Super-sized Slugger (11 page)

Jessica stared at
Cody as if his head had just exploded.

“You're going
where
?” she said.

“Into the woods,” he repeated. “Be back soon.”

“Gross!” she said. “You can't wait till you get home?”

Cody smiled and shook his head. “It's not for that,” he said. “I have to investigate something. But there's no time to explain.”

“Fine,” Jessica said. “I'm going with you.”

“No,” Cody said, throwing down his equipment bag. “You stay here with our stuff. See that Jeep across the street? If it pulls out while I'm gone, write down the license plate number.”

Jessica nodded uncertainly. “Ohhh-kay. Write it down with what?”

“Ask the girl at the snowball stand,” he shouted over his shoulder. “She's gotta have a pen and paper.”

With that he was slipping into the woods and moving south, following the tree line as it crossed the road and circled the parking lot of the strip mall. There was no path, which made for slow going. It was much cooler in there, though, the thick canopy of overhead branches blocking out the sun. Insects buzzed all around him, birds chirped, and occasionally he heard a larger animal, a squirrel, maybe, or a raccoon, scurrying off into the underbrush.

Leaping over a log, he felt something crunch under his sneakers. Looking down, he saw it was an empty beer can. In fact, there were rusty beer cans scattered all over. Someone had apparently thrown a big trash bag full of the things from a passing car, and the bag had ripped. Cody shook his head in disgust.

As he made his way through a thicket, pushing branches aside and stepping over fallen tree limbs, Cody thought about what he had just seen.

Was it the Jeep he thought it was? If so, what were they doing over there so far away from all the stores, behind the Dumpster? And what was so fascinating inside the Jeep?

It all looked very suspicious. A theory was beginning to form in the back of his head. He hoped he was wrong. But he knew it was more likely that he was right, a prospect that made him shiver slightly in the cooler air.

It took a good ten minutes for Cody to circle the woods until he was parallel to the parking lot. Finally, he heard voices up ahead and music blaring from a car radio. Quietly, he dropped down and began crawling on his hands and knees toward the edge of the tree line.

Something moved in the leaves to his right. A mouse? A snake? Cody wasn't terrified of snakes like “Mad Max” Wheeler. But he wasn't exactly looking forward to one slithering up for a face-to-face meeting either. What kind of snakes did they have here in Maryland, anyway? Copperheads? Water moccasins? Rattlesnakes? He made a mental note to look it up when he got home.

Or maybe it was better to say
if
he got home. Because if his theory was right and the guys around the Jeep caught him snooping, they wouldn't be in a great mood. In fact, they'd probably want to use his head for batting practice. The thought had his heart hammering in his chest.

He was only about thirty yards from the Jeep now, atop a steep embankment that dropped down and ended abruptly ten feet above the parking lot. He crawled under a pine tree and peered cautiously out from beneath a bough.

The guys were still there, examining something in the back of the Jeep and talking excitedly among themselves. Cody didn't recognize most of them. But there was no mistaking the two scowling teens leaning on either side of the rear bumper, smoking cigarettes.

It was the Rottweiler Twins. Where was Dante? Cody wondered. Still inside the Jeep?

It was hard to see what the guys were looking at—their backs obscured the view. One of them walked away from the Jeep, slapped hands awkwardly with Nick, and hurried off holding a small cardboard box. Moments later, a second one walked away carrying a plastic grocery bag.

Even this close, Cody could catch only snippets of conversation. The hip-hop tunes blaring from the radio weren't helping matters. Neither was the sound of traffic whizzing by on the road.

It was frustrating not being able to hear them. If only I could just get a little closer, Cody thought. He crawled slowly in the direction of the scene unfolding below, dragging himself inch by inch, hardly daring to breathe.

Suddenly his elbow banged into something hard. It was a dirty, brown beer bottle. He froze as the bottle began to roll down the embankment. It gathered momentum and kept rolling and rolling, seemingly in slow motion. As Cody watched in horror, it reached the edge and seemed to flip in the air, like one of those Olympic ski jumpers doing a somersault.

Then it dropped straight down and shattered on the asphalt with a loud
BANG!

“What was that?!” someone yelled. Cody was already up and running, crashing back into the woods like a startled deer.

From somewhere behind him, he heard car doors slam and an engine roar to life, followed by the squealing of tires. Were they trying to cut him off, up near the road where the woods narrowed? He ran even faster now, kicking up clumps of dirt and leaping over logs as branches slapped him in the face.

It seemed to take forever, but finally he spotted the snowball stand through the trees and veered to his right, almost running smack into a security fence. Just as he neared the clearing, his sneaker caught on a root and he went flying, landing face-first in the dirt, inches from a picnic table.

