The Pigeon With the Tennis Elbow

by Matt Christopher

  Books by Matt Christopher

  Sports Stories

  THE LUCKY BASEBALL BAT

  BASEBALL PALS

  BASKETBALL SPARKPLUG

  TWO STRIKES ON JOHNNY

  LITTLE LEFTY

  TOUCHDOWN FOR TOMMY

  LONG STRETCH AT FIRST BASE

  BREAK FOR THE BASKET

  TALL MAN IN THE PIVOT

  CHALLENGE AT SECOND BASE

  CRACKERJACK HALFBACK

  BASEBALL FLYHAWK

  SINK IT, RUSTY

  CATCHER WITH A GLASS ARM

  WINGMAN ON ICE

  TOO HOT TO HANDLE

  THE COUNTERFEIT TACKLE

  THE RELUCTANT PITCHER

  LONG SHOT FOR PAUL

  MIRACLE AT THE PLATE

  THE TEAM THAT COULDN'T LOSE

  THE YEAR MOM WON THE PENNANT

  THE BASKET COUNTS

  HARD DRIVE TO SHORT

  CATCH THAT PASS!

  SHORTSTOP FROM TOKYO

  LUCKY SEVEN

  JOHNNY LONG LEGS

  LOOK WHO'S PLAYING FIRST BASE

  TOUGH TO TACKLE

  THE KID WHO ONLY HIT HOMERS

  FACE-OFF

  MYSTERY COACH

  ICE MAGIC

  NO ARM IN LEFT FIELD

  JINX GLOVE

  FRONT COURT HEX

  THE TEAM THAT STOPPED MOVING

  GLUE FINGERS

  THE PIGEON WITH THE TENNIS ELBOW

  Animal Stories

  DESPERATE SEARCH

  STRANDED

  EARTHQUAKE

  Copyright

  COPYRIGHT © 1975 BY MATTHEW F. CHRISTOPHER

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY ELECTRONIC OR MECHANICAL MEANS INCLUDING INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER, EXCEPT BY A REVIEWER WHO MAY QUOTE BRIEF PASSAGES IN A REVIEW.

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  First eBook Edition: December 2009

  ISBN: 978-0-316-09602-7

  To John G.Keller

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  1

  THE BALL BLURRED for an instant as it boomed from Rusty Maxwell's high-swinging racket and came slicing across the net. It struck the asphalt court near the right baseline, bounced up and took a little sidewise twist.

  The serve was a good one. Kevin O'Toole grimaced as he prepared to return the shot. Rusty's best play was his serve, and it had put him ahead in this game as it had in so many others.

  Whoom! Kevin met the ball with a solid forehand swing, holding the racket with both hands, and sent it streaking back over the net.

  His return brought a hint of a smile to Kevin's lips. The ball was heading far to Rusty's left side and Rusty was running after it full tilt.

  He failed to get to it and the ball bounced past him for a tied score, 15–15.

  A smattering of applause, and the cheer of a familiar voice, followed, embarrassing Kevin so that his face grew flushed.

  He shot his sister a dirty look. “Oh, cut that out, will ya, Gin?” he said, though hardly loud enough for her to hear him.

  Ginnie, a year younger than he, flashed dark eyes at him and gave her black hair a shake that left the long waves dangling over her shoulders. Although almost a head shorter than he, Ginnie could swing a racket with the best of them. Often she beat her brother by margins he was ashamed to talk about.

  A dry laugh rumbled from a boy sitting on the bottom row of seats flanking one side of the court, and once again Kevin felt his face grow pink. Roger Murphy, a skilled tennis player and Rusty Maxwell's friend, had a knack for bugging opponents without saying a word.

  Kevin took his eyes off Roger and looked over the small crowd that had come to watch the game. Ordinarily he hated being watched as he played. But, he realized, a crowd of some sort always gathered to watch a good tennis match.

  He looked across the net and saw Rusty ready to serve. Spreading his legs and grabbing hold of the racket's long smooth handle with both hands, Kevin waited.

