Moments later he glanced up as he heard a soft hiss behind him. Peeking out of the corner of his eye, he saw the three athletes seated in the corner. Litton, the leader of the trio, sat stiffly in his chair, his paper unmarked. Red-faced, he gestured questioningly to his friend.
“Beats me!” he whispered harshly in response to their unasked question.
Several of the other students were also looking around in confusion. One of them threw Litton an angry look, pointing with his pencil at the blank sheets on his desk. Baffled, Bucky turned back to his test.
After the final bell, he turned in his paper, scooped up his books, and headed out of the room toward the locker area. Jostling up next to him was a familiar, angry face.
“Meet me outside.” Litton growled the words in Bucky’s face as two other athletes came up.
Mystified, Bucky could only nod a weak assent. Quickly, the four boys made their way to the exit.
“What’s going on?” he asked, as they stepped into the sunshine outside the classroom complex.
“Don’t give me that,” Litton snarled. “You know perfectly well what happened. You told Harville about the practice test and he switched them on us. Gave us all new questions.”
“What?” Bucky didn’t have to fake his surprise.
“Come on!” Reggie interjected. “Dan tells me you were the only student who got on his case about these tests. Don’t tell me you didn’t kill the deal with Harville.”
“Yeah.” Estrada, the muscular third baseman, took a menacing step forward.
“Look,” Bucky retorted, his temper flaring, “I said I didn’t tell Harville, and I didn’t. Dan, here, knows I don’t think what you’re doing is right; I told him that myself. But it’s not my job to fix your wagon and I didn’t. I swear.”
“Oh, sure.” Dan spat the words out sarcastically. “Give me a break.”
“I’m not lying,” Bucky said evenly. “I didn’t say a word to Harville about this stuff.”
“I don’t believe you.” Dan was breathing heavily. “It had to be you. ‘Cause nobody else knows about this.”
But Reggie hesitated. Finally he spoke. “He’s right. Come on, leave it alone.”
“What do you mean?” Dan asked, incredulous. “You don’t believe him, do you?”
There was a short silence. “Yeah, I guess I do,” the backup catcher admitted at last.
“Why?”
The player shrugged. “Look, you know he’s one of those born-again types. Everybody around here knows. And figure it out. He wouldn’t cheat. So he wouldn’t lie, either. They just go together.” He gave Bucky an awkward look. “Sorry for jumping all over you. We shouldn’t blame you for our own mistake.”
Dan scowled. “Well, somebody sure messed things up. I’d still like to know who. Man, five pages of gibberish nobody recognized.” He kicked at the dirt in frustration. “I guess everybody’s gonna want their money back, too.” He muttered a short oath.
Estrada sighed. “Plus, all those mysterious F’s . . . when everybody’s been getting straight A’s up till now. Harville’d have to be an idiot not to figure out exactly who’s in on it.”
“Well, we can always hope,” Dan said with a tight smile. “He’s been dumb enough so far.” He threw Bucky a grudging look. “Sorry about all this,” he said at last.
Reggie kicked in frustration at a clod of dirt. “Man, I just hope Coach doesn’t get wind of it. He could bump us off the team.”
Dan, his face still flushed, glanced back at the building. “I don’t imagine old Harville will get around to grading those suckers until the weekend. By then the baseball final will be in the books and done with. We win, we’ll already have our trophies. So we should be all right there.”
Bucky shook his head, disgusted. “I hate to say this,” he said, realizing that every word was probably driving a wedge between him and his teammates. “But listen to yourselves, man. You guys just flunked a test. Now you’ve got to spend the rest of today and tomorrow hoping that Harville goes into a sleepwalk, so that you get away with it in terms of baseball. Life’s too short, man.”
“Let it go, wouldja?” Dan grunted an obscenity and stalked back into the building, not looking back.
Chapter Thirteen: Hero or Goat
The small desk lamp cast a quiet, lonely glow in his room late that same night. Bucky knew it was past his bedtime; Mom and Dad had said goodnight and climbed into bed a half hour earlier. But for some reason, he couldn’t seem to drag himself over to the bed. His mind was an idle, wandering vagabond, bouncing uneasily from topic to topic.
