Izzy Barr, Running Star

by Claudia Mills

  4

  On Saturday morning Izzy’s father was up early, making pancakes, scrambled eggs, and sausage links for Izzy and Dustin. Izzy’s mother was already at the hospital for her twelve-hour shift.

  “Gotta provide some good fuel for my two star athletes,” Izzy’s dad said as he set a platter of pancakes on the kitchen table. He never made pancakes during the week, because schoolday/workday mornings were too rushed.

  Her father whistled as he slid a big helping of scrambled eggs onto Izzy’s plate and an even bigger one onto Dustin’s. He whistled more on the weekends, too.

  Dustin stacked an enormous pile of pancakes on his plate and poured an enormous amount of syrup on top of them.

  “Go, Jayhawks!” their dad said as he gave Izzy two plump sausage links.

  “Go, Lightning Bolts!” he said as he gave three sausages to Dustin.

  Izzy was afraid to ask the question, but she had to know the answer.

  “So are you going to Dustin’s game or mine?”

  “Both! I’ll start out rooting for the Bolts, and then at halftime I’ll drive over to the softball field and root for the Hawks. How’s that? I talked to Kelsey’s mom; she’s going to give you a ride to your game, since Kelsey and Annika want to come as your cheering section. Dustin has a ride home with one of his teammates, so we’re all set. Just try not to hit any home runs until the fourth inning, okay?”

  Izzy grinned at him. She knew her father really wanted her to play her best all game long.

  “I’ll hit lots of home runs,” she said, “but I’ll save my super-duper-est home run until you get there.”

  As Izzy swallowed another delicious bite of pancake, Dustin reached over and speared one of her two sausages so quickly that she hardly saw him do it.

  “Dustin!” she scolded.

  He grinned at her with their father’s grin; Izzy hoped she had that same grin, too.

  “You weren’t going to finish it, anyway,” he said. “You never do.”

  Izzy’s father replaced the stolen sausage on Izzy’s plate and gave Dustin two more as well.

  “There’s no need to rob your sister’s plate,” he said, giving Dustin a playful whack on the shoulder and then gently tugging one of Izzy’s short, tight braids. “There’s plenty for both of you.”

  * * *

  When Kelsey’s mom pulled into the driveway to pick Izzy up for the game, Izzy didn’t wait to see if her friends would notice her feet. As soon as she flung open the car door, she called out the wonderful news.

  “Look at my shoes! My dad got them for me last night!”

  “They’re beautiful!” Annika said, even though Izzy knew Annika had never spent a moment of her life admiring running shoes.

  “Take that, Skipper Tipton!” Kelsey squealed.

  Izzy beamed. “I’m glad my dad picked to go to the first half of Dustin’s game and the second half of mine. Watching the second half is better than watching the first half because that’s when our team wins or loses.”

  “When your team wins,” Annika corrected her.

  Izzy gave both of her friends a high five.

  As yesterday had been perfect weather for running, today was perfect weather for softball—not too hot, not too windy, not too anything.

  Izzy was glad that Skipper wasn’t on her softball team; Skipper was playing spring soccer instead.

  In the first inning, Izzy caught a fly ball in the field and hit a single at bat.

  In the second inning, she scooped up a ground ball and threw it to first base in time for an out. She got walked to first base but didn’t have a chance to score a run.

  In the third inning, she didn’t have any fielding action and didn’t get up to bat, either. It was good that her father hadn’t hurried away from Dustin’s game to see her doing big fat nothing.

  In the fourth inning, she caught another pop fly, but she also struck out. Izzy knew that even the greatest hitters in the history of baseball struck out more than they got on base—a lot more. Still, Izzy hated when she swung her hardest, three times in a row, only to connect with air. She was just as glad that her father hadn’t raced there to see her strike out.

  See, she could tell him later, I did save my home run for when you could watch me do it.

  But scanning the bleachers as she took the field for the fifth inning, she still couldn’t spot him anywhere. Nor was he there to see her leap for a hard catch in the sixth inning to retire the side, leaving the game tied 9–9.

