My Life as a Diamond

by Jenny Manzer

  I nodded, feeling a twist in my stomach. I hated the thought of school. It was like this jagged black mountain looming in the distance but getting closer.

  Coach Vij and A.J. and everyone else arrived in a big, noisy bunch. Coach seemed intent on ramping up the practices, as if he, too, realized we might have a chance at breaking the Rockets’ winning streak, which sounded as if it went back to the pioneer days. “Talk to each other,” he called to us. “Act like a team!” Halfway through the practice, all the water I’d been drinking caught up with me, and I hustled off to the bathrooms. I started to push open the door as Kyle came striding out.

  “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you,” he said and ran off as if I’d held a barbecue lighter to his pants.

  I looked at the bathroom sign with the skirt, and I looked at the one with the pants. I hadn’t worn a skirt since I was six and Grandma Ames insisted I wear one to dinner at some boring steakhouse. I considered the possibilities for the boys’ bathroom: dead rat, foul smell, bionic spider. The most likely scenario seemed to be that Kyle was jerking my chain.

  I went in. I held my breath for a second and then exhaled. It was fine. I scanned the area—typical stalls and urinals. No spiders or rodents. I went into a stall and was back in time to join the game of scrub before it started.

  “Hey, I want Caz on my team,” I heard as I ran back, and I felt a little surge of something. I was happy.

  The door to Hank’s house flew open before we even rang the doorbell. I held my sleeping bag in front of me, still rolled up. Hank and I grinned at each other. Then he realized being so eager was uncool, so he made his face more deadpan, and we fist bumped.

  “Bye, Mom,” I said, giving her a quick squeeze and scampering after Hank, my backpack with my pajamas and my swim trunks (my swim trunks!) bumping against my leg. Hank and I went to his room so I could inspect Mandy, his new tiger salamander. Mandy was black with yellow stripes and had beady licorice-black eyes. I heard Mr. and Mrs. Ottenburg talking to my mom—Welcome to Redburn. Is Caspar allergic to anything? All that grown-up stuff.

  Hank leaned forward to pull Mandy from the tank. While Hank held the creature I ran one finger down its back, which was cool and damp.

  “Is it a girl or a boy?” I asked, admiring the salamander’s markings and webbed feet.

  “I don’t know. We got it off the Internet from someone who was moving to England. It was already called Mandy.”

  “Hi, Mandy,” I said. Mandy froze, like a salamander mannequin. What was Mandy thinking?

  “Mandy eats roaches and flies,” said Hank, putting Mandy back in the tank. “Hey, wanna go swimming now?”

  “Sure,” I said, grabbing my bag. I headed for the bathroom before Hank could say anything. Hank’s bathroom had one of those fuzzy mats, moss green, and I stood on it, staring at my toes as I changed. They didn’t look like girl toes or boy toes. They were just toes.

  I wore my swim trunks and a thin practice jersey from my old team. I didn’t feel like baring my chest, not yet. I hitched the swim trunks up, then pulled them down slightly, so they rested on my hips. I liked them.

  “Caz, let’s gee-oh go!” shouted Hank. “I’m boiling!”

  A minute later he was charging out to the backyard to do a cannonball into the pool. A second later I followed, flying feet first into the cold, rippling water.

  Dear Matt,

  Got your message. Glad you are trying out for the Red Devils. You can do it! I know you can. Yes, Kevin is for sure full of himself, but he hits the homers. What can you do?

  I went to a sleepover at my new friend Hank’s last night. It was pretty cool. We played video games until his mom finally told us to knock it off, and we had blueberry pancakes in the morning. The Ravens are doing okay.

  In other news, I got a new skateboard, kinda like yours. Wish we could go to the skate park together.

  Your friend,

  Caz

  Dear Grandma and Grandpa Ames,

  Thank you for the baseball card of Robbie Alomar. Did you know he was a switch-hitter? He could bat left AND right.

  Thank you also for the children’s Bible. It has nice cartoons.

