Action: Slyly “steal” information the way you steal a base—you don’t just go for it out in the open, but you sneak toward it.
Post-Day Analysis,
April 30, Part Two
Okay, after writing up the game on the bus, I think I figured some things out.
I was confused because everyone was talking happily. After a huge loss.
It wasn’t that I thought we’d win or anything, but I didn’t think we’d lose so badly. I didn’t even think it was possible to lose so badly. I started to think maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was a fluke. Maybe I could figure it out, without coming right out and asking, “Are you always THIS BAD?”
That’s what a stinky base stealer does—they stare at second base like it’s their birthday and the base is a cake with candles, like it’s all theirs for the taking.
And then the second baseman can pour on the defense because the runner isn’t even trying to hide anything.
Plus, a good pitcher—like me—will keep them away from that cake at all costs.
So I knew asking right out was a sure way to get the team’s defenses all up.
Good base stealers always seem to be looking somewhere else when they make their move.
The best base stealers I’ve encountered must have eyes on the side of their head because you never know they’re even thinking about making a move.
Then, poof! They’ll be on base and looking like they just got to eat all the icing flowers off the cake before anyone could have one.
Also, conversationally, I had to seem like I didn’t really care about the information I REALLY, TRULY CARED ABOUT.
Trying to hide the disappointment on my face, I leaned over my seat to talk to Molly Oliver and said, “So that game was . . . ,” and trailed off. I couldn’t just blurt out: “That game was a NIGHTMARE WRAPPED IN AN APOCALYPSE FILLED WITH STINKY CHEESE AND ENCASED IN PEPPERMINT.” (Note to Old Me in case Old Me likes stinky cheese and peppermint: current me hates peppermint, and pair it with stinky cheese? Gross.)
“You were great!” she said, and the way she gave me a captain-like high five, it was hard not to feel really happy about the way I played. I WAS good. Maybe the team had just had an off day. Maybe Molly was trying to say that I’d been a great highlight in a game of lowlights.
But then she added, for everyone to hear, “It was such a great game, TEAM! I’m so proud of our winning spirit! We are the protagonists in our journeys, never forget!”
But we’d LOST. I sensed she wasn’t paying a lot of attention, to me or to the team. Because our journey had led us to a stinky, stinky game. But everyone started talking about game moments like they were good moments.
“When you almost blocked that goal, Molly, that was super!”
“Colin, your footwork was amazing right before that Demons defender got the ball from you.”
“Which time?”
“All of them!”
Katy Harris was singing. Yes, singing. A happy tune. It must have been one of her originals because it wasn’t a song I’d heard before. “We got the touch! We got the way! We got the spirit and the sway! We got this! We got that! Take a note, write it down, and STAT!”
It was very confusing. They were so . . . positive.
I’d lost games before, and while I HATE losing, it wasn’t the end of the world or anything. But I was never so weirdly HAPPY about it.
Maybe they didn’t understand what happened.
I must have looked like I’d seen a ghost, because Coach Raddock stepped up beside my seat.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “How’d you feel about your first game? You looked good!”
“Thanks,” I said, looking around. “So, that game was . . . good?”
She nodded. “Yeah, better than usual, in fact.”
WHA—??? I took a deep breath and exhaled. I needed to start doing yoga if I wasn’t going to explode into a million pieces from all this losing.
“You look confused,” Coach Raddock said. “I think we didn’t really explain the team to you because, well, time was short and you really seemed interested in the field hockey part.”
When she said that, I thought of the baseball team. And how I’d spied on them before the game. Longingly spied on them, to be exact.
“The thing about the team is, they’re all really good at something else,” she said. “It’s been that way for a long time. Piper Bell, who founded the school, was good at a lot of things. She was one of the first women to run a successful peach orchard. She could fly planes. She helped build one of the area’s first libraries. And when she started the school, she had this vision of creating Renaissance Students—people who were gifted in a lot of arenas.”
