Grand Slam Read online

  “Hot sauce” was Daniel’s favorite way of saying, “Wow! Look what just happened,” or a substitute for words he probably shouldn’t be saying. It sounded funny coming from Gertzy.

  “Hot sauce for sure.”

  Gertzy tapped his can against Jalen’s, giving him a smile and a wink. “You should come back to the zone with me and Daniel and Fanny.”

  “Cool,” Jalen replied.

  Gertzy headed for the back of the bus. Fanny was the team’s redheaded, brick-built catcher. His real name was Justin Fanwell, but he was Fanny to his friends, and they had fun with the name.

  Jalen already knew, like everyone, that the last four seats in the bus—next to the bathroom—were Gertzy’s “zone.” He sat in the far back row with Fanny in front of him. Anyone who wanted to use the bathroom had to pay a toll to Fanny, a toll he claimed was to keep Gertzy from leaving for one of the big national travel teams. It wasn’t a serious thing. Sometimes candy or a bag of chips or a dime or a quarter was surrendered. Once, Jalen had heard, Frankie Ortez got by with a bottle cap.

  Guys also came back to get in the zone to be part of the action. Gertzy’s “guests” got to kneel on a seat or stand in the rows facing him and Fanny. Jalen stopped in the aisle next to where Daniel knelt on the seat, like Damon LaClair and Charlie Kimber across the aisle.

  “Jalen,” Gertzy said. “Back here and sit your fanny right down.”

  “Fanny is already sitting down,” said the big guy, never looking up from a ham sandwich he was devouring.

  The other guys began chirping all at once.

  “You can’t argue with a redheaded fanny.”

  “Hey, keep your eyes off my fanny.”

  “That’s my fanny you’re talking about.”

  “Is that what smells?” Gunner Petty called, walking up the aisle. “I thought it was the toilet, but it must be my fanny.”

  Everyone laughed.

  Gertzy scooted in and made room for Jalen to sit down, patting the seat. Jalen blushed at the special attention.

  “Thanks, bruh.” Jalen raised the can he was still carrying and took a swig.

  Gertzy just looked at him, smiling. “You said that before, my friend. But, now I’m thanking you. You’re the one who helped me get on base with that baseball genius stuff. Then you blasted a homer for the win.”

  “Oh, that genius stuff is just a joke. I can’t really predict pitches,” Jalen said, loud enough for all to hear. “I mean, I don’t have the force.” If anyone from the media asked his teammates about the “Squid Kid” YouTube video, he wanted them to think it was a fake.

  Gertzy’s smile widened. “You can’t fool me. I saw you do it. You told me every pitch. Even Coach said it was the real deal.”

  “It was part luck and part me knowing Chris so well.”

  Gertzy nodded and waited until Daniel and Fanny began to chat before he lowered his voice. “Okay, I get it. You don’t want everyone pestering you, but you’ll still help me, right?”

  If Jalen made an exception, then he knew he’d worry about things slipping out.

  “Oh, come on, Jalen. Baseball is my life.”

  Jalen knew he should say no.

  Jalen wanted to say no.

  But instead, he said, “Okay.”

  6

  “HA-HA!” GERTZY CLAPPED JALEN’S SHOULDER and spoke so no one else could hear. “We are gonna have some kind of summer, you and me.”

  “Yeah.” Jalen wondered if Gertzy could keep a secret. He was a really nice guy, Gertzy. On their very first day with the team, he’d reached out to make Jalen and Daniel comfortable as the new kids, and because he was the team’s star player, the rest of the guys followed along. “I hope Charlie is gonna be okay.”

  Gertzy stopped smiling. “Dude, you gotta stop worrying about that kind of stuff, right now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  They were interrupted when Fanny’s face appeared over the back of the seat. “Got a customer. I’m looking at a pack of Twizzlers, only a couple of ’em gone.”

  “That’ll work,” Gertzy said.

  “Knew you’d go for them.” Gunner, the team’s first baseman, was heading into the bathroom. He was a cheerful kid with wavy brown hair that covered his ears, brown eyes, and an easy, lopsided smile. When he emerged, he said, “Hey, nice game, Gertzy. Nice dinger, Jalen. That pitcher had a bazooka.”

