No Arm in Left Field Read Free Page A

“But we’ve planned to go out for dinner.”
    “Skip the dinner,” Mick suggested, smiling. “You can’t always see a World Series movie.”
    Terry shrugged. “Okay. I’m sure my dad will take us out for dinner again sometime!”
    Terry saw a scornful look come over Tony’s face.
Can you beat that?
hethought.
He even resents my going to see a World Series movie with the team!
    Their eyes locked. Then Tony looked away, tapped a couple of his friends on their shoulders, and walked off with them.
    “Ready to go?” Terry asked Mick, hoping nobody could hear his pounding heart.
    Mick glanced at the three boys leaving. “Let’s wait a minute,” he said.
    “Why? For Tony and those guys to get way ahead of us?” Terry grinned. “If I don’t mind them, why should you?”
    Mick’s eyebrows pulled together above the bridge of his nose. “You mean it doesn’t bother you, the way he looked at you and
     all that”
    “I’ve met guys like Tony before, Mick,” Terry said. “I’ll always keep meeting guyslike him. My father says that’ll be something I’ll have to live with the rest of my life, and as far as I can see I’m not
     the one with a problem. Tony is.”
    “But doesn’t it
hurt?”
    “Sure it hurts. But not as much as it used to.” He chuckled. “At least, he hasn’t called me any dirty names yet — and if he
     knows what’s good for him, he better not.”
    Mick laughed and socked Terry lightly on the shoulder. “Come on,” he said, and they started off the field. “You know, Terry,
     I can’t see why any guy — black or white — can’t like you. You know what I’d probably do if I were in your place?”
    “What?” Terry asked.
    “I’d, well, I’d…”
    Mick looked at Terry, a vacant expression in his eyes.
    “You’d what, Mick?”
    Mick inhaled deeply, then breathed out a sigh. “Darn it, Terry, I don’t know what I’d do,” he admitted.
    They walked the rest of the way home in silence, and when Terry told his parents that he wanted to go to the World Series
     movie instead of to dinner with them, his father didn’t blame him.
    “We can all have dinner together anytime,” he said. “But a World Series movie isn’t shown very often.”
    The next evening the Delaneys left at 6:30, with Terry waiting in the living room for the telephone call. Twice he almost
     dozed off. The clock on the mantle said 7:00, then 7:15, then 7:30. Still the phone didn’t ring.
    Had he been forgotten? He tried phoning Mick, but no one answered.
    7:45… 8:00…
    Suddenly the phone rang. Terry leaped out of the chair and grabbed the receiver. “Yes?” he said excitedly.
    “Hello. This is Mrs. Williams of the Great Books Club,” said a warm, soothing voice. “Is Mrs. Delaney there?”
    Terry’s heart sank. “No, she isn’t,” he answered politely. “Can I take a message?”
    “No,” the woman said. “I’ll call again tomorrow. Thank you.”
    The phone clicked. Terry hung up and went back to the chair, dejected. He should have gone to the dinner, he thought, instead
     of sitting here like a bump on a log.
    He picked up a magazine and was reading it when his parents and Conniereturned from dinner. They stared sur-prisedly at him.
    “What happened?” his father asked. “Was the movie canceled?”
    “Nobody called.” Terry said cheerlessly.
    “I’m so sorry,” Mrs. Delaney said. “I guess you should have come with us after all.”
    He went back to his reading, and was only half concentrating on the story when the phone rang again. Quickly he dropped the
     magazine and went to answer it.
    “Hello?”
    “Terry, this is Mick.”
    “Yes, Mick?”
    “Too bad you missed the World Series movie. It was great!”
    Terry’s hand froze on the receiver. Hestared at the clock on the wall. Ten after nine!

    “Nobody called me,” he said huskily.
    “Didn’t Tony call you?”
    “
Tony?
Was
he
supposed to call me?”
    “Yes! He told me you weren’t going. He said that you decided to