“He’s not freaking out at all,” he replied. “I think he’s channeling his energy, focusing it so he can get the next batter out.”
Sure enough, three pitches later, Carter had added another strikeout to his growing tally and brought the top of the inning to a close.
Mid-Atlantic 4, Australia 3. When Mid-Atlantic didn’t add a run their turn at bat, that’s what the scoreboard said at the end of the fourth inning, too. Carter and his teammates held off a scoring threat late in the fifth to keep their one-run lead, but they didn’t widen the margin their turn at bat. Australia came up to bat in the top of the sixth with every chance in the world of tying the game and even taking the lead.
On the Hill, Liam tightened his hands into fists and began to pound them on his thighs. “Carter. Carter. Carter.” He kept his chant very low; yelling it would have been unsportsmanlike.
Carter leaned in and took the signal. He wound up, reared back, and threw. The batter swung. Missed.
“Strike one!”
The batter nicked the next pitch, but the ball danced outside the first-base line for strike two. He fanned the third for strike three.
“Two more to go, dork. You got this,” Liam mumbled.
But the next batter got a single. And the third clipped a pitch and sent it bouncing toward shortstop.
Now Liam did raise his voice. “Go, Raj! Go!” he screamed.
Raj scooped up the ball and sent it to Freddie at second.
“Out!” the umpire cried, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.
The batter sprinted full tilt. Freddie threw to Keith at first. The ball hit Keith’s outstretched glove. The batter’s foot touched the base. But which happened first?
A hush fell over the stadium as thousands of spectators waited for the call. Liam’s heart drubbed once. Then—
“Out!”
Final score: Mid-Atlantic 4, Australia 3.
Liam wished he could swarm the field and join the celebration. He would have given a lot to circle the bases with Carter in the traditional World Series victory lap. But he settled for jumping up and down and bellowing at the top of his lungs.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
Hey, dork, you come down off cloud nine yet?”
Carter turned to see Liam hurrying across the rec room toward him. He grinned. “Not yet, but maybe on the ride home I will!”
It was Monday morning. The teams still in Williamsport were packing up and preparing to depart for home. As wonderful an experience as the World Series had been, Carter had to admit he was looking forward to sleeping in his own bed that night. After all, it had been nearly a month since he’d done so!
Still, he wouldn’t have traded his summer for any other. Winning the World Series had been magical, a dream come true. The hours after the World Series win had been an absolute whirlwind of congratulations from family and friends, interviews with the press, and celebrations with his teammates. But for Carter, the win had been the icing on the cake that was playing baseball.
Once the postgame craziness died down, Carter asked his team host if he could see Jon Burns. He wanted to be sure to offer his compliments to the boy and his teammates before they left the country.
“I’m not gonna lie to you, Carter,” Jon said when they met. “I wanted to win something fierce. But I’m glad we lost to you.”
“Really? Why?”
Jon laughed. “Because Mid-Atlantic is a great team. And even better, you’re great guys; well, the ones I’ve met, anyway.”
Carter flushed, pleased but a little embarrassed, too. “Thanks, man.”
“To be honest, I was a bit gobsmacked to even be here,” Jon added. “This has been the most incredible journey ever. I’m not talking just about playing ball. Meeting so many people from so many different countries… it’s changed the way I look at the world, you know? Now when I hear about stuff happening in Mexico, or Canada, or the Netherlands, or anywhere in the U.S., I’ll have faces to put with the places. It makes the countries more real somehow.”
Carter nodded. He knew just what Jon meant and agreed with him one hundred percent.
Jon grinned with pride. “World travelers and top of the Internationals! Are we going home with the World Series title? No. Are we going home winners? Too right we are!”
Then he invited Carter to find him online so they could stay in touch. “And if you ever come Down Under, you’ve got a place to stay!”
Carter extended the same invitations to Jon. As he watched the big blond boy saunter off, he wondered if he would ever see him again in person.
Now it was Monday morning, and Carter had been wondering if he’d see Liam before he left Williamsport. That’s when Liam had called his name.
“When do you guys take off?” he asked.
“The bus leaves pretty soon,” Carter replied. “So I guess this is good—”
“Carter!” A shout from Phillip interrupted them. Phillip came running up. Panting, he thrust a bag at Carter and said, “This is for you.”
“What is it?”
Phillip rolled his eyes. “Duh, look inside and find out.”
Carter pulled out a T-shirt and held it up by its edges. His eyes widened. “It’s from this year’s baseball camp.”
“How’d you get that?” Liam asked.
“Mr. Matthews helped me find one,” Phillip replied. He tapped the shirt’s shoulder. “There’s an inscription.”
Scrawled on the cloth was a handwritten message. Carter read it out loud. “To Carter, who can throw a great knuckleball, from Phillip, who can be a real knucklehead.”
Carter didn’t say anything else for a long moment. Then he started chuckling. His chuckle turned into a full laugh.
“Thanks, man,” he managed to say. He flung the shirt over his shoulder and put out his hand.
Phillip shook it. “Oh, and just one more thing,” he said with a grin. “Congratulations on winning the World Series.”