  Love,

  Caz

  I felt weird signing my name Caz to my grandparents because they had never used my baseball name. They called me Cassandra or Cassie. I wanted to write Caspar, but I knew they wouldn’t like it. I thought about signing it C. Cadman, but that would have sounded like I was running for prime minister or president or something, so I went with Caz. I couldn’t go back to being Cassie, not even for them. That would be like walking backward to first base when you were already gunning your wheels to third.

  Fifth Inning

  I woke up Monday morning and realized I was smiling. This weekend I’d had my first sleepover as a boy, and today there would be baseball—the special practice. J.R. seemed to sense my good mood and trotted over to my bed for a pat. My mom had a few items on the agenda for the morning—dog walking, porch sweeping and weed pulling. Practice couldn’t come soon enough. When it was time, I grabbed my baseball bag and flew out of the house, nearly shutting the door on J.R’s tail.

  When we got to the park I saw Coach Vij’s car in the lot, but when the door opened Mrs. Goel stepped out, not him. She wore trackpants, a white workout top and a baseball cap. She was hefting equipment out of the car onto the gravel—the bucket of balls, helmets, extra bats. I waved goodbye to my dad and went to help.

  “Hi, Mrs. Goel, can I help carry this stuff?” I asked. She turned, holding the bucket by the handle. Oh man, she was wearing a Marlins cap. I had never met anyone who loved the Marlins.

  “Sure, Caspar, thanks,” she said, handing me a cooler of water to carry to the dugout. The heat wave had continued. Everyone kept saying not to get used to it.

  As we walked to the dugout, she asked me a bunch of questions, like how did I like Redburn, and what position did I like to play?

  “Is Coach Vij coming?” I asked.

  “Not today. He asked me to fill in for him today.”

  “You’re the secret weapon?” I asked, grinning.

  “Maybe,” she said. “I’ve picked up some tricks.”

  Once the other players arrived, Mrs. Goel stood in front of the group. She tightened her ponytail and cleared her throat.

  “Hey, team. Coach Vij asked me to run the practice today. You know that I’m A.J.’s mom, but today you can call me Coach Mira. We’re going to warm up with a run, but first I have a question for you.” She paused for a moment. “Do you want to be winners or whiners?”

  Silence. A jet was flying overhead, making a white streak across the sky. We all knew there was only one answer—but none of us could say it.

  “What I mean to say is that you boys have gotten good this year, very good. You’ve worked hard. But do you think you’re good enough to beat the Rockets after all these years?”

  Silence again. True, the Cubs had finally won a World Series after decades of being shut out, finally justifying my dad’s years of hard-core fandom. But did I think we were good enough? Not yet.

  “There’s still time,” said Coach Mira. “But you’re all going to have to focus. No sunflower seeds, no gum, no dorking around with Gatorade bottles.”

  Jerome whimpered a bit at that point. Those were his favorite dugout pastimes.

  “I’ve got some special strategies to share with you. You should know that I don’t share them with everybody.”

  Even Oscar seemed to pay attention to that.

  “Okay, now let’s do a warm-up. Three times around the field.”

  “Who roots for the Marlins?” muttered Hank as we fell into a line.

  “Someone’s got to,” I whispered.

  After the jog we practiced double plays and grounders, and Coach Mira helped some of the boys one-on-one in the batting cage. I wondered if Coach Vij was busy or if he’d put Coach Mira in to shake us up. Because she had. The practice was going awesome. Sometimes I felt I could play ball f
orever. Sometimes I believed I was born to play baseball.

  “Okay, boys, well done,” said Coach Mira.

  What? I thought there were at least twenty minutes left in the practice. I figured we were calling it quits early. I turned to get my glove and help put away the equipment.

  “Caspar, where do you think you’re going?” she asked. The team all turned to me.

  “Okay, Ravens, now I’m going to teach you the Stingray, my top-secret play. But first you must solemnly swear to never tell anyone about the Stingray. Now repeat after me. I promise…”

  “I promise,” we chanted.

  But she wasn’t done.

  “To never tell…”

  “To never tell…”

  “Anyone, especially the Rockets, about the Stingray.”

  We all agreed, looking at each other with giant grins and shouting the especially the Rockets part as loud as we could.

