Supercharged Infield (8 page)

Penny felt the same prickling sensation running through her legs, arms, and other parts of her body that she had felt before.
But something else was different now. Something about her mind. It seemed to be a little sluggish. It was time. TIME!

Stop! she wanted to yell. Stop!

But the words would not come.

P
ENNY BRACED HERSELF,
tightened her fists, and felt her neck muscles firming.

Stop! Stop!
her brain screamed.

But no sound came out of her mouth. No sound reached her ears.

She tried again . . . and again. Then, suddenly — like a dam bursting — her voice broke from her throat, her mouth, and echoed
in her ears. “STOP! STOP! STOP!”

Quickly, Jonny stopped the power and stared at her. He looked rigid, wide-eyed. “You okay?” he said, worried.

Penny, her eyes closed, shook her head.
She felt exhausted, shaky. “I’m okay,” she said, her voice just above a whisper.

“Good. I was worried for a minute.” He inhaled deeply, sighed. “Now what? I’m stuck.”

Penny opened her eyes, stared at him. She couldn’t believe her own thoughts. Had Jonny been so absorbed in the success of
his experiment that he hadn’t thought about how to change the girls back to their normal selves? Amazing!

“You’ve got to reverse the procedure!” Penny said, trying hard to think clearly, to keep her wits about her. “Can you do that?”

He looked back at the machine. “I don’t know,” he said numbly.

“But you’ve got to try!” Penny cried. “Don’t just sit there!”

She had an urge to start pounding the keys herself, but the tubes leading from the computer to her wrists were too short.
They would pull off. And they
had
to stay on, otherwise how could she and Jonny know that their attempt to reverse the strength-building procedure was working?

Jonny kept staring at the keys in front of him. He seemed to be in deep concentration.
Perspiration beaded his forehead, glistened on his face.

“What are you
waiting
for?” Penny exclaimed after watching him for almost a full minute. She was getting more impatient by the second. Her nerves
seemed to be stretched to the breaking point.

“I’m thinking!” Jonny answered, a drop of perspiration falling onto a key.

She looked at him. “Sorry,” she said, her voice barely audible.

Finally Jonny struck a key, then another, and another. Penny saw the words “REVERSE PROCEDURE” appear on the screen.

Quickly below it appeared the line: “NOT PROGRAMMED.”

Penny felt a cry start in her throat, but she held it in. Of course the reverse procedure wasn’t programmed. In that case
. . . She looked at Jonny, saw him staring intently at the screen. Was he thinking what
she
was thinking?

He started to pound the keys again. “ELIMINATE MU-CH-PH III. RETURN TO MU-CH-PH II.”

“HOLD IT!” The words appeared immediately
below the line. “ELIMINATE IS NOT IN OUR STANDARD WORD USAGE. SUBSTITUTE.”

“Bull!” Jonny snapped, disgusted.

He punched a key, erasing the word “ELIMINATE,” thought a few seconds, and typed “DELETE.”

Instantly the line beginning with the words “HOLD IT!” vanished, and the word “OKAY” appeared in its place.

Jonny glanced sideways at Penny and smiled. Penny smiled back. He punched in the words “DELETE MU-CH-PH III. RETURN TO MU-CH-PH
II.”

Almost immediately Penny felt a faint pulsing sensation in her wrists, which shot through her arms, her torso, her legs, and
her brain. She closed her eyes, waiting for a reaction to that sensation.

There
was
a difference! A change! But right now, she wouldn’t have been able to describe the feeling if she’d had to. She just
knew
that the strength-building procedure
was reversing
.

“Did you feel anything?” Jonny asked.

“Yes!” she whispered, happily. “Drop it down to the next phase.”

He struck some keys. Again she felt a pulsing sensation, and a change. It was working.
It was working!

“How do you feel now?” Jonny asked again.

She opened her eyes and looked at him. She could still feel tingling in her arms, her legs, throughout her body. But not as
much as before. “Okay,” she said. “Down to the next phase.”

Jonny reversed the muscular phase procedure to I. And finally to 0.

“Now how do you feel?” he asked.

Penny sat still a minute, waiting to see if
all
that tingling sensation was gone. If
all
her body muscles felt normal again.

And they did! They did!

“It worked, Jonny! It worked!” she cried, yanking the cups off her wrists herself. Then she jumped off the chair, threw her
arms around Jonny, and hugged him fiercely. “I feel exactly like I did before, Jonny! Exactly!”

