As she got near third, Cassie’s dad was windmilling his arms like a crazy person, telling her to try for an inside-the-park home run.
Sarah cut the bag perfectly, not taking a wide turn. She was halfway home when the shortstop’s relay throw was on its way to the catcher, Kendall Meany. It was a good throw too. One bounce.
Sarah went into her slide. The ball was just a little bit to the first base side of home when Kendall caught it. Sarah slid neatly away from her, the hook slide that Cassie’s dad had taught them all during the first week of practice.
When the tag came, high up on her leg, Sarah was already across the plate.
Safe.
“Out!” the home plate umpire, a man, yelled, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.
Cassie had gotten behind the screen to have the best look at the play. She could clearly see that it was a terrible call. But there was going to be no replay review at Highland Park. There were no television cameras. If the ump said Sarah was out, she was out, even if she was safe.
And Sarah knew she was safe better than anyone else. Maybe Kendall Meany, too. But Sarah knew.
Now Cassie watched and held her breath as Sarah got to her feet, still breathing hard after her dash around the bases, her face still flushed.
Hands balled into fists, same as they’d been on the day when she got tagged in the face.
Cassie didn’t move. She saw her dad start to walk quickly toward the plate from the third-base coaching box. But Cassie yelled, “Dad!” and put a hand in the air, telling him to stop.
He stopped. Cassie felt as if everything had stopped. Time. Her heart. Minor stuff like that.
The next thing she saw was Sarah turning away from home plate, picking up her bat, and walking in the direction of the Red Sox bench.
She hadn’t said a word.
By the time Cassie caught up with her, Sarah had put the bat back into the rack and was collecting her glove.
“You were safe,” Cassie said.
“I know that.”
No change of expression, no emotion.
“But you didn’t say anything,” Cassie said.
“I know that, too.”
Black and white to the end, in her black-and-white world.
“Why didn’t you?”
If Sarah actually smiled, it was there and gone. But when she spoke, she pretty much repeated what Cassie had told her at the mound the game before.
“It’s too big a game and I’m too good a player to get thrown out of it,” she said.
She ran out to center field. Cassie ran out to pitch the top of the sixth. Game still 0–0. Cassie walked the Yankees’ second baseman to start the sixth, then struck out the side after that. She was dealing now. She knew it. They knew it. The Sox threatened in the bottom of the inning, but then Ana Rivera, in right today, fouled out to first with two runners on. It was still 0–0. It felt like the same game they’d played on opening day. Cassie knew her pitch count was starting to get up there. She didn’t care. She was going back out there for the seventh, knowing she was going to be an at bat in the bottom of the inning.
Control what you can control. Isn’t that what Jack always said?
Well, she was in control of the story now.
She only needed eight pitches to get the Yankees in order. Two ground balls. One strikeout. Time for last ups.
Allie walked to start the seventh against Sydney, who was still in there. The count had gone full on Allie, and it looked to Cassie as if she’d taken a called third strike, because she didn’t see a single thing wrong with the 3–2 pitch. But the ump called it a ball. Bad call. One that went their way this time. Sometimes things evened up. Not all the time. Sometimes.
Lizzie put down a perfect sacrifice bunt and moved Allie up to second. Now the winning run was in scoring position. Cassie was about to leave the on-deck circle when Sarah joined her there.
“Don’t worry,” Sarah said. “If you don’t get her home, I will.”
“Thanks for the offer,” Cassie said. “But I got this.”
Jack was who he was. Cassie was who she was. Now she was exactly where she wanted to be. Maybe where she was supposed to be. As she came around behind the catcher and the ump, she gave a quick look up into the stands where Jack and Teddy and Gus were. Teddy and Gus nodded at her.
Jack smiled.
Everything Cassie was thinking, he knew.
Sydney threw her another fastball. This time Cassie got all of it. This time the ball was over the left fielder’s head before the girl even had time to turn for it. As Cassie was rounding first, she threw her right fist into the air. Allie could have moonwalked to home plate. By the time Allie did cross the plate with the winning run, Cassie was standing at second base watching the celebration, alone one last time.
When she finally started walking across the infield, Sarah came out to meet her. They met at the pitcher’s mound.
Sarah was frowning.
“I don’t know how to act,” she said. “Sometimes I imagine how things are supposed to look inside my head, almost like there’s a picture I’m looking at. But I don’t have a picture for this.”
“You can try being happy,” Cassie said.
“I’m not very good at that.”
“It’s like a lot of things,” Cassie said. “You can learn.”
Then they went to join their teammates.
AFTER THE SEASON . . .
THIRTY-SIX
It was the week before school started, which meant the week before ninth grade was starting for Cassie and Jack and Teddy and Gus.
So the last week of summer felt a little different this time. As excited as they were to be making the move to Walton High, they weren’t ready for summer to end.
At least not yet.
They were high up on their
