Safe at Home (2 page)

“Frozen peas,” according to Zach, who’d been Nick’s first victim when he’d been rock-headed enough to try to steal third on him in the first inning.

Everybody knew by now what kind of player Nick was. The rest of the seventh-graders knew he could hit, knew he could run for a catcher, even as stocky as he was, with those short, thick legs that he kept hoping would grow one of these days.

Even at twelve, he could locate a pop foul behind
the plate with the best of them, toss his mask away and actually catch the ball, something hardly anybody his age could do.

Like he had some kind of radar tracking system going for him, what Gracie said was like some chip he had inside his body somewhere.

Yet that wasn’t what set Nick Crandall apart on a ballfield. What set him apart was the way he could throw from behind the plate.

Nick Crandall had an arm on him.

He’d always been able to throw, even on the playgrounds, back when he was living in Riverdale, in the Bronx in New York City. But last year was the first year he’d really been able to show it off. From the first few days of tryouts last year, when Coach Leeman had asked for volunteers to catch and that right arm of Nick’s had shot straight up in the air, he could see how shocked everybody was when he erased another runner as if he’d hit the Delete key on his computer.

“Dude,” Ollie Brown had said to him today, after Nick had schooled him so badly on his stolen-base attempt. “Guys our age aren’t supposed to get
thrown out by that much unless they do a
header
between first and second.”

Throwing out guys stealing was Nick’s very best thing. He didn’t get all the runners who tried him. Even Johnny Bench, the old Cincinnati Red from the Big Red Machine, who Nick had read up on and who was supposed to be the best defensive catcher of all time, didn’t come close to doing that.

Sometimes Nick would bounce one.

Sometimes he’d throw wild left or wild right.

Sometimes, as if he didn’t know his own strength, he’d
really
let one fly and the ball would go sailing in the direction of Dave Chester, their center fielder, known as Junior on their team because he looked so much like Ken Griffey, Jr.

Most of the time, though, Nick was money.

And he had been money today.

The safest Nick felt in his life, the most confident and sure of himself, the most normal, was when he’d hear one of his teammates yell “he’s going!” just as he saw the runner take off from first, and then he’d be coming up and out of his crouch, and his arm would be coming forward, and he would be
the no-worries Nick Crandall he wanted to be more than anything.

That was the way it was happening now as Coach Leeman brought his arm forward and delivered his first pitch to Zach. It wasn’t any kind of pitch-out, the kind that big-league catchers would call to give them a better chance if they thought a guy was about to steal, a pitch they’d have the pitcher purposely throw high and way off the plate so they’d be standing and ready to throw as soon as they came out from behind the batter to catch it.

It might as well have been.

Coach Leeman’s pitch just happened to be high and wide, and that could have been a problem if Nick hadn’t read it perfectly almost from the time it came out of Coach’s hand. As Nick straightened up to catch the ball, he could see that Jeff, one of their fastest guys on the bases, hadn’t gotten nearly a good enough jump.

If Coach Williams hadn’t seen the other throws, he was sure going to see one now.

Nick really leaned into this one and cut it loose, grunting loudly as he did.

The moment the ball came out of his hand, he
knew he had put too much on it.
Way
too much. And he knew why, knew it the way you knew you’d said something wrong the second the words were out of your mouth, when it was too late to take them back: because he was a dope trying to show off for the varsity coach.

To Nick’s eyes, the ball was still rising like a plane taking off as it went over second base, over the head of Reed McDonagh, playing short for Nick’s team, and over the head of the sliding runner. It was still so high in the sky that Nick was suddenly afraid that the ball might make it all the way to center field on the fly.

Junior wound up fielding the throw on one bounce and didn’t even bother trying to get Jeff at third. There was no chance, so he just threw the ball back in to Reed at second. As he did, Nick heard Zach Dugas, in a real loud voice, saying, “I was starting to worry that sucker was going to need one of those parachutes you see on rockets after reentry.”

