by Joyce Grant
“Man,” said Gnash. “You goof,” he said, rolling his eyes.
***
Gnash took his seat in Math class and stared out the window at the playing field. The teacher was a blur at the corner of his eye, her voice a dull drone.
The door to the classroom opened and all heads turned to see Jock standing in the entrance, looking around the room for a seat.
Without stopping to address the boy, the teacher waved her arm vaguely toward an empty desk beside Gnash. Jock sat down and looked around at the students on either side of him, giving one girl a “hello” nod.
Gnash ignored Jock to stare out the window at the birds circling the parking lot next to the kids’ playground. He watched as a motley grey pigeon pecked at a McDonald’s wrapper.
A group of kindergartners was clustered around a tall blue slide. A tiny, mop-headed boy in a Mid-Toronto Public School t-shirt stood at the top, looking at his classmates with wide eyes. He was clearly too scared to go down.
“Sit on your butt,” Gnash muttered. “Sit on your butt!”
Gnash was still watching the scene outside, wondering if the boy would go down the slide, when he slowly realized that the other students in his class were looking at him. The teacher’s droning had stopped. Gnash slid around in his chair to face the front of the room. “Uh . . . pardon?” he asked.
A familiar feeling washed over him. To Gnash, school was always uncomfortable, always boring and above all, always embarrassing. Then, Gnash was saved by the bell. The teacher looked at the clock above the door and saw that time was up. Gnash sighed with relief. But, “Mr. Calvecchio, before you leave, can I see you for a moment?”
Gnash looked down at his desk. What had he done wrong? Nothing! He looked out the window at the boy again, who was sitting on his bottom now. He held the teacher’s hand as he slid slowly, carefully, down the slide. He had a big smile on his face.
Gnash clenched his fists and opened them. He did it again. He took a deep breath and shoved his books into his bag. He got up from his seat and went to talk to his teacher.
3
American Dream
The team watched Raj, pedalling as fast he could along the sidewalk that circled the deep valley that was Christie Pits. They were practising in the diamond at the bottom, throwing long balls in pairs.
Gnash shaded his eyes with his hand to watch as Raj left the sidewalk and steered toward the grass. Raj picked up speed on the steep hill. Most people who came to the park used the long, paved path with the railing to get down the hill, but Raj was late so he wasn’t playing it safe. He was heading straight down. His ancient orange bike was a blur as he swept down the hill, faster and faster. Raj gripped the handlebars, trying to angle his bike to keep his balance. The team watched the pitcher slide the last twenty metres down the crunchy grass, before he slammed into the concrete equipment shed at the edge of the field.
Ditching his bike, Raj pulled his glove out of his backpack and ran to join his teammates on the field.
“Hey, Raj,” Tami yelled, running toward him. “Thank goodness you’re here. I’ll throw with you — I’ve been stuck with Coop.”
Coach Coop sneered at her good-naturedly and tossed the ball to Raj. “You can do your penalty laps after long-toss,” he said to Raj.
Raj grimaced, but he knew there would be no getting around the punishment for being late to practice.
Raj and Tami had only gotten in a few throws when they, and the rest of the team, were called over to the second-base line by the coach. The team sprinted in and gathered around Coop. Each player went down on one knee to listen to the pre-practice briefing.
“Okay,” said Coop. “First — Raj, six laps for being late. Second, you may have heard the rumours, and they are true.”
“We’re getting a new kid?” blurted Sebastian.
“Yes,” said Coop.
“What position is he gonna play?” asked Sebastian.
“We haven’t figured that out yet,” said the coach. “We’re going to try him out and see what he’s got. He was an all-star in the States.”
The words “States” and “all-star” got Gnash’s attention. He leaned forward, past the coach, to catch Miguel’s eye. When he couldn’t get Miguel’s attention, he turned to Tami and punched her lightly on the arm. “All-star,” he said.
“Yeah,” she whispered back. “American!”
Gnash and his friends knew that in the States baseball was practically a religion. An American all-star player was double-good.
