by Gene Fehler
Dad doesn’t look at us. He just stands by the window, looking into the backyard. “I’m sorry we didn’t get home in time for your game. There’s some macaroni in the fridge that you can microwave. I’m going to go check on your mother.”
He turns and heads toward the bedroom. Before he gets there, I say, “Dad?”
He stops and turns his head.
“Can I just see if Mama’s awake and say good-night?”
Dad smiles. Or at least tries to. It’s not his normal smile.
“It’s best to let her rest. You can tell her about the game tomorrow,” he says. “She’ll be fine.”
But the way he says it doesn’t sound at all convincing.
Three
ginny
Ken and I are sitting in front of the TV eating our microwaved dinner when my cell phone rings.
“Did you win your game?” Ginny asks.
“You should have been there!” Of course I know better than anybody that Ginny and baseball don’t mix. After all, she’s been my best friend for years. We’ve always been in the same classes at school, and we even go to the same church. We’ve been in the same Sunday School classes and youth groups. We do almost everything together.
Except baseball. Even Coach has tried to talk her into playing, but she won’t. I’m going to keep working on her. Ivy and Heather said they’ll keep trying, too. Baseball would be even more fun if Ginny was on the team.
I tell her about that last inning. Everything. How scared I was and then how I felt when I hit the ball and it fell in for a base hit.
“That would have been fun to see,” she says. “Kate Adams, Girl Heroine. Maybe I’ll even come to one of your games sometime.”
“Do you mean it? Ginny Calhoun, at a baseball game?”
“Sure, I don’t mind watching.”
“Hey, maybe there’s hope for you after all.”
Ginny giggles. “I wouldn’t go that far. When it comes to baseball, I’m hopeless. I’ll come only if you promise to be the heroine again.”
“Oh, sure. No problem. I’ll probably get the game-winning hit every time.”
“You’d better. I’m counting on it.”
I take a bite of my microwaved macaroni and cheese and let my thoughts drift back to that moment when I saw the umpire signal “safe.”
“I bet your mother totally flipped out,” Ginny says. “The last time I talked to her she was really excited about you and Ken playing your first game together. I remember how pumped she got during your soccer games last fall. She was the loudest screamer in the crowd.”
“She gets excited all right. But she couldn’t come to the game today. She’s sick.”
“That’s too bad.” I know Ginny means it. That’s one of the things I like best about her: she cares about people. It’s like she actually feels their pain whenever someone around her is hurting. “Tell her I hope she’s feeling better.”
“I will.”
“Did you write your poem yet?” Ginny asks.
“Not yet. How about your monologue? Do you have it memorized?”
“Not quite. It’s a long one. I wish you were in drama. Then we could work together.”
“You know I’m no actress,” I tell her. “But I wish you were in creative writing.”
She laughs. “You know I’m no poet.”
Today was the fourth day of the first week of our three-week session of classes at the Valley Lake School for the Arts. Every June our county has fine arts classes for grades five through eight. Ginny went last year in drama. She’s a really good actress and has been in lots of plays in our town’s children’s theater. She always tells me I should audition. No way. Like I told Ginny, I’m no actress. I’ve helped her rehearse by reading lines with her. I just can’t read them like a real actress does. Not like she does. She actually becomes the character. Me, I’m just reading words. No matter how hard I try, I never get any better. She must know that, but she’s too nice to tell me.
The school has classes in visual arts, music, dance, drama, and creative writing. The classes meet from nine o’clock until three o’clock five days a week. Kids who want to attend have to audition and be selected by the school’s faculty.
Last summer was awful because I didn’t get to see Ginny much for those three weeks. I didn’t audition for anything last year because I wasn’t any good in any of the arts or even interested in them.
But this spring a visiting poet came to our school for one week and taught us about writing poetry. I never knew before how much fun it could be to write poems. He read a lot of his own, and they were easy to understand. Most of them were funny. He read a lot of good poems about sports, too. I liked those the best.
He had us write poems ourselves. I didn’t think I’d be able to, but he showed us lots of ways to get started. He said that getting those first few words on the page is the most important thing. He had us do some activities that made it really easy to write those first words. Like “begin with a place or a time or a person or action or object. Then combine them.” And “think of a person and put the person in a certain place. Have the person doing something.” Things like that. Another one was, “Take an object, something you can actually touch. Have someone do something with that object. Add a time and place.” And he said a poem doesn’t have to rhyme. That made it easier.
He said, “Once you get your poem started, ask ‘What next?’ or ‘What else?’ Before you know it, you have a poem.” I found out that writing a poem isn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Actually, it’s kind of fun.
So this summer I auditioned for creative writing. And got chosen!
In my audition, I had to submit a poem I’d written and then have an interview with the teacher. I guess that was how he determined who really deserved to be in his class. At least he could find out who wanted to be there.
I submitted a poem I wrote about soccer.
Soccer Goalie
In the closing seconds
I crouch on coiled legs,
wait for the corner kick.
