Free Switcharound by Lois Lowry

One of Poochie's problems, unfortunately, was not going to be solved by tomorrow's game.
    "Pooch," Caroline began to ask, as the baseball field came into view around the corner, "who's that kid waiting there in the bleachers? I can't remember his name." She pointed to Matthew Birnbaum, who was punching his fist into his glove rhythmically as he waited for the team to assemble.
    Poochie looked toward the bleachers, where Caroline was pointing. He squinted. "Where?" he asked.
    Caroline squatted on the sidewalk beside him so that her face was level with his. She pointed again, very carefully, to Matthew Birnbaum.
    "See that kid in the bleachers?" she asked.
    Poochie squinted so hard that his face was distorted. "No," he said finally.
    "Do you see the bleachers?" Caroline asked.
    "Sort of," Poochie said uncertainly.
    Caroline took his hand. Slowly they walked on toward the ball field. "Poochie," she said, "you need glasses. And it will take a little while to get your eyes examined and then to have the glasses made. So they won't be ready for tomorrow's game. But probably by the
next
big game, you'll be able to see."
    Poochie squinted up at her in amazement. "You mean when the ball is coming at me, I'll be able to
see
it?"
    "Right. After you get glasses."
    "Then I'll be able to
catch
it!"
    "Right. And hit it, too."
    Poochie grinned. "I can already hit it, Caroline. Even when I can't see it, I can hit it sometimes, if I bat lefty."
    Caroline nodded. It was amazing, considering Poochie's terrible eyesight. But he
could
bat. It was just that he was left-handed, and he'd been batting right-handed until Caroline had turned him around. His batting average had skyrocketed immediately from zero to .05.
    If Poochie could get an occasional hit when he was blind, imagine what his average would be after he got glasses!
    "You might be the star of this team by the end of the summer, Pooch," Caroline said.
    Carefully she tore out the page marked "Poochie," so that he would never know what was written on it: "Practically blind. Left-handed. Make him bat right-handed, and he'll never get a hit."
    Caroline crumpled the page and tossed it into the trash can at the entrance to the ball field. Then she leaned the notebook against one of the bleacher seats and started a new page. "Poochie," she wrote. "Get Lillian to take him to eye doctor. Be sure he bats left-handed."
    She looked at the new page. She crossed out "Poochie." Above it she wrote, "David Herbert Tate."
    Then she sighed. She had eleven other pages to deal with. And when she looked up, she saw that all eleven other players had arrived now and were poking each other and scuffling in the bleachers.
    It was going to be a very long morning. She adjusted J.P.'s baseball cap on her head. It was a little too large, and it bent the tops of her ears.
    "C'mon, troops!" Caroline called and clapped her hands. "Let's get to work! We gotta make some changes in the way this team operates, because after tomorrow we're going to be—"
    "CHAMPIONS!" the twelve little ballplayers shouted as they scrambled down from the bleachers and headed for the field.

13
    The house was quiet for a change. No wailing babies—the twins were asleep. No TV—Poochie had gone to bed, promising to practice batting in his dreams for tomorrow's game. And even J.P. was asleep. He had been up all through the previous night and had wandered around groggily during the day, calling the store occasionally to make sure that the computer was still giving out the correct information. Finally, at seven P.M., he had gone to bed.
    Caroline was sitting in the family room with Lillian and her father. Herbie Tate was going through a stack of papers.
    "I can't believe it," he said, looking up. "I can't believe I have a son who is such a genius. Did I tell you what one of the accountants said after he watched J.P. at work on the computer?"
    "Yes," Caroline and Lillian said. "You told us several times."
    "And did I tell you that our