by Judy Delton
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Published by
Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers
a division of
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
1540 Broadway
New York, New York 10036
Text copyright © 1995 by Judy Delton
Illustrations copyright © 1995 by Alan Tiegreen
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.
The trademarks Yearling® and Dell® are registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.
eISBN: 978-0-307-83289-4
v3.1
For Ingrid van der Leeden,
who works so hard with me
on the Pee Wees
Contents
Cover
Other Books You Will Enjoy
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
1 Spring Things
2 The VIP
3 Dusting Baseballs
4 Baby Ruth
5 Acting Casual
6 A Pee Wee Error
7 The Real Brett Brady
(And the Real Baby Ruth)
8 The Fat Bat to the Rescue
CHAPTER 1
Spring Things
“It’s not your fault you’re not handicapped,” said Jody George kindly. He looked up at Molly Duff from his wheelchair.
How did Jody know what she was thinking? thought Molly. Was he like the fortune-teller she had seen on TV? He seemed to know that she envied his shiny wheelchair with a motor and brakes.
Molly didn’t actually want to be handicapped, but she did like to ride in Jody’s wheelchair. And he got so much attention! Everyone at the Pee Wee Scout meetings on Tuesdays made a big fuss over him, running and getting him cupcakes and soda pop and pencils. He could do all that himself, but everyone liked to help him. And Jody had great parties at his house. He had his own CD player, and he took lots of trips with his family.
“Let me take a turn pushing him now,” demanded Roger White. He shoved Molly out of the way and grabbed the wheelchair. Mrs. Peters, their Scout leader, frowned at him. “Sit down, Roger,” she said.
Maybe it wasn’t the wheelchair Molly wanted. Maybe it was Jody himself Molly envied. He was kind and generous and funny. And he was rich and got to do things the other Pee Wees didn’t do.
Whatever it was, Molly felt guilty. She had a nice home and good parents who loved her. She had her own little room with a new white canopied bed and a white rocking chair with a ruffle on the seat. It was no wheelchair, but it was more suitable for her bedroom, her mother said.
Mrs. Peters rapped a spoon on the table. “Attention!” she called. “Today we have some news.”
All of the Pee Wees stopped talking.
Roger stopped throwing plastic forks at Tim Noon.
They all sat down in their chairs and looked at Mrs. Peters.
When Mrs. Peters said “news” it could mean a party. Or a field trip. Or best of all, a new badge. Once, while they tried to earn a badge, they got caught in a blizzard and were rescued just in time, before they had to eat each other.
And once Mrs. Peters had told them she was going to have a baby! That was baby Nick, who sat in his high chair at the table with them right now.
But Mrs. Peters didn’t look like she was going to have a baby.
And it was spring, there couldn’t be any blizzard.
“This is sort of two-part news,” she went on.
The Pee Wees cheered. Two-part news was even better than one-part news. Unless, of course, it was one of those “good news, bad news” things.
Rachel Meyers waved her hand. “Mrs. Peters,” she called. “Is it a contest? My cousin’s troop in Wisconsin entered a contest and won a refrigerator.”
When everyone looked at her, puzzled, she added, “It makes these cute little ice cubes and everything.”
“Who wants a refrigerator?” scoffed Roger. “We’ve got a refrigerator.” He pointed upstairs to Mrs. Peter’s kitchen.
“No, Rachel,” said Mrs. Peters patiently. “The news isn’t a contest.”
“I’ll bet it’s the Fourth of July parade,” said Patty Baker. She had a twin brother who was a Pee Wee too. His name was Kenny.
“We had that last year,” said Sonny Stone. “I remember those horses.”
Sonny’s name used to be Betz until his mother married the fire chief, Larry Stone. Now Sonny had a real dad, and two babies, twins, a boy and a girl, who came on a plane from far away. Molly thought a father would help Sonny grow up, but it hadn’t. He was still a mama’s boy. He was the only one with training wheels still on his bike. Seven was too old for training wheels, Molly thought. The kids all laughed at him.
Mrs. Peters laughed. “No, it’s not a parade,” she said. “Today we’ll talk about the first part of the surprise, and that’s about the next badge we are going to earn.”
“Yea!” shouted the Pee Wees. Roger stomped on the floor and whistled between his teeth.
They couldn’t have too many badges, thought Molly. She already had lots of them. Badges for skiing and skating and baby-tending and horseback riding. Badges for acting and walking pets and camping. Even a badge for catching a fish and spotting a groundhog.
“Pretty soon our badges will cover our whole shirt!” said Mary Beth Kelly. She was Molly’s best friend.
“They’ll go up our sleeves!” said Tracy Barnes.
“And down our legs!” shouted Lisa Ronning.
“They’ll be on top of our head,” said Tim Noon.
“How could they be on our head, Noon?” said Kevin Moe. “That’s dumb.”
“Is not,” said Tim.
“Is too,” said Kevin Moe.
Mrs. Peters held up her hand.