  Come on, Daddy! The game only has seven innings! It’s going to be over before you get here!

  In the top of the final inning, Izzy was so busy watching the parking lot next to the field to see if her father’s car was pulling in that she flubbed a catch and let the other team score two runs, increasing their lead from 10–9 to 12–9.

  Izzy’s coach, Coach Dan, one of the other players’ dads, laid a comforting hand on her shoulder as she trudged off the field at the middle of the inning.

  “Don’t take it too hard,” he told her. “Everyone can miss a catch now and then. You’re a terrific outfielder. Just put this behind you and show them at your next at-bat.”

  Izzy tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but it stuck there and wouldn’t go down.

  She didn’t let herself keep scanning the parking lot or the bleachers as she waited to come to the plate. By the time it was her turn, the score was 12–10, with two runners on base.

  Izzy got a strike on the first pitch.

  Concentrate!

  Two balls next. She was proud of herself for watching them go by without taking a swing.

  Then, on the next pitch, she swung and heard the sweetest sound in the world, the sound of a bat connecting squarely with a ball. Thwack!

  As the ball soared into the outfield, Izzy tossed down the bat and ran.

  Around first base.

  Around second.

  She thought she could hear Kelsey and Annika screaming, “Run, run, run, run, run!”

  Around third.

  The other team’s outfielder had finally chased down Izzy’s hit and thrown the ball to the pitcher, who threw it toward home.

  Izzy ran even faster. She reached home plate right as the catcher grabbed the ball in her mitt. Or maybe a split second before?

  “Safe!” she heard the umpire call.

  The other Jayhawks were hugging her, screaming, pounding her on the back. They had won, 13–12, on Izzy’s home run.

  The crowd streamed down from the bleachers to add their hooting and hollering and hugs. Kelsey’s mother hugged Izzy as Annika and Kelsey danced around her, shrieking. All the parents were shouting as loudly as the kids.

  All the parents, except for Izzy’s dad.

  5

  “You’re riding home with us,” Kelsey’s mother said. “Your dad texted to tell me he was running late, and I told him I’d take you with us if he didn’t get here in time.”

  “Thanks,” Izzy said, smiling as if it were completely fine that her father hadn’t been there to see her winning home run.

  At least Kelsey’s mother hadn’t said, Too bad your dad couldn’t make it. Kelsey and Annika didn’t seem to notice the absence of Izzy’s dad at all. They were too busy talking about how amazing the end of the game had been.

  “After that first strike I couldn’t even look,” Kelsey said. “I buried my face in Annika’s shoulder and made her watch for me. Like when I’m reading a scary book, I can’t make myself read the scary parts unless I peek at the ending to make sure it’s all going to turn out okay.”

  “I kept reciting the times tables over and over again in my head,” Annika said. “Seven times six is forty-two. Seven times seven is forty-nine. Seven times eight is fifty-six. To make me less stressed.”

  Kelsey stared at Annika. “That would totally make me more stressed!”

  “Next time, try it,” Annika recommended. “I had gotten up to nine times eight is seventy-two when Izzy hit the ball and started running. And then I cou
ldn’t do any more times tables. I just sat there chanting ‘Run, run, run, run, run!’”

  “Were you dying, wondering if you’d run all those bases only to be tagged out at the very last one?” Kelsey asked Izzy.

  “Nope,” Izzy said. “I knew I had to run faster than I had ever run in my life, so I did.”

  She wouldn’t be able to run that fast for the Franklin School Field Day race or the 10K race. For those races, she’d have to pace herself so she wouldn’t get burned out too quickly. But today, wearing her brand-new shoes, she had tried to run as fast as an Olympic sprinter, like Wilma Rudolph, who won her first gold medal in the 100-meter dash.

  Izzy climbed into the backseat of Kelsey’s mother’s car, glad for the comfort of being sandwiched between her two best friends.

  “Oh, wait,” Kelsey’s mother said. “Here’s your dad’s car now.”

  Izzy’s dad’s blue station wagon, its loud engine racing, pulled up next to Kelsey’s mom’s sedan and screeched to a halt. Slowly, Izzy unbuckled her seat belt and climbed over Annika.