“Thanks,” Carter said again. “I wish we could have all won but—”
Phillip cut him off. “Dude, it’s okay. I won last year, remember? Besides, my World Series was made the minute I met Nathan Daly! Not that I would have minded another victory, but—man, how awesome was that night at the restaurant? And how about just being in Williamsport in the first place?” He left then with a last backward wave and a smile.
Carter turned back to Liam. His smile faded. “So,” he said, stabbing his toe at the ground.
“So. Guess I’ll see you around,” Liam replied.
“Not if I see you first.”
“Dork.”
“Doofus.”
The boys hugged tightly. Then Liam left, too.
Five hours later, Carter stepped through the front door of his house and gave a huge sigh. His mother came up from behind and brushed her fingers lightly over his head. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Just happy to be home.”
Mr. Jones took his suitcase from him. “Head on upstairs. I’ll take care of this.”
“And I’ll bring you something to eat. But first, I think I see someone coming who missed you a whole lot!”
Carter looked over his shoulder and grinned. Coming up the walkway was Rachel Warburton. Lucky Boy was at her side. When the dog saw Carter, he pulled free and raced the rest of the way to the house. Carter knelt and buried his face in the warm fur.
“Welcome home,” Rachel said warmly.
“Thanks. You want to come in?”
“Can’t. But I’ll see you soon.”
Carter did see Rachel soon—and tons of other people from Forest Park, too, at a town-wide celebration at the Diamond Champs the next afternoon. Mrs. LaBrie had organized the whole thing, from balloons to refreshments to a temporary stage for the players and coaches to use for speeches.
“Did you know about this?” Carter asked Ash as they made their way through the crowd to join their teammates on the stage.
“No,” Ash said. “It was a total surprise!”
&nbs
p; Something occurred to Carter. “Hey,” he said excitedly. “Maybe this is the surprise your mom was talking about! Maybe you aren’t moving after all!”
Ash didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t have time to argue as his mother had taken the microphone and was beckoning him to come forward.
“As most of you know,” Mrs. LaBrie said to the crowd gathered in front of them, “Ash and I moved here less than a year ago. We’ve been very happy here and are so pleased that this facility”—she indicated the Diamond Champs—“has become a favorite of so many. That being said, it has been a challenge running it single-handedly. So it’s time for a change.”
Ash threw a wretched look at Carter. Here it comes, his look seemed to say.
Suddenly, there was a murmur at the back of the crowd. The people parted. A tall blond man strode toward the stage. Even before Carter heard Ash gasp, he realized who it was.
“Dad!” Ash hurled himself off the stage and into his father’s arms.
“Ladies and gentlemen, in case you haven’t figured it out, that man is my husband, Andrew LaBrie. You’ll be seeing a lot of him from now on because he’s come home to stay.”
Ash’s jaw dropped. “You have? We’re—we’re not moving? But what about your job with the military?”
Mr. LaBrie laughed. “I’ll explain all that later. But to answer your question: I’m the only one moving, and the only place I’m moving to is right here.”
Carter had been overjoyed when Mid-Atlantic won the World Series. But he was pretty sure the happiness he saw on Ash’s face at that moment was almost greater. Almost.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
Liam opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. It was the first time in a long time he’d looked at that particular patch. If he looked closely enough, he could see the faint mark he’d left there more than a year ago when he’d been hurling a small pink rubber ball at the spot.
It was Christmas morning. He was in the top bunk in Carter’s bedroom. Below, he could hear Carter breathing deeply, so he knew his cousin was still fast asleep. He laced his fingers beneath his head and thought about everything that had happened since he’d last slept in this bed: moving to California, meeting Sean and Rodney, making things right with Phillip, going to the World Series…
Carter’s door creaked open. Liam looked over to see a small black-and-tan dog nose its way inside. He grinned. “Hey there, Lucky Boy,” he whispered. Lucky Boy trotted to the bed, tail wagging madly, and began licking Carter’s face.
“Eeesh! Cut it out, cut it out!” Carter rasped, his voice thick with sleep.
“Shhh,” Liam warned. “You’ll wake me up!”
Carter chuckled. “Merry Christmas, doofus!”
“Merry Christmas, dork!”
Twenty minutes later, they’d roused the rest of the household. Now everyone was gathered in the Joneses’ living room by the tree, opening presents. Liam and Carter had two special cards waiting for them. One was from Jon Burns, the boy from Australia.
“Merry Christmas from Oz!” Jon’s message read. “Don’t spend this all in one place! Ha-ha!”
Inside the card were two identical coins. On one side was a profile of the queen of England, Elizabeth II. On the other was the image of a swimming platypus with 20 stamped over it, indicating the silver coin was worth twenty Australian cents.
“Cool!” Liam and Carter exclaimed together.
“Did you send him something?” Melanie asked.
“We mailed him two state quarters,” Carter replied. “California and Pennsylvania. We sent the same thing to Kita Hiro in Japan, too. It was Liam’s idea.”
“Nice!” Melanie nodded approvingly.
The boys opened the card from Kita next. Two more coins dropped out. Liam gave one to Carter and examined the other.
