Chapter 23

It was a typical morning except my favorite non-girlfriend milkmaid was helping me again. I didn’t dare to call her that, but it was a close thing. I remembered that I had the best mom in the whole world, who was working to help my newest girlfriend with getting her brother here. My dad had gotten permission from Judge Hairston to take him to supper tonight with Monique to see if we would be a good fit for Willie. With everything Willie was going through in foster care, Monique thought he would jump at the chance. The judge was reluctant to make any commitment to Dad, even if Willie wanted to be with us. But I knew how persuasive my parents could be. Dad seemed to think that Mom’s previous friendship with Florence Jackson might help.

I had baseball practice after school. Compared to last season, baseball was a joy and I couldn’t wait to throw the ball around with my teammates. After that Dad would pick me up and we would meet up with Willie, Monique and the rest of my family at Little Italy’s

I inhaled my breakfast and ran out to the bus. As always, Jacob seemed ready to talk to me. “I heard that you got half the school fired yesterday.”

I cringed and replied, “Too bad I can’t fire you, Jake.”

“Aw, Tommy, what happened?” he asked.

“Yeah, dude what’s up?” asked David.

“Hey, give the guy a break! He’s had a rough week,” said Tim, and my other bus mates listened to him. “You will tell me later, right?” he whispered.

“Yeah,” I whispered back.

Homeroom was buzzing about the missing Principal and Vice-Principal. Mr. Thomas usually helped Mrs. Davis with the ‘tardies’, but Mr. Seiling was helping today. After first period, Mrs. Douglas pulled me aside. “It’s true, then?”

“What, Mrs. Douglas?”

Mrs. Douglas flashed her beautiful green eyes in anger. Mr. Douglas was a lucky man (so long as those eyes weren’t angry).

“That asshole stole your paper from my file, modified it and made it look like you were a plagiarist.”

I nodded. It was all I could do. Between my discomfort at the subject matter and the fact that I heard a teacher swear for the first time I was kind of shocked.

“I’m going to kill him, Tommy!” she roared.

“It’s okay Mrs. Douglas. My dad and I figured what he had done and now they’re the ones in big trouble.”

A tear ran down her cheek. “I’m sorry, Tommy. I’m just so angry! That man and his little minion were trying to railroad you and destroy my credibility at the same time. It’s just so evil!”

I cautiously put my hand on her shoulder. I wanted to hug her, but thought this was a bit safer.

“I know, but everybody knows that you are such an amazing teacher. Nobody would believe that you would miss something like that,”

I saw Mrs. Douglas’ eyes soften and she sighed. “Tommy, you really are a dream student. You not only do excellent work academically, but your demeanor, kindness and caring nature speak volumes about your character,” she paused, before continuing. “Thank you for calming me down and helping me get some perspective. I’ll let you run. I don’t want you to be late for Mr. Crane’s class.”

I smiled and with a wave, I scampered to period two and just made the bell.

“What did Mrs. Douglas want with you after class, honey?” asked Jennifer, while we were at lunch.

“Apparently Vice Principal Thomas stole my final paper on Romeo and Juliet from last quarter and he or Principal Martin doctored it to make it look like I plagiarized it.”

I saw a look of sheer contempt come over Janie’s face. “They have a lot to answer for, those two.”

“My dad is contemplating a civil suit against them, the school board, the town and the Elks Lodge. My guess is he’ll drop the matter if everybody humbly apologizes and treats me like a king.”

“That would make us your queens,” grinned Jennifer.

“That would be true whatever happens,” I smiled, gaining a kiss on each cheek from J Squared for my thoughtful response.

“Is this a ‘gotta kiss your boyfriend’ table?” asked Tim as he walked over with Shelly Manners. Shelly was dating Tim ‘on approval’ meaning that she could break up with him on a moment’s notice, without even having to say a word to him.

I sensed that my new friend might have screwed up, so I decided to try to bail him out. “Only if you say or do something so incredibly awesome that they decide to kiss you, so start flattering the heck out of Shelly and see what happens.”

Shelly’s narrowed eyes widened in shock and then she burst out laughing. “Okay, Tim start talking.”

Tim blushed a deep shade of red. “Uh ... Shelly ... you’re the most amazing girl I know.”

Shelly laughed really hard, but then leaned over and kissed Tim on the cheek. “Okay, Tim, that was a good start. Why don’t we go to an empty table and you can tell me more.”

Tim was led away like a lamb to the slaughter, but considering everything, he looked pretty happy to die.

My other friends eventually turned up and I was a bit more circumspect about what happened to the missing administrators. I did hint that something not kosher was going on, but I was okay. I still got pressed for an answer, mostly by Billy but whispered that I’d talk to him at practice.

The rest of the afternoon went well and then it was time for practice. My mom picked me up from school in her 1973 Dodge Coronet station wagon. Dad was constantly trying to get Mom to upgrade to something nicer, but her response was that she was a farm girl and that the ‘wagon’ suited her just fine.

