Wall Ball Read Online Free PDF Page A

defense. It didn’t budge an inch.
    When the reverberations finally died down and the frozen earth stopped trembling, we ranout to check on Orlando. He lay on the ground not more than three feet from where he’d crashed the day before. Mr. Bones got there first. He licked Orlando’s face. He wagged his tail and licked some more.
    “Pfft!” said Orlando.
    He sat up and scratched Mr. Bones behind his ears.
    “Orlando,” I said, puffing onto the scene. “We held ten bake sales and six car washes to raise the money to get this wall built. If you knock it down, we’ll never get another. Are you all right?”
    “I’ve taken bigger lumps falling out of bed,” he said.
    He got up and opened his glove. Nesting inside like a big, round egg was the ball.
    If Orlando didn’t knock himself goofy, he was going to be a really great center fielder.
    Slowly, we all started walking back across the field.
    “How about Two Time?” suggested Tugboat. “On account of this is the second timehe ran into the wall.”
    “Greased Pig,” said Ducks. “Because he skitters all over the place like a greased pig at a country fair.”
    “Banana Peel.”
    “Wallbanger.”
    “Wrecking Ball.”
    “Superstar,” said Billy Wishes. “On account of he makes super catches, then he sees stars when he runs into the wall.”
    We all stopped walking.
    “Not bad,” said the Glove. “Not bad at all.”
    Everyone agreed that Superstar had a certain ring to it.
    But somehow it still wasn’t quite right.
    “A player can be a superstar,” said Ocho. “And Orlando definitely can run and catch with the best of them. But can Superstar really be a nickname?”
    “It’s like I told you,” Orlando said glumly. “No one has ever been able to pin a good one on me.”
    “Don’t worry,” we promised. “We’ll come upwith a winner if it’s the last thing we do.”
    One by one, we slapped Orlando on the back.
    “Take it easy,” we warned before scattering across the hard-frozen field to our own positions.
    Ducks stepped up to the plate. Slingshot lobbed one easy pitch after another right over the middle of the plate. Ducks swung as if the ball was a piñata and if he smacked it hard enough it would split open and spill candy. He didn’t manage to shatter any of Slingshot’s batting practice tosses, but he did turn them around in a hurry. He lasered shots all over the field.
    Then it was Gilly’s turn. He too teed off on one fat pitch after another.
    We all hit the ball pretty well. It was good to see the winter layoff hadn’t damaged our swings.
    Fielding was another story. All practice long, we struggled to catch the ball. We tripped andslipped and stumbled. None of us had much success staying upright. But no one had a harder time than Orlando. The kid from Florida ran down every long ball to center. And he plowed into the wall after every catch. He never dropped a single fly. But by the end of practice the wall looked like French toast. Battered.
    And so was Orlando.
    “That’s enough,” called Skip Lou after Orlando’s tenth crash of the afternoon. “Let’s call it a day.”
    Skip looked glum.
    We all looked glum.
    We were glum. Especially Orlando.
    The season opener was fast approaching. If we didn’t get better in a hurry, those Haymakers would lick us like a Popsicle. After a month of practicing in snowshoes, they knew how to get around on a treacherous field.
    Orlando looked at his feet. His boots were about as useful for baseball as a pair of flip-flops.
    Real flip-flops would have been nice. They would have meant the beach and hot sun and sand between your toes.
    “Maybe I should try snowshoes like the Haymakers,” he said. “These sure aren’t working.”
    Snowshoes would have been nice. A dogsled team would have been better. We definitely needed to try something new. We couldn’t afford to give the Haymakers any advantage. Those guys were so good, they could show up barefoot wielding broomsticks for bats and oven mitts