by Bobbie Pyron
But this time, something felt different. He paid no attention as Jinx Malloy grinned like a cat about to eat a wingless canary. He didn’t listen as his teammates muttered, “It’s all over now,” and gathered up their books and packs.
No, he paid no mind to any of this. All he was aware of under that April sun was the conversation between the ball being smacked against Jinx’s glove and the bat fairly dancing with anticipation in his good hand.
Nate unhunched his shoulders, stood up straight as an arrow, and grinned right back at Jinx. “Show me what you got,” he called.
He didn’t even remember swinging the bat. The next thing he knew, he heard a crack! loud as a Fourth of July firecracker. The ball sailed higher and higher in the sky, over Jinx Malloy’s upturned face, over the first baseman and the outfielders. It hovered there for a second as if trying to make up its mind what to do.
“The ball got a second wind, I guess,” he later told Gen. It gathered itself up and sailed on over the chain-link fence and out of sight. Later, folks claimed it was that same baseball that broke out the windshield of the brand-new 1992 red Ford pickup in the Crystal Sands New and Used Cars lot.
“Run, Sparky! Run!” Ricky Sands hollered.
Nate dropped the bat and sprinted from base to base, his grin getting bigger with every sandbag he passed. Jinx threw her hat and her glove to the ground. By the time he strutted home, everyone on his team was clapping and chanting, “Spark-y! Spark-y!” There were high fives all around. Nate puffed out his scrawny chest. Being lucky sure felt good.
“I’m telling you, Gen,” he said as they walked to their bus after school. “It was like magic. It was like someone had cast a spell over that ball and bat.”
She rolled her eyes. “There’s no such thing as magic, and you know it.”
“Yeah but —”
Gen ignored him. “It’s not beyond the realm of possibility you could hit a home run.”
He was just about to remind her he’d rarely hit a ball at all, much less a home run with one hand, when someone called his name.
“Hey, Sparky,” Ricky Sands said, clapping him so hard on the shoulder, he stumbled. “A bunch of us are getting up a baseball game over at Billy Bowlegs Park. Want to come?”
Nate’s mouth fell open. No one had ever invited him to do anything after school. No one except Gen, that is.
Nate looked from Ricky to Gen. “I, uh, I mean …”
Ricky gave Nate a shake. “Don’t know what kind of magic possessed you out on the baseball field today, Sparky, but let’s see if you’ve still got it.”
Gen pushed her tilty glasses up on her nose and frowned. “Nathaniel and I have to pass out the Turtle Rules today,” she said, not looking at Ricky or Nate, but at the space between them.
Ricky snorted. “Let’s see. Your choices are to play baseball with us or go with her.” He snorted again. “Tough choice, Sparks.”
Gen frowned. “I beg to differ. Nathaniel is well aware of the gravity and importance of making sure the beaches are copacetic for the needs of the loggerhead turtles.”
“Whoa.” Ricky held up his hands to stop the onslaught of words. “I don’t know what the heck you’re yammering on about, Brainiac, but I’m talking baseball here.”
Gen stepped closer to Nate. “Nathaniel appreciates how important the return and survival of the turtles is — much more so than some game.” She looked at him. “They need us, right?”
Nate looked from Gen to Ricky, from Ricky to Gen.
“You’re a weirdo,” Ricky said. Pointing at Nate, he said, “And you’re even more of a loser than I thought if you want to hang out with her and a bunch of turtles.”
Ricky strode off through the crowd.
“Well, enough of that dunderhead,” Gen said. “Let’s divide up the flyers and —”
“Jeez Louise, Gen!” Nate exploded.
Gen took a step back.
“Why can’t you just once act like a normal person?”
And before Gen could answer, he sprinted off. “Wait up, Ricky,” he cried. “Wait for me!”
Gen’s eyes swam behind her glasses. Her nose dripped. One hand worked at an eyebrow while the other hand stroked the face of Albert Einstein. Never, ever, in all the years she had known Nate Harlow, had he yelled at her.