Nick didn’t say anything. He was too embarrassed. He didn’t mind getting people’s attention with his arm. But you never ever wanted to draw
attention to yourself like this. He was used to messing up in his life. Sometimes the messing up was epic, too.

More than anything he hated to do that in baseball.

He took off his mask finally, just because it gave him something to do. Then he walked slowly back around the plate, taking long enough that it felt like he was taking a walk around the block, and yelled out to his fielders to remember there were still two out.

Then he got into his crouch and watched from there as Zach beat the next pitch into the ground and Reed at least showed off a strong
accurate
arm by throwing him out from deep short.

It was then that Nick saw Coach Williams walking in from where he’d been standing in foul territory, walking past third base now, straight down the faded white line between third and home.

Walking straight toward Nick.

Yeah, Nick thought, he probably can’t wait for me to be his catcher next season.

As Coach Williams got closer, Nick could see that he was smiling, slowly shaking his head.

Great.
He’d cracked up the varsity baseball coach.

Coach Williams was still smiling when he got to home plate and was standing where a right-handed batter would stand, right there in front of Nick.

“That was some throw,” he said.

Nick put his head down. “I usually have better control than that.”

Now Coach Williams laughed. “Well, I
hope
so.”

“Really, Coach, I do.”

“I know,” he said. “It’s Nick, right?”

“Yes, sir,” he said, “Nick Crandall.”

He put out his hand the way he’d been taught by Paul Crandall and looked Coach Williams in the eye as the two of them shook hands, Nick thinking, My hand is almost as big as his.

Then Coach Williams said, “I just wanted to officially meet my new varsity catcher.”

Nick wasn’t big on surprises. He’d had enough of those already to last him the rest of his life.

A few good surprises.

Mostly bad.

“I don’t understand,” he said to Coach Williams.

“Bobby Mazzilli broke a bone in his wrist today on a play at the plate. His mom just called from the hospital,” he said.

“How?” Nick said.

“He was being a catcher, even in preseason,” Coach Williams said. “Blocked the plate like a champ, Les Roy flattened him, and both of them fell on his right wrist. He’s gonna be fine, but he’s gonna miss a chunk of the season. How much depends on how fast or slow he heals. For now, all we know is that he’s in a soft cast.”

Nick could actually hear himself breathing, even though he didn’t feel as if he’d heard a lot from Coach Williams since he’d said “varsity catcher.”

“Anyway,” the coach said, “I just wanted to come over and tell you myself that you’re going to have to play up for now.”

Nick noticed for the first time that the coach was small for a grown-up, taller than Nick but not by a lot, with blond hair and a young face.

Nick said, “You still want me after seeing a throw like that?”

Coach Williams put his hand on Nick’s shoulder.
“Anybody can teach you control, son,” he said. “God has to give you an arm like that.”

“But I thought there was a rule at Hayworth that says you can’t play varsity sports until eighth grade,” Nick said. Almost sounding like he was trying to talk the coach out of it.

He saw that Coach Williams was smiling again.

“Not anymore,” he said.

The rest of practice was a blur. So was the ride home with Brenda Crandall, his mom. He didn’t tell her about varsity when she asked about his day, thinking that he would wait and tell both her and his dad when they were having dinner.

In his heart, though, he knew differently.

Something this big, he had to tell Gracie Wright first.

Nick would never admit this to anybody, especially not Gracie, who’d just make fun of him if he did, but she was the person he trusted the most. And she was the person he most wanted to be like, even if she was a girl.

It didn’t mean that he wanted to grow up and be like her, the way he wanted to grow up and be one of the best catchers in baseball, be Joe Mauer
of the Twins or Russell Martin of the Dodgers, his new favorites.

It wasn’t that she was so much smarter than he was. Nick was smart, too, though it wasn’t like he had the grades to prove it these days, and he was starting to hear about that from his teachers and from his parents.
Especially
his parents, who just happened to be teachers themselves. It was the way Gracie was smart.

She was smart about people.

But the thing that he liked the most in Gracie, the big one, was that she wasn’t afraid.

Gracie was brave.

On top of that, she had never seemed to give a rip that Nick was adopted.