  “Thanks, Gunner,” Gertzy said. “Sweet stretch on that double play in the second.”

  Fanny, Gertzy, and Gunner bumped knuckles, and Gunner gave them a final nod before loping back to his seat. Fanny tore off two ropes of licorice, popped one in either side of his mouth, and handed the remainder to Gertzy. Gertzy tore it apart and gave half to Jalen.

  “This is what I mean.” Gertzy held up a wiggly strand of licorice before taking a bite. “Humans like hierarchy. Look at the queen of England, loved by the world. CEOs are paid millions of dollars. No one blinks. Why? People like order, and they like whoever the top dog is to act like the top dog. Not being mean or anything, but just enjoying it without worrying.”

  Jalen chomped on his licorice like he understood. “I know what you mean.”

  “Yeah, and even guys like Daniel come around when they realize that’s just how things go.”

  “What’s ‘guys like Daniel’?” Jalen’s stomach tightened.

  “Proud. Stubborn.” Gertzy shrugged. “Nothing bad, but he’s used to being on an even footing with you, and—no offense—he’s really not.”

  “We’re all one team,” Jalen protested.

  “Yeah. That’s important, but we all know who’s got juice and who doesn’t. This is a competitive travel team. Like Coach Allen says, you gotta check your feelings at the door.”

  Jalen couldn’t imagine that Gertzy’s words would sit well with Daniel. He peeked up over the seat and was relieved to see Daniel playing some game on his phone, as usual.

  “It can change, too, you know. Look at Gunner.” Gertzy pointed at the bathroom door. “Two years ago he got cut. Last year he rode the pine. Now he’s a core player for us. Get it?”

  “Gunner got cut?” Jalen said.

  Gertzy nodded. “Then he grew five inches. Then six more, and he lived in the batting cage.”

  “That’s a good point,” Jalen said. “Things change.”

  Gertzy jostled his shoulder. “You got it. Hey, want to run two versus two on Clash Royale? You got Clash?”

  Jalen took his phone from his pocket, beaming, and said, “Let’s do it.”

  Only two weeks ago he and his father had gotten their first-ever iPhones thanks to the recent success of the Silver Liner Diner. The world had opened up for Jalen, not just with games and messaging, but having a phone that actually could go online. He could finally get all the big-league stats at Baseball-Reference and answers to all kinds of questions with a quick Google search.

  He powered up and saw he had five voice messages from Cat. He had twelve texts from her as well, and he didn’t need to see even the banner line of her texts to know she wanted to talk about his mother. Not now, he thought.

  Jalen had the Clash app loaded, but even though he’d played it often, he hadn’t realized there was any particular strategy involved in playing. Gertzy talked him through some moves, and soon they got lost in the world of giants, spiders, wizards, skeletons, and dragons, all battling each other. After about the first half hour Cat texted him again. The banner popped up on his screen with a tiny ding.

  S’up?

  “Not now,” he groaned to himself, as if Cat could hear his thoughts. He typed Clash and sent the text so he could rejoin the battle. The app was just beginning a fresh game. Their best combination was when Gertzy launched his bomber balloon and Jalen sent his dragon just in front. The dragon absorbed all the enemy fire as it led the balloon across the battlefield to destroy the enemy base.

  They were tied in a hard-fought battle with twenty-seven seconds left when Gertzy said, “I got a balloon. You got a dragon?”
r />   “On deck,” Jalen said.

  Gertzy leaned over and looked at Jalen’s screen. “Play your goblin barrel to the right. Then, as soon as you have enough elixir, play the dragon behind my balloon on the left.”

  The timer already read :19 when Jalen launched his goblin barrel. His finger was poised to strike with his dragon, but he needed more elixir. The seconds were slipping away.

  “We got this. We got this,” said Gertzy. “Ready?”

  “One more second,” Jalen said. “And, go!”

  In the fraction of the second before he released the dragon, a text banner popped up.

  Ding.

  ???

  “Jalen, go!”

  “I can’t!”

  7

  JALEN SWIPED DESPERATELY AT THE screen. It took three tries to remove the banner and launch his dragon. The balloon was out front, and it collapsed without the escort. The dragon chugged forward on its own, uselessly late as the other team destroyed his base.

