State Showdown

by Matt Christopher

  “She’s got you there, fella,” Mr. McGrath said with a laugh. “One o’clock tomorrow it is!”

  The three families headed to the restaurant door together then.

  “Oh, Liam, before I forget, here.” Sean fished around in his pocket and pulled out Liam’s cell phone. “I texted Carter the play-by-play through the fifth inning. Then he had to get ready for his own game. Oh, and there are some photos of you during and after the game, too.”

  “Awesome. Thanks, man,” Liam said. “I’ll give him the rest of the details later.”

  “And find out if he’s going to States, right?”

  “You got it!”

  “Carter?” Phillip asked. “Carter Jones?”

  Liam nodded.

  Phillip crossed his arms over his chest. “You still keep in touch with him?”

  Liam gave a laugh. “Well, yeah! He’s my cousin.”

  Phillip’s eyes widened in disbelief. “He is?”

  “You didn’t know that?”

  “No, I didn’t. So you tell him everything that happens in our games?”

  “Sure do.”

  Phillip shook his head but didn’t say another word. When his father drove up, he climbed into the backseat. A moment later, they were gone.

  The Driscolls and the McGraths parted to head to their own cars. Mrs. McGrath stood next to Liam while they waited for Mr. McGrath to open the doors.

  “Hey,” she said in a voice pitched softly so only he could hear it.

  He looked up at her. The late afternoon sunlight kissed her brown hair, turning it golden. She tucked a strand behind her ear and smiled. “It was nice seeing you and Phillip getting along so well.”

  He smiled back. “Yeah. Seems I found the words at the right time.”

  She reached forward and playfully tugged his cap over his eyes. “I always knew you would.”

  Liam dozed on the ride home, waking when the car bumped into the driveway and pulled to a stop. He unloaded his gear from the back and then went upstairs to take a shower.

  “Give me your uniform so I can wash it,” his mother called. He opened the bathroom door a crack, shoved his clothes out, and closed it again. He was just finishing his shower when he suddenly remembered the trading pin he’d attached to the uniform’s collar. He raced downstairs just in time to remove it before his mother tossed the jersey into the wash. He carried the pin up to his room and set it on his bedside table. Then he went to his closet and found his pin bag.

  Inside were dozens of pins he’d collected or traded for over the past few years. One row was made up of those he’d received after the Pennsylvania Little League Championships the summer before. Carter had duplicates of each in his own collection.

  But he won’t have this one, Liam suddenly thought, staring at his newest pin. Or the one from Ravenna’s District tourney. And I won’t have any of the pins he gets after Forest Park’s tournaments.

  Now, lying in bed, Liam realized that wasn’t exactly true. There was one pin they both might receive: the one given in August to the players who reached the Little League Baseball World Series.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY

  Aw, man, what time is it?” Liam asked groggily.

  Carter was sitting on his front porch with his laptop in front of him. He glanced at the computer’s clock. “Ten o’clock,” he answered.

  Liam scrubbed his face with his hands and groaned. “You dork! That means it’s seven o’clock here. I was sound asleep!”

  Carter laughed. “I wouldn’t have called except I saw you were online. Sorry if I woke you up.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Yeah, I’m not.”

  Liam peered at him. “What are you eating?”

  Carter held up a chocolate-glazed doughnut. Liam groaned again. “Tell me that’s not from Hendrick’s!” he whined plaintively, naming his favorite bakery in Pennsylvania.

  “I would, but then I’d be lying.” He leaned forward and took a big bite. “Mmmm, this is the best doughnut in the world.”

  “I hate you,” Liam said. Then he told Carter to hang on so he could get his own breakfast. When he reappeared, he looked grumpy. “No doughnuts, no bagels, no nothing good, so guess what I’m having for breakfast?” He lifted up a spoon filled with brown flakes of cereal. “Bran. And it’s already turning to wallpaper paste.”

  He tilted the spoon slowly. Carter heard a plop as the mushy lump hit the bowl. He grimaced and put his doughnut aside. “Appetite gone, thanks.”

