Windmill Windup (7 page)

Well, forget it! She wasn’t sure how she could stop it, but somehow she was going to break up their relationship. At this
point, what did she have to lose?

T
he next two days were agony for Kelly. At school, she avoided her old friends, who didn’t exactly go out of their way to seek
her out. Kelly guessed they were as embarrassed about her performance as she was.

At home, things were even worse. Her mom and Ken, instead of talking to her, left her a note, jointly signed, telling her
that she was going to camp for spring break, whether she wanted to or not. After Kelly thrashed around for a way out of her
dilemma, she finally broke down and called Sue Jeffers to ask if she could spend the break with her family.

“Um, sorry, Kel, but we’re going to Florida,” Sue informed her.

“I could come with you!” Kelly suggested boldly.

“Hmm. Would your mom pay for your fare and stuff?” Sue asked.

That stopped Kelly. Maybe her mom would have paid, if Kelly hadn’t blown up at her and Ken the other night. But as things
stood, Kelly couldn’t imagine her mom being so generous. “I could ask,” she told Sue. But she never did. When she saw her
mom next, Kelly couldn’t get up the nerve.

Kelly realized by now that she would have to go along with the plan and get shipped off to this loser camp, wherever it was.
Only one thought consoled her. However bad it was, being with her mom and Ken would be even worse.

As for the Diamondbacks, their second game was on Thursday afternoon, against last year’s champs, the Giants. Kelly was dreading
the encounter, but she needn’t have been so down about it.

As it turned out, the Giants were a pale shadow of their former selves. The majority of their great players had gone on to
the eighth-grade league, and the team was now made up mostly of sixth-graders. They had one pitcher who threw windmill-style,
but the girl was so wild that she kept walking player after player. By the time the Giants’ coach signaled for a relief pitcher,
she had walked in three runs — and it was still only the first inning!

The Giants scored four runs in the first off
Dorothy Barad. Dorothy couldn’t seem to master the art of windmill pitching, but stubbornly refused to throw slow-pitch. In
the top of the second, the Diamondbacks loaded the bases with two walks and a lined single by Allie Warheit off the Giants’
slow-pitch reliever.

Kelly came up to the plate, spat on her hands, and hoisted the bat over her shoulder. This was her meat and potatoes — slow-pitch
batting-practice pitches, right over the plate. She turned on the first one, letting out all the anger she’d built up over
the past two days, and smacked it way, way over the left fielder’s head!

The crowd let out a whoop, and Kelly ran for all she was worth. As she rounded third, she saw Allie at the plate, yelling,
“Slide! Slide!” Kelly slid, and the throw came seconds too late. She’d walloped a grand-slam home run!

The Diamondbacks kept on scoring. In the fourth inning, Kelly hit another home run. This time it was a solo shot, because
Allie had cleared the bases ahead of her with a two-run blast. Unfortunately, the Giants kept scoring off Dorothy Barad and
Marie del Toro, who came on to replace her in the third.

The final score was a hair-raising 13–12, but the D’backs had held on to notch their first victory. Kelly had six RBIs and
Allie had two — but the main thing was, Kelly had come back from her miserable first-game performance. Sooner or later, word
would get back to her old pals on the Devil Rays, and her reputation would be somewhat restored.

It was a huge relief, and Kelly couldn’t help feeling generous. When Allie came over to congratulate her afterward, Kelly
gave her a big hug and invited her to Sammy’s for an ice-cream sundae.

“You mean it? Wow — sure!” Allie said, flashing that brilliant smile of hers. At the moment, Kelly didn’t care that she was
a sixth-grader. Allie was an awesome player, and Kelly was mighty glad there was someone else on her team who could really
play the game.

As they sat at Sammy’s, wolfing down their sundaes, Kelly couldn’t help noticing that Allie didn’t look like a sixth-grader.
She could easily have passed for an eighth-grader, in fact. Kelly didn’t even flinch when Karen Haynes came in and saw the
two of them together. So what if she had a sixth-grader for a friend? Who cared?

They talked about softball and school and finally, inevitably, about guys. Actually, it was Allie who brought it up, asking
if there was anybody Kelly especially liked.

There wasn’t, really. Kelly had gone out with a few guys over the past year, but she hadn’t had a good crush in months. Not
since Larry Budnick, and he’d turned out to be a real dud, too.

