, if you were the average Joe? Get your shoes shined, or watch a wagonload of monkeys parade around the ball field?”

  Pop chuckled to himself, and then he said, “Monkeys.”

  “Of course, monkeys,” said Spiro. “So why not give Nicky the day off on Saturday? Let him go down to the ballpark and see all the hubbub. You won’t need him at the shop.”

  My mouth dropped open. Uncle Spiro snuck me a quick wink.

  Pop’s smile faded, and his eyebrows scrunched together. He folded his napkin and laid it carefully on the table. He looked at Spiro, and then at me, and then at Ma.

  “You know what, Spiro?” he said, shaking a finger at his brother. “Sometimes you have the very good ideas. Nicky? Take the day off on Saturday. Go down to the ballpark and see the monkeys!”

  I almost couldn’t believe my ears. “Honest, Pop? That’d be the best!”

  “Sure, sure,” said Pop, waving a hand. “Go. Have fun.”

  “Gee thanks, Pop!” And just like that, my problem was solved.

  Uncle Spiro gave me another wink. “It will be fun, George. In fact, I think you should go to the game on Saturday too. You could use a day off, if you ask me.”

  I tried to wave Spiro off. I mean, he was right: Pop deserved a day off now and then. But if Pop went to the game, he’d see me on the field, in the Mudpuppy for a Day contest. The jig would be up, and I’d be in trouble for sure.

  But I should’ve known I didn’t need to worry.

  “That is what makes us different, Spiro,” said Pop, leaning back in his chair. “I know how important is the hard work.” He shook his finger again. “A man never gets anyplace without hard work.”

  Spiro sighed. “It’s just one day, George. It won’t kill you to close the shop for one day.”

  “Close the shop?” said Pop, looking horrified. “What happens if a customer comes to the shop and finds it closed? I tell you what happens: He goes to another shop, and he tells all his friends that the Elegant Shoe Repair and Hat Shop is now closed, so everybody else, they go to another shop too. There goes my whole business. Just because of a bunch of monkeys!”

  Spiro was his usual calm self. “How about if I make you a nice sign to hang in the window, George? CLOSED TODAY ONLY. GONE TO SEE THE MONKEYS. If you ask me, no one would blame you. Maybe that would even get you new customers. People who appreciate someone with enough good sense to go see a ball game every now and then.”

  “You joke,” said Pop, “but this is why I am a successful businessman and you are”—he thought for a second, and then he shrugged—“you are nothing. Going to the ball game and having fun is for the children, like Nicky. And you, maybe. But I have responsibilities. Saturday, it’s a working day, and so I will be at work. Monkeys or no monkeys!”

  Uncle Spiro shrugged. “
Suit yourself, George. But I’ll bet that no one comes to the shop on Saturday. Everyone will be at the ball game. Everyone.”

  Pop folded his arms across his chest. “Everyone except me.”

  And that was the end of the discussion.

  CHAPTER

  36

  I WASN’T GOING TO LET all the arguing ruin my good mood. I was going to the Spring Opening festivities on Saturday, and I didn’t even have to cheat, or lie, or anything. For once. I was so happy, I even volunteered to help Ma clean up the supper dishes.

  “I gotta get going,” said Uncle Spiro. “Thanks for supper, Athena.” He grabbed the car keys from their hook and headed out the back door.

  I followed him out to the alley. “Thanks.”

  He rubbed my crew cut. “Don’t mention it, squirt. Besides, I meant it. Saturday’s gonna be a swell day, and you should be there, without having to sneak around.”

  “It will be swell,” I told him. “I wish you could come.”

  “Me too,” he said. “But I can’t change my plans now. Saturday’s my grand opening!”

  “You oughta do good business after the game,” I said.

  “That’s the plan, Sparky,” said Uncle Spiro. “I’m heading down there right now to give everything one last test run. Don’t say anything to your folks yet, though. It’s still a surprise.”

  “Even after Pop called you a nothing?”

