Wish You Weren't Page 3

  “Today, we’re going to do some drills,” Keith was saying. “Running, pitching, batting, all that jazz. The two boys and two girls who perform best at these drills will be made team captains and get to choose their players. Tomorrow, you guys will go into your new teams, get one practice day, and then we’ll start the tournament the day after that.” He waved his bat in the air. “Who’s psyched for the first annual Camp Lakeview Softball Tournament?”

  “WOOOOO!” The whole crowd erupted into cheers and applause.

  Jenna turned to Sarah with a huge grin. “Sars, it’s totally us. You and I have got to be the team captains.”

  “Don’t be too sure about that!” Jenna and Sarah turned around to see Abby wearing a challenging grin. “I’ve heard you’re a great athlete, Jenna, but I bet I can beat you!”

  Jenna glanced at Sarah, and Sarah struggled not to roll her eyes. “She’s on the team at school,” Sarah said simply. “But that doesn’t mean she’ll win. Maybe we’re better.”

  Abby gave Sarah a condescending look. “Have you ever played softball, Sarah?” she asked. “It might be tough for you if you don’t know the rules.”

  Sarah gritted her teeth. “I’ve played,” she replied.

  “Well, we’ll see who wins.”

  Jenna shot Sarah a look that said, Who is this girl? Sarah just shook her head. Meanwhile, the campers were separating out into boys and girls, as directed by Kimberly. David took off, waving behind him, and Sarah, Jenna, and Abby walked together to the first girls’ drill—batting.

  “I’ll be following you from drill to drill,” Kimberly, a redhead with curly bobbed hair, was explaining. “I’ll keep track of how you do, but the only performance that matters is the best two girls’—those girls will become the team captains. All set?”

  The girls looked one another over and nodded.

  “Who wants to go first?”

  As everyone kind of looked around, waiting for someone to speak up, Sarah saw her chance. “I will,” she volunteered.

  Kimberly caught her eye and smiled encouragingly. “All right, then. Come on up and put on the batting helmet and get ready.”

  Sarah walked up to home plate. She tried to push the whole rest of the scene out of her mind as she pulled off her Red Sox hat, threw it to the side, and put on the blue plastic helmet. Concentrate, she told herself. Forget about Abby, forget everyone watching you. You know you can do this. You have everything it takes to become team captain.

  Sarah leaned over and picked up the bat.

  “Ready?” Kimberly called from several yards away, where she was winding up her pitch.

  “Ready,” Sarah replied. Focus. Concentrate. Eye on the ball.

  She watched Kimberly lean back and wind up. It seemed to take an eternity for the ball to leave her hand, but finally it shot into the air, headed straight for her. Sarah tensed her shoulders and pulled back the bat. It felt perfect; she knew she had this pitch. She grinned and prepared herself for the sharp crack of the bat hitting the ball.

  “Goooooooo, Sarah!” The words came from behind her, and it took a minute to place the voice. “Come on! Winthrop Vikings in da house!”

  Abby. She’s trying to break my concentration!

  Sarah lost her concentration for only a second, but that was all it took. She was too late getting the bat over the plate; the ball sailed over without making contact. Sarah held onto the bat and turned to watch the ball sail by, in shock.

  “Strike one!” Kimberly called.

  The next few drills went by in kind of a blur. Pitches flew past Sarah’s bat, and it seemed like she needed some kind of divine intervention just to get a pitch over home plate. It was the worst athletic performance Sarah had ever seen, much less given herself. And the worst part was, she didn’t know why it was happening.

  That first strike, Sarah knew, could more or less be blamed on Abby. Abby’s cheer broke her concentration, and she missed the ball. Simple enough. But after that, it was like Sarah was just off. Abby never said another word—in fact, she barely even looked in Sarah’s direction, except for a smug little grin immediately after Sarah had struck out. But it was like Sarah could feel her watching everything she did. All she could think about, as the ball came toward her or she wound up to pitch, was how important it was to impress Abby.

  Even Jenna noticed how off her game Sarah was—she started psyching Sarah up for every drill. “You can do it! This is your drill! Come on, Sars!”

