Gabby Garcia's Ultimate Playbook #3 Read online

  DEDICATION

  To you, the reader:

  I cheer for you

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  August 17: Playbook!

  August 24: The Recap

  The Charming Disarming

  The Grand-Slam Candidate

  Pitch that Platform

  Expect the Unexpected

  The Know Your Opponent

  The Call It Like You See It

  The It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over

  The All-Pros Play!

  An Unlikely Alliance

  Three Strikes and We Could Have Been Out

  Super From the Sidelines

  Change of Play: Sidelined but So Necessary (That’s Me!)

  The Sweet Spot

  The Granny Never Let You Go

  The Food for Thought

  The We’ve Got No Game

  The Mojo Mission

  The You’re-Ruining-My-Life Sacrifice

  The Show Him He’s Boss (He Is!)

  A View to a Play: Entering Dad for the Community Alliance Citizen of the Year Award

  Give Me a Sign

  The Level the Playing Field

  The Keep It Under Your Hat

  The Forfeit

  The All-Pros Plan: A Wrap-Up

  Best Night Ever (Yeah, Right)

  The Loyal Teammate

  To the Ninth (Inning) Degree

  Victory Lap (Sort of)

  Acknowledgments

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  AUGUST 17: PLAYBOOK!

  I’m going to Seattle!

  It’s pretty cool, because we never go ANYWHERE. Well, we do, and we have, but the last few years Louie has been so busy at work, and Dad has had all these projects, and blah blah blah that we only really went to see my grandma in Florida. (Just over the border so it might as well still be Georgia.)

  But in just a few short hours, I’m going MILES across the COUNTRY! On a plane! I already called the window seat! Plus, we have tickets to a Mariners game! Also, even though I never thought about it before, Seattle sounds interesting! For one, what is a SPACE NEEDLE? It sounds both high-tech and dangerous! There are also KILLER WHALES in Puget Sound, and we don’t have those here, that’s for sure. Dad and Louie signed up for a cheese-making workshop at Pike Place Market. (Making a dairy product seems like a lot of work to me, but grown-ups are weird.) While they’re cheesing it up, I’m going to find the market’s gum wall, where people stick their chewed gum. It sounds both gross and photo-worthy!

  So . . .

  My GOAL: To come back to Peach Tree with the BEST “what I did on my summer vacation” story.

  My STRATEGY: TAKE SEATTLE BY STORM! I have a guidebook from the Peach Tree Public Library and a list of places to make my mark (and stick my gum).

  I’m really in the zone when it comes to, well, being me. Or my best possible me. When I first started Piper Bell, I had to learn what really mattered to me (PLAYING baseball more than always WINNING at it), and this summer, I realized some things about how to be a good friend when Diego, my forever bestie, came back from Costa Rica.

  Now, with all that working for me, I figure my eighth-grade year can be REALLY AMAZING. Finally, I know EXACTLY what I’m doing . . .

  Well.

  Maybe I only SEEM like I know what I’m doing. I think sometimes my insides don’t match my outsides. It’s a lot like baseball. On the mound, I might seem in control at all times. I’ll be throwing strikes until a thought creeps in: What if I screw up and let the next batter get a home run and the game turns around? What if that was the last good fastball I’ll ever throw?

  I wonder if it happens to every player. Or maybe to EVERYONE, even in regular things. What if we’re all trying to manage insides that don’t always match our outsides?

  Maybe it’s okay to pretend you have a handle on things on the outside, as long as you know that everyone has inside stuff like yours.

  Whew. I guess I’m saying I’m glad you’re here, Playbook, so I have a place to strategize the inside stuff. For now, it’s time to go on vacation. We deserve a break.

  AUGUST 24: THE RECAP

  Major league error alert! I will never EVER EVER EVER say I’m going to take anything by storm again.

  This time, I ended up ALL WET.

