Say It Ain't So

by Josh Berk

  I walked over to the bike rack and chained my bike. I was always careful about bike theft. Even in a town like Schwenkfelder, you can’t be too safe. I put my backpack on my back and began walking. Nice and casual. I started scouting out the field. I thought about how The Semilegal Guide to Cheating at Baseball said that sign stealing was basically done with variations on the same method. Someone sat in the outfield with binoculars or some way to see the catcher’s sign. Then he used a signaling device to quickly show the batter what was coming. The sign stealer would be in the bullpen or the bleachers or hidden in the scoreboard. Every stadium basically had at least one place where an evildoer could perch to do his evil.

  I scanned the field. It was obvious. Here, at the Griffith Middle School field, I knew right where I’d start. There was a billboard in center field, an unusual thing for a middle school stadium. And this one was unusual even for a billboard. First of all, it was huge. It stretched across, like, all of right-center field. And second of all, it had a car driving through it. Okay, it wasn’t a real car. It was just that the front of the billboard was built out and it was all painted to look like the wood was smashed. How a car was supposed to be driving up in the air through a billboard was beyond me, but that’s Griffith for you. Not exactly geniuses.

  The billboard said FENNER’S AUTOMOBILES! so I made a mental note never to buy from Fenner’s Automobiles. Not that I was in the market for a used car, but you know what I mean. I walked slowly around the field and tried to figure out where a spy might be hiding. I made my way to deep center. I looked up at the back of the billboard. It wasn’t a very high fence, but the billboard was enormous—probably about thirty feet tall. And yup, sure enough, there was a ladder going up the back. It wasn’t like the ladder was just propped there—it was built into the fence. A ladder wasn’t proof of anything. But maybe, I thought, if I climbed it, I could find what I was looking for.

  I’m not afraid of heights, not really. Not like Other Mike, who is so afraid of heights that he won’t even wear shoes with a heel. He won’t even walk on a sheet of paper lying on the floor. He won’t even … What’s thinner than a piece of paper? Nothing, probably. You get my point. But I’m okay with heights. More or less.

  I gave the ladder a good shake to make sure it was sturdy. Maybe someone was climbing up and down from there every day to steal signs, but maybe no one had been up there in years. Maybe it was all rusted through and would wait until I was on the top rung before it collapsed. I gave it a solid shake and it didn’t collapse. It didn’t budge. Perfect for climbing. I took a deep breath, adjusted my backpack, and started to head up.

  I got about three rungs up off the ground when I heard something whiz past my ear! I thought maybe it was a bee, of which I am no fan. But it definitely was no bee. Worse. It was a baseball. It clanged off the metal of the ladder and flew back out into the grass behind the field. What was going on? I spun my head around and another ball flew past, this one barely missing my foot. I had to get down from there! I was like a sitting duck. Man, what a dumb expression. Why is a sitting duck something that can easily get nailed? Can’t the stupid duck simply stand up? And seriously, duck, you have wings. Just fly away! I wished I was a duck. Actually, an eagle. Anything with wings! It would have been so awesome to fly out of there.

  But I couldn’t fly. And I couldn’t climb—up or down. Baseballs were coming at me from all directions! All I could do was jump. I pushed off the ladder and leapt backward, tumbling to the ground. My backpack fell off, so I turned to scoop it up. I had no idea where the balls were coming from, so I had no idea which direction to run. Also, it was kind of hard to see because I was trying to cover my face with my hands. More balls were whizzing past me. One hit me in the back. Then another! I had to get out of there.

  I took my hands away from my face and started to run. Every time I tried to look around to see who was chucking baseballs at me, another ball flew by. All I could do was keep my head down and keep running. My heart was pounding, my palms were sweating, and I’m not going to lie to you: I was scared. Somehow I sprinted around the field and made it back to my bike without serious injury. I hopped on it and started to pedal away.

  Only it was still locked to the bike rack.

