Wall Ball Read Free Page A

andstealing bases. All that good stuff.
    “I wish you boys would be more careful,” Mom said between bites. Mom could be like that. Saying things out of the blue. I guess all moms could.
    “Huh?” I said. My mind was still on baseball.
    “Gasser’s very lucky,” Mom said.
    “What’s so lucky about a broken leg?” I asked. “Besides ice cream and comic books?”
    “I mean, he could have been hurt even worse than he was, Banjie. He’s fortunate the only thing he’s missing is the baseball season.”
    “If we ever have a baseball season.” I sighed.

CHAPTER 4
    A fter breakfast I cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher. Juice glasses went into the top rack, plates went into the bottom rack, and scraps of food went into Mr. Bones’s dinner bowl.
    He licked my face gratefully, then bounded over to chow down.
    He was still eating when the phone rang. I dried my hands on my shirt and picked up the receiver.
    “Hello?”
    “Walloper,” said the caller eagerly. “Are you ready for some baseball?”
    It was Lou “Skip-to-My-Lou” Clementine,manager of the Rambletown Rounders baseball team.
    Before I could answer, he said, “Good! I knew you would be. Today’s the day. We’re finally going to have our first practice!”
    “Um, Skip,” I said, “are you near a window?”
    “Sure. Why?”
    “Take a look outside. There’s ten feet of snow on the ground and more falling.”
    “I know it,” he said cheerfully. “What a winter!”
    “Skip, how in the world can we practice baseball in all that snow?”
    “We’ll figure out something,” he said. “The fact of the matter is, we’ve got no choice. The league office just called. You know we’re scheduled to take on big, mean Hog City next Saturday in the season opener! The game has already been put off more times than a secondhand coat. The league is not going to postpone it any longer. One way or another, we’re goingto play ball.”
    “But Skip,” I protested, “we’ll be lumbering around out there like polar bears. Have you ever seen polar bears play baseball?”
    “Well, as a matter of fact, I haven’t. I saw a regular black bear ride a unicycle one time, but I’ve never seen any kind of bear play baseball.”
    “Exactly,” I said. “Because they can’t.”
    “Enough about bears,” said Skip Lou. “We should be thinking about the Haymakers.”
    “What’s the difference, Skip?” I asked. Our archrivals are as big as grizzlies. Some of them are just as hairy, too.
    Skip said something in reply, but I missed it. I was too busy thinking about the Haymakers. It is very unusual to see a bunch of sixth graders with full beards and mustaches. But the Haymakers are anything but ordinary. They are the biggest, meanest, scruffiest collection of players I’d ever seen. And they are good.
    Really good.
    Of course, we were no slouches either. Wewere the reigning champs, after all.
    “We need to practice,” Skip said.
    “No kidding,” I answered. “I feel like a beat-up old car. That’s how rusty I am.”
    “I hear the Haymakers have been going at it for a month,” Skip said. “They’re so eager to win back the pennant, they went through spring training in snowshoes.”
    “We’ve got a lot of catching up to do,” I said.
    “One o’clock sharp,” Skip said.
    “I’ll be there,” I promised.
    “One other thing,” Skip said before hanging up.
    “What’s that?”
    “Bring a shovel. Bring two if you’ve got them.”
     
    Later that day, I put on my Inuit parka and my ski hat and my down-filled mittens and laced up my mukluks. Then I bundled Mr. Bones into his silly doggy coat.
    “You’ve got a perfectly fine, natural coatof thick fur,” I pointed out as I zipped him up. “Why in the world you’d ever want to cover it with this plaid monstrosity, I’ll never know.”
    I grabbed a snow shovel off the front porch, and we trudged across Rambletown to the ball field. It was like walking through Santa’s village. Snowdrifts