SUPER SPORT BASEBALL CLEAT CAMP
The first day of Super Sport Baseball Cleat Camp, my mom drove me up the hill to the field. We passed the dog park, where we can never, ever take Monkeylad because he will go crazy and bark at all the other dogs until we are thrown out. We passed ladies in matching shirts, race-walking. My mom beeped the horn at them and pumped her fist in the air. “Go, ladies!” she said. I slid down in my seat. We passed the now-deserted snack bar where I’m never allowed to get a hot dog.
We parked, and my mom had to walk me over to the dugout to meet my coach, Terrence Hoof, and pay him for the camp.
A really tall man in a Genies hat was tying his cleats. He looked up and smiled at me big. His chompers made mine look small.
“You a Darters fan?”
I nodded.
“I’m a Genies guy myself.” He stood up. He was really tall. “How’s it going?” he said. “I’m Coach Hoof.”
I shook his hand.
“Not like that,” he said. “Give me a real grip.”
I tried to grab on tighter.
“That’s better. What’s your name?”
“Ben,” I said.
“I can’t hear you. What did you say?”
“Ben?” I said louder.
“You don’t sound so sure. Are you not so sure what your name is?”
“Ben.”
“Oh, Ben,” he whispered, imitating me. “Ben, you have to raise your voice so people can hear you. Now go on and warm up.”
I just stared at him.
“Go on,” he said, taking off my cap and ruffling my hair, then putting my cap back on. “Get out of here, Mr. Darter.”
I ran off. I wasn’t sure what I thought of this guy.
“Bye, Ben,” my mom said, but I noticed she wasn’t looking at me with the sad expression she has in her eyes whenever I go off to do something new. She was playing with her hair and staring at Coach Hoof the way my sister looks at her posters of Dustin Peeper.
* * *
Coach Hoof was really hard on us. He made us run up a hill until it felt like my lungs were going to pop. Then he made us do thousands of sit-ups and push-ups. My back sagged during the push-ups, and then Coach told me to put my knees down, which I refused to do because that is for wimps. I gritted my teeth so hard that my jaw pounded, and I kept doing the push-ups the real way.
All the other kids had chips and cookies and Island Mist juice drinks in their lunches, and I only got a sandwich, fruit, and water. My feet and ankles and knees hurt.
On the second morning, my heel hurt so badly I could hardly walk, but my mom made me go to camp anyway. She said it was because she didn’t want to waste the money and she had to work and I could sit out if I wanted to. Coach made me run, even with a hurt heel. He said athletes had to learn to deal with pain.
On the third day, we were practicing our swings in the batting cage, and I kept missing. I threw down my glove, and Coach Hoof just ignored me and went on to the next kid. Basically, camp was eight hours of physical and mental torture. On top of that, we hardly got to play any baseball.
“There will be plenty of time for that later,” Coach said. “Now we’re conditioning.”
The only good thing was that at the end of the day, he gave us Long Pops, and when my mom came to pick me up, she was so busy smiling at Coach Hoof that she didn’t even notice I was eating sugar on a weekday.
But the Long Pop didn’t make up for the fact that a little Peeper-haired bully whose name rhymes with socko showed up at Super Sport Baseball Cleat Camp on the fourth day. And of course he was wearing a Genies hat.
“You’ve got good taste in teams, young man,” Coach Hoof said when he saw Rocko Hoggen. He and Rocko high-fived. “I can tell you’re a serious ballplayer. Let’s see how fast you can run.”
Rocko took off up the hill.
“What are you doing standing there, Darter? RUN! See if you can catch up with Genie, there.”
All I could think of was 4 Kids Only and how Rocko had pushed me down and broken my clavicle.
“Go on,” Coach said again. So I ran, but Rocko had a head start, and he got to the fence first.
He was standing there, smiling at me so his perfect little teeth showed. “Hey, Ben. Don’t run too hard. You might fall and break something again.”
I turned to Rocko Hoggen with my hand clenched into a fist, but someone was holding my arm. Someone strong.
“Okay, Darter, that’s enough. Run it off,” Coach Hoof said.
And I did. I tried. By the time my mom came to pick me up, I could barely walk. Her hair was all smooth and straight. She had on makeup and tight jeans and high heels. I knew this had to do with Coach Hoof. Oh, man.
At least it turned out that Rocko wasn’t in camp the next day, because his family had decided to go on a last-minute trip to Hawaii. I didn’t have to deal with him until school started again. But he’d managed to ruin baseball for me anyway. I decided not to sign up for Little League in the spring. I just wanted to take a break from organized activities and ride bikes with a friend. Not that that was going to happen either.
* * *
The day before we went back to school, Thursday left. I opened the door of my room, expecting to feel relief as soon as I was able to sink onto my mattress away from the floating, fluffy-haired faces of Dustin Peeper.
But I never made it to my bed.
Something was wrong.
Way wrong.
The walls of my room were painted as black as Thursday’s eyeliner and hair and clothes, and my bed looked different, too. Someone had built a wooden lid that hinged onto my bed frame. My bed was a coffin!
How appropriate, because I wanted to curl up and die. And it was Sunday. Maybe Thursday’s theory was right.