Game Changer

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  Maybe there would be a pep rally just for KT—or, anyhow, a recognition ceremony in front of the whole school—if KT did manage to have a season full of no-hitters and the school retired her jersey in her honor. Probably they’d do that at eighth-grade graduation. Everybody’s parents would be there for that too. She pictured the SUTTON 32 jersey hanging in the school trophy case alongside Will Stern’s, Haley Blake’s, and Roger Gonzalez’s, there for everyone to see, every time anyone entered the building, for years to come.

  Then she remembered the jerseys had been missing that morning. Replaced by desks, of all things.

  Out here in the fresh air, moments away from softball practice, it was easy to dismiss that.

  It was probably just some prank, KT thought. Probably it’s some huge scandal and someone got in awful trouble. I just didn’t hear about it because I was so distracted all day long, worrying about the Rysdale Invitational.

  KT drew more fresh air into her lungs, and another idea occurred to her.

  Or maybe it was connected to the pep rally and Fitness Day, she thought. Maybe it was like a test, to see how many students notice the jerseys were missing. To make sure everyone appreciates the school’s history.

  She could easily imagine Mr. Arnold bringing that up at the pep rally. He would have rolled out the phrase “this school’s rich athletic heritage” or something like that. He would have made sure every kid at the pep rally remembered the names Will Stern, Haley Blake, and Roger Gonzalez.

  And next year my name will be on that list too, KT told herself.

  Or it would be if the rest of the team ever showed up.

  Since she didn’t have her phone, KT couldn’t check the time. But it seemed like at least ten or fifteen minutes had passed since the end of school. Coach Marina was a stickler about people showing up promptly. Where was everyone?

  KT looked around for someone to ask about the time. The area around the athletic entrance was usually packed this time of day, not just with softball players, but with kids from all the other sports too. It was funny how they all had their own section of wall that they leaned against: The softball girls always stood between the baseball team and the lacrosse guys.

  But today KT was the only one standing at the athletic entrance.

  Maybe . . . maybe I was really late, not really early? she thought. Maybe everyone else is already out on the field?

  She didn’t see how that could be possible, but she launched herself away from the wall and raced around behind the school, toward the softball diamond.

  As soon as she turned the corner of the building, KT realized she was following a perfect angle: She was running toward the same view she’d seen dozens of times during practices and games as she raced to get to first base. There was the tacky mauve house with all the concrete geese out front, the one that KT always hoped would distract visiting teams. There was the row of white and cream-colored and tan houses beside it, the ones so bland and boringly decorated that KT hoped the sight of them would put visiting teams to sleep.

  KT turned her head and dropped her gaze, to line up her view with home base.

  It wasn’t there.

  In fact—now that KT looked more closely—none of the bases were there.

  Neither was the pitching circle.

  Neither was the backstop.

  Neither were the benches.

  Neither were the bleachers.

  KT stopped running.

  She glanced around frantically, hoping she’d just become disoriented again and the softball field—with the full softball team on it—would be just a little bit to the right or a little bit to the left, just slightly out of her line of vision.

  But it wasn’t.

  The baseball field was supposed to be a little bit to the right, and it wasn’t there either. The track/football stadium was supposed to be a little bit to the left, and it had vanished too.

  So had the lacrosse fields.

  So had the soccer fields.

  So had the tennis courts.

  The vast sports complex that lay behind Brecksville Middle School North had been turned into nothing but a wide open field of grass.

  Chαpter Eight

  “No,” KT whispered.

  This was the first odd thing that had happened all day that she could find no explanation for, even a lame one.

  But she still tried. All she had to do was focus on what really mattered.

  Maybe . . . maybe . . . the softball field is temporarily gone, for whatever reason, but of course there’s still softball practice, she told herself. There’s still a softball team. Maybe they’re just practicing in the gym today.

  They did that sometimes, especially early in the season. Usually that was only when it was rainy or bitterly cold, and today was both sunny and just slightly, pleasingly cool. But KT turned eagerly and started heading back toward the gym.

  It wasn’t there either.

  The huge dome at the back of the building that arced over the gym had been flattened, as if ironed out by a giant. And there were windows all along the section of wall that should have been an unbroken stretch of brick.

  Windows like that would never last in a gym.

  KT stared, trying to get her eyes to see the school building right. Softball was a fairly portable sport—bases, baselines, and even benches and backstops and bleachers could be moved without too much trouble. The same was true of baseball, lacrosse, and soccer. (Her mind skipped over the more elaborate setups of tennis and the track/football stadium.) But the gym—the gym was the heart of the school. The whole building would have to be redone to eliminate the gym from Brecksville Middle School North.

  It was, KT told herself. That’s why the rooflines looked off when I got close to the front of the school this morning. That’s why I got lost looking for the library. That’s why so many of my classes were in the wrong places.

  But how could that have happened over a single weekend? How could that explain why every class had been turned into a fitness fest? Or why Molly and Lex had saved a seat for Evangeline instead of KT at lunch? Or why everyone, the entire day long, had said such strange things and acted so mean to KT?

  Or why KT still couldn’t remember what had happened at the end of the Rysdale championship game?

