Open If You Dare

by Dana Middleton

  “Which one?” Ally asks.

  “I don’t remember.” And I feel bad about that. It feels like an insult to either Gregg or Duane so I try to remember harder. “Duane, I think.”

  “Before or after Ruthie went to their concert?” Rose asks.

  “Pretty sure before,” I say uncertainly. “So she must have just seen Gregg.”

  “So somebody went to a rock concert,” Rose says. “A hundred years ago.”

  “That somebody was Ruthie Delgado. She went to a rock concert,” I say. “It’s got to mean something. Or Girl Detective wouldn’t have put a ticket with Ruthie’s name on it in the box.”

  “Maybe it means our one-eyed pirate buried some random ticket instead of some animal bones.”

  “Big help, Rose,” I say. “Thanks a lot.”

  “Maybe they’ve been dead so long that nobody would care anyway,” Ally says. I can tell she’s not thinking about Ruthie or Girl Detective. She’s thinking about her father.

  When Ally was two, her dad died of a heart attack while he was taking his morning run. Her brothers remember their dad, but Ally doesn’t and that really bothers her. Her dad was a huge baseball fan. When Ally was a baby, they were at an Atlanta Braves game and her dad caught a home run while holding Ally in his arms. It was on the news and everything. Ally has seen the video so many times she’s convinced herself that she remembers it. But how could she?

  “Somebody cares,” I say. “Somebody always cares.”

  4

  ALLY IS in a slump.

  “What is happening out there?” the General says quietly. Rose and I sit beside Ally’s mom in the bleachers. We, along with everyone else in the stands, are watching in disbelief as Ally walks the third batter in a row. Her team, the Hunters, is already behind by two runs.

  Rose leans into me. “This is bad. Like last week all over again.”

  Ally’s coach calls time-out and walks to the mound. Last Saturday, we sat in this same spot and watched Ally pitch the worst game of her life. It was shocking because that’s never happened to her before. Ally always pitches great.

  We hardly talked about it afterward. I think we were hoping whatever was wrong would magically fix itself.

  It hasn’t.

  “She can’t be great every week,” Mark says from the other side of Ally’s mom. Mark is the youngest of Ally’s older brothers and the one who taught her to play baseball.

  The General shoots him a look that says No talking trash about your sister, but Mark just shrugs. “I’m going to get a Coke,” he says and jumps down from the bleachers.

  Mark is two years older than Ally. When Ally was in second grade, Mark gave her his old glove and started throwing with her. In the years since, she’s become better at baseball than him—and practically everyone else. This year he decided not to play anymore. Says he’s gotten too old for Little League.

  “Girls, do you know what’s going on with Ally?” her mom asks as we watch Ally walk, eyes low, back to the dugout. The replacement pitcher, Charles Johnson, takes the mound.

  “No,” I say.

  “No idea,” says Rose.

  “Well, there’s something wrong,” she says.

  Ally takes a seat in the dugout with the second- and third-string players. She doesn’t belong there. I realize the General is right. Something is wrong with Ally. But what?

  After the game, we sit under the tree down from the third base dugout and eat snow cones while the next teams take the field. Ally’s white baseball pants are streaked with dirt. She throws down her cap and pulls the ponytail holder out of her long blond hair like it’s her mortal enemy.

  The General and Mark have left already. Ally’s house isn’t far from the ball field, so we’ll walk there after our snow cones.

  “It’ll be better next week,” I say, trying to cheer her up.

  Ally groans and throws her head back.

  “Don’t listen to her, Al,” Rose says. “It’ll suck next week, too. Don’t worry about it.”

  Ally throws her cap at Rose, almost toppling her snow cone.

  “Kidding!” Rose exclaims. “Geez, Al.”

  “What did Mark say?” Ally asks.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think he said anything.” I look at Rose. “Did he say anything?”

  Rose shrugs. “What would he have to say?”

  “I don’t know,” says Ally. “Oh, crap.”

  We follow Ally’s gaze and see Joey Wachowski walking our way, flanked by Connor and Romeo. Their baseball gloves are tucked under their arms and a bat is slung over Joey’s shoulder. They all wear blue baseball shirts sporting their team’s name, the Broncos. “Hope they lost,” Ally utters quietly.

