Fenway Fever by John Ritter Read Free Book Online

shook up, I drove out to Walden Pond, just to hike around the place, watch the sun rise, meditate. That lake and the woods out there, it always calms me down after a tough game. Anyhow, at the break of day, I remembered what Dr. John Mack, a Harvard professor, once said. ‘You have to consider everything.’ He said that’s the error our scientists make. They set limits on what they’ll explore. Because when you set limits, Dr. Mack said, you miss exploring the things that really matter.”
    He looked at Stats. “So, kid, rats and mice? Might just be exactly what we need to look at. Talking hawks? Why not? I’ll tell you one thing. There is so much we don’t know. And there’s only so much we can ever know. We might as well find out everything we can.”
    Billee turned and began to walk back to the bull pen. He waved his hand. “Go. Do your thing, Stat Man. I gotta crawl back inside the pen, pull a towel around my head, and meditate.”

CHAPTER    8

    Stats and Mark arrived at home that Sunday evening around dinnertime. As soon as he entered, Stats felt a sense of something being amiss. The curtains were pulled. The house lights dimmed. And nothing was cooking. Walking inside, they spied Pops sitting in a chair by the bay window, gazing out.
    “Markangelo,” he said without bothering to look. “You and Alfredo, come to me over here.”
    The very tone of his words worried Stats and started his heart thumping. He and Mark gathered together in the alcove behind their father as he continued to stare through the lace curtains facing the street.
    “You know, boys, I always try to do what’s right. But sometimes …” He lowered his elbows to the table and prayerfully clutched both hands together.
    “Sometimes what, Pops?” said Mark.
    Pops had trouble speaking, which only increased the sense of panic washing over Stats.
    Finally he said, “I sometimes—I let little details slip away from me. I knew this day was bound to come. I hate thinking how I put it off for so long. Now I got myself in a tight spot.”
    Pops reached out across the table and picked up an envelope. Stats recognized it immediately as being the one he’d seen downstairs the night before. He had followed Mark’s advice not to tell Pops about it, even though he’d told his mother he would. Somehow, though, Pops had received the message. He withdrew the letter from inside.
    “This,” he said, “is from a bill collector. It has to do with your mother’s store. They say we still owe them money.”
    Okay, thought Stats, feeling somewhat relieved. It’s a money problem. It’s not life or death, it’s not a brain tumor. He’s not running off and joining a kung fu academy in China—something Stats had always imagined
he
might do if he were ever in big enough trouble.
    “How much is it for?” asked Mark.
    Good question. The sooner Stats got a number, the sooner he could start working on a solution.
    “We can help,” Stats added. “We’ve got money saved up.” The tip jar at the stand was always split between them, and it garnered as much as sixty dollars a day.
    “No, no, you boys—”
    “Pops, let us help,” said Mark. “We’re all in this together. We’re part of the family business, too.”
    Pops drew in a slow breath, scanning their faces, although the depth of his focus seemed far away.
    “Alfredo, Markangelo. Back when your mother was sick …” He finger-painted a tiny cross over his heart. “I had so many things on my mind.” He held his hands out as if they were paddles, and as he spoke, he knocked each phrase between them. “The baseball season was starting up, you boys were in two different schools, we had medical bills and all of that. I could barely pay my own vendors, let alone what had piled up on the store.” He stopped to take a weary sigh. “And after she passed …”
    He stopped again, dropping his chin to his chest, wrapping his thick arms around himself, and he shook.
    It was a lot for Stats to take