“Eddie Mulligan,” said Joe Daggett, scratching his knee. “So you fellas are pretty good ballplayers, are ya?”
I said, “Sort of.”
Ace said, “You bet we are!”
“Wish you could show those Mudpuppies a thing or two about how it’s done, I suppose?”
“Darn tootin’!” said Ace. “Plenty of kids would love the chance to put on a Mudpuppies uniform, ain’t that right, Nick?” He slapped me on the back.
All I said was, “Ow.”
“You never know,” said Joe Daggett. “Maybe one of these days you’ll get your wish.” He turned to Pop. “Say, George, tell me a bit about yourself. What kind of name is Spirakis, anyway?”
“Greek,” said Pop, sitting up straighter. “I was born there.”
“How long you been in the States?”
Ace pulled the shop door open. “This is where I go play ball. See ya later, Nick.” And he was gone, out into the sunshine.
“See ya,” I grumbled.
Pop paid no attention. “I come to America when I was twelve years old. Same age my Nikko is right now.” Pop beamed at me over his shoulder, as if I was the smartest kid in the world for figuring out how to turn twelve.
“And the rest of your family?” said Joe Daggett. Either he was very polite, or he was a really good salesman.
“My father, he sail here first, and then he send for me and my mother. My brother was born here. My father worked hard so he could buy this shop. He taught me the business, and now the shop is mine.”
“How about your little brother?” said Joe Daggett, looking around. “Is he part of the family business?”
“Spiro?” said Pop, and for the first time his smile faded. “He’s too busy having the fun. Out all night. Sleeps all day. My son will be different. Nicky is a good boy. He works hard too. And one day”—Pop spread his arms wide—“this shop, it will belong to him.”
I shifted on my feet and smiled weakly at Joe Daggett.
Joe Daggett gave me a quick wink and changed the subject. “We all come from someplace else, ain’t that the truth? My own folks are German and Irish. Which makes me Germish, I suppose. And what’s wrong with that?” said Joe Daggett. “Not a thing.”
“No sir, not a thing,” echoed Pop as he buffed Joe Daggett’s shoes to a high shine. “I am proud to be Greek. You are proud to be the Germish. And we are all proud to be American.” He snapped his buffing cloth with a flourish. “Finished.”
“Looks swell, George,” said Joe Daggett, inspecting his shoes. He stepped down from the chair and gathered his coat and hat. “I’m glad I stopped in. What did you say this sleight of hand will set me back?”
Pop blinked up at Mr. Daggett, smiling and frowning at the same time.
“Twenty cents,” I said.
“That’s right,” said Pop, relaxing and resting his hand on my shoulder. “Very nice to meet you, Mister Daggett. I wish you luck in your business.”
“Why, thanks, George,” said Joe Daggett, handing Pop two dimes and a business card. “Next time you’re near Eighth and Chalmers, look me up. My door is always open.” Then he searched his coat pockets. “Here you go, Nick. Compliments of the Mudpuppies.”
He plopped a brand new baseball into my hand, and limped out of the shop, to a jangle of bells.
“How about that?” said Pop, showing me the card. “The Mudpuppies are not for sale anymore.”
My mouth fell open when I read the card. “Jeepers. We just met the new owner of the Mudpuppies!”
CHAPTER
5
COME NOW, NICK.” Mrs. Dimitropoulos was hanging over my shoulder in a cloud of old-lady perfume. “You remember your Greek alphabet, don’t you? Sound out the letters.”
I chewed my pencil and stared at the blank work sheet on my desk. I’d been speaking Greek all my life, but on paper it was hard. For one thing, the Greek alphabet has only twenty-four letters, and they all look like meaningless squiggles. What the heck happened to two whole letters? I was never a good speller to begin with, and now I was supposed to do it using squiggles, and without two of the letters?
Plus, I was sleepy. And hungry. It’s the same thing every Tuesday: Spend the whole day in school, stop home for a snack, and then take the streetcar to Greek school. Sit in the church basement for two hours with the priest’s wife telling you to sound out the letters (as if that’s all there is to it). And when it’s finally done, ride the streetcar home again, in the dark. Choke down your cold supper so you can start on your regular homework.
