Free Keeping Score by Linda Sue Park Page B

times they had taken Charky for walks in the park. She shook her head.
    I
know
we were friends.
    There was some other reason he wasn't writing to her, and she had no idea what it could be.

    Good thing the Dodgers were doing so well: The 1952 season was one day of joy after another. The Bums had been in first place since the beginning of June, winning game upon game—so many that the losses hardly hurt at all.
    Secretly, Maggie knew it was at least in part because of her.
    Before the season started, Maggie had figured out how she could help the team. She would score every play of every single game that she listened to. She wouldn't miss a single pitch.
    And she would pray for the Dodgers the night before each game.
    Okay, so her praying hadn't worked last year, but
maybe saying prayers was like collecting something. Maggie thought of Treecie's shells.
    Years ago, when Treecie had first announced that she was collecting shells, she had only three. It was not a very impressive collection, although of course Maggie didn't tell her that.
    Now on a shelf in Treecie's room, there was a big pickle jar full of shells. She had found them on the beach near her uncle's farm. "I like thinking how they could have come from really far away," Treecie had said.
    Maybe saying prayers was like collecting shells—maybe you had to say a whole lot of them before they added up to something. Maggie pictured her prayers as a string of words trailing upwards. Maybe she had to say a bunch more prayers before the string was long enough to reach Heaven.
    So she had stuck to her plan fiercely. The praying part was easy: Bedtime prayers were a habit, automatic. The scoring part was sometimes harder: It took a lot of concentration to score pitches and set the table at the same time, especially with Mom snapping at her to put the scorebook
down
before she broke a glass.
    Now it was late September, the end of the regular season. And her plan was working!
    Brooklyn had won the pennant. They would play the Yankees in the World Series. Maggie could hardly wait.

    Seven games. The Series went the full seven games, back and forth, up and down, wins and losses, until
Maggie felt positively seasick. The Dodgers won Games 1, 3, and 5 but lost Games 2, 4, and 6.
    By unspoken agreement, Dad was never around when the games were on. He was at work during the week, of course, and for the weekend games he went to Uncle Leo's house. Maggie was grateful for his tact; she didn't think she could have stood listening to the games with him cheering for the Yankees in the same room.
    Along with probably two-thirds of the school kids in Brooklyn, Joey-Mick and Maggie stayed home after lunch on the day of Game 7. It was like the whole Series smushed into one game. First the Yankees scored, then the Dodgers tied the game; in the next inning the Yankees scored another run, and the Dodgers tied it again. Two more runs for the Yankees; they were ahead, 4–2. Joey-Mick paced the room like a big cat in a small cage,
thunk
ing the ball into his glove almost constantly. Maggie swung her leg furiously and chewed her nails and twisted her hair and kept score all at the same time.
    Bottom of the seventh, Yankees still ahead, 4–2. The bases were F.O.B.—"full of Brooklyns," Red Barber's famous phrase, and with two out Jackie Robinson came to the plate. Maggie made her tiny cross gesture, forefinger against her thumb.
    Jackie fouled off the first two pitches. Then he swung and made contact. The sound of the bat on the ball was wrong—a weak
tock
rather than a solid
crack.
    An infield pop-up. Maggie froze, all except for her heart, which felt like it was falling somewhere south of her toes.
    But Jackie was Jackie, and this was no ordinary pop-up. It went high ... then higher ... the pitcher and the first baseman lost it in the sun ... the Dodgers were running like mad around the bases ... the ball was still in the air ... one runner scored, then two, and the third was