  But so far, it didn’t seem to be working. It was like Sarah was a different person altogether: the bookish, quiet girl that Abby knew from back home. It was like Abby had been trying to morph her from Camp Sarah back into Home Sarah with that stupid cheer . . . and it had worked.

  “All right,” Kimberly was explaining as the girls arranged themselves for the catching drill. “I’m going to bat a few fly balls at you, and you try to catch them. Simple enough, right?”

  Simple enough, Sarah thought. Simple enough for me on any other day. But today it seems like all I know how to do is mess up.

  “Abby, how do you feel about starting us out?”

  Sarah turned and watched as Abby walked up to the counselor, a big, expectant smile on her face. Of course, Abby had been performing like a champ all day. It was like she had been born with a bat in one hand and a glove on the other. It was kind of disgusting.

  “Let’s go, Abby!” Jenna yelled from Sarah’s right. To add insult to injury, Jenna and Abby had spent the morning kicking butt. Sarah usually loved being around Jenna—she was so outgoing and fun—but she’d found herself wishing that the two girls would just wander off to the other side of the field and leave her alone. Let me stink in peace, she thought.

  Sarah watched as Abby arranged herself on the field and effortlessly ran to catch a ball that sailed over her head and to the left. “Nice catch!” Kimberly shouted.

  Jenna leaned over and poked Sarah’s arm. “I can’t believe you never told me what an incredible player Abby is,” she whispered. “You must be on teams together!”

  Sarah didn’t respond. She’d never told Jenna that she didn’t play on teams at home, or that she and Abby weren’t friends.

  Abby caught all five balls that were batted to her, and then it was time for the next girl.

  “Who’s up?” Kimberly asked.

  Sarah looked around at the other girls. She knew that, given her performance on the other drills, she’d pretty much lost any shot she had at being one of the team captains. But at least I can go out on a high note, she thought. I know how to catch. I’ve had an off day, but I can do this.

  “I’ll go,” she volunteered, and walked over to pick up the glove.

  “GO, Sarah!” she heard Jenna yell. “You’re awesome, Sarah! This is your comeback drill!”

  Sarah tried to shut out all the noise around her and concentrate on the ball. She held the glove out in front of her, ready to run in any direction. Kimberly tossed the ball into the air and easily sliced into it with the bat. Sarah watched as it sailed up . . . up . . . over her head and behind her, to the right. I’ve got this. I’ve totally got this, Sarah thought. She began jogging backward, her head tipped toward the sky, not wanting to lose track of the ball . . .

  “Aaaaaggghhh!” Sarah’s heel caught on something, and then she was flying backward, through space, until pain exploded in her head and everything went dark.

  “Sarah?”

  Sarah blinked and opened her eyes. It was like time had stopped; she was staring up into a blue sky. Around her, everything was quiet. Her right ankle was throbbing, and she didn’t know why.

  “Sars?” Suddenly Jenna’s face eclipsed the sky, her brows furrowed, her mouth pulled into a concerned pout. Sarah stared up at her, wondering why she looked so worried.

  “Yeah?” she asked.

  “Sarah!” Suddenly, Kimberly’s red head entered the frame. “That was quite a spill you took! It looks like you tripped over this tree root!”

  “I—ohhhhh,” Sarah mur
mured. Suddenly it all came back to her. The drills. The ball. She’d been running backward . . .

  “Are you okay? I think you got the wind knocked out of you. Do you feel all right? Try to stand up.”

  Sarah pushed herself up on her elbows and looked around. She realized that not only Kimberly and Jenna were standing over her, but the whole girls’ sports team was gathered around, and a few boys were scattered throughout the crowd.

  “You okay?” a dark-haired, green-eyed boy was asking her, sort of urgently. What was his name again? Oh yeah. David.

  “I’m a little dizzy,” Sarah said honestly. “And my right ankle hurts.”

  “You’d better head over to the infirmary,” Kimberly said. “Get it checked out, to be on the safe side. I can walk you over.”

  “No, that’s okay.” Jenna stepped forward and held a hand out to Sarah. “I’m her friend. If it’s okay, I can take her.”

  Kimberly looked skeptical. “You’ll need to support her to keep her weight off that ankle. I should probably still . . .”

