The Rhino in Right Field

by Stacy DeKeyser

  Then I figured it out, when I hit the next pitch and she reached out and grabbed it without batting an eye.

  “You’re a lefty!”

  She stood there looking at me with her head to one side, like everyone in the world knew that except me.

  “That’s why you stunk it up with Ace’s glove,” I said. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  She tossed the ball back to Ace and blew a bubble. “Would you have let me play that day if I had?”

  Probably not.

  I was still thinking about that on the next pitch, so I swung under the ball, and I popped it up.

  What happened next was a thing of beauty.

  Penny froze for a second, her face lifted toward the sky. Then she took a few steps back. She raised her arms and took a few steps forward. A second later, the ball fell into her glove like an egg dropping into a nest.

  Penny showed me the ball, grinning and chomping her gum.

  “Nice catch!” said Ace. “Where’d you learn to play like that?”

  “I told you,” said Penny, tossing Ace the ball. “From my sister. You know, Nick, if you wanted, I could give you a few pointers. I’ve been watching you all week. It’s just a matter of reading the ball.”

  I opened my mouth to tell her off. She had a lot of nerve. A girl, teaching a fella how to play ball?

  Of course, I really needed to win this contest. And I needed all the help I could get. And she was really good.

  But come on. A girl, who apparently learned everything she knew from another girl?

  I looked her right in the eye and said, “Yeah, sure, I guess.”

  So I took the outfield while Ace pitched and Penny hit pop-ups, one after another. She explained what she meant about reading the ball.

  “Don’t chase it right away,” she said. “Hold still for a second and watch it jump off the bat. That way, you’ll see where the ball is going, and you’ll know which direction—and how fast—to run.”

  And sure enough: After a few tries, I actually caught a pop fly.

  All this made me think maybe I’d misjudged Penny. Maybe she wasn’t a spy for Pete after all.

  On the next pitch, Penny really got under the ball. She hit it a mile into the air.

  We all stood there craning our necks, waiting to see where the ball was gonna come down. A second later, it came whistling down just outside the tall fence that surrounded Mountain Goat Mountain. It hit the asphalt path, bounced over another fence, and landed smack in the yard of the animal next store.

  Tank’s yard.

  “I’ll get it!” hollered Ace, and he headed toward the gap in the mountain goat fence.

  “It’s getting dark,” I told him. “Leave it till tomorrow.”

  We’d gone into Tank’s yard a million times before, of course, but we weren’t idiots. We had rules. Rule Number One: Never go over the fence unless Tank is inside his little house, or at least on the far side of his yard, near the billboard. And Rule Number Two: Never go over Tank’s fence at dusk. Because (2a) it’s hard to see the ball against all that dry grass and straw when the daylight is fading, and (2b) Tank knows that dusk means “almost dinnertime” and he tends to get feisty.

  But right now, Ace wasn’t listening to me. He squeezed out through the gap in the fence around Mountain Goat Mountain.

  “You’re not actually going into that place where that rhino is,” said Penny. “Are you?”

  “I done it a million times!” said Ace. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was showing off for Penny.

  “But the rhinoceros is right there,” said Penny.

  She was right. Tank was so close, you could’ve sprayed him with an energetic sneeze.

  But Ace just said, “That ain’t nothin’,” and before common sense got the better of him, he scurried to Tank’s fence and vaulted over, right next to the sign with Tank’s vital statistics.

  And there stood all 2,580 pounds of Tank, twitching his tiny little ears.

  Ace was so busy showing off that he hadn’t stopped to locate the ball before he hopped the fence. Now he scrambled around for a second or two, trying to find it. He finally grabbed it, but by then Tank was thundering toward him like a bowling ball on a 7–10 split.

  Lucky for Ace, he’s small and fast and hard to catch. He outran Tank by inches, and hurled himself up and over the fence just in time. But his foot got caught in the chain link or something, because instead of coming down feet first, he flipped over and landed almost on his head.

  Tank grunted and went back to chewing the clover.

  There sat Ace, all in a heap. He untangled his feet and blinked up at me and Penny like he was surprised to see us. Then he saw the ball in his hand.

