When I get to school the next day everyone’s looking at me funny. They always kind of do because I’m the only girl they know who wears boy clothes and kicks everyone’s butt at baseball, but today they’re looking at me extra funny, like Alex’s blood is still sprayed up my sleeve or something. I hop over the wooden fence into the schoolyard and don’t pay them no mind. Just like Jackie Robinson.
“They let her back here?” I hear one girl scoff.
“No way.” It’s Chelsea and Brittany. They’re completely pink from their Uggs all the way to the gum they’re smacking with every stupid syllable they say. They’re also the girls who hang off Alex Carter like he’s some god or something.
“I can’t believe it. Did you see what she did to Alex?”
“Shouldn’t she be suspended? Her grandpa came and picked her up. If that even is her grandpa.”
My hand makes a fist, but I just let the words run right off, like Grandpa says. And I try to count to ten while I’m searching around for Derek because I usually hang with him until the doors open for school. I put my baseball glove up over my mouth like I’m talking secret messages on the mound with my pitcher and catcher and blow hot air in the leather pocket. Each breath warms up my face before it fades back to cold.
Then I see him running across the yard and yelling my name. “Rob!” Derek looks so funny when he runs that he’s making me laugh right out loud into my glove. He’s stick skinny and short and his ears kind of poke out, but his feet are so big that he looks like he might trip over them at any second. He can tell I’m laughing at him too, but he doesn’t mind because he knows we’re cool. Ever since I peeled off the kick the midget Post-it that Alex Carter stuck on his back in third grade, he’s been kind of hanging around. And that’s OK with me.
“Rob! Rob!” He’s yelling and waving his hands over his head.
He’s not named after Derek Jeter either. He didn’t even know who that was when I asked. He doesn’t know anything about baseball. Watching him running over toward me, I’m thinking we should switch names, Derek and me, because he’s as soft and small as a Robin and I’m as hard as a Derek. That k like the crack of a bat. K for strike. I’m hard like that. He’s the one that’s like feathers. I guess that’s why we’re friends.
He’s all out of breath by the time he gets to me. “Did you get in trouble?” he huffs.
“Not enough. I’m still here, aren’t I?” I punch my right fist into my third baseman’s glove.
“I’ve been wanting to see that kid get slammed since first grade.” He’s still breathing hard as anything. “His nose exploded!”
“I know. I’m the one who exploded it,” I remind him. “No one calls me a motherless Robin bird.”
Derek goes quiet, and I know that means he’s sorry Alex was such a jerk. “What did your grandpa say?”
“Same stuff my grandpa always tells me. That I have to be more like Jackie Robinson.” Even though Grandpa didn’t say anything about Jackie Robinson to me at all this time, like it didn’t matter anymore who I was named for.
“Well, Alex Carter deserved to get popped.” He looks around the yard. “Think he’ll come today?” he asks.
I shrug my shoulders. “Doubt it. He was crying like a baby.”
Derek gives me a high five as the bell rings and everyone runs toward the big double doors of the school.
Principal Wheeler is directing us into our class lines in the lobby while we wait for our teachers. We get in the back of Ms. Meg’s homeroom line, and I’m looking for Alex, but I don’t see him, which is kind of too bad because I want to see what his nose looks like after a day of bruising. I bet it’s purple and yellow and gross. I want everyone to see what a nose looks like after you call me a motherless Robin bird.
“Hey, Robinson.” It’s Candace, a girl from our class, and she’s tapping me on my shoulder. She’s a little pink too, but not the gum-smacky kind of pink that Chelsea and Brittany are.
“You OK?” she asks. “I saw the whole thing, how Alex was making fun of you yesterday even after you told him to stop.”
“I’m fine,” I say.
She starts kicking the snow out of her Bogs, which are the same boots I wear sugaring except hers are pink and mine are black. Then she says, “I think Alex is a huge jerk. I just wanted to tell you that. And no one ever stands up to him and I’m glad you did.”
Candace looks up from her boots and is smiling really big and holding her hand up for a high five like Derek does sometimes. I give it to her and it feels pretty OK.
“Are you grounded or anything?” she asks. “My mom would have died if she knew I hit someone.”
The words stick in me sharp, a fastball in the gut, and I can tell she feels bad the second she says it because she looks down at her Bogs again.
Derek grabs my wrist. But I shake him off. I’m not a touching kind of person like that.
I imagine shoving Candace. Just a little maybe so she remembers not to complain about her mom around me because at least her mom isn’t actually dead, but I shake the image out of my head and start counting to ten instead.
“I’m not in trouble,” I mutter.
“I’m glad,” Candace says to her Bogs.
Then I turn around fast and hope the line starts moving down the hall to Ms. Meg’s room.
“You wanted to punch her, didn’t you?” Derek whispers.
“Shut up or I’ll punch you,” I whisper back, but Derek knows I’m not serious because I wouldn’t ever have to punch him.
“She was trying to be nice, you know,” he says.
And I do know. That’s why I didn’t shove her. That’s why I counted to ten like Ms. Gloria taught me and remembered some baseball stats. Career saves: Mariano Rivera, 652.
Finally Ms. Meg shows up and we start walking to homeroom. Derek nudges me. “Remember. What would Jackie do?” and that gets him cracking up right away. He always laughs when he says that, like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever come up with. It is kind of funny, I guess, but not too funny because I actually have to ask myself that sometimes.
Today, Jackie would just stand in line and get through the day. So that’s what I’m going to do.