Twenty-One Mile Swim
Sports Stories
THE LUCKY BASEBALL BAT
BASEBALL PALS
BASKETBALL SPARKPLUG
TWO STRIKES ON JOHNNY
LITTLE LEFTY
TOUCHDOWN FOR TOMMY
LONG STRETCH AT FIRST BASE
BREAK FOR THE BASKET
CRACKERJACK HALFBACK
BASEBALL FLYHAWK
SINK IT, RUSTY
CATCHER WITH A GLASS ARM
TOO HOT TO HANDLE
THE COUNTERFEIT TACKLE
LONG SHOT FOR PAUL
THE TEAM THAT COULDN’T LOSE
THE YEAR MOM WON THE PENNANT
THE BASKET COUNTS
CATCH THAT PASS!
SHORTSTOP FROM TOKYO
LUCKY SEVEN
JOHNNY LONG LEGS
LOOK WHO’S PLAYING FIRST BASE
TOUGH TO TACKLE
THE KID WHO ONLY HIT HOMERS
FACE-OFF
MYSTERY COACH
ICE MAGIC
NO ARM IN LEFT FIELD
JINX GLOVE
FRONT COURT HEX
THE TEAM THAT STOPPED MOVING
GLUE FINGERS
THE PIGEON WITH THE TENNIS ELBOW
THE SUBMARINE PITCH
POWER PLAY
FOOTBALL FUGITIVE
THE DIAMOND CHAMPS
JOHNNY NO HIT
THE FOX STEALS HOME
SOCCER HALFBACK
JACKRABBIT GOALIE
DIRT BIKE RACER
THE DOG THAT STOLE FOOTBALL PLAYS
THE TWENTY-ONE-MILE SWIM
Animal Stories
DESPERATE SEARCH
STRANDED
EARTHQUAKE
DEVIL PONY
COPYRIGHT © I979 BY MATTHEW F. CHRISTOPHER
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY ELECTRONIC OR MECHANICAL MEANS INCLUDING INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER, EXCEPT BY A REVIEWER WHO MAY QUOTE BRIEF PASSAGES IN A REVIEW.
Hachette Book Group
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First eBook Edition: December 2009
ISBN: 978-0-316-09455-9
Contents
To Cora and Gus
1
“HI, PEEWEE! Want a ride?”
Joey Vass looked up. He was standing on the end of the twenty-foot long, three-foot wide dock that projected out into the
lake, watching small fish swimming around in the shallow water beneath him. He was fourteen, five-foot three inches tall and
weighed a hundred and twenty-one pounds. But he wasn’t amused by anybody’s calling him Peewee.
“In that little boat?” he shouted back to the caller.
Ross Cato laughed. “No! In that big boat!” he answered, letting go of the right-hand oar of the rowboat to point at the sailboat
moored to a buoy some sixty feet off shore. Sitting at the stern was
Paula Kantella, her long blond hair whipping about her pretty face.
“How long you going to be gone?” Joey asked.
“About an hour! Come on!”
Joey thought about it.
“It’s a lot of fun if you’ve never been on a sailboat before!” Ross said.
Joey had never been on a sailboat in his life.
A grin spread across his oval face. “I haven’t got trunks!” he said.
“That’s okay! Come on, anyway!” replied Ross, and started to row the boat toward shore in Joey’s direction. With Paula’s weight
holding down the stern, the bow of the ten-foot, wooden rowboat glided up on the graveled shore with a protesting crunch and
ground to a stop.
“Just give it a little shove and hop in,” advised Ross.
Joey did so, getting his sneakers wet in the process. The boat slid out, and Ross began to row with short, jerky turns of
the oars. After they reached deeper water, he turned the boat around with expertise and started to row to the sailboat.
“Did you ever ride on a sailboat?” Ross asked, taking long, even strokes now that shot the boat across the water in swift,
even strides. He was
wearing red trunks and a red band around his forehead. His back and shoulder muscles bulged like rope on his six-foot, streamlined
frame. He had the sleek physique of a swimmer, developed over the past few years doing laps in the pool at Merton High.
“Never,” said Joey.
“Always been a landlubber?”
“Right.”
“How come you moved near a lake?”
“My father always wanted to live by water,” explained Joey. “He likes to fish, and he likes boats. So, here we are.”
He caught Paula’s green eyes looking at him over Ross’s gleaming shoulder. She had on a white two-piece swimsuit and held
a white rubber cap on her lap. “My dad loves fishing, too,” she said. “And he knows some good spots. Bass, trout — fish like
that. They ought to get together sometime.”
“Good idea,” said Joey.
On the other hand, he wasn’t sure that they would. Both his mother and father were immigrants. They had come to the United
States from Hungary when the communists took over the country. Even though that had happened more than twenty years ago, their
English vocabulary was still limited, and their speech was
noticeably accented. They were usually self-conscious and reluctant to make new acquaintances.
They neared the sailboat, and Ross said, “Grab the line, Joey.”
Joey grabbed the line; at the end of it was a snap-on latch hooked to a round metal loop secured to a buoy. Ross laid the
oars inside the rowboat, hooked the rowboat’s line to the loop, and took the line from Joey.
“Okay. Hop in,” he said as they pulled the rowboat alongside the sailboat.
It was a twenty-one foot, fiberglass cabin model, a streamlined beauty whose smooth, white hull glistened in the bright June
sunlight. A burst of admiration went through Joey as he began to realize that his dream of riding on the boat was coming true.