“Mrs. Peters, what do we do when we run out of room to sew our badges?” asked Ashley Baker, frowning. Ashley was Patty and Kenny’s cousin from California. She belonged to the Saddle Scouts there. But when she visited her cousins, she was a temporary Pee Wee Scout.
“We’ll worry about that when we come to it,” said their leader. “Right now we just want to think about how we’ll earn this new badge. The badge is for something that happens in the spring. Can you guess what that is?”
The Pee Wees guessed.
“School is out in spring,” said Lisa.
“We don’t get a badge for that,” Tracy said, laughing.
“We should,” grumbled Roger. “It’s the best thing that happens all year.”
“In spring leaves come out on the trees,” said Tim.
“We don’t get a badge for that either,” scoffed Mary Beth.
“A tree should get a badge for that!” Kevin laughed.
Molly thought about spring things. Gardens. Raking. Picnics. Ants.
“Is it an insect badge?” she asked. “Lots of bugs come out in spring.”
“Yuck,” said Rachel. “I definitely don’t want a bug badge.”
The boys started making creepy-crawler motions across the floor and the table. They tried to mak
e bug noises.
“Spring does mean bugs,” laughed Mrs. Peters. “But it is not a bug badge we’re after. I’ll give you a clue. It’s a game. Where people eat hot dogs. And it starts with a B.”
“Bingo!” shouted Sonny.
Everyone laughed and Sonny looked hurt. “Bingo is a game that starts with a B and you eat hot dogs when you play. I’d like to get a Bingo badge.”
“This game is played outdoors,” said Mrs. Peters. “In a park. And sometimes you watch it on TV.”
“It’s baseball,” said Jody. “I’ll bet anything it is.”
“Jody is right,” said Mrs. Peters. “The Pee Wees are going to play ball! It’s going to be ‘batter up!’ for Troop 23!”
CHAPTER 2
The VIP
“I hate sports,” said Rachel. “My dad says there is too much interest in sports in this country.”
“I don’t know how to play baseball,” whined Sonny.
“Everybody knows how to play baseball, dummy,” said Roger. “It’s one of those things you know when you’re born.”
“Sports are dangerous,” said Ashley. “Once our neighbor got hit on the head with a baseball. He had to have stitches and everything.”
A few more of the Pee Wees were complaining, but most of them were cheering.
“You won’t get hurt at our ball game,” said Mrs. Peters. “We will use a softer ball. Pee Wee baseball will be easier than real baseball. And it will be good exercise. It is something we can do outside and we can stretch our muscles and learn a skill at the same time. To earn the badge, you just have to have fun. You’ll play in the game, and you’ll hit the ball.”
Mrs. Peters made it sound simple, thought Molly. Play a game, have fun, hit a ball. But if you couldn’t hit a ball, it wouldn’t be much fun!
“I play baseball all the time,” said Roger. “I’m on a team with my cousins.”
Now Molly began to worry. It sounded like most of the other Scouts knew more about baseball than she did. Roger sure did. And Kevin and Jody were smart at everything. But she was sure her best friend, Mary Beth, didn’t know any more than she did.
“I’ve never played baseball,” Molly confessed to her.
“My family plays on Saturdays when we have family picnics,” Mary Beth said.
Rat’s knees! Even her best friend could play! And even though Rachel and Ashley didn’t like the game, she was sure they could play. They would probably hit a home run! She would be left with Sonny, holding the bat. And holding the wrong end!
“What do we do to get the badge?” asked Rachel. “What is the other part of the news? Part two?”
“The second part,” said their leader, “is to keep a notebook or a scrapbook of baseball trivia. See how much you can find out about the history of the game, or about the players. You can save baseball cards in the book, and anything else you can find. You can go to the library and see if you can scout out facts that no one else knows.”
Some of the Pee Wees were writing all this down in school notebooks, just the way they wrote their homework down. Molly liked lists and she liked notebooks. But she didn’t have to write this down. She’d remember this. This was the easy part. Notebooks were fun, hitting a ball wasn’t.
“I can hit a ball, but I don’t like that stuff about notebooks,” said Tim.
“Neither do I,” said Roger. “I just want to hit a home run over the top of a tree.” Roger swung an imaginary bat at an imaginary ball and spun around like the batters do on TV.
Mrs. Peters was talking about how baseball began. She told them about famous players and record-breaking home runs. She told them about outdoor games and indoor domed stadiums. And then she told them how to play the game.
“The object is to hit the ball and run around the three bases to score a home run,” she said.
She told them about pitching and scoring and strikeouts. And she held up pictures of a baseball field.
But Molly wasn’t paying much attention. She was thinking about her note-scrapbook. She could put more than facts in it. She could draw pictures of baseball players. She could make her book the best one in the troop—the fattest and longest and neatest—and then Mrs. Peters would excuse her from hitting any balls.
“I wish we could either hit the ball or keep a notebook,” said Tracy when Mrs. Peters was through talking. “Instead of doing both of them.”
“I do too,” said Roger.
