by Alan Gratz
“I—I’m gonna go out the back way.”
“Yeah. Sounds like a good idea to me,” Ralph said. Together they jogged up the stairs and down the hall to the back stairs. Jimmy was just about to push his way outside and make for home when he saw two of Eric’s gang hanging out on the back steps. He ducked back inside.
“They covered both the exits!” Ralph whispered. “Man, they must really want to get you bad. What are you gonna do now?”
Jimmy retreated into the stairwell—and noticed for the first time that the stairs kept going down beyond the ground floor.
“Hey, where do these stairs go?”
Ralph shrugged. “Basement, I guess.”
Jimmy jogged down the first flight of stairs to the turn.
“Can you see me from up there?”
“No.”
“All right,” Jimmy said, coming back up. “I’ve got an idea.”
Ralph burst through the back doors and almost made it past Eric’s buddies before they grabbed him.
“Whoa there, monkey boy. Where you going in such a hurry?”
“Yeah, and where’s your little friend?”
“Eric got him. Coming out the front door.”
“Swell,” one of the boys said.
“Please, no—leave him alone.”
“Heh. Some hero you are,” the other boy said. He shoved Ralph against the wall and headed for the door. “Come on,” he told his friend. “I don’t want to miss the fun.”
Ralph gave Eric’s friends time to go inside and climb the stairs, then pulled the door open and whistled softly. Jimmy came running up the stairs from the darkness below and slipped outside. Together the two friends ran as far as Nostrand Avenue before they stopped to say their good-byes.
“I owe you one,” Jimmy said.
“Great. How about you give me your Jim Gilliam card, then?”
“What!? No way!”
“Gil Hodges, then.”
“Deal.” They shook on it, and Ralph took off for their street while Jimmy headed for Ebbets Field.
There was a small group of people assembled at the corner of Sullivan and McKeever when Jimmy got there. Some of them wore sandwich boards with slogans on them and sang songs trying to convince the Dodgers to stay in Brooklyn. A woman wearing a “Keep the Dodgers” pin and a Brooklyn cap sat behind a little table nearby, and Jimmy gave her the pages of signatures he’d collected for the petition to get the Dodgers to stay. The woman added them to an impressive-looking stack on a clipboard and offered Jimmy a pin, but he told her he already had one.
A man with a bullhorn led the crowd in a Dodger fight song, and Jimmy sang along as loud as he could. But even as he sang, Jimmy couldn’t help but wonder who heard them, or who was actually going to read the petition. The season was over. The Milwaukee Braves were playing the New York Yankees for the World Series, and his mother and the rest of the Dodgers’ front office were already in California getting ready for next season. It suddenly felt silly to work so hard to keep the Dodgers in Brooklyn when they clearly didn’t want to stay, and Jimmy slipped away before the song was even finished.
Jimmy shuffled up the steps to his great-grandfather’s house and went inside. Great-Grandpa Snider was watching television, and Jimmy plopped down beside him. They watched in silence until Jimmy’s grandmother appeared in the doorway to the kitchen.
“I thought I heard someone come in. Did you have a good day at school, Jimmy?”
“Yes ma’am.”
Grandma Frankie waited like there was something more.
“Your teacher called. Mrs. Holloway. She said you didn’t go out for recess at all today. Said you seemed all mopey.”
Jimmy stared at the ground.
“You’re not getting sick, are you?”
“No ma’am.”
“So what about it, then? Why won’t you go out to play?”
“I just—I just needed some time to work on my Keep the Dodgers petition,” Jimmy lied.
“Oh, Jimmy. You know that man never meant to keep the Dodgers here. He was just looking for a reason to leave.”
“I know.”
“Dinner’ll be ready in a half an hour,” she told them, disappearing into the kitchen.
Jimmy couldn’t bring himself to get up, so he sat and watched What’s My Secret? with his great-grandfather. They put the new contestant’s secret up on the screen so the viewers at home would know what the panel was supposed to guess. It said: “Every time Sputnik goes over my house my garage door opens.”
“What’s his name?” Great-Grandpa Snider said out of nowhere.