  The Stingray was epic. I would tell you about it. But I promised Coach Mira. Okay, I’ll just give you the highlights. It involves faking a throw to second—but then you chuck it to the shortstop instead to get an out at home or at third. It is Strategy with a capital S. It is genius. I would wish Mira Goel was my mom if my own mom wasn’t so awesome.

  My dad came to pick me up in the car and seemed pretty amused by my enthusiasm for the secret play we’d learned and the practice in general.

  “We’re going places,” I told him, a phrase I’d heard Nana use.

  “How about going for ice cream with me?” he asked.

  “So close to dinner?” I asked. I couldn’t believe my luck. It was highly unlikely that my mom had approved this plan, so I didn’t ask any more questions. I walked to the car, feeling almost giddy at the unexpected treat.

  We ended up driving to a Dairy Queen about fifteen minutes away. I got a small soft serve—I didn’t want to risk The Wrath of Mom.

  On the way home we took a detour because my dad had to pick up a part for our lawn mower at a specialty hardware store.

  “I’ll just be a minute. Or you can come in with me,” he said when he parked. Typical parent, letting you choose from two boring options.

  “Hey, what’s that, Dad?” I asked, pointing to a big field with netting. Then I realized it was a massive commercial batting cage, like the one in Toronto where I’d had my party. I noticed the sign—Big Ned’s Batting Cages. If you were small, nothing was named after you, it seemed.

  “Oh, yeah. I meant to tell you about that. We should go sometime. Looks busy though.”

  I looked closer and realized it was teeming with Rockets. I thought I saw a flash of Kyle’s neon-orange baseball cleats off in the distance. It was almost certainly him.

  By the time my dad came back with the part, the sugar high from the ice cream had worn off. The Rockets were swinging. And they weren’t missing.

  We would have to try harder. And I would have to pitch better.

  I wasn’t getting my windup the way I wanted. If it were a smell, it would be eau de summer dumpster. Seriously, it was bad. My dad wasn’t making it any easier.

  “Caz,” he said, squatting down on our driveway and holding up a catcher’s mitt. “Plant your back leg.”

  “I am,” I said, whining like a little kid. I didn’t remember my pitching ever being this bad. Maybe I just wasn’t a good ballplayer at all, and the past had all been a fluke. Maybe—

  “Caz,” said my dad. “I am old, and I can only squat down for so long, so fire one in the glove. If you do, I’ll give you a beer.”

  That, I knew, was not true. But I threw the ball anyway. It made a thock sound as it went into the glove. Ball high, an ump would have called.

  “Not bad,” my dad pronounced. “But hardly worth a beer.” He pulled down his Cubs cap. No one could accuse him of joining a bandwagon when the Cubs got good. That cap was old and beat-up. He lobbed the ball back to me. I tried again.

  “You know, Caz,” he said, catching my throw, “girls can play baseball and be the best. Think of Mo’ne Davis.”

  Why was he bringing that up now? I knew all about Mo’ne Davis. My dad and I had watched tapes of her playing. She was amazing. Seeing her pitch a shutout at the Little League World Series was mind-blowing. I wished I could pitch like her.

  “Mo’ne Davis is the best,” I agreed. But then I looked at my dad’s face. Something else was going on.

  “Dad,” I said. “Girls can rock baseball, but I’m not a girl.”

  People who grow up feeling right in their own body have a hard time understanding how it could feel wrong.

  “Sorry, Caz. Sometimes I forget. You were my little girl for a long time.” He looked down at the ground for a second. I felt like I was disappointing him, just like I was going to disappoint Coach Vij with these terrible pitches.

  My dad threw the ball back to me, and I wound up and fired it back at him.

  “Dad!” I shouted. “It’s like I’m throwing flounders! I’m terrible!” I threw my glove down on the driveway, narrowly missing an anthill.

  My dad laughed, which made me madder. “Flounders?”

  “Like slow-moving fish,” I said, and then I laughed too. It was kind of funny. Jake Arrieta had never thrown a flounder.

  “Give me three more and then we’ll take a break,” he said.

  The last one was pretty good—which was what my dad had been counting on. He’s pretty smart. Hey, he knew the Cubbies would win eventually.

  “I’ll go get those beers,” he said and went into the kitchen. He came back with two root beers in tiny bottles with foil caps, like champagne.

