Sliding into Home (5 page)

That wasn’t her first choice, but it looked like Ryan had already claimed first base for himself.

“Sure,” Joelle said. She couldn’t afford to be picky right now. At least she was getting to play.

She didn’t get much opportunity to show anyone what she could do during the first inning. Whenever the ball came anywhere near her, the guy playing second ran in front of her yelling, “I got it! I got it!”

That really ticked Joelle off. The guy was all elbows and knees. He reminded her of those droids in
Star Wars
that had to unroll themselves before they could attack. Only this guy never got himself unrolled in time to get the ball.

“Hey, excuse me,” Joelle said after the third time he lunged in front of her. “I thought I was playing third.”

“Well, uh …” The boy just looked at her with a clueless expression on his face.

Joelle glared at him. “You thought I’d miss?”

“Come on, you guys. Let’s just play,” the pitcher called. When he adjusted his cap, Joelle recognized him as the Hawks
pitcher. “Hughes, play your own position,” he added. “And you—” he pointed to Joelle and hesitated.

What? Had he forgotten her name already?

“Just catch the ball when it comes to you, okay?” the pitcher finished.

Duh
, Joelle thought. “Thanks,” she said sarcastically. “I’ll try.”

Unfortunately, the ball didn’t come her way for the rest of that inning.

When it was Joelle’s turn at bat, the guys actually moved in for her. That was totally annoying. But if she got the right pitch, they’d regret it.

“Come on, Joelle!” One of her teammates clapped.

“Hey, look. She’s a lefty!” the other pitcher said to his teammates when she took her position. But he didn’t sound too worried.

Joelle adjusted her footing and her grip. She let the first pitch go by. One strike. She squared up again. All she needed was a high fastball.

And that was exactly what she got.

Crack!
The ball sailed over all the outfielders’ heads.

Behind her, Joelle heard Ryan give a low whistle under his breath.

The pitcher took off his cap and watched as the ball fell to the ground over by the playground swings.

Joelle grinned as she dropped the bat and started around the bases. Two guys took off after the ball, but there was no doubt she would make it all the way home.

“All right!” Ryan and the rest of her teammates applauded when she crossed the plate.

“Not bad.” A guy with glasses slapped her on the back. He sounded totally surprised.

“Thanks,” Joelle replied coolly.

As the morning went on, Joelle got three more hits—a single, a double, and another home run. And Hughes even gave her a chance to field now and then. She didn’t get every ball that came her way, but she did all right. By the time the game broke up, some of the guys were almost treating her like one of them.

“Too bad she can’t play with the Hawks,” Joelle heard the guy with the glasses say to Hughes as they gathered up bats, ball, and gloves. “We could use a few power hitters.”

Excellent!
Joelle thought. She tossed the glove back to the guy who’d lent it to her. “Maybe you should tell your coach that,” she said with a glance at Ryan. He was busy zipping up his equipment bag.

“I don’t know,” another boy said as he wiped his forehead on the bottom of his shirt. “It might be kind of weird having a girl on the team. I mean, what about the locker room?”

Several of the other Hawks snickered and started to pick up their bikes.

“At my old school, I used the girls’ locker room,” Joelle said, shrugging. “It was no big deal.”

“Yeah, but there’s a lot of important stuff that goes on in a locker room. Team building stuff,” Hughes said. “You’d miss all that.”

“Hey, I’ve hung out with guys all my life,” Joelle said. “And I’ve always been a team player.”

“Well, you can hang with us here,” Hughes said as he
swung his leg over the back of his bike. “But at school, forget it, okay?”

Joelle just sighed. This was totally hopeless.

“Ready to go, Carlyle?” another boy said over his shoulder.

“I’m heading the other way today,” Ryan replied. “Go on without me.”

“Okay.” His friend shrugged. “Later, then.” He pedaled off with the rest of the guys.

Ryan walked his bike over to Joelle. “So do you live around here?” he asked.

Joelle blinked in surprise. “I live on Morgan Road.”

Ryan nodded. “We’re on Hodges.”

Joelle had no idea where Hodges was. But it must have been near Morgan because Ryan started walking his bike beside her.

It was kind of strange, really. Joelle tried to seem casual, but she wasn’t sure how to act around Ryan. Was it because Ryan seemed to like her? Or because his dad coached the Hawks?

Either way, she felt totally nervous.

Ryan didn’t seem all that comfortable either.
So why is he walking with me, then?
Joelle wondered.

When they walked up the hill toward Morgan Road, Ryan said finally, “Just for the record, I think my dad should let you play.”

