| |
The morning headline read, “Piercehaven out of nowhere.” The first line read, “No one expected the Piercehaven softball team to make the playoffs, let alone advance to the semifinals.” The article praised Juniper sonorously, and Emily was glad to see the reporter didn’t mention that Juniper was new to the island, or how she had ended up there. The article just acted as though she was the same as any other islander. Emily wasn’t proud of this train of thought, but she didn’t want anyone to read the article, or hear about the game, and think, “They only won because a real pitcher moved to town.” The article ended with “#6 Piercehaven (9-5) will face #2 Richmond (13-2) at Richmond on Saturday at 2.”
Just the thought of it made Emily queasy. It had been bad enough playing Richmond at home. Now they had to go to Richmond. Emily closed her eyes and pictured a Maine map, trying to locate Richmond. Just south of Augusta, she thought. Still, better get some Dramamine.
Thanks to the medication, and lack of sleep the night before, Emily was very sleepy when the bus pulled into the Richmond High School parking lot. Emily looked out the window and couldn’t believe how many familiar faces she saw. This island really cares about its kids. And then right on the tail of that thought, a Robert Wilson Lynd quotation came to mind: It is in games that many men discover their paradise.
A roar of cheers and a strong breeze greeted her as she stepped off the bus, and one or the other or both woke her up—her and her nerves. She wasn’t nervous about her girls—she knew they’d do fine. She was nervous because she also knew that, barring a miracle, they were going to lose to Richmond, and she was worried about how the island would react to that. They weren’t used to losing, and she didn’t think they understood just how good Richmond was. How they’d only lost to Buckfield all year, and how both those games had been squeakers.
Richmond’s field was heavily decorated with streamers, signs, balloons, and lots and lots of fans: maroon and white as far as the eye could see. A person—judging from their energy level, a preteen or teenaged boy—was dressed in a bobcat suit and doing cartwheels between high fives. The Richmond girls wore new, stylish uniforms and chunky maroon bows in their hair. They all wore eye black and matching face masks. Half of Emily’s girls didn’t even have face masks. “All right girls, take a lap,” she said, trying to get herself out of her own head.
Jake Jasper approached. “Hi, Coach!”
She tried to return his chipper tone. “Hey!”
He smiled as if to say he knew she was faking. “What do you think?”
“Honestly? I think we’re going to get killed.”
He chuckled, rubbing his stubbled chin. “Yeah, that’s a possibility.”
After a quick warmup, the umps called for coaches and captains. Emily invited Jake to join them in the pre-game conference. Then she called for her captains. “Ava, MacKenzie, Hailey, and Juniper, come on!” Hailey looked surprised, but Juniper looked shocked.
The conference was a study in pleasantries. It seemed to take forever to get all the hands shook.
After the conference, Emily called the girls in for a last second huddle and tried to inject confidence in her voice. “All right, ladies. This is a great moment for us. We are in the big leagues now, but we aren’t here by accident. We’ve earned the right to be here. So let’s do the best we can and have some fun. This pitcher’s good, and she’s not going to walk very many, if any, of you. So we’re going to have to be hitters, but that’s not a problem. You’ve hit this girl before, and you can hit her today. OK? Confidence! Believe in one another. Believe in yourselves. Ready? Here we go. Bring it in.”
MacKenzie led off with a left-handed bunt and was promptly thrown out. The play was close, but the ball beat her there. The Piercehaven fans thought otherwise, however, and began to harass the umpire. Oh no, please don’t turn them against us.
Juniper grounded out. Then Ava struck out. After she did so, she looked at the bat in her hands as if it were a foreign object and she didn’t know quite what it was or how it got there.
Richmond got their first three batters on, then scored a run, and then struck out three times in a row. “Thanks for getting us out of that one, Juniper.”
She nodded sternly.
“OK, ladies, they only got one run. We can get that back. Here we go!”
“Hannah, Hailey, Sara,” Thomas called out the lineup.
Hannah arrived at the plate as if she was born to be there. Then she singled to right field. Hailey struck out. Sara struck out. Chloe struck out. Poor Hannah trudged off first base.
The second inning was scoreless.
Lucy led off at the top of the third. She struck out, but the catcher missed the catch. Jake hollered at her to run, and she did. Piercehaven had a runner on. Allie stepped up, looking terrified. She took the first pitch, which was a strike. She took the second pitch, which was a strike. Emily resisted the urge to scream at her to swing the bat. “Protect the plate, Allie,” Emily said instead. Allie took the third strike, which was a change-up, and sure looked like a strike from where Emily stood, but the ump called it a ball. “Protect the plate,” Emily repeated, trying to sound encouraging. Allie swung at the fourth pitch and fouled it off. Then she fouled off the fifth pitch. And then she fouled off the sixth, seventh, and eighth pitch. This is turning into the longest at bat in history. Emily felt sympathy for the pitcher. Allie took the ninth pitch, and it appeared to be right down the middle. Emily’s heart sank. But the ump sent Allie to first. Rallies have started with less.