  Up went the ball, and up on his tiptoes went Rusty. He met the ball squarely, driving it like a shot toward the net. It was too low, though, striking the top of the net and dropping on his side.

  He tossed up the other ball that he had, rising again on his tiptoes as he offered the serve. This time the blow was softer. Kevin followed it easily and banged it back across the net, aiming it toward Rusty's left corner. Rusty got there in time and hit it back. Kevin, waiting near the back court, ran in and struck the ball hard on the peak of its bounce and sent it like a bullet toward Rusty's right corner. The shot was good and Kevin went into the lead, 15–30.

  Again came the smattering of applause which Kevin pretended to ignore. He'd just have to talk with Ginnie after the game, that's all there was to it.

  An out of bounds serve, then a driving serve that hit the net, scored another point for Kevin, making it 15–40, his favor.

  He stepped back into the corner, taking a deep breath of the warm June air that carried with it the smell of pines from the nearby woods.

  Rusty's next serve was good, and for a while he and Kevin knocked the ball back and forth, neither getting a good shot.

  Then Kevin made a return from the throat of his racket. He groaned as the ball went askew toward the side of the court, striking the net and dropping on his side. 30–40.

  He scored the next point, winning the game, as Rusty belted the ball outside the right baseline. He was now leading two games to one in the first set.

  He walked off the court, wiping his sweating face with a handkerchief.

  “Quit making all the noise, will you?” he said in a low voice to Ginnie.

  “What noise?” she said.

  “You know what noise,” he answered.

  “You mean my cheering for you? What's wrong with that?”

  “Nothing, except that you're the only one I hear. Just calm it down a little. O.K.?”

  She shrugged. “O.K. But beat him, will you? I want you to play that Roger codger next.”

  He looked at her, then took a swallow of water from the fountain and returned to the court. Why did she have to remind him of that, anyway?

  Rusty broke Kevin's serve and won the next game, making it two games apiece.

  Kevin clamped his lips tightly in disgust as he heard the crowd applaud for Rusty. He had played badly in that game, and he blamed it on Ginnie. She had reminded him that the winner of today's match would play Roger Murphy, and Roger's name had stuck in his mind like a scary movie. Few guys had the ability to knock off Roger on the tennis court, and Kevin was not one of them. At least not yet. Why did she have to open up her mouth, anyway?

  He tried to push Roger out of his mind as the next game started, and managed to buzz ahead of Rusty, love-30, before Rusty seemed to know what was happening. Then Rusty scored on a blistering hot serve that Kevin missed by a foot. 15–30. Kevin took the next two points, though, and won the game.

  “Three more to go and it's your set,” said Ginnie as he came and sat down on the bench beside her.

  “Three more is a lot,” he said. “I wish it was just one more.”

  “Oh, Kev,” said Ginnie, her hands sque
ezed tightly on her lap. “That's your trouble. A defeatist attitude.”

  “Oh. That what it is?”

  He knew that that's what it was, too. But he could not admit it. Especially to her.

  Coo-coo! Coo-coo!

  The sound barely registered with Kevin as he thought about going back on the court to start the next game. Then it came again, and this time he looked for its source.

  He saw it, a grayish-white pigeon that was perched on top of the pole in the southwest corner of the court. Its broad wings spread out, and for a moment Kevin thought that it was going to fly off. Then it closed its wings about its round, plump body and relaxed as if it had come to watch and enjoy the game.

  Coo-coo! Coo-coo! it chanted again.

  “Even that pigeon is laughing at me,” Kevin murmured.

  Ginnie giggled. “You're a dilly,” she said.

  “O.K., boys!” said Ben Switzer, the playground director. “Let's go!”

  Kevin got two balls from the ball boy, for now it was his turn to serve. He stood in position, tossed up a ball and rose to meet it on his tiptoes, his racket held high. Bang! The ball blazed across the net like a shot.

  Rusty met it with the face of his racket, driving it back. As it struck the court and bounced up, Kevin lashed at it with a hard, two-handed stroke. Racket met ball squarely and sent it buzzing back.