  “I can go, too!” Sarah found herself looking at whatshisname again. David. “We’ll take full responsibility for her,” he went on. “Jenna and I can walk her to the infirmary. We can wait until she’s fixed up. We can even put a cast on her and sign it, if we need to.”

  Kimberly looked doubtful. She turned to Sarah. “Is that all right with you?”

  Sarah shrugged. “Sure.” It was a little weird that David wanted to go with them, but whatever. From what she’d seen so far today, David was a little weird. Maybe he’d just lost all interest in the drills when he realized that they weren’t playing donkey basketball.

  She grabbed Jenna’s hand and hoisted herself up to a standing position. “I’m sure I’ll be fine with them. Thanks.”

  Kimberly nodded. “Be careful not to put too much pressure on that ankle.”

  Jenna and David got on either side of Sarah, and she wrapped her arms around each of their shoulders, leaning on them and hopping on her left foot. “Thanks, guys,” she said. This day could not get worse, she was thinking. It’s bad enough to screw up. It’s worse to screw up in front of Abby. It’s even worse than that to screw up in front of Abby, and then break my ankle or something.

  “I’m just glad to have an excuse to leave,” David said cheerfully. “Was that the most boring session of sports you’ve ever had? ‘Here, catch five hundred balls.’ ‘Here, run between these bases a million times.’ I thought I’d fall asleep.”

  “I’m glad to be leaving,” Sarah admitted, “but not because I was bored. Because I was awful. I thought I had a real shot at team captain, but I’ve never played so badly in my life. And now, who knows how long I’m going to be injured?”

  “Think positively,” Jenna said. “I’m sure your ankle will be fine—you just tripped. And as for screwing up, who cares? I mean, you just choked, Sars. Who knows why? Everyone chokes sometimes.”

  Sarah sighed. She didn’t even like the sound of that. Choked. “You didn’t,” she told Jenna.

  “Not today,” Jenna replied. “But I have, before—a bunch of times. Like this one time at a gymnastics competition? I was supposed to do this whole routine on the balance bar, but I slipped before I even started and banged my head on the bar on the way down. I broke a tooth in front of everybody! That’s choking.”

  Sarah nodded. It did make her feel a little better to hear that her crazy athletic friend had messed up, too. “Sorry, Jenna. And thanks.”

  “I can top that,” David said. “This one time, my soccer team made it to the state championship. And I was trying to get the ball away from the other team, like, really hard. So I finally see my opening, and I get so excited that I just go on and kick the ball—I didn’t pay any attention to where I was aiming, I just wanted to get it away from that guy. And would you believe, it flew right into the net—for their team? I scored a goal for the opposing team in the state championship. Yeah, my teammates were really psyched about that.”

  Sarah couldn’t help laughing. “That’s awful.”

  David nodded. “Because I messed up, we lost the championship.”

  Sarah glanced over at David. He still looked a little bummed about it, but he’d survived. He seemed like a cheerful guy. If he could mess up at the state championship, maybe it wasn’t such a big deal to mess up at some camp drills.

  Suddenly, Sarah became aware of David watching. “Are you smiling?” he asked. “Laughing at my pain? That’s so not cool.” But he was smiling, too.

  Sarah shook her head and laughed awkwardly. “I am,” she admitted. “I guess these stories do kind of make me feel better.”

  “Really? Well, I can top that,” Jenna suddenly piped up with a little smile. “This one time? My basketball team made it to the national championship.”

  “You never told me that!” Sarah broke in, but Jenna ignored her.

  “And there was this girl on the other team who totally looked like a girl on our team. And I had the ball, and I got surrounded and had to pass, so then I see the girl from the other team—the one who totally looks like the girl on our team—and I passed the ball to her.”

  “Wow!” said Sarah.

  “And we lost.” Jenna nodded sadly.

  “Wow,” Sarah murmured. “I never knew that you had been to—”

  “I can top that,” David cut in.

  “How can you top that?” Jenna demanded. She looked a little annoyed. In fact, Jenna and David were concentrating so hard on topping each other, they’d stopped moving. Fortunately, they were only a few yards from the infirmary. “We’re talking nationals.”

