Force Out (7 page)

Joey's mom gripped his father's leg. “Jim, you don't think . . .”

“Think what?”

“No.” She shook her head. “It's too crazy.”

“What's crazy?”

Joey slumped down in his seat and folded his arms across his chest, hugging himself tight.

His mom spun around in her seat to look at him. “Joey, do you know something you're not telling us?”

As a former criminal defense attorney, Joey's father regularly commented on courtroom proceedings that made the news. Through the years, Joey had heard his father remark many times about criminal defendants who simply said too much.

“Should have had a lawyer,” his father would say, twisting his mouth up in disgust. “Half the people go to jail just because they're too foolish to be able to keep their mouths shut.”

Joey's mom would inevitably reply, “A guilty conscience will do that to some people. Most of the criminals I know, deep down,
want
to be in jail.”

“That's ridiculous,” Joey's father would say, and the two of them would be off to the races.

It was his father's words that rang in his head like a bell right now, and Joey said only one word before clamping his mouth shut with the determination not to be foolish. “No.”

“Joo-eey?” His mom drew out his name long and slow.

He only shook his head.

“What are you getting at, Marsha?” Joey's dad asked.

“You know how crazy Kurt is about all this baseball stuff, his stint with the Mariners and all that.”

“Seriously?” Joey's dad raised his eyebrows. “You're saying you think Kurt James snuck out to Mr. Kratz's cabin in the middle of the night, drugged his dog, then put a clamp on his fuel line so he'd run out of gas, miss the field trip, and his son could play in the Little League championship game?”

“Did you see the grin on Kurt's face when he saw Mr. Kratz? And when he was telling me the story? Kurt looked like he was about to bust out laughing.”

“Well, it's kind of funny.”

Disgust warped his mom's face. “That's funny? Maybe to a criminal defense lawyer who's used to working with murderers, thieves, and miscreants it's funny.”

“Murderers!” Martin screamed with delight, kicking his feet against the back of their father's seat.

“Honey,” Joey's dad said calmly, “I know you like the guy's blackberry jam, but he's a tyrant.”

“He's passionate about what he does, Jim.” Joey's mom scowled. “That makes him a tyrant to kids these days because no one thinks you have to work hard to get anything anymore. I see it every day. Look how much Joey's learned in that class. Cell biology? Mitochondria, for God's sake? Did you know what mitochondria were when you were twelve?”

“A mandatory field trip on the day of the championship game?” Joey's dad glanced at him in the mirror for support, but given the situation, Joey wasn't about to stick his neck out. “And I don't know what mite-oh-can-drake-ee-ah is even now, and it hasn't hurt me.”

“Mite-oh-
con
-
dria
. Sports are supposed to be secondary,” his mom said, “and I'm sure he set that trip up long before he knew about a baseball game.
And
it
wasn't
mandatory. Joey wasn't going. It was for extra credit, but my understanding is that Zach needed that credit just to pass.”

“It's a Saturday in June. It's a weekend in summertime.”

“I'm done discussing it.” His mom held up her hand, stopping all traffic like the pro she was. “But I'll tell you this, I'm going to try doggone hard to find out who did that to Mr. Kratz, and—trust me—they're going to regret it.”

Joey looked over at Martin, who grinned wildly at him, then blew a snot bubble before popping it with his finger. “Boogers!”

Joey put a hand over his own face, muffling a groan.

Zach didn't give up. He texted Joey three more times, trying to get him to change his mind and even letting him know that Leah asked if he'd be there. Joey stayed strong, texted no, and shut down his phone. Still, he just couldn't shake the image of everyone hanging out on the grass and taking plunges into the swimming hole. Gideon Falls had a dammed-up creek and an awesome swim area with a stone wall you could jump off into the deeper part of the pool.

Instead, Joey studied mitochondria, the bean-shaped part of a cell that looked like it had a lasagna noodle folded up inside it. His notes called it the cell's power plant because it made ATP, the chemical cells used for fuel. His dad was right. How important was that to know? It wasn't, if you were going to sign a major-league contract.

