The Team That Stopped Moving (6 page)

Dick smiled faintly, then saw Stan and Art look at each other. Stan would be the last person in the world Dick would invite
to go canoeing with him. But, if Stan volunteered —

“Do you know how to paddle a canoe?” Stan asked him.

“Of course, I do,” Dick answered.

Stan eyed him a moment. “Okay, we’ll go
with you,” he said. “Do we have to wear life jackets?”

“Bet your boots you do. They won’t let you take out a canoe without them. You really want to go? I’m not saying I’m an expert.
I’ve been out a few times, that’s all.”

“Young man, I thought you said you’ve been out a dozen times,” Coach Banks broke in.

Dick shrugged, blushing. “Well, it’s been about that many,” he said.

They started toward the marina. Suddenly Dick stopped dead in his tracks. His allowance! He remembered that he had been at
the circus most of the day and had squandered most of it!

Quickly he took a small coin purse out of his pocket, opened it and looked inside. There were barely half a dozen coins! Not
enough to buy an ice cream sundae, let alone rent a canoe!

“Well, I guess we won’t go canoeing,” he said gloomily. “I’m almost broke. I — I’m sorry, guys.”

“Just a minute,” Coach Banks said. He took a bill from his pocket and handed it to him. “Don’t forget the change.”

Surprised, pleased, overwhelmed — Dick accepted the money, while an expression of amusement came over the coach’s rawboned
face.

“Thanks, Coach!” Dick said, smiling brightly.

He rented a boat, promising the marina owner that they would return it within half an hour. Then the boys each strapped on
a life jacket.

“The best way to paddle is on your knees,” Dick advised them as the boys freed one of the canoes tied up at the dock and pushed
it into the water.

Dick knelt in the stern of the canoe, Stan
in the bow, each with a paddle. Art sat on the middle seat. They paddled out into the river, a fresh breeze blowing their
hair across their faces.

“Isn’t this just great?” Dick cried.

“I love it!” Art exclaimed.

For a moment there was no response from Stan, and Dick wondered why he volunteered to go canoeing if he knew he wouldn’t enjoy
it.

Finally Stan turned and looked over his shoulder. “Where are we going?”

“Up the river,” Dick answered. “Then we can coast back on the current.”

They headed up the river, the boat rocking gently as they steered it into the current.

“Dick,” Stan said after they had covered about a quarter of a mile, “let’s hear about that dream you and Eddie have a thing
about.”

Dick’s hands froze on the paddle. He stared at Stan.

“Oh, it’s no dream,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. “It’s real.”

Art glanced at him, interest glowing in his eyes. “Hey, tell us about it, man!”

Dick shrugged. “Why not? Really, there wasn’t much to it. While we were playing baseball everything all at once stopped. And
this guy with a red moustache and red goatee showed up.”

“I see,” said Stan. “And he waved a magic wand and you caught the ball or whatever.”

“Well, he didn’t have a magic wand, but he did tell me how to play the ball.”

“Man!” Art exclaimed, shaking his head. “You’d win the prize for tall tales, old buddy!”

“Sorry I asked,” Stan snorted.

Neither one saw the amused smile that graced Dick’s face.
I had a feeling they wouldn’t believe me,
he thought.

The trio entered a wide expanse of the river where the current seemed to be barely
moving, then passed alongside a tiny island, the edge of which was blanketed white with sea gulls.

“Wouldn’t it be fun to camp there?” suggested Art.

They paddled on, passing within twenty feet of the rapids. Presently a growing apprehension took hold of Dick. The rapids
were getting bigger and fiercer. As if Art’s mind were tuned in to his, Art looked around, his forehead creased with worry.
“Don’t you think this is getting real rough, Dick?” he asked.

“Right. Let’s head back.” Dick raised his voice. “Stan! Turn around and face this direction! We’ll head back for the marina!”

He watched Stan rise carefully to his feet and turn around, then did likewise. But just as he settled down to kneel again,
Art decided to change around, too. As he stood up the boat tilted. Then he let out a terror-stricken cry as the canoe started to capsize.