When he turned over, Jessica was looking down at him, waving a piece of paper. “I got the license plate number!” she said triumphantly.

“C'mon!” Cody said, scrambling to his feet and grabbing his bag. “Let's get out of here!”

He took off on a dead run and Jessica sprinted after him. They were a full four blocks away before Cody finally slowed to catch his breath.

“Dante and the Rottweiler Twins…” he gasped, doubling over with his hands on his knees. “Can't be sure…Looked like maybe they were selling stuff…out of their…”

Jessica stared at him wide-eyed.

“Don't know if they saw me…” Cody continued, chest heaving.

Jessica kept glancing around, as if afraid that a green Jeep would come barreling around the corner at any minute with a bunch of ticked-off older boys inside.

“What do we do now?” she asked.

“I'm not sure,” Cody said. He straightened up and wiped his brow. Then he adjusted his bag and looked nervously over his shoulder. “But I know this much: we're getting as far away as possible.”

Kyrie Mayweather was
the fastest pitcher in the league. Rumor was he could hit eighty miles per hour on the radar gun, while no one else came even close to seventy. A tall, skinny left-hander with mini dreadlocks, he was warming up for the Twins now, his fastball making the sound of a bullwhip cracking as it smacked into the catcher's mitt. Watching him, the Orioles were trying not to abandon all hope.

“That is one nasty fastball,” Willie said, leaning against his bat in the on-deck circle.

“He's got a sick curve too,” Jordy said. “The good news is, his dad only lets him throw five or six a game. He's afraid the kid's going to hurt his arm.”

“I'm okay with that,” said Connor, watching another of Kyrie's warm-up throws rock the catcher on his heels. “Wish his dad would only let him throw underhand.”

Coach clapped his hands for attention. “All right, everybody in here,” he said. “Enough with the doom and gloom. Sure, they have Kyrie Mayweather. But we have Murderers' Row, remember? We're just as good as…uh, Cody?”

Everyone turned to look. Cody sat at the end of the bench staring off into the distance.

“Cody? Care to rejoin the planet?” Coach said. But Cody was still lost in thought. Coach stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly.

Startled, Cody jumped to his feet.

“Sorry, Coach,” he said, his face reddening. “Just thinking about something.”

“I see that,” Coach said. “You'll have to tell us who the girl is later.”

As the rest of the Orioles cracked up, Cody managed a sheepish grin, his face growing even redder.

For one of the few times in his life, he was finding it hard to concentrate on baseball. His head was still spinning from the events of the past forty-eight hours, starting with the strange little drama he'd observed with the Rottweiler Twins and their Jeep—until he turned into a major league klutz and scared everyone off.

On the way home that day, he and Jessica had convinced themselves that they had solved the mystery of the Great York Middle Crime Wave. It was simple: Dante and his brothers were stealing stuff from school and selling it from the back of the Jeep. You didn't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure it out.

But that night at the dinner table, when he had recounted what he'd seen to his mom and dad, Steve Parker had frowned and held up his hands in the universal signal for
Whoa, not so fast
.

“I agree it seems suspicious,” his dad said. “But you didn't get a good look, so you're not exactly sure what those boys were doing. You don't know what was in the back of the Jeep. You're not even sure Vincent and Nick were
selling
anything. You didn't see any money change hands, right?”

His mom nodded and said, “And even if they
were
selling something, it could have been something perfectly legal. They could have been selling, I don't know, their old video games.”

Cody rolled his eyes. “No, Mom. Believe me, this wasn't what you'd call a wholesome crowd.”

“Or they could have been selling something
illegal
,” his dad added, “but not necessarily items stolen from your school.” He shot his wife a look before saying, “Could have been drugs. We can't be naive about it. But we just don't know.”

Cody leaned forward in his chair. “I just know Dante is up to something. He and his brothers—”

“Dante?” asked his mother. “Was he there too?”

“He must have been sitting in the car,” said Cody.

“But you're not sure?” his dad probed. “You didn't see him?”

“No, but—”

“Cody,” his mom said, her tone a warning, “are you sure you aren't letting your feelings about Dante color your judgment here?”

Steve Parker nodded in agreement. “You gotta be careful, buddy. These are serious allegations you're making, and you're already in hot water with Dante, for whatever reason. If he knew you were sharing your suspicions with a cop…well, it wouldn't exactly win you any points with him.”

Cody's mother patted his hand. “Promise me you'll drop this?”

“Mom's right,” said his dad. “You need to stay out of it and let the police get to the bottom of what's going on.”

