“I try,” Mikey said, nodding solemnly.
“Can I ask you something?” Mr. Rose asked, leaning back in his chair as he considered her for a moment.
“Just as long as it doesn’t end with a call to my parents,” she said, making his lips twitch.
“Why are you failing my class?”
“Because you don’t accept bribes,” Mikey said, making him chuckle as he pushed his chair back and headed toward the bookshelves overflowing with books that Sebastian would probably kill to get his hands on. He’d probably like this class, Mikey thought absently as she watched Mr. Rose search through the bookshelves.
“I can see how that would be a problem,” Mr. Rose murmured as he paused when he came to a thick black book on the bottom shelf.
“It really is,” Mikey said, nodding solemnly.
Chuckling, he grabbed the black book and tossed it to her as he said, “This should help.”
Frowning, Mikey asked, “Help with what?” as she caught the book.
“You have a choice,” Mr. Rose said as he walked back to his desk and sat back down.
“Which is…” Mikey asked, glancing down at the book in her hand and tried not to wince when she saw the title.
“You’re not going to like it,” Mr. Rose warned her.
“Probably not,” Mikey murmured in agreement.
“Let me ask you something first,” Mr. Rose said, leaning back in his chair as he considered her. “What were you hoping for when you handed in that book report?”
“That it would bring tears of joy to your eyes when you read it,” Mikey said, nodding solemnly.
“It came close,” he said, matching her nod with one of his own before he gestured to the large book in her hand. “When are tryouts?”
“Monday,” Mikey weakly mumbled, not really liking where this was going.
“Baseball is”
“My life,” Mikey stressed, cutting him off with the hopes that he understood what was at stake here.
All she’d ever wanted to do was play baseball.
That was it.
The first time that she saw a baseball game, she’d fallen head-over-heels in love. It wasn’t long before she’d discovered her love of pitching. She’d treated everything within reach as a baseball and after several unfortunate incidents that had ended with two broken windows, her mother flinching anytime she reached for her sippy cup, and the mailman refusing to deliver their mail if she was home, her mother bought her a toddler-sized baseball glove and a tennis ball.
That had quickly led to her mother banning balls in the house, begging the T-ball coach to let her play even though she’d only been three at the time and her obsession with everything baseball. She played every chance she got, begged everyone that made the mistake of making eye contact with her to play catch, and quickly learned to apologize for any and all unfortunate accidents that happened as a result.
As the years passed, one thing became clear, she was meant to play baseball. It was the only thing that she wanted to do, which was a problem since her mom refused to let her quit school and focus on her baseball career. That was fine, because she had a plan, one that she’d been working on since she was little and one that had almost failed before they’d met Reese.
Her pitches had been wild and the parents of the other kids on the team hadn’t been happy about her playing with them. That had led to her being stuck warming the bench and terrified that she would never get a chance to play. After she’d accidently sent Reese to the hospital with a fastball, she’d expected her mom to put an end to her dreams. What she hadn’t expected was for Reese to work with her and show her how to control her aim better. Once he’d married her mom, they’d moved closer to his family and she’d finally found a team that would let her play.
For the last three years, she’d waited for a chance to try out for the eighth-grade baseball team, biding her time on the travel teams, practicing every chance that she got just so that she would be ready because this was the year that everything changed. It didn’t matter how many perfect games she’d pitched before, how many players that she’d managed to strike out, or how many homeruns she’d managed to score because none of that mattered anymore.
The only thing that mattered was getting on the team and securing the starting pitcher position and keeping it. Next year, there was going to be a lot of competition and she planned on doing whatever it took to make sure there was a spot on the team for her. Getting on the team this year would go a long way to helping her make the freshmen team next year. If she didn’t get on the team this year…
God, she didn’t even want to think about that.
Looking thoughtful, Mr. Rose nodded as he murmured, “That should give you three days then.”
“For what?”
“To see how fast you can read that book and do your book report over again if you want to play baseball this year,” he said, making her wince as he handed her book report back to her.
“Very quickly,” Mikey promised as she gestured toward the door with the thick book that she had no chance in hell of finishing in three days. “I’m going to get started right now.”
“That’s probably for the best,” Mr. Rose murmured in agreement as Mikey headed for the door, wondering how she was going to pull this one off.
She could see if they’d made a movie based on the book, but since that hadn’t ended well for her the last time, mostly because she fell asleep before the end and decided to just wing it when it came time to write the book report, she would probably be better off skipping that option. That meant reading the book, Mikey realized as she opened the book to the back page and
Groaned.
Six hundred and forty pages? Oh, there was no way in hell that she was going to be able to pull that off, Mikey realized as she shoved the book into her backpack along with the book report that she’d been hoping would be enough to raise her grade. She reached inside the pocket of her hoodie, needing the familiar weight of her baseball only to remember that she wasn’t allowed to have it in school and sighed heavily as she dropped her hand away.
Maybe she was going about this all wrong, Mikey wondered a few minutes later as she grabbed a plastic lunch tray and stepped in line. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, she thought as she ordered a double-lunch and took her time choosing a particularly yummy looking cup of chocolate pudding with extra whipped cream and paid for her lunch before heading toward an empty table in the back.
It was just a book report, Mikey told herself as she placed her tray down, dropped her bag on the floor and sat down with a nod because she could do this. If she started reading the book as soon as she got home, stayed up all night and spent every waking minute for the next two days reading, then she should be able to pull it off. This could definitely work, Mikey thought, nodding only to end up groaning as she dropped her head in her hands because she definitely wasn’t going to be able to pull this one off in time.
“What are you doing?” came the murmured question that had her dropping her hands away to find Sebastian helping himself to the hamburger that she bought for him as he dropped down in the seat across from her.
“Wallowing in self-pity,” Mikey said as she grabbed a tater tot and popped it in her mouth.