The weather had dried up, and it was now a certainty that the JV final game would be played the following afternoon. Bucky had to assume that the pile of illicit history tests was sitting in a drawer somewhere in Mr. Harville’s office, and that his three teammates would undoubtedly get to play in the final.
I can’t let this thing blow up, he thought grimly to himself. He and Dan Litton might be teammates at Hampton Beach High School for three more full seasons. Despite the friction between them earlier today, he resolved to step onto the playing field with an evenhanded cheerfulness. Let bygones be bygones.
“Who are we playing again?” He rolled his eyes at his own forgetfulness. Not that it made a whole lot of difference who the Panthers faced as opponents. The high school’s coaching staff did a fair amount of opposition research, but as far as the players were concerned, each game was a contest against nine nameless, faceless guys in enemy jerseys. When they batted, you got them out. When they were in the field, you hoped your hits blooped between them. The bottom line goal was to spend the ten minutes after the game exchanging high fives and accepting kisses from Lisa Nichols, not trudging toward a team bus in abject defeat.
Going over to where he’d carelessly tossed his binder into the corner of the room, he picked it up and flipped over to the back. Just last week, Coach had given the guys a team schedule listing the playoff brackets.
“Probably Fairfield,” he muttered to himself, remembering an earlier contest where the visiting team had pounded out a 10-4 victory. “We’ll have our hands full.”
As he looked for the elusive document, he noticed a yellow sheet tucked underneath the high school’s weekly announcement newsletter. Always wanting to clear out obsolete junk, he scanned it briefly, then grinned. It was the list of baseball rules Coach had given the frosh team way back during the two weeks of practice before baseball kicked into high gear.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said aloud. “‘No skipping practice. No playing without proper gear. No acts of physical retaliation on the field.’”
The jaded set of guidelines brought back memories of his first fumbling moments in frosh ball and the ragged, almost comical style of play permitted on the ninth-grade level. It had been a tingling moment when he and Dan Litton had been promoted to the more prestigious junior varsity team, with its more intense caliber of play and the excitement of the upcoming playoff contest.
Not meaning to, his eyes scanned down to the bottom of the sheet, and his resentment against Dan was rekindled as he read the district’s academic policy about cheating. “‘Athletes engaging in academic dishonesty will be suspended from the Panthers for a minimum of three contests. A player who participates in any activity deemed to be cheating, or who gains knowledge of dishonesty on the part of any team member is honor-bound and expected to report said dishonesty to the coaching staff.”
Bucky felt a slow, crawling sensation of stunned disbelief creep over him. What? As he read and reread the innocuous clause, the awful truth began to seize him. He knew. Dan and Estrada and Reggie were all cheating. It was an ongoing plot. At this very moment, there were three illegitimate history exams sitting in a file folder over at the school. It was a plot that he knew in all its sordid details: the thumb drive, the illicit copying of a file, the five dollars, the surreptitious distribution in the locker room. And according to the rules as spelled out in this accursed document, he was supposed to go now a
nd spill the beans to the coach.
No chance! Just leave me out of it! You guys do your thing and leave me alone! He remembered his repeated demands for insulation, for diplomatic immunity . . . and his teammates’ derision. And now here, at 11:17 p.m., was a moment of decision. It was his duty to blow the whistle on this mess, to be a despised stool pigeon. He was supposed to rat on his friends and blab to the coach.
“No way,” he whispered aloud, his stomach tied in knots. There wasn’t a chance in the world he could do what this piece of paper was saying he should do. Dan had already cheated. The deed was done. He was probably going to get busted by Harville anyway – but then again, maybe not. The history teacher was a noted clunk, unobservant and naïve. Anybody wading through eighty-five or so tedious history exams, with their choppy and sophomoric word essays, would probably glaze over and not notice three unusually low scores. Dan would probably play the next day, get voted MVP, end up his semester with a D in history, and laugh all the way to a summer at the beach.
