I wake up nervous on Tuesday morning. It feels like game day, but it also feels different. I try not to think too much about it. Let’s be honest: There are plenty of things to be nervous about on a day-to-day basis in sixth grade.

I get dressed and tell my brain to shut up. It gets revenge by dressing me stupidly. Even though it’s not that cold, I put on a big blue sweater. I know I’m going to end up sitting next to the windows in math and baking, but I put it on anyway. I just wear a good T-shirt underneath, instead of one of the white ones with holes, so I can ditch the sweater if I need to. By the time I leave the house, I’m like an advertisement for the color blue: blue jeans, blue sweater, and my dark blue Braves cap, which fits again.

Tuesday is back to normal at school, with no one hit in the head or farting in the gym. It goes fast, and pretty soon I’m sitting next to Andy on the cool grass of Culbreath Field.

After a game, Coach always starts off with a postmortem. That means, like, an autopsy. It’s a good name for it, too, because it can be as tough to stomach if we lose. Not that I’ve cut up a lot of corpses. And we didn’t lose, either. But there are always things to go over — win, lose, or lose badly.

All three coaches talk during the postmortem, and pretty much none of the players do. Last year, I was always afraid they were going to single me out for some mistake, but there’s not much they can say to me today.

“How’s the coconut, Mogens?” Coach says right at the start.

“Fine,” I say, and I knock on it twice with my knuckles.

That’s pretty much it for me, but a few other kids take it on the chin. I guess there were some problems with players not backing up the cutoff throws.

“Throws going to third from right,” says Coach. “Who’s the cutoff?”

“Me, Coach,” says Tim. “Second baseman.”

And the way he says it, you know he didn’t do it right on at least one play on Saturday.

“Could’ve fooled me,” says Coach, sort of twisting the knife a little. Meanwhile, Tim’s dad is looking at his son like he’s bailing him out of jail.

“And who’s backing up third?” Coach says, like he can’t believe he even has to ask.

“Pitcher, Coach,” says J.P.

“What’s that, J.P.?” Coach says, even though there’s no way he didn’t hear.

“PITCHER, Coach,” says J.P.

So J.P. shuts out the other team, and Coach is grilling him about not backing up third on the one time a runner got that far. It seems kind of crazy, right? But Coach has a point, and we all sort of know it. If the ball gets away at third, and there’s no one there to back up the throw, the runner probably scores.

And more than that, a few extra bases here and there might not mean that much in a 7–0 game. But that’s exactly how you lose a close game. It’s how we lost to Haven last year. So everyone, even J.P., just takes their medicine.

And sure enough, we spend almost half of practice working on cutoff throws and backing up bases.

“Grab the tub,” Coach yells at no one in particular. That’s what he calls the big plastic trash can we use for throws home, instead of killing our catchers with one-hoppers and high-flyers and everything in between.

Everyone groans, but not me. I want to be in the field. I bust it out to left before Geoff can get there. I’m still the starter, as far as I know. You don’t lose your spot due to injury. That’s like universal. Otherwise people would play it safe all the time, just trying not to get hurt.

Geoff knows the deal and doesn’t make it a foot race. The coaches are going to shift us all over the field anyway, so we’ll know what to do wherever we play.

“Don’t make me look bad,” Andy says as he breaks off for third base. He’s smiling, but he means it. If the ball is hit down the line and the throw is going home, he’s my cutoff man.

“Incoming!” I say, because when I miss, I usually overthrow, like artillery. I’m smiling, too, but what I mean is, I’ll do my best.

And then we’re out there: the starting lineup from Saturday. Some of us are hoping not to repeat our mistakes, and some of us are just glad to be out in the field again. Coach is tossing the balls up and hitting them. J.P. is just out there to field.

The first fly ball goes to Manny in center. The crack of the bat hits me like a punch to the stomach. That’s when I realize how much I don’t want to bat today.

I watch Manny camp out under the lazy fly ball, squaring himself to throw. It looks so harmless in the air like that, but I don’t want to see it at the plate. Manny makes the catch, and Tim pounds his fist into his glove, waiting to get the throw. It’s on-line, and he catches it cleanly, spins, and throws a one-hopper over the mound and into the plastic trash can.

“There ya go, Liu!” yells Coach. “That so hard?”

This is a problem: a big, fat problem. But the next ball is hit to me, and I don’t think about anything else.

I shade over toward the line. The ball is basically coming right to me, but I take a step back. You want to be behind the ball and coming forward in order to make a strong throw. You definitely don’t want to be backpedaling.

I line it up so that I’m stepping forward as I make the catch. I get the ball out of my glove quick and throw it on a line to Andy.

Sure enough, I overthrow him. Ugh. He bails me out by jumping for it and making a snow-cone catch with the very top of his glove. He comes down with it just as Coach finishes turning the can toward third. Andy throws it in there on the fly.

“You benchwarmers watching this?” Coach yells, meaning the starters are doing it right.

Andy turns and points to me, as if my throw had been perfect. I know it wasn’t, but I point back, glad my best friend is also our best third baseman.

The next ball goes to right.

“Play is to third!” Coach yells. J.P. is off the mound and backing up the throw in a heartbeat.

I move over to take a turn in center field and then to right and then take a seat on the bench. Geoff is one behind me the whole time: in left when I’m in center, in center when I’m in right. By the time he makes it to right, the drill is over.

“BP!” yells Coach. “Let’s see if you knuckleheads can still hit.”

The nerves come back like a wave breaking over top of me. My heart feels too big for my chest, and my lungs feel too small. It’s like there’s too much blood getting to my head and not enough oxygen. For the first time in my life, I’m hoping practice ends before I get my turn at bat.