“But they’re NOT . . . ,” I started to say, “gifted in this arena” but I knew those were the wrong words.
“Piper Bell started the field hockey team for her favorites,” Coach Raddock said, getting a misty-eyed, admiring look. “They were all really great students and also talented in at least one other area. So the tradition became that the field hockey team was not that good because it brought together the students who were destined for greatness in these other areas.”
YES, SHE SAID BEING BAD WAS A FIELD HOCKEY TRADITION.
I imagined decades of Piper Bell field hockey players, all tripping and falling and missing the ball and hitting each other in the shins with sticks and big, lit-up zeros on scoreboard after scoreboard.
That couldn’t be true!
“Say that again—a tradition of being BAD at field hockey?”
“More or less, yes,” Coach Raddock said. “But it’s not like we’re not winners.
“Team,” Coach said. “I think we need to bring Gabby in on our true goal.”
She said it just like that. It was like being in a movie where the lead character has been surrounded by mysterious circumstances and then suddenly a secret door opens and she only has to pass through it for everything to be explained.
“Oh, you want the full story,” Molly said, like she’d been waiting her whole life to tell it. “I love telling the full story. I’m a writer, you know.”
And even though she was a terrible goalie, when she said she was a writer, something told me she’s much better at that than at goalkeeping.
She explained that everyone on the team had a story. Or, really, a “something,” as she put it.
“What I mean is, everyone has a passion that’s not field hockey. But the philosophy we have is, if we allow ourselves to just be bad or at least unconcerned with field hockey, it gets the ya-yas out for our other thing. So, because I might mess up at a game, where it doesn’t matter, I am able to write better because I feel like I left all my screwups out there on the pitch,” Molly said.
“The ya-yas?” I asked.
“Yes, ya-yas. They’re internalizations that make you think you don’t know what you’re doing,” she said. She had a much better vocabulary than she did reflexes.
“Like a bunch of little yous running around in your head saying you’re bad at something or can’t do it?” It sounded like the yips.
“Wow, that’s a great way to put it, yes!” She nodded and even wrote it down.
She gave me the lowdown on her true, winner talent.
MOLLY OLIVER
Height: Very tall, but a giant of words
Build: An amazon of creative power
Role model: The Brontë Sisters with a side of J. K. Rowling
Special skills: Marathon reading, able to write whole chapters in a single bound, can quote Jane Austen effortlessly
Quote: “Writers live twice.” —Natalie Goldberg
Katy Harris, the co-captain, went next. I was not surprised when she told me she was born to be a star. She had that power.
KATY HARRIS
Height: Three-quarters of a Beyoncé—a baby Beyoncé
Build: Singing-dancing double threat
Role Model: Beyoncé
Special Skills: Catchy lyric writing, on-the-fly choreography c
reation
Quote: “If everything was perfect, you would never learn and you would never grow.” —Beyoncé
Katy and Molly introduced everyone else. Colin Reedy: tap dancer. Sophie Rodriguez: star skateboarder with a specialty in heart-stopping stunts. Marilyn Hu: the next Marie Curie. Arlo Cole: a preteen diplomat with a talent for debate. Dominic Alimento: an amazing photographer, and with a real camera, not a phone! Lisa Clover: an “illusionist”—she doesn’t like being called a magician—who can make a rabbit float. Arnold Kapoor: the greatest actor of his very-young generation. Grace Chang: an ambidextrous street artist (which means she can control two spray paint cans at once).
My mind, just like the character in the movie who learns all this stuff at once, was blown. “But we haven’t told you the best part,” Katy Harris said, and she stood up on her seat, which couldn’t have been very safe. “We’re a squad with a mission. So, get this, we aren’t just doing these things for ourselves. Don’t get me wrong, that’s all enlightened and stuff. But we’re kind of . . . champions.”
Winners. Champions. They were all speaking my language. “How?”
Katy smiled. “The United States Preteen Talent Showcase.” She said it like I knew what it was.