“We might have a shot this year,” Gnash whispered to Tami.
“All right,” said Coop. “Don’t get too worked up. This team has twelve players. Not one, not two — twelve.” But the team had a bit more energy as they ran back onto the field.
Gnash watched as Raj started his laps, touching each pole as he ran by it. The year before, the team had gotten some help from a volunteer running coach.
“I use that guy’s advice whenever I have to run poles,” Raj had told Gnash. “He was an Olympian. He didn’t medal, but still. I wrote down everything that guy told me, and I go back and read it all the time.”
Raj seemed to be using that advice now. “Head down, arms loose, power from your legs and core,” Raj was saying out loud as he ran. Raj touched a pole. “Head down.” Step-step. “Arms loose.” Step-step. “Head down.” Step-step. He touched another pole. “Arms loose.” Step-step. Gnash had to admit it seemed to be helping Raj.
When Raj finished his final lap, Coop was waiting for him. “That’s amazing,” he said to Raj. “How’d you do that?”
“Do what?” Raj puffed, his mind still on his form.
“You were going really fast,” said Gnash, beside the coach.
“I don’t know,” said Raj. “Maybe there was a tail wind or something.” They both smiled. Raj grabbed his glove and ran out to the field.
But if Raj was in good form, the same couldn’t be said for the rest of the team. They looked like the Bad News Bears on an off-day. Coop was hitting grounders to the team. But thanks to a cycling club that had come through the day before, the infield was bumpier than a camel with the mumps. Clods of dirt stopped the grounders, and divots caused the balls to fly up in every direction.
“Ow!” complained Gnash, as a baseball bounced out of a hole and smashed into his chin.
“Get in front of the ball!” yelled Coop, in an effort to rein in the chaos.
Sebastian was still wearing some of his catcher’s gear. As he ran for a grounder, his foot caught the edge of one knee pad and he went sprawling onto his stomach. The ball rolled to a stop in front of his outstretched glove. He put his face in the dirt in mock agony as the rest of the team tried not to laugh out loud.
“Sebastian, is there a reason why you’re wearing your pads?” yelled the coach.
“Sheer laziness?” offered Gnash, sweetly.
“I . . . I knew we were doing infielding next,” Sebastian tried to explain, still sprawled on the ground.
“. . . and you didn’t feel like changing,” sighed Coop. “All together now . . .” he said to the team who yelled on cue: “FOUR LAPS!”
Four laps for laziness was the standard punishment.
Sebastian got to his feet and brushed the dirt off his jersey. He started sprinting to the outfield to do his laps when he was stopped by his coach.
“TAKE OFF YOUR PADS!” Coop yelled, exasperated. “And what are the rest of you looking at?” he asked the team. “Let’s get back to work!”
Sebastian had a good sense of humour and by the second pole, he had clearly begun to see the lighter side of his situation. His trademark grin reappeared.
Even Coop couldn’t help but smile as Sebastian ran in to the dugout after he’d finished his laps. He patted Sebastian on the shoulder as he went past. “I’m giving you crap about being lazy and you were still going to do
those poles without taking off your gear, weren’t you?”
“Coop, you know me so well,” said Sebastian, grinning.
Coop rolled his eyes.
“Get on second base,” he said. “Gnash can catch. Wouldn’t want you to have to put your gear on again!”
Sebastian ran out to second, laughing and thumping his glove. No one took Coop’s punishments too seriously. After all, thought Gnash as he started to put Sebastian’s kneepads on to fill in for him, Coop was just like the rest of the Blues — only a little bit older. And age didn’t necessarily make you wiser.
4
He’s Out!
The team was still giving Sebastian a hard time about his laziness the next day at school.
“Hey, Sebastian,” said Gnash, “want me to help you take your jacket off?”
“Yeah,” said Tami. “Maybe we should carry you to English?”
“Get on!” said Raj, sticking out one hip as if he wanted Sebastian to climb onto his back for a ride. He was just off-balance enough for Sebastian to shove him into a nearby locker. Raj landed with a hollow, metallic clang.