Joey slapped the pencil down on his desk and stared out his bedroom window at the sunshine baking the maple trees in the front yard. How did he expect to be a major-league player if he couldn't even make the Little League all-star team, let alone the Center State select team? Zach was right: he should have gone to the park. Who in their right mind would sit studying for finals on a day like today?

Then he remembered Stanford. That was where he wanted to go to college, one of the toughest places to get into and one of the best college baseball teams ever. He knew he needed grades as well as baseball talent to get in there, and that would be his best route to the pros. Not too many kids could do it just out of high school.

Pork Chop streaked across the lawn and shot into the shrubs by the corner of the house. Martin stumbled along with a determined grimace and fingers flexing like eager octopus tentacles, hot on the trail. Joey's mom appeared on the scene. She extracted Martin from the bushes, tucked him under her arm, and brought him into the house. Joey heard her shouting for his father to keep an eye on him before she got into the Jeep and headed off to Mr. Kratz's cabin.

Joey put his head in his hands and didn't know if there was anything that could make his life more miserable right now. There was one thing, though—Martin. Joey tumbled out of his chair and quickly locked his bedroom door. He did not need cat poop or snot bubbles at this time.

He returned to his desk, took a deep breath, thought of Stanford, and dove back into his notes. If nothing else, Joey knew how to work.

When the Jeep pulled back into the driveway almost two hours later, he was grinding through a math sheet, multiplying and dividing integers. As his mom marched up the front walk, Joey talked aloud to himself.

“A negative times a negative is a positive.”

That's how it was with numbers. Couldn't the same be possible in real life? Could him blowing the championship game and being discovered as the vandal of Mr. Kratz's truck—two clear negatives—somehow end up in a positive? He bit his lip until it hurt.

“That's math, not life.”

The firm knock on his bedroom door belonged to his mom—he knew that before she even said his name.

“Joey. Why is this door locked? Let me in.”

Like a prisoner condemned to hang, Joey slumped out of his chair, then unlocked and opened the door. He spoke in a low undertone. “I was studying and I wanted to keep Martin out.”

His mother stood looking down on him with her arms crossed. The silence became uncomfortable enough for him to look up and face his executioner.

Remarkably, her face softened. “Well, I can understand
that
, and I'm very glad to see you studying like this for your finals. I know it can't be easy on a day like today. I'll try to keep Martin out of your hair.”

Joey tried not to look puzzled. He couldn't believe she wasn't at least scolding him, if not screaming at the top of her lungs about what a rotten kid he was for drugging the dog and vandalizing the truck. Something was wrong, or right, depending on how you looked at it.

“Thanks,” he said, feeling her out. “How'd your thing go?”

“What thing? Oh, Mr. Kratz. I got the sample and ran it over to the lab. Trust me, I had to pull some favors to get them to agree, plus they made me write up a report to cover their backs. That's what took so long.”

“Lots of work.”

“And more to come,” she said. “I won't get the report until the middle of the week and that's only the beginning. No good deed goes unpunished, right?”

“You really like that guy?”

“‘That guy' is your teacher,” she said. “I do. I respect him. He has a different way of life, but that's okay. By the way, I think you should go to that dance tonight. It was one game, Joey. You can't go into the tank over one bad game. You had a super season. You're a straight A student. We're very proud of you.”

Joey couldn't help thinking of the things that wouldn't make her proud, as well as the fact that his all-star status was about as certain as a coin toss.

“Zach's going, right?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“So, study for another hour or so, have dinner with us, and I'll drive you to the school. You need to have fun, too.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

She started to close the door. “Good, I'll let you get back to work.”

Joey did his best. When he'd finished studying, he turned his phone back on and texted Zach that he'd see him at the dance. Zach texted him back immediately.

awesome!

Joey grinned and washed up for dinner. His mom took a tuna casserole out of the oven and Joey looked at it sideways as she spooned some onto his plate.

“What's the matter?” His mom sat down and folded her hands for a prayer. “You love tuna casserole.”

