by Dean Hughes
Gordy didn’t answer him. He turned away and looked toward Jay. “All right. Let’s show these guys,” he said.
Gordy turned around, stepped on the little board that was used for a pitching rubber, and let fly with a pitch that flew way over the catcher’s head and all the way to the screen. Maybe that was a way of showing off his fastball, but it got another big laugh from all the Topaz players—and from the crowd, too. The next pitch was in the dirt.
“Come on, Gordy, just pitch to him,” Jay yelled. It was probably the first time he’d ever tried to give Gordy any advice. But Gordy nodded, as if he knew already that was what he had to do. His next pitch wasn’t so hard, and it was over the plate. The tall kid took a hard swing and topped the ball. It bounded toward Dwight, who was playing second. The ball looked easy enough to handle, and Dwight got himself in front of it. But then it took a crazy bounce, off to the left. Dwight stabbed across his body at the ball and got a little leather on it, but it bounced off his glove and rolled into right field. At least Will, out in right, hustled in, and he held the batter to a single.
“What’s wrong with this field?” Gordy shouted to the umpire. “It’s got rocks on it or something. How are we supposed to get anybody out if the ball bounces around like that?”
The umpire smiled a little, and some of the people in the crowd gave Gordy a hard time. “We play on the same field,” one of the players yelled. And someone in the bleachers called out, “Get some strikeouts—the way our pitcher does.”
He thought that was fairly polite, and exactly what Gordy had coming, but ol’ Gordy was fuming. He wound up and threw another pitch in the dirt. Lew was playing catcher. He managed to block the ball, so at least the guy at first didn’t take second.
Gordy got the ball back, and he stared hard before he wound up. He took something off the next pitch, and the batter mistimed his swing. He scooted a little grounder off the end of his bat, straight back toward Gordy. Gordy probably should have taken the guy at first and gotten the sure out, but he spun around and looked toward second. Jay was already breaking to the bag. Gordy threw the ball for the force-out, and maybe threw too hard. The ball sailed, but Jay went up after it, caught it, and came down behind the bag. He lunged for the base, but the tall kid who had been on first was barreling in hard. He slid with his foot high, caught Jay in the chest, and sent him flying.
Jay landed on his side and rolled over in a puff of dirt, like smoke. His vision was swimming, maybe from the blow he’d taken, maybe from the dirt. He scrambled up as fast as he could, the ball still in his glove. But just as he got to his feet, he saw Gordy there, driving his fist into the tall kid’s jaw, then rolling over on top of him. And then Gordy was scrambling back up and so was the Japanese player. He popped Gordy in the eye, and he went down again.
By then guys were coming from every direction. They grabbed one another, pushing and shouting, and more fists flew. Jay was wondering what to do when a fist caught him in the side of the head. He didn’t go down, but he turned and took another punch that caught him in the neck. He grabbed the guy who had hit him, and the two tumbled onto the ground. He had the kid in a headlock and was squeezing with all his strength. About then, someone grabbed him and jerked him to his feet. It was Ken. “Stop it, Jay. Back away,” he was saying.
He did back off, and by then the umpire and Hal were out there, pulling kids apart. It took a couple of minutes to get the two teams separated. Then they all stood back and glared at one another. “We’re not going to have any more of this,” Ken was yelling. “I’ll call this game right now unless you’re willing to step up and shake hands.”
No one moved. Jay thought he wouldn’t mind getting back in the car. He saw no reason to keep the game going. He glanced around and thought he could see that most of the guys on his team felt the same way. It was almost better to call off the game on account of a fight—and tell that story back in Delta. Who wanted to admit that they got knocked all over the place on the field?
“Well, which is it?” Ken asked. “Are you going to shake hands and then play some ball, or are we calling the game off?”
He could see the tall kid who had slid with his foot in the air. He was looking down at the ground. Maybe he was ashamed. Gordy had his hands on his hips, but he didn’t look so mad anymore. And then Jay saw him start to smile, and the smile turned into his big-teeth grin. “Hey, my eye is swelling shut. You got me good,” he said.
The tall kid looked up, obviously surprised.
“That’s the best fight I’ve ever been in—at least in a baseball game,” Gordy went on.
He saw some of the Japanese kids start to smile.
“I fought a kid at school one time, but he punched like a girl. You guys can go after it. I gotta hand it to you.”
The smiles were getting bigger.
“I’ll tell you what. Let’s play, and I’ll pitch with one eye. But you better look out for my fastball now. I can’t even see right.”
“What fastball?” one of the kids said, and everyone laughed. Both teams. Even Ken and the umpire.
