Carole Wilson - Laura_s ball club

Laura Cutter was furious. Even her mother said that a twelve year old young lady who was beginning to develop like one ought to leave baseball to the boys! Can you just imagine in this day and age leaving everything to the boys just like it was 1800 or some ancient time like that! She snapped her long blond pigtails in the air like two ferocious whips as she turned on her heel and left the sand lot where the boys in the neighborhood were having a wonderful time playing baseball and wouldn't let her play! Well, she had the right to have a good time, too, didn't she? Why were all the fun things left for the boys? She liked to play hockey, or example, and what did her mother want her to do? She insisted that Laura take figure skating lessons! Of all the stupid things to do! What good are figure skating lessons? What you had to do was get the experience so that you were able to place the puck exactly where it was supposed to go. Figure skating lessons were sure a laugh when it came to doing anything useful like that! And now it seemed as if the whole world was against her playing baseball too!

"Hi, Janie," she suddenly called, seeing her pal on the way to the sand lot, coming at her in the other direction. "They won't let you play," she announced sourly. "Boys! They think they know everything!" She expected to see Janie get really angry, because she liked a good game of baseball or hockey as much as Laura did, but Janie seemed to be looking for someone.

"Hey, Laura, have you seen Mack?" Janie asked, not perturbed about the unfair conditions for girls in Hobbs Corner at all!

"I don't care if I never see him," Laura spat. "What's it to you to see a boy?"

Now Janie Farragut focused her attention on her old friend, seeing for herself that Mack Toohey was not at the sand lot.

"Well if you want to get to play with boys, you got to know how to go about doing it, Laura. You don't be stupid about it."

"Are you calling me stupid?" Laura said, blazing at her old friend, her buddy, she thought.

"Oh, naw, come off it, Laura. What I mean is these guys ain't the only guys in town, and there are other baseball games in other places."

"Where?"

"Other places I know," the dark-haired, freckle-nosed Janie whispered mysteriously. "Only you have to join the club to play."

"A baseball club?" Laura Cutter's pretty jaw dropped in surprise. Then her brow puckered. "What are you talking about?"

"That's why I'm looking for Mack Toohey," the darker girl explained. "See, to join a club, you have to be initiated and to do that, there's a number of steps, you know. Right now I'm supposed to be doing another step in my initiation."

"You mean that Mack Toohey is a member of this club?" Laura had always admired Mack Toohey. He was a real leader of the guys, and he was extra good in any sport, it seemed. He could play hockey like a Maple Leaf. The Maple Leafs were her favorite team.

"He sure is. He's the president, I think. I'm not sure. Before your initiation is finished, you don't get told very much, not even where you're going to play when you're finished."

"Why not?" Laura demanded. It sounded to her like more of male chauvinism.

"They have to be careful, of course. If you have a club, you don't let people know your secrets. If people don't pass the initiation and don't get into the club, what happens if they know all the secrets?" Laura couldn't imagine what would happen, if anything.

"I suppose it depends on the secrets," she mumbled. "Who's in the club?" she asked, still suspicious of the whole idea. She had never heard of such a thing to do with baseball!

"You can't know that either, not yet. Say, Laura, there's talk they're going to need another girl for the team. You interested?"

"You mean they have to have a certain number of girls? Why don't they just pick the best players?" Laura was perplexed and the idea certainly did nothing to allay her suspicions.

"It's up to you," the other girl said, shrugging her shoulders as though it didn't matter in the least bit whether Laura, who was supposed to be her best friend, was on her team or not! Laura could not help being incensed and then hurt. "I just have to find someone," Janie continued nonchalantly.

"What would I have to do?" Laura asked then. She could not help but recall that Mack Toohey was in this club, whatever it was.

"First you have to come to a special meeting and talk to the guys, I guess. I'd have to find out for sure," Janie explained. "What time are going home for lunch, and I'll call you."

"Can't we just go and find Mack and find out now?" Laura asked.

"If I can find Mack, we got other things to do," Janie told her mysteriously.

"Like what?" Laura asked with a penetrating stare. Since when did Janie Farragut do things secret from her best friend?

"Oh, Laura, I can't tell you. That's why I want you to join!"

"Well I don't mind going and talking about it."

"I'll call you at noon."

"Yeah, okay," Laura agreed, and they parted. Laura Cutter went home because there wasn't anything better to do, and she might just as well sit around and read comics. Janie Farragut went looking for Mack, apparently.

"First I have to ask you," said Janie later that afternoon when Laura met her for the club meeting to which she was invited, "if you'll promise not to tell anyone anything if you decide not to join. I mean, you wouldn't want me to get into trouble or anything like that!"

"Of course not!" Laura affirmed. What could Janie mean by trouble?

"I told the guys you had a sense of honor and weren't any tattle tale," Janie smiled, sighing with relief.

"I sure do!" Laura agreed, wondering now why she would be called upon to use it.

They had several blocks to walk before turning into a really beautiful house on the outskirts of Hobbs Corner. Laura thought it was the DePow house, but she wasn't sure. Ernest DePow was a former mayor of the town, and the family was the wealthiest in the whole county, her father often said.

"Hey, won't we get caught in here?" Laura asked nervously. Already Janie had left the path that led to the front door and was leading her pal over the lawns. Laura was not accustomed to walking on such beautiful lawns. The only one she knew that looked anywhere near as beautiful was in the park and it was covered with signs that warned people not to walk on it.

"So what if we do? Peter has a right to play with kids," Janie told her.

"Who's Peter?"

"Peter DePow. He lives here, and he's in the club," Janie told her importantly. "He goes to private school," she then explained, suddenly feeling guilty for enjoying her sense of importance in knowing Peter DePow.

The two girls reached the rear of the house, and Janie led Laura on into the trees that started to dot the yard sparsely and then became more numerous as the land began to rise into the hills that backed the property. Suddenly, Janie stopped.

"Here we are!" she announced. Before indicating where they were, she enjoyed the startled look on her friend's face as she looked around herself, hunting for the clubhouse that Janie had told her to expect. "Up there!" she laughed gaily at last. She pointed straight up, and sure enough, there was the bottom of a good sized tree house that had been constructed in the branches of two trees, not one. The trees were sturdy old red maples, their gray bark folded around them like the folds of clothing.

"What strange looking trees," Laura noted. Gosh, the wealthy people had everything, she couldn't help thinking. But she looked up at the tree house with a strangely beating heart. She never had paid much attention to the DePows or talk about them, and she had not realized there was a boy in the family. There was not only a kid in the family, a lover of baseball like herself, she thought, shakily, but she, Laura Cutter, was going to meet him and… and play with him… and maybe be in the very same club!