  I fell off the bike, and my backpack got stuck in the bike rack. My arms were tangled in the straps. This time I felt like not just a sitting duck, but a duck with its feathers plucked and its wings tied to a bike rack. All I could think was I’m done for. And I was. First one ninja came toward me, then another. That’s right: ninjas! They were both wearing the ninja uniform or whatever you call it, which covered their faces and left just their eyes peering through. Their evil, mean, beady little eyes.

  And then they got closer and I realized they weren’t ninjas. They were just guys wearing green sweatshirts pulled tight over their faces and tied in the back. Still, it made them impossible to recognize. Well, not impossible. Their ninja costumes both said the same thing across the front: GRIFFITH GRIFFINS BASEBALL.

  One of the ninjas approached. I struggled to move but only succeeded in getting myself further tangled up in the bike rack. The ninja laughed, and then so did his friend. They said something to each other in a strange language I couldn’t understand. Then they laughed again.

  “U-um, guys,” I stammered. “Dudes. I don’t know who you are or who you think I am, but I assure you I’m not the guy you think—” The second ninja cut me off and raised a hand.

  “Well, well, well,” he said.

  I have found that whenever anyone says “Well, well, well,” that’s the exact opposite of how things are about to go. It means things were not going well. I struggled more mightily.

  He laughed. “I think you’re pretty well stuck,” he said.

  He had a strange high-pitched voice and an accent I couldn’t place. I thought that maybe he was trying to disguise his voice. Like maybe he didn’t want me to be able to identify him. Like maybe the police were going to get involved and he wanted to be able to deny it. I didn’t like the sound of that. What did he have in mind?

  “Yeah,” I said. “Stuck. Maybe you can give me a hand?” Mom always told me to try to make friends, no matter the situation. I don’t think she had this in mind, but it was all I could come up with at the moment.

  Both ninjas laughed. Their laughs sounded evil. They spoke to each other again in their strange language. I don’t speak anything other than English and, like, a tiny bit of Spanish. (¿Puedo ir al baño?) I know some Yiddish phrases, but they don’t come in all that handy. What I mean is, it didn’t even sound like any language I had ever heard. Who were these guys?

  “I can give you more than a hand,” said the first green ninja. He had the same high-pitched voice, the same weird accent. Maybe it wasn’t an act.

  “Yeah?” I asked. Though, to be honest, I should have seen it coming.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I can give you a whole fist.”

  And with that, he punched me in the face.

  I don’t know what exactly happened after that. I mean, my face hurt, I know that. His fist was small, but he was strong. The punch caught me square in the eye. I didn’t know if I should scream for help or cry. What I wanted to do was punch him back, or at least block him before he did it again. But my arms were all twisted up and I was totally stuck. Screaming for help didn’t seem like the coolest thing to do, but sometimes you just have to do it.

  “Help!” I screamed. “Somebody help me!” There didn’t seem to be anyone around, but there had to be coaches or teachers or some grown-up who could swoop in. Nope. None of those. But there was one person who did hear my cries.

  “Hey!” the voice yelled. “Stop it!”

  At first I didn’t recognize the voice. I mean, I recognized it, but I couldn’t place it. It was vaguely familiar, like a distant relative you haven’t seen for a long time calling you up to wish you a happy birthday. And you’re like, “Why are you calling me? How is it a birthday gift to have to spend time in an awkwa
rd conversation with you? You know what would have been an even better gift? You not calling me. Or maybe just, I don’t know, maybe an envelope full of cash?!”

  I heard the voice again. “Knock it off, you idiots!” it screamed. And then I heard a thwack.

  Oh, great, I thought. Another baseball-throwing ninja trying to take me out. But this wasn’t a baseball. It was larger. It was a softball. And it wasn’t trying to take me out. It was trying to take the ninjas out. Thwack. I heard it again. My savior wasn’t just yelling at these guys. My savior was chucking softballs at these guys.

  My savior was a girl.

  My savior was Maria Bonzer.