  “Shoot.” Gertzy sat back in his seat. “Will you please stop those texts?”

  Jalen hadn’t owned his iPhone long enough to know that was even an option. “Sure. Can you show me how?”

  Gertzy disabled the notifications for Jalen’s text messages. They got back into their game and played on, winning chest after chest of gold, emeralds, and new cards. After a while, Jalen’s stomach rumbled. Daniel had disappeared to the front. Fanny made a sandwich run, and they ate while they continued to play.

  Before Jalen knew it, it was dark, and they were pulling into the Bronxville Middle School parking lot. The storm that had been threatening all day was aching to break loose as parents waited anxiously under the lights. Jalen let everyone go ahead of him, then ducked quickly into the bathroom. As he was getting off the bus, Fanny put the box of remaining sandwiches on his shoulder, then spilled them all. The rain started while Fanny and Jalen were picking them up.

  By the time they finished, and Jalen grabbed his bags from beneath the bus, the parking lot had nearly emptied out.

  Jalen was shocked to see Daniel’s father’s pickup truck at the exit, signaling to take a left on Pondfield Road, headed back to Rockton. He took off running across the blacktop, hoping to cut them off. But when he reached the street, the pickup was fifty feet away.

  “Hey!” he shouted, dropping his bags on the road so he could run faster and wave his arms. “Hey!”

  The truck kept going. He gave chase as it accelerated, but the red taillights kept getting smaller. He stopped running. When he looked back, the last of the cars were pulling out of the school lot heading right, into the Bronxville suburbs. The bus shut its door with a hiss and began to move, leaving Jalen completely alone.

  Jalen dialed Daniel’s cell phone, but it went straight to voice mail, which meant Daniel had shut it down. He turned on his notifications, and his phone dinged five or six times. He peeled through them: two from Cat and four from Daniel, asking Jalen if he was going home with him or not. The final text was: Ok amigo. This makes 4x. If i dont hear back i’ll assume ur staying over w Gertzy. I get how u dont want to ride w a guy whos got no juice.

  Jalen raised his chin toward the pelting summer raindrops and hollered with all his might. “Hot sauce!”

  8

  WHILE JALEN GATHERED HIS BAGS, it continued to rain. He scrambled for the school awning.

  He wondered who he could call, biting the inside of his cheek as he considered his options. His dad was busy at the restaurant, and he’d be super upset to learn that Jalen had been abandoned. Call his mom?

  “Ow!” Thinking about his mom and that he didn’t even know how to call her had made him bite down too hard. He rubbed his cheek.

  Cat would know what to do. Maybe she could even help. He felt guilty texting her now, after she’d reached out so many times and he had ignored her, but he had no choice.

  S’up? Where r u?

  He knew she was reading it and waited for her reply. The wind blew rain sideways, under the awning.

  “I’m fine,” Jalen told himself, wiping his face with the back of his hand before looking at his phone.

  Almost home. Stopped for food. What happened w ur mom? Did u see the YouTube video from the game?

  Jalen’s spirits rose. They’d have farther to drive if they rescued him, but at least they weren’t settled in back at home. Rockton was thirty minutes away. He ignored her other questions and typed, Can u get me in Bronxville?

  She replied, What happened to Daniel?

  Long story. We got our wires crossed. I’m at school. I’m stranded.

  He watched the thought bubble as she read his text. It kept going, and he assumed she was asking her mom. Finally she replied, On our way.

  Thanks so much!!!

  Jalen pulled his bags to the center of the awning. Shielding his phone, he checked out the YouTube video of him helping JY. It now had twenty-eight thousand views, not exactly viral, so that was good news.

  He scrolled down through the comments. Good news. People weren’t buying it.

  Do you seriously think JY needs tips from a kid????

  Yeah, JY was a star before the kid was even born.

  And, I wonder how little you’ve got going on in your life to make a video this stupid.

  He googled “Calamari Kid,” but it didn’t bring up anything he hadn’t seen before. More good news. He breathed a sigh, then wondered how he could google his mom. He didn’t even know if she still went by Elizabeth Johnson.

  She didn’t.

  Jalen tried “singers in Boston,” but that led him to a bazillion possibilities. He wasn’t sure if his mom had a different stage name, either.