  Joey looks up at the scoreboard hanging over left field. Orioles 6, Hunters 1. “Too bad, Lorenz! What’s it like to be the worst girl pitcher in the league? Oh, I mean the only girl pitcher in the league. Or is it the same thing?” He laughs. “Your championship dreams are slipping away, Blondie.”

  “Shut up, Joey,” Ally says.

  “Why don’t you make me?” Joey shoots back.

  “I’ll make you,” Romeo says and punches Joey in the shoulder. Not hard. But hard enough.

  “I’ll kick your butt, Rome,” Joey threatens. But Romeo is not threatened. He just smiles.

  “Hi, Romeo.” Rose’s flirty voice calls out from beside me.

  “Hi.” He looks down at us, the sun haloing his head. “Y’all coming to the pool later?” Connor lives in our neighborhood, and Romeo and Joey come over a lot.

  “Maybe,” Rose says.

  Romeo looks at me.

  “No, we’re going to Ally’s,” I say quickly. “Her mom is expecting us.”

  “We don’t have to go,” Rose says.

  “Yes, we do.” I look at Ally, then nudge Rose’s arm.

  “Yeah, we gotta go,” Rose says back. “She needs a Red Vine infusion.”

  “We won, by the way. On a streak,” Joey says. “Pitched a no-hitter.” He pops his gum dramatically. “Way things are going, we might not meet again, Blondie.”

  I’ll translate: All the teams have one more game in the regular season. Then the championship playoffs begin. The way the championship brackets are set up, the Hunters and the Broncos will play again only if they meet in the final championship game. And whoever wins the championship game plays the winner of the Dunwoody league in the big charity game in August.

  Joey goes on. “Hate to break it to you, Blondie, but if you can’t lead your team to a Little League championship, there’s no chance of you making it on the middle school team!”

  Now he’s gone too far. Ally’s about to serve up a rude hand gesture, when Rose says, “She’ll be in the championships.”

  Everyone looks at Rose.

  “In fact, the Hunters are going to win. You watch, Joey.” Oh yeah. That’s how she does it. Cool Rose has a big mouth when it comes to sticking up for her friends.

  “Right.” Joey laughs. “How much you wanna bet?”

  “How much you wanna bet?” she says.

  “Against the Broncos! That’s crazy!”

  “Don’t call me crazy!” Rose springs to her feet and squares off in front of Joey, which looks pretty hilarious because Joey is practically twice the size of her in every direction. “A hundred bucks!” she says. “A hundred bucks that Ally beats you!”

  “No money,” Romeo says.

  “Yeah, no money,” I say and nod to Romeo.

  “Then what?” Connor asks.

  “It’s got to be good,” barks Joey.

  “It’ll be good,” Rose says and starts pacing in a circle, starting to think.

  “How about this?” Romeo says, and Rose stops. “What if … the loser has to ride in the Fourth of July parade wearing the winning team’s jersey?”

  “That’s not bad,” I say. Every Fourth of July, there’s a big parade in our neighborhood. There are floats and people riding in convertibles and everything. It would be fun to see Joey waving to the
crowd in a Hunters shirt while getting soaked by water cannons from the crowd.

  “Yeah.” Rose eyes Romeo. “I like it.”

  “Okay,” Joey says. He spits in the palm of his hand and holds it out.

  “Gross!” Rose says. “I’m not shaking that!”

  “No shake, no bet.”

  Rose’s head rolls back. “Fine, then. It’s a bet.” She hesitates, then sticks out her hand. They shake and Joey holds on a little too long. “Give me back my hand, you disgusting slob.” He does and Rose can’t wipe off her infected palm soon enough.

  “Cool,” says Joey. He looks down at Ally, who’s been strangely silent while Rose was betting her life away. “See ya, suckers!” Smiling and waving his bat around, Joey takes off toward the concession stand, Connor by his side.

  Romeo rolls his eyes. “Sorry, Ally.” Then he smiles at us. “Later.”

  Once they’re out of earshot, Ally looks up. “Thanks a lot. I can’t wait to be in the parade.”

