Sliding into Home (7 page)

Unfortunately, finding kids who were willing to play those roles wasn’t easy. When Mr. Hawkings gave them in-class time to work on the case, Joelle discovered that a lot of her classmates had already said they’d testify for Brooke. And others just plain refused to testify for Joelle.

“Sorry,” one girl told her. “I’d rather be on the jury, so I can’t be a witness.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” another girl said. She didn’t
even know Joelle. But she was obviously a friend of Brooke’s.

Was everyone in the whole class friends with Brooke? Was that girl so popular that no one would help Joelle’s case? Even though it was a stupid school assignment?

Yikes. Maybe I should try one of the guys
, Joelle decided.

The first boy who caught Joelle’s eye was Ryan. He was hunched over a book on his desk, his hair hanging over his face. He seemed oblivious to everything that was going on around him.

Joelle swallowed hard. She was still mad at him and he was probably still mad at her, too. But maybe it was time to clear the air.

She marched over and plopped down in the empty seat in front of Ryan. “Hey,” she said.

Ryan looked up. “Hey,” he said warily.

“Um …” She scratched her head. Unfortunately, she didn’t really know what to say to clear the air. Probably she should apologize. But apologize for what? What had she said that was so wrong?

For a long moment, neither of them said anything at all.

Joelle was about to leave when Ryan shoved his book aside and pushed the hair out of his eyes. “Listen, Joelle,” he said finally. “I’m sorry about the other day. But I know my dad a lot better than you do. I know how to deal with him, and you—”

Joelle immediately opened her mouth to protest.

“Can I just finish here?” Ryan looked annoyed.

“Sorry,” Joelle said sheepishly. She motioned for him to continue.

“My dad’s really big on rules. And order. And doing the right thing.”

But the right thing is to let me play!
Joelle thought.

“He’s got a really strong sense of what’s right and what’s wrong. That’s why I really thought he’d come around eventually. But he got mad at me for standing up for you. And then you started dissing him—”

“I did not!”

“You did, too!”

Joelle thought back to what she’d said the other day. She was pretty sure she
had
called Ryan’s dad sexist. But that was the truth.

“Hey, I know he can be tough,” Ryan said. “But he’s still my dad, you know?”

Joelle lowered her eyes. Yeah, she knew. And she wouldn’t like it if anyone put either of her parents down. Even if what the person said was true.

“Okay, I’m sorry. I really am. I’ll try not to put your dad down anymore,” Joelle promised. She hesitated. “So, can you do one thing for me?” she added.

“What?” Ryan asked, sounding a little suspicious.

“Be one of my witnesses for this trial?”

Ryan seemed relieved. “Sure. Who do you want me to be?”

Joelle opened her notebook and scanned her list of possible witnesses, looking for the perfect part for Ryan. He’d be good in just about any of them. “Well, you could be the pastor at
Goldilocks’s church. You can tell everyone that she goes to church and Sunday school every week, picks up litter on the side of the road, and volunteers in the soup kitchen.

“Or you could be her elderly next-door neighbor. Goldilocks always rakes leaves and shovels the sidewalk for him and she never enters his house without an invitation.”

“Sounds like Goldilocks is a really, really good person.” Ryan cracked a smile.

Joelle smiled back. “Yep, she is.”

“Any other parts?” Ryan peered at the other possibilities in Joelle’s notebook. “How about if I play the doctor who testifies that Goldilocks was weak with hunger, severely dehydrated, and probably not in her right state of mind when she entered the Bears’ house? Or the Bears’ neighbor, who finds Goldilocks in the woods and takes her to the doctor?”

“The Bears’ neighbor is good,” Joelle said, nodding. “He’ll probably be important because he could be a witness for either side. He’s the one who finds Goldilocks, but he also knows the Bears, so he might have to testify about their characters.”

“And everyone knows those Bears are evil, right?” Ryan said with a smirk.

“Right.” Joelle laughed.

“Well, I don’t know,” Ryan said seriously. “You’re trying to paint Goldilocks as a perfect citizen. And I bet Brooke will do the same thing with the Bears. But the truth is, neither side is totally evil. It’s just like in real life. Both sides have a point.”

“Yeah, sure,” Joelle said. But she wondered:
Was Ryan talking about the trial? Or the whole crazy baseball mess?