  Finally Cat texted that they were two minutes away. Jalen stopped his search and stood looking out at the heavy rain.

  As the Range Rover pulled up to the curb, he grabbed his gear and ran for the car.

  The hatch opened and Jalen dumped his bags before climbing into the backseat. “I am so sorry, Mrs. H. I tried to get Daniel, but his phone was off, and I got hung up on the bus.”

  “Oh, Jalen, things happen. This is what friends are for.” She reached back from the driver’s seat and patted his leg before setting off.

  Cat spun around in her seat. “I’m the one you ignored.”

  “Sorry, Cat. I just didn’t want to talk about my mom—”

  “And I told her that, Jalen.” Mrs. H shot a frown at Cat. “It’s his own business, Miss Catrina.”

  “He can talk for himself, Mom.”

  “Yeah. No, she’s right,” Jalen told Cat. “I gotta get my head around it.”

  “Okay. Fine,” said Cat, sounding anything but fine. “As long as you tell me you didn’t say anything to Daniel on that three-hour bus ride.”

  “That I promise you.”

  She studied him. “What happened with you two?”

  “He heard Gertzy tell me that there’s a few players on the team with juice, and then there’s everyone else.”

  “And let me guess,” Cat said. “Daniel isn’t a member of the chosen.”

  Jalen exhaled through his nose. “How’d you guess?”

  “Shot in the dark.” She went silent.

  Jalen broke the silence by handing Cat his phone. The video of JY and all the comments were up on the screen.

  Cat’s eyes widened. “Whoa,” she said.

  Jalen nodded. “Yup.”

  Cat thought for a second. “We’ll talk about this later. But right now, we gotta figure out what’s going on with Daniel.”

  9

  CAT LOOKED LIKE SHE WAS thinking and then came to a decision. “I’m going right down to see him as soon as we get home.”

  Daniel’s family lived above the enormous stables on Cat’s stepfather’s estate. Cat didn’t think anything of hanging out with Daniel and Jalen. She didn’t act rich. She told them more than once that Mount Tipton—the two-hundred-year-old estate’s name—was like a fancy hotel, not a home.

  “You don’t need to get in the middl
e of our mess,” Jalen said.

  Cat’s mom turned up the radio, and no one spoke until they reached the center of Rockton.

  “The diner or home?” Mrs. Hewlett asked.

  Normally, Jalen didn’t like Cat’s mom to take the gravel drive that wound through the wetlands beside the tracks to where he and his dad lived. Many years ago, when they’d built the new train station, some enterprising handyman had converted part of the old depot into a small dwelling, adding two cramped bedrooms and a leaky shower. One side of the roof now sagged lower than the other side, and the gap had been waterproofed by slapping on a bright blue tarp. “I’ll be by this week to fix it,” the handyman-landlord kept promising.

  The tarp had recently begun to flap in the wind, adding to the run-down look.

  But tonight Jalen was too tired to care, and he asked to be taken home. At least it was too dark to see the shabby place when they dropped him off. He thanked Cat and her mom for saving him and waved good-bye.

  Inside, he let the door creak closed and the comfort of home wash over him. He left his gear by the door and got ready for bed.

  On a shelf in his bedroom, amid the baseball posters and trophies, was an old eight-by-ten framed photo of his mom. It was a photo that had haunted him as long as he could remember. His father once said that she married him to help him get a green card so he didn’t have to go back to Italy. He told Jalen she’d gone away to follow a dream.

  Now, even though he’d been with her, he didn’t know a lot more.

  Jalen lay in bed, listening to the rain and the snapping tarp, staring at the picture. Finally he yawned and turned out the light. When his father came in later, Jalen was still awake, but he pretended to be sleeping. His dad tiptoed across the floor and kissed his forehead.

  “Jalen?” he whispered, and waited, hovering over Jalen before straightening his back and adding, “Tomorrow, you gonna be so happy.…”

  Jalen clenched his hands to keep from jumping up to ask why.

  10

  WHEN JALEN WOKE, A DULL gray light leaked through the curtains. It was already seven, but gloomy. The rain was still falling softly. Jalen’s dad was gone. A note on the kitchen table said he was going to the market and would be back by seven thirty. There was nothing about any happy news.