  Oh, no! Kevin almost screamed as he saw the ball streak for the top of the net.

  It hit the net and dropped softly on the other side.

  “Darn!” Rusty yelled.

  There was a brief applause, then silence. A moment later the silence cracked as a voice said, “What a cheap shot that was.”

  The remark made Kevin angry. He turned and stared at Roger. Someday he'd show that wise guy!

  2

  KEVIN TOOK THE NEXT two points, making the score 40-love, and prepared for what could be his last serve of the game. It was a solid drive to Rusty's left side.

  Rusty shifted his racket and dealt the ball a hard, backhand blow. The return was good. The ball barely cleared the net and bounced close to Kevin's right sideline. Then, even as Kevin hit the return, he knew the shot was a bad one. The ball sliced off to the left, curving outside the baseline. A point for Rusty.

  Saved you from a skunking! Kevin thought.

  That was the only point Rusty scored, though, and the game went to Kevin. He finished off nicely in the next two games, winning the set, 6-2.

  “Well, that's one set for you,” said Ginnie as Kevin plunked himself down beside her. “And you'll take the next one. You've got to.”

  “Oh, sure,” said Kevin dismally.

  “There you go. That defeatist attitude again,” said Ginnie coldly. “Can't you be positive for a change?”

  “O.K., O.K. I'm positive. All right?”

  He didn't know why he did it, but at that moment he glanced over to the pole where the pigeon was resting and saw it jerking its head first one way and then the other as it seemed to peer at him out of one eye and then out of the other.

  What a pet he'd make, Kevin thought. He had never had a pet, not a dog or a cat or a gerbil, or even a turtle. Neither his mother nor his father cared for animals around the house. As for Ginnie, she was on the go so much she'd never have time to spend with an animal, anyway.

  Stare at me, will you? Kevin thought. I ought to knock you off that pole with a tennis ball, you feathered nut.

  Kevin laughed to himself, and Ginnie nudged him. “What's funny?” she asked.

  “What?” he said. “Oh — nothing.”

  “Honest,” she said, “you are a dilly.”

  “O.K.!” Ben Switzer yelled. “Ready for the second set!”

  It was Rusty's serve. He took the first two games, then lost the next two. Kevin, feeling that Lady Luck was with him, won three more in a row. Rusty rallied and copped the next two games. 4-5, Kevin's favor.

  Kevin went to the bench and sat there until the last second when Ben Switzer yelled, “Come on, Kev! Let's go!” and got him to his feet. Kevin saw that Ginnie had her fingers and ankles crossed, and her eyes closed.

  Hope that silly stuff works, he thought.

  His heart pounded like a drum as the ball boy handed him the two required tennis balls. Ginnie was right, he thought. He had to win. If he lost this game, it would mean that he'd have to play at least two more. The way he felt he'd be worthless in both, and Rusty would come out the winner.

  “Ready?” he said.

  “Ready,” Rusty replied.

  Taking a deep breath, then expelling it, Kevin tossed up one of the balls, rose on his tiptoes and gave the fuzz-covered sphere a belt that drove it across the net directly at Rusty. Rusty ducked, a smile coming over his face as he yelled, “Fault!” even before the ball hit beyond the baseline.

  Kevin made the next serve good. Rusty returned it, hitting the ball gently, carefully. The ball dropped softly over the net and Kevin, running in fast, slammed the ball back into Rusty's forecourt with such force that Rusty couldn't get near it. 15-love.

  After that Kevin could see that his getting the first point had taken the wind out of Rusty's sails. He won the game easily, the set, 6–4, and the match.

  “Congrats, brother!” Ginnie cried, running across the court and throwing her arms around him. “I knew you'd do it!”

  “I suppose it was because you crossed your fingers and ankles,” said Kevin as he pushed her hands off him.

  “And shut my eyes,” she added, her eyes sparkling. “Nice game, Rusty,” she said as Rusty came forward, hand extended to Kevin.

  “Don't kid me, Gin,” he said. “I was lousy. Good game, Kev.”