“Just my breath.”

“Well, you're not planning on kissing anyone, are you?” his dad asked.

Joey felt his face catch fire.

“Say the blessing, Joseph.” His mom bowed her head.

Joey said a blessing and picked up his fork, eating to prove he had no intentions of any such thing, but in the back of his mind dreading the possibility of slow dancing with Leah McClosky and having tuna fish breath.

While his dad read stories to Martin, Joey's mom drove him to the school and dropped him off, promising to be back at ten when it ended. Zach met him outside the entrance. They each wore cargo shorts and polo shirts, but cut very different figures. Zach's hair was dark, shiny and stiff with gel. He was below average height, wiry and sleek. Joey's blond hair hung limp. He towered over everyone in his grade, was thick limbed, and felt like he had two left feet.

“Any word on the big investigation?” Zach asked. “I didn't want to text anything about it.”

“Good idea. No, nothing new. She won't get the report back on the dog until the middle of the week. I don't know. Maybe they won't even find the Valium. Who knows how long it lasts, and they're looking for animal tranquilizers, not Valium for people.”

“A lot of people have Valium.”

“But they didn't get caught taking a pill from their mom's medicine chest the night of the . . .”—Joey started to say ‘crime,' but changed his mind—“incident.”

“Okay, let's forget about all that. I'm sorry I asked.”

“No, that's okay.”

“Leah's in there already with a couple of her friends. You ready?”

Joey looked at the entrance to the school. Kids had been streaming past them. Just inside the doors, Mr. Vidich, the principal, and Mrs. Carmichael, the music teacher, kept an eye on everyone because it was intermediate school students only. From behind them, the thump and rasp of music issued from the gym down the long hall.

“You can't even talk in there,” Joey said.

“Don't get cold feet on me now. It's all set up. She likes you, man. All you got to do is ask her to dance. Come on.”

“I can't dance—you know that.” Panic filled Joey for the second time that day, and it brought with it the weariness of the sleep he'd missed the night before. With all the craziness and stress, he'd almost forgotten to be tired.

“You can slow dance. That's easy—you just put your arms around her and kind of move around.”

Joey could do that, but he sure couldn't do anything else. While Zach bobbed and weaved and cut across the dance floor like a butterfly, Joey was a clod.

“Just wait till it's a slow song, ask her to dance, and you're set,” Zach said.

Joey followed his friend through the doors, offering a polite greeting to Mr. Vidich before being brought up short by Mrs. Carmichael. Mrs. Carmichael wore a black dress, thick makeup, blue shadow on her eyes, and fire-engine-red lips. Her hair had been dyed somewhere on the color chart between an inhuman red and purple.

“I smell something.” She sniffed the air. “Were you two boys drinking?”

Joey and Zach could only stare at her. Her accusation was too ridiculous to even have a response for.

Zach shook his head, but Mrs. Carmichael took his ear and guided his mouth toward her nose, sniffing like a bulldog. “Okay, but what about your friend, Mr. Riordon?”

Joey took half a step back. “Mrs. Carmichael, I don't think you want to smell my breath.”

“Oh, I don't?” Her eyes sparkled and she tugged Joey's ear so that he held still. “You come right here, young man.”

When she took a healthy snort of Joey's breath, he couldn't say he felt one bit bad for her. In fact, he huffed up some onion fog from the back of his throat. Her face lost its color and she stepped back with a little cough, then waved them past.

Joey gave Zach a little whiff of what went wrong and Zach burst into a high-pitched cackle that made Joey laugh, too. It was great, really.

“She is such a witch,” Zach said. “Come on.”

They pushed into the crowded gym, where multicolored lights spun and swirled in the sea of swaying bodies and pulsing, deafening music. A smoke machine pumped a white smelly fog across the dance floor before it retreated to hover beneath the ceiling high above. The quiet image of a baseball field filled Joey's mind and his feet told him to get out of there fast, this wasn't where he belonged. His best friend, though, tugged him by the elbow and propelled him forward toward a small clutch of girls.