He had first seen the sailboat when it was brought here about the middle of May. Twice it had gone out with two people aboard,
one of whom, Joey now realized, was Ross. The other was an older man, probably Ross’s father. The tall, triangular sails billowing
out before the wind and the boat sailing through the water, bent slightly by the wind, had been a picture he had hoped to
be a part of someday. Now, today, the time had unexpectedly come.
“Loosen up those halyards, Joey,” said Ross, pointing at the sail tied around the boom.
Halyards? Is he pulling my leg by using sailing lingo on me? Joey wondered.
“I’ll help you,” offered Paula.
While they worked to free the sail, Ross got the tiller out of the hold and secured it in position.
“Hey, man, if you got up off your knees you could work faster,” he said to Joey.
Joey, unraveling the sail from the boom, shrugged, and smiled to show that the wisecrack didn’t bother him — even though it
did. He wondered why Ross had asked him to join them. Was it just to look better than him and show off to Paula? “We can’t
all be tall Adonises like you, Ross,” he said.
“Right,” said Paula. “Everybody can’t be a six-footer like you are.”
“Six and one-half inch, to be exact,” said Ross, straightening up his solid, sun-browned frame.
“Ugh,” snorted Paula. “Talk about modesty.”
He laughed. “Okay, let’s quit the chatter and get these rags hoisted,” he said seriously. “Paula, grab the tiller, will you?”
Joey met Paula’s eyes and saw them look skyward in an expression that clearly indicated she didn’t think much of Ross’s self-adoration.
He didn’t know how the two knew each other since they went to different schools. Ross was sixteen, a junior at Merton High.
Paula was fourteen, a student at Gatewood Central, and Joey’s height. But he didn’t need glasses to see why Ross could be
attracted to Paula. She was the prettiest girl he had seen since his family had moved here.
She sat on the stern seat and grabbed the tiller while Ross raised the jib and then the mainsail. The boat was already starting
to move through the water, drawn by the wind as it filled the sails. Ross secured all the lines; then he went and took over
control of the tiller from Paula.
“You two put on life jackets,” he ordered. “They’re right behind you, Shorty.”
Joey found the bright orange life jackets and tossed one to Paula. He watched her put it over her head so that it rested against
her neck and shoulders and began to do likewise with his. He pulled the cloth belt tight around his chest and knotted it,
just as a gust of wind hit the sails, tipping the boat enough to knock him off balance and almost into the water. He sat down
hard, grabbing the side of the boat in a vise-like grip.
“Sorry about that, Joey,” said Ross. “These
gusts come up without warning sometimes. Hey, you’re not scared, are you? Your face is white as that sail. You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
He was now, but a moment ago he wasn’t. The fear of being thrown into the water had struck him like an ice-cold shower, for
he hardly knew how to swim. Not until now, when he had his wits gathered together again, did he realize that his life jacket
would have kept him afloat.
“You can swim, can’t you?” said Paula, her wide green eyes centered on him.
He forced a grin. “Not — not very well,” he confessed.
“Joey! You’re kidding!”
“No, I’m not. I’ve never swum very much in my life.”
“And you live by a lake?” exclaimed Ross. “I can’t believe it.”
“I told you why we moved here,” Joey replied, trying to ignore Ross’s tone of voice. “It was my father’s idea. Anyway, swimming
is going to be the first thing I’m going to learn to do well.”
Suddenly he wished he had refused Ross’s invitation to go sailing. Joey hadn’t expected anything more than a nice ride. Instead,
his close
call had turned up the embarrassing fact that he was a very poor swimmer.
“Too bad you’re not going to Merton,” said Ross. “Coach Harvey would have you swimming fine in nothing flat.”
“I bet,” said Joey.
“He would,” insisted Ross, the wind whipping at his brown, curly hair. “He’s the best around. The only thing is, though, you’d
never make it as a sprinter.”
Joey looked at him. “Why not?”
“You’re too short. Our shortest sprinter is six inches taller than you.”
“What has size got to do with it?” Paula cut in, her tone edgy.
“A lot,” said Ross. “How many little guys do you know in our school who have won meets? Including kids in the middle grades?”
Joey’s neck reddened. He could tolerate the “little guys” bit, but he hated to be told that he couldn’t do something just
because he was short.
“I couldn’t go to Merton if I wanted to,” he said, trying hard to keep his emotions under control. “It’s not in our district.”
“Well, if you did you might do all right against those seventh and eighth graders,” said Ross. “Most of them are about your
size.”
“Ross! What nerve!” exclaimed Paula hotly. “How can you sit there and talk to Joey like that? Just because he’s shorter than
a lot of boys his age doesn’t mean that he can’t be a strong competitor! I think you owe him an apology!”
“Oh, cool it, Paula,” said Ross tersely. “I didn’t say anything to him that I have to apologize for. Did I, Joey? Look, if
you think I did —”
“Forget it,” said Joey. “We came out for a ride, not a debate.”
“Right.” Ross smiled and shot a glance at Paula as if to see if Joey’s comment satisfied her.
He could see it didn’t.
“Okay,” said Ross. “If it makes you feel better, I apologize. Women! Always raising a stink about the puniest thing.”
He turned the tiller slightly, maneuvering the boat so that it leaned harder into the wind. The move was almost as if he had
done it purposely, a blunt act of irritation.
“What did you say?” Paula said, frowning at him. Then she turned her face into the wind so that it caught her blond hair and
flung it furiously around her head. “Oh, never mind,” she said, her words swallowed up by the wind.
They sailed to the opposite side of the lake,
then came about and sailed northward. Joey, temporarily forgetting Ross’s references to his small stature, was impressed by
Ross’s seamanship. Maybe the guy was stuck on himself for being a good swimmer, but he certainly knew how to handle a sailboat.