  “Hey, look!” he said.

  And then he fainted. Which is even more embarrassing than missing a fly ball in front of a girl.

  And that’s how Ace broke his arm, the day before the contest.

  CHAPTER

  22

  I’VE BEEN PUTTING THIS OFF, but it’s time to admit: I’m a pretty good liar. Ma and Pop swallowed the whole story about a Saturday field trip to Madison.

  I told them that there’d be a bus leaving school at ten o’clock and dropping us off again at three. (The contest would probably be finished way before then, but if I showed up at home too early, Ma would figure out we hadn’t actually gone all the way to Madison. Just because she can’t read English doesn’t mean she was born yesterday.)

  The plan was to meet Ace out front at nine o’clock, so we’d get to Orchard Field in plenty of time. We decided to avoid each other’s folks as much as possible before then, so we wouldn’t have to worry about keeping our stories straight, or (in Ace’s case) blabbing the wrong thing.

  At nine o’clock sharp, we both banged out our front doors and down our porch steps. Ace had a clean new cast on his left arm, from his wrist to his elbow. There was no way he could compete now, but there was no way he was gonna miss it either. Especially after all that time he’d spent on his essay.

  “Are you sure we’re supposed to leave our gear at home?” he said as we met on the sidewalk. “It feels weird not bringing my own glove and bat.”

  I knew how he felt, but I nodded. “You read the contest rules. ‘All necessary gear will be provided.’ Besides, my ma would’ve been suspicious if she saw me leaving the house with my gear.”

  “I hope they have decent gear at the contest,” said Ace.

  I laughed. “It’s a professional baseball team. I’m pretty sure they’ll have decent gear.”

  “I guess,” said Ace. “All clear at your house?”

  I gave him the thumbs-up. “Pop’s already at the shop, and Ma will be baking all day.”

  “What about Uncle Spiro?” said Ace.

  I peeked back between the houses. The Nash was gone from its usual spot in the alley. “He went somewhere early, I guess.”

  “Swell,” said Ace. “Got your entry form and essay?” He pulled a big fat envelope out of his pocket and waved it at me.

  “What the heck is that?”

  He looked at it. “It’s my essay.”

  “It’s supposed to be a hundred words, not a hundred pages!”

  He shrugged. “It’s only seventeen pages. There was no way I could explain everything in only a hundred words. I needed five pages just to tell ’em how I broke my arm.”

  I busted out laughing.

  Ace grinned. “I can’t win with a broken arm. Might as well give them something interesting to read. Got your essay?”

  “Ninety-nine words,” I said, showing him my own envelope, with my essay and my forged signature inside. I stopped laughing. “I feel kind of like a snake.”

  Ace slapped me on the back as we started up the sidewalk. “Wait’ll you get to the ballpark. One look at Pete’s ugly mug and you’ll forget all about it. Besides, it’s just a little fib. It’s not like you’re robbing a bank or anything.”

  Ace was right. This was a special, rare occasion. A one-time-onl
y deal.

  We walked up the street toward school, in case any grown-ups were looking out the window. But once we got to Frederick Street, we caught the Number 37 streetcar heading downtown.

  The streetcar ride took twenty minutes or so, which was plenty of time for me to start worrying.

  It was just a little fib. One time only.

  I’d never actually lied to my folks before—not like this, a big whopper of a fib, and a forged signature. Just to get out of work for a few hours on a Saturday.

  But what else could I do? Was it my fault I was stuck working in Pop’s shop every Saturday, while Ace and Charlie and everybody else were outside having fun?

  And then there was Pete. He’d been pushing me around since kindergarten, and I was tired of it.

  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that a whole bunch of people spent a whole lot of time telling me what to do. The only person not in charge of my life was me.

  So yeah, I lied. But it was one time only, and for a good cause. Everyone would understand that once I won this contest. Right?

  Of course, if I didn’t win, I’d be nothing but a plain old liar.

