Coach Haskins was happy to see I’d made the right play. The rest of the team seemed a little deflated. I think they’d seen this before. Dan and I were tied, one to one.
“The last test will be hitting. You’ll each get ten pitches. The one who hits the longest home run wins,” Moose said.
I smelled a rat. Coach Herndon took the mound to warm up. In his prime, he’d been a pitcher in the minor leagues. While he didn’t have the heat anymore, he did have some nasty junk pitches. Dan got to go first. Coach Herndon grooved the first pitch, and Dan jerked it out of the park. The key was he jerked it, so it barely got out. He overswung on every pitch as he tried to kill it. With some work, Dan could be a decent batter. Playing on the JV team would help him for next year.
Dan had seen ten fastballs. My first pitch was a curve that actually hit me.
“Sorry,” Coach Herndon called out.
“Did that even count?” I asked.
“Yep,” Moose said.
Of course it did. The next pitch was also a curve, but Coach Herndon hung it out over the plate. I did as I had been taught and parked it for the win.
Coach Hope stepped up.
“Head to the track. We’re running stairs.”
And so, the first practice began, where they saw who was in shape. Personally, I think they wanted to kill us.
◊◊◊
I was in the shower, letting the hot water do its work on my tired muscles.
“What time are you going to be at the T-Bird?” Wolf asked.
I assumed Zoe had talked.
“7:30. You have to be there before eight, or you can’t get in,” I said.
I’d wanted a get-to-know-you date with Zoe, but she obviously had other plans. When Roc found out we were going on a date, he horned in. He was dating Piper, so it would be fine, or so I thought. Piper’s sister Emma also wanted to go with her boyfriend Neil. I’d taken Roc and Neil aside and explained that I would provide the ride, but they were not sitting with us. Roc almost was told he wasn’t getting a ride when he made a comment about not wanting to hang with old people anyway.
I came out of the locker room and saw that Fritz wasn’t driving.
“Aren’t you getting the door?” I asked.
“No, and you can ride in the front seat,” Paul said.
I was surprised Fritz would allow Paul to take me out after dark. He got into trouble when I got him laid in LA. It’s hard to watch your protection assignment when that’s going on.
“Did Fritz tell you the plans for tonight?” I asked.
“I can hardly wait. He said I was hauling a bunch of teens around. He did say that you had to buy me dinner.”
I knew better. They paid for their own and then billed me. Seeing Paul brought back some good memories of my time in LA.
I heard a pitiful meow in the back. Halle had given him Bandit to bring over. When we stopped at my house so I could change clothes, I introduced Duke to Bandit. I left the two of them so I could get dressed and heard the click of Duke’s toenails as he got rowdy in my living room. I rushed in, afraid I would have to get Halle a new kitten.
Duke had his butt in the air and was bouncing around as Bandit swatted at him. Duke thought it was the most fun ever. Bandit, not so much.
“Gentle,” I commanded Duke.
Duke pounced at Bandit, and Bandit popped him on the nose. I figured they’d work it out. On my way out, I scooped Bandit up and took him to the house. I put Peggy in charge. When I left, she had Little David petting the kitty.
◊◊◊
Paul and I were at the Pearson’s, waiting for Roc and Zoe to get ready. Mr. and Mrs. Pearson were happy that an adult would be with us. I decided not to tell them he was security and not a chaperone.
“I’m thinking about getting a canoe,” Mr. Pearson said.
“Oh, don’t do that. Those things are death traps,” I warned.
“There has to be a story there,” Mrs. Pearson said.
“I guess I should start at the beginning. My dad bought a canoe, thinking it would be fun. At the time he worked at the park district, and they have an annual father-son canoe race. Of course, my dad thought my older brother would be a better partner, so Mom and I had to ‘be supportive,’” I said with air quotes.
“Anyway, that isn’t important to the story,” I said.
“Did they win?” Mr. Pearson asked.
“Yes,” I admitted.
“I think that’s something Roc and I should do,” Mr. Pearson told his wife.
She and I both rolled our eyes at him. In fact, Greg and Dad had had a great time. I was sure Roc would, too.
“So, I don’t understand. How is canoeing dangerous?” Mrs. Pearson asked.
“Remember the flooding we had seven or eight years ago?” I asked, and they both nodded.
“After the rain stopped, my dad thought it would be good family outing to canoe at the park. It was more fun than I had expected. The backstops at the baseball field are about twelve feet high. There was only about a foot of fencing above the water; that should give you some idea of how bad the flooding was.
“We decided to go under the old covered bridge and see what things looked like on the other side. The road was high enough that it was dry, and we saw a group of bicyclists checking out the flooding. We said ‘hi’ and tried to go under the bridge, but the water was too high.
“We turned around. Dad wanted to check out another part of the park. Across the river is a wooded area that then opens out into farmland. What we didn’t know was the path of the river had changed with the flooding. Suddenly our canoe was caught in the current, and we shot into the woods.
“Mom started to scream, which frightened me. I think we went from zero to sixty in under a second. We were banging into trees, and I was sure we were dead. That was when my worst nightmare happened: the nose of the canoe hit a massive oak tree square-on. Greg face-planted into the tree. If he hadn’t, he would have been in the water and, I suspect, dead.
“The back end of the canoe swung around and hit another tree. Luckily, Dad was thinking and tilted the canoe to keep the roiling water from swamping us. Mom and I ended up in a pile on the bottom. She decided we might all need to put on our life jackets,” I said and shook my head sadly.
“I know, we probably should have had them on already, but we were all good swimmers. We never imagined we would be caught in the Boiling Caldron of Doom,” I said, and then smiled as Zoe came down the stairs. “Hi.”
“David, what happened next?” Paul asked.
I looked at the three adults, and they were on the edge of their seats.
“Where was I?” I asked.
“Boiling Caldron of Doom,” Mrs. Pearson prompted.
“So, Mom and I are on the floor of the canoe, putting on life jackets. Turns out there were three children’s lifejackets and one adult. I will always remember the look of terror on my mom’s face with a kiddie lifejacket barely covering her neck. If she fell into the water, I guess it might have brought her corpse to the surface,” I said with a big grin.
“David, that’s terrible,” Mrs. Pearson said.
“Hey, at least I can laugh about it now,” I said and then continued the story. “Greg decided to save himself. He started to climb into the oak tree, to hell with the rest of us. Mom told him to get his butt back into the boat. Dad talked him down and convinced him to push the canoe back so the nose wasn’t lodged against the tree.