“Whose name?”
“The boy who’s giving you trouble on the playground.”
Jimmy flushed and clammed up. His great-grandfather looked away from the TV at him.
“I don’t know any red-blooded American boy who doesn’t want to go outside for recess. You’re not a Commie, are you?”
Jimmy laughed and Great-Grandpa Snider smiled.
“No, sir. And his name is Eric Kirkpatrick.”
“Bigger’n you? Ugly cuss?”
“You know him?”
Great-Grandpa Snider laughed. “I’ve known a lot of him over the years. So what are you going to do about it?”
“Duck and cover,” Jimmy said.
His great-grandfather harrumphed. “So that’s the plan? You’re gonna run away all your life?”
Jimmy shrugged. “At least until junior high.”
“I tell you,” Great-Grandpa Snider said, “you better do something about it now, or you’re going to be ducking and covering your whole life. That’s what my pa did, and it wore him down.”
“But what can I do?”
“Fight back. If he’s bigger’n you, step on his toes. Then, when he’s hopping around cussing, pop him one in the nose.”
Jimmy didn’t know what to say. He’d never heard his great-grandfather talk like this.
“Better yet, shoot him a knee to the groin. Don’t matter how big a man is, that’ll take him down every time. No matter what you do, you find a way to fight back, or you’ll be a victim all your life.”
“Y—yessir,” Jimmy said, sliding off the couch. “Thanks.”
Jimmy went out back into their small yard. It was almost twilight, and he lay down on his back to see if he could spot Sputnik flying overhead. Next door, the Ramirezes’ radio was tuned in to the news, where the broadcaster was talking about “Mutually Assured Destruction.” Then they replayed that sound, the sound of Sputnik drawing a bead on them from orbit: Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beeeeeeep, beep, beep, beep—
The Russians were in space, the Dodgers were going to California, and Eric Kirkpatrick was going to pound him to a pulp.
Other than that, his life was perfect.
3
Jimmy watched the second hand ticking away on the clock above the chalkboard in Mrs. Holloway’s classroom. Tick, tick, tick—it beat with the haunting regularity of Sputnik. But Sputnik was death that could come without warning, and Jimmy’s more immediate concern was the death that was coming with warning: Eric Kirkpatrick, who had come over to Jimmy’s desk that morning to tell him in no uncertain terms that there would be no escape this afternoon.
Tick, tick, tick—skipping recesses and lunch, Jimmy had five hours and twenty-three minutes left until the end of the day, and maybe the end of his life.
When it was time for math Jimmy and the rest of the students pulled out their arithmetic books, but the teacher told them they wouldn’t be using those books anymore. They had ordered new math textbooks, books about geometry and algebra, and the students would begin using them within the week. They would be getting new science textbooks too.
“This is math you would be learning later, in junior high, but the school board has decided to step things up a bit. I’m sure you’ll all do fine,” Mrs. Holloway said. She gave them all an encouraging smile. “Instead of your usual math work today, we’re going to watch a film to help prepare you for what�
��s to come. Can someone fetch the film projector for me? Jimmy?”
Jimmy jumped. He’d been staring at the clock and not really paying attention.
“And who will go with him?” Mrs. Holloway asked.
“Ooh! Ooh! Me!” Eric Kirkpatrick said, waving his hand frantically in the air.
“Why, Eric. I’ve never known you to be so . . . enthusiastic about helping,” Mrs. Holloway said. “You and Jimmy then. Off you go.”
Jimmy couldn’t move. He knew exactly why Eric had volunteered to go with him to get the projector. This time he was going to get Jimmy before he had another chance to slip away.
“Remember—duck and cover!” Ralph whispered from behind him.
Jimmy rose like a condemned man and met Eric at the door. Eric beamed at him.
“Back in a flash,” Eric told Mrs. Holloway, and he opened the door for Jimmy with mock politeness.
Jimmy walked alongside Eric down the hallway, wondering when the attack would come. Not here, he realized, not around the other classrooms. Eric would wait until they were alone together in the A/V room.