  CHAPTER

  23

  AS SOON AS ME AND Ace got off the streetcar, I could practically feel the buzzing in the air. The Pups were out of town, but it felt almost like a game day, with bunches of kids heading toward Orchard Field. The whole ballpark had been painted and scrubbed. Even the sidewalks had been swept clean. Not a gum wrapper or a cigarette butt in sight.

  We got in line with all the other kids heading for the turnstiles. Once we were inside, there was another line for sign-ups. You dropped your essay into a big box (Ace’s fat envelope almost got stuck in the slot), handed over your permission slip, and wrote your name on the sign-up sheet. Then you got a numbered piece of paper and a safety pin. The number on the paper matched the number next to your name on the sign-up sheet. I was number seventy-two, and Ace was seventy-three.

  “Pin the number on each other’s backs, fellas,” said the usher in charge of the sign-ups. “Once that’s done, you can head on down to the field.”

  “Oh boy, the field!” said Ace as I pinned his number on his back. “I never been on a real baseball field before. This is gonna be swell!”

  He was right. Just walking out through the grandstand and toward the field was exciting. The sun was bright, and the sky was blue, and the grass was so green it almost hurt my eyes. The only place we’d ever sat for a Mudpuppies game was the outfield bleachers, so I’d never even been this close to home plate before. And now we were being allowed right onto the field. With a zillion other fellas, of course, but I didn’t care. Nobody wanted to win this contest more than me. I’d catch every fly ball that came my way, even if I had to sprout wings to do it.

  “Do you see Pete anywhere?” I asked Ace as we followed everybody down the concrete steps toward the field. “Or Chuck, or Charlie, or anyone we know?”

  We both scanned the crowd on the field. “Nope,” said Ace. “But you know they gotta be here somewhere.”

  A minute later, we were actually standing on the infield grass, and the ballpark loudspeaker squealed to life.

  “Good morning, everyone!” boomed a familiar voice.

  “That sounds like Joe Daggett,” I said.

  “There he is!” said Ace.

  Sure enough, there stood Joe Daggett on the pitcher’s mound. He wore a suit and tie and a Mudpuppies cap, and he was leaning on a cane. In front of him was a big fat microphone on a stand. Behind him was a bunch of fellas dressed like umpires, each one holding a clipboard. His secretary—the scary lady who’d shooed us out of his office last week—wobbled next to him in her high-heeled shoes. She didn’t look too happy to be out here.

  “Welcome to the First Annual Mudpuppy for a Day Batboy Contest!” Joe Daggett announced into the microphone, and everyone cheered. “Glad to see such a dandy turnout today! Are you ready to show off your batboy skills?”

  Another cheer went up from the crowd.

  “That’s what I like to hear!” The speakers squealed again, and Joe Daggett jumped back from the microphone like he’d broken it. The secretary whispered something in his ear, and he nodded. He stepped to the microphone again, but this time not as close. “Okay, I’m gonna lay out a few ground rules and then we’ll get started. But first! I have a special announcement!”

  A rumble of excitement went through the crowd.

  Joe Daggett waved his cane in the air. “As you all know, the winner of our contest will be chosen in a special ceremony before the next Mudpuppies home game on May twenty-ninth. That’s next Saturday, just one week from today!”

  Everybody cheered, including me. I was too excited about today to worry about next Saturday.

  “At the end of today’s competition, I’ll announce the three top scores.”

  “Three!” said Ace, grabbing at my sleeve. “How swell is that?”

  “Those top three finalists will be invited back for one final round of competition on game day.”

  Another cheer.

  “An additional three finalists will be chosen based on your essays. If you’re one of those lucky fellas, you’ll get an official letter from us in the mail. That means six lucky fellas competing for the grand prize of Mudpuppy for a Day, in front of a full house here at the Ol’ Orchard!”

  More cheers.

  “But wait! There’s more! Another big event is coming up soon, and that’s the annual Zoo Spring Opening. A parade! Brass bands! Baton twirling! Sounds like loads of fun, doesn’t it? And what would be more fun than combining those two big events into one?”

  If a crowd of kids could holler a question mark, that’s the sound we made now.