“Get out of here!” said Sebastian. “And I want you to know that I hate each and every one of you,” he added. But it was clear that he meant the exact opposite.
Raj pushed himself away from the wall and turned to his locker to get his English books. All this horsing around was going to make him late, he complained, as Tami and Sebastian sped off to class ahead of him.
“I can never work this stupid lock,” Raj whined, frantically spinning the dial.
“What’s the problem?” asked Gnash.
“It’s rusty,” said Raj. “Everything I own is old and rusty.”
“I’ll stay and help you, but we’re both gonna be late,” said Gnash.
The two boys looked at each other — then grinned.
“Yeah, as if that’s ever a concern,” Gnash laughed.
They were still fighting the lock when the bell rang. There was no one in the hall now, since being late carried a demerit point. Gnash had enough of those already. He was thinking about telling Raj to give up on his books and go to class when they heard voices down the hallway. There was a thump as though someone had crashed into a locker.
The two ran, following the sounds down the hall. They rounded the corner and spotted a group of boys.
“Hey!” Raj yelled. Two of the boys ran off, laughing meanly.
Gnash loped toward the third boy who, he was surprised to find, was Jock.
“What happened?” he asked. Jock looked pale and shaken.
“Nothing,” said Jock, turning away. “Nothing. Leave it.”
“Seriously, what was going on?” asked Raj.
“Just leave it!” Jock snarled. “Can’t you just leave it?! You know, I never asked you guys to be my guardian angels. Do you mind?”
Gnash paused for a minute, trying to think of a comeback. Raj interrupted before he could work up a good one.
“Actually,” said Raj, “yes. We do mind. And so should you. This is messed up.”
“Okay, fine,” said Jock, glaring at Raj. He inclined his head toward Gnash. “You want to know why I hate this school? Why don’t you start by asking your jerk friends! They’re the kinda guys that make my life harder.”
Jock grabbed his books from his locker and stalked off toward his class.
Gnash, whose English class was in the opposite direction, was left to stare after him. Was this guy accusing them of something? Were some of his teammates involved in what they’d just seen? They hadn’t looked like kids from the team, but they’d run off before Raj and Gnash had gotten close enough to see them clearly.
Gnash was deep in thought as he and Raj walked into their English class and were handed demerit slips by their teacher. They were marked with one demerit point for being late, and one for being without their binders. Gnash crushed the note into a ball and stuck it in his desk, where it joined a slew of others.
Gnash couldn’t concentrate on grammar. How could he possibly care about nouns and verbs when he needed to know what his friends were up to? He wondered about Jock, too, and soon he couldn’t contain his curiosity. Making sure the teacher wasn’t watching, he slipped his battered cell phone out of his pocket. It was a hand-me-down from his cousin. It looked nasty but it worked just fine, especially after he’d figured out the password for the school’s Wi-Fi.
He turned off the sound so it wouldn’t beep and he typed “Jock” and “Crest PS” into the search engine. The first entry was a list of hockey players, with photos and stats. He scrolled through them, not seeing the face he was looking for. From the back of his memory, Gnash recalled that Jock’s last name started with a C. He typed “Jock,” “Crest PS” then “C” and hit Enter. This time, it was a baseball roster . . . and the first kid on the list was the now-familiar boy in the black t-shirt. His face looked a little younger, but he was recognizable.
Jock was listed as J. Christobel, a shortstop, number 18. There was no other information, but it was definitely him. Now, at least, Gnash had a last name to go on. He went back into Google and typed “Jock Christobel 18 New Jersey” and hit Enter.
There was one relevant article — a news story in the New York Herald. The headline was “Young All-Star Athlete Comes Out” and it was accompanied by a picture of Jock in his baseball uniform.
“Holy crap,” said Gnash under his breath. “He is gay.”
