“Think I couldn’t?”
“No,” Teddy said.
He took another step forward. Sam took another step back.
“No,” Teddy said. “I don’t.”
Cassie wondered when Sam’s dad was going to step in and break them up. In the practices she’d watched so far, this was the longest he’d ever gone without raising his own voice.
Jack appeared now, putting himself between Teddy and Sam. Jerry York had come down from third base to get his arms around Sam from behind.
“You want to go?” Sam yelled, even though Cassie had a feeling, the way he’d thrown himself into reverse, that he didn’t.
“So much,” Teddy said.
“All right,” Coach Anthony finally yelled over both of them, “that’s enough, from both of you!”
They all heard what came next.
“Stop it! Stop it, all of you! Everybody stop being mean!”
Sarah.
“Stop yelling!”
Louder than all of them.
An amazing thing happened then.
They did.
SEVENTEEN
Sarah didn’t wait to see what was going to happen now that the yelling had stopped. She just went down the bleachers two at a time without saying good-bye to Cassie and hopped onto her bike and rode away.
Cassie stayed.
The whole Cubs team was gathered around the home plate area. She couldn’t hear what anybody was saying now, just could see that Mr. Anthony was doing most of the talking. When he finished, she waited to see if Teddy and Sam were going to shake hands, make some kind of peace, at least for now. If they did, she didn’t see it happen.
She quietly moved down out of the bleachers and up to the fence, in time to hear Mr. Anthony say, “See you tomorrow night. Batting practice at five sharp.”
Cassie watched Mr. Anthony and Sam leave together and thought, Their team is just divided in a different way right now. It wasn’t just one new player. It was this new coach. But when he and his son were gone, the rest of the Cubs were still there, seemingly in no hurry to leave.
Then an odd thing happened. Or maybe a cool thing. Jack went and grabbed a bat and gestured for the other guys to take their positions. Brett went out to short to take Jack’s place. And for the next fifteen minutes, Jack hit ground balls to the infielders and fly balls to the outfielders. Suddenly they were all chirping at each other and laughing sometimes, as if they all needed to remember why they were here, why they were ballplayers, maybe even why they loved baseball, before they went home.
When they were done, Cassie came through the fence and sat next to Teddy while he took off his equipment. Jack and Gus sat in the grass in front of them.
“So,” she said, “how’s the season going so far for all of us?”
“Ours hasn’t even started yet,” Teddy said.
Cassie said, “What did Mr. Anthony say about that play?”
“Totally wimped out, for a guy who thinks he’s so tough,” Teddy said. “Said he didn’t have the best angle on the play, but it seemed like it just might have been overaggressive baserunning to him.”
“Well, yeah,” Gus said, “only if you’re looking to start a bench-clearing brawl.”
“Looked to me,” Cassie said, “as if he was trying to make up for the fact that he dogged it when the ball was hit.”
“Emphasis on ‘dog,’ ” Teddy said.
“Did you say anything to Coach?” Cassie said.
“I don’t call him that,” Teddy said. “Not gonna call him that. I just think of him as that jerk’s dad. But, no, I didn’t say anything. No point. He was never going to go against Sam.”
“How did you guys end it?” Cassie said.
“He told us that not everybody on the team had to like each other to win with each other,” Teddy said. “Another one of his dopey sayings.”
“Hey,” she said, “look on the bright side.”
“There’s a bright side?” Gus said.
“At least you guys don’t have almost the whole team mad at you like I do.”
“Well, I feel better already,” Teddy said.
“Looks like we’ve all got stuff to work through, basically,” she said.
“You think?” Teddy said.
“Cass is right,” Jack said. “We’re all gonna have to figure it out.”
“The best part of the whole thing was when Sarah did what we all want to do with Mr. Anthony,” Teddy said, “and told him to shut up.”
Gus said, “Can she come to all our practices? Please?”
“I didn’t get the chance to tell her that, see, we aren’t the only one with a messed-up team,” Cassie replied.
It was still early enough, and they all still had enough time before dinner, to make a run into Jamba Juice. It turned out that Jack and Teddy and Gus had all ridden their bikes to practice.
Before they left, Jack said to Cassie, “I was surprised to see you and Sarah up there.”
Cassie told Jack about Sarah’s ride over to her house, and the European capitals, and how Sarah had actually surprised her by wanting to come to practice.
“Sounds like she’s keeping you off balance,” Jack said.
“One big thing I’ve learned about Asperger’s,” Cassie said, “is that no matter how many common traits they say there might be, everybody’s different.”
Jack grinned at her.
“Sounds to me like Sarah’s mostly like herself,” he said. “You feel like you two are becoming friends?”
Cassie shrugged.
“No clue,” she said.
The next day Cassie texted Sarah and asked if she wanted to go to the Cubs’ first game. Sarah said no, thanks, and didn’t offer an explanation. Maybe she’d just decided there was enough tension and drama on her own team. So Cassie went by herself and watched Jack pitch like a total star against Hollis Hills. He kept his pitch count down, shut them out for six innings, allowing just two hits, one a slow roller toward third that actually stopped before Jerry York could even try to make a play on the ball.
Jack had three hits himself, Gus two. Teddy hit a double. The Cubs finally won 5–0. Mr. Anthony still made too much noise, as if he were somehow afraid that if he went more than a couple of