T
he phone was ringing when Joelle arrived home from school on Thursday. She jammed her key into the lock, banged the door open, and lunged for the receiver.

“Jason?” she answered, out of breath. It
had
to be her brother. She hadn’t heard from him in a week.

“No,” said a girl’s uncertain voice. “I’m looking for Joelle Cunningham. Is this the right number?”

“I’m Joelle.” It sounded like the girl was around her age.

“Who’s this?”

“Well, you don’t know me. My name’s Mandi Burns. I live in Greendale but I don’t go to Hoover because I’m home-schooled. Anyway, I’ve been reading all those letters in the paper.”

“Oh.” Joelle sat down at the table. “Right.”

“I don’t normally call people up like this,” Mandi said.

“But I really like baseball, too. My aunt played for the Colorado Silver Bullets.”

Joelle nearly dropped the receiver. The Silver Bullets were an all-female professional baseball team that had been started in the 1990s. “Really?” she said, impressed.

“Well, she only played one season,” Mandi replied. “But yeah. She’s the one who taught me how to play.”

“You mean, you
play
baseball?” Joelle asked. Another girl—finally!

“Just in the summer,” Mandi said. “Parks and Rec has a summer league. It’s not a big deal, no tryouts or anything. Anyone who wants to can play.”

Joelle switched the receiver to her other hand. “So, did other girls play?”

“My friend Leah did. There were a couple of others from our homeschool group, too. But you know what? Parks and Rec put the girls on separate teams, so no one team was stuck with all of us.”

“That stinks! Are any of you playing baseball now?” Joelle asked eagerly.

“There’s no place to play. I’m dual enrolled, which means even though I do my schoolwork at home, I can still use school resources and participate in after-school activities. My mom wanted me to do softball this year, but I didn’t want to. It’s not the same, you know?”

Ha!
Joelle
did
know.

“But I’d play baseball if I could,” Mandi went on. “So would Leah. You should meet her. She’s really good. She’s short but she’s incredibly fast. Last summer she stole more bases than anyone else in the whole league.”

“Cool,” Joelle said.

“Hey, maybe you’d want to hang out sometime?” Mandi asked hesitantly. “I could bring Leah, too. We could meet at a park and play a little ball.”

“That sounds great,” Joelle answered. She and Mandi made plans to meet at Center Park on Saturday morning.

“Okay,” Mandi said. “See you then.”

“See you then,” Joelle echoed. “Bye.”

As soon as she hung up, she remembered that Saturday mornings were when Ryan and the guys played at the park by her house. She hadn’t gone last week since she and Ryan weren’t speaking, but she had planned on going this week.

Meeting Mandi and Leah sounded fun, though. And she’d still be playing baseball.

Well, sort of playing.

It was kind of hard to do much with just three people. Joelle decided to invite Elizabeth to join them.

“Hey, I’m not into baseball, remember?” Elizabeth said when Joelle called her. “I’m not even that great at softball.”

“You are, too,” Joelle insisted. “All you need is some confidence. We’re just going to toss a ball around, maybe hit a few. No big deal. It’ll be just like what you and your dad and I play in the backyard.
Please?
It would be a lot more fun with four people than three.”

Elizabeth sighed. “Okay, okay. I’ll go. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Almost as soon as Joelle and Elizabeth arrived at Center Park on Saturday, they spotted two girls talking near the fence.

One was about half a head shorter than Joelle with shoulder-length, light brown hair. She swung a bat in a lazy arc at her feet and chomped on a wad of gum. The other girl was even shorter. Her straight black hair hung just past her shoulders.

Both girls glanced up as Joelle and Elizabeth approached.

“Hey, is one of you Joelle?” the taller girl called.

“I am,” Joelle called back. “And this is my friend, Elizabeth.”

The girl suddenly reared back and fired a fastball straight toward them.

Joelle jumped, but Elizabeth stuck out her glove. The ball slammed in.

“What do you mean, you’re not a baseball player?” Joelle said, grinning at her friend.

Elizabeth shook her head and threw the ball back. “Just luck,” she said.

“Not bad.” The taller girl nodded her approval when Joelle and Elizabeth reached her. She totally reeked of grape bubble-gum. “I’m Mandi. This is Leah.” She jerked her thumb toward her friend.

“Hi!” Leah waved.

Joelle stared at Mandi’s thumb. She wiggled her own thumb, then looked back at Mandi’s. “Hey, tip your thumb back again,” she said.