  “Bye, Izzy Barr, softball star!” Kelsey and Annika chorused.

  “Congratulations again on a great game,” Kelsey’s mom said, her voice gentle. Even if she hadn’t said anything out loud about Izzy’s dad missing the game, Izzy could tell she was thinking it now.

  Izzy closed the car door behind her, trying not to let it slam. Her father got out of his car and knelt down beside her, looking up into her unsmiling face.

  “I’m sorry, honey,” he said. But Izzy could tell that he misunderstood the reason for her scowl. “Losing a big game is always rough. But you Hawks should feel mighty proud of yourselves, anyway. Only four teams out of twenty even made it to the playoffs.”

  “We won,” Izzy said, her voice flat and expressionless. “Thirteen to twelve. I hit the home run that made us win.”

  “And I missed it,” he said sorrowfully. “Dustin’s game started late because the other team’s bus broke down on the way, and then the Bolts were behind two to one at the half, and Dustin hurt his ankle, not bad enough for the coach to take him out of the game, but bad enough that I hated to drive off and leave him there. I guess I just figured that…”

  Izzy wondered if he was going to finish the sentence:… an eighth-grade soccer game is more important than a third-grade softball game. He didn’t.

  “That’s okay,” Izzy said, then thought quickly. “It was even better! When I get up at bat and everybody’s watching me, I get more nervous, and then I swing when I shouldn’t, and I strike out. I probably wouldn’t have hit that big home run if you had been there. Really.”

  Izzy could tell from her dad’s face that he was relieved.

  “Do you mean that, honey?”

  Izzy nodded so vigorously that her braids bounced, too.

  “Or running,” she went on. “I run better when I don’t have a lot of people staring at me. It’s easier to concentrate.”

  Now that she had started, she couldn’t stop.

  “So I’ll do better at Field Day on Friday if you don’t come. Not that you could come anyway, because it’s a weekday and you have to work.”

  Although she remembered that he had taken off from work once to go to an away game of Dustin’s.

  “And my 10K race? I’ll run faster if you aren’t there.”

  “Come on now, Izzy Busy Bee,” her dad said then. “You did just fine when I was there at the 10K last year. You won’t even see us in a crowd that big.”

  “Yes, I will! I always know when you’re there!”

  And when you’re not there.

  “Besides,” her father added, “your mom has her heart set on seeing you run into the stadium at the end of your big race.”

  “Mom can still come,” Izzy said. She noticed her dad hadn’t said that he had his heart set on seeing her finish the race. “She doesn’t make me as nervous as you do.”

  A shadow passed over her dad’s face.

  “She just doesn’t.”

  For a moment neither of them said anything.

  Her father broke the silence first. “Well, the 10K race isn’t till Memorial Day. I won’t come if you truly don’t want me there, but tell me if you change your mind, okay?”

  Dustin, who had been sitting in the front seat the whole time listening to music through his earbuds, opened his car door. “Are we going to get some burgers, or not?” he asked. “I’m starving!”

  “I’m starving, too,” Izzy said.

  She didn’t ask Dustin if his team had won. Right then she didn’t care. She climbed into the backseat. Someone had to be the one to sit all alone in the backseat, and somehow that someone always turned out to be her.

  6

  For the rest of the weekend Izzy tried to act happy.

  She acted happy when she went to another friend’s birthday party at the rec center on Saturday afternoon with Annika and Kelsey. At least Skipper wasn’t there. Swooshing down the two huge waterslides, Izzy shrieked louder than anyone.

  She acted happy when she went to a brunch buffet after church on Sunday with her dad, her mom, and Dustin. Dustin ate fourteen sausage links. He said he needed to keep up his strength for his soccer team’s championship game next weekend; it was on the Western Slope of Colorado, a few hours’ drive away. Dustin’s game was the same day as the championship game for Izzy’s softball team.

  Izzy knew her dad had to travel with Dustin’s team. But even if it had been a home game, he might have picked Dustin’s game anyway. Dustin was practically in high school; Izzy had to admit that Dustin’s games were super-exciting. Besides, her dad only got to see Dustin on weekends. When Dustin is here, we’ll play putt-putt, her dad would say. When Dustin is here, we’ll all go on a family bike ride.