I didn’t.
“What’s that?”
“Our ticket to fame,” Katy said, and the competitive glint in her eye was inspiring. “As long as we win.”
The talent showcase, she explained, was a regional competition in the Atlanta area and featuring the multitalented student teams from the top area middle schools. The show would be broadcast on the internet in less than a month, and people from the Atlanta region would vote on the best school talent team. The talents could be a range of things. Competitors just had to be from the same school.
“The winners go to New York to perform for the national prize, and get to be on TV,” Katy said. “And, honestly, not that I’m in it just for me, but once I’m on TV, my act is going to blow up.”
She sounded like she had a bit of an ego. She sounded like me, so maybe I did have an ego. At least a small one. But I liked seeing Katy’s. And the rest of the team nodded in agreement, so she must have been good.
“Really, we’re all worth watching,” Katy said. “I don’t think there’s a chance we can’t win. I mean, I don’t think losing is an option.”
Suddenly, the reason I was on the team was clear. I wasn’t going to play field hockey. I wasn’t going to play baseball. But I was going to win a competition and be on a national television show.
Being on TV would definitely reboot my win streak. (What can I say? Being a TV star is a big deal and I’m the product of my generation.)
“I mean, but it’s cool that you’re into field hockey for real,” Sophia said. But I didn’t feel like that would be cool enough. I wanted a talent. I wanted to compete.
I wanted to fit in with this random team and win the talent showcase.
I’ve almost never been random. But I thought of Diego, who is always trying to find a sport where he’ll be good, or trying new things, and whenever I say, “Hmm, maybe that’s not a good idea,” he’ll get all puffed up and say, “Progress always involves risks. You can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first.”
He has no idea who said that, except that it wasn’t even a baseball player, but for a not-baseball player, it makes a lot of sense.
So before I opened my mouth to agree with Sophia, my brain rushed through possibilities:
I could be a classical painter, maybe? (Because Grace Chang had the market cornered on the street art stuff.)
GABBY GARCIA, PEACH TREE’S OWN PICASSO
Requires: I’d need one of those palette things, a beret, and the ability to say things like, “If you don’t understand it, you’re not looking hard enough.”
Problem: I once tried to paint by numbers and it didn’t add up.
Or maybe I could be a fashion designer?
GABBY GARCIA, STYLISTA SUPERSTAR
Requires: Sketchbook, pencils, big sunglasses, a tall model to be my inspiration and living mannequin, a style idea so amazing that the whole school wants to wear a Gabby original.
Problem: When someone says something about their “look,” I think they’re talking about checking to see if a runner is stealing second.
Maybe I need to be something more brainy.
Oh, an astronomer, that could work!
GABBY GARCIA, THE GALACTIC GENIUS
Requires: Telescope.
Problem: Planet discovery seems daunting. Plus, look at poor Pluto. It was a planet and they took it away.
Maybe a magician?
THE GREAT GABBY
Requires: Top hat, cape, wand, many hours, and a special bond with a rabbit that will disappear and reappear as needed.
Problem: All of the above, as I had a pet rabbit once and it ran away and never came back. Except the top hat, as it would make me look taller. And, darn it, I just remembered that Lisa Clover is a magician. And she can make things float. Me and my nonexistent rabbit won’t stand a chance.
A sculptor, that’s unusual!
GABBY GARCIA, SHAPER OF DREAMS
Requires: A lot of clay, patience, perseverance, and the ability to see with my hands.
Problem: If my past experience with Play-Doh is any indication, everything I make will resemble a baseball or a worm. It’s really hard to make things out of clay!
I stalled out. I had nothing.
Nothing.
Maybe I could have pretended nothing was my talent. I have an older cousin, Jacob, who’s studying philosophy, and sometimes he sits in the corner at family parties, and if you ask him what he’s thinking about, he’ll say, “Nothing,” and then will pause and say, “So, really, everything . . . ,” in a very dramatic way.