Did anyone ask me if I wanted to go to Greek school? No.
Right now, all the other kids were bent over their own papers. Most of them had sickly looks on their faces, which would’ve been funny, except my own face probably looked the same. A few kids (mostly girls) were breezing right along. Just like in regular school. Could I help it if I liked numbers better? Batting averages, ERAs, win-loss records. Important, real-world stuff.
I scrawled my name in Greek at the top of my paper. At least I remembered that much. It was enough to make Mrs. D. decide to go torture someone else.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Joe Daggett. The new owner of the Mudpuppies! And me and Ace spouting off about how awful the Pups were. But Joe Daggett had given me an official Mudpuppies baseball, so he couldn’t have been too mad, could he?
I felt a poke between my shoulder blades. It was Pete, holding out a crumpled scrap of paper.
You remember Pete. Me and him went way back, and let’s just say we weren’t exactly best friends. In fact, we hated each other’s guts. Sure, we played ball together (you do what you gotta do, to keep a Scramble team going), and we lived four blocks apart, but other than that, we didn’t have much in common. Except being Greek. So, even though he was a show-off and a big mouth and a knucklehead who beat me up at least once a week from kindergarten till second grade, me and Pete were stuck going to Greek school together.
I grabbed the scrap of paper and turned around again, dropping my hand into my lap in case Mrs. D. noticed. When the coast was clear, I peeked at the paper. It said:
#6???
I turned and gave him a puzzled look.
“Question number six,” hissed Pete, leaning across his desk and shooting a glance toward Mrs. D. “What’s the answer?”
I should mention here that probably the only reason Pete passed second grade was because he copied off me for most of that year. But things had changed since second grade.
“I don’t know,” I whispered back. “Something about buying squash at the market.”
“Squash?” He looked down at his paper and scratched his head. “I thought it said watermelon.”
“I don’t know, Pete,” I whispered. “Do it yourself.”
He snatched the note back. “Wait’ll the next time you’re in right field,” he muttered. “I’m gonna clobber that ball over the fence again.”
I knew it! Did I mention that I hate Pete’s guts?
“Boys,” called Mrs. D. from the front of the room. “Do your own work, please.”
I turned around, but after a few seconds I got another poke in the back, and another note.
#8???
I couldn’t help it. I turned around and said, “Cut it out, Pete!”
“Boys!”
It could have been worse. We could have been hauled off to see the priest, who would have told our folks, who would have given me all kinds of grief. I could hear them now: How you could embarrass us like that, don’t you know how hard that poor woman works to teach you something, you should be proud of your heritage, instead you act like the hooligans and goat herders. Never mind that back in Greece, our family had been goat herders, and besides, what did that have to do with being a hooligan? But I knew that wasn’t the point. It was the embarrassment part.
Instead, we got extra homework.
As we rode the streetcar home, Pete said, “Let’s do it together.” He really meant, “Let me copy off you.”
“Sorry,”
I said, even though I wasn’t. I held my work sheet next to Pete’s. “They’re different assignments.”
“What?” Pete slouched on the seat. “That Mrs. D. sure is sneaky. My folks won’t help me either.”
I folded my work sheet and jammed it into my back pocket. “I might be able to get my ma to help me. That way she can learn to read English at the same time.”
“Your ma can’t read English?”
“Not too well,” I said. “She didn’t come to the States until she was sixteen. She never went to American school.”
This is what I mean about being Greek. I couldn’t admit that kind of thing to just anyone—not even to Ace. But Pete’s folks were born in Greece too, so he knows what it’s like. He just said, “What happens when you bring a note home from school? Like when you get in trouble and stuff?”
I shrugged. Sure, I got in trouble at school sometimes, but nothing big. Talking in class. Forgetting my homework. Not exactly Pete-caliber trouble. “I read ’em to my ma,” I said. “What else?” She never exactly punished me, anyway. Usually she just made me promise to try harder.