“So, what about you?” she asked Allie. And when the other girl flashed a small, sly grin, Kelly knew there was somebody Allie
had set her sights on. Probably some skinny little sixth-grade kid, Kelly thought, amused.

“Well, there is this guy. He goes to school with us, but he’s older than me….”

“How much older?” Kelly asked.

“Um …he’s in eighth grade….”

“Really?”

“Promise you won’t tell anybody? It’s so embarrassing. If he knew I liked him, it would be all over the school, and I’d have
to dig myself a hole and jump into it.”

“I won’t tell,” Kelly promised, really curious now. It amused her no end that Allie had a crush on an eighth-grader. That
was so cute! “So, who is he?”

“He’s this kid, Ryan Randall,” Allie confessed, blushing almost purple. “Do you know him?”

Did she
know
him? Did she ever! Kelly almost spat out her ice cream, she was so stunned. She coughed, pretending to have swallowed down
the wrong pipe.

“Are you okay?” Allie asked, concerned.

“Um, yeah,” Kelly lied. She could feel a cold sweat breaking out on her forehead.

“So, do you know him?” Allie asked again.

“Um …no, not really,” Kelly lied. “I mean, I’ve seen him around. I know who he is.”

“Isn’t he a dream?” Allie said, sighing and narrowing her big, brown eyes.

“Well …I guess he’s kind of cute,” Kelly admitted. He was more than cute, and she knew it, but she wasn’t going to give Allie
the satisfaction of saying so.

“Of course, I’ve got no chance of even meeting him. But I was thinking maybe I’d go to one of his baseball games and kind
of, I don’t know, bump into him or something. Or do you think that’s too, like, forward?” Allie asked.

“I don’t know, do what you want. But, I mean…”

“Never mind. It was just a thought, that’s all. Forget I said anything.”

“Okay, then,” Kelly said, happy to drop the subject. She pushed her sundae away. Suddenly, she’d lost her appetite entirely.
She wasn’t sure exactly why, but she knew it had something to do with Ryan Randall.

Kelly’s dad was supposed to take her to the city that weekend, to stay at his apartment and do lots of cool stuff like see
shows and maybe go to a ball game at the stadium. But like he’d done so many times in the past, he failed to meet her at the
appointed hour.

Kelly was willing to wait around for him, figuring he’d show up eventually. But her mom wasn’t having any of it.

“Ken and I are going to the museum,” she informed Kelly, “and I’m not going to leave you here alone all day.”

“It won’t be all day,” Kelly assured her. “Dad’ll come for me eventually.”

Her mom scowled darkly. “That’s what you say, but I’ve known him too long to put any trust in his promises. And you should
know better, too.”

She picked up the phone and dialed his number.
She stood and listened for a moment, then hung up. “His machine isn’t even on. Look, Kelly, that’s it. You’ll have to come
with us.”

“But —”

“I’ll take the cell phone along, and we can try him once we’re in the city.”

“Mom, I hate museums!”

“I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to come with us. If you don’t like it, you can blame your father. It’s not my fault he’s
so irresponsible.”

Kelly kicked at the air, but even she could see there was no way out of it. She was just resigning herself to a boring, awful
day when they pulled up in front of Ken’s house to pick him up. Ken was standing outside, and beside him stood Ryan.

“Is Ryan coming, too?” Kelly asked her mom.

“Yes, didn’t I tell you? It’s Ken’s day to be with him. So you see? You’ll have some company. It won’t be so bad.”

Kelly clucked her tongue, to show her mother that it didn’t make any difference. But of course it did. What was going to be
merely boring was now going to be tense and awkward. The last time she’d been around Ryan, she’d made a fool of herself,
blushing and getting tongue-tied. She was sure he thought she was a total geek.

“Hi!” Ryan said cheerfully as he slid into the backseat next to her.

“Oh. Hi,” Kelly mumbled, not daring to look at him. They sat in silence while Ken and her mom yakked it up in the front seat
all the way to town.

Inside the museum, they followed the grown-ups at a safe distance. Ken was obviously a big art freak. He stood in front of
each painting, going on and on about how great it was. Kelly’s mom nodded, a blissful smile on her face, and occasionally
said something in agreement.

“I hate museums,” Ryan suddenly said to Kelly. “You?”

