Lost in the Sun by Lisa Graff Page A

tossed the skates over my shoulder to go outside, one of the blades hit the wall behind me and snapped off. Broke, right in two. Unusable. And everyone knew you couldn’t play hockey with only one skate.
    â€œHow are your thoughts?” Mom asked, sliding onto the stool next to me. She didn’t try to sneak a peek at my book. Mom didn’t do that.
    â€œFine,” I said, closing the book.
    She nodded. “How’s school?”
    Well, let’s see, I thought. My homeroom teacher hates me. My gym teacher hates me. I hate everyone else. But at least I don’t spend lunch in the bathroom anymore.
    â€œFine,” I said.
    â€œYou making friends?”
    I guess Fallon counted as a friend, if you didn’t mind that she was half wacko. “Yep,” I told her.
    Mom smiled at me. A real, Giants-pummeling smile. Then she slipped my Dodgers cap onto my head. I don’t know where she’d been hiding it. “Excellent,” she said. She nodded toward my closed Book of Thoughts. “Now stop all that thinking you’re doing, because it’s time for serious things.” She put on her own cap, then pulled the radio outfrom under the counter. “Ray!” she shouted across the store. Our only two customers whipped their heads around, but Mom didn’t seem to care. “It’s starting!”
    I stashed my Book of Thoughts under the counter. The third game in the series against the Giants was not something to be missed.
    It was a rough game, tight the whole way through, but going into the ninth we were up 3 to 1. Which is of course when the Dodgers’ idiot closer came in, walked the bases loaded, and then gave up a bases-clearing double. So in the bottom of the ninth we were losing 4 to 3.
    With men on second and third, Mom and Ray and I all had our rally caps on (which were just our regular baseball caps flipped inside out) when they announced who was stepping up to the plate.
    â€œCome on, Slumps McGhee!”
Mom hollered at the radio. (“Slumps McGhee” was her favorite nickname for any player having an off week.)
“You can do it! We all believe in you!”
She was standing in front of her stool, clutching the sides of the counter. A couple of customers were up at the front and shouting, too. I was pretty sure some people had left the store when they heard all the shouting and stomping, but it didn’t look like Ray and Mom cared too much at that point.
    All we needed was a single to win the game.
    â€œYou can do it!”
Mom screeched again. I held my breath.
    The guy struck out.
    The Giants won.
    â€œNooooo!”
Mom screamed, falling back onto her stool.
    â€œYou’ve
got
to be kidding me!” Ray shouted.
    Me, I just whipped off my baseball cap. Tossed it onto the counter and turned to the customer in front of me, who was holding two whisks. “I’ll ring you up,” I told him.
    I didn’t even know why I bothered getting my hopes up about anything anymore.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    I thought the Dodgers getting pummeled by the Giants that afternoon was going to be the worst thing that happened that day.
    It wasn’t.
    Aaron cornered me as soon as we got home.
    â€œDoug’s going to prank you,” he told me, checking over his shoulder to make sure that Mom was safely in the kitchen and couldn’t hear. Pranking was still completely off-limits.
    I hung up my useless Dodgers cap on the rack by the wall. “Why’s he trying to prank
me
?” I asked. “I thought he was trying to get you.”
    Aaron smiled at that. “I guess he figured it’s useless trying to prank the master. Anyway, he said he’s mad at you because you keep ruining all his best pranks.”
    â€œDoug ruins them all by himself,” I said. “He’s just mad because I won’t help him.”
    â€œRegardless,”
Aaron went on (sometimes Aaron liked to use big words because he