The Aurora County All-Stars

by Deborah Wiles

  The sun beamed through a cloud. There would be a rescue. House would provide it himself. “There’s this symphony,” he said, his voice clipped and sure. “It’s everybody working together, it’s—”

  “You don’t make no sense!” shouted Cleebo.

  House shoved one hand in Cleebo’s face like a stop sign. He took his book back with the other. “I’m talking, Cleebo. I’m approaching the problem. Shut. Up.”

  “I ain’t gonna shut up! You’re a crazy person!”

  “Where’d you get that book?” asked Lincoln Latham.

  “I can tell you where he got it!” said Cleebo, on fire. “He stole it! He stole it from Mean-Man Boyd!”

  Kids squealed and gasped. Cleebo gathered steam from the clangor. He poked his finger at every ballplayer under the chinaberry tree. “Ned! Boon! Evan! All-a-you! We’ve every one of us suffered because of House for a whole year now! We lost our game last year for the first time ever because House let his arm be broken by a girl. He still don’t have his arm completely back, we got a game in two weeks, and now he wants to turn us into dancers! He wants us to cooperate with the girl who lost our game for us! Is that what you want? And worse than that . . .” Cleebo stabbed his finger at House.

  “This boy has been goin’ over to Mean-Man’s haunted house every day since he broke his arm! He’s been workin’ in cahoots with Baby-Eater Boyd! Read him cookbooks! Helped him cook all them kidnapped kids he’s had cut up in the freezer for years! He’s been eatin’ those babies hisself—that’s what’s wrong with him, I tell you true! He’s brainwashed!”

  Even the birds stopped singing. No one spoke or moved.

  “And why did he keep his doings a secret?” Cleebo was a geyser, spouting whatever came into his head next. “He wanted the treasure! Everybody knows that house is full of treasure! Where is it?” Sweat poured down Cleebo’s angry face. “Where is it, House?”

  Twenty-one children and one old dog breathed in quiet anticipation under the chinaberry tree and waited to see what would happen next.

  23

  Keep your face always toward the sunshine, and shadows will fall behind you.

  —WALT WHITMAN

  Honey began to cry. Ruby sat next to her and put her arm around her. Eudora snuffled her snout into Honey’s lap. Melba fanned Finesse with her clipboard. Cleebo mopped at his face with his shirtsleeve. And House took center stage. Now that they all knew, he was not about to let this moment get away from him.

  He shoved his note into his pocket and drew himself up to his full height. “Mr. Norwood Boyd was a friend of my . . . family. And Cleebo is right. I went over to his house every day after my arm was broken.”

  Cleebo nodded at everyone and puffed out his chest as if he were being proven right, but House ignored him and so did everyone else. “I was asked to do it. And I was scared. I knew all the stories. But it wasn’t like that.”

  House scratched the side of his face, trying to buy time; he was short of breath. His heart felt like it had swelled into his throat.

  Cleebo’s chest deflated and he shrank. He grew smaller by the minute.

  “He never ate anybody,” continued House. “He liked being alone. He was sick. He wanted to hear the stories he had read when he was a boy, so I read them to him. Treasure Island was the one we were reading when he died.”

  House’s heart had swollen so much he couldn’t take in a breath. So he held up a hand and stopped to catch his breath. It took a full minute. No one—not even Cleebo—moved. When he could breathe again House said in a quiet voice, “If there was a treasure, it was his friends. Mr. Norwood had friends.” House bit his lower lip and finished his thought. “I was one of them.”

  In the moment he spoke the words, House knew that Pip had been right. House had loved Mr. Norwood Boyd. He had loved a man he had hardly known, but somehow he had known him well. It was the oddest thing.

  Melba was holding her pencil so tightly she broke it. The noise popped the air and broke the spell. Ruby blinked and wiped her hair out of her eyes. Finesse held her handkerchief to her mouth. For once her tears seemed real.

  Cleebo kicked at a rock and kids began to breathe again. Honey sniffed. House turned to Finesse. “Mr. Norwood Boyd loved baseball. Used to be, not every boy in this county could play baseball. Ask your great-granddaddy about it. And put that in your history of Aurora County—your American history—Frances.”

