“Hey, wait up!”
Marty and I call out to Melvin as we quickly crest the hill and start stumbling down the path to the neighbour’s yard. We are on one of the most daring rescue missions ever dared, and we need to keep up.
“Where – (gasp) – do you think *(pant)* it is?” Marty wheezes. Bent over and exhausted myself, I say,
“How am I supposed to know? *(pant)* I wasn’t watching. You’re both crazy, anyway; there’s no way he hit it this far.”
* * * * *
Melvin, the school mascot and the least athletic guy in our class, was over at my house on my birthday. If I had any choice in the matter, he wouldn’t even be living in my neighbourhood. He was always in his own little world; at recess, his wiry hands gripped a comic book, while the rest of the guys were playing baseball. And, though it wasn’t his fault, he had a December birthday, hadn’t hit a growth spurt since he was a fetus, and was the most maladjusted pre-teen that ever fell off the rope ladder in gym class. So you can understand how it seemed like social homicide when my mom told me he was going to stay in my room the week of my birthday, while his parents were on vacation in Connecticut. That’s why I only invited Marty over on my birthday, and why we were so sour about the predicament we were in.
The three of us had gone to the backyard to pitch a baseball to each other the way Marty and I did most days after school. He and I always argued over who could throw the fastest, so it was with a wide smile on his face that he handed me his birthday present.
“Open it!” he said, as impatient as if it were his present, too. He and Mel watched as I ripped open the wrapping.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was the most beautiful baseball I had ever held. It had red, leather stitching on the seams, and it gleamed brighter and cleaner than any new ball I had ever seen. On the side, there was a screen, which with the help of a little micro-chip, showed how fast the ball was thrown.
“Now we’ll find out for sure who throws the fastest!” I said. With a whoop and a holler, Marty ran to the back corner of the yard, as I whipped my new ball for the fist time.
“Forty-one miles-per-hour,” he said. “Not bad, Will, but this is better!” He chucked it back.
“Forty-three,” I said, already cranking my arm for another throw. We tired ourselves in this way for a solid ten minutes, getting a little better each time. It was about then that I noticed Mel standing off to the side, gripping an old Louisville Slugger.
“Can I hit the ball?” he asked. I looked at him, and seeing how left-out he felt, I figured it wouldn’t take very much effort to entertain him, just once.
“Sure,” I said. Taking a step back, he tapped the bat against his heels, and wrenched his little body into the strangest position I had ever seen.
“I’m ready!” Mel was definitely excited. I looked at him, confused about where his strike zone might be. With a shrug, I lobbed him an easy slow-pitch, and turned to watch Marty’s expression.
To my surprise, his jaw dropped with a look of sheer disbelief. I wheeled around to look back at Mel, who had managed to fall teeth-first into the dirt. I heard a thud behind me, and I spun to look towards Marty again. I was getting dizzy.
“I don’t believe it,” Marty said.
“Believe what?”
“It’s in his yard!” I could see the raw, yellow fear in his eyes, and I knew that he meant Father Wilson.
Father Wilson was an old priest who still led mass every once in a while. He spoke Latin as though it was his first language; however, he also spoke English like it was his second. He was one of the only people at the church who wanted to keep the creepy old Gargoyles that sat at the entrance. Mom said it was because he respected tradition, but I still think it was because he liked to see children cry.
When Marty and I finally turned from our horror, we realized that Melvin had already taken off. We ran after him. We yelled for him to wait up, but he kept on running.
* * * * *
“You’re both crazy, anyway; there’s no way he hit it this far,” I say. As we come to the bottom of the path, we see Melvin disappear into Father Wilson’s yard. We stop in our tracks. It would take more guts than we have right now to go into that spooky yard, so what does Mel have that we don’t?
“Look out!” Through the dry, thin branches of the hedge, we can see the callous cleric stumble across his weed-packed patio toward Mel. With a dive and roll like I’d only ever seen in movies, Mel throws the ball out of the yard. It lands directly in my glove, and the force surprisingly tosses me backwards on the sidewalk.
Tipping my head up, I see Mel jump, almost effortlessly, over the fence bordering my yard. I look at the baseball in my hand in the shade of Father Wilson’s hedge.
“What’s it say?” asks Marty.
“A hundred and five miles per hour.”
