About the B'nai Bagels by E.L. Konigsburg Read Free Book Online

and said, “For all of Egypt You sent down ten plagues. For me, Bessie Setzer, you send just one. Frogs. A whole field of leap frogs. I tell You, Lord, one is enough.” I could see Mother calculating that she had one month of hard work to whip our team into shape. Only Mother wouldn’t whip; she’d nag, and rage and coax.
    Spencer threw all the equipment into the back seat and sat in front next to Mother. That would have left Aunt Thelma and me as roommates in the back seat. Except that Aunt Thelma never took a back seat to anyone, and she crowded up front with Mother and Spence.
    I leaned over the front seat and asked my brother, my coach, “How did I do?”
    He said, “You act as if you’re afraid of the ball, kid.”
    We had all of six players out of fifteen who didn’t act afraid of the ball. Maybe I was afraid because I was conscious of the fact that if the ball hit anywhere near my mouth, I’d be swallowing about $950.00 worth of braces and fillings. I don’t know what reasons the others had.
    I decided not to mention my reasons. Instead I asked, “How do you become unafraid?”
    “Mostly by becoming more sure of yourself,” he answered.
    That’s like telling a poor man he would stop being poor if he had more money! I figured that I didn’t even have to answer Spencer, my brother, my coach, if that was the way he was going to be bighearted about giving me advice.
    As we came back into the house, I realized that my mouth had stopped hurting. “What’s to eat?” I yelled.
    Mother let loose. “What’s to eat? What’s to eat? Now you ask what’s to eat! What’s the matter, your stomach can’t run on Eastern Daylight Savings Time? Right now, putting away all the equipment and washing up. That’s to eat.”
    Aunt Thelma left for home even before our car was emptied. She almost forgot Uncle Ben.
    We had leftover pot roast. I shouldn’t have asked.

B eing nonchalant and getting your braces tightened don’t make you terrific on the field. You have to practice in between regular times. So the Saturday after our first two team practices I skipped Sabbath services at the synagogue. It was an easy caper, men. I dressed as usual in my good clothes befitting the Sabbath. I left the house, hair parted and combed. On the way out of my residence, I deposited my prayer book and prayer cap in the mailbox, and at the same time I removed my mitt and sneakers from the mailbox. I had wisely deposited mitt and sneakers in the mailbox the night before. Calculating that Sabbath services are normally over at 11:00, I thought that I could return to my house by 11:15, a safe half hour before the mail would be delivered.
    As soon as I left the house, I began walking in the direction of my family’s house of worship, known as thesynagogue, but I circled back and walked toward Water Street downtown. I successfully avoided detection and arrived at three large brick buildings erected by the U.S. Government.
    Five years ago when they were being built, a huge sign in front of the buildings had said that they were LOW INCOME HOUSING . And that’s what they had been called before anyone moved into them. Now everyone called them the projects. Two of the buildings faced each other but not the street, and the tallest faced the street but not the other two. All were set well back from the sidewalk, and all the land in front of and around them was done to in one way or another. Patches of grass and walks and a small playground with swings whose seats were low and made of tough leather, which was probably some kind of plastic. Steel mesh wastepaper baskets were chained to trees. There was also a part surrounded by a Cyclone steel fence, which was surrounded by shrubs. That was where the voices came from.
    I walked over. The gate was open. There were four undressed basketball hoops, two at each end, but the shouts were baseball shouts. I knew there would be a baseball game there. Botts and the twins had talked about it at practice the