  I’m never setting foot in Seattle again. (This is going to be hard when I’m a major league pitcher, but I think I will forfeit those games because I plan to hold this grudge forever.) First of all, if it’s not raining—and it rains ALL THE TIME—Seattle is gray. It shouldn’t be allowed to say it has summer because gray is NOT the official color of summer. Summer is GREEN. And BLUE. And RAINBOWS. (Ugh, fine, so rainbows require rain, but they also require sun. Which doesn’t exist in Seattle!)

  If the gray wasn’t bad enough, I had to share a hotel room with Peter. The room was beautiful and clean for two seconds, and then Peter took off his shoes and socks, and his FOOT SMELL fouled up the air so much even the cute mini bottles of shampoo couldn’t make me feel better. As I sat at the window, trying to admire the GRAYNESS, he started playing his video game and narrating every move he made, adding noise pollution to his foot stench.

  There were OKAY things. At the Space Needle, you can see for miles and, from that standpoint, the view of the water and the trees are better than okay. And the air is exactly what fresh air is supposed to be like, all refreshing and like minty gum for your brain. I breathed so much of it the first day, I fell right asleep and had dreams of stepping out of the Space Needle onto a cloud and playing baseball in the sky on a team of my favorite players (plus, weirdly, Amelia Earhart and the mayor of Atlanta and a dog in a spacesuit) with miles of water beneath me.

  But Seattle was out to get me. It had tricked me with sweet dreams and nice views. Because on the second day of the trip, at the Mariners game, I tripped.

  I tripped on a hot dog.

  That someone had dropped between the aisles of seats.

  WHO DROPS A HOT DOG?

  THE ONLY OCCASIONS WHEN IT’S OKAY TO ABANDON A HOT DOG

  If you’re a vegetarian (but maybe see if you can find a hot dog lover to hand it to)

  If someone has put pizza toppings on it (you would think this would make a hot dog better but it is a bad combination)

  If you are really full and have no room in your stomach to give it a good home (but again, see if you can find your hot dog that home in someone else’s stomach)

  According to people in Chicago, if it has ketchup on it

  I went flying face forward into the next concrete step and my left arm came down hard. And SNAP! Or CRACK! One of those. I can’t remember the sound because IT HURT SO MUCH.

  I stood up too fast even though people had gotten up from their seats to see if I was okay. When I was on my feet and looking down at the hot dog I’d fallen over, it felt like my insides were swimming on my outsides and suddenly I threw up—right on my favorite red high-tops.

  I know pitchers are sometimes called hurlers and maybe that’s a little funny but I WAS NOT laughing.

  We had to leave the game to get my arm set. My fracture was only partial (and on my non-pitching left arm, thank goodness), but I’d still need a cast for four to six weeks! The Seattle doctors offered me a billion color options for my cast and I was so mad at their city I said, “It doesn’t matter,” because they couldn’t butter me up with a designer cast.

  Louie bought me a pair of really boring black sneakers because Seattle didn’t have red high-tops. At Pike Place Market, the sun actually came out and I realized I’d lost my sunglasses when they’d FLOWN OFF MY HEAD
when I TRIPPED ON A HOT DOG. I was so miserable I didn’t get anything to eat, so when we took a boat ride on Puget Sound I got seasick and had to hang out below deck. Peter saw three whales while I tried not to barf again.

  Instead of me taking Seattle by storm, Seattle had taken me by drizzle. (Drizzle is the worst form of precipitation because it can’t make up its mind. Be a downpour! Or be a gentle mist! A drizzle is just uncomfortable.)

  If I was worried about my insides matching my outsides, in Seattle, my insides matched EVERYTHING OUTSIDE. Gloomy weather went perfectly with GLOOMY ME.

  One week and one cast later, I’m back, two nights before school starts, with an itchy and sweaty arm, pretending to be sick so I don’t have to show my friends my dumb cast—it ended up being NEON ORANGE. I’ll never tell a doctor “it doesn’t matter” again. I look like I punched a traffic cone. Also, because I normally use my left hand to write, I can barely even scribble this! I’m holding the pencil in my right like a strange bird Diego probably loves. It stinks! Basically, I am mad at everything.

  When I said we deserved a break, Playbook, this wasn’t what I had in mind.

  Good night.

