“Ow, ow, ow!” Casey shouts, after biting into a slice of pizza at Abbott Memorial Stadium before the game.

“Not again, Case,” I say.

“Yeah. Again. They shouldn’t give out pizza when it’s still so hot you can burn the roof of your mouth. They should wait a minute.”

“Or you could wait a minute. Like me.” I blow on my slice of pepperoni pizza and then take a huge bite, chewing loudly to make my point.

We finish our pizza at one of the picnic tables and head to our seats behind home plate to watch the end of batting practice. I look toward the dugout for Hector, but I don’t see him. I wonder if he thinks I’m never going to come back.

“How long do you think we’ll get free pizza for?” Casey asks.

“I don’t know. Why?”

“It’s a pretty sweet deal. I was hoping Zack felt bad enough that he would give you free pizza for life.”

“It’s not like that, Case. And anyway, Zack’s not really a bad guy.” I picture him playing his guitar along with Hector on keyboard. Maybe they’d let me watch them play sometime. “He’s actually kind of cool.”

“Do you think I would look cool with a lip ring?”

I almost choke on my soda. “No.”

“Come on.” Casey pinches his lip with his thumb and pointer finger. “I think it looks pretty cool.”

“Then you need to look in a mirror.”

“Fine, fine.” He munches on his crust. “Free pizza for life, though? That would be cool.”

We talk about which food we’d want to have for free for the rest of our lives if we could choose (pizza wins, but ice cream is a close second) and then what one thing we would like an infinite supply of (baseball tickets, obviously), and before long batting practice is over and the players are all warmed up and the announcer is reading today’s starting lineup.

“And pitching this afternoon for the Tri-City Bandits…Hector Padilla!”

Hector jogs out to the mound. I keep watching for him to check my spot. To see that I came back. I missed the last four games, but I came back in time for Hector’s start.

“Yeah, Hector!” I yell.

“Woo-hoo!” Casey screams.

Hector throws his warm-up pitches to the catcher. He still doesn’t see me.

I stare out at the mound as Hector fingers his cross and looks up to the sky. Then he throws the first pitch.

“Striiiiike one!” the umpire yells.

Hector doesn’t hesitate. He winds up and throws again: a wicked fastball.

“Striiiiike two!”

“Geez,” Casey says. “He’s got his good stuff.”

I stand up and yell, “You’ve got him right where you want him!”

Hector looks into the stands, sees me, and breaks into a smile. He winds up again. The catcher doesn’t even have to move his glove an inch. The ball hits the mitt with a hard smack as the batter swings and misses.

“Strike three!”

The batter walks away, shaking his head. He can’t argue because he knows Hector got all those pitches in there just right. Every single person in the stadium is clapping.

But nobody is clapping louder than me.

—

Hector hangs in there through the seventh inning, but the manager sends out a relief pitcher for the top of the eighth.

“What are you waiting for?” Casey says. “Just go talk to him.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Why?”

I fill him in on the pact I made with Hector and how I attacked Zack when he was dressed up as a pizza.

“I can’t believe you took out a pizza,” Casey says. “That’s so funny.”

“It didn’t feel that way. Trust me.”

“But you and Zack are okay now, right? Forget about that other stuff. Tackling a pizza in front of an entire stadium of people is awesome.”

I had kind of forgotten about how many people saw me do it. Hiding my face behind my new glove, I say, “Do you think they’ll remember me?”

Casey clears his throat. “Oh, no. Something like that? It’s not memorable.”

So not convincing, Casey. “Right.” I get up from my seat when the top of the inning is over and walk over to the Bandits dugout. I tap my fingers on the hot metal dugout roof. “Hector?”

When he doesn’t pop his head out, I crawl out onto the roof and wait for him to show his face. But he doesn’t. Somebody else does, though. The manager.

“Get off that thing, Quinnen! Sheesh! You’re going to get yourself hurt.”

I scramble off it. “Sorry.”

“Hector’s in the bathroom,” he says. “I’ll tell him you’re looking for him.”

I head back to my seat and get lost in the game. The Bandits are two outs away from their first shutout in a month and you can feel it in the crowd. There’s a runner on first base and everyone in the stadium is on his or her feet. Fingers crossed, arms crossed, prayers said.

They all want this one for the team. But me? I want it for Hector. This was his best start since he got hit in the face. A win for Hector.

“Come on,” I whisper.

I watch as the batter makes contact with the ball. Good contact. The kind of contact that could send the runner all the way to home. But the left fielder makes a great play on the line drive and cuts the ball off, then quickly throws it back in. Still one out, but runners now on first and second.

“You’ve got it!” I shout. “Shake it off!”

“You want to come over to my house after the game?” Casey asks.

“Maybe.”

The next batter swings at the first pitch and hits a slow roller down the third-base line. He’s safe, and now the bases are loaded. I swear the whole stadium groans at once, but we’re still standing, because that’s what you do when you’re a Bandits fan.

The pitcher takes his cap off and puts it back on—like that will suddenly make his pitches land where he wants them to? Good luck with that.

