Sam threw one now. Jack put a perfect swing on it, level and lethal. As sweet as the sound of a softball was coming off Cassie’s bat, or Sarah’s when she really smashed one, this sound, the sound of a hardball, was different.
It had to scare Sam Anthony as soon as he heard it.
Cassie knew this sound, knew the ball was gone as soon as Jack connected. It ended up going high over the left fielder’s head, high over the left-field fence. In the distance, Cassie could see the ball finally stop rolling just behind second base on the field on the other side of the outfield fence.
Jack did nothing to show up Sam. He just rounded the bases at a normal speed, not too fast and not too slow. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that when he got to home plate, Teddy gave him a hard low five, a big smile on his face.
As soon as he did, Sam yelled at Teddy, “What, you think this is funny?”
Jack turned around, thinking that Sam might be talking to him again. But then he saw Sam pointing his glove at Teddy.
“What the heck are you talking about?” Teddy said. “We’re all on the same team here. I was just congratulating a teammate.”
“No, you weren’t,” Sam said. “You were dogging me. And you can’t catch me if you’re rooting for the batter, even when we’re just messing around.”
Teddy Madden had clearly heard enough today, from the whole family. He took a step in front of the plate, flipped back his mask now, and said, “I’m not your catcher. I’m this team’s catcher. Is that some kind of brain buster for you?”
Cassie noticed that Mr. Anthony had come out from behind the plate and had positioned himself between Teddy and Sam. But he didn’t talk to his son. He talked to Teddy.
“You need to shut this down right here, son,” he said.
Teddy took his mask off. Cassie could see how red his face was. Never a good sign.
“I need to shut it?” he said. “I’m not the one who threw that pitch, so we could all see a fastball turn into a lost ball.”
“Are you back-talking me?” Mr. Anthony said.
His face was suddenly pretty red too.
Watching it all play out, Cassie thought the coach was acting as if Jack had taken him deep, not his son.
She didn’t realize it, but she’d stood up, thinking: Please drop this, Teddy. Please don’t say one more thing.
But it was Mr. Anthony who felt he had to add, “Maybe you need to ask yourself whether or not you want to play on my team.”
“It’s not your team,” Teddy said, “any more than I’m your son’s catcher.”
“I’m gonna say it again,” Mr. Anthony said, his voice rising, if such a thing were even possible. “You need to ask yourself whether you want to play on my team.”
“Maybe I don’t,” Teddy said.
Then he turned and walked back to his bench and slowly began taking off his equipment, while Mr. Anthony yelled out to the players behind Sam that it was time for everybody to call it a day.
It was when Teddy was in the parking lot with Cassie and Jack and Gus that he said he wasn’t just done for the day, he was done for good.
“If it’s not fun, what’s the point?” he said.
Cassie told him there was a lot of that going around.
TWELVE
You’re not quitting,” Cassie said to Teddy. “It would make your melt worse than your coach’s melt.”
“Watch me,” Teddy said. “I’m not playing for that guy.”
They were on Teddy’s back patio, which faced the ball field at Walton Middle School. Mrs. Madden had made iced tea for them, brought out the pitcher and glasses, and even some sliced-up lemons, then gone back into the house. She knows we have stuff to talk about, Cassie thought. Mrs. Madden was cool like that.
“You haven’t said much,” Teddy said to Jack. “What do you think?”
Actually, Jack hadn’t said anything. It was one of the things Cassie liked the best about Jack Callahan. He never talked just to talk.
And if there was a captain of their crew, it was Jack. Even Cassie knew it. He was the same kind of natural leader with them that he was on every sports team on which he’d ever played.
Cassie knew why Teddy was asking. Not only did he want to know what Jack thought, he wanted Jack’s approval, especially when it came to sports. They all knew they wouldn’t even be here, having this conversation, if Jack hadn’t stood up for Teddy in seventh grade when he was being bullied by some of the other kids at school for being overweight and out of shape, back when some of those kids had nicknamed him Teddy Bear. But Jack had helped him get into shape. Then Teddy and everybody else had found out that there was an athlete inside him, a good one. And a tough one.
But now it was as if he were being bullied all over again, by Coach Anthony.
“I think Cassie’s right,” Jack said. “You can’t quit. And you’re not going to quit.”
“You’re there every day!” Teddy said. “You and Gus know what a jerk he is.”
“Not arguing that with you,” Jack said. “I bet even his own son knows what a jerk he is.”
“I’m not getting picked on all summer,” Teddy said. “If I want to do that, I can just hang with Cassie more.”
She reached over before he could move his arm, and pinched him.
“We’re trying to help you, and you take a shot?” she said. “Seriously?”
“That was seriously funny,” Teddy said.
“Moderately,” she said.
Teddy nodded. “I can live with that.”
Okay, she thought. There’s hope. He was still trying to use humor, as hurt and angry as he clearly was. Maybe he was still set on quitting. But Cassie remembered a line her mother liked to use, one she said
