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

day before, and I had listened in. I hoped they would let me in and that if they did, I couldplay and be lousy and not have to worry about being lousy. When a guy’s mother manages and his brother coaches, a guy feels that he loses his right to be awful. A guy feels like he’s Exhibit A. Permanent Exhibit A. In Gimbels’ downtown window. I spotted Simon and Sylvester and cautiously waved hi.
    One twin yelled to the other, “Hey, look who’s here.”
    I loosened my tie and waited over by the gate. One twin approached and said, “You can play as soon as we get one more kid to even up the teams. I always make an even number.” He looked me over, and at first said nothing about the way I was dressed, but I could tell that he was thinking it. Finally, he pointed to my sneaks and said, “Why don’t you put those on while you’re waiting.”
    Fortune walked in a few minutes later. Fortune was Simon and Sylvester’s twelve-year-old sister, whom everyone called Cookie. She wore cut-off blue jeans and was small. Small-boned, you’d call it, I guess. It was as if Simon and Sylvester were the originals and Cookie was a model of them—like those miniature statues of Venus or The Thinker that you see in bookstores. Her hair was medium long, and the blunt bottom ends stuck out. Her eyes were as black as but bigger than Simon’s and Sylvester’s. That is, when you could see them. Her hair covered them as well as her ears. When she pushed herhair back, you could see that her ears were rather large and had tiny gold earrings going through small holes in the lobe part. Also her mouth was too big for her face. But she acted as if she was beautiful. She was.
    She walked with one hand on her hip over to one twin and said, “I’ll take your team today.”
    The other one yelled, “O.K., Setzer, I’ve got you. Take third.”
    No introductions. No directions. I didn’t even know where third was. I casually draped my jacket over the fence, to show that I was not cold and that I was ready. I put on my mitt and looked around. Casually.
    Cookie glanced at me and then pointed to a faint chalk mark on the blacktop. I mounted my base. Fortune swung and missed three times before leaving the plate. That was the third out for that side, and she acted so nonchalant, looking down at her nails and pulling a piece of cuticle. She sighed and walked to first base, hands on hips, one leg slightly in front of the other, pointed elbows in back. In profile she looked like a pointy capital
R
.
    I was shocked. From the way she had acted and knowing whose sister she was, and considering the fact that she was a girl, and that they still let her play, I had expected her to be great. She wasn’t even good, and they had let her in so easily.
    Simon pitched to me next; I saw the ball would be low, so I let it pass. “Ball one,” I called. No argument. They knew it was a ball. I took the next pitch, swung and missed, but I connected on the third. I looked around to see if everyone was ready to admire me, but they acted about the same as they did when Cookie struck out. And that was the main thing I liked about playing at the Projects; no one performed… everyone just played and tried to win. Sylvester followed me; he took the first pitch and hit the ball close to the fence, but the kid on third who looked at least fourteen years old, having the beginnings of a beard and all, caught it with one hand scraping the fence. It went that way all the time. Their fielding was terrific. Even Fortune was good at that.
    “How come you guys never miss a ball?” I asked.
    “Necessity,” laughed the kid with the beginnings of a beard.
    Sylvester explained. “Windows.”
    They all laughed together. Then the twin continued, “Windows means no hard balls allowed. The super has a fit when he finds us using one, but he don’t find out unless we miss and break a window. So we see to it that he don’t find out. Ever. We don’t miss. Ever.”
    I wished I had never asked.