Free About the B'nai Bagels by E.L. Konigsburg Page A

The polite thing to do would have been to ignore his losing weight because you were supposed to have ignored that he was fat in the first place. But Sidney reported to Mother each pound he lost, and Mother reported to the team, and we all cheered. I mentioned how Mother’s enthusiasm was a hard thing to be up against.
    The kids loved it, and it made them love Sidney. Hewas looking better on the ball field, too. Partly because of Spencer’s coaching, partly because of Mother’s enthusiasm, and partly because of his mother’s hiring a baseball tutor for him.
    Aunt Thelma came to all but one of the pre-season practices. Even Spencer got used to having her around. She now wore golf shoes instead of high heels. Aunt Thelma did help out being that she liked to talk about her two specialties: raising children and educating them. Mother and Spencer would sometimes turn business over to Aunt Thelma if the parents wanted to talk deeply about their kids.
    It turned out that nobody ever changed anybody’s mind about anything. Grown-ups don’t get talked into an idea. They get talked into adjusting to it. And that was Aunt Thelma’s new greatest specialty. Mother was captain, Spencer was sergeant, and Aunt Thelma was chaplain.

W e won our first game. Dad’s strategy paid off; Mom’s nagging paid off; Spencer helped; and the Our Lady of Mercy catcher helped, too. The Our Lady of Mercy catcher couldn’t. Our team stole home three times. Once on a wild pitch, and the other two times on normal mistakes. And in Little League mistakes are normal especially during the first game of the season. The score was 7–2. We would have had one more run if I hadn’t watched to see where the ball was going; it was two outs when Barry hit the ball. I was on second at the time, and I should have begun running immediately, but I waited to see whether the ball would land on the ground or in a glove. They were so slow fielding that I could have made it home if I hadn’t waited. It cost us a run, but it didn’t cost us the game. And I guess I called my attention to it louder than Mother or Spencer did. As we left the field, Spencersaid, “Let’s run on those long flies with two outs. Got nothing to lose, kid.” I wondered if Spencer knew how much more embarrassed I was than either Botts or Hersch or any nonrelative would have been.
    All the parents and spectators on our side came swooping down on the field as Mother was yelling, “Do you like the feeling?”
    Everyone chorused, “Yeah!”
    As the parents and spectators arrived, Mother and Spencer were shaking the boys’ hands and patting them on their backs and telling them encouraging little things. Mother patted Sidney on his plump and said, “Five more pounds off that, and you’re going to be the fastest thing on our team.”
    Mrs. Polsky took Sidney’s hand and jerked him around and said to Mother, “You are more concerned about my Sidney’s width than I am.”
    And Mother answered, “That’s all right. I don’t mind. Think nothing of it.”
    Mrs. Polsky poked a hole in the air with her chin and marched Sidney toward the exit.
    The Our Lady of Mercy coach came over to Mother. “That was a good game, Mrs. Setzer.”
    “Terrific. Simply terrific,” Mother admitted.
    “That’s quite a nice little pitcher you have there.”
    “Got another one just as good. Got two. Twins. They’re terrific. Simply terrific.”
    “Your catching was good. Very good.”
    “Terrific. Simply terrific,” Mother repeated.
    Spencer didn’t have Mother’s ability to have one hundred per cent joy. He always sprinkles a mountain of joy with some worry like pepper over mashed potatoes. So he said to the Our Lady of Mercy coach, “We need to improve our batting some.”
    The coach said, “Yes, you will when you meet the Elks. You’ll need some good batting for them.”
    “Aren’t they the League Champs?” Mother asked.
    “They’re terrific. Simply terrific,” the coach said.
    “We’ll be