Bat 6

by Virginia Euwer Wolff

  Shazam

  Then there was more words to read on that page she wrote it was Yes and some other words I saw the word hurt she was hurt bad.

  Aki

  My heart jumped in its place, a sudden inflation, and began to pound all through me from the rudeness of what I had just written. That girl really didn’t know. Some surprise came into her face, her mouth. She looked all around the room, everywhere except at me.

  Manzanita

  I was tempted to say something because of the quiet there with just a fly going from the windowsill to the bedstead to the bed cover to Shazam’s chair to a jar of zinnias on the floor. I could of said something to make that silence go away. But I didn’t.

  Shazam

  She gots that big thing on her head of leather and metal parts.

  Manzanita

  I kept waiting.

  Aki

  I thought about writing, “It’s OK, it’s not so bad.” It would make my heart stop beating like a drum in my throat.

  Manzanita

  I almost had a case of nerves just being in that room with hundreds of flowers and that fly in the quiet and who could know what was going on in Shazam’s crooked mind?

  And then I got so mad at her in that silent buzzing room, I wanted to wring her neck. It wasn’t my fault like I thought a minute ago. I did not set Shazam no bad example.

  It’s like Audrey said way last winter: Crumptillions of children had fathers die in the war and they’re normal people in despite of it.

  They don’t go jamming their elbows into people’s heads.

  And there is other children born out of wedding lock. They are not crazy just because of it. God wouldn’t make them crazy just to punish their sinful mom and dad.

  Shazam

  That thing was a head brace.

  Aki

  My loud heart was frightening. I could have written “It’s OK.” I didn’t. Not even to make my heart be quiet. I had been so rude and yet I didn’t take it back. It was the truth.

  Manzanita

  That fly buzzed onto Aki’s face. She brushed at it with a slow motion of her hand.

  Shazam sat there with her lipped-in face.

  I was near ready to scream, I had my teeth gritted in that speechless room.

  Shazam

  Her face was way inside that head thing I seen her eyes look at me.

  Aki

  Or I could write “Thanks for coming.”

  Shazam

  Her face a Jap face.

  Manzanita

  That girl Aki would hate me in seventh grade for bringing this silent crazy person to her very own private bedroom. I could never make it up to her.

  Shazam

  That girl did not move her head.

  Manzanita

  I thought how I must of done wrong bringing her here. She wasn’t catching on no more than a stick. And that grandmother had bowed to her! I could of screamed. I held on and listened to that fly go around the room, across my face and over to Shazam and back to the window again.

  Shazam

  Jap airplanes bombed my fathers ship fire everywhere I couldnt breathe nobody could get out.

  Aki

  That girl kept staring at me. I looked up at Manzanita standing there, apologizing to me with her face. My heart wouldn’t quiet down.

  Manzanita

  God couldn’t be wrong about this, but I sure was tempted to think so. Be of good courage, Manny.

  Aki

  My grandmother brought in three glasses of lemonade on a tray and offered them to the two girls, who took them. Manzanita said, “Thank you.” Then my grandmother sat on my bed and put the straw from my glass in my mouth. It was really good lemonade.

  I hadn’t brushed my teeth for all those weeks. It was disgusting.

  When I’d had a few drinks I put my hand up to show my grandmother that was enough. She got up off my bed and went back into the kitchen.

  Shazam

  My mom she said over and over again. My stomach squeezed it hurted so bad. We had to have gas masks so when they bomb us again.

  Manzanita

  Even my friends were not so friendly when I had my spells of seeing Jesus, this time for sure they would not like me for what I done bringing this awful thing to pass.

  Shazam

  I ran to first base that Jap face there.

  Aki

  I nearly got my pencil in writing position to say “It’s OK.” I almost did.

  Manzanita

  I could not be of good courage much longer. The minutes was going by.

  Shazam

  I ran into her. That big thing on her head that fly buzz I guess Im sorry.

  Aki

  I nearly had the pencil on the page. And then that peculiar girl said, “I’m sorry.”