  The ninjas of Griffith scampered off. I was still dazed, but I could hear their cleats clacking on the sidewalk. They were running away! It worked! Maria came over to me. She started helping me extract my arms from the bike rack. I must have looked like a puppy trapped in a storm drain.

  I never thought I’d be so happy to see anyone in my life. Maria Bonzer was, yes, the niece of Mr. Bonzer the librarian. And yes, she is the Maria Bonzer me and the Mikes briefly thought was a murderer. But she ended up helping us solve the case last summer. I had no idea she was still in town.

  “Whoa, Lenny, what happened to you?” she said.

  “Are you … Are you real? Or … are … you … a …?” Like I said, I was feeling woozy and was kind of afraid that I was imagining things. Like in movies when guys are lost in the desert and they start to get so hungry and thirsty that they think a cactus is a glass of water. A mirage! That’s the word. I yelled it out. “Mirage!”

  Maria laughed. “Yeah, Lenny. I’m a freaking mirage over here. You’re tied to a bike rack hallucinating about the librarian’s niece.”

  “Well, the first part is true,” I said. “Though technically they didn’t tie me up. I just sort of fell in.”

  “You did this to yourself?” she asked.

  “No, not really. I mean, they were throwing baseballs at me! I was trying to get the heck out of here. One hit me in the back.” I was trying not to cry and doing a not-okay job at it.

  “It looks like one caught you in the face.”

  “That was that ninja’s fist!” I said.

  She laughed. “Um, do I have to call a doctor?” she said. “You really are seeing things.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m fine. I know he wasn’t actually a ninja. Just the way he had his hood up over his head. Looked kind of ninjalike.”

  “Got it,” she said. “So those ninjas threw baseballs at you and then punched you in the face when you tried to flee on your bike?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That pretty much sums it up.”

  “Why would they do that?” she asked. “Other than the fact that just about everyone who knows you wants to punch you in the face once in a while.”

  “Very funny,” I said. “They did it because I’m onto their secret!”

  “This sounds good,” she said. “But I have to get home before dinner or my mom will kill me. Can you walk and talk?”

  “Uh, sure,” I said, just happy to stand. I was finally free of the bike rack. I spun the combination on the lock and popped the chain. It felt good to know that even if the ninjas returned, I could get out of there fast. However, they were nowhere to be found. Maria had successfully scared them off. I was a little embarrassed, but pretty grateful. My eye was killing me.

  She pointed in the direction she was headed and I rode along. It’s hard to ride that slowly, though, so I did that move where you stand over the bike but just walk rather than pushing the pedals. We walked like that while I gave her the scoop. The whole time my eye burned. I could feel it throbbing like a living thing was breathing on it. Breathing fire.

  “So what are you doing here?” she said.

  “I could ask you the same thing!” I said right back.

  “Um, I go to school here?”

  “You do?” I asked. It was a dumb question. She pointed to her own green Griffith sweatshirt. I had flashbacks of the ninja attack.

  “Yeah. So what are you doing here?” she said again.

  I filled her in. I told her all of it. About how Mike made the baseball team as a catcher after Famosa encouraged him. About how I helped him practice by throwing wild pitches and kicking him in the crotch. About how I got a job as the announcer for the Schwenkfelder games. And about how someone from Griffith was stealing Mike’s signs, ripping off clues for the pitches from the great Hunter Ashwell.

  “Whoa,” she said. “You tell quite a tale.”

  I couldn’t figure out if she was being sarcastic or not, so I just pressed on. “Yeah,” I said. “Me and the Mikes have been working like crazy. Trying to figure the whole thing out.”

  “Have any luck?” she asked as we stopped at the busy intersection of Center Street.

  “No,” I said sadly.

  “Hard to believe your brain trust wasn’t having any success,” she said. “I mean, especially given the fact that you don’t have any brains.”

  “Ha,” I said. “Har-har. Har-de-har-har. Har-de-freaking-har-freaking-har.” That’s the proper way to laugh sarcastically. No one ever says “har-de-har-har” in a nonsarcastic way. If they do, I don’t want to know them.

