him oddly. “What?”
Anne cleared her throat. “Didn’t your mother leave you? I mean, didn’t she leave you and Dylan? And he was no more than a baby?”
“She left because of him! What my father did!” He said hotly. A few feet away, heads turned at his tone. Anne raised a finger to her lips.
A breathtaking flash drew everyone’s eyes skyward. “So you want to go to Texas? To do what?”
James sighed and slipped his free hand in hers. “I want to see where she’s buried.” He felt her steady gaze. “It’s just something I have to do. This seems like as good a time as any.”
Anne rested her head on his shoulder. “Gosh, I’ll be crazy missing you. When will you be back?”
“Well, that’s a little harder to say.” He waited through a series of bursts. “Everyone thinks I broke into Wilson’s store, and the chief tried to pin me with beating some boy real bad over in Millwood.”
“You have to stay and defend yourself, James!” Several hushes sounded in the dark. Anne lowered her voice. “Or it will never be better for you here.”
“Well, since my father came back I just don’t fit anymore.”
“I want to go with you.”
James started. “I don’t even know what I’m going to do. But it won’t be clean sheets and Nana doing my laundry. I don’t plan on being back for the start of school, and—“
“Jimmy Paxton. You think you’re the only one has a yearning to get off this stupid peninsula?”
Mr. Geiger on the next blanket over glanced their way, and then looked more closely at the two, twined sinuously on the blanket James had lifted from the linen closet.
James buried his face in Anne’s neck, and inhaled her raspberry fragrance. The crackling tune of Windy by a group called the Association grated in the temporary pause of concussions. As if Anne’s response weren’t surprise enough, he found his own feelings betraying the resolve he’d worked on since this morning. What he had rehearsed saying was eventually maybe they’ll catch the guys who really broke into Wilson’s Hardware, and I can come back quiet. Truth was, he didn’t really plan to return at all. If it weren’t for Anne, and for Dylan, what was keeping him here?
Now it sounded like his family might be fixing to move away. His father could mess things up by being close or far away. It didn’t really seem to matter.
But what he found himself saying was, “How will we travel? Where will we go?”
She kissed him quick and hard, breathing, “Shhhh…not here,” into his mouth. He started to speak, and she kissed him again, her face in the darkness appearing soft, and wiser than he felt. One thing that attracted him was the way Anne moved so comfortably in the world they inhabited, as if she belonged here. As if she had a say in her life. He closed his mouth and eyes, and melted into the safety of her.
12 / Freak Play at the Mound
Dylan raced in the front door and hurried down the hall. He bounded up the stairs, to discover James, sitting quietly. A game was starting down at the school. He was always misplacing his glove, and it wasn’t on his desk now. James saw his glance around the bedroom.
“Your glove’s on the closet shelf. If Stinger pitches, expect him to buzz you. Especially if you somehow manage a hit off him.” James turned his gaze back out the window. Dylan grabbed his glove.
“You’re not coming?”
“Not now. Maybe later.”
This was Dylan’s first summer playing ball with the older kids. James had taken him several times to play up at the school. James usually made sure they were on the same team, where he could back up Dylan discreetly in the field.
“You sure?” Dylan tried not to sound whiny. He really wanted to play, but was not excited about going alone.
“Ryan will probably be there. Maybe I’ll come up later,” said James.
The game started with Ryan Daggert pitching for the other side. Everybody on the opposing team liked to see Ryan on the mound. He would work hard to find the batter’s box, and the way he screwed up his face in concentration, you could usually tell where Ryan at least intended the ball to fly. Ryan was actually a good pitcher. The slower he threw, the more accurate he was, to a point. So he was also easy to hit. Since the other team usually ran up an early lead, Ryan was what one would call a starter, rather than a finisher. At some point, watching the other team wear down the base paths, his team would call for a pitching switch.
Halfway through the game, Stinger came from the catcher’s position to pitch. As he toed the rubber, his teammates smirked. It was fun to be on Stinger’s team. Stinger could be hit, but if you hit him once, he was like as not to “hit” you back.
In his first ups against Stinger, Dylan eked out a sickly grounder that snagged the grass at the feet of the third baseman and darted past him. The next time Dylan was up, he looked into the eyes of the pitcher and didn’t like what he saw there.
Stinger couldn’t distinguish a continent from an ocean, but he had no trouble keeping tally of the other team as they rotated to the plate. Stinger tossed two easy pitches wide. In his own way, Stinger’s intentions were as transparent as Ryan’s. But where Ryan was eying an imaginary box, Stinger was studying your profile.
Stinger nodded—to himself, Dylan was sure—not to any signal from the catcher. Then he launched into his windup. This was the lesson pitch, Dylan knew, and he fought the urge to step out of the box. The only thing Dylan didn’t know for sure was whether to duck, leap, or dodge. Stinger grunted as the ball left his paw. Dylan’s brain registered that it was in a straight line with his gaze. At the same moment, a whispered shit came from behind and below. Dylan closed his eyes and swung. He felt, rather than heard, the crack just above his grip, and his palms instantly tingled like they had been shocked.
He didn’t realize he’d closed his eyes until he popped them open. He was on one knee, genuflecting on the plate. His teammates were on their feet along third base, pointing at first. Dylan had been smashed, hard. But where? What remained of the bat dropped from his numbed grip. Dylan knew he was expected to lunge at Stinger, screaming and cursing. He crouched and turned, hoping his team would get to the mound right when he did. Startled, he saw Stinger curled on his back, knees up, eyes squeezed tight, his mouth gaping in a wide O.
Inexplicably, the other end of the bat lay placidly on the mound in front of Stinger. Dylan turned to his teammates, dumbfounded. The roaring in his ears focused.
“Run! Go, Dylan!”
Dylan looked again at Stinger. The large boy looked like a fish at the bottom of a johnboat, fresh caught and unhooked. Dylan could now see the bulging whites of the bully’s eyes. Dylan stumbled toward first base, tripping over the dropped bat-handle. He was standing with both feet on first base moments later, when it dawned on him the game was over.
***
The trees along Nash Street swished in a hot wind as Dylan and Ryan turned off Clarence Street. At the sight of Stinger gulping on the mound, everybody suddenly had something to do. Dylan had mumbled a half-hearted “hope you’re okay” before Ryan’s firm grasp swung him toward his