He was tight and apprehensive the next morning as he dressed for school and methodically packed up his athletic gear again. His mind was a jumbled collection of impulses and denials, and he anxiously picked at his breakfast, answering Dad with monosyllables.
“So . . . four o’clock?” Dad wanted to know.
He forced a smile. “Yeah.”
“I’m pretty sure I can come over. I’ll call if something comes up.” Dad took a last swallow of his orange juice. “Either way, good luck, Buck. Knock ‘em dead. The JV final – man, that’s too much. Your mama and I are proud of you.”
The last words stabbed at him as he pedaled his way to school, noticing that the warming sun was rapidly drying up the still soggy town of Hampton Beach. He had wanted to open up with his parents, to ask for their advice. But it just didn’t seem right. This was a high school deal, a crossroads he had to stare down on a high school level. There was really just one person he wanted to talk to right now . . .
He spotted Lisa just as she was carefully putting her lunch into her own locker. He slipped over. “Got a minute?”
She brightened. “Hey, babe.” Her bright eyes twinkled as she teasingly added: “Been dreaming about you. And all the grand slams you’re going to hit this afternoon.”
Bucky felt his pulse flutter at the mention of the crucial game. “That’s what I need to talk to you about.”
Lisa noticed the sober look on his face and the tight set of his jaw. “Whoa. Looks like something’s bad.”
He jerked his head toward a seldom used stairwell. “Yeah, it kinda is.”
She sank down onto the stair just above him, glancing at her watch. “Talk fast. I’ve got class in twelve minutes.”
Without fanfare he poured out the story of the cheating fiasco in history. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the incendiary piece of paper from Coach Walker and showed it to the pretty girl. “And there’s this.”
She scanned through the list of regulations, her lips moving silently. “Okay. So there’s no cheating. Litton’s a scum, I guess. But if nobody’s nailed him yet, he’ll probably get away with it. This time.” She handed the sheet of paper back to him. “So?”
“Look again!” The rejoinder came out more sharply than he intended, and he winced as he saw his girlfriend recoil. “Right here. See this? ‘Any player who gains knowledge of dishonesty.’ If I know about it, I’ve got to turn these guys in. Sounds like, at least.”
Her brow knitted itself into a small, worried knot. “I guess. One for all and all for one and all that.” She reread the lines to herself, her lips moving silently. “So you guys are supposed to help keep each other squeaky clean.”
“Yeah. And then nark on each other eight hours before the JV final,” he told her, his voice tight with apprehension.
Lisa shook her head in dismay. “Man, I don’t see how you can do that. I mean, Dan already knows he’s in hot water with the history teacher. But if you go to the coach and give him Dan’s name, those guys’ll hang you from the flagpole.”
His innards sank down into a painful bundle of protesting worms. “Yeah. I know.”
The slim girl looked through the sheet again. “I just . . . there’s no way students at school are going to do this. I mean, there are kids who cheat and there are kids who don’t. I never have; you never have. But we just don’t go around telling on each other. You can’t survive here if you do.”
“Tell me about it.” He gestured toward the rule sheet. “But there it is. I’m on the team. Litton’s on the team. Litton’s cheating his way through history class. And technically, he’s not eligible to play.”
His girlfriend absorbed this. “And . . . it’s not fair to the other team if they have to play a final game against a team that’s broken the rules. If this was something on the field, like steroids or, you know, doing whatever to the bats to make it unfair, you’d have to fess up.”
“Yeah.” Bucky sighed heavily, baffled. “‘Course, this isn’t exactly like that. I mean, what everybody wants is a good game where their best nine guys play our best nine guys. Best in baseball, that is.”
Lisa folded up the paper and handed it back to him. “Babe, I don’t know what to tell you.” She pointed to the toxic sheet. “This is pretty clear. You’re supposed to go to the cops. But I can’t think of anybody who would ever do it. And I think if you go find what’s-his-name, Brayshaw, and do this, he’ll fall over in a dead faint. If he doesn’t hit you on the head himself.”
The last remark mystified him. “I don’t get it.”
