“Okay,” Coach Stafford said, “let’s form up two groups—one with me, and one with Coach K.”
Derek went to Coach Stafford’s side—he never had warmed up to Coach Kozlowski much. Vijay, naturally, went with him, as did Harry, Mason—and Avery.
Pete, of course, was in his dad’s group. They took positions out in the field, so that Pete’s dad could hit them some balls. Derek’s group, meanwhile, was positioned to run the bases, while Coach Stafford timed them with a stopwatch, writing down their times in his roster book for future reference.
Mason had the fastest time in their group. No surprise there. Derek had never played with anyone who was faster going around the bases. There was no doubt in his mind that Mason would wind up leading off.
Derek thought for sure he would have the second-fastest time going from home to first. He’d pretty much led his team in stolen bases every year—except last year, when Mason was his teammate. But to his surprise, Derek wound up placing third—beaten out by a girl, no less!
Not only was he surprised, but he was annoyed as well. He didn’t like being beaten out by anybody! As they lined up again, this time to run all the way around the bases, Derek was determined to salvage his honor.
Avery went before him. She sailed down the baseline to first in no time flat. But the path she took around the bases cost her time. When it was Derek’s turn, he rounded the bases so efficiently that he beat her time by a full second.
There. That felt better.
The boys in the group kept whispering to one another, avoiding conversation with Avery. If she noticed, she did a good job of hiding it. Her attention stayed focused on the task at hand. She was as serious as an executioner. No smiles, no jokes—not a word out of her. Derek was impressed.
The two groups switched places and coaches. Derek trotted out to shortstop—and so did two other boys. Avery positioned herself right behind second base—not where any player would be during a real game, but then again, this was just fielding practice, and all the other positions were taken by boys who were sure to hog any balls that came their way.
Coach Kozlowski started hitting balls to the different areas. “Take turns!” he called out, so that the boys wouldn’t crash into one another trying to make a play.
Things went all right, until he hit a pop-up Avery’s way.
“I got it! I got it!” shouted Harry, racing over from the right side.
“Me! Me!” Norman yelled, running in from left field.
Avery, who had been the obvious one to make the catch, ducked when she heard them coming her way. At the same time, both Norman and Harry pulled up for fear of running into each other. The ball fell right between them, two feet in front of Avery, and lay there on the infield dirt.
Harry grabbed it and threw it back in. “That was my ball,” he muttered angrily.
“I had it!” the would-be shortstop shot back.
Neither one of them even looked at Avery, who was just standing there, glaring back at them.
Derek expected Coach Kozlowski to say something—anything. But he didn’t. Nor did he hit another one to Avery but went on instead to the next position—Derek’s.
Derek had no time to think about what had just happened. He had to make a play on the soft liner that was about to drop in front of him. He dove, snagging it just before the ball hit the ground.
“All right! Nice play!” Coach K said, pointing the bat at Derek. Derek wanted to smile, but fought it, pounded his glove and got into his ready stance, all business.
Coach K kept on hitting balls to the fielders. The next time he got around to Avery, he hit her a sharp grounder. She was getting into position to field it when Elliott, playing short right field, raced over and dove for the ball, knocking it out of Avery’s reach.
“Gotta call it!” Coach K called, pointing to her. “That’s your ball, gotta call it and go for it!”
Derek knew it hadn’t been her fault. She’d been in position when the other kid came in and knocked it away. But Derek understood. The kid had just assumed that a girl would muff the play if he didn’t go for it himself.
Derek wondered if she would have caught it—it was a pretty sharp grounder, well hit and right at her. She might have flinched. But they weren’t going to find out now—not today, anyway.
Before it came around to Avery’s turn again, they went on to another drill. This time, all the kids, from both groups, were asked to pair up and throw to each other.
Derek was immediately approached by Vijay, and the two of them started tossing it back and forth. But Derek noticed that Avery was just standing there, waiting for someone to partner with her.
Nobody did. She waited and waited, even after everyone else was paired up. Finally, Coach Stafford took notice, and said, “Here you go, kid—you and me.” And they started tossing it back and forth.
Derek couldn’t help thinking what it would be like to be in her shoes. Sure, she was a girl, and girls were different. Either way, though, it was no fun to be ignored and snubbed by everyone around you.
Avery, meanwhile, kept acting like nothing was wrong. She ignored the other kids right back and went about her business.
Pretty cool, Derek thought admiringly. She was tough, and focused—and fast, too, even though she needed to improve her baserunning. As he watched, Derek couldn’t help observing that she could catch and throw as well as most of them.
