COMING SOON:
WOODLAND ACRES FUNPLEX
FOOD! RIDES! GAMES!
BASEBALL BATTING CAGES!
ANOTHER FINE PROJECT BROUGHT TO YOUR
COMMUNITY BY
BEEKS, BEEKS, BEEKS, AND SON, INC.
This was terrible! I ran the rest of the way home and tried to call Lizzie, but then I remembered she was at the dentist. I was dying to tell somebody about all this, but my mom was working late, my dad was locked in his office, writing, and Amy—well, you can see why I didn’t want to go blabbing to Amy. I charged up to my room and rubbed the side of Dodger’s lamp. He didn’t come out right away, so in my excitement, I might have knocked on it—a little too hard.
Dodger appeared next to me in his usual POOF! of blue smoke. He was swaying from side to side, holding his head. As soon as his eyes focused on me, he said, “Earthquake! Willie, we have to get out of here before the whole house—oh, wait. Why aren’t we shaking? That was a pretty short earthquake.”
Oops. “Um, it wasn’t an earthquake. You just didn’t come out when I rubbed, so I started knocking. I guess I got a little carried away.”
“Ah, it’s no big deal. I didn’t really like those ancient Greek statues on my table, anyway.”
Double oops.
“So what’s the emergency, dude? Is Lizzie in trouble? Is Amy hurt? Did I miss a meal?”
“No, it’s just bad news about the forest. I was walking home and—”
Just then, Amy started pounding on my door. I jumped about three feet. Dodger whispered, “Whoa, bud. What’s with your family and banging on stuff today?”
Amy shouted, “Willie, who’s shouting in there? I just saw you go into your room by yourself a minute ago, and now I hear somebody screaming.”
“Uh, it’s just a computer game,” I said.
“Oh, yeah? What’s it called, My Brother Is a Big, Fat Liar: The Game?”
I knew I had been a little mean to her that morning, but this was too much. I shouted back, “For the last time, Amy, LEAVE ME ALONE! What I do is none of your business!”
She said, “You know, I just want to know what’s going on with you and your friends.”
Then it just slipped out. I was mad at James Beeks, mad at the world, and annoyed with Amy, so I yelled, “Well, maybe if you got some friends of your own, you wouldn’t have to worry about mine all the time!”
I heard Amy’s footsteps running away down the hall, and then her door slamming shut with a bang. Meanwhile, Dodger was staring at me. I waited for him to tell me to apologize, or something. But all he said was, “Dude.” Then he sighed and said, “Let’s get out of here. I’ve been stuck in my lamp all day, and you’re going, like, bonkers.”
I wasn’t really in the mood for fun, but it was better than sitting around feeling guilty about my sister. “What do you want to do?” I asked.
“You’ll see. Meet me at the field, pronto!” With that, he disappeared. I walked out of my room, walked down the hall trying not to look at Amy’s closed door, went downstairs, left a note for my parents, and headed for the Field of Dreams. As I walked down the path from my backyard, I told myself I should try to enjoy the rest of the afternoon. After all, who knew how many more times we’d get to play there?
Just before the trees closed in around me, I took a look back at my house. For a split second, I saw Amy’s sad face in the window. I almost waved, but before I could even get my hand up, her curtains swooshed shut and she was out of sight.
CHAPTER NINE
One Last Game?
DODGER WAS WAITING FOR ME at the Field of Dreams. He was all suited up to play baseball, even though it was the middle of winter and there were patches of slush and ice all over the diamond. His jersey said Pittsburgh Primates. He threw one at me that said Philadelphia Willies. It seemed like a nutty idea to drop everything and play ball in this situation, but I didn’t bother to ask Dodger to explain. I generally find that asking Dodger questions just makes things more confusing.
I went behind the backstop to put on my jersey, and when I came back out, Rodger was there, too, sporting a hoodie that said World Chimpions on the front. He was standing on the pitcher’s mound, clearing snow off the rubber with one foot. He had a glove on one hand and was tossing a baseball up and catching it again and again in the other. “Ah, spring!” Rodger exclaimed.