  He was done. All those words.

  24

  There is always some kid who may be seeing me for the first or last time—I owe him my best.

  —JOE DIMAGGIO, CENTER FIELDER, NEW YORK YANKEES

  “I don’t know you no more,” said Cleebo. He spit into the dirt.

  “Yes, you do,” said House. He looked Cleebo square in the face. “I’m somebody who keeps his word.” Cleebo sat down with a thump.

  Finesse recovered quickly. She lifted her veil, dabbed at her eyes, and cleared her throat. “That’s an inspiring speech, House Jackson,” she said. “I’m sure that if we could play a real baseball game, we would.”

  “Well, I’m playing ball,” announced Ruby, rising to her feet. She looked at House with admiration. A little breeze blew through the crowd.

  “Me, too,” said every other kid in the crowd, as everyone stood up and faced Finesse. Melba Jane looked horrified and nauseous. House blinked at the mutiny happening in front of his eyes.

  “What about our plans from this morning?” Finesse asked. “What about the Sawmill Samba we worked on? What about the Pine Lake Prance and the Silvery Moon Skit?”

  But kids were solidly behind House. Cleebo had lost. So had Finesse. Defeat crossed her face, and when it did, House saw a glimmer of something sadder than sad underneath it, but Finesse pulled herself together. She inhaled deeply and arched an eyebrow.

  “Mes amis? Must we vote, then?”

  “Wait!” said House. Mamas or no Mamas, Finesse was about to vote herself out of a job. But Finesse would not wait.

  “Must we vote on the ball game—base-ball outdoors on a buggy empty lot—or the lovely pageant indoors on the bright new stage?”

  “I got an idea,” said House, but Finesse had her own ideas. Don Quixote directed her Sancho Panza to take the vote.

  “How many for the pageant?” asked Melba, pencil poised over the clipboard. Not a hand was raised.

  “Listen!” said House, but Finesse would not listen.

  Melba took a long breath and asked the defining question: “How many for the . . . game?”

  Every hand shot into the air.

  “Very well,” said Finesse. Her lips trembled. “Très bien! I know when I have been defeated!” She held up the list that House had given her. “We have no budget for a ball game. We do not need this list.”

  Theatrically, Finesse tore House’s list in half and let the pieces flutter to the ground around her.

  House took off his cap, smoothed back his hair, and shoved the cap back on his head. His forehead glistened with sweat.

  “Mes amis,” said Finesse. “You could have had my expertise—you should have seen my contributions to theater at the Lanyard School last year! Oh, what a production we could have had! But I will not be a party to this mockery of our wonderful American pageant! If you all choose a base-ball game as your pageant, so be it! It will not include moi! And so, mes amis, I tender you my adieu!”

  Finesse snatched off her feathered hat and veil. Her eyes were volcanic. She slapped the headgear at Melba, who bobbled the feathers and the veil along with her clipboard.

  “Here are my last words, mes amis,” spit Finesse. “I quit! Je quitte! ”

  She stamped away just as House grabbed her arm.

  “Wait!”

  She flung his arm away from her. “Who do you think you are, House Jackson? And why do you need to torture me?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I know you hate me!”

  “I . . . do not!”

  “Yes, you do—say it!”


  “Say what? That you broke my elbow? Okay—you broke my elbow! In two places! Bad!”

  Finesse wailed as if she were in a confessional. “I know I broke your arm! I know you couldn’t play ball! I know you were upset . . .”

  “Upset doesn’t begin to cover it!”

  “. . . and now you’ve turned everyone against me!”

  “You’ve done that yourself with your crazy ways, Frances! You dress like a gooney bird and you act like a nut!” He shocked his own self. He was a boy of few words who had become a fountain of verbosity.

  “Nobody wants to be in your stupid pageant—it’s a big joke! We’re only here because we have to be! Why don’t you go back to Jackson and your prestigious Lanyard School and leave us alone?”

  Melba wore a look of shock on her face. Every single kid was transfixed.

