Chapter 15

As far as Kiana was concerned, her first day at Jackson High School was a good one. Her teachers were knowledgeable and nice, she found her way around campus without any real difficulties, and, most importantly, she made a new friend.

Her name was Stacy Erickson and like Kiana she was a junior. She was an attractive girl, with blue eyes and long, auburn hair that hung to the middle of her back. They had two classes together (English and American history) and Stacy introduced herself after the second one, which was right before their lunch break.

“I don’t recognize you. Are you new here?”

Kiana nodded. “I’m Kiana. Kiana Cruise. I just moved here this summer.”

“It’s nice to meet you. Where are you from?”

“California. Anaheim, to be exact.”

“Welcome to Jackson. What do you think of it so far?”

“Seems pretty nice to me.”

“Why don’t you join me for lunch? I’ll introduce you to some of my friends.”

Kiana couldn’t have been happier. To her, nothing was more important than finding some new friends at Jackson.

She followed Stacy into the school’s cafeteria, which was large, crowded, and bustling with activity. Countless students stood in lines to get food, others sat at tables eating, and some lounged along the far wall. Stacy made her way through the room, stopping occasionally to say hi to people she knew, then led Kiana to a table where two other girls were seated. The first was a tall brunette named Hailey Evans and the second was a small, wiry girl named Veronica Jones. Veronica had, arguably, the prettiest red hair Kiana had ever seen. It was very light, almost blonde in spots, and it sparkled brightly when the light hit it just right. Stacy introduced them to Kiana and they started to eat their lunches together. Their conversation was nothing but small talk at first, as they got to know one another, but it quickly gained interest (at least as far as Kiana was concerned) when Veronica said they were softball players. They played on Jackson’s varsity team and also on an 18u select team that was called the Washington LadyCats.

“Do you play?” Stacy asked.

Kiana nodded. “I was on the varsity team at my high school in California and on a select team called Club LA.”

“Those California teams are so good,” Hailey said. “They killed us on our trip down there last year.”

“Softball is really popular in southern California,” Kiana said. “A lot of girls begin playing as soon as they can walk. And since the weather is good you can play year round, so that helps, too.”

“That must be so nice,” Veronica said. “Up here, we spend most of our time practicing, inside, waiting for the weather to finally get good enough to actually go outside and play a game or two. And when it does, we still get rained out about half of the time. If not more.”

“Last year was a complete disaster,” Stacy said. “I think half of our games got scrapped.”

“At least,” Veronica said.

“Over the years,” Kiana said, “I’ve played several teams from Washington. They all seemed pretty good to me. There was this one team that beat us really bad one year. The Eastside Angels.”

All three girls nodded. Clearly, they knew the name.

“That’s one of the best teams around,” Stacy said.

“No doubt,” Veronica said.

“And there was another team,” Kiana said, “called the Washington Wildcats. Their second baseman was incredible. She wasn’t that big, so we didn’t take her too seriously at first, but she hit back-to-back home runs off of our number one pitcher. We were in shock because no one had ever done that before. From that point forward, every time she came to bat we walked her.”

The girls smiled.

“That’s Rachel Adams,” Hailey said. “She’s a freshman over at Lynnwood High. She’s a great player. One of the best around.”

“No doubt,” Veronica said.

“Now that you moved up here,” Stacy said, “are you still interested in playing?”

“Definitely. And to be honest I don’t have much of a choice. My dad loves softball. He would shoot me if I stopped playing.”

They all chuckled.

“Tell me about it,” Stacy said. “My dad is a softball psycho. He has a folder with my stats from every game I’ve ever played. All the way back to Little League.”

“Stop it,” Veronica said. “Your dad is nothing. My dad, he’s a beast. He put a batting cage in our back yard and I have to go out there and hit for at least thirty minutes each night. One night, he wouldn’t even give me my dinner because I hadn’t done my hitting yet.”

“That’s nothing,” Hailey said. “My dad made me practice in the snow one year. I nearly got hypothermia.”

They all laughed. Softball dads were a strange breed indeed. Kiana, of all people, knew that well. One year, after she had had a bad game (she went 0-4 with three strikeouts, and she made an error in the field) Michael chewed her out, then drove her straight to a gym with a batting cage and made her work on her fundamentals for over two hours.

“If you’re interested,” Stacy said, “I can talk to our coach and set up a tryout for you. Technically our roster is full for the season, but he’s always looking for talent and he told me a while back he has no problem adding another girl as long as he thinks she’ll help the team.”

Kiana couldn’t believe her luck. Finding a select team had been one of her goals for the week, and she knew if she didn’t find one soon she’d start feeling the pressure from Michael.

“That would be great. I’d really like that.”

“You’ll like our coach,” Veronica said. “He’s a really nice guy and unlike some coaches he never yells at you even if you make a bonehead play. Which I do on occasion. And our team is pretty good, too. After all, we took down the Bellevue Beast just last week.”

They all smiled and exchanged high fives. Kiana didn’t know exactly what they were talking about, but apparently the Bellevue Beast was a pretty good team. Either that or it was a rival of some sort. Either way, the girls were clearly happy they had beaten them.

And Kiana was happy, too, since Stacy was good to her word and set up a tryout for her the next weekend. It was at a nice park in downtown Mill Creek called McCall Field. The entire team was there, including Stacy, Hailey, and Veronica, but they were working on drills in the outfield while the team’s coach, who was a short, heavy man named Marv Kloppenburg, worked with Kiana in the infield.

“It’s nice to meet you, Kiana. What position do you play?”

“Short. Second, too, on occasion.”

“Sweet. I can always use another middle infielder. Take your spot and I’ll hit you a few.”

Kiana was a little nervous, but not overly so. She had done countless tryouts over the years so they didn’t really bother her too much. At the same time, however, she hadn’t been able to practice much in recent months since she had been in Nevada doing her USIA training, so she was worried she would be rusty.

Marv started by hitting her some soft grounders and she fielded them easily and tossed them to an assistant who was covering first base. He then hit her a few more, each one a little harder than the last, and each a little further away. She handled them all with little or no difficulty. One ball took a funny hop and hit her on the thigh, but she grabbed it and fired it to first anyway.

“Well done, Kiana. Way to stay with it. Very nice play.”

He then hit her some fly balls to see how she could handle them, including one that was far to her right near the third base dugout. The sun was in her eyes and the ball was dangerously close to the edge of the dugout, but she was able to run under it and catch it anyway, which impressed Marv immensely.

“Very nice. Great range, Kiana.”

After that, he wanted to see how she batted, so he set up a machine in the pitching circle and had it throw her a couple of pitches. She hit the first over the outfield fence in left, then hit the second to straightaway. The second went so far it disappeared into the distant trees.

That was all it took. He turned off the pitching machine and walked up to her. “Take off your helmet and join the rest of the girls in the outfield. You’re on the team.”

Kiana could not have been happier. In one week, she had found some new friends and won a spot on a brand new team. To her, it didn’t get any better than that.