“Um, it’s not spring yet,” I said. “Technically, winter only just started a few weeks ago.”
Rodger frowned at me, then continued. “Yes, spring! The scent, the odor, the perfume of the flowers wafting through the pollen-filled air. The evening sun, that magnificent golden eye, casting its warm rays on the grassy field of play.”
Actually, it was getting dark pretty rapidly, although somehow it never really gets too dark to see on our field. But it would take more than a total mismatch with reality to stop Rodger when he’s on a roll. “And the ball, ready to fly from pitcher’s hand to catcher’s outstretched mitt, unless by some stroke of chance the batter connects, makes contact, drives the ball into the vasty depths of the fresh-mowed outfield. Yes, it is time: time to test the might of my good right arm against the pluck, the determination, the sheer courage of the young man in the batter’s box.”
Dodger came over and put an arm around me. “I think what my bro is trying to say is, PLAY BALL!” He crouched down behind home plate, held out a huge, old-fashioned catcher’s glove in front of him, and gestured toward a bat that was leaning against the backstop. It was an awesome bat, made of some mysterious jet-black material, with my name written near the sweet spot in sparkling red letters. I picked up the bat and took a few practice swings. Of course, the bat felt perfect in my hands. I stepped into the batter’s box and took a deep breath. Oddly, I almost thought I could smell a little whiff of fresh-cut grass.
What was I going to do without this place?
As Rodger went into his windup, I stepped away from the plate. “Dodger,” I said, “we have a really huge problem.”
Rodger delivered a perfect strike right down the middle of the plate and into Dodger’s glove. “You’re right,” Rodger shouted. “The problem is that you can’t hit my fastball, my heater, the high cheese.”
If you’ve ever wondered whether being taunted by a chimpanzee is a good cure for a bad mood, here’s your answer: It isn’t. “Guys, I’m serious. The field is being sold.”
“Dude, we knew that,” Dodger said as he tossed the ball back to Rodger.
“Yeah, we knew Lasorda was trying to sell it. But now he has a buyer. Do you know what this means?”
Rodger threw a screaming fastball that hit Dodger’s mitt with a loud thwap. “Uh, strike two?” Dodger said. He tossed the ball back to his brother.
“No, it means all of this is really going to be gone forever if we don’t do something.”
Rodger said, “But you ARE doing something. You’re acting! You’re fighting back!” He wound up and blew the ball by me again. “You’re striking out!”
“Ha-ha.” I put the bat down. “And guess who the buyer is? James Beeks’s dad! He’s James Beeks’s dad! Do you know what that means?”
“His last name is Beeks, too?” Dodger said.
“Very funny. It means that Beeks went home and told his dad to buy the forest. James was supposed to be helping the student council save this place, and instead he betrayed us in a second as soon as he got the chance. Like he wasn’t enough of a jerk already, now he goes and does this!”
Rodger threw a slow, slow pitch past me and yelled, “Second batter! Strike one! Boy, all this anger is having a bad, counterproductive, negative effect on your hitting.”
That was it. Now I was even madder. Rodger got ready to pitch again and I got into my batting stance for the first time since baseball season had ended. He delivered, and I smacked the ball into a snowbank all the way out by the left-field fence.
“Whoa!” Dodger said. “Willie, that was awesome!” Truthfully, even though I was so mad, hitting the ball that far
on my very first swing of the season really did feel great. I decided to do what Rodger and Dodger both wanted me to do, which was stop talking and start playing. They let me bat for a while more, and then Rodger pitched to Dodger and let me field—not that there was much fielding for me to do. I had never seen Dodger hit before, but holy cow! He hit pitch after pitch out of the park. Dodger had once hinted that he had taught Babe Ruth to hit home runs, and for the first time, I sort of believed him. He had a short, abrupt swing, but I guess magical chimps are just super strong, because the balls jumped off his bat. After every big hit, he shouted, “Du-u-ude!” at the top of his lungs and laughed with joy. By the third or fourth homer, I was laughing with him.