  THE CHARMING DISARMING

  Goal: Not let my bum arm hog the spotlight on the first day of school

  Action: Keep it under wraps

  Post-Day Analysis:

  August 26

  I woke up yesterday morning feeling SO NOT READY to go back to school. I wanted the first day of eighth grade to be PERFECT and a broken arm was not part of the plan.

  My room was my bullpen, but for emotions and plans instead of pitches. I needed to get into the right mental state.

  I thought about talking to my friends, but they’d be concerned and supportive because they’d feel sorry for me. The last thing I needed was to be guest of honor at a pity party.

  What I WANTED, the emotional bullpen helped me figured out, was a way to walk into school like someone who—after a few false starts when I was trying too hard to have an MVP Summer—had had a great summer. Having a cast was like proof I hadn’t. Was there any bright side to a broken arm? (Ha, my orange cast has nothing but bright sides.)

  Also, what about running for class president? If everyone heard I tripped on a hot dog, no one would see me as a take-charge kind of person.

  Staring at the ceiling, I figured something out: it wouldn’t be baseball season until spring. No one HAD to see my arm.

  I would hide the broken arm! At least for the first few days, just till I had eighth grade figured out. Simple!

  I’d hide my cast with clothing!

  SO TODAY’S FIRST-DAY OUTFIT INCLUDED THE FOLLOWING:

  Long-sleeved shirt

  Piper Bell jacket

  Flowy scarf (Louie’s)

  Piper Bell uniform pants

  Red high-tops

  Fun hat! To draw the eye UP and AWAY from my arm.

  There were a few flaws to my disguise. One: the end of August is HOT. And, two: my arm wasn’t very BENDY so I had to wear the jacket draped over my shoulder and kind of balance it there.

  “Haha,” Peter said as he walked out the door this morning in his soccer jersey and shorts. “You look like someone collecting money for a charity, and you’re the charity.”

  His insults were getting better. But also, MEAN!

  I didn’t LOVE the outfit. But it was better than my BUMMER SUMMER story. I would need to balance my weird “look” by being really happy about EVERYTHING. When beaming bright like the sun, no one can look right at you. Or your arm.

  Unfortunately, I’d failed to plan for a few other FIRST-DAY FACTORS:

  Opening a locker. I may pitch with my right hand, but I do a lot of little stuff (holding a pen, locker-dial turning) with my left. Putting in my combo right-handed took forever.

  Double high fives! Maybe they were a first-day thing but all the eighth graders had decided on the two-handed high five as a way to say “welcome back!” I left a lot of people hanging.

  Sudden movements. Like when I heard Katy call my name in the hall and I turned around and my jacket started to slide down my bad arm. I scooped it back onto my shoulder before anyone noticed anything.

  “Gabby! Happy new school year!” she said, bounding into place at my locker. I was so happy to see her, I wanted to hug her, but that would have definitely tipped her off to my arm. “Do you feel better?”

  I looked at her with alarm in my eyes.

  “SHH!” I’d forgotten I’d told her I was sick.

  “What is it? What’s with the scarf? You look like a real estate agent. But I like it. It’s . . . interesting. Or . . . do you have a chill? It’s eighty-six degrees outside! If you’re sick . . .”

  I wiped a bead of sweat from my eyebrow and enviously eyeballed Katy’s short-sleeved T-shirt and skirt, which was printed with brightly colored tropical fruit.

  I leaned in close to Katy like I was sharing exclusive spy secrets. “I broke my arm.” I had to tell her. Hiding facts from my friend was too strange.

  “What? Why? How?” She took a closer look. “Whew, it’s not your pitching arm.”

  “I know, right? I’m so glad it’s not my right,” I said and laughed at my joke. My funny bone wasn’t broken, after all.

  “Why are you hiding it?” Katy said. “People are going to figure it out eventually.”

  Katy had said she would run for class president, too. So a little part of me wondered if she thought her opponent being down for the count with a broken arm might help her chances. Not that she wanted me hurt, but sometimes you can’t help but notice when someone’s not game-ready and you’ll have an advantage. Competitors are like that.

