Imperfect Spiral by Debbie Levy

do to you that makes you want to slap it?”
    There went those gears clicking away in his head. In my three weeks with Humphrey, I had found I could best make a point by being funny and by playing with words.
    â€œI’m slapping the ball because it’s been bad. Very, very bad.” Click, click. “It runs away from me when it’s supposed to hold my hand. And it hangs on to me like a baby when it’s supposed to run and get its exercise.”
    â€œWhat shall we do about these problems,” I said, “other than slapping the ball?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Humphrey said. “I think I’m just going to have to keep slapping, slapping, slapping.”
    â€œOuch,” I said. “Poor, poor, pitiful ball.”
    â€œPoor, poor, pitiful, poopy, poopified, putrid ball!”
    â€œWow.
Putrid
. That’s not your everyday
p
word.”
    We drained our juice boxes. “Back to this football,” I said. “I have an idea that might help you catch it. You know how you said the ball is running away from you when it’s supposed to hold your hand?”
    He nodded.
    â€œThink of the ball as a baby. I mean, a little baby-baby. It doesn’t know it’s supposed to hold your hand. So when I throw it to you, you have to cradle it in your arms to catch it. You haveto cradle it like it’s a baby. Like this.” I tossed the ball up and caught it in a cradling way.
    â€œLike a baby,” Humphrey said.
    â€œRock-a-bye baby,” I sang out.
    â€œIn the treetop,” Humphrey responded, also singing.
    â€œIn your arms, the football cradle,” I said. He started to run out for a pass, but I stopped him. “Just toss it up, right here.” He tossed it maybe five inches into the air. “A little higher,” I said. He followed my instructions.
    â€œToss and cradle. Toss and cradle. That’s good,” I said. After a while, I took the ball and tossed it to him from just a couple of feet away. Then I moved a few more feet away.
    â€œYou slapped it,” I said when the ball escaped Humphrey’s arms.
    â€œBecause it’s bad,” he said.
    â€œI don’t think so,” I called out in a singsongy voice. “Cradle that baby.”
    He did. I tossed it to him from six feet away, ten feet, fifteen feet. He cradled the baby and ran it back.
    â€œGood. Great! Now go long!” I said, at the same time thinking,
Listen to me with the football lingo
.
    He didn’t know what “go long” meant.
    â€œGo long—it means ‘run far’! Then stop and look back for the throw.”
    Far, in Humphrey’s case, meant running maybe twenty-five feet away. He turned, expectantly. I launched a sweet, gentle spiral his way. “Cradle it!” I yelled.
    â€œYes!” he rejoiced. He ran the football back. “Again!”
    He didn’t catch it every time. But he caught it enough of the time.
    â€œI’m a football catcher!” he said.
    The sun had disappeared behind the trees that rimmed the park. Time to head home.
    He didn’t want to go. “I still have to learn how to throw a spiral,” he said.
    â€œYou do, and you will,” I said. “Just not tonight. You don’t want to be here in the park when it’s dark, do you?”
    â€œI like the dark,” Humphrey said.
    â€œI like it, too. But we need to start walking home. Look—you can already see stars.”
    I knew that the low-hanging white discs in the darkening sky were Venus and Saturn, although I didn’t know which was which.
    â€œWhich one came out first?” Humphrey asked.
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œ
Did
one come out first?”
    â€œWell—yeah.”
    â€œHow come I can never see the first star?” he asked. “Whenever I look, there’s always more than one.”
    â€œI guess you’d have to pay really close attention,” I said. “You’d