  “Serves you right. Now you can tell me about your game without a mouth full of food. I know you won.”

  Carter leaned back and assumed a posture of nonchalance. “Oh, let’s see. I threw a no-hitter and—”

  “What!?” Liam exclaimed. “No way!”

  “Way!”

  “No!”

  “Yes—hang on, why is that so hard for you to believe?”

  Liam cracked up. “Not hard to believe—unbelievable! Congrats, dork, really. Now, give me the details.”

  Carter told him everything. When he came to Peter’s amazing catch, Liam pointed a finger at him. “You tell Peter that Liam says he’s the man.”

  “He was,” Carter agreed. “And you should have seen Ash!” He started listing off everything the catcher had done—his home run, his triple, the crucial double play in the final inning. After a moment, though, Liam cut him off.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah, enough about Forest Park already!” Liam cut in. “Aren’t you going to ask about my game?”

  “Fine,” Carter said, rolling his eyes. “I know most of what happened thanks to Sean. But tell me how it ended.”

  The tone of Liam’s voice changed then, from joking to wonderment. “It ended with Phillip and me as friends. Look.” He fumbled for his cell phone, hit a few buttons, and then held it up for Carter to see. “Sean took this.”

  Carter found himself staring at a picture of Liam and Phillip, fists touching and wide grins on their faces. If he hadn’t seen it for himself, he would never have believed it was real—or would have assumed the picture had been edited. As it was, the image hit him like a punch in the gut.

  “How?” he managed to ask. “Last I knew, he was driving you up the wall.”

  Liam shook his head as if bewildered and then told Carter about his rant. “I think I hit a nerve or something. I don’t know. I guess I can ask him later. He’s coming here so Melanie can interview us together.”

  “Oh. That’s nice.” Carter tried but failed to keep sarcasm from creeping into his tone.

  “Carter—”

  “Sorry, sorry. It’s just, you know. Phillip.” He shook his head. “It’s going to take me awhile to wrap my head around you getting along with him.” He scrunched up his eyes in concentration and then opened them. “Okay, there. Done.”

  Liam held his fist up to the screen. “States, dork.”

  “Southern California South Sub-Divisionals, doofus.” They both cracked up at the tournament’s long title and then said their good-byes. Before they signed off, Carter punched his screen in time with Liam’s taps. Then Liam’s image was replaced with an automated video-chat message.

  Call ended, the message read.

  Carter logged off, closed his laptop, and tucked it under his arm. As he stood to go inside, he noticed his half-eaten doughnut on the paper napkin where he’d left it. He wadded it up, carried it to the kitchen, and threw it away.

  Suddenly antsy, Carter went up to his room, wondering what to do with his free time. Lucky Boy seemed to have an idea. The black-and-tan dog rescued the pink rubber ball from under the bunk beds and dropped it at Carter’s feet with a hopeful bark.

  But Coach Harrison had cautioned him to give his arm a complete rest—“Not even a game of fetch with that dog of yours!”—so Carter ignored the ball and went to get Lucky Boy’s leash from the hallway instead.

  There he saw his mother had already hung the photo of him arm in arm with Ash. He stared at it for a long
moment and then whistled for Lucky Boy.

  “Come on, fella, let’s go to the hideout.”

  The hideout was Liam and Carter’s secret place. Hidden deep in the woods behind their houses, it was a natural shelter made of boulders and surrounded by brush and trees. The cousins had discovered it when they were younger. They’d made a solemn vow never to share its location with anyone else. True to his word, Carter had visited it a few times since Liam had moved but always on his own.

  Until now. He met up with Ash by chance at the start of his walk. Before, he would have turned away from the path in the woods. This time, he headed straight for it with Ash and Lucky Boy in tow.

  Ash had known for a long time that Carter had something secret hidden in the woods. He’d tried to persuade Carter to tell him what it was but dropped the questions when Carter evaded them. Now he shot Carter a surprised look but didn’t say anything.

