It went like that, the Cubs standing up one after another, until the only one seated was Jack Callahan, who Cassie didn’t think was doing a very good job of hiding his embarrassment, his face even turning a little red, as if he didn’t know what to do or how to act.
Cassie stood up now. “I actually had my dad look it up, just for fun,” she said. “He said there’s no language saying a player can’t coach, as long as there’s at least one adult on the bench.”
The Cubs cheered.
Mr. Leonard said, “But what about you, Jack? This will be a lot of pressure.”
Teddy said to Jack, “Uh, Jack, pressure is this thing where you get nervous in big spots.”
“Very funny,” Jack said.
“Seriously,” Mr. Leonard said. “I know you handled things great for one game. Do you really think you could for the rest of the season?”
“I think I can, Mr. Leonard,” he said. “I’ll just need a little help.”
Just as she had in Rawson, Cassie said, “Thought you’d never ask.”
The two dads looked at each other. Mr. Leonard shrugged, and grinned and said, “I’ll have to sell it to the rest of the board. But as far as I’m concerned, it’s a done deal.”
Now the Cubs were cheering and stomping their feet on the bleachers and high-fiving each other. As they did, Cassie looked out at the field.
In the distance, near the playground, she saw Sarah Milligan, hand on her bike, watching them. As the celebration for the Cubs continued, Cassie started walking toward Sarah, and this time she didn’t take off.
“Hello,” Cassie said.
“Hello,” Sarah said, and then asked Cassie why everyone was so happy.
Cassie told her what had just happened.
Sarah frowned.
“Their team isn’t like our team,” she said. “And our team isn’t anything like their team.”
“Yet,” Cassie said.
“There’s a lot about sports I don’t understand,” Sarah said, and Cassie told her there was a lot she didn’t understand too, and not just with sports.
Then Sarah got on her bike and rode off, almost as if she wanted to prove Cassie’s point.
TWENTY-ONE
Cassie couldn’t go to every Cubs game, or practice. But when she printed out the Red Sox schedule and theirs, she saw only a couple of Cubs games she had to miss between now and the end of the regular season. Fine with her. She was happy to have softball and baseball in her life just about every day for as far as she could see into the rest of the summer. It was a good thing, and not just because both teams kept winning games.
There was something more going on with the girl who had always prided herself on being so tough, even though she would only admit this to herself:
Spending even more time with the guys was making her feel less lonely.
Because being around her own team did make her feel lonely. A lot. She still loved being on the field, for either practice or a game. Once the games started, she could see that the other players on the Red Sox wanted to win as much as ever. But there was something off about it all. They weren’t pulling for one another the way they were supposed to. Even when she and Gus had gotten sideways with each other, even when she’d been worried that the tension between them might pull their team apart, it had always pulled together once the game started.
Cassie had finally felt like she was a part of something in basketball, even though she knew that Gus wasn’t the only one who hadn’t wanted her on the team at first. Right now, though, she didn’t feel like a part of anything in softball. And on top of everything else that had happened around their team, Brooke Connors, who’d started taking riding lessons, had managed to fall off a horse, break an ankle, and end her season.
So now Cassie really only had Lizzie to talk to, because even though she’d talked to Sarah that night at Highland Park when Jack had officially become coach of the Cubs, Sarah had once again pulled back, from Cassie and everybody else.
Through it all, though, the Sox kept winning over the next couple of weeks. So did the Cubs.
And after two games away, Sam Anthony texted Jack and asked if he could return to the team. Jack told him to come ahead. Sam told Jack in the same exchange that he still wanted to pitch. Jack told him he was going to get his chance.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Cassie said.
“Heck, no,” Jack said.
“You guys are going good,” she said.
“It must have been hard, him asking me to come back,” Jack said. “That tells me how much he wants to play.”
“But can he pitch?”
“We’re gonna find out,” Jack said, “aren’t we?”
• • •
Sam’s second game back, Jack started him against Clements, a Thursday night game at Highland Park, and Sam promptly gave up three runs in the top of the first, before finally striking out the last two Clements batters with two guys still on base.
There’d even been a moment, before Sam’s last strikeout, when Teddy called time and started out to the mound, before Sam waved him off. Teddy stood there and briefly stared at him, before he turned and went back behind the plate and got into his crouch.
When the inning ended, Teddy was off the field first. When he got back to the bench and started taking off his chest protector, he whispered to Cassie, “Here we go again.”
Sam was getting a drink of water at the fountain behind the screen.
Cassie said, “He didn’t pitch that badly. And you gotta admit, the ump wasn’t giving him a very big strike zone.”
“He still doesn’t act like he wants to be here,” Teddy said.
“But he is here,” Cassie said.
What she was really thinking was this: Maybe Sam is the one on this team who doesn’t know how to fit in.
The Cubs jumped all over the Clements starter, scoring five runs in their