  “Thanks, Rusty.”

  “Well …” Rusty sighed. “It was either you or I against Roger on Friday. I've never beat him yet. Have you?”

  “A couple of times … last year,” Ginnie answered quickly for her brother. She began dragging him away as she chattered on, smothering whatever it was Rusty was going to say. “Good luck in your next game, Rusty! You are improving a great deal! You really are! That serve could be a real ace if you could develop it a little more!”

  Kevin stared at her as he let her drag him off the court and to the street.

  “Ginnie! When did I ever beat Roger?” he asked, jerking his sleeve loose from her hold.

  “O.K., I lied,” she said, her voice an octave lower.

  “Lied? I guess you did!”

  “Oh, don't say it as if I had just robbed the New Laswell Bank,” she blurted. “I wasn't far wrong. You were close to beating him twice.”

  “But still — that's not winning!”

  A chuckle that sounded like a horse laugh came from behind them, and Kevin looked around to see who it was. The closest people were a foursome some thirty feet behind them. But they each seemed to be engrossed in their own business.

  Kevin turned to his sister, frowning. “Did you hear somebody laugh?”

  “Yes,” she said, looking over her shoulder. “It must have been one of those characters behind us. What's the difference?”

  She started to talk about Friday's tennis match with Roger Murphy, but most of what she said filtered through Kevin's brain like water through a net.

  Then a flutter of wings sounded very close to his head, and he ducked. He looked up and saw a pigeon zooming upward in a wide loop. Then it glided down and dove at him again.

  “That crazy, idiot bird!” Kevin shouted, and in the next breath yelled, “Duck!”

  The pigeon missed Kevin's head by inches. Heh-heh-heh! sounded a voice.

  Kevin's mouth dropped open. “Ginnie! Did you hear that?” he cried, staring dumb-foundedly at the bird as it flew to a tree and landed on one of its top branches.

  “Hear what?” Ginnie asked.

  “He laughed!” Kevin said, pointing at the pigeon. “That pigeon actually laughed!”

  3

  EARLY THE NEXT MORNING Kevin and Ginnie were playing tennis on the town court. He was tired but had agreed
to play with her after listening to her pleading that he practice for the better part of fifteen minutes.

  The episode of the pigeon had been practically forgotten. No pigeon was known to laugh, Ginnie had told him. He just thought it had laughed.

  After having that sensible sounding knowledge drummed into his head he really believed that it must have been something else he had heard the pigeon call. It couldn't have been laughter.

  “You've got to develop your serve and your backhand,” she now told him. “Those are your weak points. And don't you think for one minute that Roger Murphy doesn't know it!”

  “What makes you think that I'll develop a champion serve and backhand by Friday?” he said, staring at her.

  “Maybe not champion. But they'll be better!”

  “O.K., O.K.,” he said, yielding to her. What else could a guy do? Listen to her gripe at him all day? Anyway, even though she was younger than he, what she had observed about his serves and backhand strokes made sense.

  She should know. She had started to play on a school team a whole year before he had even held a racket. It just wasn't in him to play any kind of sport while he was in the elementary grades. Conscious of his thin, reedlike body, he could never see himself as an athlete. Not until early last year, when Ginnie began to climb all over him about playing tennis, had he finally decided to take up the sport.

  They rallied the ball back and forth across the net. Finally Kevin said, “O.K. I'm warmed up.

  He stopped the ball by bringing the racket up in a short sweeping arc and striking the ball near the top so that it dropped almost straight down in front of him. Then he caught it as it bounced up.

  “Hey, that was neat, man!” Ginnie cried. “When did you develop that?”

  Kevin shrugged. “I do it a lot while I practice knocking the ball against the house. It's no big deal.”

  “Well, I can't do it,” she said.

  Kevin stepped back behind the baseline, waited for Ginnie to get ready, then started to serve when Ginnie yelled, “Throw it up fairly high! Then bring your racket down on it as hard as you can!”

  That's new? Kevin thought. That's what I always try to do.