  “This should be really good,” he said. “I got it from that health-food store. When you win the championships, I’ll dump some all over you, just like they do in the majors.”

  Redburn was pretty big on juice bars and no plastic bags and plenty of bike lanes and all that. When I’d heard we were moving to the States, I had wondered if I would meet people who owned guns, since there were so many on TV, but I hadn’t seen one yet.

  We sat down on the steps of the wooden deck. We’d left our old lawn furniture behind in Toronto. But I liked sitting on the steps. J.R got up from the shady spot he’d found under an azalea bush and we both patted him before he sauntered back.

  “You miss Toronto?” my dad asked, taking a swig.

  “Some things,” I said. “The Jays are kind of stinko right now.”

  “They’ll pull it together. They’re too good not to,” said my dad.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I agreed. My dad and I agreed on most things. We didn’t fight much, except sometimes about the state of my room. It was an ongoing topic.

  “Do you like your new job?” I asked. The root beer was sweet and cold. It was all-natural, made with cane sugar or something, but it was still super good.

  “Most days,” he said. “I miss some of my old co-workers. Sometimes I miss Toronto too, but it’s cool living closer to the ocean. We could bike to the beach sometime with Hank, if you want.”

  “How about right now?” I asked.

  He thought for a minute, holding the root-beer bottle in midair. “Give him a call.”

  “Awesome!” I said and ran to the phone. Hank, as usual, was all in, and my dad and I rounded up our bike helmets, towels and bathing suits. We left our baseball gloves behind. Maybe even the great Yaz went to the beach now and then on a sunny day.

  Tuesday was a no-practice day, but a sunny afternoon without baseball was like naked fries with no ketchup. I called up Hank so we could practice together. Then Hank called up Oscar and Gus. We all met at the park and had our own mini practice. We practiced pop flies, did some grounders and even reviewed the Stingray. Then I offered to pitch so the others could get in some batting practice. We were just getting set up when I spotted some Rockets cutting across the field, heading our way. There were four of them. They were wearing their powder-blue uniforms, which reminded me of Grandma Ames’s guest bathroom.

  “We’ve got company,” said Gus, squ
aring his shoulders. He sounded like a guy in a Western.

  “I don’t like company,” said Hank, scowling.

  “I always hafta clean my room when we have company,” said Oscar.

  “Let’s just keep playing,” I said. I was getting warmed up to pitch to the guys. I’d have to save my best stuff. I didn’t want the Rockets to see it.

  I was on the mound, ready to start pitching. Kyle headed straight for me. He stood a few inches away from me, right in my face. I hated that.

  “You seem to be on our diamond,” said Kyle.

  I swallowed. “You seem to be standing on my mound.”

  “We’ve got some serious practice to do. So shove off.” Kyle tapped me on the shoulder. I saw Gus bristle. Gus was a gentle giant, but it wasn’t good to make him mad.

  “We were here first,” I said, keeping the shaking I felt from getting into my voice. “You can have it in half an hour when we’re done batting.”

  “I don’t see your name on this diamond,” said Kyle. “We want it now.”

  I sighed, looking from Gus to Oscar to Hank. Gus looked fierce. Hank look worried. Oscar was sitting down by first base and trying to stab a straw into a juice box.

  I took off my glove and set it down next to the mound. Then I put down the ball in my hand. I straightened my ballcap. Kyle clenched his fist. His whole body was quivering like a live electric wire. I stepped to one side and bent down in the dirt. I used my fingertip to spell out the letters of my name: CASPAR.

  “There,” I said. “Now you do. We’ll be done in half an hour. In the meantime, there’s space to practice over there.” I pointed to the area at the far corner of the park. It was usually for younger kids—but it would do fine.

  “Let’s go, boys,” Kyle said, gesturing to the corner practice area. “I don’t wanna watch this anyway. This kid’s gonna serve up more meatballs than The Old Spaghetti Factory.”

  I had to admit, that was a pretty good line. But back to work. Hank played catcher, and Gus was first up to bat. I had been afraid Kyle was going to slug me—and it took a few seconds for my hand to stop shaking. My adrenaline was still surging, and I threw a hard fastball. Gus swung and missed.