Ann Martin - Kristy And The Walking Disaster

Even so - despite the accident and sending the kids home early - Jessi told me later that

Buddy and Suzi were absolutely jubilant as they walked back to the Barretts' that afteroon. And Watson was so excited about the upcoming game that he made David Michael, Andrew, and Karen excited, too.

T-shirts, cheerleaders, refreshments, a real game coming up. It had been one of the biggest days in Krusher history.

Chapter 10.

Talk about Whoa! Dawn doesn't miss a thing. Her notebook entry was pretty meaty, if you know what I mean. The only thing she got wrong was the Blasters. She meant the Bashers, of course. I wished she hadn't noticed quite so much about me and Bart. And I really wished she hadn't written about us in the notebook. I'd have to talk to her about that.

The thing is, I hadn't mentioned Bart to any of my friends, even Mary Anne. I mean, I haven't mentioned how I feel about him. The club members know that the Krushers are playing a rival team soon, and some of them know that the coach of that team is named Bart, but none of them knows about my Gigantic Crush on him. Usually, that's the sort of thing us club members share, but for some reason, I wanted to keep Bart private. And after what happened at the practice, I was glad I'd been doing just that.

The practice got off to a pretty normal start.

The kids arrived on time (Dawn got her kids to the playground early - she is so organized), and they were all wearing their T-shirts again. It was a much warmer day, so they didn't have to wear them over other clothes. I looked at my team. Smiling faces, new Kristy's Krushers T-shirts, running shoes with the laces tied or the Velcro straps fastened, neat blue jeans - all twenty kids. . . . No, nineteen of them. Nineteen tidy team members and one mess, our walking disaster. Jackie's jeans were muddy, his shoes were untied, and his shirt was on backward and already had a hole in it. Even his hair was a mess. Oh, well.

"All right, Krushers!" I called.

To my surprise, I heard a shout: "Krush those Bashers! Crash those Bashers! Bash those Bashers out of sight!"

Our cheerleaders were on hand.

Then I heard another sound. It was a laugh. I turned away from my team members, who were lined up, ready to count off by twos, and saw - Bart and about ten of his Bashers. Bart was sitting in the stands, gazing intently at our team, but his Bashers were hanging around behind the catcher's cage. I guessed they were his Bashers, anyway. They were sturdy-looking boys wearing matching red baseball caps. But Bart wasn't paying much attention to them.

"Bart!" I cried. I'm sure I blushed. My knees turned to water, but I managed to run over to him. "What are you doing here?" I asked.

"Just checking up on our competition," he replied coolly. "That's legal."

"Oh." I said. I felt something like a rock settle in the pit of my stomach. "We - we haven't checked you guys out."

"Come on and check us out then. It's a free country."

Bart tried to smile, but I frowned. This didn't seem like the boy I'd talked to under the streetlight. Was this a side of him I didn't know yet? Or was he only like this on the ball field? (Like Claire and her baseball tantrums?) I mean, I would do anything for my Krushers. Maybe Bart felt the same way about his Bashers.

I didn't know what to say to Bart, so I just walked back to my team. I felt crushed. (Krushed.)

As I passed the Bashers I heard a few snickers from them. And some whispered comments which I know Bart couldn't hear.

"Look at that messy kid. He looks like Pig-Pen from Peanuts!" (Jackie.)

"Look at that baby-baby with the wiffle ball! I don't believe it - a wiffle ball!" (That was Gabbie, her T-shirt covering her round two-

and-a-half-year-old tummy. The only ball I'd allow her to hit was a wiffle ball. And in order to throw it, the pitcher had to stand about five feet away from her. How would I handle that in the game against the Bashers? I hadn't even thought about that, but I was determined to put every one of my kids in the game, even Gabbie and Claire, and even if it was only for a few minutes. Watson and I had decided that was important.)

More comments:

"Look at fatso!" (Okay, so Jake Kuhn was a little overweight.)

"But that kid looks like a good pitcher." (Nicky. I was relieved to see that the Bashers appeared worried.)

In the stands, Dawn was watching us. She was taking everything in. She'd seen me have my talk with Bart, and she'd seen Bart's kids snicker at the Krushers. She'd figured out that they were Bashers (or Blasters), and she was surprised. She was surprised because she knew Bart's team was from my neighborhood, which is pretty far away. The Blasters must be awfully curious, thought Dawn, to come all the way across town just to watch a Krushers practice. Either that, or they were nervous.

I decided to ignore Bart and his stupid Bashers. I pretended they weren't even there.

At least I tried to. It wasn't easy. I could almost feel Bart's eyes on me.

"Okay, Krushers!" I shouted. "Practice game! Practice game! Count off by twos! Let's get rolling!"

The Krushers divided up. David Michael and Nicky were the pitchers, and Nicky's side was at bat first.

David Michael pitched to Mar go Pike. She hit a pop fly. One out.

It's too bad I have such good hearing because I heard one of the Bashers say, "What can you expect from a girl?"

From a girl? Weren't there any girl Bashers? Even though I had decided to ignore our audience, I turned around to look at Bart. He was still sitting in the stands, watching the game.

Myriah Perkins was up next. She hit the ball and ran to second base. She really should only have made it to first, but Jackie was in the outfield and had so much trouble getting hold of the ball, you'd have thought there was margarine on his hands.

I heard a couple of hoots from behind me. "Pig-Pen sure can't catch," somebody shouted.

I whirled around to see Bart's reaction to his Basher's behavior, but two of the other Bashers were talking to him. For just a moment, I

wondered if they were actually distracting him so he couldn't hear. . . . Nah.

Matt Braddock was up next. Good, I thought. Now we'll show those Bashers our stuff. If only Jackie weren't in the outfield. . . .

Matt got two strikes, but whacked the ball hard on the third try. He let out an animal-sounding yell, which he sometimes does when he's excited (of course, he has no idea how he sounds), and he took off. When he reached second base, he paused, seeing that Myriah had stopped at third. She signed to Matt to stay put.

At that, the laughter behind me was so loud that the only thing I could be glad of was that Matt wasn't able to hear it. The Krushers looked over at the Bashers. I could see the same thing registering on all their faces at the same time: They knew their competition was watching, and they knew they ought to start playing well.

But just then, one kid said loudly, "A dummy! They've even got a dummy on their team!"

Bart, why don't you make your kids shut up? I wondered. But I could see that one of his players had asked him for pitching tips, which Bart was giving out grudgingly. (He wanted to watch our team.) Now why would a kid need pitching tips in the middle of a

scouting-out-the-other-team venture? Bart's Bashers were distracting him. I felt very angry. Why wasn't Bart picking up on what his team was doing?

Haley charged over to the Basher who had just insulted her brother. She stood inside the catcher's cage, nose-to-nose with the boy on the other side of the wire fence.

"That 'dummy' " she said with clenched teeth, "is my brother, and if you call him a dummy one more time, I will personally rearrange your face."

The kid just stared at Haley, but she stared back until she had stared him down.