Thumb on a Diamond (5 page)

I thought about what Mr. Entwhistle said and then glanced at the book.

“What if we don't think about pitching baseballs at all,” I said slowly. “We've never thrown baseballs. But we have tossed stones. What if we use that same motion to throw baseballs instead of rocks? We might be pretty good.”

“But we choose stones that are flat,” said Robbie. “Round rocks don't spin.”

“Round rocks don't spin because there's no good place to grip them,” I said. “Baseballs have seams, places where the stitches are raised on the surface. We can use the seams to make the baseballs spin.”

“Excellent,” said Mr. Entwhistle.

“There are a couple of problems,” I said.

“Such as?”

“We never have to aim at anything when we skip stones. All we have to do is hit the ocean.”

6
SIX WEEKS LATER

I WOKE UP EARLY THE
day we sailed to Vancouver. I put some wood in the stove and heated some water while Dad quietly dressed and checked our duffle bags. We ate breakfast – a couple of slices of dried salmon wrapped in bread and a cup of tea. Neither of us spoke since we were both struggling to wake up. We slipped on our coats, grabbed our bags and walked down to the dock.

Most mornings, when the fishing boats are getting ready to leave, you can hear people talking and laughing as they make their way down to the dock. Dad and I saw Big Bette and others close their front doors and pick up their bags and head for the boats, everyone glancing back at their homes. Most kids had never left the village, never slept in another bed. I don't know why everyone else was so quiet but I do know why I was.

I was at least a little bit scared.

Our baseball team met just after dawn. We took three dinghies out to
The Golden Maiden
, Big Charlie Semanov's boat. He winched up the anchor and powered out through the channel to the open sea.

Logging companies haul thousands of logs down the coast to paper and sawmills. They herd the logs together like cattle and then fasten the outside logs together, creating a gigantic raft bigger than our entire village.

Each log boom is attached by cable to a tugboat. The biggest booms use tugboats large enough for passengers to hitch rides down to the city. Big Charlie had called a few of the logging companies by radio and found a tug that was traveling empty. He managed to talk them into letting our team ride.

Tugboats that haul booms have to stop very, very slowly. If they stop too fast the logs keep moving and ram the tugs. Try pulling a wagon with a rope and then stop. You'll see what I mean.

We didn't make our tugboat stop at all. Big Charlie cruised up beside it, matching its speed. Big Charlie flipped bumpers over the side of
The Golden Maiden
to protect his hull. Heavy Barry, who wasn't heavy at all and who worked as Big Charlie's crew, threw a couple of lines over to the tugboat crew. They cleated the lines and drew the two boats tightly together. A plank was laid out, complete with rails. Our bags and baseball equipment were thrown onto the tugboat deck and then we all walked the plank onto the tugboat.

It sounds simple. It is, actually, but it was still scary. The ocean seemed to breathe, in and out, pulling you down and pushing you up. The two boats seemed so small. It made your heart beat faster.

The lines between the boats were released, and Big Charlie pulled away from the tug, waving.

“Good luck!” he shouted, and then he blew his horn and we watched him head back toward the channel leading to our village.

Susan and I sat behind the wheelhouse, away from the wind. We watched the ocean for a couple of hours, hoping to see a pod of killer whales. It wasn't a smooth ride. Sometimes the ocean swells would push the logs a bit closer to the tugboat and the cable would relax, dropping into the ocean. Then the tug would surge forward and the cable would snap tight and pull back on the tug, jarring the whole boat.

I was glad we were sitting down.

“Do you know what amazes me when I'm out on a boat, Thumb?” said Susan. She had to shout over the noise of the engine. The tug was hauling a lot of weight, and the engine was working hard.

“What?”

“It's the sky.”

“The sky?”

“Yeah. Our village is surrounded by mountains. We hardly ever get a chance to see much sky. The sky is so big and beautiful.”

“Did you know that people who live where there are no mountains think that mountains are scenic and exciting?”

“Really? Mountains are just ordinary to me. But the sky, now that's scenic.” Susan stared at the sky for a few minutes and then, still staring, said, “Big Charlie yelled good luck after dropping us off.”

“I heard.”

“Do you think he meant good luck with the baseball games?”

“He knows we can't win. These other teams are champions in their leagues. We've never even played.” I shrugged. “He just wants us to have a good trip. That's all.”

“But he said good luck.”

“Maybe good luck means try not to lose by 43-0 in only two innings.”

“I feel like we're on one of those television shows you see in the movies, where you have to do something really embarrassing to win a prize. We get a trip, but we have to play a game we've never played in our lives, against good teams who are going to laugh at us.”

“Susan?”

“Yeah?”

“You're the one who insisted we have a team. We could still forfeit.”

“I know. I just wish we could keep one game really, really close. I wish we could be a real team for just one inning.”

I looked around to make sure nobody was listening.

“Susan?” I said. “We've been practicing a lot. What if we're good? What if we could win a game?”

Susan turned and just looked at me.

“I've been reading a lot about baseball,” I said. “Did you know that teams win way more often when their good pitchers throw? A team with a great pitcher just has to get a couple of runs because the other team isn't scoring. Any team can win if it has one good player, a pitcher. We need somebody with a pitch that the other team can't hit.”

“You haven't read the tournament rules, Thumb. They don't want kids to get injuries by throwing too much. No player can pitch for more than four innings.”

“So?” I said. “It just means we need two good pitchers. You and me.”