  “Well?” she said.

  “Well, what?” I asked.

  “I’m waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?” I asked. “Did you ask me a question?”

  “I’m waiting for you to ask me a question,” she said.

  “If you’re waiting for me to ask you to marry me,” I said, “you’re going to have to wait quite a bit longer. I should at least get my own car first.” I don’t know why I said that. It came out stupid. I started blushing.

  “Har-de-freaking-har,” she said. “You know what I’m waiting for you to ask.”

  “I honestly do not,” I said.

  “I’m waiting for you to ask me to help you.”

  “To help me?”

  “Yeah,” she said. She put her hand on her hip and spit. “We make a good team. You know that.”

  “It’s true,” I said. “We sort of did crack one of the biggest mysteries in Philadelphia sports history. I’m pretty sure we can get to the bottom of whatever shenanigans a bunch of middle school dorks can muster.”

  “That’s like the pot calling the kettle a dork,” she said.

  “I’m not quite sure that’s how the expression—”

  “So you really think they’re stealing your signs, huh?” she said. “They gotta be if they’re hitting Ashwell. I hear that kid can throw.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I hear all about him all the time. Believe me. But before we get into this, you have to answer me something. Why are you going to help us?”

  “What do you mean? I already told you. We make a good team.”

  “Yeah, but won’t you be hurting your own team? You’ll be helping Schwenkfelder beat Griffith.”

  “I have no loyalty to this stupid school,” she said. “I never wanted to move to this stupid town anyway. No offense.”

  “Hey, don’t apologize to me,” I said. “If I was Sam Schwenkfelder, sure, I’d be highly offended. But I’m not. I just live here. I didn’t invent this stupid town.”

  “Was there really a Sam Schwenkfelder?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But, listen, how do I know I can trust you with this?”

  “It’s the principle,” she said.

  “You think Principal Wagner is behind this? I could see Vice Principal Jaxheimer having a sideline as a criminal, but Wags seems pretty decent.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean,” she said. She spit into her hand and gestured for me to do the same.

  I guess we were reaffirming our status as spit twins. Seemed good enough for me. “Put ’er there,” I said. We shook on it. It was settled.

  We were on the part of the road that doesn’t have any sidewalk, so we were trying to stay close to the shoulder. I gave up riding and was pushing my bike
as she was walking next to me. I looked around to make sure we weren’t being watched.

  “What are you so nervous about?” she asked.

  “Just—those guys aren’t going to cause trouble for you if they know you’re working for the other side, are they?”

  “They have no idea,” she said. “Total double agent.”

  “Except that you did just kind of sort of call them ‘idiots,’ ” I said.

  She shrugged.

  “Hey,” I said. “Do you know who they are? Those guys, I mean.”

  “Well,” she said. “I think our first clue is that they were members of the Griffith baseball team.”

  “Nice work, Sherlock,” I said. “What tipped you off? The Griffith baseball sweatshirts they were wearing?”

  She tapped the bill of her softball cap with her finger. “Always thinking,” she said.

  “Duh,” I said. “I mean, did you recognize them?”

  “No, I never saw their faces. They didn’t stick around long, did they?” she asked. “Once they got a glimpse of my mighty arm.”

  “I didn’t know you played softball,” I said. “I thought you were just a fan.”

  “Why would you think that?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “You never mentioned it.”

  “You never asked,” she said.

  “No, I guess I didn’t.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Lenny Norbeck,” she said.

  “Yeah?” I said. “Well, there’s a lot you don’t know about me too.”

  “I know you spend all your time arguing with Mike and Other Mike. I know you love baseball and think you’re some sort of detective, even though you get tangled up in a bike rack at the first sign of trouble. I know you’re the announcer for the games over at Schwenkfelder. And I know you lose your library card all the time.”

  “That jerk Bonzer! What happened to the library code of secrecy?” I said.