Maniac Magee Read Free

table was big enough to seat them all, and that's what they ate around. Dinner was spaghetti. In fact, every third night dinner was spaghetti.
    When dinner was over and they were all bringing their dirty dishes to the kitchen, Dominic Pickwell said to Duke Pickwell, "Who's that kid?"
    "What kid?" said Duke.
    "The kid next to you at the table."
    "I don't know. I thought Donald knew him."
    "I don't know him," said Donald. "I thought Dion knew him."
    "Never saw him," said Dion. "I figured he was Deirdre's new boyfriend."
    Deirdre kicked Dion in the shins. Duke checked back in the dining room. "He's gone!"
    The Pickwell kids dashed out the back door to the top of Rako Hill. They scanned the railroad tracks. There he was, passing Red Hill, a book in his hand. He was running, passing the spear field now, and the Pickwell kids had to blink and squint and shade their eyes to make sure they were seeing right --- because the kid wasn't running the cinders alongside the tracks, or the wooden ties. No, he was running --- running --- where the Pickwells themselves, where every other kid, had only ever walked --- on the steel rail itself!
     
    *¤* nihua *¤*

 
     
    Chapter 7
 
    When Jeffrey Magee was next spotted, it was at the Little League field in the park. A Little League game had just ended. The Red Sox had won, but the big story was John McNab, who struck out sixteen batters to set a new Two Mills L.L. record.
    McNab was a giant. He stood five feet eight and was said to weigh over a hundred and seventy pounds. He had to bring his birth certificate in to the League director to prove he was only twelve. And still most people didn't believe it.
    The point is, the rest of the league was no match for McNab. It wouldn't have been so bad if he'd been a right-fielder, but he was a pitcher. And there was only one pitch he ever threw: a fastball.
    Most of the batters never saw it; they just heard it whizzing past their noses. You could see their knees shaking from the stands. One poor kid stood there long enough to hear strike one go past, then threw up all over home plate.
    It was still pretty light out, because when there are a lot of strikeouts, a game goes fast. And McNab was still on the mound, even though the official game was over. He figured he'd made baseball history, and he wanted to stretch it out as long as he could.
    There were still about ten players around, Red Soxers and Green Soxers, and McNab was making them march up to the plate and take their swings. There was no catcher. The ball just zoomed to the backstop. When a kid struck out, he went back to the end of line.
    McNab was loving it. After each whiff, he laughed and bellowed the strikeout total. "Twenty-six!... Twenty-seven!... Twenty-eight!..." He was like a shark. He had the blood lust. The victims were hunched and trembling, walking the gangplank. "Thirty-four!... Thirty-five!..."
    And then somebody new stepped up to the plate. Just a punky, runty little kid, no Red Sox or Green Sox uniform. Kind of scraggly. With a book, which he laid down on home plate. He scratched out a footing in the batter's box, cocked the bat on his shoulder, and stared at McNab.
    McNab croaked from the mound, "Get outta there, runt. This is a Little League record. You ain't in Little League."
    The kid walked away. Was he chickening out? No. He was lifting a red cap from the next batter in line He put it on. He was back in the box.
    McNab almost fell off the mound, he was laughing so hard. "Okay, runt. Number thirty-six coming up."
    McNab fired. The kid swung. The batters in line automatically turned their eyes to the backstop, where the ball should be --- but it wasn't there. It was in the air, riding on a beeline right out to McNab's head, the same line it came in on, only faster. McNab froze, then flinched, just in time. The ball missed his head but nipped the bill of his cap and sent it spinning like a flying saucer out to shortstop. The ball landed in the second-base dust and rolled