“Big-time,” Kelly agreed, a small smile emerging at one corner of her mouth. “I’d rather be in a dentist’s chair.”

“The only one I like is the Natural History Museum,” he told her.

“Me, too,” she said, nodding. “I like those rocks that look like jewels and the stuffed dodo birds and things.”

“Dino bones?” he asked, smiling broadly.

“Scary, but yeah.”

“I keep thinking it would be really cool to have had one for a pet,” Ryan said.

“Yeah, right?” she said with a laugh.

“Hey,” he said, his voice hushed. “You wanna ditch this place and go outside? We could hang out at the fountain and wait for
them.”

Kelly regarded her mom and Ken, who seemed to have forgotten their children were even there. “I don’t know,” she said. “They
might get mad.”

“We could ask them,” Ryan suggested. “I brought something along….” He pulled a tennis ball out of his pocket. “We could, you
know, toss it around.”

“Cool!” Kelly said, thrilled to have a way out of this horrible boredom. “But
you
ask, okay?”

“Sure,” he said, bouncing the ball once before putting it back in his pocket. “Wait here.”

Soon they were outside in the sunshine, playing catch in the open air, showing off by making leaping catches and stuff while
their parents strolled the cavernous halls of the museum.

Kelly was actually having fun. She darted among the people on the sidewalk, fielding pop-ups and grounders, dodging them to
make quick throws back to Ryan. It was a good time she’d never expected to have, and those can be the best kind of all.

“Hey, you’re not bad!” he told her when they finally sat down at one of the outdoor café tables to take a break.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” she complimented him back. She knew he was offhandedly telling her she was a great fielder,
because she really was. And so was he. They shared a way of saying so that all real ballplayers understand.

“Want a soda?” he asked her. “My treat.”

“In that case,” she said as she grinned back at him, all her shyness gone after their shared good time, “I’ll have an extra-super-sized
one.”

“You got it.” He laughed, eyeing her with such genuine affection that it suddenly made her self-conscious. She started blushing
and had to look down at her sneakers so he wouldn’t notice.

Ryan was a really cool kid, she’d decided. She wondered how he could have a jerk like Ken for a dad, but of course she couldn’t
ask him that. “Um …how come your mom and dad got divorced?” she managed to say as they walked toward the concession stand.

Ryan’s smile faded. “I, um …I don’t really wanna talk about it. Sorry.”

“Oh. Sorry I asked.”

“No, it’s okay. It’s just — I don’t know. Let’s talk about something else.”

“Like what?”

“Like …I don’t know. How’s your softball team?”

“We stink,” Kelly said forthrightly.

“Really?”

“Well, we’re one and one, but I don’t think we’re a .500 team, if you get my drift.”

“Uh-huh.”

“How about the Colts?” she asked.

“Don’t you follow our games?”

“Not too closely. What are you, four and three so far?”

“Three and four,” he told her. “But we’re two and oh when I pitch.”

“So how come they don’t pitch you every game?”

“I dunno. I guess they want to give everybody a chance.”

“Huh.”

“You should come see me pitch sometime.”

Was he asking her out? Kelly felt her cheeks burning. No, of course he wasn’t. It was just a friendly gesture. He was asking
her to come to one of his ball games, that was all. It wasn’t a dance or something, or a movie. A guy like Ryan would never
ask a
seventh-grader out. Especially not one whose mom was dating his dad!

“When are you pitching next?”

“Not for a few days,” he said. “I’ll let you know. How about you?”

“Huh?”

“When’s your team playing next?”

“Um, tomorrow. Why?”

“Well, I could come see you play.”

“For real?” She felt pleased and scared at the same time. Pleased that he wanted to see more of her, and scared that she’d
mess up in front of him.

But wait — why was she so worried? She’d hit two home runs in her last game, hadn’t she? Allie had said Kelly was just tight
playing her old team, and she’d been right, of course. What did Kelly have to be afraid of?

“So, can I come?” he asked her.

Kelly shrugged. “Sure, I guess so. It’s a free country.”

“I won’t if you don’t want me to.” He looked into her eyes as if he could see right through her, and Kelly felt herself go
dizzy for a moment.

She sipped hard on her soda. “No, it’s okay,” she finally said. “But if we lose, don’t say I didn’t tell you so.”

“I’m coming to see
you
play, not the team,” he told her, giving her a smile that shot warm lightning through her.