Cody had to admit that what his parents had said that night made sense. What did he think he was, some kind of ace detective like his dad?

Yet the scene in the parking lot continued to gnaw at him. And even if Dante wasn't there, Cody couldn't shake the feeling that his sullen teammate was connected to the rash of thefts at York Middle.

There was something else worrying him too. Had the Rottweiler Twins or any of those other older guys seen him when he tore off into the woods? Vincent and Nick had been to a few of Dante's games—they certainly knew who Cody was. If he
had
been spotted, Cody knew it was only a matter of time before a nasty beat down came his way.

On the other hand, Dante had acted no differently toward him yesterday in school. And he hadn't acted any differently today as the Orioles prepared to face the Twins in their second play-off game. If Dante and the Rottweiler Twins were operating some nefarious stolen-property ring, and the brothers had recognized Cody that day, wouldn't he have at least gotten a clue from Dante's body language?

Cody shook his head, trying to push those thoughts aside. With Kyrie on the mound, firing fastballs that looked like missiles as they crossed the plate, he needed all the concentration he could muster.

Despite Coach's pep talk—and the Orioles all agreed it was one of his better ones, somehow combining a famous general from World War II, the story of “The Little Engine That Could,” and the guy who was trapped in that canyon and cut off his own arm to escape—they got off to an ominous start.

Leading off, Willie swung at three straight chest-high heaters. Three straight times he hit nothing but air. As he trudged back to the dugout with his head down, Jordy whispered, “That might have been the quickest at bat in the history of baseball.”

As Willie took off his batting helmet and slammed his bat into the bat rack, Marty said, “I don't know, Kyrie doesn't look that fast to me.”

Willie made a sound—
ONNNKKK!
—like a game-show buzzer. “WRONG!” he said. “He's even faster than you think. If you wanna catch up to that fastball, my advice is to start swinging now.”

Robbie followed with another three-pitch strikeout. Jordy, batting third, at least ran the count to 2–2 before striking out on a big curveball to end the inning.

As Kyrie strutted off the mound, Marty said, “Is it me, or does it look like he's getting tired?”

The rest of the Orioles stared at him and shook their heads. As they grabbed their gloves and took the field, Willie muttered the thought that seemed to be in everyone's mind: “Gonna be a long game if our boy Kyrie keeps throwing like that.”

The Twins nicked Robbie for a run in the second inning on two singles and an uncharacteristic error at first by Jordy, who dropped a windblown pop-up down the right-field line. But Kyrie set the Orioles down in order as Connor grounded back to the pitcher, Cody managed a weak line drive to the first baseman, and Dante struck out.

It was still 1–0 Twins in the top of the fourth inning when Coach called them together in the dugout.

“I have a question for all of you,” he said somberly. “And I really want you to think about it before answering. Are you ready?”

The Orioles nodded dutifully.

“Okay,” Coach said. “My question is this: Have any of you wet your pants yet?”

Now, there were a few nervous chuckles, but they quickly trailed off because Coach seemed dead serious. Usually there was a twinkle in his eyes when he joked with them. But there was none now.

“Men, I know Kyrie throws hard,” he continued. “I know he's intimidating. But I also know you're not even giving yourselves a chance. You're all just going up there doing this—”

He pulled the brim of his cap to the side, closed his eyes, and pantomimed a wild, cartoonish home-run swing. It drew a few more jittery chuckles.

“You,” he said, stabbing a finger at Willie. “You're the fastest kid in the league. But you're up there swinging out of your shoes like you're A-Rod or Big Papi Ortiz. How about we get someone on base first?

“And you,” he said, pointing at Connor. “You might be the best hitter in the league. But you're swinging at everything instead of waiting for strikes. How about working the count for once?”

Willie and Connor hung their heads. Cody braced himself. He sensed what was coming next.

“And
you
,” Coach said, his finger dancing inches from Cody's nose. “I don't know where your head's at today. But it's a million miles away. You're probably the strongest kid in the league. The way Kyrie's throwing, all you have to do is meet the ball and it'll end up twenty feet over the fence. What happened to that sweet, compact swing? You couldn't hit a beach ball with that long, looping swing you're taking now.”

Cody grimaced and looked down at his shoes. Now the umpire was motioning impatiently for an Orioles' batter to step up to the plate, so Coach wrapped it up.

“Look, I believe in you guys,” he said, his voice low. “If Kyrie beats you, that's one thing. But don't beat yourselves. Not now. Not with this great season you're having.”

With that, he turned on his heels and walked briskly to the third-base coaching box.

End of discussion.