“Okay, here’s what I’ll do,” said Gordy. “I’ll let Chief pitch. He’s got a good arm. Maybe he can get somebody out. But let’s play ball.”
So they all shook hands and went back to playing, and Jay pitched. He wasn’t great, but as it turned out, he was better than Gordy. He even got a couple of strikeouts when the Topaz team started putting in their weaker players. He also got a hit off their second pitcher, a double down the left-field line, and then Gordy smacked a single up the middle and Jay scored the only run for the Rabbits. He didn’t know what the score turned out to be, and he didn’t want to know, but he was sure it was way more than twenty for the Topaz team and just that one for the Rabbits.
But after the game, the tall guy came over to him and said, “Ken told me to say I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have slid into you like that.”
Gordy was standing next to Jay. “That’s what Ken told you to say, but what about you? What do you say?”
“I shouldn’t have done it.”
“It didn’t hurt much,” Jay said. “Not for long.”
“You’re the best player on your team. Especially when you play shortstop.”
“That’s probably right, Chief,” said Gordy. “You played really good. I gotta work hard to get as good as you now.” He looked back at the Japanese boy. “We want to make it to the majors.”
“That’s what I want to do too,” the boy said.
“Just about everyone does,” said Jay.
“What are you?” asked the boy.
“What?”
“Are you an Indian?”
“Not exactly.”
“Is your name Chief?”
But Gordy answered for him. “No. It’s Jay. He doesn’t like to be called Chief. And he’s not anything. He’s just an American.”
The tall kid nodded.
Ken was walking toward them by then. “I’ll tell you what Jay is,” he said. “He’s my little brother.” He laughed, but he put his hand on Jay’s shoulder again, the way he had before.
• • •
In late August, Ken left for the army. Jay started school right after that. A few guys still wanted to make something out of Jay dancing with Ken. Gordy always threatened to beat up on them, but Jay didn’t say too much. He just tried to look those guys in the eye and not hang his head.
Gordy still called him Chief sometimes, but mostly he didn’t.
Jay got a letter from Ken in the fall. He was doing okay. Some of the guys hadn’t liked having a Japanese-American soldier at basic training, he said. “But I’m showing them what I can do, and they don’t worry about it as much as they did at first.”
Things were okay for Jay, too. He still hoped he could make it to the major leagues, but there were other things he could do if that didn’t work out. Grandpa even said he could take over the drugstore someday, and he was working there a little already. Mom was doing better too, and Hal was becoming almost
like part of the family.
Jay still thought about his dad quite often, but he wasn’t expecting him to make it home from the war. He had promised his mom that he would remember the good things about him, not all the bad stuff, and that seemed best.
He did think about the war ending someday, and he thought about Ken coming back. Ken hadn’t promised that he would make it home, but he’d said he’d try his best. One thing Jay had learned, there were certain promises no one could really make. But he liked to think about being Ken’s brother, and he hoped they could be friends all their lives.
Jay and Gordy would always be buddies too, that was for sure. Maybe one of them would even marry Elaine. Mom said she was staying in Delta, and Jay was thinking that was what he wanted to do too.
The main thing was, Jay didn’t feel like nothing these days. He felt like a regular guy.
About the Author
Dean Hughes is the author of more than eighty books for young readers, including the popular sports series Angel Park All-Stars, the Scrappers series, the Nutty series, the widely acclaimed companion novels Family Pose and Team Picture, and Search and Destroy. Soldier Boys was selected for the 2001 New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age list. Dean Hughes and his wife, Kathleen, have three children and nine grandchildren. They live in Midway, Utah.
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Soldier Boys
Search and Destroy
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Copyright © 2010 by Dean Hughes
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Hughes, Dean, 1943–
Missing in action / Dean Hughes. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: While his father is missing in action in the Pacific during World War II, twelve-year-old Jay moves with his mother to small-town Utah, where he sees prejudice from both sides, as a part-Navajo himself and through an unlikely friendship with Japanese American Ken from the nearby internment camp.
ISBN 978-1-4169-1502-7 (hardcover)
[1. Prejudices—Fiction. 2. Japanese Americans—Evacuation and relocation, 1942–1945—Fiction. 3. Racially mixed people—Fiction. 4. Baseball—Fiction. 5. Grandparents—Fiction. 6. World War, 1939–1945—Fiction. 7. Family life—Utah—Fiction. 8. Utah—History—20th century—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.H87312Mis 2010
[Fic]—dc22
2009011276
ISBN 978-1-4424-1248-4 (pbk)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-9904-1 (eBook)