Most of the Pee Wees wanted the “one thing” to be hitting a ball.
Others like Kevin couldn’t wait to do them both.
But Molly was the only one who only wanted to do the scrapbook.
She wondered how Jody was going to hit a ball. How could he run around bases? Probably the pitcher would throw the ball really slow and right to him. They would make sure he hit it! Molly wished she were handicapped too. She was handicapped when it came to hitting a ball! If she were in a wheelchair, and everyone made a fuss over her, she bet she could hit the ball too. Jody was lucky. Someone would probably even push his chair around the bases. Rat’s knees!
“I have some more news too,” said Mrs. Peters. “This news is even more fun.”
The Pee Wees cheered. Except Molly. She wasn’t going to cheer ahead of time. The news could be some other fun thing that really wasn’t.
“There is a professional baseball player coming to town to scout out players for a new team,” said Mrs. Peters. “He’s retired now, and his name is Brett Brady. He’s going to watch local games and round up talent.”
“Hey, I’ve heard of him!” shouted Roger.
“Well,” Mrs. Peters went on, “he has agreed to come and talk to us about the game while he’s here! He’ll tell us about his experiences playing ball. And he’ll give us some tips.”
“Yea!” shouted the Pee Wees.
“He’s a VIP,” confided Jody.
“What’s a Vip?” whispered Mary Beth to Molly. “One of those things like Dracula that sucks blood?”
“That’s a vampire,” said Molly.
“A VIP means a very important person,” said Ashley. “I know because my uncle is one.”
Rat’s knees, pooh to you, thought Molly.
“I’m sure Mr. Brady will be interesting to listen to,” said Mrs. Peters. “He will help us get our badge, and give us lots of inside information about baseball! And now while we have our cupcakes, let’s talk about good deeds.”
Sonny’s mother went upstairs to get the cupcakes and milk. She was the assistant troop leader.
Molly didn’t want to think about good deeds. It was hard to think about good deeds when she was worried. And part one of this badge was a big worry.
CHAPTER 3
Dusting Baseballs
No one else seemed to have Molly’s problem. They all forgot about baseball and waved their hands in the air to tell about how they flattened soda pop cans and recycled bottles and got cats out of trees and raked their yards. Jody had helped wash windows at his house, but Molly didn’t know how exactly.
“I taught the twins how to read,” said Sonny, with his mouth full of chocolate cupcake. He had a milk mustache.
“You did not,” shouted Kenny. “Those babies are too little to read!”
“Are not,” said Sonny.
“Are too,” said Kenny. “They aren’t even a year old!”
“Well, they look at my books when I hold them up,” said Sonny.
“That’s not reading, dummy,” said Roger.
Mrs. Peters held up her hand for silence.
“It’s not quite reading, perhaps,” she said tactfully, “but it is a good deed to show your brother and sister a book.”
“See?” growled Sonny.
“They just looked at the pictures, that’s all they did,” growled Roger back.
More hands waved. After Mrs. Peters had called on all of them, she said, “Molly, haven’t you got a good deed to report?”
Molly was so surprised to hear her name, she said the first thing that came to her m
ind.
“I dusted the baseballs!” she cried.
Everyone burst into laughter. Even her best friend, Mary Beth!
“I mean baseboards,” she said with a red face. “I dusted the baseboards in the livingroom for my mom. And the table legs.”
Roger stood up and pretended to dust an imaginary baseball with his paper napkin. “Hey, you guys, look how shiny this baseball is!”
Now some of the other Pee Wees were dusting baseballs.
“What’s a baseboard?” frowned Tim.
“Baseboards go around the walls,” said Rachel. “Next to the floor.”
Playing baseball must be a bigger worry than she had thought, for her to say something so dumb! It must have been the first thing on her mind. Molly wanted to get baseballs out of her mind.
Molly noticed that when everyone else laughed at her, Kevin and Jody didn’t. Molly liked them both. She had always planned to marry Kevin when she grew up. When the Pee Wees recycled, she had even made a wedding dress out of an old curtain.
But since Jody joined the Pee Wees, she wasn’t sure about marrying Kevin. Jody was awfully nice too, and awfully smart. She made up her mind not to rush into anything.
The Scouts joined hands and sang their Pee Wee Scout song. Molly loved the song but she didn’t hear many of the words this time. She mostly just heard Roger laughing. Laughing at dusting baseballs. Laughing when she tried to hit a ball in the park.
On the way home, good deeds were forgotten and everyone talked about the VIP.
“I’m going to make sure he sees me play,” said Roger. “Maybe I’ll get chosen for that big-league team he’s scouting for.”
Ashley stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.
“You?” she said, laughing. “It isn’t a Pee Wee team he wants! He’s looking for grown-up players!”
Roger turned red. “I knew that,” he said. “But I’m big for my age.”
That was true, thought Molly. Roger was the tallest Pee Wee Scout. But that didn’t mean he was old enough to play grown-up baseball! He was still only seven!