“Really?” Joelle glanced sideways at him.

“I told him I thought so, too.”

“You did?” That was before he had even seen her play.

“Yeah. It didn’t do any good, though,” Ryan said, kicking at a stick. “My dad’s kind of …”

Sexist?
Joelle offered silently.

“I don’t know … kind of set in his ways, I guess,” Ryan went on. “He’s really big on rules, too. But I think that deal about girls playing softball and boys playing baseball is stupid.”

Joelle raised her eyebrows. “You do?”

Ryan just nodded.

Hmm
, Joelle thought.
Ryan Carlyle isn’t anything like his dad.

They stopped at the corner. “I go this way now,” Ryan said, pointing toward the other street. He adjusted the visor of his cap and added, “We play ball at the park pretty much every Saturday. You can come next week if you want.”

“Okay,” Joelle said as Ryan hopped onto his bike and took off. “Thanks.”

She just might show up.

J
oelle was dreading her clarinet audition during study hall on Tuesday. Chair tryouts included both scales and sight-reading, the same as in Minneapolis.

She never minded the sight-reading part. It was the scales that always killed her. Probably because she never practiced. “That was fine, Joelle,” Mr. Corcoran said after she played her A-flat scale. “Let’s do the chromatic scale now.”

Joelle took a big breath, then started to play. The first few notes usually gave her trouble, but today her pinky rolled right over the keys. She continued on up into the middle register, slowing down when she reached the upper range. Her high notes were pretty screechy, but at least she’d hit them. She snuck in another breath, then started back down.

Mr. Corcoran wrote something on his clipboard. “Okay, good,” he said when she reached the end.

Good? Joelle wouldn’t have gone that far. But Mr. Corcoran was that kind of teacher. He reminded Joelle of her coach back in Minneapolis. Coach Perry made everyone feel good, whether they were decent players or not.

“So, now that you’ve been here a couple weeks, how are you settling in at Hoover?” Mr. Corcoran asked as Joelle swabbed out her clarinet.

“I’m doing fine, thanks,” Joelle told him.

“It’s tough coming in during the middle of the year,” Mr. Corcoran went on. “But sometimes it helps if you can get involved in extracurricular activities right away.”

Joelle just nodded as she jammed the clarinet pieces into her case. That was exactly what she was trying to do. Get involved in an extracurricular activity.
Baseball.

“Hey, Joelle.” Ryan came into the band room with the next group of kids as she was going out. “How’d the audition go?”

“Okay, I guess. I’m not exactly a first-chair player,” she said under her breath.

Ryan grinned. “Me neither. Hey, are you coming to our game this afternoon?”

“I thought it was an away game,” Joelle said. Did Ryan want her to go?

“Well, yeah, but it’s only in Fairmont,” Ryan said. “And those guys aren’t very good. We might actually win.”

“You think you can beat them on their own field?”

Ryan shrugged. “Like I said, they aren’t very good.”

It used to be that Joelle could get Jason to drive her when she wanted to go somewhere. But her brother wasn’t around anymore. And her parents would be at work all afternoon. “Sorry, I don’t think I can,” Joelle said. “I don’t have a ride.”

Ryan looked disappointed. “Too bad,” he said. “It’ll be sort of weird not having you there.”

“It will?” Joelle asked.

“Sure. You’re always up there in the stands, watching, you know? Everybody sees you, but nobody says anything.”

Joelle wasn’t sure how to answer that.

“Actually, we’re not supposed to talk about you,” Ryan went on. “My dad says we should just pretend you’re not there.”

Joelle shifted her books from one arm to the other. So Coach Carlyle had at least noticed her. “Does your dad ever say anything good about me?”

Ryan thought for a minute. “Well, he did say once that he admired your determination.”

Joelle felt a tiny stab of hope. That was
something
, anyway. “But he doesn’t admire my determination enough to let me play.”

“Not yet,” Ryan admitted as Mr. Corcoran waved him into the band room.

Not yet?
Joelle thought. Maybe there was hope.

The next morning, Joelle returned from her run to find her dad reading the
Gazette
at the kitchen table. He looked up with a smile and handed her the folded-back page. “They didn’t change a word you wrote,” he said.

They’d finally printed her letter! Joelle excitedly scanned the whole thing. “Nope, they didn’t,” she said. Wow. Her words looked important in print. She turned to her dad. “Do
you think this will make a difference? Will it help get the district policy changed?”

“I don’t know,” her dad said as he rinsed his coffee cup in the sink. “If enough people agree with you and they’re vocal about it, maybe.”