  It took fifteen minutes to reach the shelter. Carter knelt down, crawled inside, and came out dragging the green plastic bin he and Liam had stashed there long ago. Inside the bin were a few old beach towels and some flashlights. He spread out one towel, gave Ash another, and sat down.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Ash sat beside him. “So,” he said. “This is the secret you’ve been hiding, huh?”

  Carter let Lucky Boy off his leash before answering. Then he told Ash the story of how he and Liam found it. “It’s where I go when I need to think,” he finished.

  Ash surveyed the shelter appreciatively. “I can see why. Thanks for showing it to me.”

  Carter was glad he didn’t ask why he’d revealed the hideout after keeping it secret for so long. He wasn’t sure how he’d answer.

  “Do your parents know about this place? Your dad?” Ash asked suddenly.

  Carter looked at him sideways. “No. Why?”

  Ash picked up a rock and threw it, watching as Lucky Boy bounded after it. “I don’t know. You and your father seem so close, I just figured…” His voice trailed away.

  Carter almost asked Ash about his own dad. The question was on the tip of his tongue. Then his cell phone chimed and the opportunity was lost.

  “It’s my mom,” he said with a glance at the tiny screen. “We’re supposed to go home right away. Our parents have something to tell us.”

  “What?” Ash asked.

  Carter shook his head. “No clue, but we’re supposed to hurry.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-ONE

  Liam glanced at the clock. It read 1:32, two minutes later than when he’d last looked at it and thirty-two minutes past the time Melanie had scheduled the joint interview with Phillip.

  Melanie paced back and forth through the living room. “Try calling him again.”

  Liam dialed the DiMaggios’ home number. “Voice mail again,” he said, holding the phone out so she could hear the recording. He hung up without leaving a message. He’d already left three, after all, so what was the point of another?

  “I can’t believe you don’t have his cell number,” Melanie fumed.

  “Well, I don’t,” he answered peevishly. “I mean, come on, we barely talked to each other until yesterday, so why would I?”

  She threw her hands up in the air and then flopped down in an oversize sofa chair. “Talk about a total bust. I—”

  The doorbell rang.

  “He’s here!” Melanie sprang up to answer it. She returned looking put out. “It’s just the Driscolls.”

  “Great to see you, too,” Sean said, taking the seat she had vacated. He gestured to the video camera set up at one end of the room. “What’s with that?”

  Liam explained about the interview.

  “Huh, that’s weird,” Rodney said. “We just saw Phillip and he didn’t say anything about it.”

  “You saw him? Where?” Melanie asked eagerly.

  “At the Bergs. We were all visiting Owen.”

  “Maybe he’s going to come here afterward,” Liam ventured.

  “Doubt it,” Sean said matter-of-factly. “He and Owen were about to watch a movie. A trilogy, actually. He didn’t say anything about an interview.” He gave a lazy stretch. “So, got anything to eat? How about a plate of nachos with melted cheese and salsa and a side of sour cream and that guacamole your mom always has in the fridge? I’ll wait here while you make it.”

  Happy for an excuse to hide his disappointment, Liam went to the kitchen to fix Sean his snack. When he returned, he found the Driscolls and Melanie gathered around the television. Melanie had rigged up her camera to play videos on the big screen. She gave her brother a sly smile and opened a file marked “Bloopers: Liam.”

  Liam cringed, certain the clip would show him messing up during baseball games. Instead, he saw a compilation of him acting goofy—like when he answered her question with his mouth full of chewed-up bagel. She’d added voice-over commentary to some moments, which just made the video that much funnier.

  “This is hilarious! Tell me Carter’s seen it,” Rodney said, wiping away tears of laughter.

  “Tell me he hasn’t!” Liam said.

  “Not yet,” Melanie teased.

  “What else do you have?” Sean wanted to know.

  Melanie scrolled through her file list. “No more bloopers, but I do have montages of each player.”

  “Montages, awesome,” Sean said. Then after a pause he asked, “What’s a montage?”

  She laughed. “It’s a bunch of different clips of a subject that flow into one another. Look, here’s what I’ve got for Rodney so far.”

  She tapped an icon and Rodney’s image appeared.