“Us?”

“Yes. You're the best rock skipper. I'm not as good as you but I'm the second best in the village. We'll be the best pitchers. We just have to believe in ourselves. We have to be confident that we can throw strikes that nobody can hit.”

Mr. Entwhistle walked up to us and stopped.

“I wonder if I might see the two of you over by the side of the boat – that side – right away?”

“Sure,” I said, glancing at Susan.

Mr. Entwhistle walked away from us slowly, leaning on his cane. On the lee side of the tugboat, he leaned against the rail, facing us with the ocean at his back. He glanced around to see if the three of us were alone.

“Ahem,” he said slowly, clearing his throat. “I come, Thumb and Susan, from a seafaring nation. Britain was saved from the Spanish Armada by the strength of its navy. Britain was saved from Hitler by the strength of its navy. Britain became the most powerful nation on earth because it is surrounded by water.”

He paused.

Susan and I didn't know what to say. We nodded.

“As the citizen of a nation whose very existence is based on its mastery of the waves and as a person whose very philosophy of life is Show No Fear, it is with great humiliation and with a plea for secrecy that I must ask you both to gather closely around me so that you might protect my privacy as I send my breakfast and my lunch into the bonny blue sea.”

Mr. Entwhistle turned away from us and leaned over the side of the tugboat, making noises and sounds that Susan and I both recognized. We stood behind him and blocked anyone's view.

After a few minutes, he stopped and stood up.

“Thank you both,” he said, pulling a cloth handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing at his mouth. “For a descendant of sailors, I have a surprisingly weak stomach. And here is a tip. When you find yourselves sick on a boat, always walk calmly to the side of the boat where the wind will blow whatever you eject from your body away from the boat and not back toward yourself. I discovered that the hard way.”

The tugboat's horn blasted. It was so loud that we clasped our hands over our ears and looked around to see if a ship was in our way.

We ran to the other side of the tug. All of our teammates were staring into the distance.

“Look,” said Susan, pointing. “It's Vancouver.”

The high-rise buildings of Vancouver were coming into view as we passed an outstretched point of land. Vancouver's harbor was filled with hundreds of white sails and about a dozen tankers and cargo ships.

“Wow!” said Susan.

Another tug pulled alongside. The two tugs could actually lash themselves together since their huge rubber bumpers kept them from scraping each other. We climbed over to the harbor tug and it pulled away, heading back into the harbor, past sailboats and tankers.

We chugged under the Lion's Gate Bridge, stretched high above us. We could hear cars and trucks over the noise of the waves and the roar of the tugboat's engine.

Our tugboat pulled into a maze of wharves and piers next to a huge glass building surrounded by people eating ice cream and drinking coffee as they watched the boats in the harbor. Dad had called ahead for a small bus, and it sat waiting.

“We're going to ride in something with wheels,” Susan said, excited.

“Yeah,” I said. “Of course.”

“This is the first time. I'm actually going to ride in something with wheels.”

“But you knew we were going to do this.”

“I knew it in my mind. Now I know it for real. And I know something else, too.”

“What?”

“It was a stupid idea for us to even try to play baseball. The whole world here is just too different.”

7
THE CITY

SUSAN AND I SAT BESIDE
each other. The bus had to ride over the Lion's Gate Bridge. When the bus crossed the bridge, we couldn't see the road or even any railing, just the ocean below.

Susan gripped my arm and held tightly, although she still faced the window and the ocean.

“We're safe,” I said, so quietly that nobody else would know she was scared. They were probably scared, too, I realized, since the conversations around us had stopped.

“This bridge has been standing for decades,” I whispered.

“I'm scared on mountains,” said Susan softly. “And they've been standing for millions of years.”

Our hotel was the biggest building any of us had ever been inside. Dad and Mr. Entwhistle checked us in and got our keys while we all stood behind them, staring up at the ceiling in the lobby. It was twice as high as the basketball court at home.

Dad gave us our keys. I was rooming with Robbie. Dad told us to gather in the lobby after we unpacked so that we could get something to eat and walk around the downtown. We took an elevator up to our floor. Even though it was Robbie's first elevator, he wasn't that excited.

“You just stand in a box and the doors shut and when the doors open you're on another floor. No big deal,” said Robbie.

It wasn't even that exciting to look out the windows from the tenth floor. We'd both been on mountains and knew how it felt to stand on something tall and look down at the world.

Robbie picked the bed closest to the window and dropped his bag on top. He wanted to use the washroom right away. It was the first time he had ever used a toilet that flushed. He'd used water toilets on some of the fishing boats, but they were different.

Robbie spent a long time in the bathroom and then poked his head out.

“Did you know that the water in the shower is hot?” he asked. “Really hot? There's never this much hot water at home. Do you think I have time for a shower?”

“Sure,” I said.

When we got down to the lobby, half our team was staring at the escalator up to the second floor. The other half was in line at the top, staring at the down escalator.

We had all seen escalators in movies but none of us, except for Dad and Mr. Entwhistle and me, had ridden one before.

Little Liam was at the front of the line, watching the steps as they came out of the floor. I could see Nick riding up the escalator, his hands on the moving rails. As soon as the step under him started to slide down flat, he leaped forward onto the flat and solid carpet of the second floor. He turned around and spread his arms wide, like he'd just sunk a winning basket two seconds before the final buzzer.

I walked over to the line and stood behind Susan. She looked at me and grinned.