Joelle didn’t see how anyone could not agree with her. It seemed like a sure thing.

When she got to school, she was surprised to find out that a lot of kids had seen her letter. Or at least they’d heard about it.

She could almost feel a group of girls staring at her as she spun the combination on her locker.

“That’s the baseball girl,” one of them said in a low voice. “The one who wrote that letter in the paper.”

Joelle couldn’t tell whether the girl had liked her letter or hated it.

“Can you believe she sits in the bleachers and watches the baseball team practice every single day?” another girl said.

“I know!” said a third. “She’s so weird!”

Joelle’s cheeks burned.
I am not
, she thought as she buried her head in her locker and gathered the books she needed for the morning.
I just want to play baseball. What’s so weird about that?

Kailey, the girl who sat next to her in band, peered around Joelle’s locker door. “Hey,” she said. “That was an awesome letter you wrote to the
Gazette.
I’m impressed.”

Joelle breathed a sigh of relief. At least
somebody
thought it was okay.

“You really should join the
Echo
, Joelle,” Kailey added. “We
don’t have that many good writers. You could write sports articles, features, whatever you want. What do you say?”

Joelle closed her locker. “Thanks a lot, Kailey, but I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” Kailey fell into step beside her. “You’re a great writer. And we have tons of fun. Sometimes the whole staff stays late on Friday nights to put the paper to bed. We order pizza and hang out. It’s—”

“Kailey?” Joelle smiled and put up a hand. “I’m sorry, I really am, but I’m just not interested right now.”

“Joelle?” a boy behind her said.

She turned to see Ryan standing near another group of lockers. He was scratching his ear, looking nervous. “Uh, can I talk to you for a minute?” he asked.

Something in his voice made Joelle feel nervous, too.

“I’ll catch up with you later, okay?” Joelle told Kailey.

“Whatever. See you in band.” Kailey shrugged and continued down the hall.

Joelle walked over to Ryan. “Hey, what’s up?” she said. “Did you guys win yesterday?”

“No. We lost 2–6.”

“Too bad.”

“Yeah.” Ryan seemed to be looking everywhere except at her. “Listen, I was wondering whether you were planning to watch us practice after school today.”

“Sure,” Joelle answered. “I guess so.”
He really
does
like me
, she thought.

Ryan scratched his ear again. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Joelle.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, feeling her face flush.

“Well, my dad’s sort of mad about that letter you wrote to the paper. He thinks you made him sound sexist.”

So?
Joelle thought.
He is sexist.
But she didn’t say anything.

“Look, it might be better if … well, if you didn’t show up for a couple days,” Ryan said. “Give my dad a chance to calm down.”

Joelle didn’t answer.
She
was the one who’d been wronged here. And now she was supposed to stay away from the baseball field because Coach Carlyle was upset?

“I don’t know why you had to go and do something like that, anyway,” Ryan muttered. He seemed to be talking to his feet. “Most of the guys thought you were pretty cool on Saturday. But then you had to go and write that dumb letter and—well, maybe you’re not much of a team player after all.”

“
I’m
not a team player?” Joelle cried, her voice rising. Several kids stared as they passed in the hall. “Wait a minute. First of all, I wrote that letter way before Saturday. It just took the
Gazette
a long time to print it. Second, I’m not actually
on
the team, remember? That’s what my whole letter was about!”

Ryan looked at his tennis shoes again. “You made it sound like my dad blew you off just because you’re a girl.”

Joelle almost burst out laughing. Wasn’t that exactly what Coach Carlyle
had
done? “Come on, Ryan. You know as well as I do, your dad doesn’t want any girls on his team.”

“If you’d just hung on a bit, I might’ve been able to change his mind,” Ryan said. “But you made him look bad and now he never will.”

“I didn’t make him look bad,” Joelle argued. “All I did was
tell the truth. Besides, I don’t need you fighting my battles for me.” She didn’t need
anyone
fighting her battles for her.

Ryan’s eyes went cold. “Fine. Work it out yourself, then. But my dad’ll never let you play for the Hawks now. You can bet on that.” He turned his back on Joelle and quickly disappeared into the crowd of passing students.

Joelle stared after him.
If I get that district policy changed
, she thought,
your dad won’t have much choice.

Ryan Carlyle could bet on that.

Later that morning, Joelle still couldn’t push Ryan’s words out of her mind. She was having trouble focusing in social studies class.

“Now that most of you have completed your courtroom procedure packets,” Mr. Hawkings was saying, “we’ll move to the next phase of our unit, the mock trial.”

