Die Like an Eagle (28 page)

We stayed to watch the Flatworms and Wombats battle to a fourteen-fourteen tie before they had to cede the field to the Grasshoppers and Sandgnats. We stayed to watch that game, too. Michael and the boys—and for that matter, most of the rest of the Eagles and their fathers—were completely absorbed in the games.

I spent most of my time organizing for the league meeting. Making sure every single Eagle family would be represented. Liaising with the team moms from the Flatworms, Wombats, Grasshoppers, Sandgnats, Muckdogs, River Rats, Pirates, Red Sox, and Nats, to make sure those teams also turned out in force.

We didn't worry about the Stoats and the Yankees. Biff would make sure they showed up.

As soon as the last game was over, Michael and I sent the boys home with Rose Noire, since she was the only family member not fired up to attend the league meeting.

“There will be so much negative energy there,” she said, with a shudder. “The boys and I will have a lovely, quiet evening at home.”

“The boys would probably love watching the Nats game,” Michael said. “The grown-up Nats, that is, on TV.”

“I'm not sure I could even figure out what channel it was on.”

“Don't worry,” I said. “The boys can.”

With that Michael and I set out for the league meeting.

 

Chapter 22

Luckily we were early enough to get a parking spot fairly close to the Caerphilly Inn's door. Latecomers would end up parking along the mile-long tree-shaded entrance road, unless they decided to spring for the Inn's stunningly overpriced valet parking.

In spite of the short notice, the Inn had posted a sign at the entrance saying, in elegant calligraphy,
Welcome, Caerphilly Summerball League.
And I found myself suspecting that this was not the first time the Caerphilly Inn had hosted a baseball-related event. Or if it was, they'd certainly risen to the occasion in their usual fashion. The hotel's sound system was playing a lush if rather muted solo piano version of “Take Me Out to the Ball Park,” and the placards directing us to the room were decorated with drawings of bats, balls, and gloves. Along the back wall, the tables containing pitchers of water and rows of glasses were also festooned with pyramids of baseballs topped by little American flags, and the hotel staff attending the room wore their usual black-and-gold uniforms with plain black baseball caps.

Michael and I snagged seats in the front row, and were enjoying watching the other attendees enter—some confidently, as if a conference room in a five-star hotel was an everyday sight for them, and others timidly, as if more than half convinced they'd be thrown out.

And then there were the ones like Biff who seemed almost too confident, as if determined to carry through on bluster. He'd snagged a seat in the front row on the other side of the room, and seemed to be surrounded by a posse of friends and supporters, to judge by the way they were patting him on the shoulder or giving him a thumbs-up sign. Okay, a relatively small posse. And made even smaller by the fact that the Pruitts, who would normally have been a part of it, were sitting in their own scowling clump not far behind Michael and me—definitely apart from the Biff forces. Adolph was among them, and seemed to be having an intense discussion with one of his cousins. Thinking it might be a good idea to learn about any strategy they were pursuing, I turned slightly and pretended to be scanning the room while trying to eavesdrop. But after a few minutes, I realized that any strategy the Pruitts might pursue wouldn't be coming from Adolph. He seemed to be giving his cousin a blow-by-blow account of his latest session of playing a particularly violent video game, punctuated frequently with a loud, braying laugh.

I also spotted Ms. Nondescript—Edna, that was her name—seated toward the back of the room, very far from Biff's contingent. She appeared to be clinging close to Ideen for protection, though I noticed she was paying close attention to the conversations around her. And since most of the people around her were Red Sox or Flatworm parents, she probably wasn't hearing any complimentary remarks about Biff. Well, let her lurk and spy all she wanted. No one outside of Biff's camp was plotting anything sneaky or underhanded, so she was welcome to repeat anything she heard.

And speaking of Biff's camp …

“Lot of faces over there that I don't recognize,” I murmured to Michael as the meeting's start time drew near. “Are they college people, do you think?”

