them.”


“I bet their numbers are in Dad’s phone.” My voice fades on the


last word, thinking of the BlackBerry-size dent in the living room


wall. “Oh.”


“Way to go, David,” she says. “Like father, like son.” I want to tell her to shut up, but she’s right: I lost my temper and


broke something.


“I’m sorry.” Mara runs her hands through her hair. “Let’s think


for a second. Ow.” She starts yanking out little metal pins from her


hairdo. “Dad left his phone here, but Mom didn’t.”


“That we know of.”


“Which one was more likely to do what Sophia told them to do?” “Dad.”


“Right. That means Mom smuggled her phone with her.” “So she’s the one we want to get to.”


“The weak link, the semi-sane one.” Mara dumps the handful of


hairpins on the nightstand and picks up her phone. “But she won’t be


able to recharge her cell without Dad seeing, so we don’t have much


time.”


“What are you going to tell her?”


“The truth: that we need her.” She gives me a sly look. “Also,


Happy Mother’s Day.”


I grimace. “B-E-T-T-E-R child strikes again.”


Mara sends Mom a long text, lets her hands drop to her sides.


“There. Now we’ll see—”


My phone rings. I grab it from my sweatpants pocket. Maybe it’s Mom replying already, though I wasn’t the one who sent the message. Even better. “It’s Bailey.” My breath rushes out in relief. “Don’t tell her Mom and Dad are gone.”


I shake my head as I answer the call. “Hey. Where are you?” “At home. Did I wake you?” Bailey speaks in a hushed tone. “No, I went to bed but I was too wired after the raid to sleep, so I


got up to watch TV.” All these words pour out in three seconds. “Yeah, you sound wired. Sorry I was gone when you woke up at the party.”


“Where were you?”


“I had to talk to Stephen about something. Then I got chilly, so I went into the house to change out of my bathing suit. Then the cops were all over the place and wouldn’t let me go outside.”

Mara gets up suddenly, as if she’s just remembered something, and jogs down the hall to her room.


“So what happened at the party?” I ask Bailey. “Anyone get busted?”


“A few. I think the Rices are going to be fined for letting minors drink at their house. They claimed they didn’t know.”


Bailey keeps talking, about legal loopholes and liability issues, but the surreality of the conversation is fuzzing up my brain. I can’t decide which makes me more nervous, discussing our relationship or keeping my parents’ disappearance a secret.


“David?” she prompts. “Are you okay? Are you in trouble for sneaking out?”


“I was worried about you and freaked by the cops.” This is the truth. “I want to see you tonight. Today, I mean.” This is also the truth. “Me too. I’ll come over there for a change.”


“No! Um, it’s not a good time here. What with the Rush and all.


Heh.”


“Oh, right.” Her voice takes on a bitter edge. “I guess your parents are pissed the world is still puttering along as usual.” “It’s complicated. Let’s go to the movies.”


“I don’t think there’s anything I haven’t seen that isn’t rated R.” “That’s not so much an issue anymore.”


“Your parents changed their mind?”


Mara is coming back down the hall, so I keep my words vague.


“It’s not an issue anymore,” I repeat, hoping she’ll interpret that as a yes.


“I’ll check the listings and text you later,” Bailey says. “Right now I need sleep.”


“Me too.” I watch Mara pass the doorway and walk downstairs with a bulging backpack. Is she doing homework at this hour? Seems extreme even for her.


“David”—Bailey hesitates—“about your message?”


“Yeah?” I barely remember it now. Did I give away too much in my panic?


“I love you, too,” she says. “I never stopped.”


My brain melts a little. For a moment I forget Sophia, my parents, and my Etch A Sketch future, and just bask in the brief, bright, foreign light of hope.

CHAPTER 8

ROUGHLY ELEVEN MONTHS BEFORE THE RUSH

Just as the high school baseball season ended, communityleague play began. When I was in middle school, my parents would send me to expensive “travel league” camps and tournaments so I could get maximum experience against the best players. That stopped the summer before my freshman year, when Dad declared the Sabbath sacred. No Sunday baseball meant no camps or tournaments, so it was community league or nothing.

I missed the challenge of travel-league play, but not the pressure. Besides, giving one day a week back to God didn’t seem too much to ask.

My local league team featured most of the same players as the Middle Merion High team. We had the same coach and mascot, making for a mostly seamless transition from spring to summer.

Our opening game took place on a brutally hot June day, the first Saturday after school had finished for the year. I felt sorry for my best friend, Kane, saddled with a heavy chest protector, shin guards, and catcher’s mask on top of his uniform. But I wouldn’t have traded him for anyone, not even legendary Phillies catcher Tim McCarver himself. Kane knew me better than I knew myself, which is what a pitcher needs in a catcher: someone to calm him down when he’s wound too tight, or fire him up when he’s discouraged.

Except for my graffiti days—as an aspiring law-enforcement officer, Kane was as straightedge as they come—we’d been inseparable since the age of six, when we met during a T-ball pickup game. Our moms got to talking and realized that not only did we go to the same church (at the time) but our houses backed up to each other on either side of the woods. (Mom and Mrs. Walsh became close friends too, but ever since we left St. Mark’s, they hardly saw each other.)