  “This one time?” David began. “I was playing in a really important baseball game. It was a really important game, see, because my team hadn’t won in a really long time. It was the championship, and we hadn’t even been to the championships in, like, sixty-eight years.”

  Sarah glanced sideways at David. “Sixty-eight years, huh?”

  David nodded. “That’s right. The stands were packed. And I’m playing first base, and the ball comes to me, and I totally thought I had it. And the crowd is going nuts! So I reach for it, but it rolls between my legs.”

  “Between your legs?” Sarah asked. David started to laugh. “Are you kidding me? David, that didn’t happen to you!” Sarah cried. “That was Bill Buckner! The 1986 World Series! You’re talking to a huge Red Sox fan.”

  David just cracked up in response, pulling away from Sarah. “You’re right,” he agreed, laughing. “I went too far. I got greedy.”

  “Does that mean—” Sarah turned around to face Jenna, who had also pulled away, and realized she was laughing, too. “Your basketball team never went to nationals! Why are you guys making stuff up?”

  Jenna was laughing almost too hard to respond. Almost against her will, Sarah found herself smiling, too. Finally Jenna managed, “We were trying to cheer you up, Sars. It worked, right?”

  Sarah looked from David to Jenna. They both looked very proud of themselves. “Well, right,” she admitted.

  “The point is, the drills today mean nothing,” Jenna continued. “You’ll play awesome once the tournament starts. That’s what matters.” She moved in next to Sarah and put Sarah’s arm around her shoulders again. “And the gymnastics story was true, for the record. My front left tooth is bonded on. Now let’s get you checked out.”

  David moved back in to support Sarah’s other side. “See, there’s a good example of someone choking and moving on,” he said. “People eventually forgave Bill Buckner, right?”

  Sarah looked at him like he was nuts. “You don’t live in Boston, do you? No one forgave him until the Sox won the series in 2004! And you know what? My dad still hasn’t!”

  “Sarah, you’re going to be just fine.” Helen, the camp nurse, was just finishing wrapping a thick Ace bandage around Sarah’s ankle. “Just a minor sprain. You’ll probably start feeling better later tonight.”

  “Oh, that’s such a relief!” Sarah cried. She felt h
er whole body start to relax. “Does that mean I can stay in sports this session? That I’ll be able to play?”

  “Sure,” Helen agreed with a smile. “I think today’s session is over, but you’ll be all healed and ready to play in a couple days. Now you and your friends can head over to lunch.”

  Sarah hobbled out to the waiting area with her bandaged foot. Jenna and David seemed to be locked in a heated game of rock, paper, scissors.

  “Paper beats rock!” Jenna was saying.

  “How does paper beat rock?” David argued with her. “I’ve got a rock here. It weighs, like, fifty pounds. You can cover my rock with paper, but so what? What does that get you?”

  “Ahem,” Sarah cut in, showing off her bandaged foot. “This is a really fascinating argument. But I’m ready. We can head to lunch now.”

  Jenna stood up and came running over to Sarah’s side. “How does it feel? Is it broken?”

  “No,” Sarah explained. “Just sprained. The nurse says it’s no big deal. It’ll feel better within the next couple days, and I can start playing sports again.”

  “Awesome,” David said, opening the door for Jenna and Sarah. “Donkey basketball, here we come.”

  “There is no donkey basketball,” Jenna snapped, annoyed.

  “Is too.”

  “Is not.”

  “Sarah, can you say for sure that there’s no donkey basketball? Keep in mind that the session is young. And there’s a donkey farm right down the road.”

  Sarah’s mind had already started to wander back to softball. “What was the question?”

  She walked a little ahead of her friends, testing her weight on her sprained ankle. Nurse Helen had been right—it felt better already, wrapped up in the rigid bandage.

  “There is not a donkey farm down the road,” Jenna was saying. “That was a fair with a pony ride. And besides . . .”

  Sarah let David and Jenna’s voices fade into the background as she walked ahead. So this wasn’t such a bad day, she told herself. Sure, I was a lousy athlete, but we all have our off days. My ankle will be okay, and I have the next two weeks to prove myself. And I guess I kind of made a new friend.