  Finesse’s mascara began to streak down her face along with her tears. “I agree that Mr. Norwood Boyd was a great man,” she said. She wiped her mascara to either side of her cheeks with her fingers. “And you’re not. You don’t have the faintest idea about what really matters.” She addressed the rest of the crowd. “None of you do.”

  She stalked across the empty field toward Main Street. Melba raced after her, feathers bouncing against the dirt and stirring up dust.

  25

  I often and silently come where you are that I may be with you.

  —WALT WHITMAN

  Finesse looked like a big black smudge retreating to town.

  “Great speech,” said Cleebo. “It’s about time.”

  “Don’t talk to me,” said House. “You’re no friend of mine.”

  “Fine,” said Cleebo. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Don’t expect me to play in your ball game, neither.”

  “I don’t,” said House. “We’ve got a catcher.”

  Ruby nodded. “Now what?”

  “We’d all better pray that Cleebo’s mama doesn’t come back from gettin’ that machine fixed too soon,” said Wilkie.

  “That’s a fact,” said Boon. “We’re in real trouble now.”

  “I’ll be back,” said House. “Honey, stay here.”

  “I’ll keep her,” Ruby volunteered.

  House ran after Finesse. He passed Melba Jane and reached Finesse as she neared the barber pole outside of Pip’s shop on Main Street.

  “Stop, already!” he shouted.

  Finesse stopped but kept her back to House. Melba Jane caught up and plastered herself like a silent bug against the barbershop’s plate-glass window where she wouldn’t miss a word.

  “I can tell you how to make this work!” said House.

  “I’m not interested!” Finesse spun to face House. Her face was a river of running black mascara, and her eyes were swollen from crying.

  “Girls at the Lanyard School tried to tell me how to make things work, too!” She hiccuped into her handkerchief.

  “I was the best Emily Webb in the history of the Lanyard School’s annual production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town—Miss DeBivort even said so! I got deep inside my character—I inhabited her! I knew her, inside and out! I understood what she meant when she said, ‘Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?’” Finesse looked heavenward as she slipped into character for a moment. Then she hid her face in her hands and sobbed. “But the girls at the Lanyard School just laughed at me! They said I was ridiculous! They snickered behind my back all year! Do you know how that makes a person feel?”

  “You bet I do!” said House. “You left town and I had to stay here and be laughed at. You know what the guys said to me? ‘You let a girl break your arm!’”

  Finesse snorted back her tears. She had a caved-in look on her face. “It’s not the same thing! That was an accident! You have purposely embarrassed me in front of all those people. I can never go back there!”

  Miss Mattie poked her head out of her store. “You two all right over there?”

  “Yes’m!” said House. Finesse waved her Snowberger’s handkerchief.

  “You did it on purpose,” said Finesse.

  House watched his shadow slide over the sidewalk. “I didn’t mean the half of it.”

  “Yes, you did.” Finesse sniffed. “So did the girls at the Lanyard School.” She blew her nose.

  A bee hummed between them and buzzed off, looking for a flower. House tried to think of something to say. All that would come out was, “We need you.”

  Finesse blinked through her tears.

  “Look,” said House. “The Mamas will skin us alive if we don’t have a pageant. And the team . . . well, we have to play our game, that’s all there is to it, we just do. And you yourself said that we’re meant to honor baseball. You said Dr. Dan loves baseball. So did Mr. Norwood. You could direct the play right there on the ball field—there will be plenty of other times to use the stage. We could play some and . . . dance some. I can’t do the play stuff. You need to do it.” He took off his hat and scratched his head. “And somebody needs to teach Honey how to tap-dance.”

  Finesse sniffed. She wiped her eyes with her Snowberger’s handkerchief.

  “I’m sorry about what I said,” said House. “I’m real sorry about it.”

  Finesse took a deep breath. She looked House in the eye. “I’m sorry about your arm.”

  His impulse was to say “That’s okay,” because that’s what you said at a time like this. It wasn’t okay. But it was what it was. He thought about Pip’s words. “I know you are.”

  “You could be a good actor,” said Finesse.

  “I’m a pitcher,” said House.

