Mr. and Mrs. Milligan walked to the outfield. When they got there, Cassie saw her dad speak to them. She saw Mr. Milligan nodding his head. She thought he might even be smiling. Mrs. Milligan put an arm around Sarah’s shoulders. With her other hand she put a finger under Sarah’s chin, finally making her look up.
After a few more minutes they all started walking toward the infield, Mrs. Milligan’s arm still around Sarah’s shoulders. They turned at second base and walked across the infield dirt toward first. Mrs. Milligan stayed with Sarah. Mr. Milligan walked over and collected Sarah’s bat bag, either recognizing it right away or knowing exactly where it would be.
Then he and Mrs. Milligan and Sarah were opening the door in the fence and walking through it, heading for the parking lot.
Before Jack could stop her this time, Cassie was jogging after them.
They were in the parking lot when she caught up with them.
“Sarah,” Cassie said. “Hey, Sarah.”
She was careful not to raise her voice.
Sarah turned around, saw who it was. This time she didn’t look away.
“I just wanted to tell you I was sorry,” she said. “What happened was my fault.”
Sarah didn’t say anything, just stared at her, without expression. She didn’t seem angry now. She didn’t seem anything.
“I shouldn’t have gotten up on you that way,” Cassie said. “It won’t happen again.”
Still nothing from Sarah.
“Okay?” Cassie said.
Finally, in a voice that Cassie could barely hear, Sarah Milligan said, “Please stop talking.”
“I’m not trying to bother you.”
“Please stop talking, please stop talking, please stop talking,” Sarah said.
So Cassie did.
“Stop talking,” Sarah said again.
Then she opened the door and got into the backseat of the car. At some point Mr. Milligan must have handed Sarah her glove. Cassie was close enough to the car to look through the window and see that Sarah was wearing it now, pounding it again and again with her right fist, like she was trying to break it in all over again.
“It really was my fault,” Cassie said to Mr. and Mrs. Milligan.
Mrs. Milligan smiled, but her face looked sad.
“You couldn’t possibly have known that congratulating Sarah would make her act that way,” she said. “Please don’t blame yourself. We’ve had Sarah her whole life. We know her better than anyone. You’ve only known her since tryouts.”
“I want to help her,” Cassie said, keeping her voice low.
“I’m sure you do, dear,” Mrs. Milligan said. “I’m sure you do.”
She opened the door and got into the front seat. Mr. Milligan walked around the car and got in on the driver’s side. Then Cassie heard the car starting, and watched it slowly pull away.
As it disappeared in the direction of town, Cassie found herself feeling the way she had with Peter Rizzo, the autistic boy who’d been in the fifth grade with her.
Somehow she was going to fix this.
• • •
They were at Fierro’s now, their usual booth in the back, Jack and Gus on one side of the table, Cassie and Teddy on the other. By the time they’d gotten there, Greta and Kathleen and Nell had been across the room in a booth of their own.
After Cassie and the guys ordered, Greta came over and said, “This wasn’t even a real game, and now I’m wondering if every game is going to be like this.”
She pointed over at her table and said, “Everybody’s worried.”
“It’ll be fine,” Cassie said.
“And you know that . . . how?”
“We’ll all just have to figure it out,” Cassie said. “Sarah included. She lost her head because I lost mine.”
“Yeah,” Greta said. “You gave her a big shout-out for hitting a home run. What were you thinking?”
“But at least it all started because she did hit that home run,” Cassie said. “I’ve never hit a ball that far.”
Cassie didn’t want to be talking about this with Greta. She wanted to talk about it with Jack and Gus and Teddy. But it wasn’t as if she could get up and leave her own booth.
And Greta wasn’t finished.
“Just because you want to be friends with her doesn’t mean we have to be friends with her,” she said. “And just because you’re okay with her being on our team doesn’t mean we are.”
“Just because I’m trying to be nice to her doesn’t mean that we’re friends,” Cassie said, voice rising, unable to stop it. She knew she was tired, and knew she was getting crankier with Greta Zahn by the second. “Do you see her sitting here with me? I just want this to work out for her, and work out for us. Are you okay with that?”
“Our team doesn’t need any help, and you know it,” Greta said.
Then she was the one who walked away.
When she was out of earshot, Teddy said, “Forget about being friends with the new girl. Why did you ever want to be friends with her?”
“Good question,” Cassie said. “We’ve never had much in common other than softball.”
“Usually that’s enough for you,” Gus said.
“I keep reminding myself of that,” Cassie said.
Their pizza came. They all ate in silence for a few minutes, Cassie going through the motions, because she’d lost her appetite. A couple of times she looked across at her teammates. One time when she did, they all stopped talking.
“It is gonna be fine, right?” Cassie said. “We all just have to get used to Sarah. Me included. It’ll be fine.”
She knew how much she sounded as if she were trying to talk herself into something.
Jack leaned forward a little and said, “But what if it’s not?”
“Hey,” Cassie said. “Whose side are you on?”
“Yours,” he said. “Like always. But you know what a bear you are for winning. In anything. You just gotta know that it’s not only your own team you have to worry about. There’s gonna be another team on the field.”
It stopped her. “I hadn’t even thought about that,” she said.
“Not saying they’re gonna be mean,” he said. “But it’s not like they’ll be worried about making softball the positive experience for