Happy tears blurred her eyes, and she wiped them away with the palms of her hands. “Now all we have to do is get the girls
back here,” she said excitedly, “and reverse the procedure on them.”

“I just hope that won’t be a problem,” replied Jonny, the expression on his face a mixture of triumph and worry — triumph
over what they had accomplished in being able to restore the girls back to normal again, worry that the girls might not want
to sit in front of the computer, put the electrodes on their wrists again, and go through the reversal procedure.

Suddenly there was a sound in another part of the house. The front door had opened and closed. Penny heard footsteps.

“That’s Karen!” Jonny whispered.

“Good!” Penny whispered back. “Invite her in here! Explain to her what you must do!”

“Suppose she won’t cooperate?”

“She must!” Penny’s eyes widened as she looked into Jonny’s worried blue eyes. “She must, Jonny! She’ll
have
to cooperate!” Karen and the other girls just could not continue to go through life in their present condition.

“Stay here. I’ll be right back,” said Jonny.

He left the room. A few seconds later Penny heard him talking to his sister. Penny heard Karen answer him, but her voice and
Jonny’s were so soft that Penny couldn’t hear what they said.

Then Penny heard footsteps approaching the room. A moment later Jonny came in, holding onto Karen’s hand. At the sight of
Penny, Karen’s eyes widened, and she stopped.

“Please, Karen,” Jonny said, his velvety voice never as tender as it was now. “Please. Penny’s here to help me. To help you.
I told you that. Now, sit on that chair and I’ll put the electrodes back on your wrists like I did before. Only this time
you’ll become normal again. Do you understand? Normal.”

Karen didn’t budge, as if she were mulling Jonny’s words over and over again in her mind.
“Please,
” Jonny whispered again, so softly that Penny could barely hear him.

Then Karen moved, going to the chair at the side of the computer, sitting down on it, and resting her arms on the chair’s
armrests. Calmly, Jonny picked up the cups of the electrodes and put them on her wrists. Then he sat down in front of the
keyboard and monitor and once again began punching the keys, starting by putting in the date and time, followed by the code
words: “MU-CH-PH.” He looked at them for a moment, then added the Roman numeral “V.” Then “RESPOND, PLEASE.”

Instantly, underneath the line he had written, a sentence appeared: “INFORMATION RECEIVED. NEXT, PLEASE.”

“Hold your breath,” Jonny whispered, as he typed the line “DELETE MU-CH-PH V.” A second . . . two seconds passed, as Penny
held her breath, waiting to see what the computer was going to say.

The reply came: “OKAY.”

“All
right!
” Penny cried spontaneously, throwing her fists into the air. Jonny looked so pleased that Penny thought he was going to let
out a happy cry, too. But he restrained himself, glancing across at his sister instead. Penny looked at Karen. The girl’s
eyes were closed, but Penny noticed a slight movement of her arms and the rest of her body, a reaction to the pulsing sensation
she felt coming from the computer through the tubes and into her body.

Twenty seconds later Jonny typed another line: “DELETE MU-CH-PH IV.”

“OKAY,” responded the computer again on the next line. Once again Penny saw Karen’s reaction as the computer reduced the muscular
strength in her body and restored her emotional reactions — her
feelings
— closer to normal.

It’s working
, Penny thought, breathless.
It’s really working
.

Twenty seconds later, Jonny pressed the buttons to delete Phase III. Then Phase II. And, finally, Phase I. 0 popped up on
the screen.

Silent, tense, Penny watched Karen’s face as Jonny shut off the computer and removed the electrodes from his sister’s wrists.
Karen sat still a moment, staring straight ahead, unmoving — and Penny was seized by the fear that the reversal hadn’t fully
worked on Karen. Then, suddenly, a broad, bright smile came over Karen’s face, and she threw her arms around her brother,
hugging him fiercely as tears filled her eyes. Then, still wordless, she turned to Penny and flung her arms around her.

“Penny! Oh, Penny!” she finally cried. “I feel so much better! So much better! Thanks! Thanks trillions!”

Penny felt a lump form in her throat as she returned Karen’s squeeze. “I do, too, Karen,” she whispered huskily, blinking
away the tears that filled her own eyes. “I never felt better in my life.”