Nick had told her he was adopted the first day he met her, maybe a half hour after she’d come across the street and rung the Crandalls’ doorbell and introduced herself, the day after they’d moved into town and moved into this neighborhood.

“We’re gonna be friends,” Gracie had said when they were on the swings in her backyard. “So I’m gonna need to know some stuff about you.”

She asked what his parents did, and he told her they were college professors, English for his dad, math for his mom. Then she wanted to know where he had grown up.

And that’s where it always got tricky for Nick, because where he’d grown up hadn’t been around here and hadn’t been with the Crandalls, and so he’d just blurted it out.

“I’m adopted,” he said.

And Gracie had smiled at him—Nick could still see her smiling that smile now—and said, “I’m a soccer player.”

She was. Soccer and lacrosse were her best sports.

“No, I mean it,” Nick had said. “I didn’t even get adopted until I was nine, which I think is some kind of world record.”

“Okaaaaay,” Gracie had said. “But we’re still gonna be friends and so don’t try to get out of it.”

And pretty much from that moment, that is exactly what they had been.

Even when he wanted to be alone, as much as he had felt alone for most of his life, it hardly ever meant being alone from Gracie.

Gracie Wright pretty much treated every day as if it was going to be the best day she’d ever have in her life.

Now they were back where they’d started that first day, in Gracie’s backyard, sitting on the swings, even though they both had really had outgrown them.

Gracie was the same height as Nick, with brown hair that was already starting to get streaked by the sun now that she was outdoors every day playing lacrosse. Right now, most of that hair was covered up by her favorite sports cap, one with the Dallas Mavericks logo on front. Gracie wasn’t a big Mavericks fan. She just liked the colors and the way the
M
looked.

“Only you,” she said, “could act as if getting called up to varsity, for however long it lasts, is a
bad
thing.”

“I didn’t say it was a bad thing.”

“Did.”

“Did not,” Nick said. “What I
said
was, it was a surprise. And you know how I feel about surprises.”

“Ooooooh,” Gracie said, “surprises,” and covered
up her head like the sky was about to fall on it. “Surprises are soooo scary!”

“Can I just say one thing without you making fun of me?” Nick said.

Gracie smiled. “I
suppose
I could do that, just this once.”

“I was happy on JV, is all,” he said. “It wasn’t like I was looking for the varsity to come along and adopt me.”

“You’re not getting adopted, gumball,” Gracie said. “You’re getting
promoted.
”

“Well, it doesn’t feel that way.”

“Baseball is your best thing. You’re the best catcher your age around, and you ought to be on varsity, whether you’re in seventh or not. Even if it doesn’t turn out to be the whole season, think about what great experience you’ll get.”

“I’m worried that I’m gonna get up there and stink,” he said. “That’s what I think my experience is gonna be.”

Gracie gave him a little shove, a playful one, her way of letting him know that whatever she said next wasn’t going to be mean.

She said, “Well, there’s a surprise, you worrying about something.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know exactly what that’s supposed to mean. Sometimes you’re better at worrying than you are at whipping a baseball around.” She wagged a finger at him now. “But you just wait. One of these days you’re gonna figure out that even with the bad stuff that’s happened to you, it’s gonna be all good for you from now on. Things are going to turn out for you the way they do in your comic books.”

It was one more thing about Nick that Gracie knew, something hardly anybody else in the world knew: how much he loved comic books. Not as much as baseball. He knew other kids his age would rather be on their laptops all the time, or playing video games. Nick liked that stuff, too. He just liked his comic books more.

Gracie was right. Things usually did come out the way he wanted them to in his comics.

“You know I’m right,” Gracie said.

“You always are,” Nick said. “At least that’s what you’re always telling me.”

“Yeah, Crandall, I know I am,” she said in a softer voice, not her funny-Gracie voice. “But this time I’m
really
right.”

Nick smiled now. Sometimes he couldn’t help it when he was with Gracie, no matter what they were talking about. A smile would come out of him when he least expected it, like a rabbit popping out of a hat.