A much louder yell followed from both Dick and Stan as all three toppled into the swift, rapid-charged river.

T
HE COLD WATER
shocked Dick as he went under. Quickly he bounced to the surface, aided by his life jacket and his own struggling efforts.

He spat out a mouthful of water, pushed his matted hair away from his face, and looked around for Stan and Art. Fright gripped
him as he failed to see either of them in the moving mounds of the rapids.

Then he heard a gasp. A second later he saw Stan bouncing in the water some ten feet away. Close by him was Art, his eyes
wide and frightened, even though his life jacket was keeping him afloat.

“Stan! Art!” Dick shouted. “Are you all right?”

They stared at him, their hair plastered to their heads. “Yes! Are you?” Stan asked.

“I’m okay!” he answered. He looked for the canoe and saw it heading down the river, bottom-side up.

“What about the canoe?” Stan yelled.

“Let it go!” Dick yelled back. “In these rapids we’d be in worse trouble if we tried to turn it over! Come on! Let’s head
for shore!”

The strong current carried them down the river as they started to swim toward shore. They gained by inches, and at last were
close enough to shore to stand up and wade in the rest of the way.

They stood on the pebble beach shivering. “I’m awfully sorry this happened,” Dick apologized. “It’s never happened to me before.”

“Yeah,” Stan said, his lips quivering.

Suddenly they heard the
phut-phut
sound of a motorboat, and looked downriver. A small outboard was speeding toward their overturned canoe. It soon reached
the small boat, and one of the two men in it turned it right side up, then lifted it to spill out the water while the other
man stood searching the river.

The boys started to wave and shout. For a while it appeared that the man didn’t see or hear them. Then, at last, he spotted
them and waved.

“He sees us!” Stan cried triumphantly.

The first man took a paddle with him into the canoe and started to row toward shore. The second man then gunned the motor
of the outboard and shot upriver toward the boys.

Moments later the trio were hauled out of the water and delivered back to the park, where a reception committee of Tigers,
Wolves, coaches, umpires and parents
grabbed and hugged them as if they had just returned from a harrowing experience on the moon.

“Come on,” Coach Banks said as he ushered the boys ahead of him toward the picnic grounds. “Get to the bathhouse and out of
those wet clothes.”

“B-but we haven’t g-got any dry ones!” Dick stammered, shivering.

“Three of the boys are going to keep on their trunks and let you borrow their clothes,” the coach explained.

Ten minutes later they were showered, dried, and in the clothes lent by their teammates.

“Now tell us what happened,” Coach Banks said as they sat around a glowing fire. The sun was setting, filling the sky with
soft strokes of lavender and pink. The river looked like a rose garden of dancing lights.

“Well,” said Art, “Dick wanted someone to go canoeing with him, so Stan and I went.
Everything was fine until we started to come back. We thought that the water was too rough for us to go on. It was when Dick
told us to turn around in the canoe that the boat tipped over.”

Dick’s heart jumped. “Art! You’re making it sound as though it was my fault that the canoe tipped!”

“Whose idea was it to go into the rapids in the first place?” Coach Banks asked.

“Dick’s,” Stan answered without hesitation.

Dick’s face flushed up. He bounced to his feet and glued his eyes on the coach. “Coach Banks,” he snapped hotly, “when are
we going home?”

The coach looked at Stan and Art, then at Dick. “In a minute,” he said.

T
HE TIGERS
played the Lions on Monday. It was the first time since the picnic that Dick had seen Coach Banks.

“Here’s your change, Coach,” he said, handing him the change from the bill the coach had let him borrow last Wednesday. “I’m
sorry I didn’t think of it before.”

The corners of Coach Banks’ eyes crinkled as he accepted the money. “Oh — thanks. Can you believe it? I haven’t slept a wink
worrying about whether I’d ever get that change back?”

Dick laughed.