The coin was a fifty yen piece. It had chrysanthemum flowers on one side and Japanese symbols and numbers on the other. But the most interesting thing was the single hole punched out of the center.
“Kita says the flower is an important symbol in Japan,” Carter said, reading the letter, “and that the hole is to help vision-impaired people identify the coin.”
Everyone admired the international coins and cards, then returned to their own gifts.
Liam had just unwrapped a new book by his favorite sports author when his mother handed him a small package. She handed an identical one to Melanie.
“Open them together,” she requested. She down next to her husband and leaned against him, smiling.
Liam pulled off the bow, tore the paper, and lifted the lid from a small white box. Inside was a key. He held it up and looked at his parents, puzzled. Melanie looked equally confused.
“I know this isn’t a car key,” she said. “So what does it go to?”
Mr. McGrath pointed out the side window of the living room. “That.”
Liam stared out the window. “All I see is Mrs. Webber’s house,” he said.
“That’s right,” Mrs. McGrath said. “Only it’s not Mrs. Webber’s anymore.”
Liam’s heart skipped a beat. He looked at the key in his hand and then back to the house. “So who owns it now?”
His parents smiled. “We do,” his mother replied. “Or we will,” she amended, “at the end of June.”
“I don’t understand,” Melanie said, her brow furrowed.
“I do!” Liam shouted. “We’re moving back here, aren’t we?”
Melanie’s eyes widened. “Is that true?”
Mrs. McGrath nodded happily. “Right after the school year,” she said. “Turns out there’s a big demand for eco-friendly playground equipment on the East Coast. My company decided to open a branch here. They asked me to run it. I said yes.”
Liam barely heard the explanation. He was too busy absorbing the fact that—
“You’re moving back!” Carter tackled him, laughing joyfully.
“Now that’s what I call a Christmas present!” Liam cried as he tumbled to the floor. Then he glanced at Melanie. She had been thrilled to move to California. “Hey, you’re okay with this, aren’t you?”
Melanie smiled broadly. “Are you kidding? Of course I am!” She turned to her parents. “Now if I get into the film school in New York City, you guys will be right here instead of across the country!”
“Film school? I thought you wanted to be an actor!” Liam asked. He knew his sister, who was going to be a senior in high school, had been looking at a lot of colleges, but he hadn’t really paid attention to which ones she was interested in.
“I like acting,” she said, “but turns out I like being behind the camera even more. I found that out this summer while I was making my Little League film. Speaking of which…” She got up and put a gift bag in Liam’s hands. “Here’s your copy.”
Liam peeked at the DVD inside the bag. “We’ll watch this later, after presents, okay?”
And that’s what they did. Liam loved every minute of it and told his sister so. She blushed at the compliment but couldn’t stop smiling.
Later in the day, Rachel and a few boys came over to see Liam. After making fun of his longer hair—“Dude, what happened to your crew cut? You look all California!”—and eating Christmas cookies, they trooped down to the basement for some Ping-Pong.
That evening, Liam and Carter video-chatted in Carter’s bedroom with Rodney and Sean. True friends that they were, they told Liam how happy they were for him about the move. “At least we’ll get one more season of baseball with you, and this year it’ll be Junior Division!” Rodney pointed out. “But what’ll you do if you’re named to the Ravenna All-Stars again?”
“Guess I’ll just give my spot to Sean,” Liam joked.
Sean puffed out his chest. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m planning to earn one for myself.”
They ended the chat session soon after that and went downstairs. Carter grabbed Lucky Boy’s leash and held it up for Liam to see. “Feel like taking a walk?”
“As long as you d
on’t clip that to my collar,” Liam said, “sure.”
Carter told their parents what they were doing, found a flashlight, and called for Lucky Boy. By unspoken agreement, they headed for the path in the woods behind Carter’s house. Ten minutes later, they reached the hideout.
“Looks pretty much the same,” Liam said. “Think the box is still there?”
Carter crawled inside and dragged out a dark green plastic box. “Yep.” Inside the box were old beach towels and two more flashlights. They spread out the towels and lay down. Nose to the ground, Lucky Boy went in search of smells.
Liam rested his head on his hands and stared up through a gap in the trees to a patch of stars. His breath came out in frosty puffs. “Hey, dork,” he said after a long silence.
“Yeah, doofus?”
“I’m moving back this summer.” He sat up. “You know, we’ve still got a lot of Little League seasons ahead of us. There’s Fall Ball next September, and then it’s onto the Intermediate Division. After that, Junior Division. From there, we’ll go to the Senior League and then the Big League. We’ll both get on the All-Star teams and reach the World Series for all of them. No, not just reach them—win them!”
Carter laughed. “One step at a time, doofus!”
“Dork,” Liam replied, grinning broadly. “With you and me teamed up again, we’re going to go all the way!”
“And don’t forget Ash, and Charlie M., and—” Carter started to add.
“Yeah, yeah, everyone and anyone who’s a player! We’d be unstoppable!”
He lay back down and held up a fist. Carter did the same. And lying together beneath the Christmas night sky, they fist-bumped three times.
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