  KT whirled around and took off running. For the first few steps she wasn’t sure what she was running toward, but her feet seemed to know.

  Home, she realized. I’m going home.

  The rest of her plan kicked in even as she ran. The image she held in her mind—the image pulling her home—was the trophy shrine in the family room. All she had to do was see it, with all the trophies back in their proper places, dust-free, and the Rysdale trophy right in the center. As soon as she saw the Rysdale trophy—and picked it up and held it and read off the words CHAMPION or FIRST RUNNER-UP—then she was sure everything else would make sense.

  Even the missing gym.

  Even the missing softball diamond.

  Even Mr. Huck’s and Mr. Horace’s crazy babblings.

  Even Molly and Lex giving KT’s saved seat to Evangeline at lunch.

  KT ran faster.

  By the time she turned onto her own street, she was racing flat-out, like someone fleeing desperately toward home plate ahead of the catcher.

  She hit the front door—oops, don’t have my key—and dashed around to the garage door instead. She stabbed her fingers against the garage door control pad (secret code 2024, the year she hoped to play in the Olympics, or at least the softball World Cup). The door lurched open, but she was too impatient to wait. She bent down and commando-crawled under it as soon as there was the slightest gap.

  Both her parents’ cars were gone, so she sprinted easily across the garage floor, covering the entire distance in four steps. She slammed through the next door into the house, dashed through the kitchen, and raced into the family room. The afternoon sunshine was streaming down onto the shrine, creating a dazzling gleam of golden glory.

  KT le
t out a sigh, because somehow, though she hadn’t quite let herself think it, she’d been a little bit afraid that the trophies would still be missing, that they would have disappeared as completely as the gym and the softball diamond.

  “Proof,” KT said aloud.

  She wiped sweat off her forehead and tiptoed reverently toward the shrine, even as she admired the glow of the sunlight on gold.

  KT had played in a different tournament practically every weekend the past few years, except for during the school softball season last spring. (That had been games twice a week, and only two weekend tournaments. A vacation of sorts, which had left KT feeling antsy and longing to get back to serious ball.) Not every single tournament she’d played in had given trophies to the individual players, but a lot of them had, particularly when she was younger. She had trophies in the shrine dating back to her first season of T-ball, way back in kindergarten. And she had a few random trophies from other sports—soccer, basketball, lacrosse—from when she was too young to be on teams offering year-round softball. But mostly the shrine looked like an entire softball team’s worth of golden running girls atop their trophies, with enough golden gloves, bats, and balls on neighboring trophies to fully equip them.

  So why couldn’t KT lay her gaze on a single running girl, glove, bat, or ball trophy right at the moment?

  She picked up the nearest trophy, the one in the spot she had assumed would belong to the Rysdale Invitational prize. This trophy had a rectangular gold chunk atop a slender pedestal. The rectangle had a fake-looking keypad of numbers.

  Is that supposed to be a calculator? KT wondered. Why? Is it supposed to be something about calculating our chances of winning nationals, too, or of calculating our massive college scholarships, or . . .

  KT gave up on trying to figure out this craziness and glanced down at the metal plaque at the base of the trophy.

  FIRST PLACE, it said.

  “Yes! Yes! Yes!” KT cried, holding the trophy aloft and pumping her arm up and down with every “yes!”

  She looked back at the plaque, wanting to see those lovely, golden letters: RYSDALE INVITATIONAL underneath the FIRST PLACE.

  That wasn’t what it said.

  Instead the words were BLAIRTON MATH COMPETITION.

  Math? KT thought. Math?

  She slammed the trophy back onto the shelf, pounding it down so hard that the whole shelf shook. She grabbed the next trophy over, which was topped with another golden calculator. The plaque on this one read FIRST PLACE, FEASEL MATH INVITATIONAL, MAXWELL CHARLES SUTTON.

  Max? KT thought. Max has math trophies? How could that be?

  She began pulling trophies off the shelf at random. They were topped with more calculators, with pencils, with desks, with bronzed versions of the symbol for pi. She dropped them and kept grabbing the next trophies back.

  Calculator, calculator, pencil. Calculator, desk, piece of paper . . .

  Every single one of them was Max’s.

  What had happened to all of KT’s trophies?

  Chαpter Nine

  “Kaitlin Therese!”

  KT was still frantically pulling trophies off the shelf when she heard her mother scream behind her. She’d apparently just gotten home—KT could hear the garage door jerking shut behind her.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing?” Mom shrieked, in a tone KT had never heard her use before.

  “My trophies—where are my trophies?” KT wailed. “Why did you have to replace them all with Max’s?”

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” Mom said. She crossed the family room in three angry strides, and dived toward the lowest, most out-of-the-way shelf. “They’re right here, right where they’ve always been.”

  She held up a three-inch-tall figure on a wooden base—not really big enough for KT to consider it a trophy. But she squinted at the cheap-looking plaque at the bottom:

  KT SUTTON

  SEVENTH-GRADE

  HONOR ROLL

  “Here’s the other one,” Mom said, holding up a twin of the first, except that this one said SIXTH-GRADE HONOR ROLL. “Before that, back in elementary school, they just gave out certificates. They’re here too.”