  It was a good thing she had told her dad she didn’t want him to come to any of her games ever again.

  Izzy kept smiling brightly as she left her last two sausage links uneaten on her plate.

  She was glad when Monday finally came.

  Kelsey’s mother always drove the three friends to and from school because she was the only stay-at-home parent in the group. The first thing Izzy saw when Mrs. Green dropped them off on Monday was Mr. Boone jogging around the flagpole. He had traded his principal suit and tie for a bright green jogging suit with reflecting silver stripes that reminded Izzy of the silver arrows on her beautiful new running shoes. He had a matching green-and-silver headband, too.

  “Good morning, Izzy—Annika—Kelsey!” Mr. Boone called out, making a big show of gasping for breath as he spoke.

  “Good morning, Mr. Boone!” the girls called back, giggling. It was all right to laugh at Mr. Boone, because it was so clear he wanted them to.

  “We have to go inside and put my old shoes on the shoe tree,” Izzy told her friends.

  The tree stood completely bare, ready to begin receiving donations.

  “You’re going to be the first one!” Kelsey said.

  “Ahead of Skipper,” Annika said.

  “If she even donates her old ones,” Izzy said. Maybe Skipper had a whole room in her house filled with her cast-off shoes: the Skipper Tipton Running Museum.

  Izzy took her dorky shoes out of her backpack. Carefully, she knotted the laces together and hung the shoes over a branch halfway up the tree right in the front.

  “Goodbye, shoes,” she said. She gave them an affectionate little pat so they’d know she was grateful for all the happy miles she had run with them on her feet. But she was glad she had gorgeous new shoes to run with now.

  After morning announcements and math, Mrs. Molina’s class headed outside for P.E.

  Izzy didn’t say anything about her shoes to Skipper or make a big show of tying and retying her laces a hundred times. But Skipper’s eyes fell on Izzy’s feet right away.

  “You got my same shoes!” Skipper cried. “You copied me!”

  Izzy wasn’t sure what to say. She had copied Skipper. But Skipper wasn’t the only girl in the school who could h
ave new blue-and-silver shoes in the nick of time for two big races.

  Luckily, the warm-ups for the opening lap around the track began. Today Skipper finished the course one stride ahead of Izzy—maybe Skipper’s shoes were more broken in now. Cody was only a few paces behind Simon, though both boys finished a good distance behind Skipper and Izzy.

  “Cody’s getting really fast,” Annika said as the girls walked from the track to the high-jump pit. “I bet his time is just two or three seconds behind Simon’s now.”

  Annika loved timing things in the same way she loved measuring things and counting things.

  “Maybe Cody will beat Simon on Friday,” Izzy said.

  “Nobody ever beats Simon,” Kelsey pointed out.

  Well, Annika had beaten Simon in a sudoku contest once, but only because Simon had gotten too busy with all of his other activities even to enter. And Kelsey had tied Simon in a reading contest once, but she had had to read nonstop every day for a month to do it. So Kelsey was right: no one had ever competed directly against Simon in a contest and actually won.

  Plus, Cody had never won anything. He was the worst in the class at reading, math, social studies, science, and paying attention to Mrs. Molina.

  “Maybe you can give him some running tips,” Annika suggested to Izzy.

  “Maybe we can make up a cheer for him,” Kelsey said. Kelsey loved to make up cheers. “Go—go—Go-dy. Go—go—Co-dy.”

  Izzy and Annika exchanged glances. Some of Kelsey’s cheers were better than others.

  “Okay, I’ll keep on trying,” Kelsey said.

  Izzy cleared the high-jump bar easily on her first try. Annika cleared it, too, but Kelsey knocked it down.

  “It’s hard to jump and think up cheers at the same time,” she explained.

  At the start of language arts, Mrs. Molina gave Cody a stern look when he came in last of everyone from the water break. She gave him an even sterner look when he still didn’t have a library book about a famous person for his Famous Footprint report.