“I don't think we have that many college faces that I wouldn't recognize.” He was frowning, and I could see he was looking at some of the same people I'd been studying. “This is going to sound paranoid, but could they be Clay County people?”

“The logical question would be why a bunch of Clay County people would show up at a Caerphilly County Summerball meeting,” I said. “But I think you're right. I recognize those two in the plaid shirts—they were two of the guys who delivered Biff's replacement porta-potty this afternoon. And according to Aida, almost all of his employees live in Clay County.”

“So it's a fair assumption that Biff's trying to pack the house,” Michael said. “It will be interesting to see how Mr. Witherington handles this. On the whole, he seems—”

“Ladies and gentlemen.” Mr. Witherington was standing at a podium in the front of the room. He tapped on the microphone a couple of times to make sure it was on. “Please take your seats.”

It was standing room only by now, with some of the hotel staff setting up extra chairs in the back, while one, with a worried look on his face, was slowly walking down one side of the room, making counting gestures with his forefinger. Worried about the fire marshal, no doubt. I wondered if it would reassure him if I pointed out that the fire marshal, whose son was on the Red Sox, was seated in the second row, arms crossed, staring straight ahead as if determined not to see any potential occupancy violation.

“Ladies and gentlemen.” Mr. Witherington rapped on the podium for order, and the crowd quickly fell silent. “I'd like to call this meeting of the Caerphilly Summerball League to order. At the last league meeting, held”—he glanced down at a piece of paper on the podium, frowned slightly, and looked back out at us—“held on March eleven, it was announced that, due to illness, Mr. Lemuel Shiffley would be unable to continue in his position as league president, and Mr. Biff Brown was elected to fill the vacancy.”

At that, the crowd erupted in loud murmurs, because apart from Biff's crew none of us remembered attending or even being invited to the March eleven meeting—or for that matter, any other league meetings.

“League meeting, my eye!” came a voice from the back of the crowd. “Biff and a couple of his lackeys, that's all!”

Scattered applause greeted these words. I craned my neck and spotted Callie Peebles near the back of the room, perched on one of the tables beside the water pitchers. I was pretty sure she didn't have a kid in Caerphilly Summerball, but apparently word about the meeting had gone out over the grapevine in both counties.

Samuel Yoder stood not far away, arms folded, looking more than ever like an Old Testament prophet in a wrathful mood. Moses, maybe, getting ready to call down another plague on the Egyptians.

Biff might have brought all his supporters, but he also had a lot of enemies here. If I were him, I'd make sure I had someone walk me to my car when the meeting was over.

Mr. Witherington had been waiting for the crowd to grow quiet again.

“However,” he went on, “due to the unfortunate events of the last few days, it appears that Mr. Brown will no longer be able to continue as league president—”

“That's a lie!” Biff leaped to his feet and turned to face the crowd. “I never resigned and I'm not going to! They're trying to railroad me!”

The people immediately around Biff jumped to their feet and began shouting things like “fraud!” and “unfair!” and waving their arms around wildly. From where Mr. Witherington sat, they probably looked like a frenzied mob, but if you were a little distanced from it, as Michael and I were at the other end of the row, you could tell that it was a tempest in a teapot. In fact, it looked rather like one of those moments at a political convention when a dark horse candidate with next to no chance of winning has been nominated and his supporters are trying to make up with enthusiasm what they lack in strength.

Then Ms. Ellie, the town librarian, who was sitting a few seats down from us, stood up, turned to face the audience, and began to clap rhythmically in the “One! Two! One-two-three!” pattern she always used when story hour and other library events grew too boisterous. Seeing what she was doing, Michael and I joined in immediately, as did a few others. In fact, since several generations of Caerphillians had been trained to respond to that particular rhythm, before long the entire room was clapping along—and many of us stomping as well—completely drowning out the feeble noise that Biff and his cronies were making. One by one the cronies shut up and sat back down, until only Biff was left standing at the head of the room, with his mouth hanging open.

When the last crony had sat down, Ms. Ellie held up her right hand and the clapping and stomping stopped instantly, as if we'd rehearsed the maneuver for hours. She turned to Mr. Witherington, nodded, and sat down.