  “I know you are.” Finesse fidgeted. “I tried to say I was sorry last year. I brought you a box of baseball cards . . .”

  “It was you?”

  Finesse nodded and dabbed at her eyes. “I knew you wouldn’t talk to me, so I just left them on the porch. Poppy said you’d appreciate the gesture, that it would give you some comfort.”

  House nodded. He’d met Sandy Koufax through Finesse—unbelievable. “I don’t hate you,” he said.

  “I don’t hate you, either.” Finesse swiped at imaginary dust on her black dress.

  “So will you do it?” asked House.

  Melba coughed politely. Finesse took notice of her for the first time. Without a word she took her veil and hat with feathers from Melba. As she affixed them to her head, she said, without too much conviction, “My uncle, who is paying for our stage and our production, is expecting a play on his stage! Mixing a brutish sport with a fine art is just not done! It’s not professional! Aurora County citizens will not stand for it!” But she was intrigued, House could tell.

  “It’s a compromise,” said House. “We each get some of what we want. Everyone who wants to play can play. Everyone who wants to dance can dance. Everybody gets a part! It’s organic . . . Finesse.”

  He almost got a smile out of her. “It’s . . . imaginative,” she had to agree. “Creative . . . in the spirit of the American theater . . .”

  “Will you do it?”

  And then came another voice, a new one:

  “It will never work!” It was a deep, sonorous, basso profundo. Melba, Finesse, and House whirled to face it.

  “Uncle Jim-Bob!” cried Finesse.

  Dr. Dan Deavers filled the doorway of the barbershop with his legendary presence.

  26

  I don’t see why you reporters keep confusing Brooks (Robinson) and me. Can’t you see that we wear different numbers?

  —FRANK ROBINSON, OUTFIELDER, BALTIMORE ORIOLES

  “Ohmygolly, Uncle Jim-Bob, what are you doing here so soon?” Finesse fell into Dr. Dan Deavers’s enormous embrace.

  “Your stage doesn’t fit the schoolhouse!” boomed Dr. Dan. “I’ve come to supervise and to partake of a much-needed vacation!” He took Finesse by the shoulders, lifted her off her feet, and kissed her right in the middle of her forehead. “I see your pageant is morphing into a very interesting amalgamation!”
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br />   Finesse began a real boohoo that could be heard all up and down Main Street. Dr. Dan ushered her inside the barbershop and House followed them.

  “I’d better get everybody!” said Melba. “Don’t say anything important until I get back!” She ran toward the ball field with her clipboard in her hands. The ballplayers and the rest of the pageant players practically ran over Melba Jane as they raced past her in the opposite direction and flooded into the barbershop. Melba got herself turned back around and joined them.

  Pip was not there, but his second-in-command, Mr. Lamar Lackey, stopped his scissors in midclip so he could figure out the commotion. Hampton Hawes was startled awake from where he was snoring in his barber chair, waiting for another customer.

  Amid the smells of shaving lotion and the sounds of Finesse’s sobs, the whole story was related. Word had gotten round that Dr. Dan Deavers had been spotted at Schotz’s Barber Shop, and a crowd began gathering from as far away as Raleigh—even some Redbugs were there with their mamas—all sardined into the barbershop or spilling onto the sidewalk, listening to the saga and sneaking a peek at Dr. Dan.

  “It’s the best combination of artistic vision and athletic prowess I ever heard!” said Dr. Dan/Jim-Bob, casting an admiring look in House’s direction. “I salute you, young House! How did you come up with such a brilliant solution to our dilemma?”

  House opened his mouth, shut it, and shrugged. He waited for some kid to tell on him, to tell the whole town that he had been helping Norwood Boyd cook kids, that he was nothing more than a monster himself, but of course no kid would say that in front of a grown-up. No one uttered a peep except for Dr. Dan, who seemed to delight in his own oratory.

  “I am a baseball fan of the highest order!” he boomed. “Baseball is an art! A drama! A ballet without music! Let us give it a Greek chorus!”

  Everyone in the barbershop smiled good-manners smiles and wondered what the heck that meant. Dr. Dan was happy to explain.