CHAPTER 12

A Perfect Night

Friday after school, Bat climbed into Dad’s little sports car, sliding over to behind the driver’s seat since there was no seat belt in the middle. Dad was whistling, something Bat liked and something that sort of amazed him. No matter how he tried, Bat couldn’t arrange his lips into a proper whistling position.

“How was your week, sport?” Dad asked as he pulled out of the school parking lot.

“It was okay,” said Bat. “Not great.” Thursday’s after-school visit to Israel’s house, when Bat had hoped they would research possible vegetables for their skunk garden project, had instead been spent sitting on the couch while Israel played his new video game and practically ignored him.

And though they had finally gotten the pen built, and though Mom had agreed to let Bat keep it in his room, Bat felt terribly irritated about the fact that this was an Every-Other Weekend. Even worse, this would be his first Every-Other Weekend without Janie, because she had rehearsal today and tomorrow and a sleepover with a castmate on Saturday night.

“I’ve got a surprise for you,” Dad said.

“Is it that you’ve decided to let Thor spend the weekend with me at your apartment?” Bat said, hopeful.

“No,” said Dad. “It’s baseball tickets!”

Bat slumped in his seat, defeated. Baseball tickets. It was like his dad was trying to punish him for something.

There was almost nothing good about a baseball game, but Bat could nearly make a game out of listing all the things that were bad about one:

1.  The lines. Lines to park the car, lines to get through the entry gate, lines to use the bathroom, lines to buy snacks and drinks, lines to get to your seats. Bat hated waiting in lines. He hated it so much.

2.  The crowds. Even when you weren’t waiting in a line, you were still surrounded by people. Too many bodies squished together into too small a space. The smell of the bodies. People said skunks smell bad! That wasn’t even true. Skunks only smelled bad when they sprayed. Some of the people at a baseball game seemed to smell all the time.

3.  The lights. All those bright-white fluorescent bulbs, flooding the field in their artificial glare, making Bat’s eyes feel twitchy.

4.  The noise. Oh, the noise. People shouting at the peanut guy. People laughing loudly to each other and calling out to their friends. The announcer over the loudspeaker, booming out information that seemed to Bat to be totally unnecessary. The music. The crowds bursting into cheers when a batter scored a run.

Bat loved his dad. He really did. But when his dad made him do something like this, like coming to a baseball game, something he really didn’t want to do, Bat wondered if his dad understood him.

Because if his dad really understood him, then he would understand that an event like a baseball game was just about the worst way that Bat could imagine spending a Saturday night.

“We’ve got good seats, sport!” Dad said, dragging Bat down the aisle and pushing enthusiastically through the crowd. “Excuse us! Pardon us!” he said.

The seats didn’t look good to Bat. They were too close to the field, which meant that there was a higher chance that a stray baseball could hit him in the face.

“What do you think?” Dad asked after they were settled onto the uncomfortable blue plastic fold-down chairs.

“Can we go home?” Bat asked.

“Don’t be silly,” Dad said. “They’re just taking batting practice. The game hasn’t even started yet!”

Bat didn’t want the game to start. He wanted the game to be canceled. But, in all the years Dad had been making Bat go to baseball games, only one of them had been canceled, and that was on account of rain.

Bat looked up into the cloudless, clear sky. The horizon was melting into pink and orange as the sun slipped away for the night. It was a beautiful, perfect evening. Bat sighed and shook his head. It was going to be a long night.