  “Where do we need to go to sign up for the election?” I asked, avoiding her question and trying to find out what her plans were. Also, I really needed to get out of the hot, sweaty hallway, and the classrooms had AC.

  She shook her head. “I decided not to do it. I don’t think I can handle adding one more hyphen to my title.” Katy was a singer-dancer-songwriter and Peach Tree’s biggest celebrity. “I’m heading up talent squad this year, plus I might do some workshops with a youth group and my mom’s all concerned it will be”—she made her voice grown-uppy—“time-consuming.”

  I laughed at her impression of her mom but also felt a little zing in my heart: my chances to get elected had gone up. Katy could have won in a heartbeat, or at least a few heartbeats. Then she asked, “Now tell me why you have to hide your arm.” She was such a good friend that I felt the slightest bit guilty for being glad about her not running for president.

  “If you have to know, I can’t tell anyone about my arm because . . .” I looked around like we were spies trading secrets in a parking garage. “. . . how it happened is incredibly embarrassing.”

  “My cousin Eddie once got part of his arm stuck in a Pringles can, so how could yours be worse?”

  So I told her. The whole hot dog fiasco.

  And, she doubled over in laughter.

  “That is WAY worse than a Pringles-jar arm!” She slung her arm gently over my shoulders and shook her head at me. “But also, you should OWN that story. You can’t make that stuff up! I mean, a hot dog?? I don’t know ANYONE who has ever tripped over a hot dog.” She wiped laugh-tears from her eyes, and as I replayed the moment in my head, I realized it WAS pretty funny.

  “You get it, but I guess I wanted to start eighth grade in the easiest way possible. Plus, if I decide to run for president, I need to seem like I’m in control and in charge.” It was true, and I gingerly tried to fling the scarf back over my neck to emphasize the point, knocking off my hat and dropping my books as I did so.

  “Just saying, wearing forty layers of clothing is maybe not the way to do that,” Katy said as she crouched to hand me my geometry workbook.

  “People might think it’s a look.”

  “Okay, Gabby Girl, you do you,” Katy said. “But I don’t think you need to be this you.”

  Weirdly, though, people did think my
layers were a look. Or, at least the new kids in the sixth grade seemed to, as they eyeballed me like maybe I knew something they didn’t. And so I smiled brightly and felt like my campaign was underway already! Maybe I’d start a new fashion trend during my run for class president, like Hillary Clinton had with pantsuits.

  By seeming to have things under control, it was like I already did. When I got to lunch period, I was walking on air. If I got this school year started on an upbeat note, then when I did reveal the cast, it would be no big deal because my campaign would be more important.

  I found a seat at the cafeteria, which at Piper Bell is called the café. I was supposed to be sitting with Johnny. It was the first time I’d seen him since I went to Seattle. He is maybe my boyfriend, or at least definitely a boy who is more than a friend. We talk and text pretty often and hold hands and sometimes I think about his green eyes for no apparent reason, other than they’re really nice to look at.

  “Hi,” he said, walking up his usual tie, but a new one in light green. It made his green eyes look even greener. So basically, I’d never stop thinking about them.

  I smiled and tried to maneuver my PB&J out of my lunch sack with one hand and take the tiniest nibble so the jacket wouldn’t slide off my shoulder. I should have given my outfit a night-before test run.

  “Your outfit is . . . unique. It has a lot of . . . pieces. Are you cold?” Johnny said, looking extremely concerned. I realized I could tell Johnny. If I’d told Katy, I HAD to tell my maybe-boyfriend, and also—what if he wrote something super sweet on my cast?

  Yep, I had to tell him. I was about to when Devon DeWitt and Mario Salamida plopped down at our table. They’re on the Penguins baseball team with me, and the two members of the team I’m closest with.

  Devon looked at me for two seconds, got her glinty-eyed look, and said, “Gabby, you broke your arm,” in her state-all-the-facts-very-clearly way. Devon is a pitcher, too, and she doesn’t miss anything. Also, like her fastball, she’s very direct.