The Girl Who Threw Butterflies
Page 14
So Molly had to admit, to herself anyway, that her mother could be something of a dark horse. Molly might have underestimated her a little. Her mother could still sur-prise. She knew how to mix things up. She apparently could throw a trick pitch or two of her own.
“We'd love some lemonade,” Celia said. “Wouldn't we, kids?”
Molly's mother handed around the glasses, which they accepted. They thanked her. Molly took a sip. Maybe it was a mix, but it tasted real.
“Would you care to join us?” Celia said to Molly's mother. “There's plenty of room.” She pointed grandly to the step, as if she were inviting her to be seated on some fancy velvet-covered chair and not on a slab of concrete.
“We're basking in the glow of today's triumph,” Celia said. “We're savoring it.”
They moved together to make room, and Molly's mother took a seat next to Celia. Molly hoped her mother wouldn't start to interrogate Lonnie, and to her credit, she didn't. She seemed to fall into their mood of quiet contemplation. They sat there together in silence and looked at the street. It seemed to Molly like another haiku moment. Rain on the sidewalk / On the steps with your mother / Lemon on your tongue. But she wasn't about to spoil it with words.
Molly nudged Lonnie's foot with hers, gently, secretly, and he nudged her right back. Celia stitched. Her mother stretched out her legs. For once, she wasn't doing anything, not accomplishing anything at all.
To be with her mom, and Celia, and Lonnie, like this, all of them together, it felt a little embarrassing to Molly. It felt more than a little odd. But it also felt good. In a weird way. This was not literally her family, not in the strict sense—not biologically, not technically. But as they sat squeezed together, as Molly's and Lonnie's knees touched, as they sipped their lemonade and thought their own thoughts, Molly felt connected and safe. You didn't have to lock arms to make a human chain.
Maybe it wasn't a real family. But it was good enough.
23. MOONLIGHT
t was after midnight. Molly was standing alone in her backyard. The rain had stopped, and the clouds had blown away. There was a nearly full moon in the sky—just a sliver missing—shining down on her. Tonight, in the Rybaks’ house next door, there was no television glowing. The red light of her radio tower was blinking in the distance.
A couple of hours earlier Molly had said goodbye finally, first to Celia and then to Lonnie. Lonnie had given her a quick kiss, a little awkward and off center, but it seemed like a good start. Before going up to bed, Molly had said good night to her mom and had tried her best to thank her. “For …,” Molly said. “You know.”
“I know,” her mother had said, and Molly believed she did. “And you can stop thinking about moving,” her mother told her. “Is that okay?” Molly didn't have to say anything. Her mother knew it was okay, more than okay.
It wasn't that Molly couldn't sleep. She wasn't restless, she hadn't been tossing and turning. It was more like she didn't want to sleep. She wasn't quite ready for the day to end. She'd debriefed with Celia; now she wanted to debrief herself.
Moonlight, people used to believe, made you crazy. Molly had read that somewhere, or maybe her dad told her. “Lunar” had to do with the moon; a “lunatic” was a crazy person. She was a girl standing barefoot under the moon in the middle of the night in the wet grass of her backyard with a baseball in her hand. She was a lunatic!
Tomorrow might be a different story, but right at that moment, Molly felt that Celia was right. She was crazy, good crazy. She was gifted. She was touched. No doubt, probably soon, she would freeze up on the mound, her knuckleball would once again refuse to knuckle. She'd feud some more with her mother. She'd probably get impatient with Lonnie, suffer some new indignity from Lloyd Coleman. She was light-years away from closure.
She would always miss her dad. Always. That wasn't ever going to go away. That had been an amputation. That limb was never going to grow back. It would always ache.
Once, with her dad, late at night, she'd watched an old black-and-white baseball movie about a pitcher who'd lost a leg in a hunting accident. Outfitted with a wooden leg, cheered on by a loyal wife, he returned to pitch in the majors. The movie was sappy and heartwarming, all about old-fashioned grit and courage. It was supposed to be inspirational. She was just a kid, but Molly could tell that the Hollywood version left a lot out. They never showed what was left of his leg, for one thing, the stump.
What Molly remembered best was the herky-jerky way this pitcher threw on his new leg. He was so stiff and awkward it was almost painful to watch, but somehow he got batters out. It wasn't pretty, but he got it done. Not that anyone would choose to lose a leg, but Molly couldn't help but wonder if this guy's new wooden-legged windup might have been some sort of advantage. His motion was odd and unpredictable, so unlike any other, it must have thrown batters off.
Molly knew now that even though she'd lost her dad, she could still, just like the one-legged pitcher in the movie, find a way, in her own fashion, in her own peculiar style, to get up, get to the mound, throw strikes. She was no Hollywood hero. Whatever grit was, she didn't think she had very much. But she could do what needed to be done.
Molly held the scuffed game ball in her hand. It felt right. Reassuringly solid. Her arm felt loose. She found her spot in the yard. She peered in for a sign. A knuckler? The butterfly? She nodded.
She could almost see him there, squatting in the moon-light, giving her a target. Her dad. Who knew so much about baseball and grammar, who late one night on a dark road had committed one terrible error, who, one time, even though she'd needed him, had dozed off, lost control. How could she not forgive him?
Molly went into her motion. She pumped her arms, she rocked, she pivoted. She brought her arm back and then forward, hard, over the top. She let go.
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by Mick Cochrane
All rights reserved.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Visit us on the Web! www.randomhouse.com/kids
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at
www.randomhouse.com/teachers
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cochrane, Mick.
The girl who threw butterflies / Mick Cochrane. —1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Eighth-grader Molly's ability to throw a knuckleball earns her a spot on the baseball team, which not only helps her feel connected to her recently deceased father, who loved baseball, it helps her in other aspects of her life as well.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89160-1
[1. Baseball—Fiction. 2. Pitchers (Baseball)—Fiction. 3. Sex role—Fiction.
4. Grief—Fiction. 5. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 6. Friendship—Fiction. 7. Buffalo (N.Y.)—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.C63972 Gir 2009
[Fic]—dc22
2008015986
v3.0