On opening day, there were rumors that a scout was in the crowd, but I put that out of my mind and focused on the next pitch, and the next pitch, and the next pitch, one at a time, just like my coaches had taught me.

As I headed into the dugout at the top of the seventh and final inning, my teammates fell quiet. Normally, we’d be full of chatter, exchanging opinions on the other team’s batters or pitchers (or the girls in the stands), or shouting encouragement to our fellow players. But I had a no-hitter going and no one wanted to jinx it by mentioning it out loud.

I sat next to Kane, who offered me a bag of sunflower seeds. I took a handful and passed on the bag. Nate Powers, our first baseman and one of my Stony Hill friends, went to the plate while Sam Schwartz headed for the on-deck circle. The seven of us remaining teammates chewed and spa our seeds in silent solidarity with one another.

“Stay hydrated, guys.” Coach Kopecki lugged the giant cooler of Gatorade down the dugout, a stack of cone-shaped cups in his other hand. “I don’t wanna get sued by your parents when you pass out from heatstroke.”

Nate, Sam, and eventually our shortstop, Miguel Navarro, ending our half of the inning.


“Okay, Coop.” Kane slapped his catcher’s mitt against my shoulder as he stood up. “Rock and roll.”


“Saved my soul,” I murmured in our usual call-and-response smoothed back my sweaty hair and replaced my cap. Then I made my way toward the mound, counting steps, focusing on anything but our opponent’s zeros on the center-field scoreboard.


The first batter hit the same weak grounder to Nate off the same changeup I’d gotten him on in the fourth inning. I let out a breath and rolled my shoulders when the umpire called him out at first. Two outs until I had a no-hitter.


I stepped off the mound, shaking my head as the ball went around the horn, tossed from first base to second to shortstop to third, keeping the infielders focused between outs.


“There is no no-hitter,” I told myself. “There is only the next pitch. You got this.”


Our third baseman returned the ball to me, and I stepped back on the mound. The batter leaving the on-deck circle was a pinch hitter I’d never faced before.


Kane sat with one knee in the dirt, studying the batter as he moved into the box. Then he punched his mitt and signaled me one finger down for a sinking fastball. I nodded. Go after him with my best stuff, jump ahead of him in the count. Make him nervous.


The batter took his sweet time getting ready, kicking the dirt back and forth, crossing himself, adjusting the titanium rope necklace that so many players wear in imitation of big leaguers. This guy wasn’t playing baseball. He was playing at playing baseball.


In those moments he was wasting, I made a huge mistake: I let my gaze wander over the spectators for the first time in the game . . .


. . . and saw Bailey, sitting on the top bleacher on the third-base side, fanning herself with a wide-brimmed, polka-dotted hat. Her dress or shirt or whatever was a tan color only one shade darker than her skin, making her appear, at first glance, from a distance, totally naked.


I stood there, paralyzed, wondering how I’d blocked out her voice through the first six and a half innings


The batter settled into his stance, but I’d already forgotten the pitch. Kane, seeing my hesitation, repeated the signal.


I went into my windup, but just as my hand was at its zenith I realized it didn’t have the proper two-seam grip on the ball. My mind had registered Kane’s signal, but my fingers never finished the job.


This fastball wasn’t going to sink. It wasn’t going anywhere but straight over the plate and onto the bat.


Crack! The ball streaked past me, over the shortstop’s head, and into the outfield for an easy single. The center-field scoreboard flipped our opponents’ middle zero to one.


I caught the toss from our second baseman, stepped off the mound, and started talking to myself again. “So much for the no-hitter. But hey, one less thing to worry about. Next pitch, next pitch.”


Bailey’s voice rang out. “You can do it, David! Woooo!” She started a spirited, steady clap as the next batter stepped up to the plate. The home team crowd picked up the rhythm in support of the Tigers.


My heart started to pound, and the sweat that had been streaming down my back all day turned suddenly cold.


I shook off Kane’s first signal, for a fastball low and away. He wiggled four fingers down for a changeup, which was good thinking. Surprise the batter. Or . . . would he be more surprised to get what he was expecting? Did that even make sense?


I shook my head at Kane, my thoughts spinning like a hamster wheel. He paused, then stood, asking the umpire for a timeout.


I scuffed my spikes in the dirt as he approached.


“What’s up?” Kane climbed the mound and put his mitt in front of his mouth before he spoke again, in case the other team could read lips (another habit we copied from big leaguers). “Your two-seamer killed him in the fourth. You tired?”


I covered my own mouth with my glove. “Nope.”


“You had one bad pitch, but so what? You’ll get this guy. He chases low balls like he’s playing polo.” When I didn’t laugh, he added, “Seriously, what’s wrong?”


“Bailey’s here. That girl from Math Cave I told you about.” My eyes darted toward the third-base side.


“Where—”


“Don’t look! She’ll know we’re talking about her.”


“Are we in sixth grade? Come on, Coop. Three more outs, then after the game you ask her to the movies. That’s the plan, okay? Now let’s see that sinker.” He started to move away.


I dropped my glove so he could hear me. “I can’t!” When he turned back, I covered my mouth again. “Sorry I’m being a head case, but my parents have rules.”


Kane’s voice came muffled behind his mitt. “Then break them, if you want to go out with her now. Or don’t. But you’re only allowed to worry about it for two seconds after each pitch.”