  He laughed as he opened the car door. “I guess now it’ll be an even bigger surprise. Speaking of surprises, are you gonna tell them about the batboy contest? I bet they’d be pretty excited for you.”

  I shifted on my feet. “I dunno. I don’t wanna get in trouble.” So far, I’d gotten away with lying, and with forging Pop’s signature. I didn’t feel good about it, but my secret was safe. I was in the clear. All I had to do was keep my mouth shut, and they’d never know.

  Except they’d never know I was a Mudpuppy for a Day finalist either, and I’d never be able to tell them, unless I wanted to be exposed for the devious cheating liar I really was.

  But what could I do? Rule Number One when you’re a kid: Stay out of trouble. Rule Number Two: If you can’t follow Rule Number One, don’t get caught.

  I looked up at my uncle. “I guess we both have a secret. I’ll keep yours if you keep mine.”

  “If you’re sure,” said Spiro. I nodded, and so he slid into the Nash, started the engine, and chugged away down the alley.

  I headed back inside to help Ma with the dishes like I’d promised.

  “Nicky,” she said to me as the back door banged shut. “I heard the front doorbell.”

  Pop was already behind his newspaper. “Must be the paperboy, collecting for the month,” he said. “The money, it’s on the hallway table, Nicky. Tell him to keep the change for his tip, neh?”

  “Sure thing, Pop.” The doorbell rang again, twice. “Hold your horses, Charlie!” I hollered, and headed out to the front hall. I found a dollar bill and two quarters on the hall table and opened the door.

  “Hiya, Charlie,” I said, holding out the money. “Keep the change.”

  But it wasn’t Charlie. It was Pete.

  And before I knew it, he hauled off and slugged me. I dropped to the floor like a sack of marbles.

  Pete loomed over me, fuming, his hands still bunched into fists. “That’s for even thinking about calling me Taki,” he growled. He turned to leave, but then he stopped. “Oh, and I found out that you forged your pop’s signature for the contest. If you have the guts to show your face at the ballpark on Saturday, I’m gonna tell your pop—and everybody else—that you’re a rotten, cheating, no-good liar.”

  And then he stomped down the porch steps and out into the night.

  CHAPTER

  37

  THERE I WAS, sprawled in the open doorway. The screen door drifted shut and bumped me on the head.

  My left eye was throbbing, and it was already hard to see out of it. But all I could think of was the person who ratted me out.

  “Ace!” How else could Pete know about me forging Pop’s signature, unless someone told him? And the only person who knew about it, besides me, was Ace.

  I crawled around, hunting for the spilled money with my one good eye. I managed to grab the dollar bill before it fluttered off the porch, and the quarters had rolled into a corner.

  “Nicky?” called Ma from the kitchen. “What takes you so long?”

  “Nothing, Ma!” I hollered back. I couldn’t let her see my eye.

  But then she was standing there, watching me crawl around on my hands and knees. I hadn’t even heard her coming.

  “Nicky! What happens to you?”

  “Nothing, Ma,” I told her, hauling myself to my feet. “I dropped the paperboy money.”

  She gave me a funny look and pushed past me onto the porch. She leaned out and scanned the sidewalk in both directions.

  “I see somebody walking away,” she said. She narrowed her eyes. “That is not the paper delivery boy.”

  “No, Ma,” I said, turning my head so she couldn’t see my face. “It wasn’t the paperboy.”

  “Let me see you.” She shut the door, grabbed my head, and inspected my face. But she didn’t scream or anything. She just nodded and said, “Come with me.” She pulled me behind her into the kitchen and sat me down at the table.

  Lucky for me, Pop was still reading the newspaper and didn’t bother to look up. “See this, Athena?” he said, as if she’d never left the room. “Here is a couple up in Cedarburg, they have been married for sixty-five years. How about that? They have their picture in the paper! Maybe someday you and I, we’ll be in the newspaper. For getting old!” He chuckled at his own joke.