“Holy moly.” Pete pulled the signal cord. “You got a lot of guts. My ma never even sees the notes I bring home.” The streetcar squealed to a stop, and we hopped off.
“I don’t get it,” I said as we started down the sidewalk. “How do you get her to sign a note she never sees?”
Pete clapped me on the back. “You got a lot to learn, pal. I been forging my ma’s signature since third grade.”
CHAPTER
6
AFTER SCHOOL THE NEXT DAY, Ace was waiting for me in our usual spot at the edge of the playground.
“What’s the score?” I asked him as we pushed our way through the crowds of kids on the way home from school. We were headed to the zoo to pick up the Scramble game where the guys had left off the day before. (I’d missed yesterday on account of Greek school.)
“We’re ahead, nine to seven,” Ace told me as we walked down the sidewalk. “And no run-ins with Tank.”
“That’s ’cause Pete wasn’t there. If he hits the ball over the fence again, he can get it himself. Let’s see how he likes Tank breathing down his neck.”
“At least now we have another baseball,” said Ace. “Good ol’ Joe Daggett. The fellas still don’t believe that we met the Mudpuppies’ owner. They think you bought that ball.”
I laughed. “Where would I get ninety-eight cents for a new baseball? That’s three weeks’ worth of tip money.”
We got out our mitts and started playing catch as we walked down the sidewalk. Whenever we passed a group of kids, we tossed the ball over their heads. This might sound like trouble, but we do it all the time, and we hardly ever hit anyone.
Right now we had to get around a passel of fifth-grade girls, so Ace went wide left and I went wide right. I tossed the ball up and over the girls in a perfect arc. Ace reached for it with his glove—
—and a hand shot up from the middle of the herd of girls and grabbed the ball out of midair.
The girls squealed and scattered, leaving one girl standing alone on the sidewalk. She was taller than the others, with scuffed saddle shoes and this huge cloud of black hair. One hand rested a stack of books on her hip, and the other hand was holding my baseball. She stared at me and chomped her gum.
“Hey.” I held out my hand. “That’s mine.”
She squinted at me. She blew a bubble. She was taller than me. I hate that. She did not hand me back my ball. She just set down her books and said, “Go long.”
“Huh?”
But she didn’t say anything else. She looked up the street. She looked down the street. She watched a coal truck rumble past. And then she wound up like she was Joe DiMaggio in center field.
“Go long!” yelled Ace, as we both realized what was happening. We took off across the street just as she heaved the ball high into the air.
I went charging after it, almost tripping over the curb, and plowed through a bunch of kindergartners like they were bowling pins. Little kids were crying, bigger kids were hollering, and that ball came whistling down from the sky like a comet.
What did I do?
I froze.
Because—as you might recall—I can’t catch a fly ball to save my life.
There I was, chasing after a ball thrown by a girl, and everyone was watching me, and I was going to miss it.
And sure enough, it went sailing over my head. My brand-new, official Mudpuppies baseball, headed for the storm sewer and Lake Michigan.
THUNK!
“Got it!”
I whirled around. It was Ace, right behind me, with his mitt in the air and the ball in his mitt. The kindergartners all stopped crying and gave him a round of applause.
In fact, so many kids were gathering around Ace on one side of the street, and around that tall girl on the other side, that no one seemed to notice my pathetic performance. Which was fine by me.
“Did you see the arm on that girl?” I overheard one kid saying.
“I seen both her arms,” said some other kid. “Long and hairy. Did she escape from the monkey house at the zoo, or what?”
I looked across the street at the tall girl. She did have a lot of hair. There was some kind of ribbon tied around her head, but it wasn’t doing much to hold things back. And her arms were long, but so were her legs, and all the rest of her.
She didn’t seem like a person who needed someone else to stick up for her. And she hadn’t exactly done me any favors by humiliating me in front of everybody (with my baseball, no less). But that wasn’t the point. The point was, making fun of a person because they can’t catch a ball thrown by a girl is one thing. But a person can’t do anything about the length of their arms.