We had the 3:30 Practice on the main field today, so I went right from school. Mom dropped me off and went home to change and then pick up Willie Jackson for our family dinner, I got there about twenty minutes early so I worked on my homework in the dugout until practice started.

When Coach Daniels arrived, he gave me somewhat of a surprise.

“Tommy, I want to start working you out in Left Field and out of the bullpen.”

“Are you concerned about my defense, Coach?”

Coach laughed. “Not at all, Tommy. You are probably the best defensive player on this team, though Mike Wolf at second is pretty terrific too. I also think that Paul has a terrific glove in the outfield and Billy has got good hands and is a natural around the bag at first. The reason is, I would like to see Dylan play some at short. I know I have you for another year, but it’s important to develop younger players too. I’d like to give Dylan a chance to start, but I know that your bat is too important to take out of the lineup, at least this week. You’ll probably sit at least one game this season, though. As far as relief pitching, Billy is the only player with any experience relieving, other than our two starters. I’d like to have you and Jason work out of the pen.”

I smiled. Coach Daniels was nothing like my old coach. So far we had played three games and Coach had started a different line up of ‘everyday’ players for each game. I knew I would have to sit for at least one game, but the fact that Coach was giving other players a chance to start was a sign that he not only wanted all of us to have fun, but to truly improve as players in the process.

“You can count on me, Coach!” I said with a grin.

“Good man,” he said patting me on the back.

Practice went well. I was a little rusty shagging flies, but eventually was able to track the ball a little better off the bat. I would never make a great outfielder. I had good speed, a good glove and a strong arm, but I just didn’t have the instincts. Still, I was probably as good or better an outfielder than anybody on our team except Paul Clinton, our Center-Fielder, who not only had great range, but a good glove, decent arm and great instincts. I figured I’d just let him call me off everything hit near him and I’d maybe get a chance or two. That was fine with me.

Today, Coach Daniels’ dad (who was also a ‘Coach Daniels,’ I suppose) was our guest pitching coach. He worked with me on both a curveball and a sinker. He was impressed with the rising fastball, I could already throw. We talked about arm angles, positions and release points. He showed us proper grips for each pitch. I had problems getting my curve over and would have to work on that. On the other hand, I now could throw my rising fastball and a sinker (that was almost as hard as my fastball) for strikes or at least around the plate. The elder Coach Daniels pronounced me ready for relief and if I could get better command of my curve, ready for a ‘spot start’ or two.

While we were watching Jason working with the pitching coach, I gave Billy a little more detail about what happened at school on Wednesday. Of course I swore him to silence and he agreed. We lawyers’ kids could keep secrets. He, like my girls, was really upset for me and promised to take it out on the Elks when we played them after Easter. I challenged him to a game of ‘live action’ home run derby in that game, which meant we would both be swinging for the fences every at bat. We both agreed that would only happen if we managed a sizable lead. We didn’t want to tick off our coach by not playing smart, situational baseball. With a big lead, that wouldn’t really be an issue.

After practice, Dad picked me up. He handed me a stick of deodorant before I got in the car. I swear sometimes I think he loved his little Audi more than he loved me. Then we were on our way to meet our potential new family member.

Willie Jackson was ten years old. Had the same coloring as his lovely sister. He was really quiet until Monique showed up. I was excited to see that she had brought J Squared with her. Willie was up like a flash when he saw his sister and the reunion was touching. According to Monique, it had been almost three weeks since she had seen her brother, but she had tried the last two Sundays but had been turned away. I saw my father’s expression and my mother nodded. I overheard her whisper, “We need to talk.”

Once Monique arrived, Willie seemed to open up to us.

“Did you really know my mama, Mrs. Matthews?” asked Willie.

My mother smiled. “Yes, Willie. We actually became pretty good friends, but we didn’t really talk about our families much. I really did like her. You have a lot of connections to our family. Your sister is really good friends with Tommy.”

“Why? She’s a lot older than him,” commented Willie doubtfully.

“Only about a couple years or so,” grinned Monique. “Besides, Willie, Tommy’s my boss”

“No way, Tommy is only fourteen,”

“It’s true,” I smiled. “My grandfather helped me buy the company that Monique works for, so yeah, I’m her boss.”

“But when we’re outside of work, I’m his boss,” she grinned and kissed me on the cheek causing everybody at the table except for Willie, to laugh.

“Moany. Why are you kissin’ on that honky?!” cried the boy.

We were shocked. The only one of us who responded was Monique. “Now you listen here you stupid little nappy head! I don’t expect you to understand it, but I love this boy and these girls,” she gestured to J Squared. “And they love me. Besides Mrs. Matthews knowing Mama, the only reason they are here is because of me and the love that I have for my rude, stupid little brother! Now if you want to go back to the Ledbetters, we can take you back right now. Otherwise, I want to hear an apology to Tommy, the Matthews and to Jennifer and Janie!”