Fantasy Baseball by Alan M. Gratz

Author:Alan M. Gratz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2011-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

13

A GRIN WITHOUT A CAT

Word of the bet between Dorothy and the Cheshire Cat spread quickly through the train, and the wizards from the next car and the rest of the passengers spilled out to watch. It was dark outside, but a full moon—the real one or the one Ma Liang had painted, Alex didn’t know—cast a silvery, dreamlike light over the broad meadow alongside the tracks.

Dorothy was already marking off sixty feet, six inches when Alex caught up to her.

“Dorothy, wait up. Dorothy, what are you doing?”

“I’m going to put a baseball so far down that smarmy cat’s throat he chokes on it.”

“Dorothy—Dorothy stop. You don’t have to prove anything to that jerk. Save it for the game tomorrow.”

“No. I’m going to show him that I’m not going away. That we’re not going away. I’m going to show them all. I’m going to strike out that loser in front of everybody here.”

“No, you’re not,” Alex told her.

She swung around on him with a wild, angry look. “He hasn’t even got opposable thumbs! You don’t think I can—”

“Calm down. Of course you can strike him out. You’re great. But you won’t strike him out if you throw like you did today. You have to relax. You have to pitch, not throw. Do you understand?”

Dorothy seemed to hear what he was saying, and a little of the craziness went out of her eyes, even if the determination didn’t. “Yeah. Okay. All right,” she told him.

Alex still thought this was a bad idea, but there was no stopping her. Somebody tossed Dorothy a ball, and she started working it over in her hands. The crowd from the train made a big horseshoe around her and the Cheshire Cat.

“We never said what we were betting,” the cat said. He stood on two legs now, and took what Alex thought were good-looking practice swings with his bat.

“I’m betting I strike you out and make you look like my auntie Em,” said Dorothy.

“That’s what you’re betting on. What are you betting? As in, what are you going to give me when I hit your pitch into tomorrow?”

“What do you want?”

The Cheshire Cat licked his lips again. “Your shoes are very sparkly.”

He meant, of course, her ruby red baseball cleats with the silver trim.

“Dorothy, no!” Scraps said.

“Sure. Fine,” said Dorothy. “It’s not like I’m going to lose.” She slapped the ball in her glove. “What about you? You haven’t got anything I want.”

“Are you so sure? You want to win the tournament, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Well, you’ll certainly have to go through the Reapers to do it. So how about this? If you strike me out, the Reapers quit the tournament. Right here. Right now.”

“Vait, now,” said the old Russian witch. “I do not care who you are. Ve did not agree to—” she started to say, but Long John Silver cut her off with a hiss.

“Fair enough,” Dorothy said. “Let’s do this.”

“Baba Yaga, seal the bet, if you please,” the Cheshire Cat said. The old witch

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