Eventually, Rodger ended the practice by claiming that his arm was getting, and I quote, “sore, weary, fatigued.”
Then the three of us sat on the edge of the locker behind the backstop and Dodger said, “Now that we’re all mellowed out, tell us again about the thing with James Beeks.”
So I told the story again. Then Dodger said, “You know, dude, maybe James didn’t tell his dad to buy the forest.”
“What are you talking about? Of course he did. First he was obnoxious about saving the forest, and then the next thing you know, his dad is buying it. What else could it mean?”
Rodger said, “Well, maybe he told his father about the project innocently, without evil intent. Perhaps James was just telling his father about the events of his day, and when the father heard about the forest, he got the idea to buy it on his own. For all you know, James feels terrible, awful, wracked with guilt about this.”
I snorted. “Beeks feeling guilty? I don’t think so.”
Dodger said, “Or maybe the whole thing is, like, a coincidence. James happened to know about the forest, but his father found out about it some other way. I mean, if I eat a banana, and you already knew that bananas were a food, that doesn’t mean I heard about them from you.”
“Uh, that’s a good point, but … he’s James Beeks. He lives to mess up other people’s plans. Plus, why are you both sticking up for him? He picks on me all the time, and now he’s going to help destroy this whole place.”
“I don’t know,” Rodger said. “I think that there is more to James Beeks than meets the eye. I think he has invisible depths, secret pains, hidden troubles. Anyway, what are you going to do next in your quest to save the forest?”
“Well, my dad wrote this book about how to be an activist, and Lizzie and I have been trying to follow the steps. The next one is Tell Truth to Power.”
“Oh,” Dodger said, “so you have to, like, sit in front of a light switch and confess all the bad things you’ve done?”
“No—it means you have to face whoever’s in charge and tell them that what’s happening is wrong. You know, like Martin Luther King did. Or the Founding Fathers when they wrote the Declaration of Independence. So I think we’re going to invite the mayor to a student council meeting and talk to him about the woods.”
“Dude, I remember those meetings with Thomas Jefferson and those white-wigged guys!”
“Wow, I still can’t believe you were there when the Declaration of Independence was written! What was it like?”
“Well, you know, it was made of yellowish paper, about a foot tall, with black ink all over it.”
“No, I mean what was it like to be there?”
“Oh, you know: talk, talk, talk, write, write, write, talk, talk, talk, vote. Kind of ruined my July Fourth that year, actually.”
“Yeah, but what was it like?”
“Mostly I remember wishing there were more snacks. Take my advice, Willie, if you want this mayor guy to listen, you have to have excellent munching items. I recommend a little chocolate, some fruit, and maybe something in a nice corn chip. If only those independence guys had stocked up beforehand, I wouldn’t have been out on a food run when they were all signing the paper. And then John Hancock wouldn’t have written his name so big right in the spot I was supposed to sign.”
“So,” I said, “that’s the best advice you two have? James Beeks isn’t so bad, and snacks are good?”
“Pretty much,” Dodger said. “Hey, got any bananas? All of this high-level political discussion really works up the old appetite.”
“No bananas, sorry. How about you, Rodger? Any other words of wisdom?”
“Hmm … I’d say be careful when you brush your teeth. You have to really be sure you spend adequate time cleaning the back molars—a lot of people think the front teeth are most important, but you actually need all of your teeth to be healthy. So scrub, scrub, scrub! Buff, polish, rub, scour! Rinse! Spit! All right?”
“Rodger, how is brushing thoroughly going to help me save the woods?”
“It probably isn’t. But there’s no point to losing our home and having painful, unsightly cavities, is there?”
I guess he kind of had a point. I said good night and headed for home. As I stepped into the trees, I heard Rodger’s voice calling after me: “And floss! You don’t want to leave any disgusting, revolting, slimy particles of decaying foodstuffs to rot slowly between your teeth!”
When I got home, dinner was ready. But strangely, I wasn’t all that hungry.
