Keeping Score Read Free Page B

look like an idiot standing here and—and posing—and no camera...."
    Treecie lowered her hands from her face. "You're a photographer's model," she said earnestly. "It doesn't matter what
you
look like—it's
the shot
that matters."
    "So you're saying that I
do
look like an idiot?"
    Treecie put her hands on her hips. "No, I did not
say that. Did you hear me say that? Did you hear me say, 'Maggie Fortini, you look like an idiot'?"
    Maggie laughed; she couldn't help it. Treecie looked relieved that Maggie wasn't mad anymore. "I won't make you stay there for long, promise," Treecie said. She put the "square" up to her face again, and with a sigh, Maggie went back to posing.
    The results: Zero photos, but one bruise on her head, one scratch under her chin, and one mosquito bite.
    Not that she was counting.

    Treecie was lucky, Maggie thought, to be so sure about what she wanted to be when she grew up. Maggie didn't know yet, and she worried about it. She tried on different ideas. Working in a shop, maybe. "Because you get to meet people, and I could listen to the games while I'm working," Maggie explained.
    "But you'd never get to see anything new," Treecie objected. "Just the same stuff every day. That would get boring."
    Another time Maggie had proposed becoming a nurse. Treecie's mom was a nurse, and so was Maggie's aunt Maria in Canada. Treecie had replied, "No. Not a nurse. A doctor. Wait, I know—a surgeon. And I'll take pictures of your operations."
    "Maybe," Maggie said. It sounded kind of gruesome, but Treecie's ideas were always interesting, that was for sure.
    Both of Treecie's parents worked, which meant that every year when school ended, she and her two
younger sisters went to Long Island for the summer, to stay on the farm owned by their uncle. Maggie had spent a wonderful week there two years ago, the only time she had ever been away from home on her own.
    A few days after the photo session in the park, Treecie left for Long Island. Maggie was used to it now, the summers without Treecie, but being used to it didn't mean she
liked
it. She always missed Treecie terribly, especially during the first couple of weeks. Sometimes Maggie played with other kids on the block: hopscotch, jumping rope, the playgrounds in Prospect Park during the day, and after supper a regular game of kick the can. But when Treecie was away, Maggie's best friends were the radio and the guys at the firehouse.
    And Charky. Of course.

    It was so hot that a ragged band of sweat was already darkening Joey-Mick's cap as he left the house for baseball practice. Every inch of Maggie's clothes seemed stuck to her. The Dodgers had a day off, and the July afternoon would feel even longer and hotter without a game to listen to. Maggie knew that the players needed their rest, but she was counting the hours until the game started tomorrow.
    Joey-Mick was in his first season in a real league. Not stickball on the street but games on the diamonds in Prospect Park—a regular schedule, a manager, an umpire. Just like in the major leagues.
    Uniforms, too. When Joey-Mick first put his on, Maggie thought it looked like pajamas, all baggy in the
shirt and floppy in the legs. But then she saw the rest of the team at their first game, and Joey-Mick's uniform fit better than almost anyone else's. He was one of the tallest boys on the team.
    Joey-Mick played second base, same as his favorite player, Jackie Robinson. And if he got to first when he was at bat, he would move around on the base path—hopping, prancing, faking a steal—just like Jackie.
    Last season, when Maggie first started listening to the Dodger broadcasts
—really
listening to them, paying attention, learning the game—she decided that Jackie Robinson was her favorite player, too.
    Not
because she was a copycat. Or because he was the first-ever Negro in the league, which everyone knew was a big deal. So big that even though Dad was a Yankees fan, he was a Jackie