Free Windmill Windup by Matt Christopher Page A

swing of yours. I think I could help
     you —”
    Kelly cut him off before he could finish. “Stay out of this!” she yelled at him. “Stay out of my life, okay? Just leave me
     alone!”
    She ran off toward home, leaving her mom andKen standing there, and she didn’t stop until the front door had slammed closed behind her.
    Under the circumstances, it was almost a relief when spring break finally came and Kelly was shipped off to softball camp.
     All the way there on the bus, she avoided talking with any of the other kids, none of whom she knew — or wanted to know.
    She was determined not to make any friends there, or even talk to anybody. But that resolve soon broke down. The counselors
     had them on the field all day long, except for meals, and Kelly soon found herself wrapped up in games and clinics.
    Her first order of business was fixing her messed-up swing. The coaches made her open her stance, so she could get a better
     look at the ball. But when that only made things worse, they told her to center her feet again.
    By the third day, Kelly’s swing was such a mess that she was ready to give up and go home — except that no one was home to
     meet her. Her mom and Ken had gone off to their little romantic hideaway, and Kelly was stuck here in this torture chamber,
     humiliating herself day after day, unable to find her lost home-run swing.
    On the fourth day, as she sat miserably on the bench alongside a bunch of chattering girls, one of the coaches came up to
     them and said, “Okay, girls, today we’re going to teach you all how to windmill pitch.”
    Kelly blinked and looked up at him. It suddenly hit her. If she couldn’t hit, at least she could learn how to pitch. It might
     give her a way out of her dilemma. She got up and followed the other girls to the mound, where one after the other, they learned
     the mechanics of windmill pitching.
    “Okay, you stand like this,” the coach instructed them, “with the heel of your front foot on the front of the rubber, and
     the toe of your back foot on the back of the rubber. Got that? Good.”
    He checked around to see that they all had it right before continuing. “Now this is key. You’re only allowed to bring your
     hands together once during the windup, otherwise it’s a ‘fault.’ That’s like a balk. It means the base runners advance one
     base, or, if there aren’t any runners, the pitch is called a ball.
    “Okay. So, hands at your sides. Then lean back — don’t move your feet, though, that’s a fault too — now bring your hands up
     and together …good …now the glove hand slaps the thigh on the way down, as you bring the hand with the ball back, then forward, and all the way
     around in a windmill motion. As you do it, the glove hand goes back from the thigh, then forward, pointing to the plate, to
     give you more speed and control. Follow through with the elbow of your throwing arm pointing straight out, and end with that
     hand on your shoulder.”
    One after the other, the girls all tried to mimic the complicated windup. When it came to Kelly’s turn, she went into the
     motion, trying to visualize it as she’d seen the coach do it. Her arm wound up and back and around, and she let the ball fly.
     It sailed high over the backstop, at least twenty feet in the air.
    “Good! Good!” the coach encouraged her, not letting Kelly sag into depression. “Just release it sooner, Kelly, when your arm
     is pointing at the catcher’s mitt. Then, as you finish the motion, your hand should be on your shoulder. Right. Now set your
     feet in fielding position. That’s it.”
    Kelly tried it again, and this time the ball whizzed from her hand with that familiar buzzing sound she’d come to fear as
     a hitter. The ball popped into the catcher’s mitt with a loud smack. “OW!” the girlwho was catching shouted. “Hey, take it easy, will you?”
    “Hey, there you go!” the coach congratulated her. “Now work on that for the rest of the