Some kids looked interested. A few of them groaned.

“We’re going to try a case right here in class,” the teacher went on. “Each of you will have a role to play. We’ll need a prosecuting attorney, a defense attorney, a plaintiff—these terms should be familiar to you if you’ve completed your packet. Who remembers what a plaintiff is?”

Several hands shot up.

“Travis?”

“The plaintiff is the person who’s been wronged.”

“Not necessarily.” Mr. Hawkings leaned against the chalkboard. “The plaintiff files the lawsuit, but either party can be
awarded damages.” He began to walk around the room. “Our attorneys will decide which witnesses they need and they’ll ask some of you to play those roles,” he went on. “We’ll have a week or so for the attorneys to build their cases and prepare witnesses. Then we’ll have the trial. Those of you who don’t have other roles will serve as jurors.”

Ryan raised his hand. “Who’s going to be the judge?”

“I am, of course,” Mr. Hawkings replied with a smile. “Any other questions?”

“What’s the trial going to be about?”

“How about whether a girl should be allowed to play baseball?” a kid called out from the back.

“Yeah!” a few other voices chorused.

Joelle slid down in her seat. The last thing she wanted was to be held up as some classroom example.

“No, I’ve got something else in mind,” Mr. Hawkings said. “You all know the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” He pulled a large rag doll out from behind his desk and held her up. “Say hello to our defendant, Goldilocks.”

“
That’s
our trial?” one boy asked.

“Totally lame!” the kid next to him agreed.

“Just listen.” Mr. Hawkings leaned the rag doll against a row of books on his desk. “Goldilocks has been accused of burglary, assault, and destruction of property. If convicted, she faces up to twenty years in prison.”

“Well, obviously she’s guilty,” Brooke spoke up. “She broke into the bears’ house, stole their food, destroyed a chair, and slept in one of their beds.”

“Yeah, lock Goldilocks up!” a guy near the window said.

Joelle turned and frowned at him. “You’d put Goldilocks in jail?”

The guy’s black T-shirt was so faded that Joelle couldn’t even tell which band’s name had been plastered across the front. His feet rested on the empty chair in front of him. “You do the crime, you do the time,” he said with a shrug.

“But she’s Goldilocks!” Joelle protested. “She’s a children’s book heroine.”

“So? She broke the law!” Brooke insisted.

Joelle sighed. People in this town were so narrow-minded. Goldilocks should go to jail. Joelle shouldn’t play baseball. Did they only see things in black and white?

“What would you do if you were lost in the woods for three days, and didn’t have anything to eat or drink—” Joelle began.

“I’d knock,” Brooke answered. “I wouldn’t just barge in.”

“What if no one came to the door?”

“I’d wait for someone to come home.”

“Well, what if they didn’t come home? How long would you wait?” Joelle shot back.

“I’m just saying, there are
rules
,” Brooke said. “If people don’t follow the rules, then society can’t function. Isn’t that right, Mr. Hawkings?”

“Oh no.” Mr. Hawkings held up his hands. “This is your argument, not mine. But you’re both doing great so far. Brooke, maybe you should play the prosecuting attorney. And Joelle, why don’t you be our defense lawyer?”

“That’s so perfect,” Joelle heard someone behind her mutter. “She’s just like Goldilocks. She doesn’t care about
rules.
”

Joelle forced herself not to turn around.

She really, really hated this town!

After school Joelle headed toward the baseball field as usual.

Ryan had warned her not to come. But part of her wanted to go anyway, just to prove a point. Nobody could keep Joelle Cunningham down.

Nobody.

But before she was halfway to the field, Joelle changed her mind.
Maybe it would be better to lie low for a while
, she told herself.
Let everyone cool down a little. See what happens with my letter.

It was hard to do, but Joelle finally turned around and walked back past the softball field.

The girls were practicing on the diamond. From a distance, the drills looked pretty similar to baseball drills. Hitting, running, catching. Joelle stopped to watch. But it just wasn’t the same. Elizabeth waved when she spotted her. Joelle waved back.

“Hey, Joelle!” Katie called. Katie was a tiny girl from her social studies class who didn’t even come up to Joelle’s chin. “Are you playing?”

Several other players, including Brooke, quit in the middle of a relay drill and looked curiously at Joelle. Even Ms. Fenner glanced her way.

“No,” Joelle called back. “Sorry.” She quickly started walking again. Just because she was giving the baseball team a little
space didn’t mean she was joining the softball team. Besides, she had to start planning Goldilocks’s defense.