She climbed the steps into the bus and took the very last seat in the back. The seat she always sat in with Nate. She looked out the nose-smudged windows. There, just there, she saw him: Nate trotting beside Ricky Sands, trying his level best to keep up with the taller boy’s long strides. Ricky said something and elbowed Nate in the side. Nate laughed and glanced back toward the school bus.
He had deserted her.
Gen watched him grow smaller and smaller as the bus left school and boy behind. Her heart was as heavy as the Beam family Bible locked away in her great-grandmother’s cedar chest.
She leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes. Why had he gone with Ricky Sands when they always handed out the Turtle Rules together? He knew it was important. And why had he yelled at her and said that thing about acting like a normal person? She was being who she had always been, and he’d always understood. They’d always stuck together through thick and through thin, no matter what.
She gazed into the wide, surprised eyes of Albert Einstein on the back of her pack. She understood advanced physics and the finer points of trigonometry, but she would never understand the workings of people’s emotions.
Gen’s mama set out a plate of cookies and a glass of milk for her daughter. She sat down across the small kitchen table from her and asked what she always did: “How was your day, sugar?” Mrs. Beam folded her hands and waited for the usual complaints about the questionable quality of public education and the lack of edible choices in the cafeteria.
Instead, Gen asked, “Mama, do you believe in luck?”
Mrs. Beam blinked in surprise. She smoothed her dark hair and said, “Why, that’s an interesting question, honey. I’m not sure…. Your father says everything is God’s will and part of God’s plan. And my mama said everything happens for a reason….” Her voice trailed off. “On the other hand, it does sometimes seem like some folks are just born lucky and others are born unlucky.”
“Like Nathaniel,” Gen said. Before her mama could answer, she said, “Nathaniel says ever since he got struck by lightning, his luck has changed. He thinks he’s gone from unlucky to lucky.”
“Hmmm … ,” Mrs. Beam said.
“I keep telling him there’s no such thing as luck, good or bad,” she said, without her usual conviction. “Although,” she mused, “it is an interesting theory, and it does seem things have been going his way.”
“Really?”
“But that could just be self-fulfilling prophecy, couldn’t it, Mama? I mean, because he thinks he’s lucky, he has succeeded more, right?”
“Well, that could be, honey. Maybe he’s gotten more self-confidence because he believes his luck has changed, and you and I both know Nate’s never had an abundance of self-confidence. But on the other hand, how do you prove the difference between the power of belief and the magic of luck?”
Gen’s eyes widened. She jumped up from the table, knocking her chair backward. “That’s it, Mama! Why didn’t I think of that myself? Every scientific theory must be tested, retested, and proved.” She threw her arms around her mother’s neck. “You’re a genius, Mama!”
On Friday, the bandages came off once and for all.
“Well,” said Dr. Silverstein, “it could look a lot worse, Nate. Those doctors over at the Panama City Hospital know their stuff.”
Nate gaped at the marks left behind by the lightning strike. Thin red lines snaked and swirled like vines from his wrist up his skinny forearm.
His grandpa reached out a finger to touch the boy’s arm, then thought better of it. “Does it hurt?”
“Not exactly,” he said. “Sometimes it feels like bees buzzing under my skin, though.”
; Dr. Silverstein peered at the outline of the seams of the golf club grip burned forever into Nate’s palm. He squinted at two letters below the seams. “Looks like an L and a Y.” He shook his head. “Amazing what lightning will do, isn’t it?”
Nate shivered and smiled. “Yes sir.”
Grandpa slipped Nate’s shirt over his shoulders. “Boy seems to get cold a lot,” he said to the doctor. “Even when it’s hot outside.”
“Not surprised,” Dr. Silverstein said as he rubbed a fishy-smelling salve over the scars. “Even though the lightning didn’t go through you, it can still play havoc on all the body’s systems. You still having bad headaches?” the doctor asked.
Nate was indeed still plagued by headaches (and wished almost every day he hadn’t lost his red tennis shoe), but he figured it was a small price to pay for all the good luck he’d had since that fateful day. “No sir,” he said. “Hardly ever.”
Grandpa reached out his hand to help him off the examining table. He grabbed his grandfather’s wrist and climbed down.