Jock was gay. It explained a lot, Gnash realized. And he wasn’t afraid to talk about it, even in a newspaper article! Gnash shook his head. He couldn’t imagine talking to a reporter about being gay. He couldn’t think how a guy would even know that he was gay.
Gnash tried to get Raj’s attention to tell him what he’d just discovered when he realized that Ms. Grimshaw was next to him. He blinked and looked up at her, trying to get his bearings.
Ms. Grimshaw just stood, silently holding out her hand, looking as if she was prepared to wait all day until she got what she wanted.
Gnash closed his phone and put it into her hand.
“Thank you,” she said, handing him another demerit slip.
When she turned back to the board and couldn’t see him, Gnash crumpled up the demerit and tossed it into his desk with the others.
***
The sun shone hot and bright over the Pits that afternoon. The players were trickling in for their practice before the game. They gathered at the back of the dugout and dropped their bags. They were preparing for battle against the Parkhill Pirates. Raj ditched his bike by the equipment shed and walked over to Gnash. Coach Coop was nowhere to be seen.
“That’s weird,” Raj said. “Where’s Coop?”
“Who cares?” sneered Gnash. “We know the warm-up drills — we’ll do them ourselves. Let’s go!” Gnash sprinted off to the outfield with a ball and his glove. “C’mon, who’s throwing with me?”
Raj sprinted out to join him, and threw what was meant to be a long ball. It landed three metres in front of Gnash. “Well, at least it was in a straight line,” said Gnash.
“Shut up and throw the ball,” said Raj. “Anyway, we always start closer than this. C’mon, close in.”
Gnash came in a bit and threw the ball back to Raj. He caught it neatly and threw it back, this time perfectly at Gnash’s chest. Tami and Miguel joined in and soon after that, the rest of the team was lined up, all throwing balls to each other. They stepped back and threw again, and stepped back again until they were farther and farther apart.
Soon, Raj and Tami were the only ones who could throw the distance without bouncing the ball or throwing a massive rainbow. But that didn’t mean that Raj’s throws were accurate. Gnash was doing a lot of running and fetching.
“Okay, let’s start to bring it in a bit, guys!” Gnash said to his teammates. Relieved, they started to pull in closer to their throwing pa
rtners.
Off in the distance, two tall figures broke through the sun that was now low on the horizon. They looked like action heroes striding out of the sunset toward the ball diamond.
“Hey, you guys!” said Sebastian, excited. “That’s got to be our new guy!”
Gnash looked up and shaded his eyes to see if he could make out who it was. They were both wearing baseball uniforms.
As the two baseball players came closer, Gnash recognized Coop but he still couldn’t see any of the other figure’s features. They both had baseball gloves, and each carried a baseball. Coop was talking but his companion wasn’t responding.
Suddenly, Gnash had a terrible feeling about who the new player might be.
“Holy cow . . .” said Tami, as the pair got closer.
“It’s . . .” said Sebastian.
“The gay guy,” said Gnash, through clenched teeth.
“Jock,” corrected Raj.
Jock did not look happy.
“C’mon over, guys,” said Coop. “I’d like to introduce Jock — your new teammate.”
The team took a knee in front of Coop. Jock got down as well, still looking grim.
“Jock’s from . . . uh . . .” he trailed off and looked at the new boy.
“New Jersey,” Jock said, tersely.
“New Jersey, right. Welcome, Jock. He’ll play at short for this practice — now, I want everyone working hard today. Get pumped and let’s go. Poles!”
“Shortstop!” blurted Gnash. Why was Coop giving the new kid his spot?
“Yeah. Just to try him out. Now get out there,” said Coop.
The teammates threw their gloves on the ground. Gnash angrily whipped his onto the pile. They sprinted out toward the first fence post and each player touched it lightly with one hand. Two of the players ran ahead of everyone else, their long, smooth strides making the drill look easy. Sebastian and Tami brought up the rear, puffing hard.
“This . . .” huffed Sebastian, trying to keep up, “. . . is always the . . . worst . . . part . . . of my . . . day!”