I searched around for the kid who’d made the crack about monkeys. There he was: some scrawny fifth grader with an expression that made you wonder if he ate nothing but pickles.
“Hey, kid,” I told him. “Pick on someone your own size, why don’t ya. Oh, right, you can’t, ’cause there’s no one else around here who’s a rat!”
I grabbed my baseball out of Ace’s glove and stalked away, leaving the kid standing there with his sourpuss mouth hanging open.
Behind me, the kindergartners were laughing.
CHAPTER
7
ACE CAUGHT UP WITH ME, and we walked six blocks without saying a word.
Well, I didn’t say a word.
“Did you see the look on that kid’s face?” said Ace. “You really shut him up! Can you believe the arm on that girl? Where’d she learn to throw like that? Did you see how I caught the ball? Just like Joltin’ Joe. Do you think I looked like Joltin’ Joe?”
For six blocks.
When we got to Forty-Seventh Street, I tugged his elbow. “Let’s go the long way. I need to blow off some steam.”
So instead of cutting through the park toward the Scramble field as usual, we turned to walk down Forty-Seventh Street, and around the edge of the park.
To be honest, I liked going the long way. You learn in school that the Earth is divided in half at the equator, but if you ask me, that’s wrong. The Earth is divided in half right where I was standing.
And here’s why: On one side of the street there’s a typical busy, noisy city. Houses, schools, factories, churches; butcher shops, barber shops, the brewery; cars honking, busses belching, and streetcars squealing.
But on the other side of Forty-Seventh Street, everything changes. For one thing, there’s a big, peaceful park. Acres and acres of grass and trees. Walking paths, tennis courts, a pond and boathouse; a band shell with a dance pavilion. A sledding hill. And, as I’ve already mentioned, a zoo. Tigers and lions. Giraffes, buffaloes, hippos. Polar bears, brown bears, grizzly bears. One lonesome elephant. A stumpy-legged rhinoceros patrolling the right-field fence. A gazillion monkeys.
How did all those animals end up here, anyway? I can just imagine the zoo hunter: Excuse me, Mister Giraffe (for example). How’d
you like to leave this nice, warm African grassland and come to a city in the upper Midwest of the USA, and spend the rest of your life in a pen the size of my living room? You’ll have a nifty view of the Number 37 streetcar line, and in the winter you can play in the snow! What’s snow, you ask? Come on into this nice cozy crate here and I’ll show you.
That’s probably not what actually happened. But if Mister Giraffe could talk, I bet that’s pretty much how he’d tell it. Anyhow, I’m grateful, because sure as shootin’ I’ll never make it to Africa or Ceylon or anywhere like that, so all those animals have done me a big favor. Because here I am, with a regular Noah’s Ark only three blocks from my house.
Ace and I walked down Forty-Seventh Street now, past the bear dens and the elephant yard. It was still off-season at the zoo, so most of the animals were hunkered down inside their winter quarters. But the polar bears were out, of course. And around the corner, along Frederick Street, the mountain goats were out too. And so was Tank.
Behind Tank’s yard, Monkey Island sat deserted and silent. The empty tire swing dangled from the branch of a huge dead tree. The water in the moat looked as smooth and black as slate.
“I can’t wait till they let the monkeys out,” said Ace. “It’s just like the last day of school. All those monkeys busting out into the open. They look so happy.”
Ace was right. The day Monkey Island reopens is a big deal, and not just for the monkeys. Practically the whole city comes to watch as all the zoo animals are officially allowed outside for the summer. There’s a parade, and a brass band, and free ice cream. I never miss it. But I almost like the winter zoo better, when we have the place—and the animals—pretty much to ourselves.
As soon as we caught sight of the fellas at the ball field, they started hollering for us.
“Look at this!” said Charlie, waving a newspaper. As we got closer, I saw the headline:
NEW PUPS OWNER ITCHING
TO SHAKE THINGS UP
EXCITEMENT IN STORE FOR THE ’48 SEASON
The Rhino in Right Field Page 2