  She rifled through a stack of papers.

  “That’s not what I meant!” KT protested.

  The anger in Mom’s face softened slightly.

  “KT, you know your father and I are very proud of you and Max,” she said. “It’s just, you have different talents, and your particular talents don’t happen to lead to lots and lots of trophies. But—”

  “Yes, they do!” KT shrieked. “Where did you put them? Why did you take all mine away and bring in these, these bogus trophies for Max?”

  He’d never been on any math team. Not that KT knew of, anyway, and wouldn’t she know something like that if he’d won all these trophies? The only trophy Max should have in the shrine was his one PARTICIPATION trophy from kindergarten, the one year he did T-ball before quitting sports altogether.

  She swung her hand at a row of calculator- and pencil-topped trophies, toppling them like so many bowling pins.

  “He doesn’t deserve any of this!” KT screamed.

  All the sympathy and concern in Mom’s expression vanished. Her face hardened into a mask of fury.

  “That,” she snarled, “was completely uncalled for. I don’t know what you’re talking about. You know how hard Max works! You do not build yourself up by tearing down your brother! I won’t allow it!”

  She grabbed KT by the shoulders and gave her a rough shake.

  “But—,” KT protested.

  “You have five minutes,” Mom said, shoving KT away. “Put every single one of these trophies back where they belong. Then get changed. We will be walking out that door to go watch Max at precisely four thirty.”

  “Watch Max?” KT wailed. “What? Mom, no. I’ve got to get back to practice.”

  She said this even though she didn’t know where practice was, even though the gym and the softball field had vanished. It was something to hold on to, something to wish for.

  She longed for softball practice.

  Even as KT spoke, Mom had started to stomp away. But now she whirled back around and glared.

  “And now you’re lying to me?” Mom asked incredulously. “KT, I know your schedule. It’s easy to keep track of. You don’t have anything after school today! Not anything that you’re doing!”

  “Then I must have . . . homework,” KT said, even though she couldn’t quite remember if she did or not.

  Mom went back to angrily stomping away.

  “I can’t even look at you right now,” she called over her shoulder. “Do what I told you!”

  KT gazed down at the toppled trophies before her, and at the half dozen she’d left standing. She swung both arms out, knocking down every single one.

  Chαpter tεn

  It was a tense ride in the car.

  Dad drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Mom squeezed her hands together so hard her knuckles turned white.

  “Max’ll do fine,” Dad said.

  In the backseat KT seethed.

  Why are they making me go watch some stupid thing with Max? KT wondered. Why aren’t they insisting I get back to practice?

  Her parents were fanatical about the importance of practice. They routinely left work early to get her to her club-team practices. Dad had even driven her there once when he’d had a 103-degree fever and had to stop twice by the side of the road to lean his head out the door to vomit.

  But KT couldn’t say anything else about softball practice.

  She couldn’t, because all of her sports trophies had vanished.

  She couldn’t, because when she’d gone up to her room, she’d looked for her list of goals on her bulletin board—about pitching for the University of Arizona, about winning a gold medal in the Olympics—and it had vanished too.

  In its place had been a row of report cards.

  All with straight As.

  Her pictures of
the 2004 and 2008 Olympic softball teams were missing as well, along with the hand-lettered sign that said, IT’S COMING BACK! IT HAS TO! AND I’LL PLAY IN THE OLYMPICS IN 2024!

  She’d quickly logged on to her laptop—no messing around with the iPod this time—and still couldn’t find the Rysdale Invitational website.

  She couldn’t find the “Bring softball back to the Olympics!” Facebook page.

  She couldn’t find the Amateur Softball Association website.

  At that point Dad had barged into her room—just home from work, judging from his suit and tie—and said, “I don’t want to hear a single word about the argument you tried to start with your mother. Or anything else. You are not going to ruin this day for your mother or Max or me. You are getting in the car, and you are getting in that car now!”

  KT got.

  Mom and Dad are acting strange, but they’re not acting like they think there’s anything strange going on, KT thought. They’re acting like they think everything is normal.

  She thought of Mom holding up that stupid honor-roll trophy and saying, “They’re right here, right where they’ve always been.”

  Like that was all KT had ever earned.

  How could Mom have forgotten all of KT’s softball trophies? How could Mom have forgotten KT’s softball practice?

  How could the softball field and the gym have disappeared? How could the entire softball team—and the coach—have failed to show up for practice? How could Mr. Horace have told me I wasn’t on a team? How could this whole day have been so mixed-up and confusing?

  Dad turned onto the street in front of the school.

  “The lot by the academic entrance already looks full,” he said. “You want to try out front?”

  “Sure,” Mom said.

  Academic entrance? KT thought scornfully.

  But the front parking lot was full too. Dad ended up having to park three blocks away.

  Mom spun around in her seat, glancing at KT for the first time since she’d slid into the car.

  “You didn’t change?” she cried in dismay.

  KT looked down at her clothes, which were admittedly a little sweaty after her day of jogging, pitching, exercise-biking, and weight training. And after running to and from school.