CHAPTER 25



CHAPTER 25

MY GAP

Wednesday, April 24, 1935

Every day at school now I play baseball with Scout at lunch. And though he hasn’t said anything else about the convict baseballs, I know he’s thinking about it. I know because Piper tells me. She asks me if I’m going to get Scout a ball. She asks more than once. Both times I pretend I don’t hear, but Natalie and I hunt every day. I draw diagrams of the arcs a ball might take from inside the prison wall to the free space outside. Nat and I look for three days straight near the northeast point by the water tower. I feel like I work the place over with a pick and ax. But nothing.

It’s not like Nat really helps me, but she doesn’t get in my way either. She sits and counts rocks or sticks or sometimes birds. I always make sure to park her right in the center of where I want to look so I can keep an eye on her. We’re getting along, Nat and I. It’s peaceful to spend time with her out here. Sometimes I even tell her stuff that’s bothering me. I don’t know if she understands, but she’s quiet like she hears.

The other place I always go is the gap. Last night I dreamt Scout found the gap. It’s my gap. The thought of scout worming his way through my hole in my fence and finding my ball makes me nuts.

This afternoon the teachers have a meeting, so we get out of school an hour early. I hope my mother doesn’t know this, but when I get home, I see she does. She has an errand to run in the city. She’s ready to leave just like always.

As soon as she’s gone, I head straight for the gap, with Natalie toe-stubbing along behind me. She‘s wearing a green dress with puffed sleeves and some kind of pucker stitching across the top. It’s a dress a ten-year-old should wear. Natalie looks silly in it. She’s too old.

We cut through the parade grounds, where Annie, who had the day off from school, and Theresa are huddled over something. “Hey,” Annie says. “Where’ve you been? Want to toss a ball around?”

I can’t now,” I say.

“Where are you going?” Theresa glances up from the card she’s working on Machine Gun Kelly, it says.

“Oh, you know…looking for a convict ball,” I say.

Annie’s almost-white eyebrows raise. “I thought you didn’t care about that….”

“Well, I don’t. Didn’t. But now I do. Just, you know──kind of,” I say.

“For Piper?” Annie asks, the corner of her mouth twitching like she’s fighting a smile.

“For me,” I shoot back at her.

“You’ll never find one over there, but go ahead,” Annie says.

I look hard at her. “Where will I find one?”

“Beats me. All I know is the balls don’t go over very often,” Annie says.

“How’d you get one?” I ask.

“My dad got it for me.”

“Is that how Piper got hers?”

“I dunno,” Annie says.

“Can I come?” Theresa asks.

“I thought you wanted to finish.” She says.

“If you feel like playing later…” Annie nods to me.

“Sure,” I say as Natalie and I head down the steps. Above us six or seven birds track her. I swear every bird on the island knows Natalie.

We stop near the greenhouse, below the southwest corner of the rec yard wall. We’ve got this down to a system, Natalie and I. In some ways she is very predictable, more like a clock than a human being. I set her up with a big pile of rocks and she’s fine.

It’s a warm, clear spring day. I feel happy, as if I’m on the verge of something wonderful. No matter what Annie says, I’m going to find a baseball today. I even start whistling “Take Me Out to the Ball game.”

When we get to the spot by the west end, I notice the terraces. They are full of new pink, yellow and bright purple garden flowers growing in neat rows. Across the water, I look to see how they’re doing in the Golden Gate Bridge today. Progress is slow. It always looks the same. The Bay Bridge too, though I can’t see it from here.

Natalie breaks her graham cracker sandwiches carefully along the dotted lines, eats half and throws the other half to the birds. Then she gets busy gathering her stones. She’s very diligent about this, like it’s her job. I start up the hill.

When I get to the gap in the fence, I kick more of the hill away first before I try to fit through. Why didn’t I think of this before?

Okay, I’m in. “Let’s be smart, Moose,” I tell myself. I’ll begin at one corner and search every square inch until I get to the other. Slowly, carefully I look under each bush. Marking my progress so I don’t get confused about which bushes I’ve checked and which I haven’t. “Take you time,” I say out loud. “Keep your mind on business.”

For a while everything goes okay. But then I start getting discouraged. No baseball. It’s not fair. I’m doing everything right. I look again and again and again. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Maybe there just aren’t any more balls out here, I think for the hundredth time. Maybe this is all a big fat waste of time. I scoot back under the fence, too fast this time, and rip the back of my shirt.

Then I slide back down the shale to the halfway spot. A gull is pecking at the dirt, scouting for leftover graham cracker crumbs. Five piles of stones are neatly sorted by size. But Natalie…where is Natalie?

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