I spring like a leopard,
claw autumn’s misty air,
clutch the damp ball,
clench it in cold hands,
skip three steps on soggy ground,
swing my leg into the ball’s flight
and take a tasty bite
of victory’s sweet fruit.
In my interview, Mr. Gallagher, the teacher, really surprised me. He said my poem was “marvelous.” He was really impressed with my strong verbs. He said, “You captured the moment vividly.” Then he asked me about what he called “the process” of writing the poem. I told him about the poet who came to our school and told us we could start with a moment when something happened and then just add details to show what happened during that moment.
Mr. Gallagher said, “Well, you did great. I’m impressed.”
So I guess it was that poem that helped me get in his creative writing class. Even though Ginny and I aren’t in the same classes, we still see each other a lot. We ride the bus and have lunch together. There’s an activity period where we go outside and play volleyball or kickball. And every morning there’s an assembly. A guest artist comes to the school and gives a program or lecture. Ginny and I always sit together.
So even though Ginny isn’t playing baseball, this summer is better than last summer was.
I tell Ginny, “If I’m going to convince Mr. Gallagher that he was right to choose me, I’d better finish my assignment for tomorrow. I still have one poem to write.”
“Okay,” Ginny says. “And congratulations on your game-winning hit.”
“Thanks. I’ll meet you at the bus stop in the morning.”
I go back to the living room, pick up my cold dinner, reheat it in the microwave, and take it to my bedroom. I set it on my desk, open my notebook, pick up a pen, and look at the poem’s first line, which I’ve already written in my notebook:
What I remember most
In class today, Mr. Gallagher had us write
that line. One of our assignments for tomorrow is to write an unrhymed poem at least eight lines long using that as our first line. He told us, “Think of a single event in your life. It can be something that happened at any time in your past—five years ago, last year, last month, just a few days ago, or even today. You can make up details if you want, but you can also describe the moment exactly as it occurred. It doesn’t have to be a big, dramatic event. You can just start writing about the first thing that pops into your mind.”
I know I can do this assignment because it’s a lot like what I did with my soccer poem. Just write about a single moment. So I do what he said. I start writing about the first thing that pops into my head, and the lines start to flow. I don’t even have to think about what to write. My pen seems to move under its own power as it rushes across my paper. I write the final line and read over what I’ve written. I realize that I didn’t even worry about the length, and the poem turned out to be even longer than Mr. Gallagher said it had to be.
What I remember most
is the way my arms felt
when ball hit bat,
the way the ball darted,
like a scared rabbit
toward the outfield,
the way the dust
billowed above home plate,
the way Andy pumped
his arm in the air,
the way the team cheered me
and called me a hero,
and the fact that Mama and Dad
weren’t there to see any of it.
Four
breakfast with mama
I don’t know if it’s the tapping on the door or Mama’s words, but something wakes me from a really good dream—the kind that makes you feel warm inside. I try to hold on to it as long as I can. After the second or third “Kate” I know it’s no use. I’ll never get back to that wonderful dream.
In the few seconds it takes me to answer Mama’s “Time to get up” with “Okay, Mama,” I can’t even remember what the dream had been about. It was probably something that would have made a good poem or story, but it’s gone now.
I wonder if that happens to other people, getting pleasant dreams interrupted right in the best parts and not being able to finish them. Ginny claims she doesn’t dream much, but I can’t believe that. How can someone not dream? It seems like almost every night I have one dream right after another all night long. When I don’t dream, I wake up in the morning feeling a little bit disappointed. To me, the best thing about sleeping isn’t even the rest I get, it’s the dreams. It’s like watching a movie or even reading a story, but without doing the work it takes to actually read a story.
I just wish scientists could find a way to videotape dreams so we could have a permanent record of them. I keep my notebook right next to my bed, and once in awhile I’ll grab my pen the second I wake up and scribble out some words or details of the dream so I’ll be able to remember it longer. I’m not very good at doing it, though. The details of my dreams always fade after a few seconds. I usually end up with a couple of words or sentences that really don’t make much sense when I read them a day or two later. Sometimes I can’t even read my scribbling.
A dream is a lot like eating orange sherbet; it’s sweet and pleasant and you want the taste to last and last, but it’s gone too soon. Nothing is left except the memory that once upon a time something really tasty had been there.
I slip into my summer school clothes—loose fitting denim shorts and a white t-shirt, sneakers, and white socks. The temperature is supposed to be in the low nineties. The director of our school told us we could dress comfortably, as long as we dress tastefully. By “tastefully” she means don’t show too much skin and don’t wear clothing too tight or with dirty words written on it. Even if I wanted to dress that way, which I don’t, Mama and Dad would never permit it, so the school’s dress code really isn’t a problem for me.
Mama is standing at the kitchen counter. My breakfast is waiting for me—a bowl of cold cereal with a sliced banana, orange juice, and a glass of milk. I pour half the milk into my bowl of cereal. Soggy cereal is really gross, so whenever Mama has breakfast waiting for me, she makes it a point to let me pour the milk into the bowl myself.
“Hi, Mama. Are you feeling better?”