But honestly, Jacob can be really annoying. And philosophy and nothingness are probably a little out there for most middle schoolers. Plus, not very TV-friendly.
I must have been thinking so long that everyone started going back to talking about their talents. Forgetting me entirely. I wanted something to contribute. Especially when I heard them talk. They sounded like WINNERS.
“I had the best breakthrough in study hall,” Molly said. “The plot twist is that there is no twist! It’s so not what anyone is expecting!”
“Dope, chica, I can’t wait to read it,” Sophia said. “Is your main character’s best friend still a skateboarder?”
“Yes—thanks for letting me shadow you,” Molly said. “I’m going to list you in the acknowledgments.”
“This weekend, I’m auditioning backup dancers, because honestly my last ones were BLAH,” Katy said, popping into the conversation. “If y’all know anyone, I’ll give you the details.”
“Sure thing,” Grace said. “My older sister’s dance team would love to work with you. Did I ever tell you they taught themselves the moves from your last video?”
My teammates were writing books! And songs! And making up dance moves! Sophia was so good at skateboarding that she was an expert for Molly Oliver, who, yes, WROTE A BOOK!!
What had I been doing with my life?
I opened my mouth a few times to talk but nothing came out. I was just going to be an ex–baseball player playing field hockey on a bad field hockey team full of amazing people.
I was all washed up and only twelve years old.
“Oh, but don’t say too much about the actual video part,” Katy reminded everyone. “When this thing drops, it’s going to bust up YouTube.”
“I won’t say a word about what I just heard,” I said. Because I wouldn’t. Because I had contributed nothing to society. Life was meaningless. I should talk to Jacob.
“Ha! Word! Heard! You rhymed!” Molly looked excited. “You’re a poet and we didn’t know it!”
Poet?
POET!
Requires: Pencil, paper, rhyming words.
Problems: None! I’d just rhymed without even thinking about it, didn’t I? I was a POET!! W
ho knew??
Suddenly, I was not Gabby Garcia, inconsequential middle schooler.
I was Gabby Garcia, poet, and it would only be a matter of time before I was reading one of my works to a crowd of stunned and inspired fans, who couldn’t believe that such beautiful words came from the pen of someone so young.
Stunned and inspired fans watching me on TELEVISION.
I shrugged, trying not to let on that I was extremely excited to have accidentally landed on my “thing.”
“I dabble,” I said. I already sounded like a poet—a little mysterious and modest. Was that what poets sounded like?
“That’s so cool!” Katy said. “Who’s your favorite poet?”
Oh no. Could I say Dr. Seuss?
No, poets were mysterious. Carefully, I said, “Well, you know . . .”
“Katy!” Molly said. “You can’t ask her to pick just one! I mean, there’s Yeats and Keats and Whitman and Plath and Rossetti and Collins and Dickinson. Right, Gabby? I mean, let’s not forget Cummings and Langston Hughes and—really, Katy, trust me when I say Gabby doesn’t have one favorite.”
I nodded like Molly had just said the most important thing in the world. And she did, in a way. Who knew there were that many poets??? I was just relieved she answered the question for me.
“I can’t believe I didn’t know there was another writer in our midst!” Molly’s eyes were glimmering excitedly. “So, do you write, like, at home or do you go to a coffeehouse or something?”
Coffee? Yuck. I really hoped I don’t have to start drinking coffee to be a convincing poet.
“Usually at home,” I said. “I like my privacy. It’s very crucial to my process.” I think my dad said that to me and my brother once when he was behind on a deadline and Louie laughed at him because, up until that point, my dad had wandered into the living room about 400 times “just to see what everyone else was doing.”
But no one laughed at me. Actually, Sophia nodded like this made perfect sense. “The rhymes probably flow better that way,” she said.
Katy shook her head. “Girl, poems don’t have to rhyme! Gabby’ll tell you. There’s freestyle. Isn’t that right, Gabby?”
Gabby Garcia's Ultimate Playbook Page 9