CHAPTER TEN
The Great Lasorda and the Evil Beeks
THE NEXT DAY, Lizzie and I decided to pay a return visit to Lasorda. My mom almost didn’t let us go there alone, but then I reminded her that she was supposed to be allowing me to express my independence. She said, “I just don’t like knowing you and Lizzie are going downtown to an adult’s office alone.”
“Well,” I replied, “what if I bring your cell phone and call you right before we go in and right after we come out? And if you want, we could even do errands for you while we’re out, or something.” I could tell she didn’t exactly love the arrangement, but she agreed. Every once in a while, those New Year’s resolutions came in handy.
Anyway, when Lizzie and I entered the waiting room, we could hear two voices through the door that led to the inner office. Lizzie was just about to knock, but I grabbed her arm and pulled her away. We sat down in a couple of chairs next to the door and listened for a while. It didn’t take us long to figure out that the other voice belonged to Mr. Beeks. Here’s what we heard:
LASORDA You’re sure you can pay cash for the property?
MR. BEEKS Absolutely.
LASORDA And you plan to leave it as open space, right?
MR. BEEKS I never said that.
LASORDA Yes, you did. When you looked at the land, you said, I’m picturing nothing but green as far as the eye can see.
MR. BEEKS I didn’t mean green like plants, I meant green like money.
LASORDA Hmmm. Surely you don’t plan to destroy everything. After all, you’re calling the development Woodland Acres.
MR. BEEKS That’s traditional. Every builder I know does it—you name your development after whatever you knocked down to build it. My last three projects were called Piney Hills, Cherry Orchard Estates, and Stillwater Springs.
LASORDA Well, it appears I did not fully understand your intentions.
MR. BEEKS Are you trying to back out on me, mister? Because if you are, my lawyers will be all over you in a heartbeat. Since my grandfather, the first James Beeks, started our company, nobody has ever backed out of a deal with the Beeks family.
LASORDA No, I am not backing out on you. Unfortunately, I have some … business debts to settle, so I have to sell the land.
(Just then someone knocked on the waiting room doorway from outside. Lizzie and I scrambled into a coat closet by the door and closed it behind us almost all the way. We could still hear the conversation, and through the crack in the door we could even see who had just walked in: James Beeks!)
MR. BEEKS Good. You’ll get your debts paid off, I’ll get my new businesses going, and my lazy, worthless son will have a place to practice baseball.
LASORDA And why did your son need his own private set of batting cages, again?
LASORDA I don’t mean to pry, but isn’t the boy only eleven years old? And didn’t you tell me he only struck out once, in his last at bat of the season?
MR. BEEKS Why, yes. But none of that matters. All that matters is that he failed. And the Beeks family does not believe in failure. So, next season he will not fail.
LASORDA Is baseball really that important?
MR. BEEKS Oh, it’s not just baseball. He ran in his school election and lost, too. He needs to learn to be a winner before it’s too late, and baseball is as good a place to start as any. The sooner those batting cages get built, the sooner I can make a man out of James.
(I couldn’t believe James was standing there hearing this. He looked like he was about to cry.)
LASORDA I … see. And are you sure the town government will allow you to flatten the woods? Will there not be protests from concerned citizens or environmental groups?
MR. BEEKS Oh, there will be complaints. In fact, my son’s little student council friends are planning to protest to the mayor and the town council. But they’ll never win.
LASORDA How can you be so sure?
MR. BEEKS Because the mayor owes me some favors, just like everybody else who does business in this town. He’s a good friend of mine. So I’ll send the mayor to talk at the school. He’ll listen to the little kiddies, he’ll say thank you for your concern, I appreciate your citizenship, kids like you make me proud to be an American, blah, blah, blah. Maybe he’ll even give the kids an award for community involvement or something. I have to admit, the mayor has a bit of an anger management problem, but how hard can it be to flatter a bunch of schoolchildren? Anyway, he’ll listen to everything the kids have to say. But then, a few days later, the town will grant my building permit, anyway. By the time anybody figures out what happened, my bulldozers will have come and gone. And then nobody will say a thing about it—because I am a winner. I make things happen. I make money. And when I make money, this whole town makes money.
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