Free The Tiger's Child by Torey Hayden Page B

beaming cheerfully, but Sheila, in the middle, stared back at the camera with a guarded, almost suspicious gaze. Despite the new orange sunsuit her father had bought for the occasion, she had come to school very scruffy that day, her long hair uncombed, her face unwashed, and she stood in stark contrast to her two classmates. There was a compelling aspect to the photograph, however. It was the wariness of her expression, which made her seem fierce and yet surprisingly vulnerable.
    I decided in the end to take that photograph, as well as the others taken on that day, which showed the other children, Anton and Whitney.
    The following Saturday, Sheila and I went to watch her father’s baseball team play. They were an inauspicious-looking group, those boys. Grubby ten- and eleven-year-olds dressed in mismatched uniforms, they were almost all minority kids from a mixture of backgrounds, united, I suspect, only by their poverty. But they were noisy and cheerful in the way of all children, and they greeted Sheila’s father like a returning champion when he ran out onto the baseball diamond.
    From all I could gather, Mr. Renstad appeared to be doing well. He was enormously proud of the small duplex where they lived. It wasn’t large; it wasn’t in a particularly good part of town, and he didn’t own it, of course; but he had chosen it himself, rather than have it foisted upon him by Social Services. Moreover, he was paying the rent himself out of the steady salary he now earned as a laborerfor the parks department. He had taken me right through the duplex, showing me each and every thing he had managed to buy—the beds, the sofa, the television, the kitchen table. He certainly remembered the circumstances in which we had last met, and he was enthusiastic to show me how far he had come in the interim. These things were his and I could tell acquiring them meant a lot to him.
    His real love, however, was the baseball team—“his boys.” Again and again, he told me how it was they who had made him go straight for good. They depended on him, he said. The team had nearly been disbanded for lack of a coach until he took over. More to the point, he admitted, he would lose them if he messed with drugs again. He was still under the watchful eye of the parole officer.
    I enjoyed that baseball game. They didn’t win, but they played well and it was apparent that winning wasn’t so important to them. They were a team, in the true sense of the word, and I identified immediately with that. Whatever his past, Mr. Renstad’s present was going well.
    I’d made plans to take Sheila out after the game. On the other two occasions I’d come to her house, so I thought it would be pleasant to go somewhere with her. Sheila, however, was unable to decide where she wanted to go.
    I suggested we go for a pizza. I thought I might take her up to the city, partly to give her a change of scenery, and partly because there were nicerplaces to eat up there. So after the game, we got into the car and headed north.
    Somewhere within the first five miles, I took a wrong turn. As I was still learning my way around this new area, this wasn’t unusual; however, I didn’t realize I’d done it until the thinning houses made me suspicious that I was not going toward the city. Normally I have an excellent sense of direction, and while I do take wrong turns, even then I can usually discern if I’m going in the right general direction. On this occasion, I managed to get myself completely turned around, because while I still felt that I was going toward the city, evidence outside my window said otherwise. I voiced my concern to Sheila.
    “No, you’re all right. I know exactly where you’re at. Just keep driving this way,” she said confidently. So I did.
    Another fifteen minutes and I hit open country. I knew I was irredeemably lost and knew I wasn’t going to right myself without taking drastic action, probably in the form of stopping and digging out the