  “That would be very nice,” said Ma, but she wasn’t really paying attention. She had the fridge open and was digging in the freezer compartment. Finally she pulled out a football-sized package wrapped in white butcher paper. “Fancy electric icebox has no ice,” she muttered. “Take this.” She unwrapped the package and handed me a rock-hard, black lump of something.

  “It’s not an icebox, Ma, it’s a refrigerator-freezer,” I said, taking the frozen lump. “It’s electric. It doesn’t need ice.” She already knew all that, but as I might have mentioned before: My family loves having something to argue about. “What is this thing, anyway?” I held up the frozen hunk.

  She leaned closer and inspected it with a sniff. “Liver.” She pushed it against my eye. It was disgusting, but it did make my eye feel better.

  “Did you pay the paperboy?” asked Pop, still behind his newspaper.

  “Nope,” I said, glancing up at Ma with my one good eye. “It, uh, wasn’t the paperboy.”

  “Who was it?” Pop finally lowered the paper, and then he got a look at my face. “What happens to your eye?”

  Before I could think up something to say, Ma actually stepped on my foot. “He slipped and fell down,” she said to Pop. “It’s just a bump. What else happens in the newspaper today?”

  CHAPTER

  38

  AFTER ABOUT TEN MINUTES, the swelling around my eye had gone down and the liver was starting to get soft. I handed the slimy hunk of meat to Ma and wiped liver juice off my face with a towel.

  “Let me see,” she said, inspecting my eye. I guess she was satisfied with what she saw, because she rewrapped the liver and stuck it back in the freezer. “You are going to have a shiny eye tomorrow,” she told me.

  “A shiner,” I told her. “Yeah, I guess.” That Pete sure did have a lot of nerve.

  And so did Ace.

  “Say, Ma? I need to go over and see Ace for a minute, okay?”

  She nodded. “Put on your jacket, neh?”

  “Sure thing, Ma,” I said, even though it was late May now and pretty warm outside. But I owed her.

  Next door, I leaned on the bell. Ace answered the door, and I yanked him outside by his good arm.

  “What’s the deal?” he said.

  “You ratted me out!”

 
“What?” Ace said. “I’d never—” And then he saw my face. “Holy smokes, what happened to your eye?”

  “Pete punched me, that’s what happened! He knows I forged my pop’s signature on the batboy contest permission slip. How does he know that, Ace? You’re the only other person who knew.”

  His ears went bright red. And then in a small voice he said, “Oops.”

  “What do ya mean, ‘oops’?” I said.

  “I didn’t mean to do it!” he said. “We were out on the playground today, and he was bragging, ya know, how he always does. ‘How did Nick even show up last Saturday?’ Pete says, ‘I thought that goody-two-shoes had to work Saturdays at his pop’s dumb hat shop.’ And I says to him, I says, ‘Well, maybe you’re not the only one who knows how to forge a parent’s signature,’ and then . . . I guess he figured it out.”

  “Ya think?”

  “He egged me on!” said Ace in his own defense. “What was I supposed to do? Just stand there and let him call you goody-two-shoes and stuff?”

  “You didn’t have to spill all the beans!” I said. “Pete’s been looking for an excuse to punch my lights out ever since I threatened to call him Taki.” I dropped my voice at that last word, and glanced out toward the sidewalk. For all I knew, Pete was lurking in the shadows, waiting to strike again.

  “Let me in.” I pushed past Ace into his hallway.

  He closed the door behind me. “When did you do that? And what’s a Taki, anyway?”

  “It’s Pete’s baby name. Remember that night when I hollered at him in Greek from your bedroom window?”

  “Ohh,” said Ace. “Taki? No wonder he’s sore. That’s even worse than Horace.”

  “Yeah, well, now I’m in big trouble,” I told him. “My folks still don’t know I lied about last Saturday. And just now they told me I could go to the game, and the parade, and everything! Pop gave me the whole day off, and I didn’t even have to ask.”