MacKenzie stepped up and looked to Emily for the bunt sign. Emily shook her head. MacKenzie looked disappointed, but she didn’t argue. She swung the bat with all her might, just grazed the top of the ball, and the ball rolled toward the pitcher with an embarrassing lack of oomph. MacKenzie took off. The pitcher turned and threw Lucy out at third. Emily tried to hide her disappointment, but she wasn’t disappointed for long, because Juniper stepped up and cracked a single to right, and Emily sent Allie home. It was a tied game.
Ava stepped up to bat and hit the ball right to the second baseman, who looked MacKenzie back to third, and then easily threw Ava out at first. Two outs, two talented ducks on the pond, and Emily’s cleanup batter was up. Hannah swung at the first pitch and drove it into deep left.
“Run!” Emily screamed.
“Run!” Jake Jasper shouted.
“Run!” every citizen of Piercehaven yelled.
The girls ran as the ball soared and soared; with no sign of slowing down, it soared all the way over the fence—and about three inches to the left of the pole that marked the terminus of the third base line. Half the Piercehaven crowd fell silent, but that noise vacuum was instantly filled with a hundred Richmonders loudly pointing out what the umpires had so obviously seen. The ump behind the plate held his arms up as high as they would go. “Foul ball! Foul fall! Runners return to base!”
It took some time to calm everyone down and fill everyone in. Hannah was particularly hard to convince, as if by refusing to accept it, she could move her hit four inches to the right and make it fair. She finally, grudgingly picked the bat up again. Then she tried to crush the ball, and popped up to third base, where it was caught with ease.
The score remained 1 to 1.
Juniper was pitching the game of her life. But in the bottom of the fifth, the Bobcats hit back-to-back singles. The next girl hit a double, and just like that, the score was 3 to 1. The Richmond crowd went nuts. Emily silently thanked God they didn’t have a cowbell. But Richmond wasn’t done. Another single, an error, and a long shot to right drove in three more runs.
The proverbial wind had been ripped out of Piercehaven’s sails.
The top of the sixth registered three quick Ks for the Panthers. Emily put some subs in.
The bottom of the sixth garnered one more run for the Bobcats.
Before the top of the seventh, Emily called the girls together. MacKenzie and Hannah were already crying. “Listen to me,” Emily said and could tell most of them were not listening at all. “Listen to me,” she said more sharply. Most of them snapped to attention. “It’s OK to be disappointed, but I don’t want anyone crying over softball. This is a game. And this might be our last inning for the season, so let’s try to have some fun. You have a choice—go home with your heads hanging or your chins held high—it’s up to you.”
“Sara, DeAnna, and Natalie,” Thomas called out the lineup.
Sara stepped up to bat.
Sara struck out.
Emily praised her efforts, and then turned her attention and encouragement to DeAnna.
DeAnna certainly didn’t look the part. She was probably the only softball player in the state playing in a semifinal game with her hair down. It spilled out the back of her helmet, making her already non-athletic, gangly batting stance look all the more singular. But DeAnna swung the bat, and that’s what Piercehaven needed, much more than they needed her to look the part. She hit the ball up the first base line. It rolled foul, but the first baseman didn’t pick it up in time, and it rolled fair as DeAnna crossed over first base. The Richmond coach was not pleased.
Up stepped senior Natalie. Emily knew there were at least a dozen Greems there cheering her on; she’d seen them, and now she could hear them. Natalie didn’t have much game experience, and she hadn’t shown much potential. Emily didn’t have a lot of hope.
But Natalie made contact, and the ball rolled pitifully toward third. The third baseman expertly picked the ball up and fired it to first, getting the second out. But Natalie had moved DeAnna over.
It was time for Sydney Hopkins to step up. Emily closed her eyes and took a breath, in an effort to calm her own emotional maelstrom. This is only a game. Her eyes popped open at the definitive sound of bat on ball. Sydney had ripped one up the middle, and here came DeAnna, her eyes wild, begging for instruction, her crazy hair flowing straight out behind her, riding her wake. Emily began waving her home. “You’re going to have to slide. Wheels, DeAnna, wheels!” It turned out DeAnna didn’t have to slide, but she did anyway.
The crowd went nuts. Emily could hear PeeWee spewing accolades for his daughter and was only moderately annoyed.
It was 7 to 2. Two outs. And the Panthers were at the top of their lineup.
