Free Centerfield Ballhawk by Matt Christopher, Ellen Beier

1

    CRACK!
    Crash
.
    The first sound came when José Mendez’s bat hit the ball. The second came when the ball smashed through a car’s window.
    José froze.
    “Oh, no!” Sparrow Fisher moaned.
    “Oh, yes,” José murmured, sick to the bone. The hole was baseball size, surrounded by thin zigzag cracks. It was in the left
     front window of Mrs. Dooley’s new car. Mrs. Dooley wasJosé’s neighbor, and she hated baseball more than crabgrass.
    “Go after it, Sparrow!” José cried. “Maybe the door’s unlocked!”
    “Oh, yeah?
You
go after it,” Sparrow said. He was ten, a year older than José, with hair the color of ripened wheat.
    José clamped his jaws tight, then dropped his bat and ran across the yard to Mrs. Dooley’s car. He had to jump over the hedge
     to get to it, but that was no problem.
    The problem was the car door. It was locked. So was the rear door.
    “José Mendez! Just what do you think you’re doing?” a shrill voice cried out.
    For the second time in twenty seconds, José froze. Mrs. Dooley, a small, skinny woman, was standing in her doorway, staring
     at him through her narrow glasses.
    “I — I was trying to get our ball, Mrs. Dooley,” José answered nervously.
    She came trotting down the steps, her slippers slapping against her feet. “What happened here? Oh, no!” she cried. “You broke a window in my car, didn’t you? You’ll
     pay for this, young man! You hear me? You’ll pay for this!”

    She gave José a glare that would have curled a flower, then turned back to the hole in the car window. “I knew something like
     this would happen,” she said angrily. “You should know better than to play baseball in your front yard. Hasn’t your father
     —”
    “Yes, Mrs. Dooley,” José interrupted. “My father has warned me not to. I’m sorry.”
    He heard footsteps behind him, and turned. His father had come out onto the porch.
    “Don’t worry, Mrs. Dooley,” he said, his voice calm. “José will pay for it. You can bet on that.”
    Then his eyes bored into José’s, and for the first time in his life José wished he could make himself disappear.
    * * *
    “You are grounded from playing baseball for two weeks,” José’s father said to him in the house. “If the Peach Street Mudders
     can’t get along without you for that long, too bad. I’ve warned you about playing pepper out there. All it takes is one hard
     swing and — pow! — the ball is in Mrs. Dooley’s yard. This time it was worse — it hit her new car.”
    “I’m sorry, Dad,” José said, lowering his head. “I — I didn’t mean . . .” He couldn’t say any more. He had no excuse. He should
     have known better.
    José loved playing baseball so much that he tended to forget about other things. Like his father’s warning.
    Don’t you remember what it was like, Dad?
José wanted to say to him. Mr. Mendez had played in the minor league, and he had taught José everything he knew about the
     sport. Baseball had always been their common bond. Lately, though, things had changed. Most of the time, it seemed to José,
     his father wasangry with him. Today he had good reason to be. As for the other times, José could only conclude that he was a disappointment
     to his father.
    Sorry, Dad, he thought. I’ll make it up to you. I promise.

2

    SMACK!
    José’s bat met the ball squarely in its center and drove it hard against the net. He popped the next two pitches and missed
     the next. He let the fourth pitch go by.
    “What’re you doing, old buddy?” a familiar voice piped up behind him. “Practicing to be a better hitter than your friend Barry
     ‘Hit-Away Kid’ McGee?”
    José turned and saw Barry standing behind the batting cage screen. Barry was the Peach Street Mudders’ left fielder.
    “I’ll never be as good as you,” José said. “You’re the best, Barry.”
    The red-headed kid with Barry grinned. Bus Mercer was the Peach Street Mudders’ shortstop. “Want me to pinch-hit for