“Hey! Heads up!” Vijay called. Derek stopped thinking about Avery’s feelings. He didn’t want to try too hard to put himself in her shoes. After all, what was she doing here in the first place?
The whole business could only hurt the team, he reasoned. Even if she wound up being a decent player, just her being there was bound to cause problems.
He wasn’t just guessing about it, either. Derek was keeping his doubts to himself, but some of the other boys weren’t being so polite.
“This stinks,” he heard Pete say, loud enough for anyone nearby to hear.
“Totally,” Harry agreed, throwing the ball back to Pete.
Derek didn’t need to ask them what they meant. He could see them glancing Avery’s way.
Elliott and Norman were busy cracking each other up with whispered comments and sidelong looks at Avery. Elliott even mimed throwing the ball “like a girl”—off the wrong foot.
Not that Avery threw like that. But it didn’t matter to them. They were having a good old time.
For the last fifteen minutes of practice, each player got one turn at bat, while the rest rotated positions in the field. Coach K did the pitching himself, lobbing easy ones in there while Coach Stafford did the catching.
Derek hit a screaming liner over Pete’s head at shortstop and legged out an easy double. “Nice going, Derek!” Coach K told him, pointing at him approvingly.
Derek was glad to be singled out like that. He’d improved a lot since the last time Coach K had seen him, and he was eager to show it off.
When it was her turn, Avery swung hard—right through the first two pitches. There were sniggers and hoots from a lot of the boys, although the two teenagers who had come with Avery cheered her on from the stands.
“She swings like a zombie,” Derek heard Pete say.
“Like a droid,” Harry corrected him.
Derek was sure Avery could hear them both. He saw her shoulders sag for an instant, as if she’d been hit with a hard object. But she recovered her focus and sent a fly ball to center. Miles ran it down pretty easily, but at least she’d hit it hard and far.
Derek knew it wasn’t easy to hit while people were trying to psych you out. Not for the first time today, he found himself impressed by Avery’s grit.
She’d managed to shake off her emotions in the batter’s box. But Avery had a tougher time out in the field. Rotating positions along with the others, she found herself at second base when Vijay hit a sharp grounder her way.
As she got into position to make the play, Pete, at first, made a sudden sound—“HAH!” It rattled Avery enough that she bobbled the ball, allowing Vijay to reach base safely.
Pete just laughed. Harry, over at third, joined in, as did a few others. Not Derek or Vijay, though.
If either of the coaches had noticed any of this, they showed no sign of it.
Avery got another chance while at third. This time she fielded the ball, and was about to throw to first when Harry, at shortstop, yelled, “Here!”
She’d been about to fire to first, but Harry’s shout made Avery freeze mid-throw. The ball dropped out of her hand and landed on the ground in front of her.
“Ohh! E-five!” Harry moaned mockingly, pretending to be the play-by-play announcer. E-five meant an error by the third baseman.
This time, Avery didn’t ignore it. She stood there, glaring at Harry, leaving the ball right there on the ground.
“What?” he asked, pretending innocence.
Avery shook her head. “You weren’t even covering a base,” she said. “Why were you calling for the throw?”
“Whoa!” Harry said in exaggerated shock. “Ex-cuuuuse me!” That cracked a bunch of kids up.
“Okay, that’s it for today!” Coach K called out and blew his whistle.
Derek watched as Avery shuffled slowly toward the stands. The two teenage boys were clapping for her, but she was staring at the ground and seemed not to notice. They patted her on the back and hugged her. Derek thought he saw her wipe a tear from her eye.
Or maybe it was just dirt….
Derek felt like he should go over and say something to her. A compliment, or something encouraging. After all, even though they were stuck with a girl on the team, making her feel rotten wasn’t going to help her play any better. More like the opposite. And how exactly was that supposed to help the Yankees win?
Derek started toward her, but as he got closer, he could feel the eyes of the other kids on him. If he said something to her, they’d all notice—and who knew what they would think or say?
So instead of talking to her, Derek turned and walked right past her, over to where Mason was standing.
“Hey, man,” said Mason. “Good to have you on the team again.”
“Yeah. You too.” Glancing back at Avery, Derek caught her staring right at him. He quickly looked away, wondering if she’d read his mind.
He hoped not. Because that would definitely hurt her feelings even more. As bad as he felt about things, he knew that Avery had to be feeling much, much worse.
“And Daddy timed us all running around the bases? And I was the fastest one!”