Mandi bent her thumb back at almost a ninety-degree angle.

“Eeew!” Elizabeth made a face. “How do you
do
that?”

Mandi blew a bubble, then sucked it back into her mouth with a pop. “I’m double-jointed,” she said proudly.

“Makes for some pretty interesting pitching,” Leah added.

“You’re a pitcher?” Joelle asked. Mandi hadn’t mentioned that when they spoke on the phone.

“Uh huh.” Mandi nodded. “Whenever our homeschool
group gets together, I pitch and Leah catches. How about you guys? What do you play?”

“First base,” Joelle replied immediately.

Elizabeth looked down at the ground. “I don’t really play baseball,” she said, scuffing her foot in the dirt. “I play softball. Right field.”

Mandi grinned. “Pitcher. Catcher. First base. Right field. Hey, we’ve almost got half a team right here.”

I wish
, Joelle thought. “So, do you guys want to hit a few?” she asked.

“Sure,” Mandi said. “I brought a batting helmet and stuff.”

“Great!” Joelle said. “Let’s go.”

They all took turns pitching, batting, and fielding.

“You guys are good,” Elizabeth told Mandi and Leah.

“So are you,” Mandi replied as she rotated from the pitcher’s mound to the outfield.

Leah took her place on the pitcher’s mound. “Too bad we don’t have anyone here from Greendale Academy,” she said, throwing the ball to Elizabeth. Elizabeth caught it and threw it back. “I’ve heard they’re all really good.”

Joelle picked up the bat and tapped it against home plate. “What’s Greendale Academy?” she asked.

“Remember? I told you about them,” Elizabeth said from behind the plate. “That’s the private school. Their softball team won the state championship last year.”

“Oh yeah,” Joelle said. Hmm … that gave her an idea.

Greendale Academy surely had a baseball team. And a private school would have different rules than the public school,
wouldn’t they? If she couldn’t play baseball at Hoover, maybe she could play at Greendale Academy.
If
she could get her parents to send her to private school, that is.

“Hey, how much does it cost to go to Greendale Academy?” Joelle asked the other girls.

Leah snorted. “About ten thousand dollars a year.”

“And that’s if you’re a day student,” Elizabeth put in. “If you board, it’s a lot more.”

Well, forget
that
idea
, Joelle said to herself. Her parents didn’t have that kind of money. And she wasn’t the type of student who’d win any kind of academic scholarship.

“You ready?” Leah asked as she tossed the ball back and forth between her hands.

Joelle got into position. “Yeah.”

Leah pitched a high fastball and Joelle swung hard.

Crack!
The ball sailed over Mandi’s head, straight toward a girl who was standing near the fence, watching them.

“Heads up!” Mandi shouted.

Instead of ducking, the girl reached up and caught the ball with one bare hand.

Joelle’s mouth dropped open. “That’s two perfect reflex catches for the day so far,” she said to Elizabeth. “Yours and hers.”

“Weird,” Elizabeth agreed. “But just luck on my part.”

“Sorry about that!” Mandi called to the girl. She ran toward the fence, holding out her glove for the ball.

But the girl didn’t throw to Mandi. She stepped forward, brought her right arm back and threw to Leah.

“Wow,” Elizabeth said in awe as the ball arched over their heads and slammed into Leah’s glove.

“That girl can really throw, too,” Joelle said.

“That’s some arm,” Leah called as she took off her glove and massaged her hand.

“Thanks,” the girl called back. She pushed her short, shaggy blond hair out of her eyes and began to walk away.

“Hey, wait up!” Joelle shouted, running after the girl. The others were right behind her. “What’s your name?”

The girl stopped and gave them a wary look.

“Where did you learn to catch and throw like that?” Leah asked.

The girl wiped her nose with the sleeve of her faded flannel shirt. “I don’t know. My dad, I guess,” she said, looking toward the road.

“What’s your name?” Joelle asked again.

The girl narrowed her eyes. “Who wants to know?”

Joelle was a little taken back. “Uh, I’m Joelle,” she said. Then she introduced each of her friends.

“We all like baseball, so we’re just hanging out,” Mandi explained.

“You could join us if you want,” Elizabeth offered.

The girl hesitated. “Yeah?” she said. Joelle knew the girl was interested. She could see it in her eyes.