She closed her eyes tightly to clear them
of tears, then pulled back from Karen and looked at Jonny.

“Now we’ve got to get the other girls here,” she said, relieved, “and get them back to normal.”

“Right,” replied Jonny, looking fresh and relieved, too, as if a tremendous weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “I’ll
start calling them right now. The ones we can’t get today we’ll get tomorrow.”

He was already dialing the telephone before the last few words were out of his mouth.

T
HE DAY WAS BLEAK AND DREARY
when the Hawks played the Comets on Tuesday afternoon, but there was a sparkle in Penny’s eyes as if the sun were really
shining. Coach Parker was in the third-base coaching box, and Penny in the first-base coaching box, both clapping and yelling
for the Hawks’ leadoff hitter to start the game rolling with a hit. The leadoff hitter was Karen Keech.

Maxine Jackson, the tall, wiry girl pitching for the Comets, whipped in the first underhand pitch, and Karen let it go by.

“Steeerike!” yelled the umpire, a big,
broad-shouldered man who seemed to be about twice as tall as the Comets catcher.

Karen glanced back at him with a defiant look. Then, as if his size changed her mind about what she was thinking, she turned
and faced the pitcher again.

Penny couldn’t help but smile. Karen was her old self again, that was for sure. “Drive it, Karen!” Penny yelled. “Start it
off, kid!”

Maxine’s next pitch was knee high and directly over the plate. Karen swung and topped the ball, hitting a dribbler down to
third. The Comets third baseman ran in a few steps, scooped up the easy bouncer, and pegged it to first, beating Karen by
two steps. One out.

“That’s okay, kid,” Penny said, thumping Karen on the back as the girl turned to the right at first base and started to head
back toward the Hawks dugout. “Get ‘em the next time.”

Karen smiled at her. “Right,” she said. Even being put out did not keep a sparkle from shining in her eyes, too.

Melanie was up next and singled to right, drawing loud applause from the crowd. She had hit the ball well in the game against
the
Hard Hats last week, but each hit had landed in a Hard Hats’ glove. “Nice drive, Mel,” Penny said.

But it was the next hitter, Shari Chung, that Penny was anxious to see bat. Then Faye. And finally Jean. After each of them
had been “deprogrammed,” they all had
seemed
to be normal again. They all had
said
they felt their same old selves again. Still, Penny thought that the only place
that
could be proved was on the softball field.

Shari came to the plate, looking excited and eager — almost overeager — to get a hit. But, Penny thought, Shari had
always
looked excited and almost overeager
before
. So, in essence, she
was
the same girl again. The question was, How was her performance going to be at bat?

Shari swung twice, missing the pitch both times, then popped a fly to the shortstop.

A disappointed groan sprang from the Hawks’ fans. Even Penny said, “That’s okay, Shari. You’ll be up again.” But there was
a smile in Penny’s eyes, and joy in her heart. Shari
was
the same girl again in every respect.

“Penny! Come in! You follow Faye!” a deep, drawling voice shouted from the bench,
and Penny saw Harold Dempsey standing in the dugout.

Penny ran in, and Debbie Brohill ran out to take her place in the coaching box. Penny paused in front of the pile of bats,
selected her favorite, then straightened up and looked directly at Harold.

“It’s lucky for you, Harold, that Jonny figured out how to change everyone back. That was awful!”

Harold looked at the ground. “I had no idea they’d all start acting that way. It was
weird
. And scary.”

“Well, I hope it’s all over now. We’ll see.” Penny looked hard at Harold. She just couldn’t figure him out. Then she got into
the on-deck circle and watched Faye take a hard cut at a pitch, then crack a single between first and second bases. But the
hit was not an
extraordinary
hit, Penny told herself.
Or was it?
Did she have to wait for Faye to bat again before she’d really be sure?

Melanie ran to second base and then to third on the hit. Penny came up next. She felt nervous and worried. She’d been watching
Maxine Jackson closely; the pitcher had terrific speed.

Crack! Penny drove the first pitch out to
deep left field for a double, clearing the bases and putting the Hawks on the scoreboard. Her heart pounded joyously as the
crowd cheered. “Way to go, Penny!” a fan yelled, and Penny recognized Jonny’s voice. She looked for his face in the stands
and finally saw it, beaming happily under that thatch of blond hair. She smiled, lifted her hand briefly to wave to him, and
he waved back. Her heart raced.