Sharlee was practically bouncing up and down in her seat at the dinner table. “Daddy is the best coach in the whole wide world! And my team is sooo good—Ciara is on it too—and we’re going to hit a bunch of homers, right, Daddy?”
“You’re all going to do just fine,” Mr. Jeter said with a hint of a smile. “You just keep working hard on your skills, like your brother.”
“Derek,” said Mrs. Jeter, who’d been quiet up till now, “is something bothering you?”
“Me?”
“You seem a thousand miles away—and not in a happy place.”
Derek sighed. “I’m fine, Mom.”
“Well then, don’t look so down when your sister’s telling you how well her day went.”
“Do I have to be happy every single minute?”
“You don’t—but don’t rain on anyone else’s parade,” said his dad. “Everybody’s feelings matter as much to them as yours do to you. And if you’re not willing to talk about what’s got you down, don’t lay it on the rest of us and sit there frowning.”
Derek sighed again. “Sorry. Sorry, Sharlee.”
“That’s okay, Derek,” said his sister. “I accept your apology. And I’m sorry you can’t have Daddy for your coach, like me.”
Derek was about to roll his eyes—but stopped himself. He knew his parents were right, and that if Sharlee was happy with her day, he shouldn’t try to bring her down just because he was upset.
Obviously, she thought his bad mood was all because of their dad coaching her, not him. But that wasn’t even the half of it.
There was Pete and his dad. There was the girl. And on top of it all, there was Gary Parnell, who always seemed to find his way into Derek’s nightmares.
After dinner, he helped his mom wash the dishes. The Jeters didn’t have a dishwasher—there wasn’t room for one in their small kitchen—but Derek didn’t mind. In fact, he liked having this time with his mom. It was when they did some of their best talking.
“You sure you don’t want to talk about it, old man?”
Old man. It’s what she’d called him ever since he could remember. “Because you’re wise beyond your years,” his mom had told him.
“I don’t know. It’s a bunch of things….”
“Like what? I’m listening.”
“Like I got paired with Gary Parnell for our science project. I have to work with him on it for the next four weeks.”
“Hmm.” She washed a dish and handed it to Derek. “Well, look at the bright side—you’ll probably get an A between the two of you.” Derek’s mom was familiar with Gary, since he and Derek had been in the same class every year at Saint Augustine’s.
“A-plus,” Derek agreed. “But it’s going to be—”
“Uh-uh,” Mrs. Jeter stopped him. “It’s going to be whatever you make of it. If you decide in advance that it’s going to be a bad experience, you’ll surely make it happen. You might as well make the best of it, especially since you can’t avoid it.”
Derek wasn’t totally sure about that last part. Avoiding it hadn’t occurred to him till now, but since she’d brought it up…
“So… what else is bothering you?” she said, returning to the matter at hand.
“Dad not being my coach, Chase not being my coach, Dave not being on my team, Pete Kozlowski and his dad…”
“Okay, I get it. It’s not the team you dreamed about being on,” his mom said. “But Derek, it’s your team. You’ve got to do whatever you can to help them win—not sit around and mope about things you can’t change.”
Derek nodded, staring at the plate he was drying. He knew she was right. But he still hadn’t told her about the girl….
“Anything else?” his mom asked.
Should he tell her? Part of him wanted to—but he figured she’d probably just say “make the best of it.” He already knew that, so what was the point? Besides, his mom was a woman. How could he complain to her about having a girl on his team?
“No, that’s it, I guess.” He stared at the dish he was holding. “So, Mom, what about you? What’s going on with that promotion? Are you getting it?”
He’d said it to get the focus off himself and onto her. But he knew right away that he’d goofed. His dad had warned him not to bring it up, and he’d totally forgotten! He wished he could take back his words, but it was too late now.
Sure enough, her expression darkened, and the sympathetic smile faded from her lips.
“No. I haven’t heard anything. Not yet.”
“Well,” said Derek, trying to soften the edge of his words, “I guess these things take time.”
She shook her head slowly, staring out the window over the sink, into the darkness outside. “I have a bad feeling about it,” she said softly. Then she turned to him and smiled sadly. “I know, I know, I’ve just been telling you to look at the bright side and make the best of it. But it’s taking too long, and no one is saying a word to me.”
She turned away and looked out into the darkness again. “I’m trying to stay positive, believe me,” she said. “But it’s getting harder every day.”
Derek felt bad for his mom. She didn’t deserve that kind of treatment. Not from the company she’d worked so hard for, and for so long. Not from anybody!
Then he thought about the girl. Avery. He remembered her standing there, all during practice and afterward, all alone… no one saying a word to her…