We are very mad about not getting to play in our game, and it is a good thing we have long lives to live with many happy things to look forward to.
Poor Piper’s father still feels bad about that game and he is thinking about never umpiring again. He regrets he didn’t see it coming, that terrible thing Shazam did.
We were not treated fair, especially Lola.
We were nice to her the whole year long and look what she did.
And Brita Marie. She was the first one to lay eyes on Shazam. Brita Marie gets all A’s and she didn’t notice anything. How come she didn’t?
Susannah
I knew Darlene would be a good friend. Every time her mother comes to clean for us Darlene comes too and we are making a garden beside the pond with a rock wall holding it up, and my parents are paying us to do it. It gets hot and we go wading in the pond and we have picked many cattails.
Darlene and I took Aki a huge bunch of cattails standing in a milk can. She has hundreds of flowers in her room.
Darlene still doesn’t have her own bedroom. She uses sloppy grammar which my parents will not ever let me use. Not even once. I said, “It’s okay for Darlene to say it but not me? How come?”
And my mom and dad both sat me down for a lecture. Getting sat down by both of them at once is not fun, even though they always tell me how fair they are being. The grammar lecture: It is okay for Darlene to say “has went,” and “never no more” and “ain’t.” That is because Darlene hasn’t had the opportunities my little brother and I have. Darlene doesn’t have opportunities because her family is not lucky to have as much education. Darlene is just as good a person as I am but she and I will do different things in life. Like what? I ask. They say they don’t know. What will Darlene do? They say they don’t know.
To me they don’t make sense.
Darlene and I have the same favorite colors and flowers. We made a giant chain of both purple and white clover and we took it to Aki. She writes notes instead of talking. She wrote, “This huge clover chain is beautiful and I love it, thank you.” She could wear it like a Hawaiian lei if she did not have so much equipment around her head.
I wonder in secret: Would Darlene and me be good friends like we are if our game had gotten to be completely played and somebody had won? We will never know.
That could drive me batty. Wondering.
It’s so terrible about Aki. But down inside I still am glad it wasn’t me.
Audrey
You never saw a man go through what poor Coach Rayfield has went through. He is a man toiled with sorrow. People are saying he should of seen it coming with Shazam being so different the whole time. He feels like a guilty man that sold the soul of his girls by not predicting what Shazam would do when she got in the game and her mind went.
The third-grade teacher told Alva and Alva told Brita Marie and me that Coach Rayfield wants somebody else to coach the Bat for the year of 1950. He is sick at heart and Mrs. Rayfield will not even go in the Barlow Store for her groceries. She sent in her voting ballot for the new Bat 6 rule of bad sportsmanship, she would not go where people are. She has not gone to church also for 7 Sundays.
Dotty Rayfield has composed herself very good, though. She is working in the packing house like always, boxing cherries for shipping. Her station in the packing-line rotation is right behind my mom and Dotty Rayfield has her old regular spirits back like usual, my mom said. “It’s not anybody’s fault when a child goes off like that,” she said to my mom. “Everybody has tried real hard to be good to her, everybody’s gone out of their way for her. Out of their way. She needs remorse which she has not got. My dad will have to learn it’s not his fault. He’s a stubborn man, my dad. Both Mom and me wish he would see the reality of it, but he won’t. Not yet. He needs time.”
It is sad when a man can’t make peace in his heart.
Lorelei
What happened with my dad on the day of the Bat that never got to be played to the end was amazing but Daisy said she was not amazed. It started when our car battery was dead and we couldn’t go home.
And guess who came over to give the battery a jump start, it was Daisy’s father, he walked over just as normal as could be, he backed their pickup over by our car, and he hooked up some cables and wires and our car started.
And Daisy’s father said to my dad, “Now you be sure you keep it running. You can’t let it die or you’ll have the same trouble again….”
And my dad said to him, “Thank you. I know we haven’t agreed….”
And Daisy’s father said, “Well, it ain’t serious enough to set a bad example for the kids….” And he stuck out his hand for my dad to shake.
They shook hands there beside the ball field on that unluckiest day of our girlhood. I saw them do it, and I didn’t say anything. But later Daisy and I got on the phone and said “Hooray” together for the peace our fathers made.
We think their good feelings are not just for this short time, we think they will be friendly forever. When the whole town took up the collection to help the Mikamis pay their giant hospital bills, my dad and Daisy’s dad went out together in Daisy’s dad’s car, which works much better than ours. They went to many neighbors up and down 4 roads, and nearly everybody said yes they would give some money.
Aki’s father was so surprised when he got the great big check from the whole town. And down in Barlow they were collecting too. Mr. Mikami tried to refuse the money, but he was not let to do it by the towns trying to help in time of need. The whole accident cost way more than $100.00. It’s shocking.
Ellen
That’s why they kept harping on the war all the time. Why didn’t they say so? Why didn’t they tell us why we had to remember about the war? We would of known. Why didn’t Mrs. Porter or somebody just say to us, “Look, girls, there are abnormal people that have damaged brains and they make revenge on the war.” We would of understood.
I asked my mom why nobody explained it to us before.