“As I was saying.” Mr. Witherington glared at Biff for a moment before continuing. “Mr. Brown will no longer be able to continue as league president because I, as the duly authorized representative of Summerball National, have removed him for cause.”

Wild applause from most of the crowd greeted that statement.

“Good going, four-eyes!” Callie shouted.

“We will need to elect a new league president,” Mr. Witherington said, when the room had grown quiet again. “In fact, we'll also be electing a new vice president and treasurer.”

“Point of order, Mr. Chairman,” Biff said. “Am I correct in assuming that only Caerphilly Summerball League members in good standing will be allowed to vote?”

Mr. Witherington stared over his glasses at Biff for a few moments.

“Mr. Brown is correct,” he said finally. “Only members in good standing will be allowed to vote.”

At these words, many of the people seated near Biff began waving little cards in the air. No doubt these were cards declaring them league members in good standing.

“Where do we go to get a card?” Michael muttered. And from the sound of the muttering behind us, he wasn't the only one thinking this.

“However,” Mr. Witherington went on, “since under the previous management there does not appear to have been a good faith effort to enable prospective members to join, we will postpone the voting until all those present who aspire to membership have been given a chance to pay their annual dues.”

“No fair!” Biff leaped to his feet, already shouting.

“Stow it, beef brain!” Callie called out. “Four-eyes has your number.”

Even Mr. Yoder was smiling now, though it was as stern and forbidding as a smile could be and still qualify for the name.

Meanwhile, before Mr. Witherington had even finished speaking, the non-Biff portion of the audience had already begun forming an orderly line leading up to the podium.

Ms. Ellie, Mother, and I pitched in to organize the dues-paying. We recruited several volunteers to work their way down the line, taking cash or checks and writing out receipts, which Ms. Ellie and I then carried up to Mr. Witherington in batches for his official signature.

The only sour note was that Biff's supporters were shouting protests and waving their arms to be recognized. Mr. Witherington was ignoring them, but I could tell they were wearing on his nerves.

“While you do that, I will suppress the opposition,” Mother murmured to me. I was looking forward to seeing how she did it—I was rather hoping that, like the guinea pigs in
Alice in Wonderland,
this would involve stuffing them into bags and sitting on them. Mother's more civilized solution was to organize entertainment to amuse the crowd while the dues collection went forward, and to chide Biff's cronies for their bad manners if they interrupted the entertainment.

They sat still for Dad's dramatic recitation of “Casey at the Bat.” I was a little worried that Mother would let him recite other, less baseball-oriented poems—his repertoire leaned to long, nineteenth-century narrative poems like “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere,” “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” or “The Highwayman.” But after Mighty Casey struck out in the last stanza, Mother called upon Michael to do a dramatic reading—and, to my surprise, he obliged with a touching rendition of Lou Gehrig's Farewell Address.

But the line was still going, and some of Biff's cronies were beginning to mutter about calling the question. Did Mother have other aces up her sleeve? Even Dad reciting “The Hunting of the Snark” might be preferable to letting the forces of Biff prevail.

“And now,” Mother said, “I would like to introduce you to a figure out of baseball history. My mother-in-law, Mrs. Cordelia Lee Mason—who played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League under her maiden name of Delia Lee.”

“Delia Lee?” Mr. Witherington's head snapped up, and he almost stabbed me with the pen he'd been using to sign the latest batch of receipts. He looked up at me. “She's Delia Lee? I must bring my girls down here to meet her,” he muttered as he dived back into signing receipts.

Cordelia entertained the crowd with anecdotes about her days on the diamond, interspersed with bits of general baseball humor, all the while keeping her eye on the progress of the line. And as Mr. Witherington signed the last few receipts, she brought her remarks to a graceful close and handed the podium back to him.

“Thank you, Mrs. Mason,” he said. “And now we will proceed to the heart of our meeting—the election of a new league president. Would anyone like to make a nomination?”