Later that day, Nate and his grandfather walked down to the docks to watch the shrimp boats come in from the Gulf to the bay. Paradise Beach was, in fact, a peninsula cradled between the Gulf of Mexico and Apalachicola Bay. Twelve miles long and three miles wide, it stuck out from the mainland like a thumb trying to hitch a ride from a passing hurricane.
Between their trailer and the docks, Nate snapped photos of one pink plastic sandal (child size), one white patent leather shoe with a gold buckle (baby doll size), and a loafer (adult size). A lucky stretch for shoe photos.
Mayor Barnacle Bill sat on the sun-warmed planks, his wet black nose searching the salty, fishy breeze. “Evening, Mayor,” Grandpa said with a nod.
Nate sat down next to the mayor and slid an arm around the dog’s shoulders.
“Hi, Barney,” he said, rubbing the old dog’s ears. The mayor gave him a lick on the nose.
The three sat in easy silence, thinking about fish and shoes and the goodness of the day.
After a bit, Mayor Barney rose and shook off his contemplation. Grandpa stood and glanced at his watch. “Reckon it’s time we head on over for the town hall meeting.” Then he looked at his watch again. “Well, I’ll be dipped and fried,” he said.
“What is it?”
“My watch,” Grandpa said, shaking his head in disbelief. “It’s working!”
Which is something watches should do. But Grandpa’s watch hadn’t worked in the thirteen years since Nate’s grandma Jodie had died. Still, he wore that watch because she had given it to him.
Nate remembered feeling the smooth face of the watch beneath his fingers as he held on to his grandpa’s wrist in the doctor’s office. He smiled up at his grandpa. “That sure is lucky, huh?”
Grandpa shook his head in wonder. “Think Reverend Beam would qualify it as a miracle?” he asked as the mayor escorted them to the town hall.
Paradise Beach’s town hall had once been a grand affair with marble floors, tall leaded glass windows, and an elaborate punched-tin ceiling. Rich mahogany handrails sashayed alongside the stairs that had once led to the spacious rooms upstairs. Back when Paradise Beach had been a bustling fishing port and its forests yielded turpentine, this building was the center of a very busy hive.
Now the town hall was a mere shadow of its former self. The marble floors were scratched and dull, and some of the windows were boarded over. The spacious rooms above made a fine home for seagulls and cormorants in the winter. Still, it was a busy place. It not only served as the town hall, but also as the volunteer fire department. Anyone who had cause to hold a monthly meeting held it there, and the cavernous basement was the safest place during a hurricane or tornado — something that gave the old building a measure of comfort and pride.
Nate and his grandfather took seats next to Reverend Beam and Gen. Nate had never seen so many people at a town hall meeting before. Mr. Billy, the unofficial keeper of the town hall (as well as traffic director), brought out more folding chairs.
Nate leaned across his grandfather and said above the noise, “Gen, what the heck are you doing here?” He couldn’t remember another time Gen had come to a town council meeting.
Gen held up her Turtle Rules flyers and frowned. “Since you were too busy to help me hand them out, I have to do it here.”
A finger of guilt tapped Nate on the shoulder. He had, in fact, left Gen high and dry that afternoon. But he’d hit not one but two home runs, and they hadn’t even put him in the outfield. He wiggled in his seat with pleasure from the memory.
Councilman Lamprey, flanked on either side by the six other council members, tapped his pen on his water glass. “Can I have your attention, please?”
No one listened.
Nate’s grandpa put two fingers to his lips and let out a high, earsplitting whistle. Mayor Barney barked. The room fell silent.
“Thank you, Jonah, Mr. Mayor,” Councilman Lamprey said. Ricky Sands’s daddy, who sat just to the left of Councilman Lamprey, rolled his eyes.
“Before we begin tonight’s meeting, we are fortunate, as always, to have Miss Lillian inspire us with her latest musings.” He held out a hand to a tiny woman, no bigger than a minute, clutching a sheaf of papers to her chest.