He could just run away, but to where? If he ran back to class he’d be a laughingstock. If he ran home his grandma would just send him right back. He could run off to the movie theater, spend the day there in the dark, and then head home after school was over, but then what about tomorrow? And the day after that? And the day after that? No, Great-Grandpa Snider was right: To run now would mean he’d be running away all his life. He’d have to move to get away from Eric Kirkpatrick, and that wasn’t going to happen.
But fighting him wasn’t going to happen either. Great-Grandpa Snider might have been able to stand up to bullies, but Jimmy couldn’t. He’d never been in a real fight in his entire life, and he was sure if he started this one—or even fought back—it would only make things worse on him.
Jimmy was beginning to think that maybe duck and cover was the best option after all.
Eric pushed him inside the A/V room and closed the door behind them. The place was filled with film projectors on carts and reel-to-reel tape machines, and had the metal/plastic smell of the future. Oddly, Jimmy wondered if this is what Sputnik smelled like.
“No running away this time, Skinflint.”
Eric knocked him backward into a cart, and while Jimmy was trying to keep himself from falling Eric punched him in the stomach. It was like running into his bike handlebar times a thousand, and Jimmy fell to his knees, groaning.
“You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you, Skinflint?”
Jimmy kept his eyes on the floor.
“You got nothing wise to say this time? That’s what I thought. All right, Clyde. This is how it’s gonna go. I’m gonna pound you, but if you say anything about what happened and get me in trouble, we’ll just do this again, see? Mrs. Holloway asks, and you tell her you—”
Eric was interrupted by something howling outside—a siren. They both froze.
“What gives?” Eric asked.
Jimmy knew that sound. They’d just heard it the day before in class.
“It’s a civil defense siren!”
Eric ran to the window. “I—I see it! I see a bomb!”
“Duck and cover!”
Jimmy and Eric dove underneath a strong-looking wooden table, and Jimmy covered his head and neck with his arms.
“You think it’s the Russians?”
“Of course it’s the Russians, Skinflint! Who else would it be? But did you see a flash? I didn’t see a flash. They said there would be a flash!”
Jimmy didn’t see anything. He had his eyes shut so tight they made faint radiating patterns against the back of his eyelids. Over the wail of the siren, Jimmy kept hearing the drone of Sputnik. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beeeeeeep—
This was it. He would never see his mother again, never see Grandma Frankie or Great-Grandpa Snider again. His house, his school, Ebbets Field—his entire world would be gone.
And then the siren stopped. In the sudden silence, Jimmy could hear their breaths against the cold tile floor.
“You think it’s over?” Jimmy asked. “I didn’t hear any explosions.”
“I don’t know—but I ain’t getting up until somebody tells me to get up.”
The two boys waited under the table, hands over their heads, for what seemed like ages—but Jimmy wasn’t going to get up until Eric did. Just when his legs were starting to cramp up, Jimmy heard the door to the A/V room open.
“Oh, boys! I’m so sorry.” It was Mrs. Holloway. Jimmy and Eric raised their heads. “The drill is over now. You can come out.”
“Drill?” Eric asked.
“We didn’t know when it would come, but we announced it to the class when the sirens went off.”
“But Eric saw a bomb. He said so.”
“Saw a bomb?” Mrs. Holloway said. “I’m not sure you would actually see one falling. Exploding, yes, but not falling.”
Eric ran to the window. “No, I was sure I saw it. Look—there it is!”
Jimmy and Mrs. Holloway went to the window with him. There, in the distant sky, was a small oval object with tail fins.
“That’s a blimp!” Jimmy said.
“An easy mistake,” Mrs. Holloway said. “You two did very well in the duck and cover drill. Very well indeed. Now let’s get that projector and get back to class.”
His classmates were jabbering away when Jimmy got back to class, and Mrs. Holloway let them talk while she set up the film.
Ralph leaned forward. “Hey, you’re not dead!”
“No, and neither is anybody else.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We didn’t know it was a drill! We were still ducking and covering when Mrs. Holloway came and got us!”
Ralph had himself a good laugh over that, and Jimmy punched him in the arm.