My own mom that worked in the shipyards didn’t know the answer.
My own dad said, “I thought you did know.”
“Well, I didn’t. So there,” I said.
And he said, “Don’t you dare be rude in this house, young lady.”
Well, he was so stunned himself that the pictures he took at the game did not turn out because he dropped the camera when the hullaballoo began.
Mr. and Mrs. Porter had a meeting of all of us with all our parents and they said we mustn’t let this tragic happening ruin our girlhood, we are supposed to be mature and not be sulking children. What was done was done, and we should all get ready to be 7th graders over at the Consolidated in the fall. Of course Aki could not go to the meeting, she can’t move.
Well, it was not that easy. We were mad.
“Getting mad doesn’t do any good,” they said.
Some of the parents were so mad, they wouldn’t stop arguing. It was awful.
But Daisy’s father and Lorelei’s father sat beside each other at the meeting. That was so good, to see those men forgive and forget. They made an example of themselves for all to see.
But still. We had our indoor bathroom and our fridge but Aki had her head in a brace and she couldn’t say a single word. Sometimes couldn’t you just hate the world?
Brita Marie
Manzanita’s lost her marbles. She rode on her bike on a Sunday afternoon, out by the gravel pit, and she parked her bike beside the path and she knocked on Shazam’s old grandmother’s door and said she’d come to visit.
Out of the blue.
She actually went to visit that girl that ruined everything for us.
I don’t get it. Nobody gets it.
Manzanita
God told me to. On the morning of July 17, in the bathtub before Sunday School, Jesus walked on the water, like a miniature Jesus, and he come right up to me and he said I should befriend Shazam.
I knew I would make the others mad by doing such a thing.
But I co
uld not not do what Jesus told me to.
So I rode my bike out there to see Shazam. Even a criminal has a right to have a friend.
I wished I would not of gone to see her. She still didn’t get it.
She showed me a necklace of little white shells from Hawaii that her father give her when she was little tiny. I said they were real pretty. To tell the truth, they weren’t much. It only looked like a dime-store necklace. I did not say it to her face. To her those dinky little shells were such a big deal. I think if your father loved you he would give you a nicer gift.
She said we could go out to the gravel pit and throw rocks at birds. I said I didn’t want to. I thought how Wink said Shazam never did have married parents, I imagine her brain don’t work right on account of that.
I come home feeling worse than before.
But then Jesus come to me again while I was pouring out milk for the kittens on the porch. He said, “Manzanita child of God, Christian goodness ain’t easy, you try again.” Oh, brother. I set down on the porch and I hung my head. And right there on the porch step Jesus said, “Be of good courage, Manny.” And he went away like always.
This time I did it different. On a Saturday morning I woke up and God said to me, “Manny, you have the gumption of the Lord, now use it.”
So I borrowed Brita Marie’s bike. I told her I couldn’t explain then, I would explain later, and she said OK. I walked both my bike and hers all the way out there to Shazam’s old grandmother’s house.
I told Shazam we was going bike riding and her grandmother said OK. She mostly just works in her garden and she does not say much. She is too ashamed I guess.
Well, we went along the road, Shazam is so strong she did not get tired going up the hill from the Flying Horse station, she said how good Brita Marie’s bike was. I did not know when she would start to figure out where we was going. Well, it was when we went across the crick for the second time. She started to turn Brita Marie’s bike around, and I said to her, “Look, Shazam, this is for your own good. Don’t you know you don’t go see that girl you can’t even live here anymore?” I made that up on the spot.
Shazam looks at me. I know she don’t have any place else to go.
“You know you don’t go along with me you ain’t going to get to go to the Consolidated with us? You could end up in reform school.” We were coming over the little rise of the road that goes to that first baseman’s house, right alongside their orchard trees. Before Shazam did that terrible thing I did not know who Aki Mikami was or where she lived, but everybody knows now.
“How come you think you got power over me?” says Shazam in her way.
Then I did a thing God will just have to forgive me for. I said, “Jesus give me the power, it’s magic, you have to go see that girl or you’re in bigger trouble than before, you’ll get 900 hours and reform school too. So there, Shazam, think about that.” I knew God was listening to me telling those lies, and I also knew this girl was so ignorant of the Lord’s way she didn’t know the difference. I hope God has forgave me by now.
We got to the Mikamis’ orchard driveway where their mailbox is held up by the prettiest polished wood stand I ever seen, it has a pot of bright red geraniums in like a bracket right beside the mailbox.
I trusted God to help me. I did not know what would happen now.
We parked the bikes beside the house and I said to her in a undervoice, “You stick with me, don’t you dare budge, you hear?” And she did so.
Being as it was warm weather their door was open, with just a rattly screen door to knock on and I did. A old lady opened it up and bowed to us both and I bowed back but Shazam she just stared in her way of no good manners training. Me and Shazam stepped on in.
Imagine anybody bowing to that girl. It could make my blood boil. But I was on a errand for Jesus so I made no face about it.
I said to the mother of that hurt first baseman that we come to see her daughter. I felt like a low-down worm even being in the same room with that poor suffering lady, and with Shazam right beside me not making any sorry face or nothing.
