Liam opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. It was the first time in a long time he’d looked at that particular patch. If he looked closely enough, he could see the faint mark he’d left there more than a year ago when he’d been hurling a small pink rubber ball at the spot.
It was Christmas morning. He was in the top bunk in Carter’s bedroom. Below, he could hear Carter breathing deeply, so he knew his cousin was still fast asleep. He laced his fingers beneath his head and thought about everything that had happened since he’d last slept in this bed: moving to California, meeting Sean and Rodney, making things right with Phillip, going to the World Series…
Carter’s door creaked open. Liam looked over to see a small black-and-tan dog nose its way inside. He grinned. “Hey there, Lucky Boy,” he whispered. Lucky Boy trotted to the bed, tail wagging madly, and began licking Carter’s face.
“Eeesh! Cut it out, cut it out!” Carter rasped, his voice thick with sleep.
“Shhh,” Liam warned. “You’ll wake me up!”
Carter chuckled. “Merry Christmas, doofus!”
“Merry Christmas, dork!”
Twenty minutes later, they’d roused the rest of the household. Now everyone was gathered in the Joneses’ living room by the tree, opening presents. Liam and Carter had two special cards waiting for them. One was from Jon Burns, the boy from Australia.
“Merry Christmas from Oz!” Jon’s message read. “Don’t spend this all in one place! Ha-ha!”
Inside the card were two identical coins. On one side was a profile of the queen of England, Elizabeth II. On the other was the image of a swimming platypus with 20 stamped over it, indicating the silver coin was worth twenty Australian cents.
“Cool!” Liam and Carter exclaimed together.
“Did you send him something?” Melanie asked.
“We mailed him two state quarters,” Carter replied. “California and Pennsylvania. We sent the same thing to Kita Hiro in Japan, too. It was Liam’s idea.”
“Nice!” Melanie nodded approvingly.
The boys opened the card from Kita next. Two more coins dropped out. Liam gave one to Carter and examined the other.
The coin was a fifty yen piece. It had chrysanthemum flowers on one side and Japanese symbols and numbers on the other. But the most interesting thing was the single hole punched out of the center.
“Kita says the flower is an important symbol in Japan,” Carter said, reading the letter, “and that the hole is to help vision-impaired people identify the coin.”
Everyone admired the international coins and cards, then returned to their own gifts.
Liam had just unwrapped a new book by his favorite sports author when his mother handed him a small package. She handed an identical one to Melanie.
“Open them together,” she requested. She down next to her husband and leaned against him, smiling.
Liam pulled off the bow, tore the paper, and lifted the lid from a small white box. Inside was a key. He held it up and looked at his parents, puzzled. Melanie looked equally confused.
“I know this isn’t a car key,” she said. “So what does it go to?”
Mr. McGrath pointed out the side window of the living room. “That.”
Liam stared out the window. “All I see is Mrs. Webber’s house,” he said.
“That’s right,” Mrs. McGrath said. “Only it’s not Mrs. Webber’s anymore.”
Liam’s heart skipped a beat. He looked at the key in his hand and then back to the house. “So who owns it now?”
His parents smiled. “We do,” his mother replied. “Or we will,” she amended, “at the end of June.”
“I don’t understand,” Melanie said, her brow furrowed.
“I do!” Liam shouted. “We’re moving back here, aren’t we?”
Melanie’s eyes widened. “Is that true?”
Mrs. McGrath nodded happily. “Right after the school year,” she said. “Turns out there’s a big demand for eco-friendly playground equipment on the East Coast. My company decided to open a branch here. They asked me to run it. I said yes.”
Liam barely heard the explanation. He was too busy absorbing the fact that—
“You’re moving back!” Carter tackled him, laughing joyfully.
“Now that’s what I call a Christmas present!” Liam cried as he tumbled to the floor. Then he glanced at Melanie. She had been thrilled to move to California. “Hey, you’re okay with this, aren’t you?”
Melanie smiled broadly. “Are you kidding? Of course I am!” She turned to her parents. “Now if I get into the film school in New York City, you guys will be right here instead of across the country!”
“Film school? I thought you wanted to be an actor!” Liam asked. He knew his sister, who was going to be a senior in high school, had been looking at a lot of colleges, but he hadn’t really paid attention to which ones she was interested in.
“I like acting,” she said, “but turns out I like being behind the camera even more. I found that out this summer while I was making my Little League film. Speaking of which…” She got up and put a gift bag in Liam’s hands. “Here’s your copy.”
Liam peeked at the DVD inside the bag. “We’ll watch this later, after presents, okay?”
And that’s what they did. Liam loved every minute of it and told his sister so. She blushed at the compliment but couldn’t stop smiling.
Later in the day, Rachel and a few boys came over to see Liam. After making fun of his longer hair—“Dude, what happened to your crew cut? You look all California!”—and eating Christmas cookies, they trooped down to the basement for some Ping-Pong.
That evening, Liam and Carter video-chatted in Carter’s bedroom with Rodney and Sean. True friends that they were, they told Liam how happy they were for him about the move. “At least we’ll get one more season of baseball with you, and this year it’ll be Junior Division!” Rodney pointed out. “But what’ll you do if you’re named to the Ravenna All-Stars again?”
“Guess I’ll just give my spot to Sean,” Liam joked.
Sean puffed out his chest. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m planning to earn one for myself.”
They ended the chat session soon after that and went downstairs. Carter grabbed Lucky Boy’s leash and held it up for Liam to see. “Feel like taking a walk?”
“As long as you don’t clip that to my collar,” Liam said, “sure.”
Carter told their parents what they were doing, found a flashlight, and called for Lucky Boy. By unspoken agreement, they headed for the path in the woods behind Carter’s house. Ten minutes later, they reached the hideout.
“Looks pretty much the same,” Liam said. “Think the box is still there?”
Carter crawled inside and dragged out a dark green plastic box. “Yep.” Inside the box were old beach towels and two more flashlights. They spread out the towels and lay down. Nose to the ground, Lucky Boy went in search of smells.
Liam rested his head on his hands and stared up through a gap in the trees to a patch of stars. His breath came out in frosty puffs. “Hey, dork,” he said after a long silence.
“Yeah, doofus?”
“I’m moving back this summer.” He sat up. “You know, we’ve still got a lot of Little League seasons ahead of us. There’s Fall Ball next September, and then it’s onto the Intermediate Division. After that, Junior Division. From there, we’ll go to the Senior League and then the Big League. We’ll both get on the All-Star teams and reach the World Series for all of them. No, not just reach them—win them!”
Carter laughed. “One step at a time, doofus!”
“Dork,” Liam replied, grinning broadly. “With you and me teamed up again, we’re going to go all the way!”
“And don’t forget Ash, and Charlie M., and—” Carter started to add.
“Yeah, yeah, everyone and anyone who’s a player! We’d be unstoppable!”
He lay back down and held up a fist. Carter did the same. And lying together beneath the Christmas night sky, they fist-bumped three times.
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