She pulled herself to her feet, glancing at her watch. “This is the last thing the man wants to hear,” she told him. “I mean, get real. You and Litton are the best he’s got. If Dan doesn’t play, you guys probably lose.” She took a deep breath before leveling with him. “I can pretty much guarantee you: Coach Brayshaw didn’t write that rule, doesn’t like that rule, doesn’t want to hear about that rule, and would wet his pants if anybody on the team ever actually obeyed it.”
“Yikes.” Bucky tucked the sheet and carefully put it in the back of his binder again, cursing the moment he ever laid eyes on it. “So you’re telling me to go into hibernation?”
Lisa hesitated. “I’m not . . . smart enough to tell you this way or that way. If it was me, frankly, I would just eat it. But you’re Bucky Stone. You’re a Christian, and I already know you’re going to do what’s right.”
The stark observation shivered in his marrow as he trudged over to his first class of the day. You’re a Christian. It was his spiritual obligation, before the Lord Jesus, to obey the rules.
But which rules? His mind darted here and there, still hoping for a reprieve or a loophole. There was the rule on this hideous yellow piece of paper. But there was also the Golden Rule. Don’t do things to other people that you wouldn’t want for them to do to you. There was the rule Pastor Jensen had once mentioned in church – about God taking people toward the kingdom a baby step at a time. Dan was a guy who needed God. Was getting him busted on the day of the baseball final a very smart way to launch that reclamation project?
The reality was stark in front of him. He could simply march through these next eight hours, play a game, and let the baseballs land where they were going to land. If God wanted to punish the Panthers, he could just let Fairfield win the contest. At this moment, that would be fine with #15. Dan would get his just desserts when Harville made out the history grades, and the scales would be balanced. Bucky huddled in his chair, the instructor’s formulas a weary blur in his mind as he prayed and weighed what had to be done.
Finally his free period arrived. Resolutely gathering his courage, he hunted down the stocky ballplayer, who was chatting up Cindy, one of Hampton’s more striking beauty queens. “Hey, we gotta talk,” he said without fanfare.
Dan excused himself and turned to face his adversary. “What’s up, Stone?”
“Not here. Outside.”
The beefy outfielder’s brow furrowed, but
he followed Bucky out to a small clear area ringed by vending machines. “Ready to charge to victory?” he asked, trying to keep the moment light.
“I . . .” Bucky gulped, feeling the impossibility of what he was about to say. “Dan, you’re going to kill me, and if you think you need to do that, I’ll accept it. But it says here in the baseball rules that when you cheat, you’re off the team for three games. And that if you don’t go and tell Coach, then I’m going to have to.”
There was a long, numb standoff between the two ballplayers, a dangerous pause that seemed to be like an invisible tornado forming itself into its mass of destructive power. Dan gazed at him, confused and unblinking. “What? . . . I mean . . . what in the world are you talking about, Stone? Okay, there’s a chance I’m probably going to get nailed by Harville, granted. But if he takes his time, we’ll get that game in. I’m not going to go surrender myself to Coach. No chance. And . . . what do you mean about . . . you’re going to do it?”
Bucky pulled the sheet of paper out of his pocket. “The first day we were in frosh, they gave us this. No drugs, no skipping practice, no cheating. And if you cheat on a test, and I find out about it, then I’ve either got to get you to go to Coach, or I go there all by myself. It’s right here in black and white.” He tried to keep his voice even, but his insides were lurching painfully and he could feel a shakiness in his throat. Oh, dear God, I’m not going to cry, am I?
Dan took a step closer to him, his face flushed. He was plainly livid, his explosive temper threatening to break loose in physical violence. “Let me get this straight, Stone. You’re going to go to the coach and tell them . . . what?”
“I don’t want to,” the younger boy retorted, beginning to find his voice. “But this is the team rule, man. It’s the district rule. Guys on the team don’t cheat. If you cheat, I have to tell Coach. About you guys getting tests from Harville, selling them for five bucks, memorizing answers. The whole sorry thing.”
Bucky Stone: The Complete Adventure (Volumes 1-10) Page 19