Miss Lillian skittered tentatively to the front of the room. Her white stockinged legs stuck out like pipe cleaners beneath her faded flowered dress. She ducked her head up and down between her shoulders as she peered out at the faces gathered before her. To Nate, she looked for all the world like one of the little sandpipers down on the beach.
Miss Lillian fluffed her feathers and cleared her throat. Her paper-thin voice quavered as she read “Consider the Improbable Pelican.” Her bright eyes darted above the paper trembling in her hand.
Oh consider the improbable pelican
as it sails o’er the wind and sea.
His bill doth be too largish for his head;
one might say he lacks a certain symmetry.
He is but an ordinary brown,
he sports no fancy plumage.
His legs art short, his body round;
some might say he looks buffoonish.
(Nate’s teacher, Mr. Peck, groaned.)
But, oh! Consider the improbable pelican, dear reader,
as he sails the ocean blue.
He doth glide above the frothy waves, he doth dive below the sea.
He fills his pouch with fish after fish — he’s a better fisherman than you.
The room was silent. Miss Lillian shuffled her papers and then blinked. “That’s all,” she whispered. Nate clapped enthusiastically; everyone else followed suit politely.
“Thank you as always, Miss Lillian, for giving us much to think about,” Councilman Lamprey said to the trembling woman. “Mayor, would you be so kind as to escort Miss Lillian back to her seat?”
The tiny woman scuttled back to her chair clutching her poem and the old dog’s collar.
“Now as y’all know, the Billy Bowlegs Festival is just one week away,” Councilman Lamprey said. “The prizes are a bit skimpy this year.”
“That’s because those Rotary folks over in Apalachicola are having their Bounties of the Bay Festival the same durn weekend,” someone called from the back. Heads nodded.
“Yeah, they lured away lots of the businesses that usually donate prizes,” Coach Hull grumbled.
“Now, now, it’s just bad timing they’re holding their festival the same weekend as ours,” Reverend Beam said. More muttering from the back of the room. Old man Marler snored, his chair tipped back against the wall.
“How about the cash prize for the shrimp boat race, Jonah?” the captain of the LunaSea asked.
Nate’s grandpa switched his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other and looked up at the ceiling. He rubbed the back of his sunburned neck. “Well now, I will say I’ve seen larger donations in my years as grand marshal. What with the economy and a few of the businesses relocating up to Tallahassee �
�” His grandfather trailed off.
Old man Marler woke with a start when his chair tipped forward. “It’s those dang astronauts flying around up there, I tell you,” he said, blinking his eyes.
“But we still have a week,” Grandpa said. “I’ll get after y’all who haven’t donated to the cash prize, you know I will.” Everyone laughed.
“Well, we do have one very generous donor.” Councilman Lamprey beamed at Ricky Sands’s daddy. “Our good friend and neighbor Melvin Sands has generously donated a brand-new 1992 Ford truck to be raffled off to benefit our fire department.”
“Hope you fixed that busted windshield,” Sully Punks called out. Everyone laughed. Mr. Sands scowled.
Nate slunk down in his chair. Who knew the first ball he ever hit in his life would fly all the way over to Crystal Sands New and Used Cars?
“We still have plenty of fun prizes for the crab races, oyster shucking, and hush puppy eating contests,” Councilman Lamprey assured the crowd.
Chief Brandy, head of the Paradise Beach volunteer fire department, stood. He cleared his throat and said, “I want to remind everyone that, because of the drought, we won’t be shooting off any fireworks for the festival. If we’re lucky, we can have a few on the Fourth of July.”
“Oh, come on, Chief,” Mr. Sands said. “A few fireworks won’t hurt anything.” Everyone knew he sold fireworks as one of his many side businesses.
Chief Brandy stroked his mustache and looked nervously at the heads nodding in agreement. “Well, um, the grasses and sea oats are dry as tinder. All it would take is one spark and the whole beachfront would go up in flames.” He looked down at his scuffed shoes.
“We’ll just pump water out of the Gulf,” Mr. Sands said.
More heads nodded in agreement. Someone called, “Yeah, what’s Billy Bowlegs without fireworks?”