I said to the 2 ladies, “I’m real sorry that bad thing happened to Aki.” I did not speak for Shazam.
Those poor people had no doors on some of their cupboards, it was a pitiful shame. And their linoleum was tore away in places, the floorboards showed through. Everything neat as a pin in their yard and their kitchen but I could tell they was down on their luck.
Mrs. Mikami did not show on her face how she recognized Shazam but she must of. She smiled real pleasant and said it was nice of us to come over and she said into a doorway, “Aki, two girls are here to visit you,” and she made with her arm like we should go right in.
First I saw the flowers. I never saw so many different bouquets in one room before. There was blue flowers and orange ones and pink and many white ones, and red and yellow too, they was in jars everywhere, even a milk can full of tall velvety cattails standing on the floor beside the bed.
And then I saw Aki. I had been told she had a head and neck brace on her that she had to wear for 3 months but I did not expect such a sight. It was leather and metal like to hold her head rigid and it was huge. I could hardly see her face inside.
And Darlene had told me Aki couldn’t talk, so I was not surprised she had a notebook on her lap to write notes on.
Shazam
Manny made me walk in the room with all flowers all over there was that Jap girl sitting in bed I couldnt see her face so much steel all around her.
Manzanita
Shazam had her stare on. She gawked at that poor first baseman like in a zoo. I pointed her to the chair and I stayed standing aside her. I said, “My name is Manzanita, this here is Shazam.”
The girl in the bed wrote on her spiral notebook, “HI,” in big letters and turned it real slow for us to see.
“Say hi, Shazam,” I poked her.
“Hi,” she said, sounding like she wanted to unsay it. She kept staring.
“We come to see how you are,” I said. This is not exactly the truth. I was telling so many lies for God, I had lost count.
“I’m OK,” this girl wrote on the notebook page.
“That’s nice,” I say. This is not what I meant to say. I meant to say how sorry I am. How horrible it is. How ashamed us Barlow girls are for what that miserable girl did, how mad we feel on account of we was taken in by her for so long. I meant to say it was none of our fault.
And then I knew why Jesus sent me here. He sent me here to show me how it was my fault. How every time I was mean to anyone, even mean to a skunk or raccoon in the garbage, or any time I was rude back to a stinker boy that was rude first — I was making more meanheartedness in the world. And a crazy child like Shazam, born with no married parents to bless her in her life — she seen the meanhearted example set by all the bad people in the world and she just followed along on account of she did not have any morals guidance, it was not even her fault.
“We hope you get that thing off your head real soon, Aki,” I said.
“Not for a while yet,” she wrote.
It was now or never. I said, “Shazam here has something to say.” I did not know if she did or not.
Aki
The girl who hit me with her elbow sat there looking at me and then away from me and back again. I could tell she was unusual.
I remembered that she hadn’t shaken my hand in the line on the day of the Bat. I remembered that very clearly. And how embarrassed I was about something I can’t help. I can’t help looking the way I look.
And then that girl said something.
“You hurt bad?” she asked me.
That was her question. What did she think?
I wrote “I’m all right, it’s not so bad.” The same thing I’d said to everybody. As I turned the notebook around so the girls could read it, I noticed the word I’d written. “right.” It was the same word as always but it suddenly looked different.
How many times had I written it, with all t
he people who had been coming to see me for so many weeks?
Could I say the truth about it to that girl? How could I do that? It would be so rude.
But I wasn’t all right. My head was in a brace that the doctor wouldn’t take off for five more weeks. I hadn’t brushed my teeth since the morning of the game. People had to feed me through a straw. I hadn’t said a word out loud in nearly two months. My head hurt with a dull constant ache from the brace or from something else, nobody knew what. I couldn’t go bike riding, I couldn’t even play jacks. I had to sit still. My father even cried one night, I heard him standing in the doorway when he thought I was asleep. My own father. I didn’t move. He never found out I knew.
But still, I wasn’t crippled, and I wasn’t dead. That was something to be thankful for.
I had shown Peggy how to write Shikata ga nai.
But that was before. I wasn’t in the same room with that girl who hit me. Now she was sitting on a chair four feet away from me. And she had asked me if I hurt bad.
How could she ask such an innocent question?
Manzanita
I knew Japanese people was polite but this beat all. Here this girl sits not able to move hardly a muscle and she tells Shazam she’s all right.
Shazam
I readed all them words she wrote but not the long one it had a G and a H she said its not bad.
Aki
Could I say the truth? No. I couldn’t do that.
Manzanita
If Aki was just going to be nice and polite about it Shazam would not repent which she needed to do. It was real quiet in that room.
Shazam
That was a real big thing on her head.
Aki
Rude as it would be, I thought to try saying it on my notebook page.
Manzanita
It seemed like a bad idea to come here. It was not doing any good.
Aki
How could I do such a rude thing? I decided to do it anyway.
Manzanita
Aki wrote: Yes, I am hurt badly. I never saw no more pretty cursive from somebody just going into 7th even though her hand was shaking pretty bad. Now Shazam could see the true truth and we was getting somewhere.
Bat 6 Page 15
