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again, and looked away.
    Just then there was an explosive roar from the fans, and Penny looked up in time to see Shari thrown out at first base. The
     third inning was over. Hard Hats 0, Hawks 7.
    T. K. Ellis, a tall, spindly-legged girl, led off the top of the fourth inning for the Hard Hats and dumped a Texas leaguer
     over second base. Barbara Nelson then tripled, scoring T. K. Helen Chang homered, and the Hard Hats’ fans went crazy.
    Then Mary Ann walked the next two girls, and Penny began to wonder: Aren’t we ever going to get them out? Isn’t the
thing
that’s happened to Shari, Karen, and Faye enough?
    She realized that in her uppermost thoughts she was hoping for the Hawks to win, momentarily forgetting that they had been
     doing so well only because of thechange — the superstar qualities — that the three girls had mysteriously acquired. If she had a choice, what would she want?
     A winning team, or to have her friends return to their normal selves?
    Wow! she thought. What am I thinking? The
girls
come first! I want them to be normal again! Winning comes second.

EIGHT
    J OYCE B UDDINS , the Hard Hats’ tall, freckle-faced left center fielder, got her second single of the game, a sharp drive over third base,
     scoring Rose Chang. Rose and Cay Lattimore were the two girls Mary Ann had walked in succession after that home run by Helen
     Chang. Cay stopped on third.
    “Wait a minute! Time!” Penny yelled to the base umpire, and trotted in to the pitcher’s mound, hoping to say something to
     Mary Ann to calm her down. Jean came in from first base, too, but Karen and Faye remained at their positions at the edge of
     the infield grass, and Shari behind the plate, as if their presence wasn’t needed. Penny wasn’t surprisedthat they didn’t come. Whatever it was that had made them become almost one hundred percent emotionless had made them less
     considerate about certain things, too. Always before they used to come to the mound with Penny and Jean when their pitcher
     needed that much-welcomed moral support. That
it
— whatever it was — had changed all that.
    “Slow down,” Penny advised Mary Ann. “Take a breather.”
    She could see that the girl was sweating profusely, moving about every second, looking this way and that like a worried bird.
     Suddenly Penny heard feet pounding behind her and turned to see Coach Parker running toward them from the dugout. He was looking
     back over his shoulder at a girl warming up in the bullpen. When the girl, Edie Moser, looked up, he signaled for her to come
     in. She tossed the ball to the girl she was playing catch with, and came running out to the field.
    “I guess I should’ve put Edie in right after Chang knocked that home run,” the coach admitted to Mary Ann. “But you were doing
     so well before that, I hated to take you out.”
    Mary Ann smiled, and shrugged. “I guessI started to get nervous,” she said shyly. She handed him the ball and ran off the field, receiving applause and cheers from
     the fans till she disappeared into the dugout.
    Edie threw a few underhand pitches in to Shari, Coach Parker left the infield, Penny and Jean returned to their positions,
     and the game resumed. Annie Moses, the Hard Hats’ batter, laced Edie’s first pitch in the gap between left and left center
     fields for three bases, scoring two runs, and Penny wondered again whether the inning was ever going to end. Had that crazy
     spell touched the Hard Hats, too?
    Then Pam Colt, the Hard Hats pitcher, drove a sharp grounder to Karen, who caught the ball easily and whipped it in a straight
     line to Jean for the putout. The next batter grounded out to Penny, and the third flied out to Gloria in right center field
     to end the Hard Hats’ big inning. Hard Hats 6, Hawks 7.
    The score remained the same until the bottom of the sixth inning, when Faye connected with a double over the shortstop’s head,
     followed by another double by Shari. Both hits were solid line