She smiles. “I am, honey. Thanks.” Her eyes have hints of red in them. She looks tired.
“Are you going in to work today? You look like you could use some more sleep.”
She pours herself a cup of coffee and sits at the table. “I look that bad?” She says it in a teasing way, and I can’t help but smile.
“You never look bad, you know that. You do look tired, though.”
“I guess I didn’t sleep well,” she says. She butters some toast, but doesn’t eat it. She just stares at it for a moment. “I’ll be going to work, same as always, as soon as the bus picks you up. Mr. Randolph’s office would fall apart without me there. You know how it is. Ken’s the only one lucky enough to sleep late, now that you have to get up early for your class.”
She motions toward the toast. “You want some?”
I shake my head. “Has Dad left already?”
“About twenty minutes ago.”
I glance at my watch. I still have plenty of time before I have to walk to the bus stop. “I think you should make Ken get up, too,” I say. “I bet there are plenty of chores for him to do while we’re all out working so hard.”
“Oh, are they working you hard?” There’s a twinkle in her eyes. She doesn’t seem to be sick. I’m so glad. I was worried about her. I don’t remember her ever being too sick to say good-night to me. Until last night.
“In last night’s game I could hardly hold the bat, my hand was so stiff from all the writing that Mr. Gallagher has us do.”
“Your hand must not have hurt too badly. Your father told me that you got the game-winning hit. I wish I could have seen it. I’m so proud of you. I can imagine how exciting it must have been.”
“Oh, it was! Remember, you told us about the time you won the conference tennis championship in a tie-breaker that lasted forever. And how exciting that was. 15 – 13, wasn’t it? But I bet I was even more excited about my hit than you were about winning that championship.”
Mama smiles. Then she gets this faraway look in her eyes. It’s like she’s looking past me, maybe back to that tennis match. She blinks hard a couple of times, then looks back at me. “I’m glad,” she says.
“Who knows, maybe I’ll have another chance. It’s a long season. Thirteen more games. I was talking to Ginny last night and she said she might even start coming to some of them.”
Mama gets up from the table and carries her plate to the dishwasher. “That would be nice. She’s not much of a baseball fan, is she?”
“No, but Ivy and Heather and me are still trying to talk her into playing. Coach says he’ll find room for her if she wants to play.”
Mama sits back down across from me. I can tell she didn’t get much sleep. She has the prettiest green eyes. But today there’s still that touch of redness in them. Not as red as her hair, though. Mama is so pretty with her green eyes and red hair. I’ll never be as pretty as she is, but I’m so lucky I have hair like hers.
I know some girls who say they wish they weren’t redheads. I don’t understand how they can’t not love their red hair. Just looking at Mama makes me feel good about myself, knowing I look a lot like her.
“Ginny’s played before, hasn’t she?” Mama said. “Don’t you play at school, in P.E.?”
“I think that’s why she hates baseball.”
“Why is that? She’s a good athlete. I know she can handle herself on the tennis court. I’m sure she’d be good at baseball, too.”
“I know. I think she’s afraid she’ll get hit by the ball again.”
Mama breaks into a smile. “Oh, that’s right. I remember.”
“I don’t think Ginny will ever forget. We were playing in P.E. and the ball hit her right in the mouth. It gave he
r a bloody lip, and her mouth was swollen for a couple days.”
“I shouldn’t laugh,” Mama says, but I can see she’s working hard not to. “I know it wasn’t funny to Ginny. But I remember it was the day of your class play. She had the lead.”
“Right. And she still says it was one of the worst days of her life. She had to say all her lines through puffy, swollen lips. She was totally embarrassed by how bad she looked, and she didn’t think anybody in the audience would be able to understand what she was saying. She felt like she had a mouthful of cotton.”
“She did great, though.”
“She sure did.” I glance at my watch. In fifteen minutes the bus will come. It’s only a three or four minute walk to the bus stop, but Ginny and I always like to be a little early. I take a final big swallow of orange juice. “She thinks she did awful, though, and she blames baseball for it.”
Mama reaches over and touches my hand. “You’ve got your work cut out for you, I guess, if you’re going to convince Ginny that baseball is fun and safe.”
It seems like my morning is never really off to a good start until I feel Mama’s touch, when she gives me a hug or touches my hand. This day is off to a great start.
“I guess,” I say. “But I like challenges.”
“I know you do.” Mama’s voice softens, and the smile leaves her face. “Challenges make us stronger people. Better people.” She quickly wraps both her hands around her coffee cup and says, “Almost time for your bus. You’d better hurry.”
“Are you okay, Mama?”
“I’m fine. You have fun at school today. Write something beautiful.”
“I’ll try.”
Maybe today I’ll write something I’ll be able to let Mama read. I don’t dare show her the poem I wrote last night, the “What I remember most” poem. It would make her feel even worse about missing our game.
Five
mr. gallagher’s class
When school’s over at three o’clock half of us rush out to the bus. The rest are picked up by a parent. I sit with Ginny on the bus and tell her how much fun it was today in Mr. Gallagher’s class.