  Manzanita

  Praise God.

  Aki

  Now I could write “It’s OK” or “Thanks for coming.” I still didn’t do it. I just didn’t.

  Shazam

  My stomach squeezed I stood up Manny come with me.

  Manzanita

  I didn’t know what God wanted me to do now but I felt we had to quit while we was ahead. Me and Aki looked at each other and I hoped she could see my feelings of how sorry I was she had to sit there all that silent time and how I was praising God Shazam finally got a brain in her head to do the decent thing.

  Shazam was almost out the door and I said to Aki, “We better go now.”

  Aki

  Now I wrote “Thanks for coming.” Manzanita said she was glad they came. That other girl kept her eyes on the door. They left. My heart still kept telling me I had been rude. But I knew too I had been right.

  Manzanita

  The road to Barlow is mostly downhill and we coasted. I told Shazam she done the right thing. In my heart I found out I was actually starting to like her. Or like some little part of her.

  Shazam did not say much. Once she said how good Brita Marie’s bike rode. And once she said her stomach hurt. I told her it must of been something she ate. She didn’t say anything more.

  We passed them absent-minded cows in the field above the Flying Horse gas station with their easy lives, they don’t have right and wrong. I was jealous of them for a moment and then I took it back. They don’t have no possibility of choosing anything, only just which grass they’ll eat, at the right or left of their heads.

  When we rode past the men sitting on the porch at the Barlow General Store they looked up, but I did not even wave like I usually do. Let them discuss how that disgrace of a girl was out joyriding on Brita Marie’s bike, I didn’t care. I was too full of complication of what-all happened at Aki’s house.

  Ever since, Jesus never once come to me telling me I done a good job. I wish he would of.

  Shazam

  I keep my puka shells on that palm tree silk scarf all ready to fold up take with if they make me go away. I keep putting up that fence keep the deer out its hard work the sun too hot.

  That Jap girl hurt bad. I hurt her with my arm.

  They thought I would go back with my mom I got the stomach squeeze. They said I would go back with her then they said I would not.

  My grammama gets her headaches I can fry the bacon up myself. I took her a bacon sandwich in her bed she said thank you dear. It is a name she says to me.

  Tootie

  I lost my pep. Even my mom said, “I never hear you say Hubba hubba ding ding anymore.” I did not feel like hubba hubba ding ding anymore.

  One day after berrypicking I got some girls and we rode our bikes down to the Flying Horse gas station where that man has the board with all the Bat 6 scores on it. I got Ellen, Daisy, and Vernell, and Daisy’s friend Wink from Barlow said she would meet us there, and when she got there she had their catcher, Audrey, with her, because it is Audrey’s great-uncle Beau that puts the scores up every year. Lorelei could not go because she had to thin apples for her dad.

  The year 1949 was a blank on the board.

  W
e parked our bikes and went over to where he was spraying the dust down with the hose.

  Audrey said hello first, and she said, “This is my great-uncle Beau.” Then all of us from the Ridge told our names.

  “We were wondering what you’re gonna put up on the board for 1949,” she said. Just hearing that made me mad all over again.

  He looked at all 6 of us gathered there and he said, “That was a sad day, I don’t know what to write.”

  “Well, what do you think you’re going to put on it?” I asked.

  “Well, I just don’t know,” he said.

  Then Ellen said, “How about just the names of the two teams?”

  Here it was August and I was resentful to admit the truth of it, there would be no MVP for 1949. Not even a score.

  “I don’t think a blank 1949 would be very nice,” said Vernell.

  And that Beau looked down at her and he got her point. “I get your point, it wouldn’t be very nice, would it?” he said.

  “Could you put the names of the teams?” said Daisy. “And just leave it like that? So at least our children won’t have to look at just a blank space?”

  Beau said he thought that would be a good idea, and he went inside the station and climbed up the ladder to a high shelf way above the rows of fan belts, and he got small cans of red and green paint and he got 2 brushes from a drawer. And he painted the team names while we watched. The tall Barlow first baseman held the 2 cans of paint for him.