“It’s not funny!”
“Hey, okay, okay. So does that mean Eric is still after you?”
Jimmy looked across the room to where Eric was laughing with his friends, probably telling them all about how he beat up little Jimmy Flint. Somehow he doubted he was telling them how the two of them ducked and covered the rest of the time, thinking it was the end of everything.
“No,” Jimmy said. “I think it’s over.”
But it wasn’t. On the way home from school that afternoon Eric and his buddies caught Jimmy and Ralph on the cement playground and surrounded them.
“Heya, Skinflint,” Eric said. “It’s time to finish what we started.”
Jimmy couldn’t believe it. Not after what they’d been through, not after what they thought had happened. It’s not like he and Eric had become buddies hiding under the table, but Jimmy figured it had shown both of them there were bigger things to worry about than who beat who at card flipping.
Eric cracked his knuckles. “Now, where were we?”
Jimmy backed up, but one of Eric’s buddies shoved him forward. If Jimmy didn’t think of something fast, he was going to get it. He looked around frantically for a teacher, a parent, but there was nobody around. There was something in the sky, though—
“Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bomb!”
“What? Huh? Where?” Eric’s gang said, and everyone looked where Jimmy was pointing.
“That’s not a bomb, you moron!” one of Eric’s buddies said. “That’s a blimp!”
“The spaz don’t even know the difference between a blimp and a bomb!”
Eric’s gang broke up in fits of laughter, but Jimmy saw right away that Eric wasn’t laughing. He was glaring at Jimmy, warning him silently with his eyes not to say anything more.
“Did you see a flash? They said there’d be a flash. Are you sure you didn’t see it?” he said, overplaying it so he was sure Eric got the message. From the scowl on Eric’s face, Jimmy knew he understood. If Eric beat him up, Jimmy would tell everybody how he’d ducked and covered, and mistaken a blimp for a bomb. He might still put Jimmy in a body cast, but Eric’s reputation as a
tough guy would be ruined forever. It felt wrong to make fun of Eric for being scared. Jimmy had been just as frightened, maybe even more so. But Jimmy wasn’t the one picking the fight.
“Come on, Eric, pound him!” one of the boys said.
Eric sneered at Jimmy, then gave in. “Not today.”
Eric’s buddies couldn’t believe it.
“Not today, Skinflint,” Eric said, pointing a finger at his nose. “But one day, when you least expect it—” He smacked a fist into his open hand. “Boom.”
He was just making a show of being tough for his gang, and Jimmy didn’t say anything more. He didn’t have to. He and Eric both knew what would happen if he made good on his threat. And it wasn’t just his word against Eric’s—Mrs. Holloway knew all about him ducking and covering from a blimp too.
Eric turned and walked away, and his confused friends followed him.
Jimmy let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
“What—what just happened!?” Ralph asked. “He was gonna pummel you!”
“He was, but it’s over. For real, this time.”
“What do you mean it’s over? He just said one day when you least expect it, boom!”
“He won’t do it,” Jimmy said. “Not now and not ever.” He looked up into the sky, trying to see Sputnik. “And I don’t think the Russians will either.” He was beginning to understand now, and it felt like a great weight was lifting off his shoulders.
“What are you talking about?”
Jimmy smiled and told Ralph all about Mutually Assured Destruction as they looked for a place to flip cards.
Eighth Inning: The Perfectionist
Brooklyn, New York, 1981
1
It was shaping up to be a perfect summer day, but Michael Flint didn’t notice it. Not right away, at least. He was too focused on perfecting his curveball to notice anything else. His grandma Kat had taught him how to throw one, but he still hadn’t mastered it. He was doing everything he was supposed to: He held the ball deep in his palm, he nestled his first two fingers along one of the seams, he rolled his hand to give the ball downspin. But the ball either ended up breaking far too early and bouncing home, or it flattened out and didn’t break at all—the dreaded “hanging curveball” that was so easy to hit. Every now and then he got one just right and it dropped into the catcher’s mitt like a Tom Seaver curveball, but he couldn’t do it perfectly every time and so he never did it. At least not in a game.