“We could really use another outfielder,” Mandi said.

“But you don’t have to stay in the outfield,” Leah added quickly. “We rotate after each play.”

The girl shrugged. “Okay,” she said.

They all walked back to the diamond together.

“So what
is
your name?” Joelle asked.

“Tara.”

“Tara what?” Mandi wanted to know.

“Just Tara,” the girl said.

“Well, ‘Just Tara,’” Mandi said, “I’ve got an extra glove in my bag over there.” She pointed at the equipment bag by the fence. “Help yourself.”

“That’s okay. I don’t need a glove,” Tara said.

Didn’t need a glove? Joelle frowned. What was she talking about? Everyone needed a glove.

Mandi jogged over to her bag and dug out the glove. “Here you go,” she said, tossing it to Tara.

The girl didn’t answer. But she put it on.

They all took their positions. Elizabeth stepped up to the plate and adjusted her batting helmet. Mandi squatted behind her and held out her glove. Joelle went into her windup and pitched a low fastball.

Elizabeth swung and missed.

“Strike one,” Mandi called, throwing the ball back.

Joelle waited while Elizabeth took a couple of practice swings. Once her friend was back into position, Joelle pitched again. This time she tried a curve ball. But she wasn’t very good at curves yet.

Crack!
Elizabeth hit a line drive right between Joelle and Tara. She dropped the bat and ran for first base.

Tara retrieved the ball and threw it all the way home. Elizabeth stopped at second base. Then she went to take a turn on the pitcher’s mound and Joelle rotated to the outfield.

“Do you want to play catcher now?” Mandi asked Tara.

“Sure.” Tara jogged over to home plate.

Tara was an okay catcher. But once she got up to bat, she blew everyone away. She could blast the ball even further than Joelle.

“Wow, you guys,” Leah said finally, glancing at her watch.

“It’s one o’clock already!”

“It is?” Elizabeth asked.

Joelle checked her own watch. “Uh oh. My parents are probably wondering where I am.”

“Mine too,” Mandi said as she headed in from the pitcher’s mound. “But this was really fun, huh?”

Joelle helped Mandi pack up her equipment bag. “Yeah, it was. We should do this again next Saturday.”

“How about before that?” Mandi asked. “Like after school sometime this week?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “Can’t. I have softball practice.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot,” Mandi said. She turned to Tara. “You play, too, I bet.”

Tara shook her head. “My school doesn’t have a softball team.”

Elizabeth, Mandi, and Leah all looked confused. “Where do you go to school?” Mandi asked.

“Across town,” Tara said, her eyes lowered.

What other school was across town? Joelle wondered. Wasn’t there just Hoover and Greendale Academy?

“You go to Metro?” Elizabeth asked, wide-eyed.

Mandi and Leah stared at Tara as though she had suddenly grown an extra head.

“What’s Metro?” Joelle asked.

“It’s a school for kids who have problems getting along at regular schools,” Tara told her.

“Oh.” Joelle blinked. She sort of wished she hadn’t asked. “Well, we don’t care where you go. Do we?” She turned to the other girls.

“No,” Elizabeth said quickly.

“Of course not.” Mandi smiled a little too big.

Tara raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you guys want to know what I did to get sent to Metro?”

Elizabeth bit her lip.

Mandi and Leah looked away.

Joelle didn’t want to ruin a good thing here. It was almost as if Tara was challenging them somehow. “You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to,” she said carefully.

Tara shrugged. “I didn’t do anything. Things aren’t so great at home, that’s all. I’m not actually from Greendale. I’m from Fairmont. I’m living with a foster family here.”

“That must be hard,” Elizabeth said gently.

“No big deal,” Tara said. “My foster family’s okay. But I miss my brother.”

Joelle nodded. She sure could sympathize with
that.

“Well, I’d better get going now,” Tara said. “Are we doing this again next Saturday or what?”

“I’m in if the rest of you are,” Mandi said.

“Me too,” Leah added.

“Okay,” Joelle agreed. She looked at Elizabeth, who hesitated, then agreed. “It’s settled, then. We’ll all meet here next Saturday, ten o’clock?”

“Great,” Leah said. “Maybe we could even try to find a few more girls who’d want to play.”

“Yeah. Like I said before, we’ve already got half a team right here,” Mandi added.

“A whole team would be even better,” Joelle said.