He played a satisfying game, knocking out two hits that accounted for three runs. He
had made an error on one of Stan’s throws, but nothing serious happened because of it. The Tigers won, 13-10.

“I didn’t tell you that during our canoe ride Stan and Art asked me about my dream,” Dick said to Eddie as they arrived home
from the ball game.

Eddie’s eyes widened. “What did you tell them?”

“The truth. That time stopped and a red-bearded guy appeared.”

“And?” Eddie’s mouth was as wide as his eyes.

Dick chuckled. “They didn’t believe me. Art said I should win a prize for telling tall tales!”

Eddie laughed. “They asked for it, the stinkers,” he said. “But then, at first I didn’t believe you either.”

On Thursday they were tied with the Foxes, 8-8, when an incident happened in
the top of the fourth inning. The Foxes were batting and had a runner on second base. A Fox drilled a fast grounder to Stan
at short. Stan fielded it and fired it to first. It was one of Stan’s wildest throws, and Dick hoped that by stretching out
as far as he could he might catch it. Deep inside, though, he felt certain that he wouldn’t.

Then for the third time everything froze —the ball halfway to him, the players in their positions, everything — and Dick found
himself staring at Jack Wanda. Jack was standing there with his arms folded over his chest, looking at him with a sour expression
on his red-moustached, red-goateed face.

“Look, kid,” Jack said. “You’ve played enough games to know that you would never be able to stretch and catch that wide throw.
You know what will happen? The ball will zoom by you, the runner on second will run to third and then score, and you’ll boot
your-
self for not doing the right thing in the first place.”

“You mean — I should get off the base?” Dick said, his forehead wrinkled.

“Of course! You want to save a run, don’t you?”

Dick bobbed his head. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

Jack Wanda smiled brightly. “Of course, you do! Okay, kid. Back to the ball game.”

Just like that the world became normal again, and Dick found himself starting to touch the base with his left foot and stretching
out for Stan’s throw. Instantly, remembering Jack Wanda’s instructions, he ran off the bag, caught the wide throw, and watched
the runner on second rush back to the base.

There were runners on first and second now. At the end of the half-inning they were still there.

The Foxes pummeled the ball hard in the
next two innings, however, and came out on the long end, 14-11.

Dick walked home with Eddie, feeling a lump in his stomach. He told Eddie about seeing Jack Wanda again, and about Jack’s
advice to him on the play at first base. But even Jack’s wizardry didn’t seem to be enough to give the Tigers the necessary
boost they needed. How long could he, Dick, hold them together if they kept getting drubbed?

Stan wasn’t present at the Tigers-Bears game on Monday. Coach Banks said that he had gone on a week’s vacation with his parents
to California. So Clyde McPherson played shortstop. He made only two errors, which was good, considering that he had eight
chances altogether. This game, fortunately, the Tigers won, 9-7.

On Thursday the Tigers won again, beating the Panthers 3-1. It was the tightest
game of their season so far, and brightened Dick’s hopes of keeping the team together.

Just before the game with the Wolves on Monday, Dick realized that not only Stan was absent, but so were Jim Tanner and Pat
Hammer.

“Wasn’t Stan supposed to be gone only a week?” he asked Coach Banks, the old worry returning to haunt him.

The coach nodded, frowning. “That’s what he told me,” he answered. “Maybe they decided to stay longer.”

Dick saw Art standing within earshot of them. Suddenly Art turned and headed for the dugout.

“Art, have you heard from Stan?” Dick called to him.

Art paused, then said over his shoulder, “Yes, I heard. He’s home.”

Dick stared. “Why isn’t he here? Do you know?”

“He quit.”

“Quit?” The word was like a death knell. “You sure?”

Art nodded. “He figured that if we could win two games without him, we don’t need him.”

“Hogwash!” Coach Banks snorted. “We need him now more than ever. Jim is out because of a bad cold, and Pat will be gone for
two weeks on his vacation. If Stan doesn’t play we’ll be short a player, and you know what
that
means.”