  “That’s right, kids,” said Joe Daggett. “Maybe only one of you can be Mudpuppy for a Day, but you’re all invited back here on May twenty-ninth. You’ll each get a free bleacher ticket!”

  This time we gave a real cheer.

  “And you’re all invited to follow the Spring-Opening Caravan of Animals, all the way to Orchard Field!”

  We all made that question mark noise again.

  “Just imagine,” said Joe Daggett. “All sorts of animals, parading from the zoo to the ballpark. Zebras! Hippos! Lions!”—the secretary lady tugged his sleeve and whispered something into his ear—“Oh, sorry, no lions. (What about monkeys, Miss Garble?) Monkeys! And all sorts of other really amazing zoo animals, right here on the field at the Ol’ Orchard!”

  A huge whoop went up from the crowd of kids, because let’s be honest: Who wouldn’t love to see monkeys at the ballpark?

  Joe Daggett tapped the microphone with a finger, and everyone quieted down. “Okay, fellas, let’s get this contest started! Here’s how it’s gonna work. You’ll split up into groups, and you’ll rotate through four stations.” He swept his cane around behind him. The secretary hopped out of the way just in time.

  A buzz moved through the crowd. Now we were getting somewhere. Ace nudged me and counted on the fingers sticking out from his cast. “Hitting, base running, fielding, and throwing.”

  Joe Daggett raised his free arm and counted on his fingers. “Water carrying! Base dusting! Ball mudding! And sunflower seed spitting!”

  Have you ever heard the sound of hundreds of mouths dropping open? It’s something like the first glub of water when you pull the plug in the bathtub.

  Then all the mouths exploded in cheers and whoops and hollers.

  Because let’s be honest again: Any contest that involves mud and spitting is A-okay. Plus, right now, hundreds of kids all decided that this might be one contest they could actually win.

  Including me.

  CHAPTER

  24

  JOE DAGGETT LIMPED OFF THE field, still waving his cane in the air, and the umpires divided us into groups according to our sign-up numbers. Me and Ace were in the same group. Each station would be judged by one of the umpires.

  “No wonder we didn’t need to bring our gloves and
bats,” said Ace. “Joe Daggett had something else up his sleeve.”

  “Joe Daggett always has something up his sleeve,” I said. And then I spotted Pete, off by himself at the edge of another group, pacing the grass and muttering to himself.

  I pointed him out to Ace. “He’s giving himself a pep talk.”

  Ace snorted. “I bet he’s grumbling about how he doesn’t get a chance to show off with the bat. Hey look, there’s Chuck and Charlie, too.” Sure enough, there they were, in Pete’s group. “I hope they swallow their sunflower seeds.”

  “That’s not nice,” I said, but I laughed, because it was pretty funny.

  Our group’s first skill was water carrying. You had to carry a full bucket of water from home plate to first base, and whoever had the fastest time, and the fullest bucket, was the winner. Everybody got soaked, because that bucket was heavy, and it sloshed a lot. It was hilarious. The umpire used a stopwatch to measure our times and a yardstick to measure our water levels. He wrote it all down on his clipboard, but he never told us our results. I thought I did pretty good, or at least as good as anybody else.

  Next was the base-dusting station. The whole group crammed into the third-base dugout, and we took turns running out to third base with a little hand broom, brushing a pile of dirt off the base, and running back again. The umpire at this station used a stopwatch too, and checked to make sure the base was good and clean. Then he scribbled on his clipboard, but didn’t tell anybody what their score was.

  The ball-muddying station was set up in foul territory behind home plate. Each kid got three brand-new baseballs and a coffee can full of this special mud. You had to rub the mud into the baseballs, but not too little or too much—you couldn’t leave any white spots or clumps of mud. Just like the other skills, we were judged on speed and technique.

  Last came sunflower seed spitting. Three lines of tape were laid out in right field, parallel to the foul line. You stood with your toes on the foul line, and got three tries to spit a seed as far as you could (no do-overs for wind or accidental swallowing either). Any seeds that got past the farthest line were measured for distance. Ace and me both spit a seed far enough to get measured.