  “We’ve got two weeks before the play-offs start to figure this thing out,” I say.

  “You can’t be in a slump forever,” adds Rose. “It’ll be okay.”

  “Yeah, right. You saw me out there today.”

  “Yeah,” I tell her. “We saw.”

  “If Joey wins the championship, he’s going to make the middle school team. He’ll be the sixth-grade pitcher, and I’ll be nothing. You know that, right?”

  Rose and I swap glances. Ally and Joey will be going to the old middle school together in August. There’s only one spot for a sixth-grade pitcher on the team.

  Ally turns and looks over at Joey. “I hate that guy.”

  “I like that guy,” Rose says, and we both glare at her. “Romeo!” She says defensively.

  “Cut it out, Rose,” I say and turn toward the concession stand. I find myself looking at Romeo and see he’s looking at me, too.

  5

  FOURTEEN RED Vines in, and Ally and Rose are laughing, but not me. We’re hanging out in Ally’s kitchen trying to come up with a play-off plan, but every time we get serious, Trixie farts. Trixie is Ally’s golden retriever. She’s old and can’t help it. Usually, I would join in. (In the laughing, not the farting.)

  When Ally gets up to grab more popcorn, Rose leans in. “What’s with the serious, Bird? Ally’s going to be okay.”

  Rose thinks I’m thinking about Ally. I’m not. “Oh, I know,” I hear myself saying. First lie. “I was just thinking about the clue.” Second lie. “Remember when it said: Where feathers are hard? What do you think Girl Detective was talking about?”

  “Why are you so obsessed with this?” She draws a long breath. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense because feathers can’t be hard.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” Third lie.

  “Can we just focus on Ally?”

  “Yeah. Sure.” But I can’t focus on Ally because I can’t stop thinking about Rose. The serious Rose saw on my face wasn’t about Ally and it wasn’t about the clue. It was about her. Rose. And what she’ll think if she ever finds out.

  It started on Valentine’s Day. Rose was expecting a Valentine’s card from Romeo. She had decided to like him, and usually Rose gets what Rose wants. On Valentine’s Day, our fifth grade class was decorated in hearts and BE MINE cutouts. Along the back shelf, everyone had a bag with their name on it, also decorated in hearts and dorky cutouts, and throughout the day we all put candy or cards into one another’s bags. It’s a rule that you have to bring something for everyone. Rose was surprised that she didn’t get something special from Romeo. She decided he must be shy.

  Romeo is not shy. After school, when I was going through my V-Day loot at the kitchen table, I found an envelope at the very bottom of the bag, my name written on it in delicate red ink. It was during the hour before Dad got home from work, so it was just me and Zora. While she was watching TV, I walked the envelope upstairs and closed my bedroom door behind me.

  I looked at the writing for a long time. I imagined a secret fairy had singled me out or a Valentine genie had written to grant me a special Valentine’s wish. Because no kid in my class had handwriting as neat and nice as that! I was enjoying the mystery until I heard Zora yelling for me. The envelope went under my pillow and for the rest of the afternoon, I made up scenarios about its imaginary source.

  When I finally opened it before going to bed, I had to read it again and again.

  Dear Birdie,

  Roses are red

  Violets are blue

  Didn’t want a girlfriend

  Until I met you.

  Forever yours …

  And then a signature.

  Romeo’s signature.

  Romeo D., he’d signed it.

  Girlfriend? Romeo? What?! I wasn’t ready to be somebody’s girlfriend! And lots of girls liked Romeo. Rose liked Romeo! What was he thinking?

  I didn’t show it to anyone. Not even my mom. I hid it in one of my favorite books, When You Reach Me, and put it back on the shelf. Nobody I know would look there.

  “Earth to Bird.”

  “Huh?”

  “Quit thinking about the clue already. We’ve got to go,” Rose says and gets up from Ally’s table, which is still covered with Red Vines. “Violin.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Hey, is your brother home?”

  “Probably,” answers Rose.

  I look at Ally. “Maybe he can help us.”

  * * *

  “If you’re pitching like that, we could use you on the high school team,” Simon says after Ally throws another perfect pitch into his glove.

