Thrown a Curve by Sara Griffiths Read Free Book Online Page B

team?”
    Because Sacamore’s framing me—can’t say that, though. I quickly came up with some feminist bull. “Because I don’t play softball, I play baseball. Is there any law against girls playing baseball, or is this America?”
    He looked shocked. He was speechless. I was shocked myself that I’d actually said that.
    I stood up, grabbed my towel, and headed back to the locker room, trying to hold back the tears. When I reached the locker room, I went into the last bathroom stall, sat down on the floor, and cried. How was I going to play on this team? Not one of these guys wanted me here.
    I stayed in the stall until I heard the softball girls filtering backin to take showers. I stood up and brushed myself off, wiping my face with my sweaty shirt. Toughen up, Dresden. I punched the stall door as hard as I could—with my left hand, of course. Stop acting like a girl. I held my head up and walked bravely out of the bathroom.

    On Friday, I had another meeting with Sacamore. He was on the phone when I walked in, so I just wandered around the room looking at his weird collection of pictures. Some were in frames, and some were just laying there, their edges beginning to curl. I was still feeling bummed out about the weight room incident on Monday, but I didn’t want Sacamore to know too much. I felt like less of a loser if I made it hard for him to drag information out of me.
    I picked up a photograph of a bunch of kids and an older man sitting in a boat docked on the beach. I figured it must be Sacamore and his family when he was a kid. The side of the boat said “OCBP.”
    “Okay, thanks for calling. Talk to you soon,” Sacamore said and hung up the receiver.
    “Is this Ocean City?” I asked, walking toward him with the picture.
    He took a peek. “I don’t know. Could be, I guess.”
    “You were too young to remember?”
    He stood up and moved toward the wall of photographs.“No, I’m not in that picture.”
    “Oh, who are they?”
    “You got me. I just like the picture.”
    I placed the picture back on its shelf. “Okay,” I said, waiting for him to say something more while I shook my head. This guy got weirder and weirder. “So why do you have it?” I said after a long stretch of silence.
    He straightened a few of the pictures that were about to slide off the shelves. He smiled at one of them. “This one’s cute,” he said, showing me a picture of a black puppy.
    “Uh-huh,” I said. “So why do you have these pictures?”
    “Students like to look at them, and I can tell a lot about the kids by the ones they ask me about.”
    I was still holding the boat picture. “Oh yeah, like what?” I asked, putting the picture back down.
    He immediately picked it up. “Well, what was interesting to you about this picture?”
    This guy was sneaky. But I played along. “I guess they look like they’re all having fun,” I said, walking over to take another look at it. “A group of kids and the dad enjoying the day.”
    “How do you know the man is the dad?”
    “Just assumed. You know, kids on the beach . . . usually a parent would be there.”
    “Do you have any pictures like this?” he asked.
    I sighed, sitting down in the brown corduroy chair. “Not that I know of.”
    “Why do you think that is?”
    “Umm, ’cause we never go anywhere together as a family, and I don’t have ten friends,” I said, feeling pissed. “Is that what you wanna hear?”
    He paused for a while and looked at me. “Taylor, I’m not your enemy. We’re just talking . . . Did something happen this week to upset you?”
    “Just boys giving me some sh—” I cleaned up my words quickly, remembering I was in school. “Just guys on the team, asking what I was doing there and why I wasn’t playing softball. You know—typical macho guy stuff.”
    He nodded. “Just remember, they’re as confused and afraid of you as you are of them.”
    “Yeah, I bet,” I said sarcastically.
    “It’s true. It’s easier