  Watching it made my heart sink all over again.

  But there is one thing. We lived through it. That is something.

  Shazam

  Out there by the woods Shig put his arm out front Stop I looked he pointed a deer leaping high over 3 logs come down thunder on the ground I never saw no such big jump. Shig whispered pretty huh I whispered yes.

  Alva

  Dear God,

  I still don’t understand. Even with Manny being so free-hearted to take that awful girl to face up to the first baseman she hurt so bad. I still don’t get it at all.

  If You know everything, why don’t You let us understand?

  Wink thought Shazam was sent here to test our Christian goodness. But I don’t get that either.

  And also I don’t understand why Shazam couldn’t go back to her mother. Why do we have to have her with us in 7th? How much Christian goodness do we have to learn?

  I feel sorry for the sixth graders coming up, they will not have Mrs. Winters, she is having her baby. Did she get too sad with what happened and she doesn’t want to teach anybody anymore?

  Thy will be done.

  Your friend,

  Alva

  Mrs. Rayfield’s Apple Spice Cake

  (This makes a nice family size, 8" square cake or about 10 cupcakes. If you’re feeding a softball team, you want to multiply the recipe maybe 3 or 4 times and bake it in a big sheet pan.)

  1 cup sugar (can decrease, cake will still be good)

  ½ cup scant shortening or Oleo or butter

  1 egg, not from a bantie

  ½ cup cold coffee

  1 tsp. soda dissolved in coffee

  1½ cups flour

  1 tsp. ground cinnamon

  ¾ tsp. ground cloves

  A little nutmeg

  1 cup sour apples peeled and cut up fine

  ½ cup raisins

  Nuts if your family likes them

  Build a medium-hot fire in stove. A mix of Douglas fir and old apple wood is good. If you have electrical, heat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease your pan.

  Sift flour, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg together into a medium bowl. Set aside. In large bowl, cream shortening and sugar till fluffy. Add the egg and beat well. Then add the dry ingredients alternating with the liquid, beating well after each addition. Pour batter in pan. Bake about 35 minutes for cake, or about 20–22 minutes for cupcakes. Cool in open window or on rack.

  Thanks to: Marilyn E. Marlow, Anthony Wolff, Juliet Wolff, Gene and Meg Euwer, Linny and Dennis Stovall, Don Gallo, Sue Macy, Mary Spangenberg, Mary Jo Wade, Cheryl Acheson, Lawson Fusao Inada, Katharine Ballash, Takako Ebisawa, Nancy Moller, Mary Gunesch, Bill Gunesch, Laura Godwin, Grace Chen, M.D., Mark Harris, Barry Varela, the Rev. Ashley M. Cook, the Rev. Nan Geer, Bill Plummer III of the Amateur Softball Association, the National Softball Hall of Fame, the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the Oregon City Pioneers and Coach Will Rhinehart, the Oregon City Babes and Coach Rick Snyder, Spalding Sports Worldwide, Wilson Sporting Goods, Sears Merchandise Group, the staff of the Gladstone Public Library; and, feather by feather, to Brenda Bowen.

  VIRGINIA EUWER WOLFF is the author of Probably Still Nick Swansen, an ALA/YASD Best Book, winner of the IRA Young Adult Fiction award; The Mozart Season, an ALA Notable Book, an ALA/YASD Best Book, a School Library Journal Best Book; and Make Lemonade, an ALA/YASD Best Book, a Booklist Top of the List, and a School Library Journal Best Book.

  “Our daily news is filled with children doing horrifying things,” says Ms. Wolff, “and I’m fascinated by the question: What is it we notice about these kids but decide not to acknowledge?”

  Born and raised in Oregon, Virginia Euwer Wolff now lives in a house in the woods of Oregon City.

  Copyright © 1998 by Virginia Euwer Wolff

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First edition, May 1998

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-88105-0

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.