  “I’m not pitching like that, though,” she says.

  Simon looks at me. “She’s really not pitching like that,” I say. I’ve been sitting on the porch of Rose’s house watching them for at least half an hour, while the sound of Rose’s violin wafts into the front yard. It’s a very sad song she’s practicing today. Over and over again. As my eyes fall upon the FOR SALE sign on their front yard, I feel a tiny hook tug at the bottom of my heart.

  “Hmm.” Simon thinks and throws the baseball back to Ally. “It must be psychological, then.” Simon is the first-string catcher of the high school team. He knows all about pitchers and slumps. If anyone can help Ally, Simon can.

  “Psychological?” Ally says. “What does that mean?”

  Simon stands from his catcher’s squat and walks to her. “Pitching is not just about being able to throw a ball,” he says. “There’s a lot more to it. Mentally, I mean. You see it all the time. Pitchers get in a slump because of lots of things. They let the pressure get to them. Or somebody says something bad about them. Or they lose a game and can’t recover. Happens all the time. The main question is: What’s different about pitching in the front yard versus pitching in the game?”

  “I don’t know,” Ally says. “I’ve never had a problem before.”

  This is true. Ally pitches like a machine. At least she used to. That’s why her teammates love her and why Joey Wachowski pretends she’s no good.

  Rose’s mom appears through the screen at the front door. “Simon, Ashley’s on the phone. Said she couldn’t reach you on your mobile.”

  Simon pats his pocket for his cell phone that’s clearly not there. “Oh yeah.” He looks back at Ally as he steps onto the front porch. “So think about it, okay? It’s got to be about something.”

  As he slips through the screen door past his mom, she rolls her eyes at us. “Girlfriends,” she utters so only we can hear. Rose’s mom has dark hair like Rose and the same blue eyes. As she retreats back inside, Ally sits down beside me on the stairs.

  “He thinks I have a mental problem,” she says.

  “We know you have a mental problem,” I say, then grin. “Simon just thinks you have an additional one.”

  “Hilarious, Birdie.”

  “You think it’s a boob problem?” I ask.

  “No!” she says a little too quickly.

  “Sorry. Just asking.” Ally’s
younger than me and Rose, but she’s definitely older in the boob department.

  “I’ve got on a bra and an ACE bandage,” she says. “I’m pushing them down as much as I can. I was pitching great three weeks ago. And they’re not any bigger now than they were then.” She looks down at her chest just to be sure. “At least I hope not.”

  “Then what is it? What’s wrong?”

  She shrugs.

  “A boy?”

  “Right.” Ally punches my shoulder. I don’t think Ally knows how pretty she is. I bet some boys will be noticing soon.

  “We’ve got to beat the Broncos,” she says. “If we don’t, Joey will pitch the charity game. It will probably be against the Condors again. And if he wins that, they’ll pick him for the middle school team.” She sighs, then points to her chest. “I can’t let these or anything else get in my way.”

  6

  IF YOU’RE reading this, I’m already dead. Rose is right. I am obsessed.

  The box is open on my bed. Once again I’m staring at Girl Detective’s handwriting, rereading the cryptic clue.

  Who was Ruthie Delgado? How did she die? And who was Girl Detective? She must have had a name and a reason for burying the box and writing the clue.

  Gazing at the Nancy Drew mysteries on my shelf, I wonder if Nancy ever had to solve two murders.

  Rose, Ally, and I were at the pool all morning before I came back home to eat some lunch and pick up Zora. I was supposed to be on Zora duty for the afternoon and was planning to work on her swim strokes. I’m a very good swimmer—was on the swim team for three years—but Zora is not a duck who takes to water. She’s timid in the pool and I want to help her be brave.

  On my way home, I passed Mrs. Hale’s house. I stopped and listened to the breeze whispering through her creepy trees. Mrs. Hale was nowhere to be seen but I gave her a little wave anyway. She’s in that big house so covered with ivy it might eat her alive. I imagine her waving back at me from behind her curtains.

  As I cut through our next door neighbors’ Japanese gardens, I saw Mom’s car parked in our driveway. Something was up. She was supposed to be at work.