  “Oooh, who is that handsome devil?” Rodney said, preening. “Look, there he is again! And again! And—ew, gross! What am I doing?”

  The video showed him standing in the outfield and examining something in his armpit. Whatever it was seemed to fascinate him, because the clip went on for several seconds, much to Liam and Sean’s delight. When it finally ended, they applauded.

  “That’ll end up on the cutting-room floor, right?” Rodney asked hopefully.

  “If you’re very, very nice to me,” Melanie answered, “maybe.”

  The boys pestered her to share more montages, but she refused. “You’ll have to wait for the movie,” she said primly. “Now shoo. I got an idea while I was watching these and want to get working on it.”

  Grumbling, the boys got up. “What do you feel like doing?” Rodney asked.

  Liam knew what he wanted to do. “Let’s go see Owen.”

  When the Driscolls protested that they’d already been, Liam told them they didn’t have to stay. “Just show me where he lives,” he said as he got his bike from the garage.

  Ten minutes later he coasted into the Bergs’ driveway, waving good-bye as the Driscolls continued on their way. Liam knocked on the front door. A short, stout woman with dark hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun answered. Liam introduced himself and she showed him to the basement rec room. He found Owen and Phillip sitting on a sofa, watching their movie.

  “Hey, guys, how are—”

  “Shhh!” Owen, eyes glued to the screen, patted the air to hush Liam. “Best part.”

  Phillip didn’t say a word.

  Liam stood awkwardly. After a minute he slid into a chair and tried to figure out the movie’s plot. Near as he could tell, the story line featured huge explosions, fast car chases, and a deadly robot.

  He tried to catch Phillip’s eye. But Phillip was apparently too engrossed in the action to notice.

  Or maybe, a little voice inside Liam said, he’s ignoring you. Liam shifted uncomfortably. The longer Phillip kept his eyes on the screen, the more confused Liam became.

  Where was the friendly boy who’d celebrated victory with him just the day before? He seemed to have vanished. In his place was the pitcher who had given him the cold shoulder for the past weeks.

  The scene finally ended with the destruction of the robot. The movie ended there, too. Owen clicked off the television,
stretched his arms over the back of the sofa, and acknowledged Liam with a jerk of his head.

  Liam asked him how he was feeling.

  Owen touched his abdomen gingerly. “Tired of itchy stitches. Bummed I’m out of the game. Happy I’ll be in the dugout.”

  Liam blinked. “In the dugout?”

  “Suiting up and sitting with you guys, yeah.” He nudged Phillip and grinned. “You and me side by side. Running commentary on the action. Just like old times, huh, DiMadge?”

  Phillip flicked a cool gaze at Liam and then smiled at Owen. “You know it, IceBerg.” He stood up and moved to the television. “Now how about we plug in the sequel? I’ve got a feeling that robot isn’t really dead.”

  Owen winged a DVD case to Phillip. “Do it.”

  “Well,” Liam said, “since I missed the first one, I guess I’ll be going.” He waited a beat to see if either boy would invite him to stay. Neither did. Phillip didn’t even turn around from the DVD player. So Liam got up, climbed the stairs, and left. He pedaled for home slowly, mystified and a little hurt by Phillip’s behavior.

  What happened? Did I do something to make him angry? Is that why he’s acting so weird? He racked his brain, turning over everything he’d done or said since the previous day’s celebration, but he couldn’t come up with an answer. Finally, he gave up.

  “Did you find Phillip? Is he coming over today?” Melanie asked when he entered the house.

  He shook his head.

  She sighed heavily and returned to the computer. “Okay, we’ll reschedule the interview. By the way,” she added, “Mom called. She says to clean your room because, and I quote, ‘if she finds one more open bag of chips under your bed, she’s going to take away all your furniture and make you sleep on the bare floor.’ ” She tossed him a smile over her shoulder.

  “Okay,” Liam said, only half-listening. He started up to his room, though, to do as his mother asked.

  “One more thing,” she called after him. “I sent that blooper clip to Carter. Just thought you should know, in case he calls up laughing hysterically.”

  Liam paused halfway up the stairs. Carter.