Soar by Joan Bauer Page B

Not the horse. That’s mine.”
    Bo puts the horse down. It doesn’t rock; it flops over. He shakes his head. “It’s dead, Franny!”
    â€œIt’s not dead!” she yells.
    El Grande stands up slowly and says something tothem I can’t hear. Now El Grande is walking across the street toward me. Adler follows him. “Son, I want to talk to you.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    He looks at Jerwal, whose robot eyes glow. El Grande shakes his head. “I feel like I’m in a space movie.”
    â€œIt’s just everyday robotics.”
    He unfolds the
Hillcrest Herald.
“I’ve heard from people on both sides about baseball at the middle school. I don’t know if you’ve seen this yet.”
    IS BASEBALL HISTORY IN HILLCREST?
    I feel my heart racing.
    I’m getting sick of this!
    Chill, Alice!
    â€œWe need a break here! How can we keep playing when nobody cares?” I flop down on the porch steps and put my head in my hands.
    Jerwal beeps. El Grande lowers himself on a step.
    â€œI figured you’d feel that way, and I came to tell you something. You know what blinders do for a horse when it’s running a race?”
    â€œI think they keep the horse from looking around at other things.”
    â€œThat’s right. And I’m inclined to think you need to figure out a way to tell the team about keeping their eyes away from all these voices that are squawking and discouraging everybody. You’ve got a team to build and a job to do. It doesn’t matter what the other people say.”
    I look at a crack in the step. “That’s good, sir.”
    â€œWhen I played ball, my coach always told me, ‘Ellis, you’ve got to play your game.’ I was never sure what my game was, to tell the truth, until one day we were behind twelve runs—it was the eighth inning and hotter than a pizza oven outside. Any fans we had were long gone. I hated baseball that day, I hated my life, and I didn’t think I had a blasted thing left to give. But I did.”
    I look up. “What was it?”
    â€œWell, I laughed. Good and long.”
    â€œYou laughed?”
    â€œThat’s right. I laughed because I decided to play the last part of a losing game the best I’d ever played. I went on to get two home runs and stopped three guys from scoring.”
    â€œDid you win?”
    â€œI sure did. My team lost bad. But I won. You get what I’m saying?”
    I sit there grinning. “I get it. Thank you.”
    It takes him a while to stand up. “I hate to say something so insightful and then have such trouble taking my leave.”
    â€œYou don’t have to leave, sir.”
    â€œTell you what, now that we’re friends, you can call me Coach or El Grande, but let’s be done with sir.”
    I grin. “El Grande—definitely.”
    Jerwal beeps.
    El Grande looks at my robot. “You’re going to take some getting used to.”
    There should be special movie music when El Grande walks back across the street to his house.
    â€œWe’ve been visited by greatness, Jerwal.”
    I can’t wait to talk to the team.
    I wish I was about ten years older, but you don’t always get what you want.

Chapter
23

    ON THE LOCAL news, Rabbi Tova is mad as anything and she’s not taking it anymore.
    She stands on the steps of Town Hall with half her congregation and shouts, “Is baseball history in Hillcrest? If you mean the kind of baseball that uses steroids to cheat and win and harm young players, then, yes indeed, it is history here!”
    Walt and I clap at that and turn on the Reds game. We both have work to do, but it’s good to have a baseball game happening in the background. It gives you comfort, except for the commercials.
    I’m all for comfort right now. The new medicine Dr. Dugan gave me has a side effect—dry mouth. I feel like I’m in the desert. Walt says she’s