Someone walks down our row and stands next to me, not even asking if the seat is taken. I turn my head to see who could be that rude.

I almost drop my glove when I see that it’s Hector.

“Why aren’t you in the dugout?” I ask.

“The manager says it’s all right. Game’s almost over. My job is done.”

“Right.”

We watch the game in silence as the pitcher works to an 0-2 count.

“I’m sorry I left during your last game,” I say.

Hector shrugs. “It’s no biggie.”

“Yeah, it was. To me.”

“You came today. You saw me pitch well. You helped me.”

“You don’t need my help,” I say. “I looked up the score. After the storm, you came out and pitched the rest of the game. The whole thing! A complete game? That’s huge.”

“Even when you weren’t there, I still heard it in my head. Mofongo. Like how you say it.”

“Mofongo,” I say.

He repeats it back to me. It always sounds better when he says it. “When I hear ‘Mofongo,’ it makes me think about my home. I left my home to make my family proud, but really, I came to America because I love playing baseball. Mofongo is always waiting for me back home. Right now is time for baseball.”

Suddenly everyone is cheering and fireworks are going off overhead. The game is over. We weren’t paying attention and missed the ending. I usually hate missing the endings, but this time it doesn’t bother me.

Hector asks if we’ll wait for him to get his stuff from the locker room. He wants to take us both out for ice cream. Casey checks in with his mom, who’s been sitting over with her friends, to make sure it’s okay, but she doesn’t mind.

We’re halfway to Gracie’s when Hector takes a left instead of a right. “You’re going the wrong way,” I say.

“I forgot,” he says. “We have to stop for something.”

He takes another turn up at the next light. Wait a second. I know where we’re going.

I haven’t been this way in a whole year, but I know this route by heart. I look at Casey, but he shakes his head. “I don’t know anything,” he says.

Hector pulls the car into the parking lot at the old ball fields.

I don’t know what to say.

“You never told me what really happened,” he says. “So I asked some people.” I look back at Casey. Casey could never keep quiet about anything. But maybe that’s okay. “Zack told me about your team and what happened with your sister.”

“He told you?”

Hector nods. “You and Zack, you both lost the same person. You have something in common, you know?”

Hector’s right.

“Zack told me you were the star on your team. He came to one of your games, right?”

I nod. “But I left them. I ditched my team. I left them when they really needed me. I blew it.”

“No,” he says. “You’re wrong. You didn’t blow it. I called your coach. Napoli? It’s too late to be on the team for this season, but he says you can still come to practice. Play with your team again.”

That’s them out on the field. The Panthers. Katie Miller, and Jordan, and Coach Napoli. Even Jaden and Andrew. All of them. My old team.

“What do you say?” Hector asks. He’s holding out a baseball. For me.

There’s a lump in my throat all of a sudden, but I swallow it down. I take the ball from Hector’s hand and place it in my glove.

I give it a squeeze. “Okay.”

There’s this feeling in my belly that’s both strange and not strange. Like I felt it once before, but a long time ago.

All I know is that the feeling makes me want to move, so I lead Hector and Casey out to the field. The ground feels different under my feet and suddenly I realize what’s different. I’m not wearing my cleats. I’m not even sure if they fit anymore.

And that’s when it clicks—what this feeling is. It’s the feeling that I always got right before I pitched in a game. Some people call it butterflies or nerves, but Haley and I, we had our own made-up word for it: the rumbles. My insides were all rumbling around with excitement and the littlest bit of fear.

It’s just practice, I tell the rumbles. You can calm down.

Coach Napoli waves when he sees me. He doesn’t have a beard anymore. The Panthers must not be as good this year.

“We’ve missed you, Quinnen,” he says.

“I’m sorry about last season. I—”

He cuts me off. “No worries, QD. I’m not gonna lie; we’ve missed your arm this year. You want to toss a few pitches from the mound?”

Of course I do. I jog to the pitcher’s mound. Katie is still behind home plate. The only girl on the team. For now, at least.

“Hey, QD,” she says.

“Hey, KM,” I say back.

The ball that Hector gave me is still in my glove. I take a deep breath, stand up straight, and grip the ball with my right hand. The rumbles quiet down.

“Yeah, Quinnen!” Casey yells from the sidelines.

“You can do it!” Hector says.

And I hear one more voice. You’ve got this, Quinnbear. Only I hear her in my head. When I close my eyes, I can see her, sitting in that rainbow-striped folding chair on the sidelines. Her sandals off, bare feet in the grass. My sister, Haley. She’s still here. In the air, in the dirt, in the grass. In my heart.

And I think she’d agree with Hector. Now is time for baseball.

I take another deep breath and open my eyes. I focus in on Katie—no, on KM—crouched behind home plate, her glove in position, ready to catch my pitch.

And then I throw.

The baseball flies from my fingertips. I track its path with my eyes until KM catches it in her glove.

It’s a ball. A little bit high. A little bit outside.

It’s not my best pitch. Not by a lot. But I’ll get there.

I wind up and throw again.